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A HISTORY.. Qg.TJEie......

AMERICAN

CHURCH

BY THE REVEREND

WILLIAM WILSON MANROSS, M,A.

FALLOW AND TUTOR OF TK OKNURAL TIIKOLOOICAL SEMINARY

MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO.

NI'.W YORK MILWAUKEE

MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO.

MILWAUKEE, Wii.

Tfa Haddm Gr*ftt*** t 1m, t Cam^m, N, j,

THE REV. FRANK STANTON BURNS GAVIN, TH.D.

AND TEACHK&

PREFACE

JLHE

AIM o this history is to show the American Episcopal
Church as a living institution, and to supply a connected nar
rative o its development, both internally and in its relations
with the society in which it is situated. Such an object neces
sarily involves some lessening o the emphasis placed upon
dramatic incidents and striking personalities, but I hope that the
inherent interest of the Church's story, which I have endeavored
to bring out as fully as possible, will more than compensate for
this loss, if it is a loss.

As to sources, I have relied rather extensively upon secondary
authorities in preparing chapters one, two, and eight, and for a
few details elsewhere. Otherwise, the history has been based
entirely upon a study of original sources, though in this class I
include a large number of contemporary biographies which are
not "primary" sources in the technical sense, but which generally
represent the nearest approach that can now be made to their
subjects. The excuse for using secondary sources in the chapters
mentioned is that they deal with subjects which have been ex
haustively treated by previous historians, and it seemed advisable
to devote the time available for research to an investigation of the
extensive portions of the history where a fresh approach appeared
to be necessary. Parts of chapter nine are based on a sketch of
Bishop White which I prepared for the Bishop White Prayer
Book Society while already engaged in the present work, but that
sketch was the result of a careful study of all the available sources.
The secondary sources to which I am most indebted are W. S.
Perry's The History of the American "Episcopal Church., Volume I,
for the first part of chapter one and for most of the material in
chapter two which was not taken from William Bradford's His
tory of Plymouth Plantation or John Winthrop's Journal:, F. L.
Hawks's Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United
States^ Volume I, for the portion of chapter one dealing with

vii

VU1 PREFACE

Virginia; and A. L. Cross's Anglican Episcopate and the American
Colonies for chapter eight. All other secondary works consulted,
together with a portion of the original sources, are listed in the
bibliography.

Acknowledgments are due to Professor Frank Gavin of The
General Theological Seminary, without whose advice and en
couragement the work would never have been undertaken; to
JDr. Lewis C. Washburn of Christ Church, Philadelphia, the
librarians of General Seminary, the New York Historical Society,
and the Wisconsin State Historical Society for their courteous co
operation, especially in permitting the use of valuable manuscripts;
to Professor H. C. Robbins of The General Theological Sem
inary, who has kindly read over the later chapters of the book
and offered many helpful suggestions; to Miss Mary Beattie Brady
of the Religious Motion Picture Foundation, Mr. F. L. Olmsted of
the General Convention Committee of the Diocese of New Jersey,
"The Spirit of Missions," and Mr. Alexander B. Andrews of
Raleigh, N. C., for friendly assistance in obtaining illustrations;
and to my friend, Miss Catharine Wisner, for invaluable assistance
in reading proofs.

WILLIAM W. MANROSS
October, 1935.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 1

Introductory Early Explorations Gilbert and Raleigh Roanoke
Fate of the Colony Projected Colonies in New England Sir
Ferdinando Gorges -Colony at Monhegan The Settlement at
Jamestown, 1607 Robert Hunt "Dale's Laws" Henrico Parish
The First Assembly, 1619 College Projected Ecclesiastical Laws
o 1624 Virginia a Royal Colony Reception o Ministers Dis
senters in Virginia The Puritan Revolution Vestries The
Restoration Church Life in the Seventeenth Century In the Older
Parishes.

II. OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 19

The Puritans The Pilgrims Representatives of the Church at
Plymouth John Lyford John Oldom Morton of Merrymount
Return of Morton The Salem Colony The Settlement at Boston
Election of Ministers The "Old Planters" Objectors Among
the Puritans Efforts to Subject the Puritans to the Church Com
missioners for New England Attack on the Massachusetts Charter
The Church Comes to Boston Organization of King's Chapel
Sir Edmund Andros Building the Chapel The Church in New
Hampshire Church Settlements in Maine Beginnings in New
York The Founding of Maryland The Church in Maryland
Protestants in the Ascendency.

III. THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 38

Characteristics of the New Century Religion in the Colonies
Policy of the Government Not Consistently Carried Out Dis
advantages of the Church's Political Connection The Governor
Jurisdiction of the Bishop of London The Commissaries
Bishop Gibson and Bishop Sherlock Commissary Blair Com
missary Bray and the S.P.G. Formation of the S.P.C.K.
S.P.G. Organized George Keith Sent to Colonies John Talbot
Talbot in New Jersey Importance of the S.P.G. Its Special
Interest in New England Criticism of the S.P.G. Difficulty of
Obtaining Local Support Income of the S.P.G. The Secretary
Discipline of the S.P.G. Character of the Missionaries Morals
of the Clergy In the South Variations in Quality of Clergy In
the Middle of the Century Native Clergy Changes in Church
Life- Church Buildings Clergy Relief "The Great Awakening"
Its Effect on the Church.

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

IV. THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 65

Virginia The College of William and Mary Sir Edmund Andros,
Governor His Quarrel with Blair Nicholson Again Governor
Governor Spottswood Induction Controversy Church Life in
Virginia Commissary Dawson The Frontier The Presbyterians
Clerical Salaries Maryland The Act of Establishment, 1702
Common Schools Governor Hart's Inquiries Commissaries Hen
derson and Wilkinson Church Life in Maryland Attempt to Dis
cipline the Clergy The Tobacco Controversy Value of Livings
Dissent in Maryland South Carolina Ecclesiastical Legislation
The Act of Establishment Francis Le Jau Commissary Johnston
Clerical Salaries Grievances of the Clergy Indian War Revolt
Against the Proprietors Commissary Garden Deterioration of the
Clergy Dissenters in South Carolina The Frontier North Caro
lina Mission of John Blair Other Missionaries Act of Establish
ment Dissenters in North Carolina Georgia Church Establish
ment Florida.

V. NEW ENGLAND 92

Contrast with the South Massachusetts Significance of the Witch
craft Panic The Church in 1689 Samuel Myles Christ Church

John Checkley His Controversies and Trials Expansion of the
Church in Massachusetts Newbury Struggle Against the Con
gregational Establishment Growth of the Church in Boston Out
side of Boston Connecticut Beginnings of the Church at Strat
ford Work of George Muirson The Yale Converts Three of
Them Ordained Growth of the Church in Connecticut Struggle
for Religious Liberty Whitefield in Connecticut Rhode Island
Controversy at Newport Growth of the Church in Rhode Island

New Hampshire Maine Church Life in New England

Controversies.

VI. THE MIDDLE COLONIES 112

Their Characteristics New York Act of Establishment Organiza
tion of Trinity Parish William Vesey Growth of Trinity Church
Rectors and Assistants Lord Cornbury Col. Heathcote and the
Church in Westchester The Church at Rye Long Island Con
troversy at Jamaica Its Conclusion Hempstead Staten Island

Albany German Settlers King's College Pennsylvania Organ
ization of Christ's Church Evan Evans Expansion of the Church
in Pennsylvania Later History of Christ Church Trouble with
Urmiston St. Peter's Church St. Paul's ChurcH College of Phila
delphiaCharacter of Provost Smith Work Among the Germans
The Frontier Delaware New Jersey Early Missionaries Dis
missal of Talbot Growth of the Church in New Jersey Thomas
Bradbury Chandler.

VII. "INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE" 137

General Indifference to the Conversion 'of the Indians and Negroes
Efforts of the Church Work Among the Indians in Virginia

CONTENTS XI

CHAPTER PAGE

Interest of Governor Spottswood The Indian Problem in South
Carolina Other Southern Colonies Pennsylvania and New Jersey
New England Work Among the Iroquois in New York
Thomas Barclay William Andrews Other Missionaries Sir
William Johnson John Stuart The Negroes Difficulties of Con
version S.P.G. Catechists: Elias Neau William Sturgeon
Virginia Maryland South Carolina: Work o Le Jau Obstacles
to Conversion of Negroes Commissary Garden's Plan North
Carolina and Georgia New England Work of James Honeyman.

VIIL THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE 154

Early Efforts to Obtain Bishops The Need for Bishops Why They
Were Not Sent Political Objections Early Hanoverian Policies
Objections of the Dissenters Influence of Colonial Politics Bishop
Compton's Observations The S.P.G. Plan Its Near Success
The Struggle Continued Bishop Seeker's Sermon Bishop Sher
lock's Efforts Sherlock's Memorial Intermittent Efforts Clerical
Conventions in the Colonies Their Petitions for a Bishop
Southern Opposition Remonstrance of the Northern Clergy
Pamphlet Warfare Chandler's Pamphlets Newspaper Controversy
Was There A Nonjuring Episcopate in the Colonies? Report
Widely Circulated.

IX. REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 172

Position of the Church in the Revolution Loyalists in the Church
Attitude of the Laity Leadership of Churchmen in the Revolu
tion Plight of the Tory Clergy The Situation in New England
Connecticut General Tryon's Raid Tory Refugees in New
York New York City Before the British Occupation The Rest of
the State Pennsylvania William White William Smith New
Jersey The South Situation at the Close of the War Causes of
the Church's Decline Causes Operating Especially in the South
Opposition of the Lower Classes Growth of Dissent The Revolu
tionary Philosophy Decline of the Church Not to be Exaggerated
Beginnings of Reorganization Name of the Church Leadership
of White His Theological Position Leadership of the Middle Col
onies in the Reorganization of the Church Attitude of the South
White's Pamphlet Its Importance The Second Maryland Con
vention The Pennsylvania Declaration of Principles The Meeting
at New Brunswick Seabury Elected Bishop of Connecticut His
Consecration Meeting in New York, 1784 The Convention of
1785 Bishops Elected in Four States The "Proposed Book"
The Convention of 1786: Attack on Seabury Communication
from the Archbishops Consecration of White and Provoost The
Convention of 1789: First Meeting New England Joins the
Convention Concessions to Connecticut Consecration of James
Madison.

X. RECUPERATION 202

A Quiet Interval Extension of the Episcopate Purcell Incident
Other States Seek Bishops Relations with the Methodists Coke's

Xll CONTENTS

Proposal Bishop Madison's Proposed Declaration Overtures from
the Lutherans The Early Bishops Distrust of the Episcopate
Moderation Necessary Work of Seabury and Jarvis Bishops Pro-
voost and Moore in New York Bishop White in Pennsylvania
His Western Tour His Civic Leadership.

XL REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 213

Consecration of Hobart and Griswold Hobart "Churchmanship"
Griswold and the Evangelicals Evangelical Principles and
Methods Attitude Towards the Sacraments Missionary Spirit
High Churchmanship The Church and Society: High Church
View Evangelical View Character of Hobart His Early Career
Controversy with the Presbyterians Dr. Mason Difficulty of As
sembling Bishops for Consecration Cave Jones Affair Supporters
of Jones Hobart's "Charges" and "Pastoral Letters" Contro
versies His Work as a Diocesan Financial Support Growth of
the Church in New York Organized Societies Bishop Onderdonk
Organization of Eastern Diocese Early Career of Griswold
His Character Condition and Prospects of the Eastern Diocese
Growth of the Diocese Division of the Diocese Griswold's Meth
ods Revival of the Church in Virginia: Meade and Moore South
Carolina Theodore Dehon Maryland North Carolina New Jer
sey Controversy in Pennsylvania Disputed Election Importance
of the Period Theological Education General Seminary Pro
posed, 1814 Committee Appointed, 1817 Instructions Begun,
1819 The Sherred Legacy The Virginia Seminary Efforts to
Found a Seminary in Massachusetts Sunday Schools Parochial
Societies Periodicals Church Schools Church Colleges Scholars
of the Church Preponderance of Women in the Church.

XII. MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 247

Meaning of the Word "Missionary" Early Missionaries to the
West Philander Chase and His Mission to Ohio He Seeks Help
From England Opposition of Hobart Founding of Kenyon Col
legeRebellion of the Faculty, and Chase's Resignation Chase in
Illinois Organization of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary
Society, 1820 Work in the WestEarly Efforts Indian School

Policies of the Society Reorganization of the Society, 1835

"Missionary Bishops" Provided For Jackson Kemper Bishop
Kemper's Visitations Founding of ^Nashotah It Becomes a
Theological Seminary Other Missionary Bishops Breck in Minne
sotaCalifornia Theological Disputes Hurt the Society The
Foreign Field Greece Africa China Missionary Spirit The In
dians The Negroes.

XIII. THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 266

Changes in the Church Effects of the Oxford Movement The
Tracts for the Times The Tractarian Position Evangelical Op
positionTract Ninety Spread of the Movement Theological
Position Usages and CeremoniesCultural Overtones Devotional

CONTENTS Xlll

CHAPTER PAGE

Life Recent Liberalization The Movement in America Opposi
tion to It The Carey Ordination, 1843 Protested by Smith and
Anthon General Seminary Investigated The Bishops* Queries
The Oxford Movement Attacked in General Convention Suspension
of Bishop Henry Onderdonk Trial of Bishop Benjamin Onderdonk
His Condemnation Trial of Bishop Doane The Problem of
Providing Episcopal Supervision for New York Controversy in
Maryland Dispute in Massachusetts Bishop L. S. Ives He Be
comes a Roman Catholic The "Muhlenberg Memorial," 1853 Its
Proposals Its Supporters Its Weaknesses Memorial Papers Re
sults of Memorial Friction in General Convention.

XIV. CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 290

A Split Avoided The General Convention of 1862 The Com
mittee of Nine The Pastoral Letter The General Convention of
1865 Irenic Resolution Proceedings of the House of Bishops
Controversy between Bishops Hopkins and Potter Services of
Bishops Mcllvaine and Clark Ritualistic Controversy Legality of
Ritualism Tyng Case Bishop Hopkins* Opinion General Con
vention of 1868 General Convention of 1871 James De Koven
Right Rev. George David Cummins Withdrawal of Bishop Cum
mins and Others from the Church The General Convention of
1874 De Koven's Speech Ritual Canon Passed Seymour Case
Feelings Begin to Soften Difficulties of General Seminary Two
New Seminaries Monasticism Free Churches Small Dioceses.

XV. A BROADER UNITY 306

Later Development of Ritualism Rise of Liberalism The Essays
and Reviews, 1855 Bishop Colenso The First Lambeth Con
ference The American Church Congress Phillips Brooks Bishop
Henry C. Potter The Briggs Case Influence of Lux Mundi
Father Huntington and the Order of the Holy Cross William
Reed Huntington Heresy Trials Growth of Anglo-Catholicism
Proposed Changes in the Name of the Church Interest in Chris
tian Reunion Committee on the Swedish Church The Resolution
of 1865 Dr. Huntington's Platform Committee on Christian
Unity, 1904 The Social Christian Movement Growth of a
Social Outlook in the Church Resolutions on World Peace
Committee on Capital and Labor The Divorce Problem Revision
of the Prayer Book and Constitution The Order of Deaconesses
Other Organizations Cathedral Building Periodicals Provision
for Suffragans New Seminaries.

XVI. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS . . . 325

Continuous Activity in the Mission Field Effects of the Civil
War New Work Among Negroes Growth in the West The
New West Rapid Growth Cultural Contrasts Organization of
the Work Shortage of Ministers Finances Local Set-Backs
Steady Growth Statistics of 1890: The Central West The Pacific
States The Central West in 1915 The Pacific States in 1915

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

The American Empire Alaska Puerto Rico and the Philippines
The Hawaiian Islands The Canal Zone Work Among the
Negroes The Indians Bishop Hare Oklahoma China Japan
Liberia Latin America The Woman's Auxiliary.

XVII. THE LATEST PHASE 344

The World War War Record of the Church War Spirit in the
General Convention of 1919 Post-war Reaction Buchmanism
Catholicism and Liberalism Modernist Controversy Liberal Cath
olicism The Liberal Evangelicals The Church Pension Fund
The Presiding Bishop and Council Prayer Book Revision Re
ligious Education Church Unity Interest in Social Questions
Marriage and Divorce Missionary Work The Foreign Field in
1935 Rate of Increase Statistics, 1935 Church Organizations
Theological Seminaries Surplus of Clergy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 361

INDEX 377

ILLUSTRATIONS

DRAKE'S BAY, CALIFORNIA Frontispiece

Scene of the first church services within the present boundaries of
the United States.

FACING PAGE

JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA 6

Tower of the church built in 1647.

POHICK. CHURCH, NEAR ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA 7

THE FIRST KING'S CHAPEL 32

From an old cut in "Annals of King's Chapel," by W. W. Foote, 1882.

NEW AMSTERDAM 1626-28 33

The Hartger's View, the earliest known view of New York.

SEAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN

FOREIGN PARTS 48

FULHAM PALACE, LONDON 49

Official residence of the Bishop of London.

WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE 66

INTERIOR OF GOOSE CREEK. CHURCH 67

Charleston, South Carolina.

CHRIST CHURCH, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 92

The church of the Wesleys and WMtefield.

CHRIST CHURCH, GARDINER, MAINE 93

GRACE CHURCH, JAMAICA, 1734 93

JOHN STUART, MISSIONARY TO THE MOHAWKS 146

GROUP OF NEGROES JUST LANDED TO BE SOLD AS SLAVES 147

From an old print.

AN ATTEMPT TO LAND A BISHOP IN AMERICA 168

From an old cartoon in W. S. Perry's "History of the American Epis
copal Church."

(OLD) ST, MARY'S CHURCH, BURLINGTON, NEW JERSEY 169

xv i ILLUSTRATIONS

ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, JOHNSTOWN, NEW YORK 174

Center of the Mohawk Mission.

INTERIOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON 175

The Old North Church of Paul Revere fame.

THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP SEABURY BY BISHOPS KILGOUR,
PETRIE AND SKINNER

THE GLEBE HOUSE, WOODBURY, CONNECTICUT 195

Scene of the first Episcopal election in America.

CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, IN 1784 210

BISHOP WHITE 211

From a portrait by Gilbert Stuart.

WEST BUILDING, GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, BUILT IN 1837 232
From the architect's design, printed in the Seminary Catalog for 1834.

BISHOP MOORE OF VIRGINIA 233

BISHOP CHASE OF OHIO 248

NASHOTAH HOUSE, NASHOTAH, WISCONSIN 249

From an etching: by Wil King-.

LAMBETH PALACE 308

Official residence o the Archbishop o Canterbury.

BETHESDA ORPHANAGE, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 309

ON THE jLARAMIE PLAINS 324

Among scenes such as this, the western missionary had his work.

ENCAMPMENT AT MEETING OF NIOBRORA INDIAN CONVOCATION,

SOUTH DAKOTA 325

CHRIST CHURCH MISSION, ANVIK, ALASKA, 1892 340

KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN AT PLAY JAPAN 341

Japanese Mission Kindergarten, 1910.

PANORAMIC VIEW OF OPENING SERVICE IN THE 51sT TRIENNIAL

GENERAL CONVENTION 360

Atlantic City, New Jersey, October 10, 1934.

A MAP OF NEW ENGLAND, NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYL
VANIA, 1730 Inside front cover

By H. Moll, geographer, in "An Historical Account of the Incorporated
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts."

A MAP OF THE PROVINCE OF CAROLINA Inside bact^ cover

Divided into its parishes, etc., according to the latest accounts, 1730.
By H. Moll, geographer, in "An Historical Account of the Incorporated
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts."

A HISTORY OF THE
AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

CHAPTER I

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA

T IS A circumstance whose importance to our cultural history
can scarcely be exaggerated that the voyage of Columbus Introductory
preceded the publication o Luther's Ninety-five Theses by but a
quarter of a century, and that the period of exploration and early
settlement in America corresponded with the struggle of Protes
tants and Catholics for the control of Europe. The New World
thus inherited, at its very birth, the ripe religious controversies
of the old, and the conquest of a wilderness was conditioned by
some of the most abstruse issues of theology. To discover and
explore a new region served not only to enhance one's personal
glory and the greatness of one's country, but to extend the in
fluence of one's particular form of Christianity as well, and even
piracy, if directed against the enemies of one's faith, seemed to
possess a certain religious sanction. It was therefore inevitable that,
as Spanish explorers brought with them the Roman Catholicism
of Spain, and Dutch explorers the Calvinism of the Netherlands,
so English explorers should carry with them the Church of Eng
land, and English colonists, except when they had migrated from
motives of dissent, should be colonists of the Church as well as
the State, making the beginning of the Episcopal Church in this
country contemporaneous with the beginning of English settle
ment.

The claim of England to a foothold in North America rested
primarily on the voyage made by John Cabot in 1497, under the Early
patronage of Henry VII, which resulted in the discovery of the Explorations
northern continent, but the great internal changes which took
place under the succeeding monarchs interrupted the activities
of English explorers, and it was not until the strong arm of
Elizabeth had brought a certain degree of stability at home that
they were resumed. In 1578 a fleet under the command of Martin

2 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Frobisher crossed the ocean to seek for the Northwest Passage
and gold along the icy shores of Hudson's Bay. With them went
a clergyman of the Church of England, "one Master Wolfall,"
who, according to Hakluyt, the great chronicler of English explo
rations, had left a good living and a virtuous wife in England to
go as chaplain of the fleet, solely out of his love for the souls of
the infidel natives. What he did for them is not recorded, but
at least he celebrated the Holy Communion for the officers and
gentlemen of the fleet, on land, and this was the first service of
the Church ever read upon North American soil.

Voyages to America, either for exploration or plunder, became
Gilbert and more frequent as the years went on, and in all of them the Church
Raleigh was re p rese nted in one way or another. The adventurous circum

navigation of the globe by the freebooter Drake, almost con
temporaneous with Frobisher's effort, led to the first use of the
Prayer Book upon the Pacific Coast in 1579, and this was also
its first use within the present territorial limits of the United
States. In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert made the first attempt to
settle an English colony in America. One of his motives was
declared to be the planting of Christian inhabitants in the new
land and the conversion of the natives, and his patent, originally
granted in 1578, contained a clause, which was to become more
or less standard in colonial charters, to the effect that the laws
of the colony should agree as far as possible with those of England,
and that they should not be "against the true Christian faith or
religion now professed in the Church of England." Gilbert landed
in St. John's Harbor, Newfoundland, August 4, 1583, and after
solemnly taking possession of the forest as its feudal lord, pro
ceeded, with admirable economy, to issue three laws for the gov
ernment of the colony, one of which provided that the public
exercise of religion should be according to the use of the Church
of England. The colony, however, was short-lived. The loss of
one of his ships on an exploring voyage forced Sir Humphrey
to return to England, and ere he had reached that country, the
frigate which bore him went to the bottom, carrying him with it.
Gilbert's colonial projects were at once taken up by his half-
brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, from
whom he obtained a fresh patent in substantially the same terms as
that of 1578. In the spring of 1584 Raleigh sent two English naviga-

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 3

tors, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, to reconnoiter a site for
a colony. They spent two months on the coast of North Carolina,
returning with two captured natives and a glowing but not very
accurate description of the country. Their reports excited great
interest in England, and Elizabeth graciously permitted the new
region to be called Virginia, in honor of the state of life on which
she appears to have prided herself.

In 1585 Raleigh dispatched a fleet of seven vessels under the
command of Sir Richard Grenville with colonists for his new Roanokc
dominion, under the governorship of Ralph Lane. With them
was Thomas Hariot, a distinguished scientist, who was interested
in studying the natural history of the country and in the con
version of the natives; and an artist, John White, who was to
supply pictures of the various objects of interest that might be
encountered. Under Hariot's direction, prayers were regularly
read, and some impression, of a religious nature, was made upon
the Indians, chiefly because the weapons and other mechanical
contrivances of the settlers seemed to them to be the results of
special divine favor. But the colonists did not remain long at
Roanoke, the island on which they had settled, and the next sum
mer saw them returning to England with the fleet of Sir Francis
Drake, who had chanced to come along at a time when they were
sorely discouraged by the failure of supplies to arrive from Eng
land. When the supply ships did arrive, a few weeks later, they
found the colony deserted, and were obliged to return home,
leaving behind fifteen men, who were never heard from again.

Raleigh, however, was undaunted, and the favorable reports of
Lane and Hariot on the soil and climate of "Virginia" gave him
some grounds for encouragement. The year 1587, therefore,
saw the departure of one more ill-fated expedition for America.
Its governor was to be John White, the artist of the earlier expedi
tion, and it was furnished with a municipal charter for "The
City of Raleigh in Virginia," an early example of that irrepressible
optimism which was so often to inspire the settlement of our
country. It was also enriched by a donation of one hundred
pounds from its founder, to be invested for the planting of Chris
tianity in America.

The expedition had been directed to the shores of Chesapeake
Bay, but settled instead at Roanoke ? where it found the dwelling-

4 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

houses built by Lane, and the bones of such of the fifteen as
had not fled to an unknown fate. On August 13, 1587, the colony
witnessed the baptism of Manteo, one of the Indians captured by
Amadas and Barlowe, who was honored with the resounding
title of Lord of Roanoke and Dasmonguepeuk. A week later
occurred the birth of Virginia Dare, a granddaughter of the
governor, and the first English child born in the New World,
who, in due time, was also christened. From these incidents it
has been inferred that a priest of the Church was present, either
as chaplain of the colony, or of the fleet which brought it over,
but of this there is no definite proof.

The colony, however, though it had an auspicious beginning,
Fate of the was destined to have a mysterious end. Governor White presently
Colony returned to England, for reasons which are not entirely clear, leav

ing behind him, with the rest of the colonists, his daughter and
her child. When he reached the homeland, the Spanish Armada
was approaching, and the ensuing conflict, followed by the finan
cial embarrassments of Raleigh, which obliged him to transfer
his patent to a company, delayed the relief of the colony for over
a year. When White again reached Roanoke he found that the
colonists had departed, leaving behind them, as had been ar
ranged, an indication of their destination by cutting the word
CROATOAN in the bark of a tree. This inscription was unac
companied by any indication of distress, so it is presumed that they
had merely sought a more satisfactory location, but before the
ships could look for them a series of accidents forced their retire
ment to the West Indies, and the colonists were never located.
They may have been killed or starved, or they may have mingled
with the Indians, but certain it is that no white person ever saw
them again.

The next attempts at colonization were made in the region that
Projected was soon to be known as New England, and under the patronage
Colonies in of promoters other than Raleigh. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold,
New England w ^ a sma jj com pany, spent some weeks on the island of Cutty-
hunk in Buzzard's Bay, off the Massachusetts coast. A settlement
was apparently projected, but when a cargo of native commodities
had been collected, the expedition returned to England, where the
proprietors became involved in a suit with Raleigh, who sought
to confiscate their cargo on the strength of his patent, because

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 5

the voyage had been made without his consent. In 1603 another
brief settlement was made, this time by Martin Pring, in the
harbors of Plymouth and Duxbury. With Pring was one Robert
Salterne, a candidate for Holy Orders, who may have read the
services of the Church upon the site of the future home of the
Pilgrims.

In 1605 George Waymouth visited the shores of New Eng
land and, after a brief sojourn, returned with some captive In- sir Ferdinando
dians. These were seized by the governor of Plymouth, where Gorges
Waymouth landed, and stimulated in that officer, Sir Ferdinando
Gorges by name, a lifelong interest in American colonization,
which was to cost him a great deal of trouble and expense, and
bring him little profit. They also, together with the reports of
the returned settlers, served to revive the general interest in
America so that a new company was organized for the purpose
of colonization, with which Gorges and Sir John Popham, the
Lord Chief Justice of England, presently became associated. The
first two ships sent out by these adventurers were captured by
the Spaniards, but a third ship, dispatched by Popham, succeeded
in reaching the coast of Maine, and, as the season was summer,
brought back such glowing accounts of the country that it was
determined to send out colonists without delay, and the following
spring (1607), two ships under the command of Raleigh Gilbert,
a son of Sir Humphrey, and George Popham, a brother of the
Chief Justice, sailed for Maine. They landed on the island of
Monhegan, and on the ensuing Sunday their chaplain, Richard
Seymour, read the services of the Prayer Book, and preached. Colony at
A week from the following Wednesday, a site for the settlement Monhegan
was finally chosen, another sermon was preached, the President's
commission was read, George Popham was chosen for the office,
and the laws prepared by the proprietors were promulgated.
Among them was one providing for the practice of religion
according to the use of the Church of England, and another call
ing upon the colonists to make exertions for the conversion of the
Indians. The colonists remained at their settlement through the
winter, under the leadership of Popham, and, after his death, of
Gilbert, but with the coming of the supply ship in the spring
they returned to England, where family affairs required Gilbert's
presence, though it is possible that a few of the colonists had

6 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

withdrawn to the mouth of the Sheepscot River, where they may
have remained. The Chief Justice had died in England about the
same time as his brother in America, but Gorges was to continue
his efforts for colonization, with indifferent success, until the terri
tory was swallowed up by Massachusetts.

These instances of the early appearance of the Church of Eng
land upon American shores, which were assembled through the
erudition of Bishop William Stevens Perry, the most distinguished
of our Church historians, are items of antiquarian or sentimental
interest only, for they led to no results of historical importance.
It cannot even be said that the failure of the early experiments
at colonization taught later settlers what blunders they should
avoid, for nearly all of the mistakes of the previous adventurers,
as well as some fresh ones, were made in the planting of the
Jamestown colony in 1607, and the fact that this settlement suc
ceeded where others had failed was due to accident rather than
to any superiority of design. Nevertheless, it did succeed, and with
it begins the continuous history of the Episcopal Church in this
country.

There was, indeed, one respect in which the Virginia colony
The Settle- was more favored than those which had been attempted before,
ment of an( j t j aat was ^^ j t en j O y e d the more active support and pro-

jamestown, tect i on O f t h e monarch. James I, who would have been a great
statesman had he been able to live up to his best moments, saw
more clearly than his predecessors the value of American coloniza
tion. To encourage settlement, therefore, he chartered two great
companies, one of London and one of Plymouth, who were to
settle, respectively, the southern and northern portions of the
territory claimed by England, with a large neutral area of two
hundred miles along the coast, in between, which might be
claimed by the first company establishing a colony in it. Of these
two corporations, the London Company appears to have been
the most active, and to it belongs the honor of planting the first
successful English colony in America.

Pedagogy requires classification, and teachers are constantly
obliged to simplify their subjects by the creation of categories
which are only roughly accurate and which, if taken too literally,
tend to impress the minds of the pupils with a sharpness of divi
sion which does not in fact exist. Of such a sort is the distinction,

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 7

commonly drawn in the teaching of American history, between
the ^ colonies which were founded for religious motives and those
which were established for other purposes. Insofar as the most
conspicuous motives of the first settlers and promoters are con
cerned, this distinction is probably valid, but if it is understood
to imply that considerations of self-interest were altogether un
known to the founders of religious refuges, or that those who
established other colonies were entirely oblivious to the concerns
of religion, it is certainly fallacious. The London Company, for
instance, was undoubtedly founded in the hope, though it was
to prove a vain one, of making a profit, but, nevertheless, mission
ary ^ activity in the New World was one of the objects expressed
in its charter, and the earliest instructions which it supplied to
its colonists called for the practice of Christianity in conformity
with the standards of the Church of England.

One of the original petitioners for the charter of the London
Company was Robert Hunt, a clergyman of the Established Robert Hunt
Church, and when the first group of colonists departed for their
new home in the spring of 1607, he sailed with them to devote his
life to building up the Church in the infant settlement, where
he remained until his death, the date of which is unknown. On
the fourteenth of May, the day after landing, he celebrated the
first Eucharist upon the soil of Virginia, and shortly thereafter
the colonists commenced the erection of a church as one of their
first buildings. Like most of the earlier experiments, the colony
at Jamestown was hampered by over-elaborate instructions, and by
a division of leadership, not to mention the choice of a rather
unsatisfactory location, the expenditure of the colonists' time in a
search for gold when they should have been planting crops, the
incapacity of most of the settlers for husbandry, and the discour
agement to industry involved in requiring all to work for the
Company, bringing their produce to a common store. Hunt is
said to have done what he could to keep peace among the lead
ers, but his efforts were unsuccessful, and when a relief ship
arrived at the end of the first winter, it found most of the officers
either dead or in jail. A majority of the inhabitants had also
succumbed to the hardships of their situation. The condition of
the colony was precarious for several years, and the settlers were
at least once on the verge of returning to England, when the

8 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

arrival of a new governor and fresh supplies induced them to
remain.

They struggled on, however, and in time evolved a properly
functioning community. In 1608 the first recorded marriage in
the colony was celebrated, probably by Hunt. In 1610, Lord Dela
ware came over as governor and brought with him a chaplain,
who was apparently the second clergyman in the colony. In the
same year, the charter of the Company was revised, in the hope
of strengthening it, and one of the clauses of the new charter
required that all persons migrating to the colony should take the
oath of supremacy, whereby the King was acknowledged as the
head of the Church.

In 1611 the Company, in an effort to improve the discipline of
"Dale's Laws" the colony, many of whose inhabitants were not very amenable
to control, issued a set of laws which had the effect of practically
placing the colonists under martial law. These laws were pro
mulgated by the then governor, Thomas Dale, and under the
name of "Dale's Laws" they have become a byword for severity,
scarcely less famous than the partly legendary "Blue Laws" of
Connecticut, but Dale acted only as the representative of his
superiors, and was not himself responsible for the provisions of
the code.

The ecclesiastical laws in this collection, had they ever been
enforced, would have set up a Little Inquisition in Virginia, and
made the clergy one of the most powerful classes in the com
munity. All military officers were to see that "Almighty God be
duly and daily served," to call upon the people to hear sermons,
and to frequent daily Morning and Evening Prayer themselves.
Offenders were to be punished according to martial law. No one
was to speak impiously against the Trinity or any person of it,
"or against the known articles of the Christian faith," on pain
of death, and death was also prescribed for blasphemy of the
Divine Name, or for saying or doing anything which might "tend
to the derision or despite of God's Holy Word." Severe penalties
were provided for unlawful oaths, and anyone failing in respect
for the clergy was to be whipped three times or to apologize
publicly on three separate Sabbaths. Every person was required
to attend service twice daily, on penalty, for the first offense, of
the loss of one day's rations, for the second, of a flogging, and

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA y

for the third, of six months in the galleys, though it is doubtful
if such an institution existed in Virginia. For Sabbath-breaking
the penalties were even more severe. All preachers and ministers
were to preach every Sunday morning and catechize in the eve
ning, and to say prayers twice daily. They were also to choose
four of the most religious and best-disposed persons in their
parishes to inform them of the sins of the people and to keep up
the church buildings (that is, to act as a rudimentary vestry), and
were to keep a record of all christenings, marriages, and deaths,
"upon the burthen of a neglectful conscience, and upon pain of
losing their entertainment." Finally, every colonist was to repair
to the minister immediately upon his arrival and inform him as to
the condition _pf his religious faith. Should the minister decide
that the colonist was in need of instruction, he must submit to it,
or be whipped, upon complaint of the clergyman to the governor.

Actually, of course, these laws were never more than a paper
code. Even if the severity of the penalties (which were harsh
even when judged by contemporary standards) had not forced
them into desuetude, their disregard of the actual conditions of
colonial life would have done so, for they presupposed an effec
tive Church Establishment in a community where there were
probably not more than two clergymen, ministering to a hand
ful of scattered and ignorant settlers. For many of the colonists,
attendance at daily services would probably have been not so
much a hardship as an impossibility, and had the ministers
undertaken to give private religious instruction to all who were
in need of it, they would have had but little time left for prepar
ing their sermons and keeping their records.

A brighter incident of the year was the founding, by Governor
Dale, of Henrico Parish, the second in the colony. Its first min- Hcnrico Parish
ister was the Reverend Alexander Whitaker, who, because of his
long and devoted service in the colony, earned the title of
"Apostle to Virginia." He was the son of Dr. William Whitaker,
Master of St. John's, Cambridge, and is said to have been well
to do, having gone to Virginia from religious motives only. It
was he who baptized and married the romantic Pocahontas, the
reputed savior of Captain John Smith, and the actual wife of
John Rolfe, the father of the Virginia tobacco industry.

Dale's laws did not remain even nominally in force for a very

The First
Assembly,
1619

College
Projected

10 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

long time, for Governor Argall revised them in 1618, substituting
milder penalties, though persons who failed to attend church on
Sundays and holidays were still to be severely punished.

In 1619 the Company was again reorganized and a more liberal
party obtained control The new charter provided for a local
legislature with an elective lower house, and when this body,
the first representative assembly in America, met in the same year,
it proceeded to give statutory effect to another clause of the
charter which required that a "glebe" (a tract of farm land)
should be provided for a clergyman in every borough, and that
each minister should also have a fixed revenue from his parish.
In the opinion of an early historian of the Church in Virginia,
Dr. F. L. Hawks, this law should be regarded as the first real Act
of Establishment in the colony, because, though previous laws had
required the use of Church services, they had made no specific
provision for the support of the ministry. Actually, however, the
Church never did enjoy in Virginia, or any other colony, a com
plete establishment, such as existed in England, for she never was
able to obtain any bishops, or an adequate system of ecclesiastical
courts. We shall have many occasions to see, as we go along, how
seriously the want of both hampered the maintenance of ecclesi
astical discipline and the promotion and expansion of the Church's
usefulness. Before leaving the year 1619, however, it may be well
to remark that this year also saw the arrival of a cargo of mar
riageable females and of the first shipload of negro slaves.

The permanence of the colony now seemed assured, and it was
felt that steps should be taken to increase the number of clergy
men in the colony, of whom there were at that time but five.
To encourage the coming of more ministers, the Company
undertook to settle six tenants on every glebe, and the Bishop of
London agreed to try to find priests who would come over, an
action which may have been one source of the jurisdiction which
that prelate eventually came to exercise over the Church in the
American colonies.

More important than these measures, which were destined for
some time to be but indifferently effective, was the project for a
college and preparatory school at Henrico, to educate both Indians
and settlers, which was set afoot about 1620, assuming for a time
a promising aspect, with donations from the Company and the

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 11

Bishop of London, and with the aid of a general subscription.
Unhappily, however, an Indian war, which began in 1622, and
which nearly resulted in the destruction of the colony, forced the
temporary abandonment of the design. It was never entirely
given up, but not until it obtained the energetic support of Com
missary James Blair at the close of the century did it find practical
realization. In the meantime, the honor of founding the first
institution of higher learning within our borders was to go to the
Puritans of the north. The Church historian can, however, find
one bright spot in the dark history of the first Indian war, for it
is recorded that a portion of the colony was saved from slaughter
by the loyalty of a Christianized Indian named Chanco, an indi
cation that the Virginia ministers had not been altogether oblivious
of their duty to the natives.

In 1624, when Francis Wyatt was governor, the legislature made
some further provision for the Church. Places of worship and Ecclesiastical
burial grounds were to be provided wherever the people were Laws
accustomed to assemble for religious services. The Church was
to adhere as far as possible to the canons of the Church of Eng
land, and fines in tobacco were provided for unexcused absence
from Sunday worship. March twenty-second, the day of the Indian
massacre, was to be kept as a holy day, and the regular holy days
of the Church were to be observed except when two of them came
together in summer. Then one only might be kept, so that work
in the fields would not be too long interrupted. A minister who
was absent from his cure for more than two months in a year
was to forfeit half his salary and, in the case of an absence exceed
ing four months, would lose his entire yearly stipend and the
cure. Anyone who disparaged a minister, so as to alienate the affec
tions of his people and thereby decrease his usefulness, was to
pay five hundred pounds of tobacco and ask forgiveness publicly in
the congregation, unless he could produce satisfactory evidence to
substantiate his charges. In order that the minister's salary might
be secure, no one was to dispose of any of his tobacco until the
claims of the minister had been satisfied, on pain of a double
assessment. It was decreed that one person be appointed on each
plantation to collect the minister's portion out of the best tobacco
and corn.

It is interesting to compare these laws with the code which

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Virginia a
Royal Colony

Reception of
Ministers

bears the name of Governor Dale. Both have the same object, and

deal with substantially the same matters, but the laws of 1624,
being passed by a legislature made up of practical colonists, and

not by a group of theorists across the sea, are expressed in terms
which have some relation to the actual situation in the colony.
The duties they require are possible of performance under normal
conditions, and moreover, the penalties they exact are sufficiently
moderate to give them a reasonable prospect of being enforceable.
About this time, the Company, which had been torn by dissen
sion for some time, and a number of whose leaders, being inclined
toward the Puritan party, had but slight favor with the court, was
brought to an end by royal edict. Thus the colony passed under
the immediate control of the King. This change, of which most of
the settlers approved, had but little effect upon the internal affairs
of the colony, whether ecclesiastical or civil. Under Sir John
Hervey, in 1629, severe penalties were provided for failure to
observe the canons of the Church, but it is not likely that these
were very generally enforced, for the great body of canon law
could have had only slight application to the still somewhat
primitive conditions of the colony.

A more important act of the same year was one which pro
vided that no minister should be allowed to officiate unless he
could show the governor a certificate of his ordination by some
bishop in England and would promise to conform to the standards
of the English Church. Any other minister was to be silenced by
the governor, and if he proved obdurate, expelled from the colony.
This law, of course, merely carried out the principle of the earlier
acts requiring conformity to the Church of England in the public
services of the colony, but it furnished a convenient means of
enforcing that principle by excluding ministers not likely to
conform. It may be worth noting that the act makes no specific
reference to the authority of the Bishop of London, the certificate
of any English bishop being considered sufficient.

When the newly arrived clergyman had satisfied the governor
of his episcopal ordination, and had given the promise of con
formity, the governor was requested to "induct the said minister
into any parish that shall make presentation of him." This pro
vision, which formed the basis of ministerial tenure in Virginia
throughout the colonial period, was to be the source of a great

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 13

deal of discussion and conflict. Taking its terms as they were
understood in English canon law, it had the effect o making the
parish (which soon came to mean, if it did not already mean,
the vestry) the "patron" of the livings, and placing the gov
ernor in position of "Ordinary," or general ecclesiastical authority
for the colony, dividing the power of appointment between
them. It was not long, however, before the vestries discovered
that, while a minister who was once presented and inducted as
rector of the parish became largely free from their control, they
could keep him pretty well subject to their will by allowing the
parish to remain technically vacant, and hiring him upon a tem
porary basis, usually for a year at a time. Such a practice was
contrary to English law, which caused the right of appointment
to devolve on the Ordinary, if presentation were not made in six
months, but the vestries, for some reason, contended that they
were not subject to the same rules as other patrons. They were
never able to make good their claim legally, but in practice they
were generally able to have their own way.

Southern Churchmen in colonial times were generally charac
terized about equally by zeal for the Establishment, in the imper
fect form they had given it, and by opposition to any further
strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline. At this early period the
former quality was more conspicuous in the Virginians than the
latter, and they were generally strong supporters of the High
Church policies of Laud, and the claims of the Stuart monarchs,
who, indeed, showed themselves well-disposed toward the colony.
Early in the conflict which led to the English Civil War, an act
was passed against the Puritans, though there can have been very
few, if any of them, in the colony.

The first evidence of the presence of dissent in Virginia comes,
as a matter of fact, not from a Virginian but from a Massachusetts Dissenters in
source. The Journal of Governor Winthrop records that one -Mr. Virginia
Bennet, a gentleman of Virginia, arrived in Boston in 1642 "with
letters of many well-disposed people of the upper new farms
(possibly upper Norfolk) in Virginia to the elders in Boston,
bewailing their sad condition for want of the means of salvation,
and earnestly entreating a supply of faithful ministers." Who these
"well-disposed people" were, it is not easy to say. They may have
been new settlers from England, with Puritan sympathies; they

14 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

may have been old settlers who had grown discontented with the
existing Establishment, or they may have been a first instalment
of that southward migration from the New England colonies
which was to fill up a considerable portion of the southern fron
tier. Their plea, at any rate, so moved the Boston elders that,
with the approval of the General Court, they sent two ministers,
Knowlys and Thompson, to their assistance. These two gentle
men were, of course, prevented from preaching publicly by the
Act of 1629, but they may have had some hearing in private
houses.

Whether through their efforts or others', a small Puritan con
gregation was assembled in Virginia, for in 1648 the colony was
again heard from in Massachusetts, with the arrival of one Mr.
Harrison, pastor of the Church at Nanseman. He reported that
their number had grown to one hundred and eighteen, and that
many more were looking favorably upon them, so that Governor
Sir William Berkeley had been moved to persecute them that is,
to enforce the Act of 1629 and had banished Harrison and his
elder, Mr. Durand. Harrison desired the advice of the leaders
at Boston as to whether the Church ought to remove, in view of
this opposition, and if so, where. He was advised that as they were
growing and, as, according to his report, many of the Council
(the upper house in the colonial legislature) were on the point of
being converted, "they should not be hasty to remove, as long as
they could stay on any tolerable terms," but that if they did move,
a good location might be the Bahamas, where liberty of conscience
was promised. The readiness of this group to move elsewhere
suggests that, in spite of the alleged interest of the Council mem
bers, of which there is no other evidence, the Puritans were not
among those who had great possessions in the colony.

The time was now at hand, however, when the tables were

The Puritan temporarily to be reversed and the Puritans were to have their

Revolution fay o f power in England and even, by force, to gain at least

nominal control of the government of Virginia, the most loyal

of the colonies. The attachment of the Virginians to the ruling

house was shown early in the struggle when they opposed a bill

introduced in the Long Parliament for the restoration of the

London Company, which would have interrupted the direct

authority of the King in the colony. When news of the execution

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 15

o Charles I reached Virginia, Charles II was immediately pro
claimed as his successor. The colony was not able, however, to
hold out single-handed against the power of the Commonwealth,
and when a force was sent over for its subjection, it was felt that
an honorable surrender was better than a useless struggle. The
terms of capitulation which were then arranged provided that the
Book of Common Prayer might continue in use for one year, if
prayers for the King were not said publicly, and that the settled
ministers, if they were not guilty of active opposition to the new
government, might retain their cures and receive their dues for the
same length of time. Actually, the services of the Church were
probably carried on without great change throughout the period
of Puritan rule, though some Separatist congregations may have
been formed at this time, and there is some evidence that the
Church had declined before the coming of the Restoration. In
1653 an act was passed excluding clergymen from the House of
Burgesses, as the popular house of the Assembly was called, on
the ground that their presence there might "produce bad conse
quences/' In 1655 it was reported that many places were destitute
of ministers and that the people were not paying their accustomed
dues. In 1657 an act was passed for settling the religious affairs
of the province, which provided "that to the people of the respec
tive parishes should be referred all matters touching the church
wardens and vestry, agreements with their ministers, and, in
general, such things as concerned the parish or parishioners."

The vagueness and generality of this act may be accounted for
by the need which was probably still felt of avoiding any direct Vestries
opposition to the Puritan power, although its rule was rapidly
drawing to a close. The law, however, contains the first specific
reference to the institution of the vestry, which has become such
a characteristic feature of our Church government in this country,
though this body had probably existed in Virginia at an even
earlier date. In a document drawn up in connection with a legal
dispute in 1718, it is stated that vestries, duly elected by their
parishes, have, from the earliest times in the colony, had the right
of presenting their ministers to the governor for induction. The
institution, in fact, had its origin in the English canoa law of the
period. In ordinary English use, the term vestry is applied to a
meeting o the whole parish, which any resident is eligible to

16 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

attend, but by the seventeenth century it had become customary in
some parishes to transfer the function of the larger assembly to a
smaller board, known as a "select vestry," which was usually elected
by the parish meeting but in a few cases was self-perpetuating. It
was in this form that the vestry was transplanted to the New
World, partly because it was most common in the parts of Eng
land from which the early settlers came, and partly because it was
better suited than the more usual form to the need of large but
thinly-settled parishes, where the frequent assembling of all the
residents would have been highly impractical. In colonies where
there was a large dissenting population, which was sometimes in
the majority, it had a further advantage in that it was possible to
require the vestrymen to take the oaths of allegiance and
supremacy, and thus to exclude dissenters from serving as such.

With the return of Charles II in 1660, the Church was again in
The the ascendent in England and some efforts were made to pro-

Restoration mote its interests in the colonies also. That stout old Royalist,
Governor Berkeley, returned to Virginia, bringing with him fresh
instructions, in which the concerns of the Church had a promi
nent part, for the very first article told him to "be careful Almighty
God may be duly and daily served, according to the form of
Religion established in the Church of England."

In 1662 an act was passed renewing and amplifying the law
of 1629. It repeated the earlier regulations as to episcopal ordina
tion, presentation, and induction, but provided further that a
majority of each parish should choose twelve of the most able
men to be a vestry, which body, once elected, was to be self-
perpetuating, and, with the minister, was to have the power of
electing wardens. Every vestryman was to take the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy, and to subscribe to the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England.

At the time of the Restoration there were fifty parishes legally
established in Virginia, though many of them existed on paper
only. To supply these parishes there were only about ten min
isters, and the securing of the number needed was one of the
problems with which the colonial authorities had to deal. To
encourage the migration of clergymen, a bounty of twenty pounds
was offered to anyone who would transport a "sufficient minister"
that is, a minister in good standing of the Church of England

BEGINNINGS THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA 17

to the colony. At a later period this amount was paid by royal
bounty to any clergyman coming to the colonies, and may have
increased the number who were willing to undertake the journey,
but at that time the measure had little effect, and the colony was
to suffer from a serious shortage of ministers throughout the
century.

The ecclesiastical clauses in the instructions of Lord Culpeper,
who came over as governor in 1679, though similar in their gen
eral purport to those given to Governor Berkeley in 1660, and to
other governors before and after, are interesting as containing a
clause to the effect that no minister should henceforth be pre
ferred to any benefice unless he could produce a certificate of his
conformity from the Bishop of London. This was the first specific
recognition, in the instructions to the governor of a continental
colony, of the traditional jurisdiction of London over the planta
tions. The instructions also direct that the ministers shall be ad
mitted to their vestries in the direction of Church affairs a right
that the vestries were sometimes disposed to deny.

As we have not that wealth of information on the daily life of
the Church in the seventeenth century which is furnished in the church Life
eighteenth by the reports of the missionaries to the Society for the in the Seven-
Propagation of the Gospel, and of the Commissaries and other teenth Centur 5
ministers to the Bishop of London, it is impossible to describe that l
life as thoroughly now as we can later. There are many circum
stances, however, which warrant us in inferring that the organi
zation of the Church in most parts of Virginia was still some
what rudimentary. The shortage of ministers has already been
mentioned, and many of the parishes were probably too thinly
populated to pay a minister, according to the requirements of the
law, even if one could have been secured. There is evidence also
that a considerable number of parishes as yet had no church
buildings. There was no central ecclesiastical authority in the
colony, except such as might be exercised by the governor, and so
individual ministers and parishes were practically independent.
A law to which reference is made at a later date provided that
if a parish had no minister, the vestry should choose a godly lay
man to read the services of the Church on Sundays and holi
days, and, whether or not this law was already in existence, it is
very likely that the practice was.

18 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

In the older parishes a certain amount of stability had probably
In the Older been achieved, and some of the characteristics which were later
Parishes to distinguish southern colonial churchmanship may have begun

to develop. The salaries of ministers were most likely paid with
a fair regularity, though perhaps with some grumbling. Neat
church buildings, of brick or stone, had doubtless been erected,
and there may also have been "chapcls-of-ease" in the more
remote parts of parishes, where services were held once or twice
a month for the convenience of those who lived there. In the
regular churches, services would be held every Sunday or holi
day, and would be as well attended as circumstances permitted,
for whatever the private or public morals of the colonists may
have been, the obligation of regular attendance at public worship
seems to have been felt as strongly in the South as in New Eng
land. The Holy Communion, however, unless it was celebrated
more frequently than at a later time, would not be held more
than three or four times a year. The calibre of the clergy was
probably higher than at a later period, for their support was not
yet sufficient to attract those persons without hope of ecclesiastical
preferment at home who came at a later time to the southern
colonies in search of comfortable and secure, if not luxurious, liv
ings, and greatly lowered the standards of the ministry, both as
to ability and morals. The long immunity from ecclesiastical dis
cipline, which was the necessary result of early conditions in the
colony, made the people restless at any suggestion of its re-in
troduction, and when the first Commissary was appointed by the
Bishop of London in 1689, he found it expedient not to attempt
the exercise of any jurisdiction over the laity.

CHAPTER II

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

ROM a colony founded by Churchmen, in which the
Church was loved and provided for at the very beginning of The Puritans
settlement and consistently nourished thereafter, we must now
turn to a plantation settled by those who regarded the Church as
but insufficiently purged of the errors of Rome, and who came
to the New World to avoid conforming to the corruptions which
they believed to exist in her liturgy and government. Although the
earliest efforts at colonization in New England were made under
Church auspices, and though some Episcopalian colonies were
later established in Maine and New Hampshire, the entire sec
tion eventually came under the control of settlers who belonged
to one phase or another of the great Puritan movement which
grew out of the more thoroughly Protestant section of the
Reformation party in England. In American usage it has been
customary to distinguish between the Pilgrims or Separatists, who
settled at Plymouth, and the Puritans who colonized Massachu
setts Bay and the rest of New England, though some of the latter
were as thorough-going Separatists as the Pilgrims, but this does
not agree with the contemporary practice, which was to designate
the whole movement by the name of Puritan, and it obscures the
fundamental harmony in religious views which existed between
the Separatists and the rest of the Puritans.

There was, however, a theoretical distinction between the two
sets of colonists, for the Plymouth settlers, who were followers of
Browne and Barrow and other radical reformers, held that the
corruption of the Established Church went so deep as to make
it sinful to hold any communion with it, whereas the more con
servative Puritans, of which the Massachusetts settlers were exam
ples, were willing to remain in communion with the Church,
while in England, provided they themselves were exempted from

20 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

conforming to its corrupt practices. In the homeland this differ
ence was of some practical importance, for the Puritans, under a
lenient bishop, might continue fairly comfortably within the
Church, whereas the Separatists were in all cases compelled to
withdraw from it. In this country, however, the distinction proved
largely nominal and after a few years was almost entirely obliter
ated, for both groups, when freed from the restraints which pre
vailed at home, found Congregationalism a congenial form of
Church government, and their common Calvinism produced a
substantial agreement as to theology.

It was the Pilgrims, so called, who first made good their settle-
The Pilgrims ment in New England. Persecuted in the old country, they had
gone first to Holland and had settled for a time at Leyden, but
economic difficulties and a fear that their children would cease
to be Englishmen induced them to seek another refuge. Accord
ingly, having made an agreement with the London Company
and obtained the tacit acquiescence, though not the official ap
proval, of the King, a portion of them sailed for America in a
ship believed to have been called the Mayflower, in 1620. They
landed in a region north of the territory of the London Company,
and so had to come to terms with the Plymouth Company, and,
as some of them had come from that part of England, they gave
their colony the name of Plymouth. Its early history was similar
to that of Virginia, as far as the inevitable hardships and blunders
of a pioneer settlement were concerned, though there was less
dissension among the leaders; but in time the difficulties were
overcome, and the colony prospered.

They had come to America, not to found a haven of religious
freedom, but to establish a spiritual commonwealth, or new
Israel, in which the state should act in close cooperation with a
Church restored to what they considered its original purity. The
laws of the colony were to agree as nearly as possible with the
legal codes of the Old Testament, and the magistrates were to
secure the Elect, who alone were supposed to form the Church
membership, from being offended by the noise of the ungodly, or
of heretics.

The system thus established, and the similar one shortly to be
set up in Massachusetts and in other parts of New England
except Rhode Island, which was always regarded by the Puritans

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 21

as something of a renegade, were destined to function with com
parative success for a century or more, but their little Zion did Representa-
not remain altogether undisturbed during that time. The first ch*^*^
threat to its peace from the side of the Church of England (other Plymouth
disturbers do not concern us) occurred in 1623, though it proved
not to be a very serious one. In that year appeared Robert Gorges,
son of Sir Ferdinando, who had come over as head of one of his
father's abortive colonial enterprises, this one being designed for
Massachusetts Bay. The attempt was short-lived, though a few
of the settlers may have lingered on to trouble the later Puritans,
but Gorges had brought with him one William Morell, a clergy
man of the Established Church, who remained behind for almost
a year after his principal had returned to England, though he
performed no ecclesiastical functions during his sojourn. He had
with him a commission to enforce conformity to the Church of
England in the colony, but he never produced it, because, as
Bradford tersely observes, "it would seem he saw it was in vain."

A more serious problem was presented to the rulers of Plymouth
by the case of John Lyford, who came over with a group of JohnLyford
colonists in 1624. He had been sent out by the company which
represented the colony in England, apparently with the expecta
tion that he would serve as pastor for the congregation, which at
that time had no regular minister, their old one having failed to
come over. Lyford had been episcopally ordained, but he professed
to be in sympathy with Puritan views. He is said by Bradford
to have been well received and to have allied himself with the
local Church, repudiating his former orders.

In course of time, however, he fell in with John Oldom, the
leader of a group known as the "particulars," who felt that John Oldom
the terms upon which they came over had been violated by the
rulers of the colony, and were, accordingly, disaffected. Though
their grievances were primarily political, Oldom appears to have
had some ecclesiastical objections also, or else he developed them
after coming into contact with Lyford. At any rate, the two of
them sent letters home attacking the colony and shortly after
wards endeavored to set up a separate congregation. Oldom was
expelled from the colony, and eventually went to Connecticut,
where his murder by the Indians was one of the causes of the
Pequot War. Lyford expressed repentance and was granted six

22 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

months' grace. As he renewed his attacks upon the colony, how
ever, he was presently expelled and after various wanderings,
finally ended his days in Virginia. Serious charges were brought
against his moral character in the course o the dispute, and he
certainly proved himself to be of a vacillating temper. It is not
clear how far his dispute with the Plymouth authorities arose
from a regard for episcopacy, and how far it was due to other
causes, but he seems to have performed ministerial functions for
a time, after separating from the regular congregation, on the
strength of his episcopal ordination.

The charges which he brought against the ecclesiastical arrange
ments of the colony were in the nature of a caricature of the
Separatist position, and contained at least enough truth to be
embarrassing to those who were the subject of them. Though
they did their author himself no good, they were one of the causes
of the break-up of the Pilgrim Company in England, an event
which, while it did no permanent harm, caused some uneasiness
to the Pilgrims at the time. An ironical note is imparted to the
dispute at its close by the fact that one of the charges brought
against the colonists by those who withdrew from the Company
was that they had received into their Church a man "that in his
confession renounced all universal, national, and diocesan
churches." According to Bradford, this man was Lyford himself!
The most famous representative of the Church in early New
Morton of England was Thomas Morton of Merrymount, but, as in the case
Merrymount o Lyford, it is impossible to say how far his sufferings were due
to his attachment to her, and how far to other causes. The circum
stances surrounding his first coming to the New World are uncer
tain, but we know that about 1624 he was located at a .place which
he called Merrymount, in the neighborhood of Plymouth, with
a colony which can probably best be described as a trading post,
and that his presence there was highly unwelcome to the Puritans.
He and his associates carried on a profitable fur trade, and scan
dalized their neighbors by their use of the Prayer Book and the
free manner of their living. They were also suspected of selling
firearms to the Indians, a charge which, whether true or not
and it is a fairly plausible one certainly alarmed the other settlers,
and appears to have been the immediate occasion for Morton's
expulsion. He was arrested in 1628 by the Pilgrim captain, Miles

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 23

Standish, at the request of some of the smaller settlements, and,
after being brought to Plymouth, was dispatched in the next ship
for England.

As Merrymount was outside the jurisdiction of Plymouth, this
action was clearly illegal, and it is not surprising that Morton
was promptly released upon his arrival in England. He returned
to Plymouth a year later under the protection of Isaac Allerton, a
Puritan, and was lodged for a time at the latter's house. When
the authorities forced Allerton to expel him, he went again to
Merrymount. He was not there long, however, before the Pil
grims once more found cause to lay hands on him and send him
back to England, where he produced a burlesque on Puritanism
which he called The New English Canaan. In 1633 he joined with
some malcontents from Massachusetts Bay in signing a petition
against that colony.

In spite of these attacks upon it, he seems to have felt an attrac
tion toward New England which was but coldly reciprocated, for ^ f eturn of
in 1643, when an old man, he again appeared in Plymouth. He
was allowed to spend the winter there unmolested, but, rashly
venturing within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay, was
promptly arrested for having attacked the colony in England, an
action which was obviously as illegal as his previous arrests had
been. He was held in jail for about a year, but as he proved to be
a charge upon the colony, and common humanity forbade sub
jecting a man of his age to corporal punishment, he was released,
ostensibly that he might have an opportunity to raise the money
for his fine, but really to give him an opportunity to get out of
the colony. This he did, seeking refuge in one of the settlements
in Maine which had not yet been subjugated by Massachusetts,
where he died a few years later.

Morton's is one of the most hotly debated characters in Amer
ican history, and the present writer does not feel called upon to
settle the question. Though he was a member of the Church of
England, it is evident that the dispute between Morton and his
enemies involved more questions than the difference between
episcopacy and Congregationalism. It was, in miniature, the dis
pute of the age between Puritan and Cavalier, between the stern
and sometimes harsh, but always vigorous, morality of the middle
class, beginning its long struggle upward, and the freer, more

24 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

generous, but probably weaker standards of the class in power,
and of its hangers-on. In such a conflict right can hardly be ex
pected to be all on one side, and to become entirely a partisan
either of Morton or his opponents would seem to show an inade
quate understanding of the issues involved.

As has already been intimated, the other early settlers in the
The Salem region that was to become Massachusetts were Puritans of a more
Colony conservative stamp than those of Plymouth. The colonists at

Salem seem, in this respect, to have stood somewhere between the
Pilgrims and the settlers at Boston. They were not Separatists
before their coming over, and they repudiated the name even
after their arrival, but their proceedings did not agree very well
with this repudiation. On July 20, 1629, they set apart a day of
fasting for the choice of ministers, and two men who had been
clergymen in England were questioned concerning their calling.
These men proceeded to deny their former orders by declaring
that the calling of a minister was a twofold one: inwardly from
the Lord, and outwardly from the congregation. This profession
proved satisfactory and the two who made it were chosen pastors
of the church at Salem.

There were some in the colony, however, to whom this action
proved unacceptable. Chief among these were the brothers Browne,
one a lawyer and the other a merchant, who were two of the
original patentees and men of consequence in the colony. They
withdrew, with some others, from the rest of the congregation,
and set up a separate meeting in which the Book of Common
Prayer was used. They also went to Endicott, the leader of the
colony, and charged the ministers with departing from the Church
of England, declaring that these were Separatists, and would
probably become Anabaptists, but that, for themselves, they would
adhere to the old Church. The reply of the ministers to this
declaration is characteristic of one phase of the Puritan point of
view. They denied that they were either Separatists or Anabap
tists (this latter charge, of course, was purely rhetorical, the word
Anabaptist having somewhat the same damning power then that
Communist has today), and asserted that they had not separated
from the Church of England, but only from its corruptions, and
that having been persecuted in the Old World for their non
conformity to the Prayer Book and ceremonies of the Church,

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 25

they neither could nor would use them here, where they had their
freedom, as they considered the imposition of them to be a cor
ruption of God's word. At the first Court of Assistants, which met
in 1629, the stand of the ministers was approved, and the Brownes
were sent home.

The Boston Puritans moved more cautiously toward Congre
gationalism, but the tendency of their movement was the same, The Settle-
and in the end they all arrived at the same place. The first Puritan
settlers on the site of what was to become the metropolis of New
England came over in 1629, but a much larger number arrived
the next year, bringing with them John Winthrop, who for many
years was to guide the destinies of the colony as governor, and
was to become its first historian. Before leaving England, these
colonists set forth an address to "the rest of their brethren in and
of the Church of England" in which they said, "We desire you
... to take notice of the principals and body of our company, as
those who estimate it our honor to call the Church of England,
from whence we rise, our dear Mother . . . ever acknowledging
that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salva
tion, we have received in her bosom, and suckt it from her
breasts; we leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk where
with we were nourished there, but, blessing God for the 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 en
deavor the continuance and abundance of her welfare."

This document was in the nature of a farewell speech, and
should be judged by the standards usually governing such pro
ductions. It probably said nothing that was not sincerely meant,
but it left unsaid a number of things which might have marred
the good-will that ought to prevail at a parting. Out of respect
for the occasion, it was not thought necessary to specify that the
signers of this address regarded their Mother as retaining about
her person far too many of the corruptions of a supposedly less
reputable woman with whom she had once been associated, or
that, while they were willing to accept her orders as being as
good as any other, the majority of them by no means regarded
them as necessary to a valid administration of the sacraments, or
that they were looking forward hopefully to the time when they

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Election of
Ministers

The "Old

Planters"

would be no longer bound by her liturgy. Even so, however, it is
not likely that Winthrop and his associates would have spoken
quite so strongly had they foreseen how rapidly they were to
progress toward separation once they had arrived in their new
home.

On July 27, 1630, the Boston congregation kept a fast for the
choosing of ministers, as the group at Salem had done a year
earlier, and selected John Wilson to be teacher, Increase Nowell
to be elder, and two others to be deacons. These four were set
apart for their duties in a service in which the congregation laid
its hands upon them. This was done with a general protestation
"that it was only as a sign of election and confirmation, not of
any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry he had
received in England," but, nevertheless, the breach with the
Mother Church was for all practical purposes complete. It is true,
that the Bostonians still regarded themselves as being in com
munion with their fellow-Puritans in the Church of England, and
that one of their original objections to Roger Williams was that he
held such communion to be unlawful, but they had chosen for
themselves the "Independent" or Congregational form of church
government, and they soon proved as unwilling to tolerate any
other system as were the avowed Separatists of Plymouth. In 1633,
when Williams and another minister objected to the holding of
ministerial conferences, on the ground that they might lead to
"presbytery or superintendency," Winthrop observed that their
fears were groundless, as it was agreed by all "that no church or
person can have power over another church," and though Endicott
was subjected to some criticism in 1635 for having cut the cross
out of the English flag at Salem, another year saw this symbol
removed from the flags of all of the militia companies.

The Puritans were not the first to settle in the neighborhood of
Boston, for when they arrived they found there a few scattered
settlers, possibly survivors of Gorges' abortive colony, to whom
they gave the name of "old planters." These men were, for the
most part, unsympathetic with Puritanism, and two of them,
Thomas Walford and Samuel Maverick, were staunch adherents
of the Church of England. Walford seems to have offended the
Puritans, probably by too great a freedom in expressing his views,
and was fined forty shillings and banished from the colony, going

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 27

to New Hampshire, where he became one of the first wardens of
the Church at Strawberry Bank (later Portsmouth), but Maverick,
together with William Blaxton, the remaining "old planter," was
admitted "freeman" of the colony that is, accorded civil rights
in 1631. Maverick is praised, even by Puritan writers, for his gen
erous hospitality and his kindness to the Indians, whom he tended
during an epidemic of smallpox, but he was distrusted for his
opinions and he was forbidden to hold office, required to reside
at Boston, and prohibited from entertaining strangers for more
than one night, it apparently being feared that he would use his
hospitality as a cloak for proselytism. In 1632 he was granted a
tract of land in Maine by Gorges' Council for New England, but,
in spite of the restraints upon him, he seems to have preferred
living at Boston.

Blaxton, the third of these settlers, had built his cabin on the
actual site of Boston, and claimed the whole peninsula on the
strength of this occupation, a claim which the Puritans respected
to the extent of setting apart fifty acres for his use. He was an
ordained clergyman of the Church of England, but he had as
little regard for prelates as for Puritans, and told his new neigh
bors that he had come from England because he did not like the
Lord-Bishops, and was equally unwilling to join himself with
them and be subject to the "Lord-Brethren." He remained at Bos
ton, however, and kept on fairly good terms with the colonists
until 1635, when he sold his property to the province and moved
into the region which is now Rhode Island, of which colony he
became the first settler. In his later years he is said to have made
some efforts to exercise his ministry at Providence, though he had
to bribe children with fruit to get them to listen to him. When
he died he left a library of two hundred volumes a large collec
tion for that time and place.

The "old planters" were not the only ones to whom the Puri
tans seemed to be moving too far from the Church of England, Objectors
for there were some from among their own number who thought ^ m ? ng
the same thing. The story of the Browne brothers has already been
told. Another of the Salem Church who disliked the new order of
things was the Reverend Francis Bright, one of four ministers
sent over by the Massachusetts Company, who, when he felt that
the separation had gone too far at Salem, moved to Charlestown,

28 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

and finding similar tendencies there, returned to England. Others
followed his example, and it has been estimated that a total of
nearly a hundred colonists returned home rather than accept Inde
pendency. It is also probable that there were always some persons
within the colony who would have preferred the ministrations of
the Church, though they were too much in the minority to make
it expedient for them to speak out under ordinary circumstances.
During the period of the Commonwealth, some of them united
with representatives of Presbyterianism to petition the home gov
ernment for religious toleration, and were fined by the Massachu
setts authorities for their temerity.

At the time of the first settlement of Plymouth, the King had
Efforts to agreed to "connive" with the designs of the Pilgrims, but had
Subject the refused to give them any formal sanction, and the Stuart mon-
the Church archs had never pledged themselves to respect the ecclesiastical
independence of New England. They felt free, therefore, to try to
reduce the Puritan colonies to conformity whenever a fitting occa
sion should offer, and various schemes for accomplishing this end
were devised by them from time to time. The ineffective authority
given to William Morell when he came over with Robert Gorges
has already been mentioned. In 1634 a commission was issued to
transfer the government of New England to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and others, with power to
regulate the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of the colonies, inflict
penalties, and send the refractory home to England. This commis
sion was, in due time, transmitted to Boston, but nothing was
done about it. Other attempts of a similar sort were made before
the attention of the King became too absorbed in the approaching
revolution to permit his concerning himself with affairs across
the seas, but none of them got beyond being put on paper, and
the Puritans were left tolerably free to regulate their own con
cerns until after the rise and fall of the Commonwealth.

With the Restoration of the House of Stuart, a more determined
attempt was made to reduce New England to political and ecclesi
astical obedience. As a Puritan colony, Massachusetts was natu
rally suspected in the eyes of the Restoration government, but it
did its best to remove the suspicion by sending a loyal address to
the King as soon as it learned of his accession to the throne. To
this Charles replied in 1662, expressing gratification at the loyalty

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 29

of the colony, and promising to restore its charter. He observed,
however, that the foundation of the charter was freedom of con
science, and so he required that the General Court should permit
all who wished to do so to make use of the Book of Common
Prayer and to perform their devotions after the manner of the
Church of England, and that all persons of good character should
be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, celebrated
according to the usage of the Prayer Book, and their children to
baptism. This order was not, however, to be understood as imply
ing that any indulgence should be granted to "those persons com
monly called Quakers."

In 1664 Charles dispatched a group of Commissioners for the
purpose of reducing the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and Commis-
settling the affairs of New England. Among them was Samuel NevvEiMa
Maverick, whom we have already met as one of the "old planters'*
at Boston. The Commissioners, or those of them who went about
that business, were successful in subjugating the Dutch, but to
tame the spirit of the Puritans proved a more difficult matter.
They did succeed in getting a law passed which nominally ex
tended the vote to all good, religious persons, but to obtain a
sanction for the use of the Prayer Book was more than they
could compass.

Charles did not give up at this single defeat. Time and again,
through the agency of Edward Randolph, the collector of cus
toms, and others, he ordered the Massachusetts authorities to per
mit the services of the Church, and in the end he even included
in his demands the toleration of the Quakers, but as long as the
province retained its independent government, his commands
were unheeded, or received but a nominal obedience. Either the
Puritans did not realize their danger, or they felt it not worth
while to preserve their political independence if they could not
use it to regulate their own religious affairs. At any rate, they
refused to yield as long as they were able to resist and the free
dom of the colony had to be restricted before the freedom of the
Church could be obtained.

This, however, did not take place until near the close of Charles
IFs reign, and it remained for his brother and successor, the Attack on the
unlucky James II, to carry out the measures that he had begun.
Charles, who was always in need of money, had, in his later years

30 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

hit upon an interesting expedient for raising it. He had discov
ered, or it had been discovered for him, that many of the oldest
cities in England had charters that were technically defective,
and accordingly these cities had been compelled, by quo warranto
proceedings, to surrender their charters, receiving them back only
after making a substantial money payment, and even then usually
on terms more favorable to the King than had formerly been the
case.

This measure could, it was obvious, be extended with equal
facility to the colonies, for it was easy to find technical flaws in
their charters, though here the object was not so much the im
provement of the royal finances as the unifying of colonial
government. Action was accordingly begun against the New Eng
land provinces, and in due time their charters were declared for
feit, and preparations were made to unite them with New York
under a single governor, who was to be located at Boston, and to
rule the other colonies through deputies. This plan was not with
out its statesmanlike qualities, for though it crushed the indepen
dence in which, as it now seems to us, the true strength of the
colonies lay, it would have united all of the northern provinces
under one head, and have greatly increased their outward strength
and the efficiency of their government, in addition to enhancing
greatly the royal power, which was, of course, the chief object of
its promoters. It might, moreover, have been successfully carried
through, in spite of its unpopularity with the colonists, had James
not succeeded, before he had ruled for more than three years, in
blundering himself off the throne altogether.

Even as it was, the scheme was put into partial effect during
The Church James's reign, and in the spring of 1686, Joseph Dudley, a resi-
Comcs to dent of Massachusetts, was commissioned "President" of the
Boston colonies of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and New

York. The appointment of a royal governor in Massachusetts
for such Dudley, in effect, was, though the title was first accorded
to his successor, Andros necessarily entailed the introduction of
the Established Church, and the ship that bore Dudley's commis
sion also carried Robert Ratcliffe, an ordained clergyman, who was
to become the first minister of the "King's Chapel" in Boston.

The Sunday after his arrival Ratcliffe preached in the town
house of Boston, and read the services of the Church, arrayed in

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 31

the surplice which was the uniform of his calling. This was a
startling event indeed, and, though it can hardly have been a
welcome one, a large crowd of people had the curiosity to come
and witness the spectacle. They found Ratcliffe, if we may rely
upon the testimony of one of them, "a very excellent preacher,
whose matter was good, and the dress in which he put it, extraor
dinary." The following Tuesday he married two couples. Ran
dolph, whose sometimes intemperate zeal for Church and Crown
was to make him one of the worst-hated men in Massachusetts
history, desired to have Ratcliffe assist at the inauguration of the
President and Council, but Dudley, though he had conformed to
the Church, was too politic to permit this, nor was Randolph more
successful in an effort which he made to obtain one of the three
churches in Boston for Ratcliffe's use. All that would be granted
by the Council was the privilege of using the room in the town
house where the deputies had been accustomed to sit, and here
the services of the Church were regularly held for several months.

On June 15, 1686, the parish was formally organized, Dr. Ben
jamin Bullivant and Mr. Richard Bankes were elected wardens, Organization
a sexton was chosen, and some church furnishings were ordered. ha Kl ^ s ' s
At a subsequent meeting, Ratcliffe's salary was fixed at fifty pounds ape
a year, in addition to anything the Council might settle upon him.
This latter source of income, however, proved fruitless, for though
Randolph was lavish of schemes for supporting the Church by
taxation, none of them was approved by the government. Had
any one of them been adopted, it might have stirred the already
restive colonists to revolt, for evidences were daily given of how
cordially the Church was hated. Ministers in their pulpits de
nounced her services in the strong terms which were characteristic
of seventeenth-century religious controversy, and the harmless Rat
cliffe was branded a priest of Baal. Merchants and artisans who
wished to associate themselves with the Church were, if we may
rely upon Randolph's testimony, coerced by their creditors and
employers into staying away.

Near the end of 1686 Dudley was succeeded by Sir Edmund
Andros, who was appointed the first royal governor of Massachu- Sir Edmund
setts. Andros, who had served acceptably as governor of New Andros
York and who was to become governor of Virginia after the
accession of William III, is an important figure in the history of

32 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the American colonies and o the Episcopal Church. The task
which he had to perform in New England was one which was
bound to make him unpopular, and his character was not such
as to soften the ill feeling in any way. His manner was arrogant
and cold, and his methods of ruling were arbitrary, but he seems,
nevertheless, to have been a conscientious public servant, seeking
to promote the interests of his royal master more earnestly than
did many of his class. He had no sooner been made governor
than he demanded the use of one of the Boston meeting-houses for
the services of the Church. This was refused after a conference
of ministers had been held to consider it, and for a time Andros
contented himself with going to church in the town house. In
the spring of 1687 he became more insistent, however. On Good
Friday he forced his way into Old South Church, and beginning
at Easter, the service of the Church of England was held in that
building every Sunday, between the morning and afternoon
services of the regular congregation. Such an arrangement is
likely to lead to friction even when it is voluntary on both sides,
and since, in this case, it had been forced on the proprietors of
the meeting-house by arbitrary authority, conflict was inevitable.
Sometimes, the long sermon of the Church of England preacher
would force the Puritans to wait beyond the appointed time for
their second service, and at other times, the governor would be
annoyed at having to wait for his service because that of the
Puritans had been too long. Nevertheless, the joint use of the
old church continued, with nothing worse than bickering as the
result, until the small wooden structure of King's Chapel was ready
for occupancy.

A "brief" authorizing collections for the building of this chapel
Building the was issued early in 1688, and nearly one hundred persons con-
Chapel tributed ^256.9s, to which Andros added ^30 and his deputy in
New York, Sir Francis Nicholson, who, whatever his faults in
other respects, was a consistent patron of the Church, added ^25.
Some difficulty was experienced in procuring a site, for Puritan
landholders were reluctant to sell to the Church, but at length
the parish was able to obtain a corner of the old burying-ground,
probably through the authority of the Council, which Andros was
able to dominate, and there the foundation was laid on October
16, 1688.

THE FIRST KING'S CHAPEL
From an old cut in ''Annals of King's Chapel," by W. W. Foote, 1882.

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 33

The building, however, was not fully completed before news
reached the colony of the landing of the Prince of Orange in
England in the spring of 1689. This report, which was first brought
to the province by John Winslow, was the signal for a local revo
lution. Andros, Randolph, and a number of other officers of the
royal government, most of them Churchmen, were thrown into
prison, while excited mobs, encouraged by their pastors, rioted in
the streets. Some property of Churchmen and others was de
stroyed and the new church was much damaged by stones and
other instruments of popular violence, the feeling against the
Establishment having been stimulated by a treatise on The Unlaw
fulness of the Common Prayer Worship, for whose publication
Increase Mather regarded the present as a propitious moment.
For a time it was feared that the building would be destroyed, but
it survived the popular excitement, and the foothold of the Church
in Massachusetts which it represented was retained.

The first successful settlements in Maine and New Hampshire
were made by Churchmen, and the Church was present in them, The Church

though its life was soon snuffed out by the spread of Puritan J New

& , . i -I 11 i T Hampshire

power, and it was not revived until well into the new century. In

1622 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason received a
grant of all land between the Merrimac and Sagadahoc rivers,
extending inland to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence. To
this area they gave the classical name of Laconia, and within it ? in
1623, they established a settlement and fishing village at the mouth
of the Piscataqua. Other small settlements followed in the same
region, and in 1629 they combined for mutual protection. Mason,
who at his death in 1638 left a bequest of one thousand acres for
the maintenance of a preacher, was a zealous Churchman, and it
is believed that the colony was furnished with a clergyman, though
the evidence for this is not very strong. In 1640 a parish was or
ganized at the principal settlement, Strawberry Bank (later Ports
mouth), with Thomas Walford, who has already been mentioned
as one of the "old planters" in Massachusetts Bay, and Henry Sher-
burne as wardens, and a grant of fifty acres for a glebe was made
to it by the governor. A church and parsonage were also built, the
necessary furnishings for the former having been previously sent
over by Mason. The church was served for a time by the Reverend
Richard Gibson who, according to Winthrop, had originally been

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

sent over to minister to some fishermen on Richman's Island. In
1642, however, he went to the Isle of Shoals, where he got into a
dispute with a Puritan minister, and was hailed before the Massa
chusetts General Court, which claimed jurisdiction over the is
land. They released him only on his expressing great repentance,
and declaring his intention to return immediately to England.
After his departure, the Church in New Hampshire rapidly suc
cumbed to Puritan inroads.

Gorges' interests were not confined to New Hampshire, how-
Church ever, and in 1636 he established the first organized government in
* Maine at Winter Harbor on the Saco River. This was within the
territory included in the grant which he held in common with
Mason, but he seems to have acted under a separate royal grant,
which, like the provincial charter which he obtained in 1639,
provided for the Establishment of the Church of England. To this
colony and to the other settlements of Scarboro and Casco (now
Portland) which were presently established in the same region,
came the Reverend Robert Jordan, a minister of the Church of
England, who probably arrived about 1640. His marriage to the
daughter of John Winter, a well-to-do settler, made him one of
the leading landholders of the region, and he became a leader in
the unsuccessful resistance to the aggression of Massachusetts.
After the authority of that colony had been established, he was
occasionally prosecuted for performing the services of the Church,
but he continued in tolerable prosperity until the destruction of
his home by Indians in King Philip's War forced him to flee to
Great Island, where he died in 1679.

As has already been stated, one of the objects of the Commission-
Beginnings in ers sent over in 1664 was the conquest of the Dutch colony of
New Amsterdam, and this conquest was carried through, without
bloodshed, by Colonel Richard Nicolls. One of the terms of capitu
lation provided that the Dutch should have freedom of conscience
in matters of religion, and this meant that the Calvinistic Dutch
Church should remain the Church of the colony until English set
tlers began to predominate. The English governor and the English
garrison had to have a chaplain, however, and, as the only place of
worship in the colony was the Dutch church within the fort, the
terms of surrender also provided that the English might have the
use of this church after the Dutch had finished their service. This

New York

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 35

arrangement was carried out much more amicably than the similar
one in Massachusetts, for the relations of the Church of England
with the continental Protestants were, at this time, upon a much
more cordial basis than those with the English dissenters. The gov
ernor's chaplain continued to be the only minister of the Church
of England in New York, as the colony was now called, until after
the "Glorious" Revolution of 1689, and the Dutch church in the
fort continued to be its only place of worship. There was also an
episcopally ordained minister at Albany, in the person of Nicolaus
Van Rensselaer, a son of the patroon, but though he had been
ordained by the Bishop of Salisbury, he functioned in the colony as
a minister of the Dutch Church, and adhered to its usages. His
manner of life, moreover, does not seem to have been such as
became a clergyman, and he was deposed by Andros in 1677 one
of the few instances of the exercise of this episcopal function by a
colonial governor.

The accession of William III was marked by a minor revolution
in New York, as it had been in Massachusetts. Here a German,
Jacob Leisler, raised a force of irregulars and expelled Andros'
deputy, Sir Francis Nicholson, a proceeding for which he was
hung by that gentleman's successor. Though Leisler, in his wrath
against all the Jacobean officers, accused Alexander Innes, the
chaplain, of being a Papist, the Church had no real concern in
the conflict, except that the dispute between Leislerians and and-
Leislerians, which was to mark - New York politics for some
years to come, occasionally exerted an indirect influence upon
ecclesiastical affairs.

Maryland resembled Massachusetts and Plymouth in that it
was founded as a refuge for a religious group which was hostile The Founding
to the Established Church, but it differed from them in being f Maryland
founded with a view to the toleration of all Trinitarian Christians.
Whether or not its founder, Lord Baltimore, believed in religious
freedom as a principle, such an arrangement was a matter of prac
tical necessity in his colony. The charter of the province required
that its laws should not be inconsistent with those of England, and
to tolerate Roman Catholics in the colony, and appoint them to
positions of trust, was as far as it was expedient to go in disregard
ing this clause. That much relaxation had been anticipated, but to
go beyond it, and interfere with the freedom of Protestants in the

36 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

colony, would almost certainly have invited an attack upon the
charter, for Baltimore, who remained in England, and was a well-
known figure at court, could not hope for the immunity which
distance and obscurity lent to the Puritans in their early years.
Moreover, the Roman Catholics as a whole were a much weaker
party in England than the Puritans, and much more subject to
popular distrust. And finally, as it soon became evident that not
many Roman Catholics wished to migrate to the New World, it
was clear that a majority of the colonists would always be
Protestant.

Whatever Lord Baltimore's motives may have been for under
taking this experiment in religious freedom, he and his principal
agents were thoroughly conscientious in their efforts to carry it
out. Not only were all orthodox Christians tolerated, but an ef
fort was made, even in the earliest instructions, to keep peace
by forbidding the use of abusive expressions in connection with
things held sacred by either Protestants or Roman Catholics, and
there are a number of instances on record in which the colonial
authorities heard and redressed complaints of the "Protestant
Catholics" of the Church of England against their Roman Cath
olic neighbors.

In 1649, in an effort to prevent the abrogation of his charter by
the Puritan power in England, Baltimore had the colonial Assem
bly give legislative expression to his ideas in the famous Maryland
Toleration Act, but the principles which were embodied in that
law were those which had governed the colony from the begin
ning. The efforts to save the charter were unsuccessful, and during
the period of the Commonwealth, Maryland was under Protestant
control.

It is probable that many, if not a majority, even of the first col-
The church onists, who came over in 1634, were Protestants, and at least nom-
m Maryland j na i me mbers of the Church of England, and there was already a
settlement of Virginia Churchmen, with a minister, on the Isle of
Kent, which was eventually adjudged to be included in the Mary
land patent. The Churchmen who came over from England had
no minister with them, but they did build a chapel at St. Mary's,
the first settlement, and they seem to have read services there with
some regularity. The first minister of the Established Church who
is known to have been in the colony is the Reverend William

OTHER COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 37

Wilkinson, who was there about 1650, but though he occasionally
officiated, he was obliged to engage in trade for his support. In
1675 there were three clergymen in the colony. In the follow
ing year one of them, John Yeo, addressed a petition to Archbishop
Sheldon in which he lamented the poor condition of the Church
in Maryland, and said that though there was such a scanty supply
of regular ministers for a population which now numbered twenty
thousand souls, scattered through ten or twelve counties, there
were many irregular preachers, and the Quakers had seen to the
provision of "speakers" for their conventicles, not to mention the
numerous Roman Catholic priests in the colony. He prayed, there
fore, that some arrangement might be made for the establishment
of the Church in Maryland.

This letter was referred to the Privy Council in England, and
the then Lord Baltimore was questioned on the subject. He replied
that in view of the heterogeneous character of the legislature,
which included Roman Catholics, Independents, Quakers, and
Churchmen, nothing could be done towards an establishment, but
that the clergymen then in the colony (he put their number at
four) were all provided with adequate plantations. During the
remaining years of Stuart rule there was very little change in the
ecclesiastical situation of the colony. The Protestants were already
well in the majority, and their preponderance increased every
year. Ministers were sent over from time to time, but as others
died or were removed, the total number was not increased, and in
1689 there were still only three ministers of the Church in
Maryland.

The change of dynasties in England brought a new order of
things in the colony also. When they learned of the succession of
William, the Protestants revolted against the Proprietor, and peti- dency
tioned the King, in two successive conventions, to end the pro
prietary government. The petition was finally granted. The colony
passed under the control of a Protestant Assembly and a royal
governor, and the experiment in religious freedom was at an
end. In time the province was restored to the Calverts, but not
until the family of Lord Baltimore had itself become Protestant.

We,

CHAPTER III
THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

'HEN does a century begin ? In the mind of the average per
son it begins with the year a new figure appears in the hundreds
column, with a double naught following it. An expert in chronol
ogy would probably choose the year following, for only then has
the tale of the preceding century been completely filled. For the
historian, however, no such simple rule of division is possible. He
can recognize in any given century certain predominant character
istics distinguishing it from other centuries, just as he can in any
other long period of time, but to fix the point at which those
characteristics begin their ascendency is by no means an easy
matter, and the date chosen must always be an arbitrary one.

The division between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Characteristics can be most conveniently fixed, at least in English and American
of the New history, by the "Glorious" Revolution of 1689. To be sure, the
entury change which that Revolution effected was not, outwardly, a very

radical one, being merely a shifting of dynasties, but as its embodi
ments guaranteed the Protestant succession, and secured the su
premacy of Parliament, it may be said to have brought one long
controversy to a close and set the stage for another. From it also
evolved a noticeable shift in social forces, for the uneasy com
promise between the aristocracy and the upper middle-class which
resulted from it in the political field was to have its counterpart
in the social ideals of the century. The slow-burning but torrid
fires of Puritanism were to give way to a stolid middle-class re
spectability which stressed the importance of becoming conduct
for its own sake, rather than as a means of escaping damnation.
The aristocratic ideal, already decadent during the Restoration,
was to express itself chiefly in an insistence upon the importance
of subordination and stability in society, and, on its lighter side,
in the formulation of rules for pleasing fashionable ladies. These

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 39

two elements, moreover, were to exist not so much in competition
as in a state of incomplete fusion, gradually solidifying, with the
addition of new forces introduced by the Methodist Revival and
the Romantic Movement, into that curiously powerful synthesis
of aristocratic and middle-class traditions which was to mark the
England of Victoria.

With all things thus in a state of flux, religion, naturally, could
not remain unchanged, and the claims of Christianity were sub
jected to a searching and not altogether favorable examination. It
was, of course, still considered illegal, and, what was worse, bad
taste, to repudiate Christianity altogether, but to advance its super
natural claims too boldly or to insist too strongly on its authority
over human lives was regarded as an even more serious breach of
propriety. Among those who felt themselves to be most enlight
ened, it was regarded simply as a philosophy of life to which
certain supernatural fables had been attached, and which should
be purged from these superstitions and required to justify itself,
like all other philosophies, on grounds of cold rationality. Most
of these "enlightened" philosophers, indeed, sincerely believed
such a plan entirely practical, but their attitude, none the less,
tended to deprive the Faith of much of its vitality. There were, of
course, many good and many devout men in the Church and in
its ministry in the eighteenth century, but, if they wished to be
heard at all, at least by the educated, they were obliged to express
themselves in the language of the time; to talk more of good
ness than of holiness, and more of the rationality of Christianity
than of its divine revelation.

In the colonies the situation prevailing in England was repro
duced with such modifications as would naturally result from the Religion in the
cruder conditions of colonial culture. There was little genuine Colonies
aristocracy in America, but there were plenty of aristocratic pre
tensions, and these combined with the genuine middle-class
background of most of the more prosperous colonists to produce
a sort of caricature of English society, with the governor and
his circle acting as a miniature court. In religion the restless
ness of the age showed itself differently here than it did in Eng
land. Though we find occasional references to the importation of
Deistic or infidel books, there was probably little avowed ration
alism in the country until toward the close of the century, but

40 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

there was in all of the colonies a general* breakdown of the "stand
ing order," whether that order was Episcopal, Independent, or
Quaker. Dissent appeared everywhere, some sort of religious tol
eration gradually developed in every province, and the older re
ligious denominations joined with two or three new ones in a
struggle for position which, though it was temporarily interrupted
by the political excitement of the Revolutionary period, was not to
end until the second quarter of the nineteenth century saw their
ratios fixed upon a national rather than a sectional basis.

Had this struggle taken place at a time when religious feeling
in England was stronger, the Episcopal Church would possibly
have fared better than it did, for it would have enjoyed a more
earnest support from its English friends. As it was, that support
cannot be said to have been much more than lukewarm. The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts la
bored, it is true, long and devotedly for the welfare of the colonial
Church, but its active supporters never represented more than a
small fraction of the membership of the Church at home. By the
majority of English Churchmen and this included most of the
ecclesiastics the spiritual welfare of the colonies was regarded as
somebody else's business. They did nothing to promote the work
of the Church in America, and they allowed political considera
tions to prevent the government, which was supposed to be the
Church's protector, from permitting the completion of its ministry
by a colonial episcopate.

The policy of the government with respect to the ecclesiastical
Policy of the affairs of the plantations, insofar as it can be said to have had one,
Government was to o b ta i n ^ Establishment of the Church in all colonies which
had not been founded by persons avowedly seeking to escape from
the Establishment at home, and to procure its toleration in colonies
where the dissenting interest prevailed. After the accession of Wil
liam III, no effort was ever made by the home government to
force the Church Establishment upon the dissenting colonies. It
is true that an Act of Establishment was passed in Maryland at the
beginning of this period, but, though the measure was encouraged
by Governors Nicholson and Blakiston, and by Commissary Bray,
it had its origin in colonial conditions, for, as we have seen, a
Protestant revolution in Maryland followed the fall of the Stuarts
in England. The act which was passed by the colonial Assembly

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 4l

to provide for the Church was, In fact, disallowed several times
before it was put in a form acceptable to the English government,
and at least one of the objections brought against it, in its earlier
form, was that it extended insufficient toleration to dissenting
groups. Moreover, the interest displaced by the Maryland Estab
lishment was that of the Roman Catholics who were not included
in the general toleration which the new regime extended toward
Protestant dissenters.

This policy, had it been consistently adhered to, would probably,
except for its failure to provide for the episcopate, have been as Not
sound a one as could be adopted under the circumstances, but the ^ y
interest of the English government in the colonies during most of
the eighteenth century was not great enough to make it very per
sistent in following any policy. The more debatable part of the
program was, in fact, the part that was most effectively carried
out. In colonies where a majority of the inhabitants were members
of the Church, the provincial assemblies showed themselves will
ing to provide for the Establishment on their own initiative,
though not always upon terms which were acceptable to the
ecclesiastical authorities in England. Acts of Establishment were
also obtained, however, through the efforts of the royal governors
in the colonies of New York and North Carolina which, though
they had not been founded by any definite dissenting interest,
probably had a majority of dissenters at the time that the acts
were passed. In New York, where the Establishment was obtained
at the beginning of the century, so that the hostility aroused had
time to wear off before the American Revolution, the Church was
probably strengthened by the measure, at least in New York City
and Westchester County, but in North Carolina, where a Church
Act acceptable to the home government was not obtained until
within a few years of the Revolution, and where some of its fea
tures were obnoxious even to Churchmen, the ill will produced by
it was seriously harmful. With the coming of the Revolution the
Church interest in that colony was utterly crushed, and it did not
even begin to revive until well into the nineteenth century.

On the other hand, the efforts of the English authorities to ob
tain religious freedom for the Church in New England were
half-hearted and spasmodic. The home government always felt a
certain amount of nervousness with respect to these colonies, for

42 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

it was feared that any vigorous attempt to interfere in their relig
ious or political affairs would drive them into open rebellion, and
after the fiasco of Andros they were always handled gingerly.
That the Church ultimately obtained something approaching
religious equality in New England was due more to the growing
spirit of toleration in the colonies, and to the combined exertions
of Churchmen and other opponents of the standing order in that
section, chiefly the Baptists and Quakers, than to any active inter
vention of the English Ministry or its agents. In Pennsylvania, the
only other dissenting colony after the collapse of the Roman
Catholic power in Maryland, religious toleration had been pro
vided for from the start, and a clause in Penn's original charter
had required that a clergyman of the Church of England, duly
recommended by the Bishop of London, should be admitted to the
colony whenever any of the inhabitants should petition for one.
It may be urged that, even though the support which the Church
Disadvantages received from home was not as great as it might have been, it was
cLurch's more t " ian was en iy e d by any other denomination, and this is
Political probably true, though the Presbyterians received some help from

Connection Scotland, and the Independents were supported, in their political
interests at least, by the dissenting lobby in England. It must be
remembered, however, that the Episcopal Church also suffered
various disadvantages from its English connection. The great
point made by the dissenters in their opposition to a colonial
episcopate was that bishops, under English law, were officers of
the State as well as the Church, and no amount of insistence that
a purely spiritual authority was all that was desired, could dis
abuse them of this. In some cases also, at least in New England,
persons well disposed toward the Church were dissuaded from
joining it by the argument that its growth would threaten the
civil liberties of the colonies. The Church was bound by laws and
customs adapted to a very different situation from that which it
found in the plantations, and every important decision in respect
to its affairs had to be referred across the seas to an authority but
slightly acquainted with colonial conditions. Because its ministry
was incomplete, and because it was under the nominal jurisdiction
of an English bishop, the nearest approach which it could attain
to local self-government was the holding of voluntary conventions
of the clergy which usually included those of only one colony, and

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

rarely o more than two or three. When the final conflict arose
between the colonies and the mother country, the loyalty to the
Crown of most of her clergy and many of her laity in the northern
colonies cost the Church great unpopularity; the forced flight of
many of these clergymen when open hostilities began caused her
services to be interrupted and created a shortage in her ministry,
which was not to be remedied for many years; and the sudden
cessation of aid from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
at the end of the war, and the repeal of the various acts of estab
lishment left her impoverished and, in many places, temporarily
paralyzed.

In the eighteenth century all of the colonies, except Connecticut
and Rhode Island, had governors appointed by the King, or by The Governor
their proprietors, most of them had appointive councils, and all
of them had elective assemblies. As all of the proprietors had
become Churchmen before the century was very far advanced,
the governor was the natural leader of the Church in his colony,
and in all of the colonies he performed certain functions which
were then considered ecclesiastical, of which the most important
were the granting of licenses to marry and the probating of wills.
In the colonies where the Church was established (Virginia, Mary
land, South Carolina, New York, and later North Carolina and
Georgia), the governor was also regarded as in some measure the
"Ordinary" of the province. He investigated the qualifications of
newly-arrived ministers, and inducted them into their parishes,
either upon presentation by the vestries, as in Virginia, or upon
his own initiative, as in Maryland. He sometimes acted, also, to
deprive unworthy clergymen of their benefices, and even in a
few cases, to suspend or depose them from their ministry, but his
assumption of this power was generally opposed by the ecclesi
astical authorities at home, and by the Commissaries in the col
onies, as inconsistent with the Constitution of the Church of
England. As there were no ecclesiastical courts in the colonies,
what little canon law was enforced upon the laity was applied
by the civil courts, which were more or less subject to the gover
nor's control.

In politics, the governor, if he were honest, sought to advance
the interests of the power which appointed him, whether royal or
proprietary. The council if appointive, usually, though not always.

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

supported the governor, and the Assembly, which, like the House
of Commons, held the purse strings, generally tried to see how
many concessions it could wring from the governor in return for
paying his salary and granting necessary subsidies. In the game
which was thus played out between them, the Church was too
often used as a pawn. If the governor chose to appear as her pro
tector, the clergy and others interested in her welfare were more
or less compelled to support him, even though his personal and
political character might be such as to do but little honor to their
religion, and though their support would bring upon them the
hostility of the Assembly party. If, on the other hand, the governor
preferred to sacrifice the interests of the Church in order to obtain
ends which he considered more important, active opposition might
only serve to endanger her welfare still further. During the reigns
of Queen Anne and of George III, it was generally understood that
services to the Church were a means of obtaining royal favor, and
governors sought to appear as her protectors whether or not they
themselves felt any personal interest in the cause of religion, but
under the first two Georges there was no such understanding,
and unless they happened to have a personal attachment to the
Church, they sought to promote her interests only when doing
so seemed likely to aid their political schemes. As a rule the Church
could do but little to control the gubernatorial caprice, though
an occasional protest against unfriendly action might be lodged
in England. The powerful influence exercised by Commissary
Blair in Virginia sometimes enabled him to make and unmake
governors, and a similar though less extensive influence was ex
ercised for a time by Commissary Henderson in Maryland, but
even in those colonies the Church reaped little permanent benefit
from the political victories of the Commissaries.

The ecclesiastical authority of the governor was supplemented
Jurisdiction by the uncertain jurisdiction exercised by the Bishop of London
of Lo n don P over the colonies ' This ^'diction, like so many English institu
tions, "just happened. 55 It was not the result of any conscious
arrangement or formal provision, and the circumstances of its
origin have, in fact, never been clearly ascertained. One precedent
for it may be found in the request of the Virginia Company to
Bishop King to furnish ministers for their colony in 1620, and it

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 45

is possible that another precedent was furnished by the jurisdiction
over the English trading-posts in the Netherlands which Arch
bishop Laud obtained for the See of London in 1633, and by his
less successful efforts to obtain episcopal supervision of New Eng
land. It is not until after the Restoration that we find the juris
diction in actual operation, but by then it is already being justified
on the ground of customary usage. In 1675 the Lords' Committee
of Trade and Plantations, at the instance of Bishop Compton,
directed that an inquiry should be made into the origin of this
jurisdiction. The investigation appears to have been fruitless, but,
nevertheless, the committee two years later agreed to a proposal of
Compton's that, as he was "Ordinary of Jamaica," no ministers
should be received in that colony without his license, and that
none having that license should be rejected without cause. In
1679, as we have seen, the instructions issued to Lord Culpeper,
governor of Virginia, forbade him to prefer any ministers to
benefices in the colony unless they had a certificate from London
of their being episcopally ordained, and the governor was also
directed to confer with the Bishop upon the religious affairs of the
colony before sailing. In 1685 the Committee approved the juris
diction of London over the "West Indies" a term that was fre
quently applied to all of the American colonies except for the
disposal of parishes, licensing of marriages, and probating of
wills, which powers were reserved to the governors.

After the Revolution of 1689, Compton adopted the policy of
delegating his authority in the colonies to resident clergymen The
specially commissioned for the purpose, to whom was given the Commissaries
name of "Commissaries." These men, who were usually the hold
ers of the principal benefices in the colonies to which they were
commissioned, exercised a variable amount of authority, depend
ing upon their personal character and the circumstances in which
they found themselves. In colonies where the Church was not
established, their position was largely an honorary one. The most
that they could do was to preside over voluntary conventions of
the clergy, and act as correspondents of the Bishop. In colonies
where there was an Establishment, however, they generally at
tempted to do something more. They called the conventions over
which they presided "visitations," and sometimes took the oppor
tunity which these presented of scolding the clergy for their various

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Bishop Gibson
and Bishop
Sherlock

Commissary
Blair

misdeeds. They also claimed the right to suspend a negligent or
immoral minister, after due trial, and though the indefiniteness
of their authority and the opposition of the clergy, and sometimes
of the governor also, made it difficult for them to make this claim
good, they sometimes did so.

Compton's colonial policy was followed by his successor, Bishop
Robinson, but Edmund Gibson, who came to the See in 1723,
was dissatisfied with the basis of his authority, and applied to the
Privy Council to have it made more definite. As a result of this
application the opinions of the Attorney and Solicitor-General
were taken. They ruled that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the
colonies remained in the Crown, and that if the Bishop of London
were to exercise authority abroad, he must obtain a royal commis
sion. With this ruling Gibson complied, and his authority was
thus placed upon a basis of formal legality, a fact which seems
somewhat to have strengthened the hands of his Commissaries.
His successor, Thomas Sherlock, however, professed to believe that
the commission was defective, and to be so tender of the royal
prerogative that he was unwilling, even with such authority, to
run the risk of infringing it. The real reason for his scrupulosity
was probably his desire to obtain a colonial episcopate, of which
measure he was one of the most zealous proponents. Knowing
his politicians, he realized that they would be glad to avoid the
difficulties involved in making any fresh provision for the ecclesi
astical supervision of the colonies as long as anything like a toler
able arrangement was in existence. He allowed the Commissaries
appointed by Bishop Gibson to continue, but when they died or
retired, none was appointed to succeed them, except in one or two
colonies. The jurisdiction of Sherlock's successors, therefore, was
even more shadowy than it had been before, and consisted chiefly
in granting the required certificates of episcopal ordination to min
isters going to the colonies.

The two most famous of the Commissaries were James Blair of
Virginia and Thomas Bray of Maryland. Bray spent but a short
time in Maryland, where his chief work was to encourage the
passage of a law establishing the Church, but he made the whole
colonial Church his debtor when he became the principal agent
in the foundation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts, and of the Society for the Promotion of Christian

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Knowledge. Blair remained in Virginia from his appointment in
1689 until his death in 1743, except for occasional visits to England
in the performance of his duty, and became in time one of the
most influential, though probably not one of the best-loved, men
in the colony. He was a Scotchman who possessed all the stub
bornness of his race, and he had also a fair share of the irascibility
which was almost universal among public men in the early eight
eenth century, but he was also a fearless and indefatigable cham
pion of the Church in everything which he felt its interests
concerned. His great service was the founding of the College of
William and Mary, of which he was the first president. In his
capacity as Commissary, he fought with nearly every governor
who came to the colony on behalf of the rights of the clergy and
the college, and at the same time he sought to raise morals, and
increase the clergy's devotion to duty. It must be admitted, how
ever, that his efforts in this latter direction consisted chiefly in
giving frequent scoldings. Blair himself reported toward the close
of his career that he had only suspended two clergymen, though
there must have been many more who needed suspension, and his
neighbor, Commissary Wilkinson, wrote to London, "By inquiry,
I understand that the Commissary in Virginia does nothing at all
in the executing of his commission."

Human institutions are rarely the creations of any one person,
and though the honor of being the principal founder of the Commissary
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts be- ^ r p ay G and the
longs to Bray, the work could not have been accomplished without
the cooperation of many others. The founding of religious societies
had, in fact, become something of a fashion in England by the
beginning of the eighteenth century. As early as 1649 a "Corpora
tion for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ
in New England" had been established by the Long Parliament
to support the work of John Eliot among the Indians, and this
society was revived in 1662 at the instance of Robert Boyle, an
Irish philanthropist and scientist who displayed a lifelong interest
in the conversion of the American aborigines. A few years later,
a number of religious societies were organized to combat the
attacks upon orthodox Christianity of Socinians, Deists, and other
heretics. When, therefore, Bray and other earnest men turned their
attention to the needs of Christianity in America, the formation

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Formation
of the
S.P.C.K.

S.P.G.
Organized

of a voluntary society seemed to them a natural means of promot
ing its interests, just as the obtaining of a royal decree or bounty
would have seemed the proper method to men of an earlier day.

Bray's interest in the colonies began when Bishop Compton
appointed him Commissary to Maryland in 1696. As he was not
able to leave for his new post at once (he was rector of the parish
of Sheldon in England), he devoted himself for a time to sending
out missionaries and presenting them with libraries. In 1697 he
laid before Bishop Compton a plan for the formation of a society
to spread Christian knowledge both at home and in the colonies.
His project was shelved for a time, but it led eventually to the
formation of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowl
edge two years later. In 1699, by selling his personal effects and
by borrowing, Bray obtained enough money to go to Maryland,
where he held a visitation, and gave some advice to his clergy,
and whence he returned the following year to obtain royal assent
for the colonial Act of Establishment. On his return he published
a memorial on the state of religion in North America, in which he
repeated some information on religious conditions in the colonies
which he had obtained and published in 1698, and added a sug
gestion that to relieve the serious shortage of clergymen existing in
the New World, persons in each diocese should be solicited to
contribute fifty pounds as the salary, and twenty pounds for the
library, of a minister to be sent to the colonies.

The next move was made, not by Bray, but by the lower house
of the Convocation of Canterbury, which, on May 13, 1701, ap
pointed a committee to consider methods of promoting Christian
ity in the foreign plantations. Encouraged, perhaps, by this mani
festation of interest on the part of the largest body of clergy in
England, Bray, within three weeks after the first meeting of the
committee, petitioned the King for the establishment of a society
to propagate Christianity in the colonies, and the proposal was
duly referred to the Crown lawyers for their opinion. The Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge had, as we have seen,
already been organized, and it now became the sponsor for its
younger sister. At various meetings in May, 1701, it considered
Bray's petition, a proposed charter, and other documents; received
a promise from Thomas Tenison, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
to give twenty guineas towards the cost of obtaining a charter,

Courtesy, The Religious Motion Picture Foundation
SEAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEI IN

FOREIGN PARTS

Pi O

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 49

and undertook to make itself responsible for these expenses. At
its meeting of June 23, 1701, the charter granted by William III
was read to the Society, and thanks were tendered to Bray and
Tenison for their efforts in obtaining it. The charter stated that
the purposes of the new organization were to provide for the
maintenance of orthodox clergy in the plantations, for the propa
gation of the Gospel in those parts, and the "receiving, managing
and disposing of the charity of His Majesty's subjects for those
purposes."

As the membership of the two societies was largely the same, the
task of promoting the colonial religion was transferred almost en
tirely to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which held
its first meeting within a short time, under the presidency of
Archbishop Tenison, an office which was regularly held by him
and his successors. On August 15, 1701, the Society instituted an
enquiry into the religious state of the colonies, and on October
17 some progress was made towards raising a fund for carrying
out its objects. In the spring of 1702 a committee was appointed to
recommend measures for carrying out the designs of the Society,
and this soon became a permanent Standing Committee. The
Dean of Lincoln, who preached the Society's first Anniversary
Sermon, declared that settling the state of religion among its
own people in the colonies should be its chief object, and convert
ing the natives its second. This declaration defined the relative
importance which the Society always attached to these two ends,
for, though it resolved in 1710 that the conversion of the heathen
should be its principal aim, the resolution was not adhered to.

The first definite effort of the Society on behalf of the colonies
was the appointment of George Keith in 1702 to go out as a travel- George Keith
ing missionary and report upon the religious needs of America.
This interesting personage had been a leader among the Quakers,
but, becoming dissatisfied with some of their teachings, he had
withdrawn and founded a sect of his own, which became known
as the Keithites. He still found his religious position unsatisfactory,
however, and in time he conformed to the Church and entered
its ministry. He brought a number of his followers with him, while
others returned to orthodox Quakerism, and a few continued the
struggle to perpetuate their own sect. Because he had lived for
some time in the colonies, he appeared to the Society to be the

50 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

proper person to inaugurate its mission. The choice was in many
respects an excellent one, for Keith was an energetic and devoted
worker who possessed marked abilities as a controversialist, and
had a convert's enthusiasm for the cause of the Church. On the
other hand, he had the misfortune to possess a contentious spirit
and a special rancor against the Quakers, which gave to his mis
sion, at least in the northern colonies, something of the character
of a series of controversies with his former co-religionists, combined
with occasional flings at the Independents, and may have been one
cause of that bias in favor of work among the dissenters which,
contrary to Bray's intention, kept the Society from doing very
much to supply the many sections of the country which were
destitute of all religious services.

Keith sailed from England on April 28, 1702, in the ship Cen-
John Talbot turian. On the way over, he won the admiration of the ship's
chaplain, John Talbot, who was so impressed with the importance
of the mission that he became Keith's traveling companion in
America and, after the latter 's return to England, devoted the rest
of his life to the service of the colonies. The two of them landed in
Boston, where Keith was invited to preach in King's Chapel, then
in charge of Samuel Myles and Christopher Bridge. His first
sermon was attacked in a pamphlet by the redoubtable Increase
Mather, to whom he printed a reply after he had reached New
York. From Boston, he took an excursion northward to Ports
mouth, where the ferry was wrecked, and he was rescued by a
Quaker with whom he promptly got into an argument. Keith
traveled slowly southward, preaching in Episcopal churches,
and thrusting himself into Quaker meetings whenever he could
for the purpose of engaging willing controversialists in debate.

Wherever Keith found Episcopal settlements, he was well
received, and he reported that there was a general desire for min
isters of the Church of England throughout the North, and that
any delay in supplying them might cause the section to be lost to
the Presbyterians. At the time of his coming, the only ministers of
the Church in New England were the two at Boston already men
tioned, and one who had recently been sent to Newport, Rhode
Island. In the colony of New York there were no Church ministers
except in New York town. There was none at all in New Jersey,
nor in Pennsylvania except at Philadelphia, where Evan Evans

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Talbot in
New Jersey

and an assistant were serving Christ Church. At Philadelphia,
Keith had a public debate with another former Quaker, named
William Davis, who had published a book "full of blasphemous
notions," and from there he reported that he and his associates had
baptized two hundred Quakers in various parts of the colonies,
besides receiving some who had already been baptized, and con
verting a number of other dissenters. When he reached the South
he found Virginia and Maryland fairly well supplied with min
isters, most of whom were men of good repute, though some sec
tions were destitute, as Princess Anne County in Virginia and
Annapolis in Maryland. In North Carolina there were no min
isters at all, and apparently Keith did not go as far as South
Carolina.

When his tour was completed, Keith returned to England,
where he accepted a benefice, but Talbot remained in America.
After visiting for a time in New York and Connecticut, he went
to New Jersey and settled down at Burlington, where he spent the
rest of his life, giving as much time as he could to the service of
neighboring churches also. In his old age he was dismissed by
the Society on suspicion of being a Jacobite, and of exercising
unauthorized jurisdiction over his brethren, but he remained at
Burlington where the parish had, by then, become strong enough
to pay him a salary. The charge of exercising jurisdiction over
his brethren was based on a rumor that he had been consecrated
by the "Nonjuring" bishops in England, of which more will be
said later. He was one of the first to urge that bishops be sent to
the colonies, and was zealous for every measure which he thought
might strengthen the Church. It is possible that his dismissal was
facilitated by his freedom in criticizing the measures of the Society
when he disapproved of them.

Keith and Talbot were but the forerunners of a constantly in
creasing number of missionaries who were supported, in whole or Importance of
part, by the Society until the separation of the colonies from the the S ' P ' G '
mother country. The importance of its work can perhaps best be
realized by observing that there were not more than three or four
self-supporting parishes in all the colonies where the Church was
not established. Nearly all of the ministers in these provinces,
therefore, were dependent in some measure upon the assistance
of the Society, and the great majority would not have been able

52 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

to continue their work at all without its help. Moreover, it supple
mented the salaries of most of the ministers in South Carolina
and New York for a considerable time, the colonial salaries being
inadequate for their support. The stipends which it paid were
small, (fifty pounds was the standard, though there was consider
able variation), but they were regularly paid (which was not gen
erally true of local contributions); they were paid in sterling,
an important fact in view of the rapid depreciation of colonial
currency; and they were paid in England, so that they could be
drawn upon for purchases there without paying the heavy dis
count which had to be charged on colonial bills to cover fluctua
tions in the exchange. As all manufactured articles which could not
be made in the home, as well as many common foodstuffs, such
as salt and tea, had to be brought across the sea, this last item was
an important convenience.

Bray's original intention had been to supply ministers for places
Its Special which were destitute of all religious services, or which were ex-
New C EnSand P ose d to t ^ ie operation of Roman Catholics and Quakers, whom
he considered scarcely Christian; but in time the Society came to
make its most extensive efforts in New England, and especially in
Connecticut. This shift in interest has sometimes been attributed
to political motives, but it would seem that there are other cir
cumstances which offer a better explanation. It is true that there
were sound political reasons for promoting the Church in New
England, where its spread meant the spread of loyalty to the
Crown, but the political motives for supporting it on the frontier
should have been equally strong, both because the spirit of inde
pendence was often highest there and because the settlers there
were always in danger of being exposed to the influence of the
French.

The real reason for the bias in favor of New England is, I think,
more probably to be found in the way in which the claims of the
various sections were presented to the Society. The historian today
is in a position to know much more about colonial conditions than
was anyone in England in the eighteenth century, and it takes a
definite effort of the imagination to place ourselves in the position
of the Society's leaders. For whatever understanding they had of
the situation in the colonies, they were almost entirely dependent
upon the reports of their missionaries and other correspondents in

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 53

America, and among these, for one voice that was heard in favor
of the claims of other sections, there were generally several to be
heard in favor of Connecticut or Massachusetts. After the initial
explorations of Keith and Talbot, the Society generally followed
the policy of sending missionaries only where they were applied
for by organized congregations, and where some assurance was
given that a church would be built and some contribution made
to the minister's support. As Massachusetts and Connecticut re
quired everyone to support some sort of religion, Churchmen there
were more ready to make these pledges, and also more likely to
keep them. Moreover, the general religious ferment prevailing in
New England after the first quarter of the century produced a
fairly steady stream of converts to the Church from among the
Independent ministers. As these men were generally of higher
quality than any who could be obtained for the colonial service
in England, the Society hardly felt justified in rejecting them, but,
while they could be used effectively in their own colonies, or those
with a similar population, the prevalence of inter-colonial jealousies
made their employment in more distant provinces a dubious
experiment.

Whatever its causes, however, this apparent partiality did bring
upon the Society a certain amount of criticism, both from within Qriticism of
the Church and from the outside, and in time its leaders them
selves came to regard the policy as inexpedient, especially as it was
found to increase the opposition among the dissenters to the
cherished project of a colonial episcopate. In 1758 Archbishop
Seeker wrote to Dr. Samuel Johnson, president of King's College,
New York (not to be confused with the English lexicographer),
that in the future he thought missionaries should be sent where
there were Presbyterians or Independents, only when a competent
number of persons would certify "that they cannot in conscience
comply with the mode of worship and church government in use,
and that they approve ours, but cannot raise a fund to support it
among them." This, however, would not have involved any great
change from the existing method, as the persons who applied for
missionaries were usually those whose consciences scrupled at the
forms of Christianity prevailing in their region. In 1772 the Society
resolved not to support any fresh missions in New England, but

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Difficulty of
Obtaining
Local
Support

by then the existence of the colonial Church, as such, was so nearly
over that the resolution had no time to take effect.

On the other hand, fairness requires the observation that if the
spirit of proselytism existed in the Church at this period, it was
by no means confined to it. In a number of cases where Church
missionaries were sent to places which had hitherto been without
the services of any ministers, Presbyterian or Independent clergy
men appeared upon the scene within a very short time, and by the
third quarter of the century all of the major dissenting groups
were engaged in the work of self-propagation in the colonies
where the Church was established.

Though the Society, as has been said, normally required the
congregations to which missionaries were sent to pledge something
for their support, it was never very successful in forcing them to
adhere to those pledges. Even in New England it was reported that
the local officers were generally rather careless about collecting ec
clesiastical taxes from Churchmen when they had to be paid over
to a Church minister, and in the other colonies complaints that the
parishes were not living up to their obligations were almost the
rule. Moreover, the Society had but indifferent success in solv
ing the problem, which confronts all missionary organizations, of
weaning the parishes that had become strong enough to be self-
supporting. Parish budgets never increased in proportion to the
growth of the congregations, and any suggestion that the Society
intended to leave a parish to its own resources would always be
met with detailed explanations from the vestry of why the people
could not possibly afford to support their own minister explana
tions which the missionary, anxious to retain his one sure source of
income, would always second, no matter how much he might
complain at other times that the people were not doing all they
should. In 1774 the Society proposed to cut in half its bounty to
missions of ten years' standing or more, but, like the resolution in
connection with New England, this decision came too late to take
effect before the Revolution. It would, in any case, probably have
proven too drastic a measure to be carried out, but had a more
gradual scheme of diminution been adopted at an earlier date, the
sudden withdrawal of the Society's support after the independence
of the colonies was recognized would have proven less disastrous
than it did in many parts of the Church.

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 55

For its support the Society relied chiefly upon the contributions
of its friends in England, but it received some gifts from the colo- Income of the
nies also. Several of the governors and some of the other great
men of the plantations were among its members, and it also re
ceived a present from the King of some lands in the "New Hamp
shire Grants," later known as Vermont. These were transferred
to the diocese of Vermont in the nineteenth century, but so much
litigation was involved in making good the title to them that, in
the opinion of the son and biographer of Bishop Hopkins, its first
prelate, they did the Church there more harm than good. In 1767
the Society was made the residuary legatee of St. George Talbot of
New Jersey, a notoriously dissolute person who, for some reason,
chose to pose as a patron of the Church. His will, however, was
carelessly drawn and improperly witnessed, and the Society was
unable to establish its claim to the legacy, which would have
involved a considerable amount, could it have been obtained.

The principal executive officer of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel was the secretary, and it was through him that the The Secretary
contact of the missionaries with the Society was generally main
tained. He transmitted to them its directions and rules, and re
ceived in turn the reports upon the state of their parishes which
they were required to make at least annually, and any other infor
mation or complaints that they might care to communicate, for
they were forbidden to correspond with private members of the
Society, though the Archbishop of Canterbury usually had some
correspondents in the colonies, and the Bishop of London was
in receipt of occasional official reports from his Commissaries and
others. For the most part, the Society was apparently fairly fortu
nate in its choice of secretaries, who were generally men of con
scientiousness and ability, but we sometimes find complaints from
the missionaries that their letters home remained unanswered, or
that they failed to receive the printed abstracts of the Society's pro
ceedings which were their chief source of information as to its
wishes. These complaints were especially frequent in the closing
years of Secretary Bearcroft's long administration, when old age
seems to have made him negligent. Shortly after his death, in
1762, the clergy of New Jersey asserted that they had had no ab
stracts since 1759, and received little information of any sort as to
the Society's wishes. With the succession of a younger secretary

56 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

(Burton), conditions improved in this respect, yet even under
him we find a missionary reporting that he did not know of his
appointment to a certain station until another clergyman happened
to call his attention to the announcement of it in the abstracts.
Some slips of this sort, however, were inevitable in view of the
distance which instructions had to be sent, and the uncertainty and
slowness of the means of communication.

The maintenance of discipline among the colonial clergy, in the
Discipline o absence of any episcopal authority, was a serious problem, and it is
the S.P.G. to t j le crec jit the Society that it erred on the side of strictness
rather than of leniency in this respect. It could not deprive anyone
of his ministerial office, but it could dismiss an offender from its
service, discontinuing his stipend, and, though too many of die
ministers thus discharged were able to establish themselves in the
southern colonies, the prospect of being left without certain sup
port in a strange country was still sufficiently alarming to make
any who felt themselves disposed to stray stop and think. A mis
sionary against whom charges of immorality were brought by
responsible parties was almost certain to be dismissed. He would,
of course, be given a chance to speak for himself, but no formal
trial was required, and, unless he could produce pretty strong
testimony as to his innocence and general good character, he was
sure to be relieved of his duties. The missionaries sometimes
complained that the Society was too willing to listen to charges
against them, and it is possible that injustice was occasionally
committed, but it was better to run the risk of doing this than
to allow the Church to be disgraced by unworthy ministers, espe
cially in colonies where it was already regarded with suspicion.
Dismissal was also the penalty for any serious breach of the
Society's instructions, especial severity being shown to ministers
who went without permission to stations other than those to
which they had been sent, even the best excuses being frequently
rejected. This measure also worked some hardship, for the home
authorities were not always correctly informed as to the char
acter of the posts to which they sent missionaries, but it was
essential if the Society was to retain enough control over its mis
sionaries to use them in pursuing any general policy, as a minister
sent to a difficult but important station was not always capable of
resisting the lure of greener pastures elsewhere.

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 57

In spite of all these precautions, unworthy ministers would
sometimes be found in the Society's service, but the number was Character of
surprisingly small, especially when we consider the remoteness of Missionaries
the field of labor from its seat, and its lack of any local executive.
Its men, in fact, constituted a sort of superior caste among the
colonial clergy, both as to morals and ability. This was due partly
to the superior discipline maintained by the Society and partly to
other causes. The excellence of most of the New England con
verts was one, and the fact that most of the missionaries worked
under the scrutiny of hostile neighbors was another. More im
portant still in weeding out undesirables was probably the com
bination of small wages and hard work, which kept men who
desired a life of ease and comfort, even on a humble scale, from
seeking the Society's service. When such men did enter it, they
generally realized their mistake in a short time, and left as soon as
they conveniently could.

Because of this superiority, their common dependence upon
the Society, and the general similarity of their religious views
(most of them being High Churchmen), the missionaries, though
they had no general organization, formed a self-conscious group
which transcended colonial boundaries, and to that extent they
lent a certain amount of unity to the Church, whose activities in
colonial times generally developed along provincial lines. On the
other hand, because of the contempt and suspicion, whether jus
tified or not, with which, they regarded the rest of the colonial
clergy, they also operated in some degree as a divisive factor.
This division, however, did not affect their relations with the
ministers of the few independent parishes in the North, or with
the heads of the colleges at New York and Philadelphia, who,
for practical purposes, should be regarded as belonging to their
caste. Many of these men had been formerly missionaries of the
Society themselves, and most of them maintained some corre
spondence with the missionaries, and with the Society, which,
because of the comparative impartiality that their position gave
them, often found their advice to be of considerable value.

The general character of the colonial clergy has been too severely
dealt with by writers, both at this time and later, though it was Morals of the
certainly not all that it ought to have been. In considering the clcr s y
question, it is necessary, in the first place, to distinguish between

58 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the northern and southern colonies. Though the number of un
worthy ministers who came to the northern colonies from Eng
land was rather high, in proportion to the total, the discipline
exercised by the Society prevented such men from remaining long
in that region, and the generality of the northern clergy may be
said not only to have been free from scandal in their personal
lives, but to have maintained a reputation for piety and devotion
to their duty which was probably superior to that of the average
clergyman in England, and at least not inferior to that of the min
isters of other denominations in the colonies.

In the South, however, the situation was less satisfactory. The
In the South type of Establishment prevailing in that region was probably the
worst possible, from the point of view of securing an able and
devoted ministry. The salaries, though small, were generally suf
ficient to enable a man to live without hardship, and the work
to be done was simply the ordinary parish routine, so that there
was little in the service to appeal to men imbued with a genuine
missionary spirit and, on the other hand, the absence of any im
portant posts to which they might hope for preferment (unless the
presidency of the college in Virginia could be considered such),
chilled the interest of the able and ambitious. The men who came,
therefore, were generally men of limited abilities, of little ambition
and no influence, and, sometimes at least, of very little religion. In
the southern colonies they would hold a position somewhere be
tween a servant and a gentleman, and they might occasionally
be abused and cheated by the planters. Nevertheless their parishes
were better than the miserable curacies to which they might aspire
in England; their livings, unless they were too blunt in rebuking
the sins of the people, would be secure; and because of the
absence of any strong ecclesiastical jurisdiction, they could feel
reasonably confident that neither their private lives nor their public
services would be subjected to too severe a scrutiny.

Under such conditions it would, indeed, have been a matter
for surprise if unworthy men had not thrust themselves into the
ministry. Nevertheless, the sweeping generalizations sometimes
made as to the degradation of the southern clergy would seem to
have been based upon the impression created by a few extreme
cases, rather than upon any adequate knowledge of the facts. If
we count up the instances in which ministers are charged with

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59

specific acts of immorality, the total, though greater than that
existing in a healthy religious organization, would never be found
to constitute more than a small minority of the clergy in any
colony, and this evidence is supported by the preponderance of
testimony from the Commissaries, governors, and others who were
in a position to have a fairly intimate knowledge of the prevailing
conditions. It is probably true that many ministers who were not
guilty of notorious offenses were slothful in their work and
worldly in their lives. Yet, even on this point, the evidence is
not entirely adverse. The rapid growth of dissent in the southern
colonies after the first quarter of the century, and the hostility
shown to the Church by many of the lower classes during the
Revolution and after, would seem to indicate that the ministers
had not done all that they should to win and hold the common
people, but, on the other hand, from what evidence we have, it
would appear that most of them performed the routine duties of
their parishes with tolerable regularity, and it must be remem
bered that a clergyman who did even this would have to work
harder than a similarly conscientious minister in England, for
the colonial parishes were more extensive, the people more scat
tered, and the rate of sickness and mortality higher.

The quality of the clergy varied, moreover, from colony to
colony, and from time to time. A number of observers testify that Variations in
conditions were at their worst in Maryland, and this observation Q ualit y of
is borne out by the large number of specific crimes which we find ^^
charged against clergymen there. The evil was partly due to a
hostility that existed between the proprietors and the Bishop of
London, during the middle part of the century, which made the
proprietary governors indifferent to the quality of men they ap
pointed to the parishes. The fact that the salaries in Maryland
were higher than elsewhere may also have served to attract a
larger number of worldly men to the colony. South Carolina
would possibly come next in the scale of ecclesiastical corrup
tion, though between this colony and Virginia there is not much
choice. North Carolina and Georgia had too few ministers to make
an entirely fair comparison, but among the few they had were
certainly some who were evil.

The situation in most of the southern colonies was probably at
its worst during the period that ran roughly from 1725 to 1760. In

60 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

In the Middle the earlier years of the century the colonial service still had enough
of the Century m i ss i onar y character to attract men o earnest faith, and during
the sixties and seventies a reaction against the evil living of some
of their ministers seems to have led the parishes to exercise a
slightly greater care in the selection of new incumbents. Some of
the young men appointed in the southern colonies at this period,
such as David Griffith in Virginia, Thomas John Claggett in
Maryland, and Robert Smith in South Carolina, were to perform
valuable services as leaders of the Church both in the period of
reorganization and afterwards.

The great scandal lay not so much in the frequency of the
crimes alleged against clergymen, or even in their grossness, for
both of these might have been explained by the general crudity of
colonial life, and were paralleled in the experience of other denom
inations, but in the fact that so many of the offenders went entirely
unpunished. Jacob Henderson of Maryland, for instance, was by
no means the least active or most timid of the Commissaries, yet it
is within his jurisdiction that we trace the shocking history of
William Tibbs. In 1715, shortly before Henderson became Com
missary, Tibbs was presented for various crimes to Governor
Hart, who directed three other clergymen to investigate the case,
but did not consider himself empowered to take definite action
until the will of the Bishop of London had been learned. At
Hart's recommendation, Henderson and Christopher Wilkinson
were appointed Commissaries for the purpose of dealing with this
and similar cases, yet in 1724, when the colonial clergy were re
quired to answer a set of queries sent out by Bishop Gibson,
Tibb's name led all the rest, and he reported that he had been
twenty-four years in his parish. In 1732, Henderson reported that
complaints were still being made against him, and that he "con
tinues as bad as ever," but that, his own commission being some
what uncertain, he dared not proceed against him, because he was
rich and powerful. So far as is known, the reprobate continued
undisturbed in his living until his career was ended by a peaceful
death. His case was, perhaps, extreme as to the length of time it
covered, but it was by no means an unusual example of the inabil
ity of the Commissaries to deal with offenders in an effective
manner.
In the later years of the century there was a great increase in

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 61

the number of native colonials volunteering for the service of the Native Clergy
Church, not only among converts from other denominations, but
also, though to a lesser extent, among those who had been brought
up within her fold. This circumstance helped, on the whole, to
raise the standards of the ministry, but it created a new problem
for the English authorities in raising the question of what testi
monials should be required of candidates from America. Where
the candidate was known to a local clergyman of good repute, the
problem was not a serious one, but there were many cases when
such references were impossible, and, as it was no light matter to
reject a man who had made a long journey across the Atlantic for
orders, the English bishops occasionally felt obliged to accept the
testimonials of laymen. These, however, were sometimes mislead
ing. There are many otherwise excellent people in the world who
find it almost impossible to refuse to affix their signature to any
document that is presented to them, and in a number of cases men
who had been notorious evil livers in the colonies found it possible
to appear in England with excellent testimonials and be ordained
before information as to their true character could be rushed
across the ocean. In at least one or two instances such men were
appointed to minister in the very communities where they had
acquired their unsavory reputations.

Circumstances compelled some modification of ecclesiastical cus
toms in the colonies, though on the whole it cannot be said that Changes in
the Church showed itself very adaptable to new conditions. church Lle
When changes occurred they were noted with regret, and aban
doned as soon as possible. All services requiring the presence of a
bishop, such as Confirmation and the consecration of churches,
had, of course, to be omitted. Where there was a strong Quaker
or Baptist influence, difficulties sometimes ensued about the bap
tism of infants, and even where these influences were absent, some
parents objected to public baptism, or to the use of sponsors.
Funerals, also, had often to be held from private houses, generally
upon the plea of distance. Holy Communion was celebrated rather
infrequently in most parishes. Many of the clergy felt that its
celebration upon the great festivals was sufficient, and few cele
brated it oftener than once a month. When it was held, moreover,
the influence of the Puritans, who maintained that only those con
fident of being in a state of grace should communicate, sometimes

62 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

deterred the people from receiving. Because of the shortage of
ministers, candidates for ordination were occasionally permitted to
read service, but this practice was frowned upon by the English
authorities.

Except where it was provided for by law, the cost of the church
Church building was met by voluntary contributions, by the sale of pews,

Buildings or j^ ^ use o i otter i es> Tbl s latter method, however, was not
practicable in colonies where the government was hostile to the
Church, as it required a special license. The architecture, where it
had progressed beyond the rudimentary, box-like stage, was gen
erally an attempt at the imitation of the Greek, as Gothic had not
yet regained its popularity. The pews were box-shaped, with high
sides, and gates to keep out any but the proprietors and their
families. The pulpit, which was generally the most conspicuous
feature of the church, might be in front of the Communion Table,
or behind it, or at the side of the church, or at the opposite end,
in which case the pew boxes had seats on either side, so that the
congregation could turn around when the minister went up to
preach. Nearly everything that went into the church, except the
stone or timber, including glass for the windows and sometimes
even nails, had to be imported from England, and as such imports
were expensive, many of the churches were but poorly furnished.
Sometimes the minister could not even comply with the canon re
quiring him to wear a surplice while officiating, as this vestment
had to be made of a finer cloth than could be woven in the
colonies.

Though the opportunities for respectable women to earn a
Clergy livelihood were probably better in the colonies than in the older

R countries, and though second marriages were rather frequent, the

lot of widows whose husbands left them unprovided for was,
nevertheless, a hard one, and societies to care for the widows and
orphans of clergymen were organized as soon as the number of
ministers in the colonial Church was large enough to make such
institutions feasible. A beginning was made in Virginia in 1754,
when a plan for the relief of widows and orphans drafted by
Commissary Dawson was approved by a voluntary convention of
ministers, but the first definite organization seems to have been
that completed by the clergy of South Carolina in 1762. The most
significant of the associations, however, was that organized in the

THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 63

colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey under the
leadership of William Smith, Provost of the College of Philadel
phia, in 1767. This was the only important inter-colonial enter
prise undertaken by the American clergy, and it was no mere
accident that through its meeting one of the first steps in the re
organization of the Church after the Revolution was taken. The
societies were organized upon an insurance basis, the minister
making a regular contribution, and his family receiving a pro
portionate return after his death. The New York-Pennsylvania
Society enjoyed the special patronage of the Society for the Propa
gation of the Gospel, whose missionaries supplied the bulk of its
members.

Provincial religion tended to be divided along colonial lines,
and it is possible to identify most of the colonies with some pre
dominant type of Christianity. As a consciousness of inter-colonial
unity began to develop in secular affairs, however, a similar tend
ency showed itself in religion. Not only did the prevailing denom
ination in one colony tend to invade the others, but religious
groups began to appear which had no definite association with any
particular colony or region. The first of these were the Baptists,
who, though they appeared first in Rhode Island, spread rapidly
throughout the colonies, as traveling artisans and laborers carried
their message everywhere, and the Presbyterians, with their more
formal ministry, were not far behind them.

The most conspicuous of the inter-colonial religious movements,
however, and one which transcended denominational as well as ^

political lines, was that known as the "Great Awakening," which Awakemn s
had its origin in the exciting work of Jonathan Edwards at
Northampton, Massachusetts, but which in its wider aspects is
associated with the preaching of George Whitefield. This brilliant
and earnest, but somewhat undisciplined personality made his
first appearance in America in 1738 when, though only in deacon's
orders, he came over to succeed John Wesley as rector at Savannah,
Georgia, the only parish which either ever held. Unlike Wesley,
Whitefield was popular in Georgia, but he remained there only
long enough to form the project of establishing an orphanage
(which he called "Bethesda College"), on a scale which the size and
development of the colony hardly seemed to warrant. The rest of
his life he spent as a traveling preacher in England and America,

64 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

converting sinners, and raising money for the orphanage, which
became his hobby. His preaching set the colonies in ferment, every
province being in some measure affected, created a temporary
schism among the Presbyterians, and gave a considerable impetus
to the Baptist Church, which was more or less sympathetic with
his views, but his ideas produced surprisingly little in the way of
permanent results, probably because they failed to eventuate in
any definite organization.

The ministers of the Episcopal Church, acting on instructions
its Effect on from home, nearly always opposed Whitefield, generally with
the Church success so far as their own immediate flocks were concerned, and
were roundly abused by him for doing so. In the end the Church
probably gained by his preaching, but if so, in the way of reaction
rather than of direct conversion. Though Whitefield remained all
his life officially within the ministry of the Church, his converts
generally found their spiritual home in other denominations, but
the success of most clergymen in checking the spread of enthu
siasm within their parishes drew to the Church a good many who
were distressed by the extravagances and dissensions which that
enthusiasm produced elsewhere.

CHAPTER IV
THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

N THE preceding chapter we have considered the general
circumstances and agencies which conditioned the life of the Virginia
Church in the eighteenth century, and in subsequent chapters we
will consider one or two of the movements which affected the
colonies generally. As, however, the work of the Church was
carried on in a somewhat different manner in the several prov
inces, it will be necessary, for an adequate presentation of our sub
ject, to give some consideration to their separate histories. To begin
with, therefore, we will turn our attention once more to Virginia.

We left that colony with the Church well established and fairly,
though not sufficiently, well supplied with ministers, and we noted
that some of the characteristics of later Virginia Churchmanship
had probably begun to show themselves already. The Revolution
of 1689 brought less change there than in some of the other
provinces. Though Virginia had been loyal to the Stuarts in the
Puritan Revolution, she had no fondness for Roman Catholicism,
and was perfectly willing to accept the Protestant Succession in
the House of Orange. King William appointed Lord Effingham
governor in 1689, and, as that noble personage could not be ex
pected to exile himself to the plantations, Sir Francis Nicholson,
whose service under James II in New York does not seem to have
rendered him at all obnoxious to the new regime, was sent as his
deputy. With Nicholson came Commissary James Blair, to whose
fame we have already alluded.

The project of founding a college in Virginia, which had been
begun in 1620, had never been entirely given up, and now both The College

Blair and Nicholson exerted themselves to bring- it to fruition. oi ^^ m
A . .,, -. ,, o ,, and Mary

As it was not thought expedient to call an assembly until the
sentiment of the colony in regard to the change in government
was better known, Blair began his work by opening a private

66 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

subscription for the college. When the legislature met, in 1691, it
approved his measures and appointed him its agent to solicit a
charter and contributions from the King. Further encouraged by
a monetary gift from Governor Nicholson, he sailed promptly for
England, where he found that His Majesty had gone abroad to
look after his affairs in Holland. He laid the ground for his appli
cation, however, by securing the cooperation of Bishop Compton
and Archbishop Tillotson, and of Bishop Stillingfleet of Worcester,
who enjoyed great favor with the Queen. Mary, in whose person,
as daughter of James II, the succession actually lodged, was legally
joint sovereign with her husband, but she was much too docile a
wife to act upon her own initiative, and would only promise to
intercede with her lord and master upon his return. He proved
favorably disposed, but his attention was, for a time, absorbed in
preparations for war with France, and Blair had to wait several
months before he could obtain the desired grant, though he made
some use of the delay by securing private contributions.

In 1693 the legislature voted that the college should be located
at the "Middle Plantation," which was presently renamed Wil-
liamsburg in honor of its royal patron, while the college itself
received the name of both monarchs. A beginning was made in
the work of instruction with the appointment of one master and
Blair as president, though for some time the "College" of William
and Mary probably had more nearly the standing of a grammar
school. The college building was not completed until 1705, and
then it immediately burned down, but by sacrificing the salaries
of the faculty and obtaining further help from England, it was
presently rebuilt. As its standards improved, the college assumed
an honorable place among the educational institutions of the col
onies. In time it contributed a number of young men to the ministry
of the Church, though not nearly so many as the Puritan college at
New Haven.

Lord Effingham's resignation in 1692 caused Nicholson to be
nro re P laceci b y Sir Edmund Andros, and the relations between gover-

Governor nor an d Commissary were changed from cooperation to hostility.
As we have seen, Andros had made himself unpopular in Massa
chusetts by his inconsiderate zeal for the cause of the Church, but
in Virginia he was accused of taking an insufficient interest in her
welfare. The reasons for this change in attitude would seem to be

Courtesy, F. L. Olmsted

INTERIOR OF GOOSE CREEK CHURCH
Charleston, South Carolina

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 67

a conviction on Andros' part that the Virginia clergy were better
paid than they deserved to be, and a personal enmity that soon
developed between himself and Blair, whose natural haughtiness
clashed sharply with his own. Their quarrel became open when
Andros appointed a supply for Blair's parish during the latter's
illness, and thereafter Blair devoted himself heart and soul to the
undoing of the governor. He presented memorials against Andros,
published a pamphlet on the Present State of Virginia in which he
attacked his administration, and eventually appeared against him
at a hearing before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop
of London, which probably contributed to the governor's down
fall.

Blair's charges against Andros related to his attitude toward the
College and his treatment of the clergy. As to the College, it was His Quarrel
alleged among other things that Andros made its friends his wlthBlaur
enemies, that he interfered with the surveying of the lands granted
to it by the King, and gave away some of them, and that he en
couraged his followers to refuse payment of the subscriptions
which they had made for the College in Nicholson's time. As to
the clergy, Andros was accused of not following the excellent
example of his predecessor in encouraging their migration from
England; of allowing an interpretation of the Church Act which
reduced their salaries; of wasting the colonial revenues so that the
quit rents, the surplus of which had been granted by the King to
the clergy, were all absorbed in public expenses; of permitting the
parishes to neglect the presentation of their ministers, though he
had the right, as ordinary, to collate when presentation was neg
lected; of allowing civil courts to try ecclesiastical cases; and of
discouraging the parishes from appealing to the Bishop of London
against unworthy ministers. The charges in this group relate
mostly to customs which had been established in the colony long
before the governor's time, and the rest are concerned with de
batable questions of- policy, but there probably was just ground for
complaint against Andros' treatment of the College. At the hear
ing referred to, Andros' friends accused Blair of filling up the
colonial ministry with Scotchmen, and of squandering the funds
of the College by accepting a salary as president before the build
ing was completed. The first of these accusations, even if true,
was not a very serious one, however much it might jar upon

68 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

English prejudices, and the second, which was based upon a
technicality in the interpretation of the charter, was dismissed by
the Archbishop.

Andros was removed in 1697, and was replaced by Nicholson,
Nicholson who had been serving in the meantime as governor of Maryland.
Again Blair gave himself chief credit for both of these actions, but if

Governor ^ wa$ rea i]y responsible for the latter, he soon found cause to
repent of it. Nicholson had never been distinguished either for
the evenness of his temper or the purity of his morals, and his
weakness in both respects had lately been increased by a violent
but unreciprocated attachment for the daughter of a local planter.
He and the Commissary soon quarreled, though, except for
Nicholson's private vices, there seems to have been no very good
reason for the dispute, which probably had its real basis in the
fact that both men suffered from a greatly increased sense of
their own importance. In his public policy the governor proved
himself as much a protector of the clergy and of the College as
he had been before. He obtained an opinion from the Attorney-
General of England to the effect that he had the right to collate
to lapsed benefices, and by threatening to do this procured the
induction of some ministers. He also made some attempt to main
tain discipline among the clergy, and as this touched upon the
authority of the Commissary, it probably served to increare Blair's
hostility. By sacrificing the tribute money which earlier governors
had collected, he induced the Indians of Virginia to send several
of their boys to the College of William and Mary, where Robert
Boyle had provided a fund for their instruction.

Nicholson ruled Virginia for eight years, but at length the
violence of his temper became intolerable, and he was dismissed.
Though Blair had become his bitter enemy, the majority of the
clergy regarded him as their friend, and at a voluntary conven
tion held shortly before his departure, they furnished him with a
testimonial, though they had been forbidden to do so by the
Bishop of London. At the same time they issued a personal attack
upon Blair and asked him if he thought he ought to exercise
jurisdiction over them while charges, which Nicholson's friends
had brought against him before the authorities in England, were
still pending, professing, with mock respect, that they were willing
to abide by his decision in the matter. Blair, after offering some

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

objections to the irregularity of their proceedings, replied that the
action against him in England did not suspend him from office,
and they declared themselves satisfied with this answer, but when
Blair asked them to withdraw their personal abuse of him they
declined, and a rather silly squabble followed, which was ter
minated by the final departure of the governor.

Nicholson's successor died a short time after reaching the colony,
and was succeeded in turn by Governor Spottswood, who is best Governor
known in Virginia history for his efforts to promote the settle- s P ttswood
ment of the frontier and the exploitation of colonial resources.
He proved a consistent defender of the Church, and for some
time his relations with the Commissary were amicable, but
eventually a dispute arose between them. Shortly before Spotts-
wood's appointment, the Lords of Trade had obtained an opinion
from their legal advisers that the power to appoint ministers in
the colonies was a royal prerogative which could not be destroyed
by a general act. They therefore instructed the governor, as the
Queen's representative, to appoint rectors for the vacant parishes
without regard to the action of the vestries. This ruling went
further than Blair thought proper, and he consequently found
himself in the unusual role of a champion of the rights of the
laity. Spottswood, on the other hand, accused Blair of being the
chief promoter of disorder among the clergy of Virginia, both
because of his opposition on this point, and because he permitted
laymen to read services in vacant parishes, though this was re
quired by a law of the colony. The clergy, moreover, whose ran
cor against the Commissary was still strong, pretended to have
doubts about the validity of his orders, as, instead of the usual
certificate of ordination, he had only a testimonial of his having
served as presbyter in the diocese of Edinburgh.

This controversy soon petered out without reaching any
definite result. Spottswood, or rather, those who instructed him, Induction
had over-reached themselves by endeavoring to assert the dubious Controvers y
right of collating to all benefices, when they ought merely to have
insisted on the right of doing so in cases where presentation had
lapsed, as this was allowed to them by all impartial legal opinion,
and would have been sufficient to correct the evil of non-induc
tion. As it was, though a few ministers were probably forced
into parishes that did not want them, the custom of "receiving"

70 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

ministers only upon a temporary tenure continued unaltered in
most places, and remained a subject of complaint from the clergy
throughout the colonial period. Just how much harm it actually
did them, however, is not clear. Blair, in one of his protests,
asserted that the insecurity of their tenure prevented the ministers
from making good marriages, but if this was the case, the ladies
must have been unduly finicky, for most of the rectors retained
their cures for a lifetime. It is possible, however, that the theory
of temporary appointment made them less self-confident in their
dealings with the vestries. In 1752 the Rev. William Kay obtained
a judgment of trespass against his vestry, both in the colony and,
on appeal, in England, for seizing his glebe after a majority of
the vestry had voted to discharge him from his rectorship, to which
he had not been inducted. The implication of this decision would
seem to be that clergymen who had merely been "received"
were regarded as having the same rights at law as inducted
ministers.

The queries addressed by Bishop Gibson to all the clergy in
Church Life 1724 enable us to obtain an interesting glimpse of the life of the
m Virginia colonial Church at the close of the first quarter of the century.
In Virginia the value of the livings had by now been fixed at
16,000 pounds of tobacco a year, besides the product of the glebes
and special fees for marriages, burials, and other services. Accord
ing to Blair, the total income thus obtained was worth over one
hundred pounds sterling in the "sweet scented" parishes, whose
tobacco commanded the highest prices, and about eighty pounds
in the others, but some of the clergy make the figures much lower.
Only five or six of the clergy had ever been formally inducted,
but the great majority of them had been many years in their
parishes. Most of them had come to Virginia immediately after
their ordination, but a few had held minor cures in England, or
in other parts of America. The size of their parishes varied from
twenty to forty miles in length, and some were even larger. All
of the ministers resided in their parishes, as they were required to
do, and about half of them had habitable parsonages on their
glebes, but the rest were obliged to build houses at their own
expense. The parishes were compelled by law to keep both glebes
and parsonages in satisfactory condition, but very few of them
complied with this requirement. In many cases the glebes were

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 71

leased out, instead o being worked by the minister and his
servants. Most of the churches were but poorly equipped, though
a few parishes had schools and libraries.

Service was generally read and a sermon preached once a Sun
day in the parish church, the remoteness of many of the parish
ioners being the excuse for not having two services. If there was
a "chapel of ease" in the parish, service was held there once or
twice a month. Holy Communion was celebrated from three to
six times a year, the occasions on which it was always celebrated
being Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday. Attendance at the
Sunday services was fairly good, but other holidays, whether re
ligious or civil, were neglected. Most of the ministers catechized
the youth of the parish with some regularity, either during Lent
or in the summer. Most of them also professed themselves willing
to catechize the negroes when their masters permitted it, but this
was seldom the case. In parishes where there were Indians no
special effort was made for their conversion, but they were allowed
to come to church if they so desired.

Blair died in 1743 and was succeeded by William Dawson, who
had been professor of theology at the College. Under Dawson Commissary
and his brother, Thomas, who succeeded him in 1752, the rela- Dawson
tions between the Commissary and the governor became more
cordial, though, for that matter, the hostility between these two
colonial executives had cooled off in Blair's later years, either
because he became more mellow as he grew older, or because
later governors found it expedient not to offend him. Thomas
Dawson also revived the practice of holding frequent meetings
of the clergy, which his brother and Blair had allowed to lapse,
possibly from a fear of the disputes which frequently developed
at such meetings. He opposed the passage of the Tobacco Act
of 1756, under Governor Dinwiddie, and he also opposed the
deprivation of an immoral clergyman by the same governor,
which, though done with the advice of the Council, was regarded
by Dawson as an infringement of the rights of the clergy. Neither
of these actions, however, disturbed the cordial personal relations
which prevailed between Dinwiddie and the Commissary. Wil
liam Robinson, who became Commissary in 1761, had had a
personal quarrel with Francis Farquier, who was then governor,
before his appointment, and the ill will between them persisted

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The
Frontier

The
Presbyterians

afterwards, but produced slight effect, for the Commissary had
become a person of little account in the colony, being no longer
even a member of the Council.

The religious care of the frontier, where regular parishes had
not yet been organized, was seriously neglected by the Church
in Virginia, and in consequence the region was claimed to a large
extent by dissenters, a result which was facilitated by the opposi
tion of the new settlers to everything connected with the older
portions of the colony, where the earlier planters had become a
ruling aristocracy. In 1716 Governor Spottswood sent the Rev.
Charles Griffin to the frontier, chiefly to work among the Indians,
and in 1738 the Rev. Anthony Gavin went of his own choice
having been moved by reports of the spiritual destitution of the
people, but we find few other ministers reporting from that
region.

Gavin found that many of the people among whom he worked
were Quakers, and from the reports of other ministers also it
would appear that these were the first dissenters to appear in the
colony in any force, but the strongest dissenting group in Vir
ginia were the Presbyterians. Their first meeting-house was built
before 1725, and by the middle of the century they were growing
rapidly in the west, where many of the settlers had come from
Scotland and the North of Ireland. The movement was strength
ened and organized by the work of Samuel Davies, who was
sent by the New York Presbytery to take charge of the work in
Virginia in 1747. He labored in the colony until 1759, when he
became president of Princeton, built up several churches, and
made a number of converts from among those who had pre
viously accepted the Established Church, but whether these had
been brought up in the Church or not is not clear. Though he
had complied with the Toleration Act, some effort was made by
the Church authorities to check his activities. It was at first con
tended that the Toleration Act did not extend to the plantations,
and when this contention was overruled, it was argued that the
Act did not justify Davies in making proselytes from among the
members of the Church, or in serving more than one parish. In
1752, Davies, who already had seven churches, applied to Gov
ernor Dinwiddie to license another, and was refused on the
ground that he obviously could not serve as a proper minister for

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 73

those which he already had. This Davies frankly admitted, and
made it a ground for asking that another Presbyterian minister
be licensed to assist him, a request with which the governor, who
was on the whole a just man, felt obliged to comply. Other dis
senting groups had probably appeared in Virginia before the
Revolution, but they do not seem to have been as numerous
there as in the other southern colonies.

There were also some groups of European Protestants in the
colony, but most of these conformed to the Church. Their min
isters received episcopal ordination and were in part supported
by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The first of
these bodies were the French Huguenots, who came to the colony
in 1699, the governor being specially directed to look after their
welfare. In 1715, 291 of them were reported in Henrico County
alone. In 1724 the heads of thirty-two German families informed
authorities that they were sending one of their young men to
England for ordination.

The bickerings over the salaries of the clergy, which continued
steadily throughout the colonial period, culminated in 1756 in the clerical
row over the famous Tobacco Act of that year. For some time Salaries
the low price of tobacco had greatly diminished the monetary
value of the ministers' salaries, but an upward swing of the mar
ket having reversed the situation, a law was passed permitting
the payment of tobacco dues in monetary equivalents which were
set at a rate higher than the previous prices, but lower than the
present ones. The terms of the Act applied to all debts which were
owed in tobacco, but it was given a special twist against the
clergy by the Burgess' directions to the colonial agent to defend
any suits brought against the vestries in consequence of the Act,
but not against others, so that private debtors took the hint and
came to terms with their creditors. The law was disallowed in
England, but as its operation had been limited to ten months in
the first place, it had expired before the disallowance could take
effect, and the question arose as to whether or not such disallow
ance was retroactive. The clergy brought several actions for dam
ages on the ground of the invalidity of the Act, in one of which
Patrick Henry, who appeared for the defense, laid the foundation
of his fame by resorting to dubious legal tactics. In the end the
question was carried to England, where the clergy lost their suit.

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Maryland

The Act of

Establishment,

1702

The decision was based upon a technicality, but it was not thought
worth while to reopen the case. Other issues were now coming to
the fore, and a struggle was beginning in which the Church was
to lose official support altogether.

As we have seen, a local revolution in Maryland in 1689-90 led
to the overthrow of the Roman Catholic power and, for a time,
of the proprietary government. The first important measure of
the colonial Assembly, after this upset had been confirmed at
home, was to pass an act, in 1692, for the Establishment of the
Church of England. The law, however, was allowed to lapse
as soon as it was passed, and was not enforced until the arrival
of Sir Francis Nicholson as governor in 1694. He showed his
interest in religion by ordering a fast upon assuming office, and
by instructing the Assembly as to what should be done for the
conversion of Indians and negroes, the treatment of slaves, the
table of marriages, public morals and work-houses. With Sir
Thomas Lawrence, the Secretary, he offered to give one thousand
pounds of tobacco toward the cost of every house which was
built for a clergyman, and to bear the cost of surveying every
glebe that should be laid out. He also caused the back taxes due
under the law of 1692 to be collected, and sent the act home for
royal approval. Unfortunately, the law contained a clause provid
ing that the rights of Magna Carta should be extended to Mary
land, and as the English authorities did not know what- this might
lead to, they were unwilling to allow it. They sent the Act back,
therefore, with directions that it should be repassed and returned
without this clause.

A revised act, sent over in 1696, was disallowed because some
of its terms were calculated to work hardship upon the Quakers
and other dissenters, and another was rejected in 1700 for similar
reasons. It was not until 1702 that an act was at last passed which
met the specifications of the English government well enough
to be approved. This law, which was to serve as the basis of the
Church Establishment in Maryland throughout the colonial period,
differed in a number of ways from the provisions set up in Vir
ginia. Instead of prescribing a fixed stipend for all clergymen, it
directed that each minister should receive forty pounds of tobacco
from every person in his parish, besides a fee of five shillings for
every marriage. The appointment of ministers, instead of being

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 75

divided between the vestry and the governor, was placed entirely
in the hands of the latter official, a measure which proved to be
productive of even worse evils than the Virginia arrangement.
The reason for it was probably a fear that the vestries, being
elective, might occasionally pass under the control of dissenters.
These bodies were empowered to raise special levies, not to exceed
ten pounds a head, for repairs on church or parsonage and other
necessary expenses, but an act of 1704 required them to obtain the
approval of the county court before doing this. Another law,
passed the same year, required a record to be kept of the parish
libraries which had been procured through the efforts of Bray,
and also directed that they should be regularly inspected by the
vestries.

The Establishment of the Church was only a part of the general
reorganization which took place in the religious affairs of Mary- Common
land after the "Glorious Revolution." At the same time that the Schools
Establishment acts were being passed, laws were enacted which
seriously curtailed the liberties of the Roman Catholics, including
a statute which empowered the governor to forbid Jesuits from
entering the houses of dying persons. A more creditable proceed
ing was the attempt that was made to provide the colony with a
system of common schools, which were intended to prepare stu
dents for the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Efforts
in this direction began with the arrival of Nicholson in 1694. He
offered to give fifty pounds towards the building of a free school,
and to contribute twenty-five pounds a year for its expenses as
long as he remained in office. Other private subscriptions were
made at the same time, but no general appropriation was voted
by the legislature.

In 1696, however, the Assembly did petition King William to
grant his patronage for the school, which they proposed to name
in his honor. In 1723 an act was passed calling for the erection of
one free school in each county, "in some convenient time after
the end of the present session of the Assembly*" It is not certain
how thoroughly this measure was put into effect. In 1724, when
the clergy sent in their answers to Bishop Gibson's questionnaire,
only one or two of the projected schools were in operation, but,
of course, too much could not be expected in a single year.

After Bray's short sojourn in the colony, no Commissary was

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Governor

Hart's
Inquiries

appointed for Maryland until 1716. When John Hart came as
governor in 1714 he was informed that the clergy of the province
had never once met together since its first settlement. This must
have been an error, as Bray had held at least one visitation when
he was there, but there had probably been none since. Hart called
the ministers together shortly after his arrival and questioned
them as to the state of religion in the colony. Their replies indi
cated that conditions were fair, but could be improved. The
services of the Prayer Book were read every Sunday in all parishes,
and on all of the other holidays in many. Most of the parishes
were sufficiently supplied with church buildings, but their repair
was somewhat neglected. Some of the glebes were good, others
poor, and a few of the parishes had none. The support of the
clergy was, of course, regarded as insufficient by the clergy. Every
minister was a member of his parish vestry, all had letters of
orders, and all professed respect for the jurisdiction of the Bishop
of London. They complained of the lack of schoolmasters, and
of the general neglect of the requirement that such functionaries
be licensed by the Bishop of London. As the moral condition of
the colony was bad, they urged the enforcement of the laws
against moral offenses and an increase in the severity of the penal
ties for some, especially fornication. They also prayed that the
legislature "would seek an expedient against the damnable sin
of polygamy." The growth of "Popery" troubled them, and they
also invited His Excellency's attention to "the abuse the dissenters
make of the indulgence given them by law."

In 1716, on the recommendation of Governor Hart, the Bishop
of London appointed two clergymen, Christopher Wilkinson and

anes Render- j aco b Henderson, to share the commissarial jurisdiction of Mary-
son and, ill 1 1 T- 111 1
Wilkinson land between them, one on the Eastern and the other on the

Western Shore. Wilkinson appears to have been a mild but con
scientious man, who performed the duties of his office as well as
he could and kept himself clear of public affairs, but Henderson
soon became convinced that the governor was engaged in plot
ting against the proprietor, the colony having now been restored
to the Calverts, and in this he felt obliged to oppose him. As a
result, he was necessarily involved in politics, and was rebuked
for his meddling by the Bishop, but in the end his judgment
proved correct, and after Hart was recalled, he enjoyed great

Commiss-

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

Church Life
in Maryland

prestige with the proprietary interest. Eventually, after Wilkinson
had resigned, Henderson became Commissary for the colony. A
rebuke for being overbearing, which was administered to him
by the Bishop early in his incumbency, made him cautious of
exercising any formal jurisdiction, but he did proceed against a
few offenders, and he held regular conventions of the clergy to
consider the affairs of the Church.

The answers which the clergy sent to Bishop Gibson in 1724
show religious conditions in the colony to have been somewhat
similar to those prevailing in Virginia. All of the rectors had been
inducted, but their parishes were smaller than in Virginia. Most
of the native negroes, perhaps because of Roman Catholic and
Quaker examples, had been instructed and baptized, but no
attempts were made to convert the Indians, as the clergy could
not understand their language, and found them averse to Chris
tianity. A few clergymen read service on Wednesdays and Fridays,
as well as Sundays and holidays, and, though the normal number
of celebrations of the Eucharist during a year ranged from three
to six, as in Virginia, there were a few who celebrated it as often
as twelve times a year, and Commissary Henderson actually held
it twice a month. As in Virginia, the youth of a parish were
generally catechized at least once during the year, and, also as in
Virginia, there was a shortage of church furnishings. The livings
were worth from forty to one hundred pounds sterling, depending
on size. Most of the parishes, thanks to Bray's efforts, were in
possession of small libraries.

The year 1724 also saw an attempt made by the assembly to
set up a lay commission to discipline the clergy. The scandalous Attempt to
lives led by some of the ministers constituted the grounds for this Dlscl P lmc
action, and a general attack on clerical morals was made by those
who supported the measure. The laity certainly had some grounds
for complaint, but it appears, nevertheless, that their charges were
greatly exaggerated. Giles Rainsford, an apparently worthy though
somewhat self-laudatory clergyman, wrote to the Secretary of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, by which he had once
been employed, accusing one of the brethren of visiting when
drunk, a dying person and saying of another that he was a "mere
nuisance." Commissary Wilkinson, in reporting the proposed act
to the Bishop of London, also said, "The faults and follies of some

the Clergy

78 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

clergymen are too gross to be excused or extenuated." He declared,
however, that he knew but two ministers on his Shore who
deserved the severe censure passed upon them by the Assembly.
The rest he not only held to be free from scandalous crimes, but
he asserted that they displayed incredible diligence in the per
formance of their duties. Many would ride twenty miles of a
morning to read service, and in summer they often preached
at one church in the forenoon and at another, some distance off,
in the afternoon. A few were obliged to preach every day during
one week out of every month in order to bring the Church to
their more distant parishioners. All of this, of course, was in addi
tion to the many visits which had to be made to the sick and
aged, and for the private baptism of children. Governor Calvert,
who vetoed the measure as unnecessary and contrary to canon
law, also testified that the majority of the ministers had "behaved
themselves very well as good clergymen and good subjects."

The rapid extension of the area given over to the growing of
The Tobacco tobacco created a falling market in that commodity during most
Controversy Q f ^ co } on i a i period, and in 1729 the Maryland legislature under
took an experiment in "controlled production" for the purpose of
raising the price. The amount of tobacco that every overseer or
laborer might plant was strictly limited, and the vestries, which,
in the Southern colonies, as in England, were agencies of the
civil as well as the ecclesiastical government, were to divide their
parishes into precincts and appoint persons in each precinct to
enforce the law by counting plants. In order to offset the expected
rise in price, all persons owing debts, or parochial or other dues,
in tobacco, were permitted to pay them either in colonial cur
rency, at the rate of ten shillings per hundred weight, or in three-
fourths of the amount of tobacco originally called for. The clergy,
whose faith in this economic experiment was rather weak, re
garded it as in effect a reduction of their salaries by one-fourth
and protested vigorously, even threatening to leave the colony.

As a result of their protests and of other objections, the act was
disallowed by the proprietor, but another was substituted which
allowed one-fourth of the parochial rates to be paid in grain. The
object of this act, which was to encourage a greater diversity of
crops, was an excellent one, but it proved nearly as obnoxious
to the clergy as the former law, for they found that they could not

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

exchange the grain thus received for anything but rum, an article
on which, in spite of their reputations, they were not prepared to
spend a quarter of their income. Nevertheless, the law was allowed
to stand.

In 1768 another attempt was made to provide for the discipline
of the clergy, this time by setting up a board composed of the
governor, three clergymen, 'and three laymen. The measure
apparently had the approval of the proprietor and efforts were
made to prevent the clergy from assembling to protest against it.
They did so, however, and, as a result of their vigorous oppo
sition, the act was given up.

In 1767 a list of Maryland parishes showed that the majority
of them ranged in value from one to two hundred pounds ster- Value of
ling a year, and that the most valuable was worth ^364. Four Llvm s
years later an act was passed requiring the clergy to accept twelve
shillings a hundred weight for their tobacco, though the price
at that time often ran as high as twenty-five shillings, and some
times even to thirty. Nevertheless, a table of livings prepared
in 1775 showed their average worth to be about the same as in
1767. A few parishes had even increased in value, the maximum
then reaching five hundred pounds.

The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in Maryland was
a constant source of agitation to the representatives of the Church Di ssent - m
of England there, and if we believed all of their reports about it, Maryland
we should expect to see the Roman Catholics again in control of
the colony before the end of the century. Actually, however, they
attained a majority in only one or two parishes. Their growth was
partly due to the importation of indentured servants from Ire
land, which practice was so extensive as to cause the Assembly to
levy a special duty upon the Irish in 1717, but it is probable that
they also made some converts, for it was frequently stated that
they were "seducing" the members of the Established Church.
The Jesuits, in spite of the restrictions placed upon them, came
to the colony in great numbers, and as they were probably abler
and better trained than the local clergy, they experienced a certain
amount of success.

The presence of Protestant dissenters in the colony is also noted
from time to time. The Quakers had been there almost from the
start, and were, with the Roman Catholics, the chief opponents of

SO A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the acts of Establishment. Before the end of the century the Bap
tists, Presbyterians, and "New Lights" (i. <?., followers of White-
field) had also made their appearance. The growth of dissent,
both Protestant and Catholic, was made the frequent subject of
gubernatorial and commissarial addresses and convention reso
lutions, but it does not appear that Protestant dissenters were as
numerous in Maryland as they were in some other colonies. They
were also less severe upon the Establishment there, probably be
cause they regarded it as a bulwark against the worse evils of
"Popery."

The colony of South Carolina was chartered in 1663, but it was
South not settled until 1670. Its original proprietors included a number

Carolina Q t h eoret i ca i philanthropists, and the desire to propagate Chris

tianity in a barbarous country was one of the motives stated in
their application for a charter. John Locke, the political phi
losopher, furnished them, at their request, with an elaborate
scheme of government which was never put into effect. In regard
to religion, this code provided that the Church of England should
alone receive public support, but that all who worshipped God
should be permitted to form congregations privately. Like the
Maryland Toleration Act, it also provided penalties for those who
abused one another's religion. An attempt at settlement in this
region had been made from Virginia in 1660, before the granting
of the charter, but it was given up. The first successful settlement
was made from England in 1670, and Charleston, which was to
become the chief town of the colony, and, indeed, of the South,
was laid out two years later.

The first Episcopal Church in South Carolina was built at
Charleston in 1681, and the first clergyman to officiate in it was
apparently Atkin Williamson, who was there in 1680. According
to a later witness, he was never able to produce satisfactory letters
of orders, but claimed to have been ordained deacon by the Bishop
of Dublin, and priest by the Bishop of Lincoln. His character
does not seem to have been of the best, and the people would
never accept him as a regular minister, but he remained in the
colony for many years, and was granted a small pension by the
Assembly in his old age. The first regular minister in the colony
was Samuel Marshall who came over in 1696, and was elected

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

rector of Charleston in 1698, when the Assembly voted him a
salary of one hundred and fifty pounds.

Though the dissenters in the colony seem to have been nearly
as numerous as the Churchmen, the latter generally managed to Ecclesiastical
keep control, and their zeal was possibly strengthened by the Legislation
presence of opponents. In 1703 they passed an act inflicting loss
of civil rights and three years' imprisonment on anyone denying
the Trinity, or the inspiration of Scripture. In 1704 they made a
law requiring all persons elected to the Assembly to take the oaths
of allegiance and supremacy, and conform to the Church of Eng
land. This act raised a great furore and was disallowed by the
proprietors. In the same year the Assembly divided the colony into
parishes and provided for the public support of ministers and the
building of churches, but this act was also disallowed, because
it set up a lay commission with power to remove ministers on
complaint of their vestries. According to the governor and Coun
cil, the only reason for including this clause was to secure the
removal of Edward Marston, Marshall's successor at Charleston,
who had made himself obnoxious to the Church party by his
vigorous criticism of their effort to exclude dissenters from the
Assembly. At any rate, his dismissal was the only use that the
commission made of its power during the short time that it had it.

In 1706 all previous acts relating to the Church were repealed
and a law was substituted which was to serve as a permanent
basis for the colonial Establishment. This act also set up a lay
commission, but its functions were restricted to raising funds and
supervising the building of churches. The salaries of the ministers
were to be paid out of the public treasury, but if the general
funds proved insufficient, the commission was empowered to
make a special levy. The salary of the rector at Charleston was to
be one hundred and fifty pounds, as before. The other ministers
of the colony were to receive fifty pounds. The Book of Common
Prayer was to be used in all churches, and the minister was to be
elected by all the freeholders in a parish who conformed to the
Church of England. These freeholders were also to elect seven
men to serve with the minister as a vestry. Church ministers
were given the exclusive right of performing marriages, but
this clause was not actually enforced, probably because for some
time there were not enough clergymen in the colony to make

The Act o
Establishment

82 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

it practicable. The most influential supporter of this act, and
of the preceding laws in favor of the Established Church,
had been the governor, Nathaniel Johnson, and his resulting
odium with the dissenters was so great that the proprietors felt it
wise to recall him, though, at the same time, they expressed a
high regard for his services.

Apparently the only ministers in the colony at the time this act
was passed, besides the dubious Williamson, were Marston and
Samuel Thomas, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel. Thomas had originally been sent over to minister
to the Yamassee Indians, who had been converted to Christianity
by the Spaniards but were reverting to heathenism since the shift
of their allegiance to the English. Governor Johnson had ordered
him to go to Goose Creek Parish instead, though whether this
was for the purpose of instructing the slaves there, as Johnson
asserted, or to check the dissenters, as his enemies alleged, is not
certain. As the fifty-pound salaries were in colonial currency,
their sterling value was only about thirty-five pounds, which was
not enough to supply a sufficient support, even with the returns
from the glebe. Thomas was, accordingly, sent to England to ask
the Society to supplement these incomes and to recruit five min
isters for the Carolina service. He was successful in obtaining
three clergymen, but one of them deserted him at Bermuda, on
the way over, and the accession was further lessened by his own
death shortly after his return. Two more ministers were sent out
by the Society in 1707, however.

One of the two ministers who came back with Thomas was
Francis Dr. Francis Le Jau, who succeeded him at Goose Creek, and

L<= J au w ho became one of the most devoted and successful ministers in

the colonies. He probably did more for the conversion of the
negroes than any clergyman not especially appointed for this
work, and he also interested himself in the welfare of the Indians.
He testified at a later time that his parishioners were among the
most sober and best-behaved people in the colony, and one feels
confident that the example and teaching of their pastor was the
principal cause of the high regard in which they were held. The
other ministers sent out at this time were also worthy men, and
probably justified Commissary Johnston's statement that "There
is not ... a better set of clergymen in all America than what is

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 83

to be met with in this place." One of them, Robert Maule, who
came over in 1707, held a place in the affections of the people
second only to Le Jau's. The latter wrote of him a little later,
"There is not the least person in this province but that expresses
much respect for that worthy brother."

After the disallowance of the Act of 1704, Marston tried to
get reinstated at Charleston, but was unsuccessful. He was Commissary
offered a country parish with a special salary of ^150 to com- J hnston
pensate him for his loss, but this he declined. In the end he was
compelled to accept a rural parish without a special salary, but
he did not get along any better there than at Charleston, and
was finally obliged to give up the ministry altogether. He tried his
hand for a time at medicine and law, but with poor success. After
he had been disposed of at Charleston, the parish was offered to
Bray, and when he declined, the Rev. Richard Marsden from
Maryland was received as locum tenens. He gave satisfaction, and
was unanimously elected rector, but unfortunately, his election
had hardly taken place when Gideon Johnston arrived on the
scene with a recommendation to the parish and an appointment
as Commissary from the Bishop of London, whom the congre
gation had apparently asked to find them a minister. Marsden
was, with some difficulty, persuaded to resign and the people,
also with some difficulty, were induced to choose Johnston as his
successor, but a good deal of ill feeling ensued as a result of the
incident. Marsden received an appointment to a country parish
and some assistance from the Society, but he presently returned
to England where he had received a legacy from his uncle.

The trouble with Marsden was only one of the difficulties that
confronted Commissary Johnston on his arrival in South Carolina.
To begin with, he was accidentally left on an island some miles
from shore on the way over, and had to stay there for twelve
days, without food or shelter, until some fishermen happened to
find him. Then 'he found that his salary of ^150 currency was
only worth about one hundred pounds sterling, and that this, in
turn, would only purchase about one third as much in the colony
as it would in England. As a climax to his troubles, he was sick
for five months after his arrival, and never entirely regained his
health. South Carolina was later described as the "graveyard of
the clergy," and, because its climate was so radically different

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Clerical
Salaries

Grievances of
the Clergy

from that of the homeland, it rarely proved a healthy place for
newcomers from England. Because of these circumstances, most
of Johnston's letters home strike a rather complaining note, but
he seems, nevertheless, to have been a conscientious clergyman,
and to have had a useful career as rector, though it does not
appear that he accomplished much as Commissary.

Johnston's salary was probably larger than that received by any
other minister, even though he received no assistance from the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. However, few of the
stipends of the time were adequate. Le Jau once reported that his
family had to live ordinarily upon Indian corn bread and water,
with a little milk and a joint of fresh meat once a week. Part of
his difficulty arose from the servant problem, however, as he had
to keep three negroes (not yet entirely paid for), to do the work
which could be performed by one maid in England. When he
died, he left his wife and two daughters practically destitute,
though their immediate necessities were relieved by a gift from
the Society.

The dissenters gained control of the Assembly for a time a few
years after the passage of the Establishment Act, and partly as a
result of this and partly from the general carelessness of the
legislators, a number of laws crept into the colonial code which
were unfavorable to the Church. In 1713, when Commissary
Johnston paid a visit to England, the clergy entrusted him with
some complaints to the Society against features of the colonial law
which they considered objectionable. They said that four acts
had lately passed the Assembly which contained some clauses
likely to lessen episcopal authority, and that the practices of the
colony relative to the institution and induction of ministers and
other matters were contrary to English canon law. Licenses to
perform marriages, they complained, were issued to others than
Church clergymen and even to "some mechanic persons" (these
were Baptist ministers). Ministers, contrary to the law of 1706,
were sometimes excluded from their vestries. Those who returned
to England within two years were obliged to refund the bounty
given them on their arrival a measure in which there would
seem to be considerable justice and ministers, their widows, or
executors were obliged to leave parsonage houses in repair on
removal. In elaborating on these complaints, Johnston stated that

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 85

the lay commissioners had been given indirectly the power of
removing ministers which was denied them directly, for they were
authorized to pass on the validity of parish elections, and might
start an investigation of a minister's tide to his parish at any
time.

In 1715 the Yammasees revolted against the English authority
and the colony was exposed to the terrors of an Indian war. Some Indian War
of the remoter parishes were entirely deserted, the men all going
to fight against the Indians, and the women and children fleeing
to the older settlements. In such cases the missionaries, of course,
left also, but where any of their parishioners remained, they stuck
to their posts, their houses in some cases actually being used as
garrisons by the settlers. Several lost their homes and personal
property in the struggle and nearly all were adversely affected to
some extent, so the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
authorized the Commissary to advance a half-year's stipend where
he thought it necessary.

Five years later, the colonists themselves were in revolt this
time against the proprietary government. The proprietary officers Revolt
were driven out and replaced by a government under Colonel Against the
Moore, who professed to rule in the King's name, though without
any real authority. The situation caused some embarrassment to
the clergy, as each side forbade them to accept the marriage
licenses of the other. In the end the royal government took advan
tage of the revolt to annul the proprietary charter, and sent out the
veteran Nicholson to restore order. Nicholson's zeal for the Estab
lished Church was unabated, and as soon as he had settled the
government on an orderly basis, he obtained an act raising the
salaries of the clergy outside of Charleston to one hundred
pounds, "proclamation money," which was said to be worth from
seventy-five to eighty pounds sterling. The act of 1706 had pro
vided that such an increase should take place in three years, but
the provision had not been carried out. Nicholson also appears to
have adopted the policy of issuing marriage licenses only to
Church ministers, but in this respect he was not followed by his
successors.

There were eight clergymen in the colony to answer Bishop
Gibson's queries in 1724, and they described usages similar to
those prevailing in the other southern colonies. They officiated

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Commissary
Garden

Deterioration
of the Clergy

once a week and celebrated the Eucharist four times a year. Alex
ander Garden, who had succeeded Johnston as rector at Charles
ton, read service on Wednesdays, Fridays and holidays, as well as
Sundays, and celebrated Communion once a month, as did one
other minister. Most of the clergy catechized the youth of their
parishes with some regularity. There was a public school at
Charleston conducted by the Rev. Thomas Morritt, Garden's as
sistant. The salaries of one hundred pounds in proclamation money
were now estimated as being worth four hundred pounds in paper
currency and fifty pounds sterling.

Commissary Johnston had died in 1716 and been succeeded as
Commissary by William Treadwell Bull, who, in turn, was re
placed by Alexander Garden, in 1729. Garden was more assiduous
in the performance of his commissarial duties than his prede
cessors, probably because he served under Bishop Gibson, who
expected more of his representatives than did earlier bishops. He
held eighteen visitations during his incumbency, and suspended
four clergymen, of whom the most important was George White-
field. The charge against this famous personage was that he had
failed to use the services of the Prayer Book in the meeting-house
where he preached in Charleston. He declared his intention of
appealing to England, and was granted time for doing so, but as
he failed to press his appeal, Garden suspended him in absentia,
though the suspension does not appear to have had much effect.
After Garden's retirement in 1749, no other Commissary was
appointed, and the annual visitations became voluntary con
ventions.

In 1756 the colony felt itself sufficiently prosperous to relieve the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of the burden of help
ing to support its ministers, and the legislature voted to add thirty
pounds sterling to the existing salaries of the clergy in cases where
the Society's support was withdrawn. This, at the current rate of
exchange, was expected to make the total salary worth one hun
dred pounds sterling. The Society, consequently, discontinued
most of its activity in the colony in a short time. The withdrawal
of its supervision combined with the increased support to accel
erate a deterioration in the quality of the clergy which had already
begun to show itself, and complaints against unworthy ministers
became more common. As the parishes adopted the practice of

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

hiring ministers recommended by the merchants with whom
they traded in England, rather than by the Bishop of London, it
is surprising that the number of offenders was not much higher
than it was. They had also, for some time, adopted the Virginia
practice of not giving their ministers a formal election, but keep
ing them on permanent probation. This, however, does not seem
to have made it any easier to get rid of the unworthy.

The dissenters in South Carolina were strong enough, even
from the earliest times, to offer serious political competition to the Dissenters in
Churchmen, but it is difficult to determine which group was in ^j ina
the majority at any time. In 1740 it was estimated that the Episco
palians formed forty-five per cent,, of the population, the "Presby
terians, French and other Protestants" forty-two and one-half per
cent., the Baptists ten per cent, and the Quakers two and one-half
per cent., but these figures were probably little more than a guess.
Moreover, the classification is faulty, for the Huguenots, who
came over in fairly large numbers at the beginning of the cen
tury, had conformed to the Church and obtained ministers sup
ported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel The fact
that the Churchmen were generally, though not always, able to
control the Assembly would indicate that they probably had a
majority of the propertied class, or nearly so, but this is not a very
reliable index of the rest of the population. In the several parishes
the proportion varied from time to time. In some parishes we
find indications that the dissenters were increasing, or were already
in the majority, while in others it was reported that their churches
were being abandoned for want of support. It is probable
that the ratio of the different dissenting groups also fluctuated.
From the frequent references which we find to the Baptists or
"Anabaptists," as they were generally called in the eighteenth
century, it seems likely that their strength was generally greater
than that allowed them in 1740. In addition to the Huguenots,
there were some Swiss Protestants who came to the colony later
in the century, and conformed to the Established Church. There
were also a few Roman Catholics, but they were not numerous.

The frontier was neglected in South Carolina, as in other
colonies, both because it did not lend itself to regular parochial The Frontier
organization, and because of the difficulty in obtaining ministers
willing to perform the arduous work required there. In 1765

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

North
Carolina

Mission of
John Blair

Charles Woodmason, a prominent layman and magistrate of
Charleston, who had lived for three years in the back settlements,
volunteered to enter the ministry for the express purpose of serv
ing there. He was accordingly ordained by the Bishop of London,
and employed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel as
missionary to the frontier, where he served faithfully until driven
out by the Revolution.

North Carolina was originally included in the same patent as
its sister colony to the south, but its settlement was much more
haphazard and the proprietors were never very successful in estab
lishing their authority over it. The settlers, most of whom drifted
in from the colonies farther north, were largely indifferent to
religion and it was some time before any provision was made for
it. George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, was the first mission
ary to visit the colony, and as a result of his efforts and those of
other Friends, the Quakers for a time predominated there. In
1703, a Churchman who had been long in the colony wrote to
the Bishop of London that, to his own personal knowledge, it
had been for nearly twenty-one years "without priest or altar" and
that before that time, according to all reports, conditions had
been even worse. A missionary had been sent out, but had proved
unworthy. In 1701 the Churchmen, by careful management, had
obtained control of the Assembly, and had passed a vestry act
which provided a salary of thirty pounds for each minister, but this
was disallowed because the stipend was considered too small, and
the Quakers, who had regained control of the Assembly, refused
to pass another.

At the time the above report was written, another missionary,
the Rev. John Blair, was touring the colony. He had been sent
out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel as the result
of a special donation from Lord Weymouth. He found conditions
in the colony still primitive, and was obliged to hire a guide, as
it was impossible for a stranger to find his way about. Finding
many children unbaptized, he baptized about a hundred. Wherever
he went, he organized a vestry, appointing a lay reader in each of
the three precincts into which the colony was divided. He found
the colony divided into four religious groups, of whom the Quak
ers were the most powerful enemies of the Church. There were
many who had no religion but who would have been Quakers had

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

this alternative not involved too high a standard of morality. The
third group he described as "something like Presbyterians," though
their ministers had no regular ordination of any sort. Those really
zealous for the Church, who formed the fourth group, were "the
fewest in numbers, but the better sort of people." Blair gave up his
mission after a short time, because his funds gave out and the
people would not let him settle down in one place, and returned to
England, ostensibly to lay the needs of the colony before the
Society.

Lord Weymouth was so disgusted with this failure that he
refused to renew his charity, and it was not until 1708 that the other
Society was able to send two more missionaries to the colony. Missionanes
These men remained in the province for a few years and were
then replaced by John Urmiston and Giles Rainsford. Of these,
the former was a dissolute person, though it is possible that his
vices did not develop until after the death of his wife, which he
attributed to hardships suffered in the colony. Both ministers
eventually went to Maryland, where Urmiston died in a drunken
fit shortly after Commissary Henderson had suspended him, but
where Rainsford continued a useful ministry. The Society sup
ported two or three ministers in the colony until the latter part
of the century when, the local support becoming more depend
able, the number was increased.

The history of North Carolina was a turbulent one throughout
the colonial period, and minor civil wars were of frequent occur- Act of
rence. The Church, however, was but little affected by these, Establishment
except that Churchmen were generally on the side of the govern
ment. Acts establishing the Church were passed from time to
time, whenever its supporters were able to obtain control of the
legislature, but were all disallowed at home for one reason or
another, though the vestries seem, nevertheless, to have paid the
small salaries called for in these laws with some regularity. In
1765, thanks to the efforts of Governor Tryon, a law was at last
obtained which the English authorities were willing to approve.
It increased the pay of the clergy to ^133.0.8 currency, and
allowed ministers to bring suit in case of non-payment. It also
gave them the right to certain special fees. No definite test of
orthodoxy was required, but as the right of presentation was
lodged in the governor, this irregularity could be covered by his

90 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Dissenters in

North

Carolina

Georgia

instructions. The governor might suspend an immoral minister
subject to the final decision of the Bishop of London, and the
clergyman's salary would be uncollectable during suspension.
The minister was required to repair the parish buildings and
glebes. Unfortunately, this act was very unpopular in the colony,
even among Churchmen, as the vestries disliked having a min
ister forced upon them by the governor. Various expedients were
tried to avoid receiving the clergymen thus presented, and the
act did the Church little good during the decade that it was in
force before the Revolution.

It is probable that the dissenters were always in a majority in
North Carolina, though the proportion of Churchmen in the
population seems to have been on the increase. Governor Tryon,
when he came over in 1765, thought the supporters of the Church
were in the majority, but this is unlikely, though they probably
did include most of the wealthier planters. The dissenters seem,
for the most part, to have been even more poorly supplied with
regular ministers than were the Churchmen. As a result they
went off into various wild extravagances under local and not very
well-educated leaders, so that many of them cannot be identified
with any known denomination. There were many who called
themselves Baptists, but these went beyond the usual teachings
of that Church. Others called themselves "New Lights," but were
not followers of Whitefield. He not only disowned them," but
took occasion, on his last visit to the colony, to rebuke them
sharply for their excesses.

Georgia, which was first settled in 1732, was the youngest of the
thirteen colonies. It was founded by the philanthropic General
Oglethorpe as a haven for poor debtors, but it probably proved
a refuge, as did most of the colonies, for less innocent char
acters also. Nearly a fourth of the original trustees of the colony
were clergymen, and the enterprise was supported by leaders of
the Church. A site was set apart at Savannah for a church and
glebe in 1732, and Samuel Quincy, a member of the famous Mas
sachusetts family, was appointed its first minister. He remained
in the colony three years, until a dispute with Oglethorpe's agent
forced his retirement. His successor was John Wesley, who also
got in trouble with the authorities, partly because of an unfortu
nate love affair and partly because he was considered too ardent

THE CHURCH IN THE SOUTH

a High Churchman. His brother Charles had come over with
him, but left even sooner. John Wesley was succeeded by White-
field, whose brief stay in the colony has already been cited. His
successor also stayed only a short time and was followed by
Thomas Bosomworth, whose interest in the Indians was so great
that he married one, and spent the rest of his life trying to get
money from the colony on the ground that his wife alone had
power to keep the Indians at peace. He resigned the parish in
1745 and was succeeded by Bartholomew Zouberbuhler, the son
of a Swiss parson in South Carolina, who was a devoted minister
until his death in 1766 or 1767. When he died he left a fund to be
used for the support of a schoolmaster for the negroes, and for
other pious purposes.

Georgia became a royal colony in 1752, and six years later the
Assembly divided the colony into parishes and appropriated
twenty-five pounds a year for a clergyman in each parish, but
the only one outside of Savannah to be regularly supplied was
Augusta. Special provision was made for Savannah and, at the
time of the Revolution, it was described as a "comfortable prefer
ment," worth three hundred pounds sterling. The ministers at
Augusta, and some others that were sent to the colony from time
to time, had their stipends supplemented by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel.

During the twenty years that Florida was an English colony,
some effort was made to settle the Church there, but it was not Florida
attended with much success, and was terminated by the return of
the colony to Spain in 1783.

Church
Establishment

CHAPTER V

NEW ENGLAND

Contrast with
the South

Massachusetts

CONTRASTS are always inviting, and the history of the
Church in colonial New England is in many respects so exactly
the opposite of our findings in the South, that it will be more
interesting, and possibly more informative, to proceed directly
from one section to the other without pausing to examine the
more moderate differences which existed in the Middle Colonies.
In the South we have seen the Episcopal Church everywhere as
the officially-favored denomination, and the other bodies strug
gling, with varying degrees of strength, in the opposition. In New
England we will find "Independency," or Congregationalism, as
the established order, and our own denomination struggling
amongst the dissenters. In the South we have been obliged to
tell our story to some extent upon a descending scale. Though we
have seen the Church grow in total numbers and in material pros-
perity, we have been forced to notice a decline in relative strength
and in inner vitality. In New England the growth of the Church
in the eighteenth century was steady, and in some places rapid.
We have already traced the beginning of the Church in Massa
chusetts, and have seen that its entrance into that colony was
made possible only by the exercise of a goodly amount of coercion
on the part of the King and his representatives. Forces were
beginning to work, however, which were to give Churchmen and
other opponents of the standing order a hearing such as they had
never been able to obtain before. Within three years of the acces
sion of William III, the Mathers and their colleagues had their
attention temporarily distracted from the evils of episcopacy by
the pursuit of witches. The witchcraft panic, which seized Salem
and the neighboring villages in 1692 and which cast its shadow to
some extent over the whole province, has often been unfairly
represented as an evidence of the peculiar fanaticism of the

NEW ENGLAND

Puritans. Up to the close of the seventeenth century, however, prac
tically everyone believed in witches, and all countries had laws
against them. In Roman Catholic countries, where witchcraft was
a form of heresy, its practitioners were generally burned. In Eng
land and her colonies, contrary to popular belief, they were
hanged. Earlier in the century, England had seen a witchcraft
persecution much more extensive than that which occurred in
Massachusetts, and similar outbreaks had taken place in conti
nental countries from time to time. Witchcraft cases had appeared
in the courts of other American colonies also, though no one was
actually executed for the crime outside of New England.

The real significance of the Massachusetts episode lies in the
light which it throws upon the split that was beginning to develop Significance
between conservative and liberal within the Puritan party. The
conservative ministers, of whom the Mathers were the outstand- p an j c
ing leaders, though not directly responsible for the panic, had
stimulated it by their writings upon witchcraft. When die charges
began to appear, they advised the judges as to what rules should
be used in investigating them, and they commented upon the
increased activity therein displayed by the Devil as being a pun
ishment for the increasing godlessness of the people, by which, of
course, they meant their increasing restlessness under ministerial
control. Many of the laity, however, especially at Boston, were
opposed to the proceedings. They circulated pamphlets in the Bos
ton coffee-houses ridiculing the Mathers and their writings, object
ing to the inadequacy of the tests they applied to the witches, and
even casting doubt upon the present possibility of witchcraft at
all. To their efforts, at least in part, was due the localizing of the
persecution in Salem, Andover, and a few other places. In these
efforts, moreover, we may see the beginning of a liberalization
of Puritanism which was destined to work great changes in the
Massachusetts scene.

The situation created by this movement, together with the
rapidly increasing prosperity of the colony, offered the Church a
twofold opportunity to advance: through conversion and through
immigration. It is a characteristic of all liberal movements to
dispose some people favorably toward whatever ideas are most
opposed to the system that is breaking down. In New England
the most dreaded religious evilsor, at least, the ones most widely

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Church
in 1689

Samuel Myles

discussed were "Popery and prelacy." To have gone as far as to
accept the former would have implied a greater breakdown of
the Puritan tradition than had as yet occurred, but prelacy, when
examined at first hand, was discovered not to have so hideous a
mien as had been supposed, and some were found willing to
embrace it. Others, when the Puritan controversies became
sharper, observed the comparative harmony prevailing among
Episcopalians, and came to the Church in search of peace. At
the same time, as the weakening of the Puritan domination
coincided with the growing prosperity of the colony, many were
attracted to its shores who had no sympathy with Puritanism, and
who readily allied themselves with the Church or other denomi
nations more in harmony with their personal religious needs.

In 1689, however, all this was still in the future, and the posi
tion of the Church in Massachusetts seemed precarious indeed.
The little chapel in the cemetery had not yet been fully completed
when the stones of the Puritan mob were hurled through its win
dows, and its second minister, the Rev. Samuel Myles, arrived in
Boston to find the leading members of his parish in jail. It was
soon learned, however, that the most important protector of the
Church, the royal governor, was to be restored. The Puritans had
hoped that the revolution would mean the restoration of their old
charter, but, though William III was, perforce, a constitutional
monarch, there was probably no man in Europe who had less
tolerance for republicanism, and the old charter had made Massa
chusetts, in effect, a republic. The new charter which he granted
was, it is true, more liberal than that of most of the colonies, for it
provided for an elective Council as well as an elective lower house,
but the governor was still to receive royal appointment.

With the restoration of order the political prisoners were re
leased, and the little church to which so many of them belonged
began to show signs of increased prosperity. The damage done by
the mob was repaired and the building was completed and
"benched." Gradually the necessary furnishings were supplied,
most of them being gifts of members of the parish or visitors.
Myles, who had returned to England in 1692, possibly to receive
priest's orders, and remained four years, came back to Massachu
setts in 1696, bringing with him various gifts to the parish from
Queen Mary, and began in earnest his long and useful ministry.

NEW ENGLAND

King William soon presented the chapel with a library, and a
stipend of one hundred pounds a year to pay an assistant. As
the latter, however, was to be appointed by the Bishop of London,
and was not entirely subject to the direction of the rector, the
post necessarily became a source of contention. Christopher
Bridge, the first assistant to withstand the perils of an ocean
voyage (two died in passage) was, unfortunately, not the type of
man who could reduce this conflict to a minimum. Though
apparently a respectable character, morally speaking, he was of a
contentious disposition. After quarreling with Myles for several
years, he went to Rhode Island, and began to stir up trouble
there. He was succeeded by Henry Harris, who managed to build
up an opposition party among the Churchmen, though a small
one, and who also courted the favor of the Puritans. This last
policy was an unwise one, for it deprived him of any chance to
obtain a succession to the rectorship, which eventually became the
chief object of his ambition.

By 1722 the number of Episcopalians had grown too large to
be accommodated in King's Chapel, and some of them began Christ Church
the organization of Christ Church. Harris sought the appoint
ment as rector of the new parish, but those who were in charge of
the arrangements turned instead to the Rev. Timothy Cutler,
late president of Yale College, who had declared for the Church
that same year. He accepted, and was sent to England for orders
at the expense of the parish. When Cutler returned he proved
to be an able and devoted rector, increasing the number of his
congregation from four hundred to seven or eight hundred in
five years, though it decreased after the organization of Trinity
Church in 1740.

The most conspicuous, if not the most effective, champion of
the Church at this period was a layman, John Checkley, who John Checkley
did not succeed in obtaining ordination until after the period of
his greatest activity had passed. Checkley was a native Bostonian
who had attended the Boston Latin School, and had spent some
time at the University of Oxford, though not as a matriculated
student. While in England he became converted to the Church,
and also developed a certain amount of sympathy for the "Non-
jurors," as those clergymen were called who refused to take the
oaths to support King William. He returned to Boston about

96 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

1710 and set up as the proprietor of a book store and notion shop.
In 1719 he fired the first gun in a pamphlet war that he was to
carry on for some time in behalf of the Church by reprinting
A Short and Easy Method with the Deists by the Nonjuror,
Charles Leslie. This pamphlet, which was to serve as the chief
antidote to Deism for more than a century, had nothing to do
with the controversy between the Church and the Puritans, but
as an appendix to it Checkley printed one of the epistles of St.
Ignatius, the second century advocate of episcopacy. In the same
year he caused to be published some Choice Dialogues between
a countryman and a parson on the subject of predestination, in
which he quotes, with apparent approval, a charge which he
ascribes to the Lutherans, that the Calvinists worshipped the
Devil. He attributed this pamphlet to a "Reverend and Laborious
Pastor in Christ's Flock," but it is generally supposed to have
been written by himself.

These pamphlets, naturally, caused great excitement, and a law
HisContro- was passed, probably for Checkley 's benefit, empowering two or
more justices of the peace to administer oaths of allegiance and
abjuration to any person whose loyalty was suspected. When
Checkley was called upon to take these oaths he declined, either
out of stubbornness, or because he felt a latent sympathy with the
Jacobites, and was fined and placed under bond for his good
behavior. In 1722 he went to England, partly on business and
partly, it would seem, to try to obtain ordination. In this, if he
did try it, he was defeated by the suspicions attaching to his loy
alty. While in England he purchased the right to reprint any of
Leslie's works that he thought proper, a formality with which
he does not seem to have troubled himself before the publication
of his first pamphlet.

On his return to Boston, Checkley published a Modest Proof
of the Order and Government Settled by Christ and his Apostles
in the Church, which was answered by two Puritan ministers. In
reply, Checkley again reprinted A Short and Easy Method with
the Deists, which he now enriched with a Discourse Concerning
Episcopacy, partly compiled from the writings of Leslie and an
other pamphleteer, and partly the work of his own hand. It
denied the validity of any but episcopal succession, and contained
some allusions to the dissenters which were more or less abusive,

NEW ENGLAND 97

though they did not go beyond the usual amenities of contem
porary religious controversy. The remarks were given no per
sonal application to the local ministers, but the pamphlet was,
nevertheless, presented as a libel upon those gentlemen, and
Checkley, after a trial and appeal, was fined fifty pounds and costs
and again placed under bonds for his good behavior.

Checkley carried on his pamphlet controversy while the trial
was in session, but discontinued it shortly after, the publication
of his defense before the court serving as his last blast. In 1727 he
again applied for ordination, and was again refused, probably
because Bishop Gibson thought the measure inexpedient in view
of the strong feeling that still prevailed as the result of his trial.
He had removed the suspicion of disloyalty, as well as he could,
by taking the required oaths before his trial commenced. He lived
quietly for the next ten years, and when he renewed his applica
tion for Holy Orders in 1738 he was accepted and appointed min
ister to Providence, Rhode Island, where he ended his days. How
many converts were made by his pamphlets it is impossible to
say, but at least they made the claims of the Church known to
most of the literate population of New England.

While these battles were being fought in Boston, the Church
was gradually extending itself throughout the rest of the colony. Expansion of
As early as 1703, within a year of Keith's visit to Boston, some Massachusetts 11
citizens of Swansea petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury for
the appointment of a minister, but as it was not found possible
to send them one, they drifted back into Independency. In 1706
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel let it be known that
it was prepared to aid any duly recommended graduate of Har
vard who cared to come to England for orders, but for a time no
one took advantage of the offer. In the same year it was requested
by Myles to give some help to the minister of the French Church
at Boston, who was episcopally ordained. The first missionary it
employed for work outside of Boston, however, was Thomas
Eager who was sent in 1713 to Baintree, where some Episcopalians
had organized a congregation and asked for aid. Eager, unfortu
nately, proved unworthy of the trust reposed in him and left the
colony in a few months after having created a serious scandal.

In the meantime, a dispute among the Congregationalists at
Newbury had led to the formation of an Episcopal church there.

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Newbury

Struggle
Against the
Congrega
tional
Establishment

The local meeting-house being badly in need of repair, a majority
of the worshippers decided to move to a new location, but a
minority insisted upon rebuilding the old edifice. To prevent a
split, the majority thereupon obtained an order from the General
Court forbidding the formation of a second church at Newbury.
At this juncture John Bridges, Her Majesty's Surveyor-General,
and a staunch Churchman, promised the dissenters his support
if they would declare for episcopacy. They agreed, and the Society,
apparently not clearly informed of the circumstances under which
the parish had originated, sent a missionary. According to later
missionaries, many of the people were very much surprised at
being actually supplied with a minister, and some withdrew, but
enough remained to keep the church alive, and in time it became
one of the strongest in the colony.

The congregation at Baintree disbanded as a result of Eager 's
misconduct and was not revived until some years later when
Ebenezer Miller was sent there. In 1716 a church was organized
at Marblehead, and in 1734 one was started at Salem, but the
latter did not obtain a minister until 1739. A parish was organized
at Scituate as the result of occasional visits from Miller, and in
1736 it received Addington Davenport, later rector of Trinity,
Boston, as its missionary.

The chief obstacle to the growth of the Church in Massachu
setts was the exaction from many Episcopalians of money to
go towards the support of the Congregational ministers. The
charter granted by William III required Massachusetts to allow
freedom of conscience and forbade any laws hostile to the interests
of the Church of England, but there was a good deal of disagree
ment between Churchmen and Independents as to what these
clauses implied. In 1714, after the organization of the churches at
Baintree and Newbury, Governor Dudley secured the exemption
of Churchmen there from the taxes to support the local ministry,
and, though there were occasional disputes and arrests, this policy
was followed wherever regular parishes had been organized until
1728. In that year two acts were passed, of which one forbade
traveling more than five miles on a Sunday, and the other re
quired all persons living more than the same distance from their
own churches to pay taxes for the support of the local Congrega
tional minister. Thus an Episcopalian who lived more than five

NEW ENGLAND 99

miles from his parish church and there were many such would
not only have to help support a ministry he disapproved of, but
would be prevented from attending the services of his own pastor
unless he went to some place in the neighborhood Saturday
night and returned Monday morning.

Checkley and others protested vigorously against these measures,
but they were permitted to stand by the home authorities. In
1732 the Crown lawyers expressed the opinion that they were not
contrary to the Charter of Massachusetts and that, in any case, it
was too late to disallow them. About 1734, however, Matthew
Ellis of Medford, a member of Christ Church, Boston, who had
been imprisoned for not paying the required taxes, sought to test
the law by prosecuting the constable who arrested him for false
imprisonment. The case was decided against him in all of the
provincial courts, but he obtained permission to appeal to the
King in Council. In spite of the opinion above, the Massachusetts
authorities seem to have feared that the case would go against
them, or else they had themselves decided that the act in question
was unjust. At any rate, they repealed it in 1735, while Ellis'
case was still pending in England, and substituted a law which
required the taxes collected from all persons regularly attending
the services of any Episcopal Church to be paid over to the
minister of that church. The act was at first limited to five years,
but in 1740 it was made perpetual.

The venerable Samuel Myles of King's Chapel died in 1727 and
was succeeded, contrary to Harris' hopes, by Roger Price from Growth of the
England. Price, who had also been appointed Commissary for
New England, was the first clergyman to hold that position in
Massachusetts. He remained rector of King's Chapel for twenty
years, when he resigned to spend his declining years as missionary
at Hopkinton, where he had organized a parish. His successor
at Boston was Henry Caner, a former missionary in Connecticut,
who continued his rectorate at King's Chapel until driven out by
the Revolution. In 1740 Trinity Church was organized with
Addington Davenport as its first rector, and the Church thus
had three strong parishes in Boston, besides the French Church.
Whitefield arrived in Boston the same year and business was
temporarily suspended while everybody went to hear him.
He preached throughout Massachusetts, creating a sensation

100 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Outside o
Boston

Connecticut

everywhere he went, except in the vicinity o Northampton,
where most of the sinners had already been converted by Jonathan
Edwards. The general effect of his preaching in New England
was to hasten the breakdown of the older Puritanism, and to
strengthen the newer denominations. Some of the missionaries
were alarmed by the first results of his preaching, but they suc
ceeded in holding their people together, and most of them re
ported considerable accessions when the reaction set in.

The decades of the thirties and forties seem to have seen the
most rapid growth of the Church outside of Boston, at least as
far as the formation of new parishes was concerned, for we find
a definite slowing up in the process after 1750. In 1748 it was
reported that there were three churches in Boston, two in New-
bury, and one each in Salem, Marblehead, Baintree, Bristol,
Scituate, Hopkinton, and Taunton. Several of these, however,
were without missionaries. In 1759 a church was organized at
Cambridge to combat the various heresies with which Church
men believed Harvard to be infected, and East Apthorp, a dis
tinguished layman of Boston who had been a member of the
Society and a vestryman of King's Chapel, was ordained for the
post, which he filled very ably for several years. In the same year
some land was left to build a church in Dedham, but as the
testator's mother had a life interest in the property, it did not
become available for some time, and the church was not built
until 1771. In 1770 a missionary was sent to the western settle
ments of the colony, with headquarters at Great Barrington,
whence he also served some communities in New York.

The history of the Church in Connecticut does not begin until
1706, and the first minister to remain any time in the colony did
not arrive until 1722, yet at the close of the Revolution the Church
there was stronger, in many respects, than in any other state. The
explanation of this remarkable growth is probably to be found
in the fact that the causes which have already been described as
contributing to the breakdown of Puritanism in Massachusetts
were reinforced in Connecticut by circumstances peculiar to that
colony. Connecticut was born in contention, and its history was
largely one of strife. It represented, in fact, the not very cordial
union of two separate colonies Connecticut, centering at Hart
ford, and New Haven both of them Puritan, but representing

NEW ENGLAND

101

very different phases of the movement. Moreover, dissenting
groups, chiefly the Baptists and Quakers, appeared early in the
colony in fairly large numbers and began a long and eventually
successful struggle for religious toleration. In the strife of denomi
nations which resulted, the Church had a chance to be heard,
while, on the other hand, it was also helped by the greater nar
rowness of Puritan Church membership in Connecticut as com
pared with her northern neighbor. Connecticut Puritans had
never acceded to the famous "Half-way Covenant" by which per
sons not in full communion with the Congregational churches
of Massachusetts were admitted to some of the privileges of
Church membership, of which the most important, spiritually,
was the right to have their children baptized. Consequently there
were many respectable and even devout people in Connecticut
who could enjoy no religious privileges except listening to ser
mons and helping to support the minister, and when the first
clergymen of the Church came into the colony they found many
adults who were unbaptized. Finally, it would appear that the
migration of Church people to Connecticut was greater than that
to Massachusetts. Samuel Johnson, who was thoroughly familiar
with conditions in the former colony, says that a parish usually
had its origin in the association of persons who had been attached
to the Church of England before coming to America. These would
interest some of their neighbors in the Church and would then
proceed to organize a parish, applying to the Society for a
minister.

The growth of the Church in the colony was, moreover, entirely
spontaneous. Connecticut had managed to keep its charter in the Beginnings
dark days of James II and to have it confirmed by William church at
III. The colony was, therefore, never subjected to a royal governor, Stratford
and consequently there were no important Crown officers to pro
mote the interests of the Church there. Its history began when a
few Churchmen at Stratford asked the rector of Trinity Church,
New York, to hold services for them. As the distance was too great
to make this suggestion practicable, he referred their petition
to the Rev. George Muirson, the Society's missionary at Rye,
New York.

Muirson complied with their request and visited the colony sev
eral times in 1706 and the year following, holding services both

102 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Work of at Stratford and Fairfield. He was accompanied on these visits by

MuJrson kis patron, Colonel Caleb Heathcote, who, as lord of the "Manor

of Scarsdale," which covered what is now Westchester County,
was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the colonies.
Without his powerful protection, Muirson would probably have
spent some time in a Connecticut jail, and even as it was, the
magistrates did all that they could to hinder his activities. On his
second visit to Stratford, when he administered Holy Communion,
Justices Joseph Curtice and James Judson read a long paper threat
ening him with legal prosecution, and the former stationed himself
and other persons along the public roads to warn all the people
against coming to church. Nevertheless, Muirson succeeded in col
lecting a respectable congregation, and in the spring of 1707 they
felt themselves strong enough to petition the Society for a mission
ary. All those who were acquainted with the situation agreed that
Muirson was obviously the man for the post, but unfortunately he
died before the petition reached England, and it was not until
1713 that a minister, Francis Phillips, was actually sent out. He
soon became discouraged, however, and obtained a position as
supply for Evan Evans, the rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia,
while the latter was in England. Before leaving Connecticut, he
informed the Society that the only adherents of the Church in
Connecticut were people who wanted to get out of paying taxes to
support the Independent ministers a statement which helped
delay the sending of another missionary to that colony for several
years.

This invasion of their colony by the Church of England nat
urally distressed the Puritans, and they sent one of their ablest
ministers, Timothy Cutler, to Stratford to combat it. The choice
was not a very fortunate one, from their point of view, for Cutler,
according to later testimony, was already strongly inclinable to
ward episcopacy, but the fact was not known at the time. In
1722, the Churchmen at Stratford, having persisted for several years
in the face of difficulties and persecutions, the Society relented and
sent George Pigot to be their minister. He had scarcely arrived in
the colony when his ministry bore dramatic fruit in a way that
must have surprised him as much as it did his friends and his
opponents, and for which, in fact, he was but slightly responsible.
In his first report to the Society, which was dated August 20,

NEW ENGLAND

103

1722, he stated that though the principal men were strongly preju- The Yale
diced against the Church, he had great hopes of a "glorious revo- Convcrts
lution in the ecclesiastics of this country." Some of the chief of
them, including Cutler, who had by now become President of Yale
College, and five others, had approached him and expressed their
determination of declaring for the Church of England as soon as
they were assured of being supported at home. The necessary as
surance was given, and in October, 1722, Pigot reported that he
had attended the Yale Commencement on September 4, where
Cutler and six others, "in the face of the whole country ... de
clared themselves in this wise: that they could no longer keep out
of the Communion of the Holy Catholic Church, and that some
of them doubted the validity and the rest were persuaded of the
invalidity of presbyterian ordination in opposition to episcopal."
The phrase "presbyterian ordination," it should be observed, in
cluded the ministry of the Congregationalists in New England
usage. Those fully persuaded of its invalidity were: Cutler; Brown,
a tutor at Yale; Elliot, pastor at Kenels worth; Johnson, pastor at
West Haven, and Wetmore, pastor at North Haven. Those doubt
ing its validity were Hart, of East Guilford, and Whittlesey, of
Wallingford. Besides these seven, who stated their views in writ
ing, Buckley, of Colchester, asserted orally that he believed epis
copacy to be jure divino and Whiting, of "some remoter town,"
declared for "moderate episcopacy." These conversions, of course,
were not as sudden as they appeared to be. Johnson and Cutler had
been favorably disposed towards episcopacy for some time, and
Johnson had discussed the subject with the other converts, most
of whom were his own age. There is some possibility that Check-
ley was pardy responsible for the conversion of Cutler, though,
curiously enough, the achievement is ascribed to him only by his
enemies.

Some of the converts later relented but four of them, Timothy
Cutler, Daniel Brown, Samuel Johnson, and James Wetmore, Three of Them
went to England shortly afterwards. Brown contracted smallpox Ordained
there and died, but Cutler, Johnson, and Wetmore were ordained
and returned to America. Cutler became the first rector of Christ
Church, Boston, as we have seen, and Johnson succeeded Pigot at
Stratford, where he served many years, both before he became
President of King's College and after his retirement. Wetmore

104 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

became missionary at Rye. As might be expected, their conversion
caused a good deal of consternation among the Puritans. The
Mathers, at Boston, rallied to the cause and sent circular letters to
all places in the colony, urging the people to "trace the pious steps
o their forefathers." When this was answered by printing Win-
throp's farewell address, referred to in our second chapter, to show
that their forefathers had not felt so strongly against the Church
as the Mathers did, the latter replied by pretending to distinguish
two Churches of England, a high and a low, and to be in com
munion with the latter.

The example of the "Yale Converts," as they are commonly
Growth of the called, was followed by a number of their successors, and the
Connecticut Puritan college continued, not only throughout the colonial period,
but well into the nineteenth century, to furnish a steady stream of
converts to the Episcopal Church. For a time, however, things
quieted down in Connecticut, and Johnson remained for five years
the only Episcopal minister in the colony, but this does not mean
that Stratford was the only place where efforts were being made on
behalf of the Church. Johnson visited as many of the neighboring
villages as he could, and in other places laymen exerted themselves
to organize parishes. In 1727 Henry Caner, who had been acting
as catechist and schoolmaster at Fairfield, went to England for
orders and returned in the fall to serve as missionary at that town
until he was called to King's Chapel twenty years later. As the
colonial governor was elected by the people, New London, where
the collector of customs had his headquarters, was the nearest
approach to a center for royal authority in Connecticut. A church
was organized there in 1730 and Samuel Seabury, father of the
future first Bishop of the Church, was sent home for orders that
he might become their missionary. He also organized parishes at
Hebron, Simsbury, and Middletown. In 1732 the inhabitants of
Redding and Newtown petitioned for a minister. John Beach, who
had been the Congregational minister at the latter place, was or
dained and sent to them three years later. In 1734 the Puritan min
ister at North Groton conformed to the Church, bringing some of
his parishioners with him. He went to England for ordination and
returned the following year as a missionary of the Society. In
1736 Jonathan Arnold was sent to West Haven, and a missionary
was sent to Derby and Wallingford in 1741. Missions were likewise

NEW ENGLAND 105

organized at Norwalk in 1742, at Stamford in 1747, at New Haven
in 1752, at Hartford in 1762, and at a number of other villages
during these years, so that at the outbreak of the Revolution the
Church of England had twenty ministers in the colony.

The struggle for religious liberty in Connecticut followed lines
similar to that in Massachusetts, but the Church obtained recog- Struggle for
nition at an earlier date. In 1708 the legislature had passed a law
declaring that the churches subscribing to the "Saybrook Plat
form," the extreme expression of Congregational Puritanism,
should be "established," and their ministers supported by taxes
levied upon all the people. A proviso attached to this act, however,
specified that persons who differed from the established order
might hold services in the manner their consciences directed. This
exemption has been called a "liberal measure" according to the
standards of the time, but it is difficult to see that it went beyond
what was required by the English Toleration Act. Its effect upon
the Church was that, while its clergymen could no longer be
threatened with prosecution for holding services, as Muirson had
been, its laity were still required to contribute to the support of
a hostile ministry. In 1726 Governor Talcott declared that the only
Church of England minister in the colony (Johnson) was allowed
the same protection as the Puritan pastors, and his congregation
was not required to support any other minister; but if this was
true, the concession was an extra-legal one. In 1727, as the result
of the petition of Moses Ward, a Churchman of Fairfield, the
General Court passed an act which provided that whenever mem
bers of the Church of England lived near enough to a minister of
that Church to conveniently attend upon his ministrations, and
did so, the religious taxes paid by them should be turned over for
his support.

This law, upon which the later act in Massachusetts was mod
eled, gave the Episcopal Church approximate religious equality
in places where it had a settled minister, but it still exposed Epis
copalians in places not supplied with clergymen to prosecution for
non-payment of Church taxes, and complaints of such prosecutions
were not uncommon. This hardship was not removed, either in
Connecticut or Massachusetts, until the final disestablishment of
the Congregational Church some years after the Revolution. At
tempts to evade the law in various ways, as, for example, by paying

106 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Congregational ministers from the general tax funds, were made
from time to time by the local authorities, but they were not ordi
narily supported by the General Court. In 1738, however, that body
did permit the towns to divert to this purpose the proceeds from
the sale of some colonial lands, originally intended for the support
of public schools. Churchmen protested vigorously against this
measure, on the ground that they, like all other subjects of the
colony, had a proprietary interest in the lands, and so it was
repealed two years later. The Episcopalians also petitioned about
the same time for the right to tax themselves for the support of
their own ministers, but this was not given them, though the law
of 1727 had allowed them to levy sufficient taxes to supplement the
regular rates.

Whitefield appeared in Connecticut in 1741, and his preaching
whitefield there produced much the same effect as in Massachusetts, acting,
in Connecticut p^ap^ as an even g rea ter solvent for the standing order, and pro
ducing similar excesses. The response of the Church to the move
ment was the same as in all the other colonies. The ministers
stedfastly opposed it, and though some Churchmen were at first
attracted by it, few were permanently carried away. In the reac
tion, as elsewhere, some converts were made for the Church.
Whitefield revisited New England in 1764, but his power had
declined.

The decades preceding the Revolution saw the arrival in Con
necticut of a number of clergymen who were to become leaders of
the Church both in the state and the nation after the recognition
of American independence. Jeremiah Learning, who was one of
the pamphleteers in the controversy over the colonial episcopate,
and was to be the first choice of the Connecticut clergy for their
bishop after the Revolution, was appointed missionary to Norwalk
in 1755, after having served for eight years at Newport, Rhode
Island, part of the time as schoolmaster and part of the time as
rector. Samuel Peters, who was to try very hard to be the first
Bishop of Vermont, appeared at Hebron in 1761. Abraham Jarvis,
who was to become the second Bishop of Connecticut, was or
dained in 1763, and sent to Middletown. All of these men were
natives of the colony.

Rhode Island, as has already been intimated, was regarded as
something of a pariah among the New England colonies. It was

NEW ENGLAND

107

founded by Roger Williams, whose religious views were probably Rhode Island
as narrow as those of any man on earth, as at one time he was able
to hold communion only with himself, but who, perhaps because
of that very narrowness, arrived at the principle of separation of
Church and State, as a pioneer advocate of which he has attained a
well-deserved immortality. Williams was at one time associated
with the Baptists, and they as well as the Quakers became one of
the strongest religious groups in the colony. The total strength of
these two groups was estimated in 1710 as including seven-tenths
of the population, though the Independents controlled the impor
tant town of Bristol

The Church of England did not invade the colony until 1700,
when Bishop Compton sent David Bethune to be minister at
Newport. He is alleged to have had with him a "kinsman" who,
like the Poet of Sierra Flat, turned out to be of the opposite sex,
but this report does not come from a very reliable source. Anyway,
he departed in 1702, and was succeeded by John Lockier, a devout
and conscientious minister, who made a good beginning, but
unfortunately died after he had been in the colony only two years.
The vestry thereupon applied to Lord Cornbury, the governor of
New York, to send them a clergyman, and he dispatched the Rev.
James Honeyman, whose labors proved highly acceptable to the
majority of the people. He had, however, been innocently involved
in some scandals in New York, and for this reason, or, at least,
with this as an excuse, a faction in the parish opposed him.

Their opposition might not have been serious, but in 1707 the
Society sent Christopher Bridge, who had just finished making
trouble in Boston, to Narragansett, Rhode Island. Bridge had not
been long at his station when he decided that Honeyman's was
better, and set to work to supplant him. In this he nearly suc
ceeded, for Secretary Chamberlayne of the Society had never ap
proved of Honeyman's going to Newport, and was partial to
Bridge. All of the neighboring clergy, however, and several prom
inent laymen, including Colonel Heathcote, and Colonel Robert
Quarry, Her Majesty's Surveyor-General of the Customs and one
of the founders of Christ Church, Philadelphia, rallied to Honey
man's support, and their protests, seconded by the Bishop of
London, eventually overcame Chamberlayne's prejudices. Honey-
man was allowed to continue a distinguished and useful ministry

Controversy
at Newport

108 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

that was to last for forty years. The wagging tongues were finally
silenced by his marriage to a respectable local woman in 1711.

As Bridge could hardly be expected to remain next door to
Honeyman after his defeat, he was sent elsewhere, and Narra-
gansett was supplied only by such services as Honeyman could give
it until 1716 when William Guy was sent there. He remained only
two years, and then departed for South Carolina. The parish might
have suffered another long vacancy, had it not happened that
James McSparran, an Independent minister at Bristol, became
converted to the Church in 1719. His former brethren held a con
ference on his case and hurled a few libels after him, but these
were not taken very seriously in England and he was presently
ordained and sent to Narragansett, with permission to preach
occasionally at Bristol. Like Honeyman, he lived to have a long
and useful ministry, though he handicapped himself by getting
involved in an interminable suit over some lands in Narragansett,
which had been set apart for the support of a minister without
specifying his denomination.

McSparran's work at Bristol soon led to the organization of a
Growth of the parish there, and in 1722 James Orem was sent over as missionary.
^ e rema i ne d only a few months, however, before accepting an
appointment as chaplain of the King's forces in New York, and
the parish remained vacant until 1726, when John Usher, a convert
from Harvard College, began a ministry of fifty-two years there.
Honeyman had been preaching at Providence for several years,
and had recommended sending a missionary, but his suggestion
was not complied with until 1724, when the Society appointed
George Pigot, late of Stratford, Connecticut, to the post. He got
into a dispute with his vestry, because he insisted on living on a
farm outside of town, though he apparently had an adequate
salary, and resigned in 1728. The next minister sent there got into
trouble when a woman claiming to be his wife arrived in Boston
just as he was about to be married to a local lady. He left shortly
afterwards, and was succeeded by Arthur Browne, who remained
until 1736, when he went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Check-
ley was sent to Providence, after his ordination in 1738, on
Browne's recommendation. The latter's son, Marmaduke Browne,
after serving for a time as an itinerant in New Hampshire, was

NEW ENGLAND 109

appointed missionary at Newport in 1761. A church was founded
at Warwick in 1758.

We have seen in an earlier chapter how Churchmen made the
first settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, and how the N
Church was presently smothered by the spread of the Puritan Hampshire
power into those colonies. The first point at which it began to
show signs of renewed life in the eighteenth century was Ports
mouth, New Hampshire, where the surveyor-general and some
other royal officers were stationed. In 1734 a parish was organ
ized there and the people petitioned to have Arthur Browne
transferred to them from Providence. This petition, which Browne
seconded, was granted, and he began work at the new station in
1736. At this time New Hampshire was still under the jurisdiction
of the governor of Massachusetts, and the lieutenant-governor,
who ruled in his name, seems to have been unfriendly, or at least
indifferent, to the Church. In 1741, however, the colonies were
separated, and Benning Wentworth began his long career as gov
ernor of New Hampshire. Under him the Church was never
without a powerful and loyal supporter in the colony.

Browne preached, whenever he could find time, in some of the
other communities around Portsmouth, and in 1745 he started
churches at Barrington and Nottingham. Browne's son, after
his ordination, acted as an itinerant missionary, serving these
and other stations, until his appointment to Newport left his father
once more the only Church of England minister in the colony.
Young Browne was not replaced until 1767, but after that date
an itinerant was maintained in the colony until the beginning of
the Revolution. Arthur Browne died in 1773, and by the time his
successor was appointed the war had broken out, and it was im
possible to reach Portsmouth.

Maine, in spite of its early foundation, remained a frontier local
ity throughout the colonial period. The first missionary to do any Maine
work there was Jacob Bailey, who was sent over in 1761, after an
earlier appointee, William McClennachan, had decided that the
post was unworthy of his homiletical abilities and had gone south
ward in an attempt to electioneer for the position of assistant at
Christ Church, Philadelphia. Bailey continued for some years as an
itinerant in the colony, serving Georgetown, Harpswell, Bruns
wick, and other villages near the mouth of the Kennebec, as well

110 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Church Life
in New
England

as Pownalborough (Pownal), a few miles further west. He was
also probably responsible for the organization of the church at
Falmouth, a village on Casco Bay not far from Portland, which
in 1764 agreed with John Wiswall, a local Congregational minister,
that he should go home for orders and become their rector, a post
which he continued to hold until the Revolution. In 1768 Wiswall
complained that his people were taxed to support the local Inde
pendent minister, though this was long after Churchmen had been
exempted from these taxes by the Massachusetts law, which should
have extended to Maine.

The general characteristics of New England Churchmanship
differed in a number of ways from those which were to be found
in the South. The New England ministers were, for the most
part, native colonials and converts to the Church from Puritanism,
and, except for the small party which surrounded the assistant at
King's Chapel, as an almost inevitable result of his position, they
were a fairly harmonious group. As might be expected of converts
and missionaries who were obliged to commend the Church to a
hostile population, they were generally in sympathy with the party
which laid the greatest stress upon her distinctive teachings and
institutions. Samuel Johnson, it is true, thought that some modi
fication in the external usages of the Church might be permitted
to adapt it to colonial conditions. He thought it rather a mockery
to enjoin sponsors in baptism to bring their godchildren to the
Bishop for confirmation when such a proceeding was impossible,
and he approved of allowing candidates for orders to read service,
in view of the shortage of ministers. Certain it is, however, that
he did not desire any serious modification in principle, and most of
the missionaries indeed would never have gone as far as he did.
Communion was generally celebrated once a month in New Eng
land, and the regular holidays of the Church were faithfully kept.
These latter observances at first gave some offense to the Puritans,
who disapproved of any stated feasts or fasts, but at a later time
we find it frequently reported that many outsiders attended the
services on such days.

We probably should not leave this region finally without taking
some note of the pamphlet controversies which attended the
growth of the Church there. Of the disputes associated with the
name of Checkley we have already said as much as is necessary,

NEW ENGLAND

111

and the debates which arose from the efforts to obtain a colonial Controversies
episcopate will be considered in a later chapter, but there were
some occasional scrimmages which cannot be placed in either of
these classes. In 1731 George Pigot, then at Marblehead, published
a pamphlet vindicating the observance of Christmas from the
attacks made upon it by John Barnard, the local Congregational
minister. The next year, Jonathan Dickinson, a Puritan clergy
man, published a defense of "Presbyterian Ordination" which
involved him in a controversy with Arthur Browne of Providence
and Samuel Johnson of Stratford. In 1736 the same gentleman
printed a sermon on The Vanity of Human Institutions in the
Worship of God in which he condemned the usages of the Church
of England. This was answered by John Beach, the missionary at
Newtown and Redding, Connecticut. In 1745 Samuel Johnson
published A Letter from Aristodes to Authades^ attacking the
Calvinistic theory of predestination, and was answered by Dickin
son and supported by Beach. In 1746 some strictures on the Church
in a sermon by the Rev. Noah Hobart were answered by James
Wetmore, the missionary at Rye. Hobart answered this in a small
volume and was in turn replied to by Johnson and Beach. In 1752
James McSparran of Narragansett, published a sermon which was
designed to check the practice of permitting candidates for Holy
Orders to read service. This was interpreted by the Puritans as an
attack on their orders and was replied to by several of them.

CHAPTER VI

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

WAS not merely in a geographic sense that the Middle
Their Colonies were "middle." They represented also a mingling of the

characteristics soc i a l anc [ political characteristics o the two extremes, though it
should be observed that the individual colonies did not necessarily
resemble most closely the section they were nearest. Thus, in New
York, with its partial Establishment, the position of the Church
was more nearly like that of the South than in Pennsylvania where
it enjoyed no special privileges at all. New York also resembled
the South more nearly in the number of its slaves which, while not
so great as in the tobacco colonies, was still large enough to be a
serious factor in the population. On the other hand, in New York,
as in New England, the Church had to contend mainly with Inde
pendents and Presbyterians, whereas in Pennsylvania the chief
opponents were the Quakers. Moreover, the type of Churchman-
ship prevailing in Pennsylvania seems to have been less predomi
nantly "high" than in New York.

We have previously traced the first appearance of the Church
New York in New York, insofar as it was represented by the chaplain at the
fort, and we have also noted that it was apparently the policy of
the English government after 1689 to secure the Establishment of
the Church in all colonies which had not been founded in the
interest of dissent. In New York this purpose was expressed in the
instructions given to Colonel Sloughter, the first governor to be
sent out by the new government, in 1690. Sloughter endeavored to
carry out these orders and in 1691 succeeded in getting a bill in
troduced into the Assembly for settling a regular ministry in the
Province, but it was rejected "as not answering the intention of
the House." Sloughter died shortly after this, and the effort had
to be renewed by his successor, Benjamin Fletcher. A bill intro
duced in 1692 was not acted upon before the end of the session,

112

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 113

but in 1693 Fletcher urged the matter so strongly that the Assem
bly felt obliged to do something about it. It accordingly passed
an act which provided that a "sufficient Protestant minister" should Act of
be settled in the county of New York within a year, another in Establishment
Richmond County (Staten Island), two in Westchester, and two
more in Queen's County on Long Island. No provision was made
for King's County (Brooklyn), Dutchess, Orange, and Albany
counties, which were predominantly Dutch, nor for Suffolk
County, where the people were nearly all Independents. Fletcher
objected to the act because it did not specifically give him the right
to induct, but, as he was unable to have it amended, he finally
signed it.

The intention of the legislature in passing this law has long been
the subject of debate. The phrase "sufficient Protestant minister"
in English legal usage meant a minister of the Established Church,
but as the Assembly was then controlled by the Dutch and the
dissenters, they may have hoped that the phrase would be inter
preted in the colonies as applying to any orthodox Protestant min
ister. This supposition is strengthened by their unwillingness to
give the power of induction to the governor, whose instructions
obliged him to appoint only ministers licensed by the Bishop of
London, but, on the other hand, the fact that no provision was
made for Suffolk County, where dissent was strongest, would
suggest that they recognized at least a possibility that the ministers
introduced under the act would be those of the Church. More
over, the Dutch members of the Assembly probably did not care
a great deal what variety of English minister was introduced into
the colony. Their relations with the Church were at least as cor
dial as with any other denomination.

The act had further provided that the freeholders in each county
should annually elect ten vestrymen and two wardens who were,
by taxation, to raise one hundred pounds for the support of the
ministry, regardless of whether one or two clergymen were em
ployed, and who should also have the power of hiring the min
isters. When the first vestry was elected in New York County it
was composed of dissenters, and for a time it refused to take any
action at all. Finally, prodded by the governor, it called William
Vesey, who had been serving as an Independent minister at Hemp-
stead. Moreover, it addressed the Assembly as to the propriety of

114

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Organization
of Trinity
Parish

William
Vcscy

its action, and was informed that it had a perfect right to call a
dissenting minister. Fletcher then prorogued the Assembly to pre
vent its taking any further steps in the matter.

While the question was still in abeyance, Colonel Heathcote,
Lewis Morris, and other influential members of the Church made
preparations to secure the benefits of the act for her in spite of both
the Assembly and the freeholders. The chapel in the fort which
had previously been used for the services of the Church of England
was in a ruinous condition, and so these Churchmen, with the
governor's aid, secured from the Assembly permission to re
build it outside of the fort. In the spring of 1697, when their build
ing had been enclosed, though not entirely finished, they applied
to the governor for a charter of incorporation, and also prayed
that, as the operation of the Act of 1693 had been delayed by the
want of a suitable building, and as that want was now about to be
supplied through their own efforts, they might be given control
of the money raised by the County Vestry under that act. With
these requests the governor complied, and, as he had previously
placated the most influential element in the Assembly by granting
a liberal charter to the Dutch Church, no opposition was made
from that quarter. Thus the Church vestry became, in effect, the
controlling ecclesiastical power and the County Vestry was re
duced to the status of an agency for raising funds. Moreover, sub
sequent elections to that body had proven more favorable to the
Church, and in 1696 Churchmen formed a majority of its members.

Having thus passed under Church control, the County Vestry
renewed the call to Vesey in 1696, but this time upon the condi
tion of his going to England for ordination, a condition with
which he readily complied. The considerations which led to his
compliance are not known ever to have been stated by him, and
so any explanation of them must be entirely conjectural, but it
should be observed that his conduct did not necessarily indicate
a time-serving spirit. From the time of the "judicious Hooker,"
there have always been many eminent divines of the Church of
England who, while holding episcopacy to be of Apostolic origin,
have not been prepared to declare that it was absolutely essential
to a valid ministry. If Vesey, who seems to have come from a
Church family, were of this school- and what later evidence we
have as to his views makes it seem probable he may have felt

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

115

justified in exercising his ministry without episcopal ordination at
a time when it probably seemed impossible to obtain it, and yet
have felt it his duty to procure such ordination when a way opened
for him to do so.

Whatever his motives may have been, Vesey was ordained by
the Bishop of London in August, 1697, and on his return to the
colony was duly recommended to Governor Fletcher, and by him
appointed as "assistant" to the Bishop, who, by the Charter of
1697, had been made titular rector of Trinity Parish. As the interior
of the new building was not yet finished, Vesey officiated for a
time in the Dutch Church on Garden Street, and two of the Dutch
ministers assisted at his induction on Christmas Day, 1697.

The ministry that thus commenced was to last for forty-nine
years and be marked by great fruitfulness. The Establishment Growth of
Act led to a prolonged conflict in some of the other parts of the
colony, as we shall see presently, but the arrangement worked out
in New York, in spite of its doubtful regularity, met with very
little opposition once it was set in operation, probably because the
Churchmen rapidly became the predominant element in the city's
population. Vesey J s habitual moderation and the integrity and
piety of his character also did much to reconcile to his ministry
such of the dissenters as were not irrevocably opposed to every
thing associated with episcopacy. Governor Cornbury caused a
temporary flare-up of hostility by his persecution of two Presby
terian ministers, Mackenzie and Hampton, early in the century, but
the excitement passed over, though the development of the Pres
byterian Church which followed created a more definite source of
opposition than had hitherto existed. In 1714, when a group of
ruffians broke into the church, desecrated the vestments and scat
tered the furnishings, the ministers of the French and Dutch
Churches vigorously expressed their detestation of the deed. At
the same time lampoons of Vesey and the Church appeared in the
streets, but they do not appear to have been the work of any
definite party. More probably they were produced by idle
hoodlums.

In 1717, Robert Jenney, subsequently rector of Christ Church,
Philadelphia, was sent as a schoolmaster and assistant to Trinity
Church, in which position he continued until 1722 when the Soci
ety appointed him missionary at Rye. He was succeeded by James

116

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Rectors and
Assistants

Lord
Cornbury

Wetmore, one of the "Yale Converts," who had originally been
intended for Staten Island, and who in turn succeeded him at Rye
four years later. In 1704 whatever irregularity had existed in the
parochial charter was removed through its being confirmed by a
special act of the Assembly, and in 1705 the tract of land known
variously as the "Duke's Farm," the "King's Farm," and the
"Queen's Farm," the use of which had originally been granted to
Trinity by Governor Fletcher, was fully transferred to the parish
by a royal gift. This land, which now covers a large section of
downtown New York, has been the chief source of Trinity's
wealth, and has also been the source of some fat pickings for
shyster lawyers. Though a few lots have had to be sold from time
to time as the parish finances became straitened, the bulk of it has
been kept intact.

Vesey died in 1746 and was succeeded by the Rev. Henry Bar
clay, who had been a missionary to the Indians west of Albany.
Under his rectorate the first chapel of the parish, St. George's, was
built in 1752. It is now an independent parish. The second chapel,
St. Paul's, which was completed in 1766, has remained a part of
the parish, and the original structure, which is still standing, is the
oldest church building in New York City. Its interior has been
considerably changed, however.

After Barclay's death in 1764 he was succeeded by the Rev.
Samuel Auchmuty, who had been his assistant for some time, and
the Rev. Charles Inglis, former missionary at Dover, Delaware,
was chosen to assist Auchmuty. Inglis was one of the few ministers
of the Church, in America or elsewhere, to be blessed with the
approval of George Whitefield, and his "Methodist" leanings
commended him to a portion of the congregation. The rector felt
that Inglis' talents would be more useful elsewhere, but accepted
him for the sake of peace. Inglis changed his sentiments, appar
ently, as time went on, for in his later years he was regarded as a
High Churchman. He became rector of the parish in 1775 and so
continued throughout the Revolution, but left with the British
evacuation, to become, after a short time, the first bishop of Nova
Scotia.

Though, as we have seen, the Act of 1693 provided for the set
tling of ministers in Westchester, on Staten Island, and in one
county on Long Island, no ministers were actually sent to any of

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

117

these places until after the arrival of Lord Cornbury as governor
in 1702. That individual, a degenerate and pervert, who is said to
have spent half of his time dressed in women's clothes, was one
of the most despicable of the colonial governors, a class that cannot
be said, as a whole, to have set a very high standard either of de
cency or integrity. Because he desired to retain the favor of Queen
Anne, or for some other reason, he was, however, a vigorous sup
porter of the Church, which sometimes, in fact, suffered from the
excess of his zeal.

In Westchester his efforts were seconded by the more reputable
Heathcote, and it is probably because the latter had already re- Col.Heath-

duced that county to some semblance of ecclesiastical order that "! te ai ? d 5*^
^-> i T i T t /- / 1 /- Church in

Cornbury sent John Bartow, the nrst of the Society s missionaries, Westchester

there in 1702. Heathcote, in an account of the origin of the Church
in Westchester which he later supplied to the Society, said that, as
there had been no minister of any description there for some time,
a general disregard of the Sabbath came to prevail. To put a stop
to this, he let it be known that unless the people of the various
communities appointed "readers" and observed the day as best
they could, he would direct the captains of the militia to drill
their companies on Sunday. This dreary prospect was sufficient to
cause the appointment of some lay readers and in time a few dis
senting ministers from New England made their appearance. In
the village of Westchester the people liked one of these ministers
so well that they requested Heathcote to use his influence to get
him inducted. Heathcote replied that this was impossible, and
diplomatically suggested that they call the Rev. Daniel Bondet,
a French minister then at Boston, who had been episcopally or
dained, to supply the French church at New Rochelle and their
own, at the same time retaining the other minister and supporting
him as well as they could. As the latter raised some objections to
this scheme, Heathcote contrived to persuade him that it would be
advisable to leave the county. The wily Colonel then proceeded,
with the aid of Vesey and Bondet, to build up the Church in his
dominion by winning over as many as he could of the chief men
in every community.

Westchester village at first offered some rather vigorous oppo
sition to Heathcote's plans, but by the time of Bartow's arrival it
had been sufficiently tamed so that it accepted his ministry without

118 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

serious protest. The neighboring village of Eastchester was dis
posed, at first, to raise some difficulties, but Lord Cornbury soon
put an end to that, and Bartow found himself fairly in possession
of the field. Of this missionary Lewis Morris wrote in 1707 that
he was "a very good man, and of exemplary life, but . . . very
inactive.' 1 Morris's judgments, however, were seldom impartial,
and it is possible that at this time he was annoyed at Colonel
Heathcote or happened to have some other reason for being dissat
isfied with the state of affairs in Westchester. As a result of his
charges Bartow was suspended from the Society's service, but was
presently reinstated on the recommendation of others, and contin
ued at his post so long as to be the oldest missionary in the
Society's service after the dismissal of Talbot in 1725.

It will be remembered that the Church Act provided for the set-
Thc Church tlement of two ministers in Westchester County. The second min-
atRyc j gter to |_ )e sent there was Thomas Pritchard who, in 1704, was

stationed at Rye whence he also served Bedford and Mamaroneck.
He committed suicide, or was murdered, and was replaced by
George Muirson, whose pioneer work in Connecticut has already
attracted our attention. His labors in New York appear to have
been equally useful, but he died three years after his arrival, and
the parish was then vacant until 1710, when Christopher Bridge
was appointed to it. This gentleman we also met when we were
in New England, where we found him something of a trouble
maker. Two rebukes to his ambition had, however, been sufficient,
and during the nine years that elapsed before his death he served
quietly and conscientiously at his post in Rye. Bondet, who re
mained at New Rochelle after Bartow had taken over the work
at Westchester, made a third minister in the county during the
early years of the century. He was supported by the voluntary
contributions of the French colony, supplemented after a time by
aid from the Society.

After Bridge's death, the parish at Rye remained vacant for
three years until Robert Jenney was sent there, as has already
been noted. On his being transferred to Long Island in 1726, James
Wetmore was sent to Rye and the parish began to enjoy the
benefit of his long and useful ministry. In 1728 he reported that he
had found many whole families unbaptized and many more with
several adult members unbaptized, but as he reported two years

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

119

later that the Quakers were causing trouble in his parish, it is pos
sible that this situation was due to their influence and not to any
negligence on the part of his predecessors. In 1729 the people of
White Plains brought suit against the officers appointed to collect
the ecclesiastical taxes, but it was decided in favor of the Church.
Thereafter the Church settlement in Westchester continued undis
turbed until the Revolution. In time the local support became suf
ficient so that the Society discontinued its stipends.

Long Island, except that part of it which was nearest to Man
hattan, was settled largely from Connecticut, and it was there that Long Island
the dissenting interest was strongest. In the most eastern part of
the island, which was included in Suffolk County, no attempt
was made to establish the Church at all, and it was not introduced
there until a few of the inhabitants got together voluntarily and
petitioned for a missionary. In King's County, on the western nose
of the island, no attempt at an establishment was made, either,
because the population was largely Dutch. The Act of 1693 had,
however, provided for the settlement of two "sufficient Protestant
ministers" in Queen's County, which lay in between the other
two, and it was here that the dispute over the application of the
act waged most bitterly.

The controversy centered in the village of Jamaica, where one
of the ministers appointed under the act was to be located. In that Controversy at
town the dissenters, who constituted most of the population, had J amaica
called a minister of their own and started to build a church.
When the act for settling the ministry was passed, they stopped
building, and the church was completed and a parsonage built by
the local vestry elected under the act. This body was composed of
dissenters, and in 1702 it called a dissenting minister to the parish.
In the same year, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
sent a missionary to Jamaica, but he died before he could be in
ducted. James Honeyman was next sent there, and remained a
short time but presently became the subject of evil reports. These
were eventually shown to be unfounded, but Honeyman was
removed and sent by Cornbury to Newport. He was replaced by
William Urquhart whom the governor formally inducted in 1704.
Having done this, Cornbury ordered the dissenting minister to
yield the church and parsonage to Urquhart. This was an arbi
trary proceeding, since the right to their possession had never been

120 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

legally determined, and it became a source of complaint on the
part of the governor's enemies, but was complied with for the
time being and given an ex post facto legality by an act of the
Assembly in 1706.

Urquhart remained in possession of the property until his death,
but during the vacancy which followed the dissenters again seized
both church and parsonage, and some justices of the peace who
fined them for taking the former were dismissed. In 1710 the local
vestry called another dissenting minister, and in the same year the
Church minister designated for the post, the Rev. Thomas Poyer,
arrived in the colony. Robert Hunter, who was then governor, was
probably as much concerned for the interests of the Church as
Cornbury had been, but he was more scrupulous as to the means
he used to promote them. He told Poyer that the only legal
method to obtain either the property or his salary was to bring
suit for them in the colonial courts, and the governor offered to
bear the costs of the action himself. Poyer, however, was not pre
pared to take such a measure without consulting the authorities
at home. When they learned of the situation they advised him not
to commence the suit until he was sure of having it tried before
favorable judges, or until they had obtained an instruction from
the Queen, which was presently granted, directing the governor
to admit appeals to himself and Council in suits for any amount
where the Church was a party, as, normally, such appeals were
allowed only in cases involving one hundred pounds or more.

This hesitation caused a long delay, during which Poyer was
Its Conclusion without parsonage or salary (except his stipend from the Society),
and was so unpopular that the local miller refused to grind his
grain, telling him to eat it whole, as the hogs did. Eventually,
however, Poyer was authorized to start a suit for his salary, and
after having been lost in the lower court, the case was finally de
cided in favor of the Church by Chief Justice Morris in 1723,
though Poyer experienced some difficulty in collecting the arrears.
The right to the church building was made a separate issue,
probably because the structure had been begun by the dissenters
before the passage of the Act of Establishment, and a jury under
Morris subsequently decided that it belonged to the Presbyterians.
The Episcopalians were thereby forced to meet in the town house

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 121

for a while, but in a short time they succeeded in building another
church.

At Hempstead, where the other minister appointed for Queen's
County was located, the opposition to the Church was less bitter Hempstead
and less prolonged. This was partly because the dissenters had
not been organized there before a Church minister was sent
among them, and partly, it is probable, because of the moderation
and prudence of the one who was sent. John Thomas, who was
appointed to the post in 1704, was rebuked by Secretary Chamber-
layne, early in his career, for boasting of the stubborn dissenters
he had won over instead of the stubborn heathen he should have
converted a sensitivity on this point seldom displayed by the
Secretaries but he was by no means the fanatical Churchman
that this rebuke might seem to imply. On the contrary, if he won
over the dissenters it was by his moderation and his readiness to
go as far as he could in making allowance for their prejudices,
not by any vigorous insistence upon the exclusive claims of the
Church. In 1705 he reported that, though he had had less trouble
than his colleague at Jamaica, everything depended upon the sup
port of the governor, but he soon established himself sufficiently
in the favor of his people so that he was not molested when Corn-
bury was recalled. As he enjoyed a long life and was not trans
ferred, the parish was saved from those frequent vacancies which
served as occasions for renewing the dispute between Churchmen
and dissenters at Jamaica.

After the settlement of the Jamaica dispute, the growth of the
Church in the county was steady but quiet, and there are few
striking occurrences in its subsequent history. After the death of
Thomas, Jenney served for a time as missionary at Hempstead
and was succeeded by Samuel Seabury, the elder, who so en
deared himself to the people that they built a house for his widow
after his death. His son served for a time as minister at Jamaica,
until he was transferred to Westchester in 1766.

In 1724 some residents of Brookhaven, in Suffolk County, peti
tioned for a minister, and a few years later Alexander Campbell
was sent to them. He was convicted of gross immorality, however,
and was removed. His successor, Isaac Browne, during a long and
devoted ministry built up a thriving parish.

The early history of the Church on Staten Island was also

122 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Staten Island marked with controversy, but most of the disputes were among
the Churchmen themselves, not between them and the dissenters.
Under the first missionary, the Rev. Aeneas Mackenzie, the prog
ress of the Church was peaceable and encouraging. In 1715 Gov
ernor Hunter incorporated the parish by letters patent, and the
next year Mackenzie reported that a church and parsonage
had been built and a glebe purchased, entirely by voluntary
subscription.

After Mackenzie's death this peaceful development was inter
rupted. In 1723 the wardens and vestry of the local church (St.
Andrew's) elected Robert Weyman to be their rector, and in the
same year Governor Burnet appointed William Harrison to the
post and the Society sent James Wetmore there. These men were
all Church ministers, and likewise men of good character who
were the victims of the conflicting schemes of others rather than
of any misconduct of their own, but, as the parish could support
only one minister, two of them had to be disappointed. It was
finally agreed that Harrison should remain on Staten Island,
without any aid from the Society, and that Wetmore should be
appointed assistant at Trinity, New York. Weyman was sent
elsewhere.

Harrison continued an acceptable ministry on the island, and
in 1735 was restored to the Society's pay-roll. He also shared in the
labor of starting the church at Newark, New Jersey. His successor
got into a dispute with the vestry over the right to sell wood from
the parish land and resigned, but under the two ministers who
followed, the Church enjoyed a long period of peaceful develop
ment only interrupted in 1762 when Lord Amherst caused his
troops to camp on the glebe, which resulted in great damage to
the church property.

Though Albany had not been included in the act for settling
Albany ministers, a missionary, the Rev. Thomas Barclay, was sent there

in 1709, the Society's stipend being supplemented by an allowance
from the English government, given because Barclay's services
would benefit the soldiers who were stationed at that frontier post,
and also, it is possible, in the hope that he would be able to coun
teract the efforts of the French missionaries to win over the Iro-
quois. Some work had already been done among these Indians by
Dutch ministers, and Barclay, though with difficulty, succeeded in

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 123

persuading the converts to accept the Church of England. Some
of the Dutch were also won over by being told that the doctrine of
the Church was substantially the same as theirs. In 1713 Barclay
wrote that he had succeeded in inducing three of the leading
families of the region the Schuylers, the van Rensselaers, and the
Livingstons to accept his ministry. The last-named family, or part
of it, subsequently became Presbyterian, however. Barclay is said
by a later missionary to have suffered from a hasty temper, but he
worked hard and with fair success until 1722, when he went mad.
He was not replaced until 1728 when John Miln was sent to the
village, which he found "beyond expectation polite and large,"
with a population of about one thousand, most of whom, however,
were Dutch Calvinists. Barclay had succeeded in having a church
built before his collapse. He had also worked among the Mohawk
Indians with some success, and Miln made a practice of visiting
them four times a year until 1735 when Henry Barclay, a son of
Thomas, was sent to work among them. Thereafter, missionaries
were generally maintained both at Albany and at the Mohawk
Castle, though for a few years during the later sixties both stations
were united under the Rev. Henry Munro. Some residents of
Dutchess County petitioned for a missionary in 1766, and one was
presently sent to Poughkeepsie.

In 1710 Governor Hunter acquired some lands in the colony as
a speculation, and endeavored to settle them with some Germans German
from the Palatinate, whose elector was driving many of his sub- Settlers
jects out by his efforts to bring his dominion back to Roman
Catholicism. Hunter's experiment was a tragic failure, and after
a period of starvation the surviving Palatines drifted into Penn
sylvania and the other colonies to the southward. In religion the
settlers were divided between Lutheranism and Calvinism, and
while they were in the colony the Calvinists agreed to conform to
the Church, but the Lutherans refused to do so.

The founding of King's College (now Columbia) was largely
the work of Churchmen. It remained under Church control until King's
well after the Revolution, and the shadow of this control still College
persists. Talk of the project probably began with the century, but
it was not until 1746 that the legislature authorized the formation
of a lottery to raise money for the purpose. The money thus ob
tained was placed in the hands of a board of trustees of whom

124 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

a majority were Churchmen, and was supplemented by the gift of
a large tract of land from Trinity Church. A condition of the
latter gift was that the president of the College should always be
a communicant of the Church, and that the services of the Book
of Common Prayer should always be used in the chapel. Accord
ing to a statement made by the vestry, the reason for this specifica
tion was that an effort had been made by some to exclude all
religious teaching from the College. Whatever its motives, the gift
roused some opposition to the College among the dissenters, espe
cially the Presbyterians.

Nevertheless, the Assembly continued to show some favor to
the College. In 1753 it passed an act appointing trustees and in
the same year it appropriated five hundred pounds out of the excise
duties for the next seven years to the College. In 1754 the College
was given a royal charter. It had started operations earlier in the
same year under Dr. Samuel Johnson, late of Stratford, who was
probably at that time the most learned of the colonial clergy. He
continued in office until 1762, when he was succeeded by the Rev.
Myles Cooper, a gifted if somewhat facetious Englishman, who
had been a tutor at the College the year before, and who continued
as president until the Revolution drove him out and changed the
name of the College from King's to Columbia.

In 1762 James Jay was sent to England to raise money for the
College. When he arrived, he found the Rev. William Smith on
the ground seeking funds for the institution at Philadelphia, of
which he was the head. Smith was annoyed at the intrusion, but
Archbishop Seeker persuaded him of the advisability of joining
forces with Jay, and the two of them obtained a royal "brief
under which they could have collections made in the churches of
England if the rectors were willing. The King also granted ,400
to King's College and ^200 to the College at Philadelphia, the
reason for the discrimination being that the latter had another
patron in Thomas Penn, the proprietor. The joint collection was
fairly successful, bringing ^5,937 to each institution.

If we have lingered too long over the history of the Church in

Pennsylvania New York, our excuse must be found in its complex character.

As the Church developed along different lines in each of the

leading counties, it is necessary to go into some detail in order

to make the subject clear. The story of Pennsylvania, though not

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 125

less important, is considerably simpler. That colony, as everyone
knows, was founded by William Penn, partly as a real estate specu
lation and partly as a refuge for Quakers. Both objects required
the exercise of general toleration in matters of religion, and such
a toleration was provided for from the start. Moreover, as has al
ready been mentioned, the freedom of the members of the Church
of England to worship in their own way in the colony had been
secured by a special clause in the proprietary charter.

Nevertheless, though the Church did not suffer any persecution
in Pennsylvania, its relations with the proprietor were not alto
gether devoid of friction. Its supporters complained, though
whether justly or not it is difficult to say, that Penn electioneered
with the people to make them vote for Quaker candidates, and
further discriminated against Churchmen by allowing the courts
to refuse oaths even to those who wished to take them. Later on,
they also complained of not being allowed to bear arms. On the
other hand, Penn protested that the ministers of the Church
preached too much against Quaker principles, "as if ... they
would stir up their people against those whose tenderness admits
them into shares in the administration to turn them out," and he
added, "We cannot yet be so self-denying as to let those that had
no part of the heat of the day, not one third of the number and
not one fourth of the estate, and not one tenth of the trouble and
labour . . . give laws to us and make us dissenters, and worse
than that in our own country." In later years, the colony was
pretty definitely divided into a Quaker and an anti-Quaker party,
with Churchmen supplying most of the leadership of the latter,
but the issues between them were only secondarily religious, and
related chiefly to such questions as the defense of the frontier a
matter in which scruples of the Quakers always caused a good
deal of difficulty and the support due to the proprietors, who
by then had become Churchmen.

The opinion has been expressed by a recent historian of Penn
sylvania, Charles P. Keith, that "Probably from the time that the organizatio
English took possession of the town of New Castle in October, of Christ
1664, stipulating that all the conquered should, as formerly, enjoy church
the liberty of their conscience in Church discipline, there was al
ways some person on the western shore of Delaware River and
Bay who acknowledged belonging to the Church of England."

126 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The same authority thinks that the first minister of the Church to
go into the region was the Rev, John Yeo, whom we have already
mentioned in connection with the founding of the Church in
Maryland, and who came from that colony into the settlements
along the Delaware in 1677 and held services for some months
during the ensuing year. This was before the actual founding of
the colony of Pennsylvania, which was not chartered until 1680,
and we must skip eighteen years before we find the formal begin
ning of the Church in that province, for it was not until 1694-5,
that the Churchmen at Philadelphia began to associate together
with a view to organizing a parish. They may have been stimu
lated to this partly by the example and prompting of Governor
Francis Nicholson and Secretary Thomas Lawrence of Maryland,
but the movement probably had a local origin also. It was about
this time that George Keith withdrew from the fold of orthodox
Quakerism and began his progress toward the Church, and the
religious unrest which resulted probably led the Churchmen to
think about the desirability of making provision for their own
needs. While their Church was being built, they made use for a
time of the Keithian meeting-house, but few of their number, pos
sibly only one, were converts from Quakerism.

The name of the first minister of Christ Church, as the parish
Evan Evans thus organized came to be called, is not known. It would seem
that for a time the Church people were kept together through the
work of I. Arrowsmith, a schoolmaster sent by Nicholson, who
was probably, like most Church of England schoolmasters, in
deacon's orders, and that the services of a priest were occasionally
supplied from Maryland. In 1697, having completed their church
building, the congregation asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to
supply them with a minister, and sent Colonel Robert Quarry to
England to support their petition. The request was favorably re
ceived, and the Rev. Thomas Clayton was sent among them. He
lived only two years after his arrival, but during that time he
worked hard and effectively so much so that his brethren in
Maryland criticized him for being overzealous in his efforts to con
vert the Quakers and other dissenters. On his death he was suc
ceeded after an interval by Evan Evans who, though not the
planter of the Church at Philadelphia, deserves to be regarded as

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 127

its chief cultivator, for during a ministry of eighteen years he
brought it to a flourishing condition.

Evans was supported, in addition to what he received in local
contributions, by a stipend of fifty pounds from the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, which also gave thirty pounds to sup
port a parish school. In a report which he made to the Society in
1707 he also mentioned Sir Francis Nicholson as one of the chief
benefactors of the Church. During the early years of his rectorate
he enjoyed the services of an assistant, the Rev. John Thomas, later
missionary at Hempstead, and while thus supplied he held two
evening lectures a month, one on the last Sunday of the month,
preparatory to the Eucharist which was to be celebrated the fol
lowing week, and the other for the benefit of a group of young
men who were also accustomed to meet after morning service to
read the Bible and sing psalms. On the latter occasions, Evans,
whenever he could be present, would read prayers and preach.
The evening lectures had the advantage of attracting many young
Quakers, who would begin by listening at the windows until some
of them got up courage enough to come inside, where what they
heard proved sufficiently appealing so that eventually they were
baptized and came to Communion. Nevertheless, when Thomas
resigned, Evans hesitated to ask for another assistant because, in
the absence of a bishop, he feared that there would be no one to
settle the inevitable disputes arising between rector and curate.

Evans had also preached at the villages in the neighborhood of
Philadelphia, and had organized parishes in some of them. The Expansion
second church in the colony was built in the old Swedish burying- ? he church
ground at Chester. The family of James Sandelands, who had
originally donated the cemetery tract, had started to build a wall
around their family plot when it was suggested to them that, as
the Swedish church had fallen into decay, they should turn their
wall into a new church. With this suggestion they complied, their
neighbors helping them, and in 1703 the structure was completed
and opened for use by George Keith. The chief promoter of this
enterprise was Jasper Yeates, who had also been one of the found
ers of Christ Church, Philadelphia. Shortly after the completion
of the building, a missionary was sent by the Society to serve
Chester and the neighboring communities. He left after a few
years and the church was supplied only irregularly until 1728

128 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

when Richard Backhouse began his long ministry there. He
found that many who had formerly belonged to the Church had
drifted back into Quakerism for want of a pastor.

The Swedes had been the first settlers along the Delaware, and
their relations with the Church were always very cordial. Trinity
Church, Wilmington, and Gloria Dei Church, Philadelphia (both
commonly known as "Old Swedes' "), which were originally built
to serve their colony, are now Episcopal churches. The Swedes
were glad to accept ministers of the Church of England when
these were sent to them and, on the other hand, their ministers
were occasionally employed in that Church without any question
being raised as to the validity of their orders. In 1705 the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel appointed one of them, the Rev.
Andreas Rudman, its minister at Oxford, a village in southeastern
Pennsylvania. He died in 1709 and was succeeded by a Welsh
man, who also served the Welsh community at Radnor. After
the latter 5 s death, both stations were supplied only intermittently.
In 1715 Evans paid a visit to England and made the mistake of
Later History appointing Francis Phillips, whom the Society had sent to Strat-
o Christ iord, Connecticut, locum tenens in his absence. Phillips not only
interfered with Robert Jenney, whom the Society had sent to
Philadelphia as curate, but got himself involved in an unsavory
scandal. It is impossible to say certainly whether or not the
charges brought against him were true, but the preponderance of
evidence seems to indicate that they were. The neighboring clergy
believed them, and so did a number of the laity, but the vestry did
not, and a temporary schism resulted in the parish, as those who
did believe declined to attend Phillips' ministrations. In order to
keep this faction from leaving the Church altogether, the neigh
boring clergy preached to them by turns until 1716 when the re
turn of Evans and the departure of Phillips healed the breach.

Evans retired in 1718 and Jenney was transferred to New York
the same year, so that the parish again had to be supplied by its
neighbors until the Rev. John Vicary was sent by the Bishop of
London in 1719. Vicary held the post until his death in 1723, when
the unfortunate parish was again exposed to an ecclesiastical
scandal. Vicary had been ill during the last year of his life, and
the parish was supplied for a time by the Rev. William Harrison.
When the latter moved to Staten Island, the vestry obtained the

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 129

services of John Urmiston, whose career in South Carolina and Trouble with

in Maryland has already been mentioned. The vice of drunken- rmiston

ness, with which Urmiston was charged in those two colonies,

had by now become habitual with him, and it was not very long

before the vestry was obliged to dismiss him. He departed into

Maryland, whence he wrote to the Society charging John Talbot

with being responsible for his removal and accusing him both of

being a "J ac rjhe" and of having obtained episcopal consecration

from the Nonjurors. He also made a complaint against Christ

Church which showed that a rather high standard of Church life

was maintained there. "I was not sorry," he said, "for my removal

from so precarious and slavish a place, where they require two

sermons every Lord's Day, prayers all the week, and homilies on

festivals, besides abundance of funerals, Christenings at home, and

sick to be visited,"

After getting rid of Urmiston, the vestry asked Talbot to
come to restore order, and then employed his friend, Dr. Richard
Welton, a Nonjuror, until 1726 when Governor Keith expelled
him from the colony. Bishop Gibson had delayed sending
a successor to Vicary for three years, possibly because too many
other matters claimed his attention at his first coming to the See
of London. The shock of learning that a Nonjuror had actually
been employed in the parish roused him to action, however, and
in 1726 he sent the Rev. Archibald Cummings to Philadelphia as
rector and Commissary, in which positions he served acceptably
until 1741. In the latter part of Cummings' rectorate, the Rev.
Richard Peters was called as his assistant, but after a time he
resigned, because of a disagreement with the rector, and took up
the practice of law, for which he had originally been trained,
becoming secretary to the land office, and later Secretary of the
colony. When Cummings died, the vestry petitioned London to
license Peters as their rector, but his request was refused, and
Robert Jenney was sent back to them instead. Jenney served as
rector for twenty years, and when he died the Bishop at last agreed
to accept Peters, who, by then, had become one of the leading men
of the colony. During his incumbency, which lasted until the
Revolution, the parish was, for the first time, granted a corporate
charter.

By 1761 the number of Churchmen resident in Philadelphia had

130 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

St. Peter's
Church

St. Paul's
Church

College o
Philadelphia

increased sufficiently so that a second Church was required, and a
new congregation, that of St. Peter's, was organized by the vestry
of Christ Church. When the building was completed, it was de
cided that the two parishes should be placed upon an exactly equal
footing, being subject to a united vestry and served by the same
ministers with an equal claim upon them. The pews in the two
churches were to rent for the same amounts, and the pewholders
to have equal rights in voting for the vestry. It was at first con
templated to put all of the ministers on an equal footing also,
but this policy was abandoned. The arrangement thus worked
out was a mean between the system which prevailed at Boston of
having the several churches entirely independent of one another,
and that employed in New York, where the chapels were kept
subordinate to the main parish.

In 1759 William McClennachan, who had deserted the Society's
mission on the Kennebec, arrived in Philadelphia and induced the
vestry to elect him assistant minister without the consent of the
rector. He belonged to the Methodist party probably to the
Whitefieldian wing and according to Dr. Smith, he was both a
"quack doctor and a quack preacher," having come to the colonies
equipped with the remedies of one Dr. Ward, which remedies he
hoped to sell to the inhabitants. Because of the opposition of Smith
and Jenney, he was unable to obtain a license for his post either
from London or Canterbury and had to withdraw. He took with
him, however, a part of the congregation, whom he organized
into St. Paul's Church. He remained with them only two years,
but the parish continued, though for many years its history was an
uneasy one.

The organization of the College (originally an academy) at
Philadelphia was mainly the work of Franklin, though he was
assisted by Richard Peters, and others. Franklin was anxious to
obtain the services of Samuel Johnson of Stratford, later of King's
College, as head of the institution, but the latter declined, and in
1749 the Academy started work with the Rev. David Martin as
rector. He died in 1751 and William Smith, who had lately arrived
in New York and had published a pamphlet telling how he would
run a college, was offered, on trial, the post of instructor in natural
philosophy, logic, and kindred subjects. He seems all his life to
have possessed the knack of winning the favor of influential

THE MIDDLE COLONIES 131

people, and he had not been long in Philadelphia before Franklin
and Peters decided to make him rector of the Academy, if the
necessary funds could be obtained. These were presently forth
coming from Thomas Penn, the proprietor. Smith went to Eng
land in 1753 to obtain orders, and returned in 1754 to become
head of the Academy. In 1755 it was rechartered as a college, and
he became its first provost. Both Franklin and Smith were men
of broad religious views, though Smith's were probably not so
hazy as the former's, and they saw to it that no religious test
should ever be required of either the students or faculty of the
College, which was placed upon a strictly non-denominational
basis. In 1762 Smith went to England to raise money for the Col
lege, with results which we have seen. He also was successful in
raising some money for it in the southern colonies.

He quarreled with Franklinor Franklin with him after a few
years, and the latter thereafter gave but cool support to the College.
Their dispute was primarily political, as Smith supported the party
of the proprietors, which Franklin opposed, but it was given a
personal animus by Smith's support of the claim made by Frank
lin's co-worker, Ebenezer Kinnersley, to be the chief discoverer
of electricity. Smith's political views also got him into trouble with
the Quaker party and in 1758 the Assembly put him in jail for
contempt in printing the defense of a judge, William Moore,
whom they had impeached. The chastisement proved on the whole
a blessing, for it led to a marriage with the judge's daughter which
was apparently a happy one, and gained for Smith the sympathy
of the proprietors and others in England who were familiar with
the case.

William Smith was one of the most brilliant of the provincial
clergy and he exercised a great and constructive influence upon Character of
the history of the Church both during the colonial period and in Provost Smith
the epoch of reorganization. Like most brilliant men he was am
bitious, and one cannot escape the feeling that self-interest gener
ally played a rather important part among the motives that
influenced his conduct. In his later years he became rather ava
ricious, and engaged in land speculations which were more suc
cessful than such ventures usually are. Nevertheless, he worked
hard to advance the interests both of religion and learning on this
continent, and he took a broader and more statesmanlike view of

132 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the needs of the Church in America than most of his contempo
raries were able to attain. His advice was sought and valued by
Archbishop Seeker and by the Society, and it is probable that the
shift in the latter's policy away from its over-emphasis on New
England, which became increasingly apparent in the decades im
mediately preceding the Revolution, was due, at least in part, to
Smith's repeated insistence upon the needs of the frontier.

While Smith was in England seeking ordination, in 1753, he
Work Among published a pamphlet setting forth the educational needs of the
the Germans Germans who had recently come into Pennsylvania in large num
bers, some of them from Hunter's abortive settlement in New
York, but most of them direct from Germany, where Penn had
advertised his colony extensively. They had, for the most part,
gone into what was then the western part of the colony, and like
most settlers, had experienced a serious cultural decline on reach
ing the frontier. Smith feared that they would either sink into bar
barism or fall under the influence of the French and give up their
nominal allegiance to England. He proposed the organization of
a system of free schools in the western district where English and
German settlers should learn the rudiments of education side by
side, with a view to their eventual assimilation. The scheme was
carried out in part by the organization in 1754 of the Society for
Propagating Knowledge among the Germans of Pennsylvania,
with Smith, Franklin, Peters, and other prominent colonials as
trustees. The scheme was dependent upon support from England,
and interest in it over there faded rapidly after the departure of
its gifted advocate. It died in a few years for want of adequate
support, but while it lasted, it did good work. Had it been con
tinued, some of the primitive folkways now associated with the
"Pennsylvania Dutch" might never have developed.

In 1758 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel decided
The Frontier to do something for the Pennsylvania frontier, and sent the Rev.
Thomas Barton into York and Cumberland counties. He later
moved his headquarters eastward to Lancaster, but continued to
serve the southwestern part of the colony until the Revolution.
Dr. Smith credited him, together with two Presbyterian ministers,
with having kept the people together and prevented the region
from being deserted during the French and Indian War. In 1761
William Thomson was sent as missionary to Carlisle.

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

133

Delaware was, of course, under the jurisdiction of the govern
ment of Pennsylvania during most of the colonial period, and the Delaware
history of the Church there is really a phase of its growth in the
smaller towns of the larger colony. The first mission in Delaware
was organized at New Castle In 1704, and the Rev. George Ross
was sent to supply it. He proved restless at first, and made an
attempt to obtain a better living elsewhere, but after a while he
settled down to a long and devoted ministry. In 1719 he declined
an offer of the rectorate at Philadelphia because he could not
obtain a successor for New Castle. In 1705 a minister was sent to
Dover. In 1717 Ross went with Governor Keith on a visit to Sussex
County and found that at Lewes and elsewhere there were loyal
Churchmen who met together to hear services read by a lay
reader and postponed the baptism of their children until a Church
minister visited them. In 1722 a missionary was sent to the county.
He reported that the Churchmen formed the largest religious body
at Lewes. The presence of Charles Inglis at Dover has already been
mentioned in connection with his removal to New York. While
at Dover he endeavored with some success to curb the practice of
getting the electorate drunk at political meetings. He preached
near the meeting places, and persuaded some of the leading
candidates to stay away. He told the Society that before he began
this reform, Churchmen were the worst offenders.

The first missionary of the Church in New Jersey was the Rev.
Alexander Innes, formerly chaplain at New York, and a Non- New Jersey
juror, who assembled a congregation in Monmouth County at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, and preached there for some
time, but his work in that section was not followed up until the
latter part of the century. Keith and Talbot both preached in New
Jersey and Talbot settled at Burlington in 1703, whence he con
tinued to visit the other parts of the colony whenever he could.
An attempt had been made in East Jersey in 1697 to provide
public support for ministers, though not specifically those of the
Church, but it was defeated by the Baptists and Quakers. The
next year, the proprietors, who were Quakers, appointed Jeremiah
Bass as governor, with instructions to oppose such a measure. Bass
later became one of the chief supporters of the Church at Burling
ton, but at this time he was a Baptist.

In 1705 the Society sent two missionaries, John Brooke and

134 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Early Thorogood Moore, to New Jersey. They were both devoted young

Missionaries men? anc j t fa{ r wor jr k ac } a promising beginning. Brooke cate
chized twelve to fifteen days a month, and visited the other days,
by which method he rapidly assembled congregations in the vil
lages which he served. Moore, however, made the mistake of
supposing that the great of this world were as amenable to ec
clesiastical discipline as the lowly. While in New York, on his
way to New Jersey, he publicly expressed the opinion that the
local clergy ought to excommunicate Cornbury for masquerading
in women's clothes. After t he had arrived in New Jersey, he put
his theories into practice by excommunicating Lieutenant-Gov-
ernor Ingoldsby, whose manner of life was only a little less no
torious than his superior's. He was also suspected of being too
friendly with Lewis Morris, the leader of the opposition to Corn-
bury. When Cornbury visited Moore's station in New Jersey and
desired to receive Communion, the missionary found it necessary to
visit a village twelve miles away. This was the last straw, and
Moore was carried a prisoner to Fort Anne in New York, Brooke
promptly went to the same place and helped his colleague to
escape. They fled to Massachusetts, whence they took ship for
England. The ship was lost on the way over, and they were heard
from no more.

Their departure left Talbot once more the only Church minister
in New Jersey. In 1709 John Bartow of Westchester visited the
colony and found that many congregations might be formed if
there were ministers, but that the people showed no disposition
to support them. In the same year the Society sent Edward
Vaughan to the colony and he was followed by Thomas Halliday
a little later. The two missionaries did not like each other very
well at first, and they sent back numerous complaints against one
another to the secretary. Halliday seems to have suffered from a
violent temper, and to have been a bit too fond of "the bottle."
He also got himself mixed up in the political disputes of the
colony, though, for that matter, it was practically impossible to
keep out of them. In 1714 the people at Amboy (now Perth
Amboy), one of his stations, carried away all of the furnishings of
the church and told him to get out, as he was a "knave and a
villain." On the advice of his brethren, he took this as a hint that
he was not wanted, and confined his efforts to Piscataqua and

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

135

Hopewell, his other stations. Eventually, he came to terms with
Vaughan, and the two agreed to rotate among the missions of the
colony, except Burlington, where Talbot was still stationed. By
1718 Halliday's vices had grown upon him so much as to become
a scandal, and he was obliged to leave New Jersey.

Talbot, all this time, had been serving quietly and devotedly at
Burlington, and doing what he could to settle the difficulties that Dismissal of
arose from time to time in the other parts of the colony, and at Talbot
Philadelphia. In 1724 he stated that he was accustomed to read
Morning and Evening Prayer daily in. his church, and thought
he was the only minister in America who did so. In 1718 a school
master was sent to his parish. Urmiston's charges against Talbot
in 1724 climaxed a long series of accusations that he was a "Jaco
bite" and led to his dismissal, the specific offense alleged against
him being that of "exercising jurisdiction over his brethren/'
which he denied doing. He stayed at Burlington, however, during
the few years that remained of his life. In 1727 he was succeeded
by Nathaniel Harwood.

After Halliday's departure, Vaughan remained at Elizabeth, and
the Rev. William Skinner was sent to Perth Amboy and Pisca- Growth of the
taqua (Piscataway). In 1722 the inhabitants of Salem, in south-
western New Jersey, petitioned for a minister and John Holbrook
was sent them. The county officials of Monmouth had petitioned
for a missionary, in 1717, saying that libertinism was rife in the
county and that the ministers of other denominations could do
nothing to curb it, but they thought that a Church minister might.
In spite of this flattering request nothing was done for them, nor
was any more attention paid to a second petition in 1729, at which
time there were no ministers of any sort in the county, except one
or two Quaker teachers. It was not until 1734 that the Society
sent a missionary to the county where the services of the Church
had first been heard in New Jersey.

Vaughan and William Harrison of Staten Island organized a
church at Newark in the early thirties and the mission continued
to be supplied by the missionaries in New Jersey or on the island
until 1751, when a resident missionary was appointed to the post.
Vaughan died in 1747 and the vestry at Elizabeth employed a local
youth, Thomas Bradbury Chandler, as catechist and lay reader
until he was old enough to be ordained, whereupon he became

New Jersey

136 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

their minister and served them until a few years after the Revo
lution, though his Tory sympathies drove him from the county
while the struggle was going on. His championship of the colonial
episcopate in the sixties made him one of the more prominent
of the American clergy and he was the first choice of the Society
for Bishop of Nova Scotia, but was obliged to decline because of
ill health. As father-in-law of Bishop Hobart, he may have had
some influence in forming the ideals of later American High
Churchmanship.

CHAPTER VII
"INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE"

_OW MANY infidels, bond and free, are there in your
parish, and what is done for their conversion?" was one of the General
questions which Bishop Gibson asked of all the colonial ministers ^difference

- -,*-,^A t r i i i t( > the Con-

m 1724, and, we are sorry to say, most or them were not able ver sion of the
to give the question a very satisfactory answer. The comparative Indians and
indifference shown in the colonial period by all religious denomi- e s roes
nations, except the Roman Catholics and the Moravians, to the
conversion of the Indians who were found upon the continent and
of the negroes who were brought to it, is one of the most remark
able features of our religious history. A few devoted individuals,
such as John Eliot and Eleazer Wheelock did, it is true, give their
lives to the work, and societies for the promotion of such efforts
were occasionally projected and even organized, but very little
persistent work was done by any denomination as a whole, with
the exception of the two mentioned.

Among the rest, though this is faint praise, the Church of Eng
land had probably as honorable a record as any other. She did not Efforts of
accomplish a great deal, and her efforts can hardly be said to have e c urc
been proportionate to her resources, but she did keep pecking at
the task more or less steadily, and in the end she achieved some
thing. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel generally
had somebody ministering to the Mohawks eventually with suc
cess and it sent one or two missionaries to other tribes at different
times. It also urged its regular missionaries repeatedly to do what
they could for any negroes or Indians that might be in their
parishes, and its proddings were seconded from time to time by
the Bishops of London and the Archbishops of Canterbury. Arch
bishop Seeker, who took a sincere interest in everything relating
to the spiritual welfare of the colonies, concerned himself with

137

138 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

this problem quite a bit, and corresponded with a number of
leading colonials on schemes for the evangelization of the Indians,
but none of the proposals discussed came to much. Even the civil
authorities took an interest in the matter occasionally, and in 1715
the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations wrote to the Bishop
of London that they had learned that "several nations of Indians
have been desirous of Protestant missionaries to instruct them in
the true religion." Their chief concern was that the missionaries
sent over should be persons "of unspotted characters, and whose
lives and conversations ought to be unblamable," by which they
apparently meant that they should be of the right political com
plexion, for the Commissioners objected specifically to John Talbot,
whose life and conversation, when viewed from any but a partisan
standpoint, were about as unblamable as any man's could be.

Thanks to the promptings of the Society and the Bishops, a
Work Among little was done for the Indians in almost every colony where they
the Indians existed in any great number. As we have already seen, there is
m Virginia reason to believe that the earliest ministers in Virginia had suc
ceeded in converting a few of them by the time of the colony's first
Indian War. The first project for the College there contemplated
the education of Indians as well as whites, and when that institu
tion was at length established, earnest and partly successful efforts
were made to get Indian youths to attend it. These endeavors were
stimulated by a legacy left by Robert Boyle for the purpose of
educating Indians at the College, and were energetically encour
aged by Governors Nicholson and Spottswood.

In 1710 Nicholson sent Robert Hicks and John Evans as agents
to inform the neighboring Indians of Boyle's legacy and to try to
obtain nine or ten children for instruction. The Indians were to be
assured that the children would be clothed and well treated, and
that their parents might visit them whenever they wished. They
should also have an Indian man with them, to wait upon them and
to talk with them in Indian, so that they would not forget the
language of their people while they were at the College. These
provisions show a more intelligent approach to the Indian problem
than was generally made by colonial officials, but it cannot be said
that the Indians received the offer with enthusiasm. Their family
feeling was strong, they were suspicious of the English and they
were not particularly hospitable to English culture, except in the

' INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE

139

matter of firearms and rum. In the end it was only by agreeing to
relinquish the tribute money that the Indians had been accustomed
to pay that the governor obtained a number of children for the
College. Nicholson also projected the founding of a chapel and
mission house, and the employment of a missionary and inter
preter among the Indians, but these plans had not been brought to
fruition when he was recalled.

Spottswood took as much interest in the conversion of the
Indians as his predecessor. He visited the tributary tribes and
some of the more remote ones personally, and sought to persuade
them to send their children to the College. In 1712 he reported
that there were fourteen Indians attending, and that he expected
six more from the neighboring tribes. He also established a pre
paratory school for them at his own expense. In 1716 Spottswood
sent the Rev. Charles Griffin to the frontier to instruct the Indian
children. Griffin soon assembled seventy pupils and succeeded in
teaching them the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Command
ments, the existence of but one God, the names of the Three
Persons, and what each had done for them. He also reported that
they behaved reverently at prayers and were able to make the
responses. After Spottswood's retirement, interest in the Indians,
except as potential enemies, seems to have lagged, and we hear
little of their presence at the College, or of missionaries being sent
to them. The feeling between the two races was growing more
hostile and the College was prospering as a place for educating
planters' sons, who probably were not very anxious to associate on
terms of equality with the aborigines.

In South Carolina, though little was actually done for the con
version of the Indians, the problem was frequently discussed. As
we have already seen, the Society had originally intended that its
first missionary in the colony, Samuel Thomas, should work
among the Indians, but Governor Johnson, for reasons best known
to himself, sent him to Goose Creek instead. His successor at that
station, the devoted Francis Le Jau, took an active interest in the
welfare of the Indians. He conversed with them whenever he had
the opportunity, endeavored conscientiously to understand and
appreciate their ideas and standards, and frequently urged the
Society to send a missionary among them. He stated that they "do
make us ashamed by their life, conversation, and sense of religion

Interest of
Governor
Spottswood

The Indian
Problem in
South
Carolina

140 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

quite different from ours." "Ours," he said, "consists in words and
appearance; theirs, in reality." He thought that if the Indians could
be made to understand what was meant by the words commonly
used in speaking o religion, they would appear "other than
imagined," for he discovered that, as he gained their confidence
and came to understand their terminology, they disclosed "sur
prising things" about their faith things, apparently, which showed
a closer approximation to Christianity than was generally sup
posed. He believed that the chief obstacle to their conversion
would be the manner in which the Indian trade was carried on, as
it consisted chiefly in fomenting wars among them for the purpose
of getting slaves.

Commissary Johnston also took some interest in the Indian
problem. In 1710 he reported that the Indian traders with whom
he had conversed had told him that it would not be difficult to
convert the Indians to Christianity, and he himself felt, like Le
Jau, that the chief difficulty would be in the misconduct of these
same traders. The next year, he got himself appointed a Commis
sioner for Indian Affairs, in the hope of learning more about
them, but whatever knowledge he acquired thereby did not lead
to any practical result. In 1714 a resident of the colony wrote to a
friend of the Society that he had a son whom he designed for the
ministry and that he proposed sending him among a neighbor
ing tribe of Yammasees to learn their language and instruct them
in Christianity, but it seems probable that he changed his mind,
for nothing more can be learned concerning the project. In 1723
Francis Varnod, the missionary at Dorchester, South Carolina,
wrote to the Secretary that he thought the conversion of the
Indians a practicable object and suggested sending a discreet young
man in deacon's orders to live among them. Like Le Jau, he had
formed a good opinion of the Indian character. "I find," he said,
". . . that these poor pagans are endued with very good natural
parts, of a temper very sedate and tranquil, and quite opposite to
that hot and violent spirit of the negroes." Again, however, the
matter ended in suggestion.

What was done for the Indians in the other southern colonies
Other cannot be described as anything more than a gesture. Giles Rains-

Southern ford, one of the Society's missionaries in North Carolina, spent
Colonies a ew montns among the Indians there in 1714, and obtained

' INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE"

141

some knowledge of their language, on the strength of which he
offered himself as minister at an Indian settlement projected by
Governor Spottswood of Virginia. The governor's plans never
matured, however, and Rainsford's services were employed else
where. A later North Carolina missionary reported in 1722 that
the Indians in the colony had been reduced to three hundred
fighting men, with the usual complement of non-combatants, and
he thought there was little chance of their conversion. In Mary
land, to judge from the answers of the clergy to Bishop Gibson's
questions, nothing was done for the Indians because their language
was unintelligible, and they were hostile to Christianity anyway.
The marriage of Thomas Bosomworth of Georgia with a squaw
in 1745 doubtless showed an interest of some sort in the Indians,
but one may be permitted to question whether it proceeded from a
missionary spirit, though Bosomworth said it did. Samuel Frink,
the minister at Augusta, made some effort to convert the Chicka-
saw Indians in 1766, but without success. He observed that he
thought it desirable to reclaim the white people of the colony
first, as he found them "almost as destitute of any sense of religion
as the Indians themselves."

In Pennsylvania the only attempt to convert the Indians seems
to have been that made by Thomas Barton on his first coming into Pennsylvania
the western counties. He had hopes of succeeding in the endeavor, and
but they were dashed when Braddock's defeat alienated the Indians New ey
from the English. Dr. Smith took an interest in the Indian ques
tion but he was not in a position to do anything himself. In New
Jersey there were but few Indians, and nothing was done for them.

In New England attempts to convert the Indians, with the ex
ception of those who lived as slaves or otherwise within the limits New England
of the regular parishes, were infrequent and spasmodic, and even
when the Indians themselves expressed the desire for a missionary,
they were not supplied with one. In 1727 some of the missionaries
succeeded in converting Charles Augustus Ninaagret, the chief
sachem of the Narragansetts. Ninaagret asked the Society to send
a missionary to his people, but this was not done, though the
neighboring ministers may have worked among them from time
to time. In 1742 Stephen Roe, the assistant at King's Chapel, visited
Maine with the governor of Massachusetts, who had gone there
to make a treaty with the Indians. French missionaries had been

142 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

working among these tribes, and Roe found many of the Indians
wearing crucifixes, whereupon he took occasion to warn them
against the sinfulness of "image worship and prayers to saints
and angels." In 1745 the Society apparently had some intention
of sending a missionary to the Moskito Indians, for Samuel
Johnson wrote that he did not know of any minister who was
willing to go there, but that Mr. Prince, the schoolmaster at Strat
ford, would be willing to do so. The project was evidently given
up, however, for neither Prince, nor anyone else, was appointed.
In 1756 the Mohican Indians asked the Society for a share in the
services of the missionary at Norwich, and this was probably
granted them. At the outbreak of the Revolution the Commis
sioners for Indian Affairs in New England were employing a
minister of the Church as missionary among the Cheroche
Indians in Bristol County, Rhode Island. Jacob Bailey, the devoted
missionary on the Kennebec, found that the ravages of war had
left only about fifty Indians (the remnant of the once powerful
Norridgewolk tribe) in that region in 1765. Like Roe, he also
found that they had been under French influence and were averse
to Protestantism and English customs.

It was in New York that the most persistent and effective work
Work Among was accomplished among the Indians. The Iroquois, whose terri-
&e iroquois t ory extended over most of the colony west of Albany, reachine

in New York j T- i 1-11.., &

down into Pennsylvania, and including tributaries in New Eng
land and the South, were the only important body of Indians who
were consistently friendly to the English, Champlain's muskets
having secured their attachment to any power that opposed the
French. Their allegiance was, moreover, of vital importance, for
they guarded the otherwise exposed frontier of New York, which
formed the natural gateway from Canada into the English colo
nies. There were, therefore, excellent practical reasons for seeking
to attach these people to the national faith of England, but it is
not necessary to assume that this was the only motive for sending
missionaries among them, or even that it was the predominant one.
We have just seen that the Society was anxious to do what it
could for the conversion of the Indians everywhere, even though
its efforts may not always have been as energetic as could be
wished, and the greater friendliness of the Iroquois offered a more

' INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE

143

encouraging prospect for work among them than was to be found
elsewhere.

Moreover, the Dutch ministers at Albany had already made a
successful beginning among the Mohawks, who were then the
easternmost of the Five Nations which made up the Iroquois
Confederacy. Their work had been started when the colony be
longed to the Netherlands, and was continued after the English
occupation until 1702 when Lord Bellomont, the governor, forbade
Godfrey Delius, the then pastor at Albany, to go on with the
work. In the following year Robert Livingston, the Indian agent,
submitted to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel a plan
for converting the Iroquois by sending a missionary to each of the
nations. A house and stockade were to be built for each minister
and Livingston further suggested that each should bring with
him two boys to learn the language and act as interpreters, as well
as a supply of presents to win over the Indians. He also recom
mended that, as the Dutch ministers at Albany had done good
work among the Indians, Delius, as their present representative,
should be given a stipend by the Society. With this last suggestion
the Society complied, and Delius was offered a place on its rolls.
He declined, partly because he still harbored resentment at the
ill usage which he had received from Bellomont, and partly be
cause he had become convinced that work among the Indians
could not achieve any permanent success until the traders were
prevented from supplying them with rum. At the same time he
warned the Society that the Jesuits were becoming active among
the Iroquois, and that something must be done soon if the tribes
were not to be lost to England.

It was, however, several years before anyone was sent to take
over Delius' work. Daniel Bonder., the French minister at New Thomas
Rochelle, is said by his brother clergy to have done successful Barclay
work among the neighboring Indians, but these, presumably,
were not Iroquois. In 1709, as was stated in the preceding chapter,
Thomas Barclay was sent to Albany by the Society for the purpose
of ministering both to the whites and the Indians. He found that
there were about thirty Indians who were communicants of the
Dutch Church, but he observed that they were ignorant and not
very virtuous in their way of living. Nevertheless, he set to work
to bring them into the Church of England, and eventually he

144 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

William
Andrews

Other
Missionaries

succeeded in doing so. Three years after his arrival he paid a visit
to the Mohawk village, which was some distance from Albany,
and rebuked the Indians for profaning the chapel there, some of
them having used it for a slaughterhouse.

In 1710 the Indian chiefs had asked that a missionary should be
sent to live among their people, and late in the fall of 1712 the
Rev. William Andrews arrived at the Mohawk village in answer
to their petition. Andrews was evidently a sincere and earnest man,
but he had but little realization of the delicacy of the task that
confronted him, and very little understanding of or sympathy for
the people to whom he was sent. He gave no heed to the first rule
of all missionary work, to present the milk of the Gospel before
the strong meat, but started in at once to instruct the Indians in all
of the major tenets of Christian theology, "the Doctrine of God,
of the Creation, of providence, of Man's fall and restoration, of
faith, repentance and the nature of the sacraments," even going so
far as to project a course of lectures upon the catechism.

As might be expected, the Indians proved unresponsive to
teachings which they could but dimly understand, especially as
they were forced, in the beginning at least, to hear them through
an interpreter. In 1715 Andrews reported that he had about
twenty Indian children in his school, but that he had to bribe
them with food to keep them there. He still clung to the belief,
however, that a few of the Indians were sincere Christians. Even
tually it would seem that the Mohawks decided to have fun with
the good man, for some of them told him that they would come
to his services if he would give them a draft of rum, and others
expressed the opinion that Baptism was all that was required to
make anyone a good Christian. One man, whom he had ex
communicated for drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, "cruelty in
biting off a prisoner's nails," and other offenses, threatened to
shoot him. He carried on, in spite of discouragements, for seven
years, but eventually he became convinced that the Indians could
never be converted, and resigned.

Andrews' departure was followed, two years later, by Barclay's
madness, and it was some time before either Albany or the Indians
had another missionary. John Miln arrived at Albany in 1728, and
the next year he visited the Mohawks. He administered the
communion to ten, and baptized three Indian and two English

"INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE" 145

children in the village. Thereafter, until the appointment of a mis
sionary especially for them, he made a practice of visiting the
Indians four times a year. In spite of Andrews' experience, he
found them well disposed towards Christianity, and was greeted
joyfully on every visit. In 1735 the Indians were once more given a
missionary of their own or mostly of their own for Henry Bar
clay was sent to Fort Hunter chiefly to minister to them, though
there were now a few white settlers in that region, and their num
ber was presently increased by the coming of a group of Irish
Protestants. Barclay also made a beginning in the conversion of
the Oneidas, the next tribe westward.

When Barclay became rector of Trinity Church, New York
City, the Rev. John Ogilvie was sent to take over his work among
the Indians. Ogilvie does not seem to have undertaken his task in
any very optimistic spirit, but he persisted in it for some years. He
complained that, though the Indians would behave fairly well
when he was present, he would no sooner leave them than they
would set upon an orgy of drunkenness. He also observed that the
dissolute lives led by most of the Indian traders made a very bad
impression upon the aborigines. In 1760 Amherst required Ogilvie
to accompany his forces into Canada as chaplain, and apparently
he did not return.

After a vacancy of some duration, Albany and the Indian fort
were again placed under the care of a single man, the Rev. Henry Sir William
Munro. In his first report, Munro urged the importance of sep- J hnson
arating the two missions, and in this he was vigorously supported
by Sir William Johnson, the Indian agent, who thought ministers
should be stationed at Albany, Schenectady, Johnstown, and the
Mohawk village. Johnson also urged the establishment of a school
for the Indians similar to that which Eleazer Wheelock was
building at Hanover, New Hampshire (now Dartmouth College) .
Archbishop Seeker, to whom he made this suggestion, had at first
been in favor of sending Indian youths to Wheelock's school
(which had received numerous contributions from English
Churchmen), with a view to their being episcopally ordained
after completing the courses, but East Apthorp, the missionary at
Cambridge, assured him that if this were done, all would turn
out to be Presbyterians. Seeker was much alarmed at such a

146 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

prospect, and on his advice the Society planned to set up a rival
school. Nothing came of the project, however.
In 1770 Myles Cooper and Charles Inglis paid a visit to Johnson

John Stuart during which they were interviewed by a deputation of Mohawks
who earnestly solicited a missionary, complaining that the Roman
Catholic Indians of Canada, who had formerly been enemies of
the English, had been allowed to have a minister, but they, who
had always been friendly, had none. This petition was duly trans
mitted to the Society by Inglis and Cooper, and the next year that
body finally succeeded in sending out a missionary. He was the
Rev. John Stuart, and he had not been long at Fort Hunter before
it became apparent that the Society had at last found a man who
was ideally fitted for the post. He had, of course, a great advantage
over other missionaries in the support of Johnson, who probably
exercised a greater influence over the Indians than any other
Englishman in colonial times, and he was to some extent able to
build upon the foundations laid by his predecessors, but the
rapidity with which he worked himself into the affections of a
proud and shy people is, nevertheless, remarkable. Even before he
had learned their language, Stuart was able to persuade them to
repair their chapel, and, with the aid of the sachems, he had
considerable success in suppressing drunkenness. When the Rev
olutionary War came along, the Indians promised him their pro
tection if he would stay with them, and they did protect him until
they themselves were driven out by the colonial forces.
The infidels in bonds were mostly negroes, though quite a

The Negroes number of Indians were also enslaved in colonial times. They
presented a different problem from the free natives, and at first
sight it might seem that, as they were settled among Christians
and were subject to Christian masters, their conversion would have
been much easier. This, in all probability, would have been the
case if their masters had taken any interest in promoting such
conversion but, except in a very few cases, the best that the min
isters could hope for was that the masters would be indifferent to
it. Normally they opposed it for various reasons. It is, obviously, a
little difficult to take a benevolent interest in a man's future
blessedness when you are energetically endeavoring to make him
exist wholly for your benefit in this present life. Later on, when
slavery had existed long enough so that people regarded it as the

Courtesy, "The Spirit of Missions"

JOHN STUART, MISSIONARY TO THE
MOHAWKS

Courtesy, Marine Research Society

GROUP OF NEGROES JUST LANDED TO BE SOLD AS SLAVES
From an old print.

"INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE" 147

natural state of the negro, the attitude of the master towards his Difficulties of
servants might be, and frequently was, tinctured with honest CoBversion
benevolence, but at first, when the still savage African had to be
terrorized into submission, such an attitude was difficult. More
over, there was, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a
widely prevalent fear, based upon some provisions of mediaeval
canon law, that any slave who became a Christian could claim
his freedom. James I had solemnly announced that this was not
so in the preceding century, and various laws were passed to the
same effect, but it took a long time to eradicate the belief.

The planters also maintained, in some cases, that slaves who
had been converted were more difficult to control. This opinion
was probably based largely on prejudice, for at a later time it was
discovered that Christian negroes made better slaves, and piety
became a virtue to be stressed upon the auction block. That de
velopment took place, however, after the negroes had become
more used to servitude, when it was easier to persuade them that
submission was a Christian duty.

Even when the master's permission had been obtained, and the
negro converted, the problem was only half solved. As the slave
was not a free agent, it was often impossible for him to lead a
Christian life, even if he wished to do so. After his conversion he
might be sold to a master who would deny him any religious
privileges at all, or failing this, he might still be compelled to do
many things which were inconsistent with his profession. More
over, so few pleasures were allowed him that it was very hard to
turn away from any that he could enjoy, even when it happened
to be sinful. Especially did the ministers find it difficult to bring
the negroes to observe any regularity in their sexual relations.
Whatever traditional customs they had had in this, or in any
other respect, had been hopelessly destroyed by the interruption of
all of their habitual relationships which necessarily resulted from
their transplantation, and it was difficult for them to restrain a
desire which their masters were glad to see them indulge, since its
products were economically valuable. Even if they did marry and
endeavor to be faithful to one another, there was always the possi
bility that husband and wife might be sold to opposite ends of the
colony.

In spite of these difficulties, however, fairly persistent efforts

148 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

S.P.G. were made by the colonial ministers for the conversion of the

Catechists: negroes, and in some instances with a certain amount of success.
In New York and Philadelphia the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel maintained catechists especially to instruct the
negroes, and their efforts seem to have produced satisfactory re
sults. The New York catechist was Elias Neau, a French Hugue
not refugee, who, before coming to this country, had suffered
imprisonment for his faith. While in his dungeon, he had com
forted himself by learning the liturgy of the Church of England,
and after coming to this country he conformed to that Church,
as did so many of his co-religionists. Though he was a layman and
a merchant, his interest in the welfare of the negroes led to his
appointment as the Society's catechist in 1704. Vesey, though he
held a high opinion of Neau's personal character, disapproved of
this appointment, because he thought the catechist should at
least be in deacon's orders, and told Neau that he had no right to
officiate unless he obtained a special license from the Bishop of
London. Cornbury, however, said that this was not necessary, and
himself gave Neau a license on the basis of which the latter, after
some hesitation, began his work.

The results of his efforts proved encouraging, though Vesey
remained cool towards him, and most of the masters were not
over-enthusiastic. The Dutch minister, however, preached in favor
of his instructions, and that helped him somewhat. When Jenney
was sent as assistant and schoolmaster at Trinity, he for a time
superseded Neau, but a number of prominent laymen petitioned
for the latter's restoration, and the work was given back to him in
1719. He was finally succeeded by Wetmore in 1723, and there
after the teaching probably was done by the assistant at Trinity.
Some work, though not a great deal, was also done among the
negroes in other parts of New York. Thomas Barclay reported
from Albany in 1717 that he was having success in instructing the
slaves there and Miln stated in 1730 that John Beasley, the school
master at the same place, in addition to his work with the white
children, had instructed twenty negroes in the catechism. Thomas
Standard, who was missionary at Westchester in 1729, bought
two negroes whom he hoped to instruct in Christianity but
charges which were brought against his moral character forced
his removal shortly afterwards, so nothing came of his plan. Robert

INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE '

149

Charlton reported from Staten Island in 1746 that he found the
practice of singing the psalms increased the attentiveness of the
negroes, and their desire to learn to read.

The catechist at Philadelphia was the Rev. William Sturgeon,
who was not appointed until 1747. As he was in priest's orders, William
it was also expected that he would assist Robert Jenney at Christ Sturgeon
Church, and he performed both functions in a satisfactory manner.
It is true that he was dismissed by the Society in 1763 on charges
of neglecting his work, but apparently he succeeded in vindicating
himself from these allegations, for he was reinstated, and con
tinued at his post until ill health forced his retirement in 1766. In
New Jersey, John Holbrook, the minister at Salem, reported in
1724 that he had asked the masters to send their negroes to him
for catechizing, but it does not appear that his request met with
much response. Samuel Cooke, the minister at Shrewsbury, Mon-
mouth County, reported baptizing two negroes in 1752.

It was in the South that the need for instructing the slaves was
greatest, and there it constituted a most pressing problem for Virginia
every parish priest, though, for reasons already stated, many of
them were able to make but a poor shift at dealing with it. When
the clergy of Virginia answered Bishop Gibson's queries in 1724,
most of them reported that they would catechize and instruct the
slaves whenever their masters permitted, but they also indicated
that this was done in only a minority of cases. In the same year a
proposal was offered to encourage the conversion of the slaves by
providing that every slave child who was baptized and properly
instructed in the Christian religion before he was ten, should be
exempt from all taxes until he was eighteen, but this suggestion
did not commend itself to the legislature. In 1726 John Lang, a
minister of the province, complained that even when people did
bring their slaves to be baptized and instructed, they allowed them
afterwards to live "in common without marriage or any other
Christian decency." In general, the situation in Virginia does not
seem to have changed much throughout the colonial period, and
it is probable that only a minority of the masters in the colony
ever allowed their slaves to be instructed.

In Maryland conditions were a little better. The answers to the
1724 questionnaire there show that most of the clergy were accus- Maryland
tomed to instruct the negroes with some regularity, and at a

150 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

visitation held on the Eastern Shore in the same year, the minis
ters petitioned the Bishop to call upon the laity to instruct their
slaves or have them instructed, a request with which Gibson
complied by issuing a pastoral letter on the subject a little later.
At visitations which he held on both shores in 1730, Commissary
Henderson stated in his address, "There is one thing ... in which
we must confess we are blameworthy, both pastors and people, in
that greater care is not taken about the instruction of the negroes."
The next year, he questioned the clergy specifically as to what
they had done to this end, saying that he himself read prayers on
Sunday afternoons in summer, and catechized such negroes as
would come, though the number was not so large as he wished.
The rest of the clergy claimed to have made special efforts of
some sort. Some complained that the masters would not cooperate,
but others had had better success, had baptized many and had a
few communicants. Some of these, however, complained that
communicants were lost through their sale. The Rev. Arthur
Holt, who came to Maryland in 1734, found his people, for the
most part, "pretty well inclined to have their slaves be Christians,"
and baptized several negro infants within a short time of his
arrival in the colony.

The same hostility to the conversion of their slaves was shown
South by the planters in South Carolina as elsewhere, but a few of the

Carolina: ministers, by patient effort, had considerable success in overcoming
LeJau it- ^ e most effective work in this respect was done by Francis

Le Jau, the minister at Goose Creek. He obtained the permission
of most of the masters in his parish to instruct their slaves, though
some were not very cordial about it, and as a result he was
able to baptize many slaves and admit a few to Communion. He
had to overcome quite a bit of opposition in the process, how
ever. One woman expressed dismay at the thought that any of her
slaves might go to heaven, where, as she flattered herself, she
would have to see them, and a young man refused to come to
Communion if slaves were admitted to the rail. The weather also
worked against Le Jau, for the extremity of the temperature in
one direction or another frequently kept him from going out.
Nevertheless, thanks to his efforts, his successor was able to report
eighteen black in addition to seventeen white communicants in
1761.

"INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE" 151

One of the most frequent objections made to the conversion of
the slaves in the early years of the century was, as has already Obstacles to
been noted, that they would be free if they became Christians. Conversion of
To silence this objection the South Carolina legislature in 1712 Negroes
passed an act which permitted slaves to be baptized, but pro
vided definitely that such an action should not make them free.
This removed the difficulties under that head, but it was not long
before other excuses for opposing the conversion of the negroes
were thought of. When the ministers of the colony sent Com
missary Johnston to England in 1713 with their collection of com
plaints to the Society, one of their grievances was that obstacles
were placed in the way of performance of their "chief duty," the
conversion of the negroes. In elaborating this point, Johnston said
that, under present circumstances, the conversion of the slaves
was practically impossible. The slaves could be instructed only on
the Lord's Day, when the minister was necessarily busy with the
whites. The distance between plantations made it impossible to
assemble many slaves in one place, and this would be dangerous,
even if possible, because the negroes would soon learn their own
strength and be tempted to revolt. Most of the masters thought
Christians made poor slaves, and the legislature gave but scant
encouragement to the work. Many of the planters required their
slaves to keep themselves by working a garden of their own one
day a week. Some would allow only Sunday for this purpose, and
even if Saturday were allowed him, the slave was tempted to use
the extra day.

Le Jau, as we have seen, managed to achieve satisfactory results
in spite of all these difficulties, and other ministers succeeded in
overcoming them to a certain extent. Ebenezer Taylor reported in
1713 that though most of the masters refused to concern them
selves with the conversion of their slaves, two women of his
parish had taken great pains with theirs, and a year later he stated
that their efforts had led to the baptism of twenty-six. William
Treadwell Bull, Johnston's successor as Commissary, reported
in 1718 that every negro in his parish was baptized. Another min
ister reported that he had set apart Sunday afternoons for the
instruction of the negroes, as they had formerly crowded the
church in such numbers as to be offensive to the whites. The
negroes were grateful for his efforts, and so were their masters,

152 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Commissary

Garden's

Plan

who found that the slaves behaved better as a result of his instruc
tions.

Alexander Garden, after his coming to the colony, endeavored
to have a law passed requiring every master of eighty or more
slaves to have one of them trained as a schoolmaster to instruct
negro children, but this measure touched the pocketbooks of the
planters too closely to meet with their approval. Garden therefore
suggested that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel should
appoint some of the clergymen in South Carolina its agents to
purchase negro boys between twelve and sixteen to be trained as
catechists. His idea seemed good to the Society and it requested
Garden, and two other ministers, to purchase two slave boys
with whom the experiment could be tried. This particular
scheme did not work out very well, as the character of the boys
chosen was not so good, but Garden did succeed in establishing
a successful school for negroes at Charleston.

The experiences of the missionaries in North Carolina and
Georgia were substantially the same as those in the three other
southern colonies. Ebenezer Taylor, who was sent into the former
province from South Carolina in 1719, reported shortly after his
arrival that he had baptized two negroes and could have baptized
more, had not the report been circulated that those who were
baptized would be freed. His early death prevented any further
efforts. James Moir, who served in North Carolina for many
years, claimed to have baptized three hundred whites and sixty
negroes. Governor Dobbs expressed some doubt as to the justice
of this claim, but whether with reason or merely because he was
prejudiced against Moir is not certain. In Georgia, as we have
seen, Bartholomew Zouberbuhler, who had been rector at Savan
nah, left money to support a schoolmaster for the negroes, and the
trustees of his estate employed Cornelius Winter at this post, the
duties of which he performed acceptably.

There were fewer slaves in New England than in the other
New England colonies, but the ministers, nevertheless, did what they could for
these. Timothy Cutler reported baptizing negroes at Christ
Church, Boston, on several occasions, though never in large num
bers. Matthias Plant reported from Newbury in 1727 that he had
one negress who desired Baptism, but that her master would not
permit it. In Connecticut, Christopher Newton of Ripton and

North
Carolina
and Georgia

"INFIDELS, BOND AND FREE" 153

Jeremiah Learning of Norwalk reported the baptism of negroes at
different times. Either there were more negroes in Rhode Island
than in these other two colonies, or else more was done for them
there, for we hear of more baptisms. James Honeyman, during Work of
his long ministry at Newport, took especial pains for their con-
version, and with gratifying results. In 1727 he reported that there
were sixty or seventy negro and Indian slaves who constantly
attended public worship, and that thirteen of them were baptized.
In 1742-43 he baptized five grown negroes and two negro children,
and in the latter year he stated that there were one hundred
negroes who attended service, and that five of them were con
stant communicants. At Narragansett, McSparran also worked
with the negroes and persuaded several of them to desire Baptism,
but he had difficulty in obtaining the consent of their masters.
When Marmaduke Browne came to Newport in 1762, he opened
a school for negro children, at the instance of a Society known as
"The Associates of the late Dr. Bray." The next year he reported
that he had thirty children of both sexes in attendance.

To sum up, it may be said that the Church of England in the
colonies worked with some effect among the Mohawk Indians,
and that it made spasmodic efforts for the conversion of other
tribes. Among the negroes its labors were more persistent and, in
spite of numerous difficulties, were attended with some success.
Nevertheless, it is probable that only a very small minority of
them had been reached by that or any other denomination before
the Revolution.

CHAPTER VIII
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE

.HE CAMPAIGN for resident bishops in the American plan-
Early Efforts tations was carried on throughout most of the colonial period,
to Obtain though there were times when the issue was allowed to remain
!i ps more or less quiescent. We have already alluded to Archbishop

Laud's desire to bring New England into conformity with the
Established Church, and it is said that in 1638 he proposed to
further this end by sending over a bishop. There is also a possi
bility that the Commissioners sent to New England in 1664 were
directed to set up bishops, but this supposition is based only upon
a general rumor. In 1695, John Miller, who had been chaplain at
New York, proposed that London should send a suffragan bishop
to that colony to take over both the ecclesiastical and civil govern
ment, but no one took his suggestion very seriously. With the
coming of the eighteenth century the struggle was placed on a
broader basis, and its objectives were made more definite. During
this period we can distinguish three distinct campaigns for the
colonial episcopate, one initiated by the Society for the Propa
gation of the Gospel in the first two decades of the century, one
started by the Bishop of London in the forties, and one set on foot
by the colonial clergy in the sixties and seventies. In between
these campaigns the issue was kept alive by occasional petitions,
suggestions, and debates.

The reasons why bishops were needed in the colonies were

The Need for obvious, and to the Churchman of the present day it would seem

Bishops t ] iat: j-^ey ought to have been conclusive. Whatever opinion might

be held as to the theoretical necessity of bishops in a Christian

Church, no one could deny that, as the Church of England was

then and had always been so constituted, they were essential to her

complete life. The reader who has followed our narrative thus

far must have become aware of how many ways there were in

154

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE 155

which her functioning in the colonies was handicapped by the
lack of her leading officers. Had there been bishops in the colonies,
many young men might have entered the Church who, because
they were unwilling or unable to undertake the voyage to Eng
land, were forced, as things were, either to enter the service of
other denominations or to continue as laymen; the many candi
dates who died on shipboard or in England might have been
saved; and the unworthy men who thrust themselves into the
ministry might have been excluded by the investigation which a
resident bishop could make. Had there been bishops the immoral
clergymen whose evil deeds were so often thrown in the face of
the Church by her enemies would have been deposed from her
ministry, and many young men whose heads were turned at
finding themselves located in a strange, crude country with no
one to direct them might have been kept from straying at all by a
little paternal advice and authority. Had there been bishops, dis
putes among the clergy might have been ironed out, and dis
putes with the civil authorities more efficiently handled. Had
there been bishops, the clergy might have been encouraged to
exercise a better spiritual discipline over the laity. Had there been
bishops, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel would
have had some correspondents in the colonies who were capable
of taking something more than a purely local view of the Church's
needs there, thus avoiding some of the mistakes and misdirec
tions of its energies which necessarily resulted.

Why, then, were bishops not sent? Probably the best explanation
is that the inherent conservatism of the English Church prevented Why They
it from evolving, until it was too late, the particular type of Were not
officer that it needed for the novel situation prevailing in the
thirteen colonies, but to justify this explanation it is necessary
to translate it into terms of the problem as it existed, and of the
controversies that surrounded it. It was obvious that no bishop
claiming any temporal powers could be introduced into the
colonies unless he came riding on a cannon, and by the eight
eenth century the idea of spreading religion by force had gone
out of fashion in England. A bishop with power to enforce
civil penalties would not only have been anathema in all of the
dissenting colonies, but he would have been exceedingly unpopu
lar in the Church colonies as well. What sort of a bishop would

156 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

he be, however, who had no support from the state? It was
known, of course, that bishops had existed without such support
in primitive times, but none had existed in England within any
one's memory (except, of course, the Nonjurors, who were not
to be considered), and most people seemed to think it unlikely
that they would ever exist in the colonies. The advocates of the
colonial episcopate generally insisted, it is true, that they desired
only bishops with purely "spiritual" powers, but their assertion
was regarded as a subterfuge by their enemies, and as an imprac
tical ideal by a good many of their friends.

What, people asked, could such bishops do that the Commis
saries could not do? And when it was answered that they could
ordain, depose, consecrate, confirm, and possibly excommunicate
(some of the proposals would have denied the bishops any juris
diction over the laity at all), they were not impressed. Moreover,
it must be admitted that the advocates of episcopacy were not
themselves very successful in solving the problem of how these
bishops were to be supported. Numerous schemes were put^ for
ward, but most of them contemplated the support being derived,
at least in part, from the state, and this would necessarily have de
tracted from the purely spiritual character of the desired episcopate.

The inertia which made these obstacles seem insurmountable
might have been overcome in time had it not been for the oppo
sition of three powerful groups to the idea of sending any bishops
to the colonies at all. These groups were the English politicians,
especially those of Whig leanings, the English dissenters, and the
dissenters in the colonies, or rather the Congregationalists and
Presbyterians there, for the Baptists and Quakers concerned them
selves very little in the matter. They had suffered as much from
elders as from bishops, and they saw no good reason to distinguish
between them.

The objections of the politicians were perhaps best summed up
Political in a letter which Horatio Walpole, the brother of Sir Robert,

Objections wrote to Bishop Sherlock in 1750. In the first place, he said, there
was no indication that the colonies desired a bishop. It was true
there were some colonies which had set up the Church, and re
quired episcopally ordained ministers, but these had never ex
pressed to the King any desire for a bishop. That they had
accepted the Commissaries without demur, merely justified the

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE 157

inference that they wanted that much jurisdiction and no more.
All this was perfectly true, for, as we shall see, the southern
colonies gave but little support to the move for an episcopate and
sometimes actually opposed it. Walpole evidently did not consider
the applications from individual Churchmen and clerical conven
tions as being of any importance. In the second place, he said,
if the measure were a desirable one, it would have been adopted
before. Thirdly, it would stir up controversy and threaten the
peace of the state by rousing the hostility of the dissenters, who
were "necessary supports to the present establishment in state"
L e. f to the Hanoverian dynasty and by reawakening the contro
versy between Low Churchmen and High Churchmen. This
would not only prove embarrassing to the King and Council, but
it might actually endanger the security of the ruling house, as
Jacobitism had "rather increased than diminished since the sup
pression of the last unnatural rebellion in 1745." Fourthly, because
of Sherlock's known views on the proper relations of Church and
State, it would be suspected that, though he professed to desire
only a spiritual episcopate in the colonies, his ultimate objective
would be a temporal establishment. Finally, Sherlock had not
shown how his bishops could be supported without causing
expense to the colonies.

These are the observations of a practical man, and they show
a shrewd understanding of the situation. Sherlock's efforts, and Early
those of other supporters of the colonial episcopate, did arouse the Hanoverian
opposition of the dissenters, and they did give rise to just the
suspicion that Walpole said they would. At the same time, the
letter is a perfect illustration of the general policy of "let well
enough alone" that characterized the English government under
the first two Georges. Both of these monarchs, being Germans,
were unpopular in England, and they were accepted merely be
cause they, or the ministers who ruled for them, maintained an
order of things with which most Englishmen were satisfied. The
bugbear of Jacobitism-/. e. f of Stuart legitimacyhaunted their
reigns, and to take any steps which might produce a controversy
among their followers seemed but to invite a return of the older
house. Thus in these reigns the inertia which is natural to all
human institutions was reenforced by specific political conditions.

The objections of the English dissenters proceeded mainly from

158 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Objections of
the Dissenters

Influence of

Colonial

Politics

the fact that the proposed episcopate would be obnoxious to their
brethren across the water, though most of them probably added
to this a natural hostility to anything that might promote the
interests of the Established Church. There may also have been a
fear among their opponents that if purely spiritual bishops were
once settled in the colonies they would begin to enquire whether
it might not be desirable in England also.

The attitude of the Independents and Presbyterians in America
was more complicated. To begin with, they had an opposing
theory of the ministry. Though the early Puritans had been
willing to accept episcopacy in England, on condition that the
bishops did not impose too many other burdens on their con
sciences, their New England descendants had come to regard
the institution as definitely an evil one, and the Presbyterians had
always thought it so. In the second place, as Walpole had antici
pated, they doubted the sincerity of the advocates of episcopacy
in saying that they wanted spiritual bishops only, and suspected
a design was afoot to subvert their religious freedom by the intro
duction of a full episcopal Establishment such as existed in Eng
land. Their fathers had suffered at the hands of such an
establishment in times past, for the bishops had been the chief
agents in carrying out the Stuart religious policies, and though
the teeth of the English prelates had been pretty well drawn since
then, the New Englanders tended to think of these officers in
terms of the traditions which had been handed down about them.

Moreover, it would not be fair to the dissenters to represent
their fears of a temporal establishment as being altogether ground
less. There were certainly some of the advocates of episcopacy
who would have been very glad of such an establishment could
they have obtained it, and even supposing that the professions of
a majority of its supporters were perfectly sincere, as they probably
were, there was no certainty of their being able to control the
future development of the institution once it was introduced.

The Presbyterians, in addition to sharing the Puritan dread of
persecution, were mostly Scotch or Scotch-Irish, and so had a
national antipathy to the English Church. Furthermore, during the
later years of the century, when the colonial opposition to the
introduction of bishops became the most conspicuous feature of
the controversy, the Presbyterians and Congregationalists were

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE 159

definitely committed to the party that was opposing the political
designs of the British Ministry, and politics and polity got pretty
well mixed up in their thinking. In their more popular produc
tions they represented the proposals for a colonial episcopate as
being a part of the same plot to enslave the colonies that had led
to the Stamp Act and other offensive measures. This supposition
was unfounded, for the English Ministry never favored the epis
copal scheme, but the colonists were not very well informed as to
the ramifications of English politics, and the general loyalty of
the northern Churchmen to the home government seemed to give
color to their suspicions.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel began to work
for a colonial episcopate almost as soon as it was founded. Bray
himself had set the example of advocating this measure, and the
Society was also urged to it by its missionaries and other ministers
in the provinces. Talbot was especially persistent in his advocacy of
the subject, and visited England in 1706 to promote it. In 1705,
fourteen clergymen assembled at Burlington and petitioned the So
ciety to send over a bishop. Evan Evans, in the report which he
made to the Society in 1707, to which we have referred in a
previous chapter, advocated the sending of a bishop to the colonies
on the ground that such an officer would be able to maintain
discipline among the clergy and support them in disciplining the
laity, to keep peace among the ministers, and to keep up the
supply by ordaining candidates in the colonies. He also suggested
that the presence of a bishop would have the effect of creating
a college at his See city as young men would be drawn there by
the prospect of being ordained.

In the same year that the Society received Evans' report, Bishop
Compton also furnished it with some observations upon the sub- Bishop
ject of the colonial episcopate. He held that the necessity of having Compton's
a bishop in the provinces was clearly demonstrated by the dis- observatlon s
ordered state of their ecclesiastical affairs, but that the sending of
an absolute bishop, such as ruled in the Isle of Man, would give
rise to great opposition, as the colonists had for a long time
enjoyed great license in religious affairs. A suffragan /. e., a
bishop appointed as assistant to some bishop in England might
be more successful. The people were already used to having Com
missaries with authority, in matters of discipline, similar to that

160 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

of a suffragan, and they themselves were anxious to obtain the
added benefits of Confirmation, the consecration of churches, and
Holy Orders. Moreover, suffragans could be more easily removed
if the experiment should fail.

The policy of appointing suffragans had also been advocated
The SJP.G. by a committee of the Society in 1703. Some years later another
PIan committee elaborated the proposal by suggesting that four bishops

be sent to the plantations: one to be located at Williamsburg,
Virginia; one at Burlington, New Jersey; and two in the West
Indies. To provide for their salaries it was suggested that the
tithes offered by some of the colonial clergy should be accepted,
that the bishops be granted Ordinary jurisdiction with its attend
ing fees, that lands be purchased for them, that they should have
one-tenth of all grants and escheats in the colonies, and that Her
Majesty should be requested to grant them various supplementary
sources of income.

This report is of importance because most of the later proposals
Its Near for the introduction of the episcopate differed from it only in

Success detail. Some of the sources of revenue which it suggested were

not very practical. The Society rejected the first one and referred
the third back to the committee. The second would have excited
great opposition in the colonial governors, who then enjoyed
most of the usual perquisites of the Ordinary. Nevertheless, the
scheme formed the basis of a representation placed before Queen
Anne in 1713. Previous petitions to the Queen had been unsuc
cessful, and a sermon in favor of the measure which was preached
before the Society in 1712 by Bishop Kennett had produced no
better results, but this last request met with Her Majesty's favor
and a bill was prepared for submission to Parliament. The object
thus almost gained was lost by Anne's death in 1715. The Society
renewed its petition to George I within a very short time of his
accession, but it was useless. The new King had no interest in the
Church and neither did his ministers, who were Whigs.

When the prospects of obtaining a bishop had seemed bright,
the Society commissioned Talbot and Governor Hunter to pur
chase a house for him in Burlington. It remained in the Society's
possession until 1748, just as a new bid for the episcopate was
being made, when it burned down, having already fallen into
disrepair. Another interesting sidelight on this first campaign for

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE

161

a colonial bishop was the effort of the friends of Dean Swift, in
cluding Hunter, to get him the post. Had they succeeded, it is to be
feared that the aims of the chief promoters of the episcopate would
have been defeated, for Swift was apparently looking for a
sinecure.

After the failure of the petition to George I in 1715, there was
a lull in the campaign, though a few guns continued to be fired
from time to time on both sides of the Atlantic. In the very year
of its defeat, the Society received a legacy of ^1000 from Arch
bishop Tenison, which was to be used to help support a bishop
when one was obtained, and until then to provide a pension for
the oldest missionary in the colonial services. Other bequests
for the support of the episcopate were received from time to time,
though the total amount was not large.

Petitions also continued to come over from various parts of the
colonies with considerable frequency. In 1718 the clergymen and
vestries at Philadelphia and Burlington sent over a petition for a
bishop, and the next year one was signed by clergy and laymen
from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Pigot
stressed the need for a bishop in his early reports from Connecti
cut, where he went in 1722. When he learned of the conversions
to be expected at Yale, he suggested that if a bishop could be sent
to the colonies to ordain the converts, those who were legally
settled in parishes could retain them, which they could not do if
they had to leave for England. After his conversion, Samuel John
son frequently spoke of the importance of introducing the episco
pate, and in 1732 he suggested to Bishop Gibson the possibility
of setting up a complete Church Establishment in the colonies. In
1724 the clergy of the Eastern Shore in Maryland urged the send
ing of a bishop. In 1725 and 1727 the clergy of New England held
conventions and sent addresses to the King and the Society in
favor of a bishop. In the latter year the ministers and vestries of
Christ Church and King's Chapel in Boston sent a similar peti
tion, and the Bishop of London actually proposed to send a
suffragan to Maryland, but was prevented by the local courts.

In 1741, the battle was reopened in England when Thomas
Seeker, then Bishop of Oxford, preached a sermon before the Bishop
Society in which he urged sending bishops to the colonies. The
author of this sermon, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in

The Struggle
Continued

162 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

1758, was a lifelong friend of the provincial Church and one of
the ablest and most politic of the advocates of the colonial episco
pate. His maiden effort in that direction drew from the Rev.
Andrew Eliot of New England some Remarks Upon the Bishop
of Oxford's Sermon, which filled the first of the many pamphlets
to be issued by American dissenters against the introduction of
bishops. They also foreshadowed the general line of argument
followed by later controversialists, expressing suspicion that the
bishops would be supported by taxes laid upon all of the colonists,
and that their coming would lead to the setting up of a general
establishment from which no colony could escape.

Bishop Gibson had presented a memorial in favor of colonial
Bishop bishops on his coming to the See in 1723, and in 1745 he offered

the King ancl Counci l ^C 1000 toward their support if any should
be sent over in his lifetime, but it was not until the coming of his
successor, Thomas Sherlock, in 1748, that the second campaign
was really opened. Bishop Gibson, as we have seen in an earlier
chapter, had taken out a royal commission investing him officially
with the jurisdiction over the colonies which his predecessors had
exercised by force of custom. Under this commission the hand
of the Bishop and his agents had been strengthened, and the dis
cipline of the clergy had been maintained more vigorously. Sher
lock, however, had doubts about its validity, and, in any case,
considered the authority granted under it inadequate, as the juris
diction extended only to the clergy, and as no appeal was allowed
from the Commissaries to the bishop. Moreover, he thought
it a hardship for the colonies to be under a bishop who could
never live among them, so that they must necessarily be deprived
of Confirmation and Ordination unless they came to England for
them. He also felt that the supervision of the colonies was too
much of a burden for one man, when combined with the super
vision of a large diocese in England, and desired to be relieved
of it.

For these reasons, which he expressed, and possibly also because
he hoped to increase the loyalty of the colonists by strengthening
the English Church among them, Sherlock refused to sue for a
patent as Gibson had done, and instead began at once to work for
a colonial episcopate. Shortly after his elevation, he went to the
King and presented the religious needs of the colony in such a

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE

163

way that His Majesty consented to have the matter laid before
his ministers. As he could obtain no satisfaction from them, he
again went to the King and obtained his approval for the calling
of a Council which, however, took no action. In 1748 he sent a
representative to visit New York and Philadelphia and sound out
public opinion on the subject of bishops. That a suffragan would
not have any powers which would threaten the liberties of the
people, and yet could do many useful things which were impos
sible to a Commissary, was brought to the attention of those
approached by the agent. When the matter was put in this way,
most people, he said, were willing to admit that the measure might
be a desirable one.

In the year 1749, Sherlock entered into a private corre
spondence with the Duke of Newcastle in which he urged the
sending of a bishop to the colonies, at first upon the ground that
he ought to be relieved of the burden of colonial jurisdiction.
When Newcastle insisted that the question was too important a
one to be decided upon personal grounds, Sherlock urged the
importance of the measure for the good of the colonies. His argu
ments, however, met with little favor, and Newcastle continued
to insist that the measure was inexpedient. The next year, as we
have already seen, Horatio Walpole also wrote to Sherlock expos
tulating with him for starting something that might lead to
trouble. A deputation from the committee in charge of the civil
affairs of the dissenters had waited upon the King in 1749 and
again in 1750 to represent to him the undesirability of the measure,
and it is possible that their activity had something to do with the
caution of the ministers.

In 1750 Sherlock again memorialized the King with some
"Considerations . . . relating to Ecclesiastical Government in his Sherlock's
Majesty's Dominions in America," in which he advanced the usual Memorial
arguments in favor of a colonial episcopate, insisted that there
was no thought of settling any bishops in the colonies with
"coercive power," and sought to answer some of the other objec
tions which might be brought against the measure. It would seem,
nevertheless, that he had given up hope of the immediate attain
ment of his ends, for in the same year that he submitted this
memorial he addressed a circular letter to the colonial clergy ask
ing them what jurisdiction had been exercised by his predecessors

164 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

and their representatives. He says in this letter, it is true, that the
matter of colonial bishops was still pending, as the King had to
go to Hanover before any action was taken, but it is unlikely that
he would have made the enquiry had he had much hope of trans
ferring the burden of the jurisdiction to other shoulders. As late
as 1751 rumors were afloat among the dissenters in New Jersey
that a bishop was about to be sent over, but there was no founda
tion for the report, and in May, 1752, Secretary Bearcroft wrote to
one of the Massachusetts missionaries that there were now no
further hopes of obtaining a bishop, and that Sherlock talked of
taking out a patent for the colonies. This he never did, but he did
carry on the customary jurisdiction during the rest of his career.
Seeker, who had more political discretion than Sherlock, seems to
have shared the opinion of the Ministry that the latter's move was
an untimely one, though for different reasons. At least, we pre
sume he was referring to this when he wrote to Samuel Johnson
in 1758, "The design when, some years ago it seemed to be in
great forwardness, received a most mortifying check by means
of an unseasonable step, which a worthy and able prelate took
to promote it, and of which his opposers made their advantage."
When the campaign was reopened in the sixties, the initiative

intermittent was taken by various clerical conventions on this side of the water.

Efforts l n the meantime, occasional pleas were made in behalf of the

episcopate by individuals both here and in England. Bishop But
ler, the author of the famous Analogy, had drafted a plan for a
colonial episcopate in 1750, at the same time that Sherlock was
presenting his memorial to the King. From America, Johnson con
tinued his appeals for a bishop in letters to Canterbury and Lon
don, and Smith also urged the measure from time to time. In 1760
Henry Caner, the rector of King's Chapel, wrote to the secretary
expressing the opinion that when the missionaries failed in their
work it was generally due to the want of episcopal authority.
Until that was supplied he thought the Bishop of London should
appoint a Commissary, or, better yet, an archdeacon so far as is
known, the only suggestion for sending such an officer to America.
The annexation of Canada at the close of the Seven Years' War
raised some hope that the sending of a bishop to Quebec might
rouse less opposition than his introduction into the older colonies.
Such a measure was suggested shortly after the close of the war

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE

165

by the Dean of Gloucester in some Queries humbly submitted to
the friends of the Protestant Episcopacy in North America. In
1764 Richard Peters of Philadelphia presented to the Archbishops
of Canterbury and York some Thoughts on the Present State of
the Church of England in America, in which he reverted to the
old plan of sending out four suffragans. He thought that such
suffragans could be appointed in the archdiocese of Canterbury
by the King, under a law already existing, without having recourse
to a special act of Parliament. He varied Bishop Compton's scheme
further by proposing that three, instead of two, of the bishops
should reside on the continent of North America.

Voluntary conventions had been held by the clergy of the
various colonies from early times, but in the later part of the Clerical
colonial period they tended to meet more regularly than formerly ^^ ntl
and, in the northern colonies, there was also a tendency to include Colonies
two or three colonies in one convention. The clergy of Massa
chusetts and Rhode Island had always been accustomed to meet
together, and they occasionally had some of their brethren from
Connecticut with them. The ministers in New York and New
Jersey began holding joint annual conventions in 1756. Pennsyl
vania conventions were frequently attended by clergymen from
New Jersey and Maryland. In 1766 articles of organization were
drawn up for a convention to include members from New York,
New Jersey, and Connecticut, and other colonies were invited
to join the movement. When the convention met in November of
the same year it had members from Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but it does not appear that so represen
tative a group was assembled more than once.

The clerical conventions had been accustomed to memorialize
the Society, the bishops, or the King in behalf of a colonial episco- Their
pate whenever they thought they had an opportunity to be heard.
We have already mentioned a few of their appeals. According to
William Smith, the Pennsylvania clergy used to memorialize
every new Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury in
favor of the measure. In 1765 two other conventions, that of New
York and New Jersey, and that of Connecticut sent over memo
rials which they desired the Archbishop of Canterbury to pre
sent to the King. Seeker, however, thought it unwise to do so

for

166 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

at the time, as both countries were then "on fire about the Stamp
Act," and the two conventions apologized the next year for their
indiscretion.

Evidently it seemed to the members o these conventions, how-
Southern everj that as the Churchmen in their sections had, for the most
Opposition part ^ taken the sic j e Q t j le mot fa r country in the prevailing dis
putes, the excitement furnished a very good reason why their
requests should be favorably listened to. In 1771 both conventions
renewed their petitions, and both took occasion to point out the
loyalty of Churchmen to the Crown, and to suggest that political
expediency, if nothing else, should dictate the strengthening of
the Church in every way possible. The New York and New Jersey
convention commissioned Myles Cooper, the president of King's
College, to carry their petition to England personally. Cooper
and Robert McKean, a New Jersey missionary, had been pre
viously deputed by the convention to secure the support of some
of the southern clergy for the measure, and had succeeded in get
ting a vote of approval from a thinly attended convention in
Virginia. This move, however, did their cause more harm than
good, for two of the Virginia clergy, Thomas Gwatkin and
Samuel Henley, protested against the action of the convention
and shortly afterwards the colonial House of Burgesses gave these
two gentlemen and some others who had sided with them a vote
of thanks for "the wise and well-timed opposition they have made
to the pernicious project of a few mistaken clergymen for intro
ducing an American bishop." Thus the fact, which should have
been known to the convention, that the southerners were, on the
whole, opposed to the introduction of the episcopate, was unneces
sarily underlined. Subsequently an attempt was made to obtain
the support of the Pennsylvania clergy to the petition, but they
declined, giving as their reasons the untimeliness of the measure
as indicated by the action of the House of Burgesses; the fact,
already mentioned, that they had always addressed every new
occupant of the Sees of Canterbury and London in favor of the
episcopate, which made them feel that supporting a supplemen
tary petition would imply a doubt of the zeal or wisdom of their
superiors; and the inadvisability of a small group of clergy send
ing a petition directly to the throne, since, if rejected or ignored,
it would not be proper to present another for some years. They

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE 167

also felt that the cause had probably been hurt by too many peti
tions anyway. Cooper sailed for England in the fall of 1771, but
his mission bore no fruit. In 1774 Secretary Hind of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel expressed to Dr. Smith the
fear that the prospect of obtaining an episcopate had been "thrown
... at a greater distance than ever by the present distracted state
of the colonies."

The action of the Virginia House of Burgesses in condemning
the move for episcopacy drew forth an Address from the Clergy of Remonstrance

New York and New Jersey to the Episcopalians in Virginia, writ- ?* th , e
i ^ J-1I i - T-i Northern

ten by Cooper and signed by seven other ministers, which ex- clergy
pressed great surprise that the southern Churchmen should have
opposed a measure which was so consistent with their supposed
principles, and in support of which the northern Episcopalians
were unanimous. If this surprise were genuine, it is a striking
illustration of the ignorance of the colonists of one section with
respect to the sentiments of another, for from the time of Bishop
Compton, if not earlier, it had been recognized that the Virginians
were opposed to the introduction of any sort of jurisdiction which
would impair the freedom that they enjoyed in ecclesiastical
affairs. In succeeding years they had continued to whittle down
the authority of their Commissaries until it was a mere shadow.
Moreover, by now, the issue had become thoroughly impregnated
with political implications, both for the Churchmen and for their
opponents. The northern Churchmen thought they deserved a
bishop because they were conspicuously loyal to the Crown, but
the southern Churchmen were not conspicuously loyal to the
Crown. Their sympathies for the most part were with the party
of resistance, and they were probably not altogether uninfluenced
by the belief of the northern leaders of this party that bishops
would be just another agency of British tyranny.

Similar, though milder, political motives may have had some
part in producing the coolness with which the petition was treated
in Pennsylvania, for many of the leading clergymen in that colony
were in favor of the early measures of resistance, though not all
of them proved willing, when the time came, to go the full length
of independence.

While the Episcopal conventions were campaigning for bishops,
the Presbyterians and Congregationalists also organized a tri-

168 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

colonial convention, partly, at least, for the purpose of opposing
them. This convention was apparently inspired by the meeting of
the Church of England clergy o New York, New Jersey, and Con
necticut, for it included the same colonies, and held its first meet
ing at Elizabeth five days after the Episcopalian meeting. Its
objects were supposed to include a general consultation on the
interests of the two denominations in the three colonies, but the
opposition to the introduction of the episcopate had a large place
in its activities.

The later stages of the campaign for the episcopate were marked
Pamphlet by an almost continuous pamphlet controversy, which may be
Warfare briefly summarized. In his Serious Address, to which we referred

in an earlier chapter, Noah Hobart took a mild swipe at the
demand for bishops by saying that he did not think bishops had
anything to do with the discipline of the Church of England, a
view which he based on the indirect way in which their authority
was exercised. This was in 1748, but the conflict did not become
hot until 1763, when Jonathan May hew published some Observa
tions on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for the Propa
gation of the Gospel, in which he asserted that the chief design
of the Society was to root out "Presbyterianism" and establish
episcopacy in the colonies. This was answered by Henry Caner in
a pamphlet which was mainly devoted to personalities, and by
Arthur Browne, of Portsmouth, in one which admitted the design
to introduce episcopacy, denied there was any intention of driving
out the Puritan religion by force, and declared that if a majority
of the colonists should, happily, become Episcopalians, there
would be no reason why bishops should not be supported by tax
ation. The most important reply to Mayhew, however, was an
Answer published anonymously, but written by Seeker, which
took the familiar ground that bishops were necessary to complete
the Church's ministry, that temporal bishops were not desired, and
that spiritual bishops ought to be allowed as a simple matter
of toleration. Mayhew answered his opponents in two pamphlets,
one directed against Caner and the other against Seeker. In the
latter he argued that, whatever character the colonial bishops
might have when first sent over, they would inevitably seek to
increase their authority in every way possible. An answer to this

; fr^fy ! M 4j '.i'', ,rff* r r ML, ^T 1 *^**** / ' - ^w** .^,-MK^

AN ATTEMPT TO LAND A BISHOP IN AMERICA
From an old cartoon in W. S. Perry's "History of the American Episcopal Church."

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE

from the pen of East Apthorp, the minister at Cambridge^ closed
this phase of the controversy.

The debate was reopened in 1767 with the publication of a ser
mon preached by John Ewer, Bishop of Llandaff, before the Chandler's
Society in which he stressed the need of bishops in the colonies, Pamphlets
dwelling especially upon the hardships suffered by those who had
to come to England for orders. His sermon was attacked by
Charles Chauncy, a prominent Puritan minister of Boston, and
William Livingston of New York, and defended by Charles Ing-
lis, assistant minister at Trinity Church, New York. In the same
year, Thomas Bradbury Chandler, the missionary at Elizabeth,
published an Appeal to the Public on Behalf of the Church of
England in America, as a result of promptings from Dr. John
son and the convention of New York and New Jersey. In this
document he repeated the plea for a purely spiritual episcopate,
but in a letter which he wrote to the Bishop of London concern
ing the work, he said, "There are some other facts and reasons
which could not be prudently mentioned in a work of this nature,
as the least intimation of them would be of ill consequence in
this irritable age and country, but were they known they would
have a far greater tendency to engage such of our superiors . . .
as are governed altogether by political motives to espouse the
cause of the Church of England in America." This has been taken
as an indication that Chandler was contemplating a temporal
establishment, but it seems more likely that it merely refers to
the argument from the greater loyalty of the northern Church
men which was later advanced openly.

Dr. Chauncy replied to Chandler's effort by printing the Appeal
Answered^ and die latter retorted with the Appeal Defended.
Next came Chauncy's Reply, and Chandler's Appeal Further
Defended, in which he sought to reinforce the old arguments by
correcting his opponent's grammar. In 1769, a letter written by
Archbishop Seeker to Horatio Walpole in 1750, in defense of the
American episcopate, was posthumously published. This pro
voked a Critical Commentary by Francis Blackburne, Archdeacon
of Cleveland, a Churchman who seems to have had a good deal
of sympathy with dissenters. Chandler again entered the lists
in 1774 with A free Examination of the Critical Commentary in

170 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Newspaper
Controversy

Was There a
Nonjuring

which he supported Seeker, and to which he subjoined Bishop
Sherlock's memorial of 1750.

In 1768 the controversy broke in the newspapers and became
embittered by the catch phrases of popular politics. The scenes
of this conflict were New York and Philadelphia, and the oppo
nents of episcopacy were, in New York, the "American Whig,"
who was in reality William Livingston, and in Philadelphia the
"Centinel," or Francis Allison, Vice-provost of the College of
Philadelphia. Allison is quoted by one of the Pennsylvania mis
sionaries as having said that he would have no objection to the
coming of truly "primitive" bishops to America, and his publica
tions were a little more moderate than Livingston's, but both men
were convinced that the introduction of the episcopate was simply
a part of the plot of the British government to subvert American
liberty. They were answered vigorously by a writer who signed
himself "Timothy Tickle" in A Whip for the American Whig,
and more reasonably by Allison's superior, William Smith, who
signed himself "The Anatomist." Thus the ecclesiastical issue was
smothered by the political controversy between the colonies and
the mother country which, in its ultimate outcome, was at last to
make possible the sending of bishops.

An interesting side issue to the struggle for the episcopate is
the question of whether or not there were bishops in the colonies
who had been consecrated by the Nonjurors. It is not very im
portant but it furnishes one of the minor mysteries of American
history. The persons suspected of being in such orders were John
Talbot, with whom the reader is already well acquainted, and
Richard Welton, who served for a time as minister of Christ
Church, Philadelphia. The evidence in favor of their having been
consecrated is largely indirect. John Urmiston, the drunkard whom
Talbot helped to expel from Christ Church, wrote letters to Dr.
Bray, to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel, and to another person, in all of which he declared that
Talbot had convened the Pennsylvania clergy and demanded obe
dience from them as a bishop. Commissary Henderson made a
similar charge in 1724, saying that Talbot had returned to the
colonies in episcopal orders two years previously and that Welton
had arrived more recently in the same capacity. The source of

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EPISCOPATE 171

Henderson's information is not known, however, and it is more
than possible that he derived it from Urmiston.

The report thus started obtained general circulation and was
repeated by Governor Bur net of New York and a number of Report widely
colonial clergymen, but none of these writers pretended to have Circulatc<1
first-hand knowledge of the matter, and none of them was located
either in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, whence accurate informa
tion on the subject might most naturally be expected to come.
The Society attached enough weight to these reports, coupled with
earlier charges of Jacobitism, to dismiss Talbot from its service,
and the story is repeated by a number of historians of the period,
including Lothbury in his History of the Nonjurors, Perceval in a
work on the Apostolic Succession, and the author of a work
called Reliquiae Hernianae. All that the modern historian can say,
however, is that, though it is possible that Talbot and Welton
were in episcopal orders, the supposition cannot, in the absence
of reliable first-hand testimony, be regarded as proven.

Church in the

Revolution

CHAPTER IX

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

EVOLUTIONS, like street fights, are likely to be as
Position o the dangerous to the innocent bystanders as to the participants, and
fa^ position of the Church in the American Revolution was, in

r i r - i_ j TI_-

some sense, that or an innocent bystander. This is not to say
that her members did not take sides, for many o them did, but
they did not all take the same side, and it is probable that in
fluences other than their Churchmanship governed their decision
for or against the rebellion. In spite of the efforts of the oppo
nents (and some of the advocates) of episcopacy to connect that
topic with the general controversy, the real issues of the struggle
were not ecclesiastical, and the Church had no direct concern in
them. Most of her ministers would probably have preferred to
remain neutral if they could, though clearly this was an impossi
bility. Nevertheless, the Church was profoundly affected by the
Revolution. When it was over she was compelled to reorganize
herself from the bottom up, to obtain from a foreign power the
episcopate so long denied her when her members were still sub
jects of that power, and to find entirely new methods of support
ing her services in most of the places where she held them. She
was obliged to do all this, moreover, at a time when she had but
a fraction of her former number of ministers, and when she was
regarded with suspicion in many sections where most of her
members had been hostile to the revolutionary cause.

It was frequently stated by the missionaries that the growth of
the Church always meant the growth of loyalty to the Crown, and
tn i s statement has been repeated by some reputable historians,
but it is only partly true. Had it been entirely true, two-thirds
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence would not have
been Churchmen. What was true, on the whole, was that where
the Church expanded in sections which were generally hostile to

172

Loyalists in
the Church

EVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 173

it, its adherents were likely to stand out as loyal to the Crown,
because, whether they were new arrivals or converts, they would
be out of sympathy with the prevailing sentiments of the colony,
and would naturally look across the water for encouragement and
protection. It was also true that most of the missionaries of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel were loyalist, partly
because they generally served in hostile sections, partly because
any suspicion of disloyalty would have led to their immediate dis
missal, and partly because they were mostly High Churchmen,
and High Churchmanship was associated with attachment to the
Crown. When they were suspected of disaffection of any sort, it
was generally Jacobitism, not Whiggery, with which they were
charged. The ministers who were locally supported showed more
sympathy with colonial aspirations, and when the test came, a
good many of them were at least passively friendly towards inde
pendence. To express this distinction along geographical lines
is to say that the clergy in New England were nearly all loyalist,
that many of those in the South (except in the colonies which
were still supplied by missionaries), were revolutionary, and that
those in the Middle Colonies were divided, but predominantly
loyalist. There were, however, some exceptions to these rules, as
we shall see later.

The laity of the Church tended to divide upon lines similar to
those of the clergy, not, it is probable, because they allowed them- Attitude of
selves to be swayed by the latter so much as because they were & e Lait y
subject to similar influences. The Church had, by this time,
acquired something of that quality of "upper-classishness" which
has handicapped its work in this country ever since. When it first
invaded a colony, unless it did so under the immediate protection
of the governor, its adherents were likely to be drawn from the
poorer inhabitants either new settlers or persons who had not
fitted too well into the life of the colony. As time went on, how
ever, it drew to itself, especially in the larger centers, a good
many of the wealthier merchants and office holders whose interests
disposed them favorably towards the royal government, who liked
to imitate the English gentry, and who probably desired a greater
freedom in their personal lives than was allowed them by other
denominations. Though these men had supported much of the
earlier opposition to the imperialistic policy adopted by the British

174 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

government in the sixties and seventies, they were opposed to
violent measures, and most of them took the loyalist side when
the issue was finally drawn, while the less prosperous classes
tended to favor revolt. When the members of the upper classes
did join the rebellion, however (and a few of them did so),
they tended naturally to gravitate to positions of leadership in it.
Leadership of Hence we find the Church supplying a respectable number of
Churchmen in revolutionary leaders even in colonies where a majority of its
the Revolution adherents were Toryi In ^ South, where there were few of the
merchant class, its strongest members were naturally the large
planters, but in the older southern colonies, where it was estab
lished by law, the Church still had the nominal allegiance of a
majority of the inhabitants, since the support of a dissenting min
ister was an extra expense which would be borne only as the result
of earnest conviction. Moreover, compared with the convictions of
northern merchants, a larger proportion of the southern planters
favored independence. Hence, in the South nearly all of the lead
ers and a majority of the rank and file of the revolutionary move
ment were drawn from the Church, though most of them showed
but a scant regard for her welfare when she was in distress.

Most of the ministers, as has been said, would have preferred
Plight of the to remain neutral in the struggle if they could, but circumstances
Tory Clergy would not allow this. A few did become Tory pamphleteers.
Samuel Seabury, the future Bishop of Connecticut, wrote some
Letters of a Westchester Farmer that provided effective Tory
propaganda; Jonathan Odell, a missionary in New Jersey, directed
some satiric verse against the Whigs; and Charles Inglis, the
assistant rector at Trinity Church, New York, prepared an answer
to Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Some others, who were not
moved to literary expression by the struggle, did feel bound to
preach sermons against rebellion, but the majority would have
asked nothing better than the permission to go on quietly holding
services and preaching on other questions than those of politics.
Unfortunately, they could not hold service in conformity to the
Prayer Book without praying for the King, and where the rebels
were in control this was not likely to be permitted. To omit the
royal prayers was to violate their oaths of allegiance and the vows
taken at ordination to conform to the laws of the Church. Such
a course might be justified if they were convinced that the revolt

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 175

was right in principle, or it might be held allowable on the
plea of coercion, or as a necessary means of continuing the per
formance of their pastoral duties, and a few of the clergy who
were not in general sympathy with the revolt accepted one or
the other of these last two views, and omitted the prayers. The
great majority of the loyalist ministers, however, felt their oaths
and their allegiance must come before everything, and were con
sequently obliged either to discontinue their services, to abandon
their cures altogether, or to defy the rebels and go to jail Only a
minority chose the last course.

It was characteristic of the military situation prevailing through
out the war that, while the British held several of the larger cities
from time to time, they were seldom able to hold any very large
areas outside of them. They could, and frequently did, defeat rebel
armies in the field, and when they concentrated in a city they
could be dislodged only with great difficulty, but they did not have
the forces necessary to hold the country as a whole against the
guerrilla warfare carried on by the rebels between campaigns.
Consequently the loyalist missionaries in most parts of the coun
try were at the mercy of the rebels.

In New England, outside of Connecticut, most of the clergy
were obliged to flee during the conflict, seeking refuge in New The Situation
York, which was held by the British from 1776 until the close of in New
the war, in Canada, or in England. When the struggle ended ngan
there were but four missionaries in Massachusetts, one of whom
had come from Nova Scotia during the war, one in New Hamp
shire, and none in Rhode Island or Maine. In Boston, a consider
able portion of the laity seem to have been in favor of the Revo
lution, .though only one of the ministers was. It was in the tower
of Christ Church that the lanterns were set which warned Paul
Revere and his fellow-rider that the British troops were marching
to Lexington and Concord, and because of what he considered
the disloyal sentiments of the vestry, the rector, Mather Byles,
resigned, and accepted the post of minister at Portsmouth. He
was unable to get there, however, because that town had also
fallen into the hands of the rebels. When the British evacuated
Boston, Byles fled to Halifax, as did Henry Caner, rector of King's
Chapel, and one of the neighboring ministers, William Walter,
rector of Trinity Church, fled to New York. Some of the leading

176 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

members of King's Chapel, being loyalists, were also obliged to
leave town, and the Chapel eventually passed into the hands of the
Unitarians. Christ Church and Trinity, however, had pro-Revolu
tionary vestries, and the assistant at the latter, Samuel Parker, was
sufficiently in favor of independence to carry on without prayers
for the King. For a time he preached at Christ Church, also, to
prevent its acquisition by the French, which Congress at one time
intended.

Outside of Boston, the church at Cambridge was the first to be
closed, the minister there being forced to flee shortly after the
Battle of Lexington. Some of the other ministers were suffered
to continue for a time, but were eventually silenced or expelled,
with the exception of Edward Bass, the missionary at Newbury,
who consented to omit the prayers for the King, and to observe
the fasts appointed by Congress. In Rhode Island and Maine the
missionaries were also presently expelled. In New Hampshire,
Ranna Cossit continued to serve at Claremont, but was not allowed
to visit other parts of the colony. Most of the ministers left before
they were seriously molested, except William Clark, the mission
ary at Dedham, who was imprisoned for a time at Boston.

The troubles in Connecticut began when the colonial militia
Connecticut returned from service with Washington at Boston. Richard Mans
field, the missionary at Derby, who had preached against rebel
lion, and sent a petition on behalf of loyalists to General Tryon
in New York, which was intercepted, was forced to flee to Long
Island where he could be protected by loyal troops. He returned
at the end of the war. At Newtown the aged minister, John
Beach, then in his seventy-eighth year, was imprisoned, as were
some of the local "selectmen" also, in an effort to make them
support the rebel "association." As they persisted in their refusal
to do so, they were released under heavy bonds not to bear arms
or engage in seditious actions. Beach continued to hold services
and pray for the King throughout the war, declaring that he
would persist until the rebels cut his tongue out. Samuel Peters,
the minister at Hebron, was attacked by two mobs, and finally
fled to England. He came back after the war, and divided his time
between trying to become Bishop of Vermont and endeavoring
to make good his title to a land grant which he had purchased
in England. Abraham Jarvis, who was to become the second

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 177

Bishop of Connecticut, is said by his grandson to have escaped
the hand of a rebel assassin only because the latter was unable to
pick a quarrel with him and would not kill him in cold blood.
This story comes to us too indirectly to be regarded as certain,
however. Most of Jarvis* relatives were Tories, and, according to
the same authority, two of his nephews served in the British
Army. Their father was shot by rebels at his own door, and an
other brother escaped from the "vigilance committee" only by
hiding in a wood bin.

The Church in Connecticut suffered from its friends as well as
its enemies, for General Tryon raided the state in 1779, burning General
Norwalk, Fairfield, and some other villages, destroying their I^d" 5
churches in the process. He carried the missionaries at the two
places mentioned, Jeremiah Learning and John Sayre, back to
New York with him. A few other ministers also left the state,
but a majority remained at their posts. In 1782, the last year of
the war, they sent word to the Society that they continued to
officiate as formerly, and that they were now living in greater
security than they had been (active hostilities ceased after York-
town, of course), but that they received very little from the people
because of the heavy taxes with which the latter were burdened.
In spite of its difficulties, the Church there was flourishing, and
many outsiders had conformed to it.

The fact that New York City was held by the British through
out the greater part of the war caused it to become a city of refuge *Tory Refugees
for loyalists from all of the neighboring states, and from the m New York
remoter parts of its own state. A considerable number of loyalist
missionaries consequently gathered there during most of the con
flict. Some of these later departed for England or Canada, and a
number were given chaplaincies in the royal army, but some
remained without other support than the stipends which the
Society continued to pay them. They were, it is true, allowed
rations of food and fuel by the military authorities, and apparently
were also given a small allowance in money, but there is reason to
suspect that the quality of the food was not always the best, for
one missionary reported that he and his family would eat it "if
our stomachs could accommodate themselves to worms and many
other impurities which we (without any necessity for it) find in
our bread." Other refugees report that supplies were plentiful but

178 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

New York
City Before
the British
Occupation

The Rest of
the State

very dear and, as the incomes of most were small, it is probable
that they suffered some hardship. Walter, who had means of his
own, was able to relieve some of his colleagues while he remained
at New York, and the Society also raised a fund for their benefit.

During the year that preceded the British occupation of New
York after the outbreak of hostilities, the Church there was sub
jected to some interference. Myles Cooper, the president of King's
College, fled the country at the beginning of the war and did not
return. Samuel Auchmuty, the rector of Trinity Church, retired
for a time to New Brunswick, New Jersey, and left his assistant,
Inglis, in charge. Washington attended Trinity when he was in
town and one of his generals told Inglis to omit the prayers for
the King. The latter did not do so, however, and the general later
apologized. This was before the Declaration of Independence.
After that event, Inglis departed for Long Island, where he re
mained until General Howe entered the city in September. Shortly
after the British occupation, one-fourth of the city was destroyed
in a conflagration which most contemporaries thought was started
by rebels. Trinity Church was burned down in this fire, but the
College and St. Paul's Chapel were saved.

Auchmuty also returned after the British came in, but he died
a short time later, and Inglis became rector. Thereafter, except
for the presence of the refugees, the affairs of the Church within
the city were carried on more or less as usual. The regular services
were held, the parish school was kept open, its buildings being
exempted from billets by the commandant, and the negroes were
regularly catechized. As the Dutch Church was used for a hos
pital, the Dutch-speaking portion of the congregation was per
mitted to use St. George's Chapel. The English-speaking portion
had previously hired a Presbyterian minister and become hostile
to the Episcopal Church. Most of them were now with the rebels.

On Staten Island and Long Island the presence of British
troops also made it possible to keep up the services of the Church
during part of the time, though both places were exposed to occa
sional raids from the neighboring states. In some places on Long
Island the royal troops proved nearly as disturbing as the rebels.
At Huntington they used the church for a barracks. At Hemp-
stead the parish school was used for a guardroom, and the min
ister's house and farm were also used and damaged by the troops.

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 179

Leonard Cutting, the minister, wrote to the Society, "Where the
army is, oppression (such as, in England, you can have no concep
tion of) universally prevails." At Jamaica, on the other hand,
things were so peaceable that the parish raised eight hundred
pounds by a lottery, which it invested in a glebe. At Brooklyn the
war was actually the cause of introducing the services of the
Church, for James Sayre, who had been driven away from Fred-
ericksburg in Dutchess County, began preaching in the Dutch
Church three Sundays out of four.

The rest of the state was generally in control of the rebels and
most of the ministers were driven out sooner or later. Seabury,
who, as we have seen, had written some pamphlets against the
rebellion, was carried into Connecticut early in the war by some
irregulars and kept prisoner for a time, his family being subjected
to some indignities during his absence. When Westchester County
fell into the hands of the colonial forces, he and Wetmore were
both expelled. He supported himself by practicing medicine in
New York until 1778, when he became chaplain in a loyalist
regiment. Sooner or later most of the other ministers were also
herded into New York City. Munro, at Albany, resigned early in
the war to become a chaplain. Stuart, after the flight of his
Indians, was held prisoner at Schenectady for three years, when he
was sent to Canada after giving bonds to procure the release of
an American colonel in exchange.

The only minister in New York who was definitely pro-Revo
lutionary was Samuel Provoost, who had been assistant at Trinity
for a time, but resigned in 1769 because his sentiments were
already too disloyal for the vestry. During the war he served in
the army. A considerable number of the parishioners of Trinity
had been in sympathy with the Revolution, and had left the city
before the arrival of the British. As soon as Inglis and the royal
troops had departed, after the treaty of peace in 1783, the loyalist
vestry elected Benjamin Moore, who had been assistant minister,
their rector. When the revolutionists returned to the city, they had
this election annulled and elected Provoost instead. He subse
quently became the first Bishop of New York.

In Pennsylvania a number of the leading clergymen supported
the revolutionary movement in its early stages. When the Conti- Pennsylvania
nental Congress recommended a general fast in 1775, Richard

180 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Peters, the rector of Christ Church, observed it, on the advice of
his vestry. This, however, was not a proof of decided Whig lean
ings, as a number of the Tory ministers felt justified in doing the
same, to keep peace in their parishes, since Congress had not yet
openly declared rebellion. Peters resigned on September 23, 1775,
because of ill health, and Jacob Duche, his chief assistant, was
elected rector. Duche was a strong Whig, and served as first
chaplain of the Continental Congress. After the Declaration of
Independence, Duche called a meeting of his vestry which voted
to omit the prayers for the King for the sake of "the peace and
well-being of the Churches." When the British occupied the city
in 1777, however, he became a loyalist, and when they were forced
to evacuate the city he fled to England.

The other assistant at Christ and St. Peter's was William White,
William a young man who had been appointed to the position in 1772,

White anc } w ho was a brother-in-law of Robert Morris, the financier of

the Revolution. White had felt some hesitancy about the pro
priety of revolt, but when most of his countrymen seemed in
favor of it he felt it his duty to follow them, and adhered unflinch
ingly to his decision thereafter. He became chaplain of the Con
tinental Congress when it was running away from Philadelphia
during one of the darkest moments of the war. When the city was
retaken, he was elected rector of Christ Church, but accepted only
with the understanding that he should resign if Duche was later
able to return. He continued at his post during the war, and was,
at one time, the only Episcopalian minister in the state.

William Smith, the Provost of the College of Philadelphia, had
William participated in the early resistance to British imperialism, and

Smith had served on one or two committees of correspondence. He had

been opposed to declaring independence, and had written some
pamphlets against it, signed "Cato," but accepted it after it was
declared. He also preached a funeral sermon on General Mont
gomery, killed in the siege of Quebec, which was considered in
sufficiently patriotic by the rebels, and when the British were
advancing on Philadelphia he was placed under surveillance by
Congress as a suspicious character. He fled with the rebels, how
ever, and did not return until they did. In 1779, the charter of the
College was annulled by the state legislature, and its property
transferred to the newly organized University of Pennsylvania,

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

181

the pretext for this move being that the College had abandoned
its non-denominational character, though this seems to have been
untrue. Smith thereupon moved to Maryland and settled down
at Chester, whose rector had become a refugee, and where he
presently organized a new institution which he called Washington
College, after the general, who was one of its patrons. The other
Pennsylvania ministers were all eventually expelled from the state,
though Barton remained at Lancaster until 1778. In 1779 John
Andrews, who had been a loyalist, came into the colony from
Maryland, and decided that necessity justified his acceptance
of the revolutionary government.

In New Jersey all of the ministers, except Robert Blackwell at
Gloucester, closed their churches after they had been threatened New Jersey
with prosecution and one of them, William Ayers, had been
dragged from the pulpit for saying the prayers for the King.
Blackwell, who was in sympathy with the revolt, omitted the
prayers. Some of the missionaries fled from the colony, but Uzal
Ogden, William Ayers, William Frazer and Abraham Beach
remained at their posts, and in 1782, when the war seemed about
over, and they felt that something must be done to check the
decay of religion and morals, they resumed their services without
the crucial prayers.

In the South, as has already been said, a larger proportion of
the ministers were sympathetic to the Revolution, though those The South
actively favoring it were probably not in a majority except in
South Carolina, where only five of the twenty clergy were loyalist.
In Virginia and Maryland those definitely in favor of the revolt
are estimated to have been about one-third of the clergy, but it is
evident that not all of the remaining two-thirds were strongly
loyalist, for a Virginia convention voted to omit the prayers for
the King after the Declaration of Independence. The few minis
ters in Georgia and North Carolina, with the exception of the
rector of Savannah, who was an absentee, were supported by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the only revolutionary ministers in these two
colonies were the Rev. Charles Pettigrew, who married the daugh
ter of a colonel in the Continental Army, and the Rev. William
Percy, the head of Bethesda College.

Of the Virginia rebels, the two most prominent were James

182 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Madison, the first bishop of the diocese, and David Griffith, who
was elected to that office but not consecrated. In South Carolina,
Robert Smith, the future bishop, and another minister were ban
ished for their revolutionary sympathies when the state was under
British control. Henry Purcell, of the same state, served as chap
lain and judge advocate in the Continental Army. Thomas John
Claggett, the first Bishop of Maryland, was friendly to the revolt,
though he had some scruples about repudiating his former oaths.
It might be supposed, from what has been said so far, that the
Situation at Revolution would have left the Episcopal Church in the northern
the Close of states in a much weaker condition than in the southern, but
the War actually the situation was nearly the opposite. If we should draw

a heavy line across the northern and eastern borders of Connecti
cut, and another across the southern border of Maryland, we would
enclose between them the area within which the Church recu
perated most rapidly from the effects of the Revolution. Outside
of this area the recovery was, on the whole, more rapid in the
states to the northward than it was in those to the southward,
and within it the state in which the Church was in the strongest
position at the close of the war was Connecticut, where, as we
have seen, the loyalism of the clergy was the most unanimous. It
would seem evident, therefore, that, while the Tory sympathies
of the northern clergy undoubtedly increased the prejudices
against the Episcopal Church, other factors must also be taken
into consideration if we wish to explain its undoubted decline
after the Revolution. To attempt to account for that decline solely
on the basis of the Church's loyalist tendencies, as some writers
have done, is to fall into the common error of over-simplifying
a complex problem.

Some of the other causes of the Church's decline suggest them-
Causes o the selves at once when we consider how her position was affected
church's ^ t k ^^^g-^. ' m t h e political status of the country. As the charter
Decline 1 i ,* r t TX r 1 ^ ( i

of the Society for the Propagation or the Gospel permitted it to

work only with the "foreign plantations" (/. <?., colonies) of the
British Empire, its support was necessarily withdrawn from the
American Episcopal Church as soon as the independence of the
United States was recognized. In Connecticut most of the par
ishes, and in the other states some of them, were able to raise
sufficient support locally to make it possible for their ministers to

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

183

struggle along, but in a great many places the people were unable
or unwilling to do this, and consequently the Society's mission
aries would have been obliged to leave these communities even if
their political views had been unexceptionable.

Moreover, whatever consciousness o unity had been imparted
to the colonial Church by its general dependence upon England,
by the shadowy jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, and by the
frequent communication of its leading ministers with the English
ecclesiastical authorities, was lost to it after the Revolution, and,
at the same time, the need for American bishops, which had been
chronic in colonial times, now became acute, for it would never
do, even if it were permitted, for the Church to have constant
recourse to a foreign power for the replenishment of her ministry.
To many, however, it seemed that this need would be a long
time in being filled. Actually, bishops were obtained within a few
years after the close of the Revolution, but even so the delay was
sufficient to give some of the more active and better-supplied de
nominations an opportunity of gaining ground against the
Church.

These difficulties, however, confronted the Church everywhere
throughout the country, and some of them operated more strongly Causes
in the North than in the South. Why, then, was the decline of the
Church in the South so strongly marked ? The immediate reason,
of course, was that the Church was disestablished that is, de
prived of all public support in all of the southern states either
during the Revolution or immediately after it. This circumstance,
itself, requires an explanation, however, and it is also obvious that
it could not of itself, since no rival establishment was set up,
account for the widespread defection from the Episcopal Church
which followed. Deeper reasons for this defection must be sought.

In the imagination of most northerners the South is commonly
thought of as having been populated chiefly by wealthy and aristo- opposition o
cratic planters and their negro slaves. The incompleteness of this
picture at once becomes apparent when we reflect that, though it
took a great many more slaves than masters to operate a planta
tion, yet the negroes were never in a majority in more than one
or two of the southern states. Of what then was the rest of the
white population composed? It was composed partly of small
planters and farmers in the mountainous uplands, partly of white

thsouth

184 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

servants, indentured or hired, and partly of artisans, free laborers
and petty merchants in short, of the elements which compose the
proletariat and lower middle class in all societies. For such people,
life is always a harsh struggle, and in the South it was rendered
especially so by the competition of slave labor. They envied the
comfort and luxury of the wealthy planters and smarted under
their contempt. Naturally, therefore, they hated them. Until the
attacks of the abolitionists had welded the South into political
unity, they always opposed the planters in politics, and once they
were free to do so they opposed them in religion also. Moreover,
they found the other denominations more congenial to their
tastes than the Episcopal Church would have been even if it had
not labored under the disadvantage of being the Church of the
aristocracy. The preaching of the other ministers was probably
more earnest and certainly more emotional than that of the
Episcopalians. However much they might differ in other respects,
Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and irregulars all agreed in
teaching a conversion theology /. <r., a theology which proclaimed
the need of a sudden and sweeping change from a life of sin to a
life of sanctity and such a theology has always had a tremendous
appeal to the emotionally deprived. Finally, as T. C Hall has
pointed out in his useful and suggestive study of The Religious
Background of American Culture, in spite of the Cavalier tradi
tion, most of the settlers in the South, as in the other colonies,
were drawn from the lower classes in England, who have always
been sympathetic to dissent.

In our study of the colonial Church in the South we have
Growth of already had occasion to notice a rapid growth of dissent in the
Dissent decades preceding the Revolution, and in one or two colonies we

found reason to believe that the dissenters were already in a
majority, though prevented by property qualifications and other
restrictions from gaining control of the government. It is obvious,
however, that as long as the Episcopal Church was established in
that region, so that everyone had to contribute to its support, many
whose natural sympathies were with other forms of Christianity
would remain in nominal allegiance to it in order to avoid the
added expense of supporting a dissenting minister. When the
Revolutionary upheaval gave them an opportunity, such people
naturally sided with the dissenters in demanding disestablishment.

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

185

and when that was obtained, they as naturally transferred their
support to religious denominations that suited them better, In
Virginia they weakened the Church further by depriving it of its
glebes,

In obtaining disestablishment they were helped by the political
philosophy which was used to rationalize the revolutionary move- The
ment, and by the widespread prevalence of a non-Christian and Revolutionary
sometimes anti-Christian religious philosophy among the educated l sop ^
classes. The principal tenets of eighteenth century political liberal
ism were religious freedom, free speech, freedom of the press, eco
nomic individualism ("laissez-faire"), and democratic, or at least
republican government. These were the ideals, therefore, which
were used to inspire the revolutionary armies and to guide the
debates of Congress. To the wealthier leaders of the movement
many of them were probably not much more than convenient
catch phrases, which might prove dangerous if the people were
allowed to take them too seriously, and as soon as the war was
over, a struggle, eventually successful, was begun for the estab
lishment of a government that would adequately protect the rights
of property from the inroads of crazy idealists and hungry debtors.
In the meantime, however, some concessions had to be made to
the demands of the poorer classes that their aspirations be given
some practical satisfaction, and about the easiest concession which
the wealthy could make was to permit the disestablishment of the
Church. At the worst, this was better than exposing themselves to
economic loss, and to those who were in sympathy with the Deistic
view that no religious differences mattered much, so long as every
one worshipped a Supreme Being, the sacrifice was not even
painful. Except for tie Deists, the planter class continued in
nominal allegiance to the Church, but for some time the support
which most of them gave it was less than half-hearted, and the
infusion of a new religious force, that of the Evangelicals, was
required before Episcopalianism again became very active in the
South.

While recognizing, however, that the Episcopal Church ex
perienced a serious decline following the American Revolution, we Decline of the
should avoid exaggerating this decline. Too much has been said Church not to
and written about the deadness of the Church at this period. Had
it been dead, it could not, in a little more than six years after the

186 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Reorganiza
tion

close of the war, have developed diocesan organizations in a ma
jority of the states, united these into a national body along lines
for which it had no immediate precedent, and obtained from Eng
land and Scotland the number of bishops necessary to guarantee a
continuance of the succession. In view of the difficulties which
confronted it, and the lack of experience of Churchmen in united
action, the achievements of the Church in those years are, in fact,
remarkable.

Even during the war some beginnings had been made towards
Beginnings of diocesan organizations in two of the states, though for the time
being they proved abortive. Shortly after the Declaration of Inde
pendence, as we have seen, a convention met in Virginia and
voted to omit the prayers for the King from the liturgy. Before
the war was over, however, the legislature had surrounded the
Church with so many restrictions that in 1784 the clergy could
do no more than meet and petition for the repeal of the restraining
laws. In Maryland the clergy had been deprived of public support
early in the struggle as the result of a clause in the state bill of
rights which called for religious freedom. Shortly after this they
were required to take oaths of allegiance to the new government,
and some of them, holding this to be inconsistent with their ordi
nation vows, left the state. In 1779 the legislature passed an act
providing for the election of vestries in existing parishes, and turn
ing the Church property over to them, but it left the clergy de
pendent on voluntary contributions, except for what support they
could derive from their glebes. In 1780, thanks to the exertions
of William Smith and some others, a convention was assembled,
composed of three clergymen and a number of laymen. This con
vention petitioned the Assembly for the public support of religion,
but subsequently withdrew the petition because of the troublous
state of the times. It also voted to call the body which it repre
sented the Protestant Episcopal Church. This was the first use of
the present name of the Church by an official organization, but the
phrase was not a new one. It had sometimes been used in the
colonial period to describe the ecclesiastical position of the Church
of England, and was employed by the Rev. Thomas Barton in a
petition which he addressed to the Pennsylvania legislature in
behalf of his fellow clergy in 1778. The name was subsequently
adopted for the whole Church more by common consent than

Name of the
Church

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 187

because anyone especially advocated it. The word Protestant,
though originally applied only to the Lutherans, had by then
come to mean any form of Western Christianity not owning al
legiance to the Pope, and as episcopacy was the most conspicuous
feature which distinguished our Church from the other non-
Roman Catholic bodies, this seemed the most natural way to
describe it. The only alternative suggested, and that only by one
or two, was "Reformed Episcopal Church," which, historically,
would have implied a Calvinistic origin, though it was probably
not so intended.

After the war was over, a more general reorganization was set
on foot, which was to result eventually in the formation of the Leadership of
general constitution which has formed the basis of the Church's White
national life ever since. This movement had a more or less spon
taneous origin in several states, and many people contributed to its
advancement, but its most important leader, the coordinator of its
various elements, was William White, whom we have recently
met as the revolutionary rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia.
White, who was thirty-six at the close of the Revolution, having
been born in 1747, was the son of a wealthy landowner and man
of affairs in Philadelphia, who had held various public offices both
in Pennsylvania and Maryland. His father-in-law was a former
mayor of Philadelphia, and his sister's husband was Robert Morris,
the financier of the Revolution. Thus he was one who could claim
the right to leadership by inheritance and association as well as on
the strength of his own abilities. He had been educated at the Col
lege of Philadelphia and had studied theology under William
Smith and under his own predecessors at Christ Church, Richard
Peters and Jacob Duche. Having directed his steps toward the
ministry from an early period, he went to England as soon as he
was old enough to be ordained and, on his return to America in
1772, was elected assistant-minister of Christ Church, becoming
rector during the Revolution, and serving as Chaplain of the Con
tinental Congress throughout the war. Though he had embraced
the cause of independence from a sense of duty, he was of too
moderate a temper to carry over his political sentiments into his
personal or ecclesiastical relationships and continued, whenever
possible, a friendly intercourse with his fellow clergymen on the
Tory side. As he was about the only outstanding Whig minister

188 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

who displayed such moderation, he naturally became the one to
whom the leaders of both sides turned with their ideas and sug
gestions after the war was over, and he was enough of a statesman
to make the most of this position, and to coordinate his own ideas
with the suggestions which he received from others, until an
effective union was developed.

In exercising this leadership White was helped further by the
His central position and importance of the parish of which he was

Theological rector and by the general moderation of his religious views.
Position White's theological position has been frequently misunderstood,

not because it was at all obscure or uncertain, but because it could
not be made to fit very well under any of the party labels that
were prevalent in his later life. His own views, as he himself tells
us, underwent very little change after he had reached maturity,
but those about him were not so stedfast, and by the middle years
of his life, the party which had formed the natural background
for his opinions had largely disappeared and been replaced by
one with which he had very little sympathy. He belonged, in fact,
to the older school of Low Churchmanship, which preceded the
Evangelicals. The members of this school were orthodox in their
theology, unlike the latitudinarians, who represented the extreme
phase of their party, but they were disposed to tolerate a fairly
wide variety of opinions so long as there was no departure from
essentials. They believed in the Apostolic origin of the episcopate,
but in the absence of a specific command for its continuance they
were unwilling to condemn as altogether invalid the ministries of
those denominations which had been compelled to sacrifice it, and
they were not disposed to rate the authority of bishops too highly,
even within the Church. They were disposed to emphasize, per
haps too much, the rational and intellectual side of Christianity
but they never yielded its supernatural claims altogether in favor
of mere rationalism. If they were, as a rule, somewhat lacking in
fire, they were strong in judiciousness and moderation, and they
were capable of appreciating the value of a comprehensive Church.
It was under the leadership of men who held views such as these
that the central movement in the process of union was carried on,
which fact accounts for a certain receptiveness to innovation, and
willingness to tone down some of the distinctive traditions of the
Church that characterized that movement. Eventually, the need of

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

189

including the High Churchmen, and especially those of Connecti
cut, within the union compelled the adoption of a more conserva
tive attitude, but the handiwork of the Low Church organizers
can still be seen in the fabric of our Church in such things as the
inclusion of laymen in ecclesiastical councils, the slight authority
given to bishops over independent parishes, the curtailment of
their authority in other respects by standing committees and
diocesan conventions, the omission of the Athanasian Creed from
the Prayer Book, the permission to omit the sign of the cross in
Baptism, and to substitute the "place of departed spirits" for "hell"
in the Apostles* Creed.

Geographically, the union movement was primarily the work
of the middle states, though in saying this we must, for the mo-
ment, include Maryland in that category, for it was there that
William Smith, perhaps the second most important leader of the
movement, was then resident, and that state was represented in all
of the early conventions. In New England, outside of Connecticut,
the Episcopalians were receptive to unity, and under the leadership
of Samuel Parker they cooperated in some of the earlier phases of
the movement, but after the consecration of Bishop Seabury in
Connecticut they tended to hold aloof until they were sure that
the validity of his orders would be accepted by the rest of the states.
Had it not been, a schism would have been created in the Church,
and the rest of New England would naturally have allied itself
with Connecticut. That state had, as we have seen, retained a
larger complement of ministers than any other after the Revolu
tion (fourteen out of twenty), and it had, moreover, a strong inde
pendent tradition which was strengthened by its having become,
in consequence of the flight of the Tory clergymen elsewhere, the
chief heir of colonial High Churchmanship. Connecticut Church
men were as desirous as any others of seeing the Church united
along national lines, but they sought to attain that end in their
own way. Because of the importance which they attached to epis
copacy, it seemed to them improper to undertake the reorganiza
tion of the Church until bishops had been obtained. Their first
move, therefore, was to try to supply this need for themselves, after
which they probably thought that they would be in a position to
take the lead in reorganizing the Church generally. It so happened,
however, that by the time they had obtained a bishop, the process

Leadership of
& Q Middle

ization of
the Church

190 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Attitude of
the South

White's
Pamphlet

of organization had gone far enough elsewhere so that it could not
be turned into new lines, and in the end their chief function in the
movement was to act as a check on its more radical tendencies.

In the South, the prevailing type of Churchmanship tended
towards the opposite extreme. As we have seen, southern Episco
palians had cared but little for the obtaining of American bishops
in colonial times, and while they now recognized the necessity of
doing so, they desired to curtail their power in every way possible.
Moreover, the Church in the South was greatly weakened by the
shock of disestablishment and, in Virginia especially, it was sur
rounded with numerous restrictions by the legislature. Virginia
and South Carolina were represented in some of the preliminary
conventions, but the only clergyman in either state who took an
active interest in the process of unification in its early stages was
David Griffith, the rector of Fairfax Parish, Virginia.

The first public suggestion of a plan of union and reorganiza
tion was made by White in 1782, in a pamphlet called The Case
of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered. At the
time that this was published, the active hostilities of the Revolution
had ceased for some time but no satisfactory terms of peace had
yet been reached, and some proposals which were thought to rep
resent the farthest point likely to be conceded by the British gov
ernment had lately been rejected by Congress. It seemed likely,
therefore, that a long time would ensue during which the United
States would be practically independent without having their
freedom recognized by the mother country, as had been the case
with the Dutch Republic after its revolt from Spain, which was
the only modern precedent that people had to judge by.

If this had happened, it is obvious that the obtaining of bishops
from England would have been impossible, and also that it would
no longer have been possible for candidates to be ordained to the
lower grades of the ministry there. The Church in this country
would have been in danger of disintegrating for want of organi
zation and leadership. White, therefore, proposed that until the
episcopate could be obtained (and only until then), the Church
should be organized in a federal system of three grades, the min
isters of the smallest unit (co-extensive with the state) to have
collectively the power of ordination. The Church was to make a
formal declaration of its preference for episcopacy, and .of its

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

191

Its
Importance

intention of obtaining it as soon as possible, but in the meantime
White felt that the necessity of the case would fully justify the
resort to presbyterial ordination, and he cited expressions from
Cranmer, Hooker, Usher, and other leading English divines to
support this view.

As it turned out, a treaty of peace was finally arranged within
a very short time after the publication of this pamphlet, and before
it had been widely circulated, so that the considerations which led
to its chief proposal were never fully understood, and it created a
temporary distrust of White among those who regarded episco
pacy as essential to the Church. Nevertheless, it made an important
contribution to the movement for reorganization, and two of its
suggestions had an important effect upon the future constitution
of the Episcopal Church. The procedure of completing a federal
constitution before obtaining the episcopate was, in fact, the one
followed outside of Connecticut, and besides having the advantage
of uniting the Church before its various parts had become so crys
tallized as to make fusion difficult, it proved more successful than
the Connecticut plan in obtaining the episcopal succession from
England. The other proposal was the inclusion of lay repre
sentatives in the governing body of the Church, which was here
tor the first time publicly advanced as a principle, though a prac
tical example of it had already been furnished in Maryland. This
policy was soon adopted in every state except Connecticut, and
eventually there, and has become an important feature of our
ecclesiastical constitution. Moreover, perhaps precisely because its
main argument was objectionable to many, the pamphlet led to
a widespread discussion of the problems involved in the reorgani
zation of the Church, and it naturally gave to its author a promi
nent place in this discussion. Shortly after its publication, he began
to receive letters on the subject from clergymen of all parties, com
mencing with some from Charles Inglis in May, 1783, just before
Inglis left New York, and continuing in such numbers as to con
stitute White a sort of unofficial committee of correspondence
on the affairs of the Church, before any official committees had
been appointed.

In August, 1783, the Maryland Episcopalians held a second con- The Second
vention under the presidency of William Smith. Earlier in the Maryland
year Smith and the Rev. Thomas Gates, another clergyman of Convcntio11

192 A HISTORY OF- THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the state, had petitioned for permission to introduce a law that
would open the way for a revision of the liturgy, but the desired
measure had not been passed. When the Convention met it
adopted a declaration of rights for the "Protestant Episcopal
Church," asserting her continuity with the Church of England in
the colonies and her consequent title to the property held by that
Church in Maryland, her right to "preserve herself as an entire
Church," her need of a threefold ministry (bishops, priests, and
deacons), and the propriety of amending her liturgy to meet new
conditions. They also elected Dr. Smith to be their bishop as soon
as he could obtain consecration from England. The declaration
of rights was submitted to Governor William Paca, an Episco
palian and a former pupil of Smith's at the College of Philadel
phia, with the suggestion that he obtain legislative sanction for it
if he thought such sanction necessary. Paca replied that the ap
proval of the legislature was not required, as "every denomination
of clergy are to be deemed adequate judges of their own spiritual
rights and of the ministerial commission and authority necessary
to the due administration of the ordinances of religion among
themselves" in other words, the internal arrangements of the
Church were no business of the State's.

In November, 1783, White suggested to his vestry a meeting o
The Pennsyl- committees from the vestries of the three churches in Philadelphia
vania Declara- to confer with the city clergy on the formation of a representative
Principles body ^ or & e Church in Pennsylvania. These committees, when
they assembled, thought that plans for organization should have
the concurrence of all Episcopalians in the United States, and as a
step in that direction, a meeting of clergy and laity from various
parts of Pennsylvania was called for May 24, 1784. This convention
adopted a set of fundamental principles to the effect that the Epis
copal Church in the United States should be independent of all
foreign authority, that it had full powers to regulate its own affairs,
that it should maintain the "Doctrines of the Gospel" as proposed
by the Church of England and conform to the worship of that
Church as far as possible, that it should have a threefold ministry,
that canons should be made by representatives of the clergy and
laity jointly, and that no powers should be delegated to a general
ecclesiastical government except such as could not be conveniently
exercised by state conventions. It also resolved that a standing

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION

193

committee be appointed to correspond with committees of other
states with a view to the formation of a general constitution.

Between the calling of this convention and its assembling, an
other meeting had been held which also took an important step The Meeting
toward the organization of General Convention. In January, 1784, ^ New ick
Abraham Beach, the rector of New Brunswick, New Jersey, had
written to White expressing his alarm at the silence which seemed
to prevail as to measures for the revival of the Church. He thought
the first thing to do was to secure a meeting of as many of the
clergy as possible, and, as the affairs of the Corporation for the
Relief of Widows and Orphans of Clergymen in Pennsylvania,
New York, and New Jersey were badly in need of attention, he
suggested that a meeting of that corporation be called in the spring,
and that an attempt be made to get together as many of the clergy
who were not members as possible at the same time. In a later
letter he suggested including respectable laymen also. White
promptly accepted this proposal and the meeting was held at New
Brunswick on May llth. The corporation merely voted to hold
another meeting in the fall, but the clergy and laymen who were
present held a separate meeting in which they appointed a commit
tee to wait upon the clergy of Connecticut and ask their concur
rence in plans for the rehabilitation of the Church. Other
committees were appointed in the three states represented to cor
respond with each other and with other persons "for the purpose
of forming a continental representation of the Episcopal Church."

While these beginnings were being made in the Middle States,
the Connecticut clergy had been taking steps for the restoration Seabury
of the Church in the way that seemed best to them. Shortly after Elected

i r i_iu i_ i Bishop of

the treaty or peace, ten of them held a secret meeting in which Connecticut

they voted to ask either Jeremiah Learning or Samuel Seabury

to become their bishop, promising obedience to whichever should

be consecrated. The delegation which was sent to New York,

where both of these men were then living, offered the post first

to Learning, who declined because of his advanced age, and then

to Seabury, who, being then in the prime of life, felt it his duty

to accept. He sailed for England armed with a letter from the

Connecticut clergy to the Archbishops, in which they gave as one

of their reasons for desiring a bishop the dangerous proposal

lately made by White at Philadelphia, and with three letters of

194 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

recommendation from Learning, Inglis, and Moore in New York.
Seabury was instructed to seek consecration in England, if possible,
but if not, to try to obtain it from the Nonjuring bishops in Scot
land. In England the Archbishops said they were unable to ordain
him because they had no right to send a bishop to Connecticut
without the consent of that state, because he would probably not
be received there, because no definite provision had been made
for his support, and because the oaths of allegiance could not be
dropped without, at least, the consent of the King in Council, and
this could not be obtained unless the State of Connecticut should
signify its willingness to have a bishop reside within its jurisdic
tion. Later on they also objected to the fact that his election had
not been concurred in by the laity and that there was no definitely
organized diocese over which he could exercise jurisdiction. Find-
His ing, after repeated attempts, that these objections could not be re-

Consecration moved, Seabury at length applied to the Scottish bishops, who
were not dependent on the government, and was consecrated by
Bishops Kilgour, Petrie and Skinner late in 1784, the service taking
place in a chapel on the top floor of Skinner's home.

At the time of his consecration, Seabury entered into a con
cordat with the Scotch bishops in which he agreed to accept the
whole doctrine of the Gospel, to regard bishops as independent of
lay control, and to accommodate the worship and discipline of the
Church in Connecticut as nearly as possible to that of Scotland.
The two Churches were also declared to be in full communion
with one another and pledged to brotherly intercourse. The chief
significance of this document is that it led to the inclusion of some
features of the Scottish liturgy in our Communion Service. On his
return to the United States, Seabury was readily accepted as bishop
in Connecticut, but he met with opposition elsewhere. Though
there could be no serious doubt as to the validity of his orders, he
was objectionable personally to many because of his stand during
the Revolution, and others objected to his having obtained conse
cration from a Church which they regarded as schismatic from
the Church of England.

When the committee from the New Brunswick meeting visited
Connecticut in June, 1784, Seabury was still trying to obtain con
secration in England and the local clergy, while expressing sym
pathy with the desire for union, were unwilling to take any action

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 195

until they had a bishop. In Massachusetts and Rhode Island,
however, a joint convention, held in the fall of 1784, ratified the
principles of the Pennsylvania state convention with two minor
qualifications.

The next general meeting was held in New York in October of
the same year under the presidency of William Smith. The Middle
States and Maryland all sent delegations of ministers and laymen,
and clergymen from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut
also participated. David Griffith was present from Virginia, but
was unable to take an active part because the clergy there were
still surrounded by legal restrictions. The convention recom
mended certain principles of union to the states, the most impor
tant being that there should be a General Convention of clerical
and lay deputies, that the doctrines and as much as possible of
the liturgy of the Church of England should be retained, and that
the first meeting of the proposed General Convention should be
held in Philadelphia during September, 1785.

That convention, when it met, contained representatives from
all of the Middle States, and from Maryland, Virginia, and South The Conven-
Carolina as well, but none from New England. The Massachusetts tion o 1785
Episcopalians found the distance too great, and those of Connect
icut absented themselves because the principles set forth at New
York had failed to provide for the presidency of a bishop. The
convention, after electing White president, proceeded to appoint
a committee of which William Smith was the chairman, to draft
a constitution, revise the liturgy, and formulate a plan for obtain
ing the episcopate. The work of revising the liturgy was continued
by the committee chiefly by White and Smith after the conven
tion adjourned, though on lines which it had approved, but the
constitution and the plan for securing bishops were completed and
approved by the convention. The plan took especial care to avoid
the objections which had been made to Seabury's consecration.
The General Convention was to address the English bishops and
request them to confer episcopal orders on such men as might be
chosen by the state conventions, the state conventions were ad
vised to take special pains to make it clear that the candidates
were elected with the concurrence of the laity, and the deputies
present were desired to request their civil rulers to certify

196 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

that the application was not contrary to the constitutions and laws
of their several states.

Three states, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, complied
Bishops with these suggestions and elected bishops. In Pennsylvania the

Elected in choice, of course, fell on White. Virginia elected Griffith and New
York chose Samuel Provoost, rector of Trinity. Maryland, as we
have seen, had elected William Smith two years earlier. The New
York choice, though inevitable, was not altogether a fortunate one.
Provoost had been an enthusiastic revolutionist and he was not
able to forget political differences in dealing with ecclesiastical
affairs. His opposition to Seabury amounted almost to a mania,
and it took all of White's adroitness and diplomacy to keep him
from precipitating an open break with Connecticut. The applica
tion to the civil rulers was successful, not only in the states, but
with Congress also, both the president of that body, R. H. Lee, and
the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, John Jay, supplying the desired
certificates, while John Adams, our minister to Great Britain, also
exerted himself in behalf of the measure. Jay and Lee were Epis
copalians, but the cooperation of Adams was an example of the
general spirit of religious toleration which ruled the times.

The political obstacles having thus been overcome, an ecclesias-
The ^ ca l one threatened to arise, and that as a result of the Convention's

"Proposed own action. White and Smith, continuing the work of revision
Book" begun at the Convention of 1785, had issued a "Proposed Book,"

which, while professing a desire to adhere to the basic usages of
the Church of England, represented, in fact, a strong expression
of the Protestant tradition of the Church, omitting the Athanasian
and the Nicene Creeds, the "descent into hell" from the Apostles'
Creed, and all expressions implying baptismal regeneration. It also
permitted the omission of the Sign of the Cross in Baptism, and
made other changes which were obnoxious to the more conserva
tive members of the Church. Some of these changes probably
went beyond what the revisers themselves desired, and were in
cluded to conciliate the extremists, for both the Pennsylvania and
the Maryland conventions, with the concurrence of White and
Smith, subsequently voted to restore the Nicene Creed. To the
Archbishops the book seemed to come very close to a departure
in essentials from the teaching of the English Church, and they
felt doubtful as to the wisdom of consecrating American bishops

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 19?

until some o the omissions were restored. Nevertheless, they se
cured the passage of a bill through Parliament permitting the
consecration, trusting that an accommodation on the disputed
points would follow.

At the Convention of 1786 the opponents of Bishop Seabury made
an effort to secure action that would cast doubt on the validity of The Conven-

his consecration. The motions for this purpose were made by the *j on
Rev. Robert Smith of South Carolina and were supported by scabury
South Carolina, New York, and New Jersey. The first motion
was to require the clergy present to show their letters o orders or
tell by whom they were ordained, the object being to challenge
those ordained by Seabury. Debate on this proposal was shut off
by a moving of the previous question by William Smith, seconded
by White, and the motion was defeated. The next motion was
that the Convention resolve to do nothing that would imply the
validity of ordinations performed by Dr. Seabury. This was de
feated in the same manner. White himself, however, proposed a
resolution, which was unanimously adopted, recommending that
the states represented should refuse to admit to pastoral charge
any clergyman professing canonical subjection to a bishop in any
state or country not represented, and a resolution was also passed
advising the states not to admit into their jurisdiction anyone who
should be ordained by a bishop residing in America while the
application to the English bishops was pending. The reason for
this apparently contradictory proceeding was that, on the one
hand, the leaders of the Convention were anxious to avoid any
declaration against Seabury which would be an obstacle to eventual
union, while, on the other hand, they were disturbed by the fact
that Seabury ordained men for states outside of his own without
reference to the local conventions, and that he apparently required
from such men a promise of some sort of obedience to him until
bishops should be obtained for their respective states. They also
felt that the application to the English bishops might be jeop
ardized if too definite a recognition were given to Seabury while
it was pending.

After thus suspending the Seabury question, and dealing with
a few minor matters, the Convention adjourned until fall when it Communica-
reassembled in Wilmington, Delaware, where it received a com- tion f . rom thc
munication from the Archbishops specifying the conditions of rc 1S ops

198 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

consecration and stating their objections to the Proposed Book and
the proposed constitution, and a later note saying that the act
authorizing the consecration had been passed by Parliament. The
Convention sought to meet the objections of the Archbishops in
part by voting to retain the Nicene Creed and the "descent into
hell" in the Apostles', but it persisted in rejecting the Athanasian
Creed and retaining an article of the constitution subjecting bish
ops to trial by their diocesan conventions, to which objections had
also been made. Before adjourning, the deputies signed testi
monials for Provoost, White, and Griffith, but refused to sign those
of William Smith because of a charge, brought by the Rev. John
Andrews, that he had been drunk at the preceding Convention.
This is the only occasion on which such a charge was ever
made against Dr. Smith, and were it not for the respectability
of the witness and the readiness with which his testimony was
accepted by men who were certainly Smith's friends, we should
be disposed to reject it. As it is, it seems necessary to conclude that
there were, at least, good grounds for suspicion.

Of the three whose testimonials were signed, two, White and
Consecration Provoost, sailed at once for England and were consecrated the
nd ensu i n g February, but Griffith, because of the passive resistance
of the Virginia Standing Committee, prompted, apparently, by
the Rev. James Madison, was unable to obtain either the necessary
funds for the voyage, or the calling of a diocesan convention to
sign his testimonials. Thus, when the new bishops returned to
America in the spring, there were three bishops in the country
the number necessary for a consecration but only two of them
were of the English succession. This situation might, under favor
able conditions, have promoted the cause of union, but actually it
proved embarrassing, for it forced to the front the question of
Seabury's orders. Provoost, to whom the horrid words Tory and
Nonjuror were enough to invalidate any consecration, would do
nothing that involved cooperation with his brother bishop in Con
necticut, and White considered himself under an implied promise
to the Archbishops not to act with Seabury until there was a
canonical number of bishops of the English line in America an
attitude which he may have taken partly to keep Provoost from
forcing the issue on more fundamental grounds.

The two years that elapsed between the return of the bishops

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 199

and the assembling of the next Convention were occupied in ef
forts to unite the two lines and to complete the English succession
by obtaining the consecration of Griffith. Seabury, now that two
states had organizations which he could regard as complete,
showed his desire to promote the cause of union by writing to
White and Provoost to suggest a conference of the three on ec
clesiastical affairs. Provoost failed to answer this letter. White
replied and expressed his desire for unity, but declined to attend
such a conference, probably because he thought that the fusion
must be effected by a representative convention, not by the indi
vidual bishops.

This cold reception apparently led the Connecticut clergy to fear
that Seabury's orders would not be recognized by the rest of the
Church, for they proceeded to elect Abraham Jarvis to go to Scot
land for consecration in case such recognition should be withheld.
Jeremiah Learning wrote anxious letters to White, in which he
suggested that Joseph Priestley, the famous Unitarian scientist,
and a friend of White's, was plotting to divide the Church in order
to advance the cause of Unitarianism. White himself apparently
foresaw that the problem would be fully solved only when the
English succession was completed, for he bent his chief efforts
towards obtaining the consecration of Griffith, though without
success.

When the Convention finally met, on July 28, 1789, the states The Conven-
had already been brought into a closer political union by the ti p n of 17 . 8 ^ :
adoption of the Federal Constitution, and that fact may have First Meetm s
strengthened the cause of union in the Church. At any rate,
everyone there Bishop Provoost being happily absent was anx
ious to promote unification, and in order to clear up any "mis
apprehensions," it was unanimously resolved "that it is the opinion
of this Convention that the consecration of the Right Rev. Dr.
Seabury to the episcopal office is valid." On receiving a request
from Massachusetts that the three bishops should unite in the con
secration of Edward Bass, bishop-elect of that state a request
which was designed to bring the two lines together the Conven
tion, on motion of William Smith, unanimously resolved that a
complete order of bishops, derived from England and Scotland,
now existed in the United States, that they were fully competent
to perform every duty of the episcopal office, and that they were

200 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

requested to unite in the consecration desired. If White and Pro-
voost felt any delicacy respecting their obligations to the English
bishops, the Convention undertook to address the latter and seek
to have the difficulty removed.

After some further legislation, of which the most important was
New England the adoption of a constitutional provision that the bishops should
Convention constitute a separate house as soon as there were three or more in
union with the Convention, the meeting adjourned to September
29th, to give time for the communication of its proceedings to be
presented to Seabury. This was done by White, who also solicited
Seabury 's attendance at the adjourned Convention and expressed
his personal conviction of the validity of the latter's orders, and
his willingness to unite in the proposed consecration if the obliga
tion which he felt to the English bishops should be removed by
them. To this Seabury replied at once, saying that he would most
willingly attend the Convention. When that body reassembled in
Philadelphia, not only Seabury and the Connecticut delegation,
but deputies from Massachusetts and New Hampshire were also
present. After some alterations had been made, they all signed the
constitution, and White and Seabury separated themselves from
the rest of the Convention, to become the first House of Bishops,
making this the first complete General Convention in the sense in
which that title has ever since been used. Having thus completed
its organization the Convention proceeded to revise the liturgy on
somewhat more conservative lines than those of 1785.

In the union thus effected, some concessions were made to the
Concessions to Connecticut Churchmen. The Bishops became a separate house,

Connecticut i i_ i_ r . . . . ,.,. A ,. ..,.,- ,

with the right of initiating legislation as well as revising it (though
they did not obtain an absolute veto until some time later), and
some of the omissions of the Proposed Book were restored, includ
ing the Nicene Creed and the Sign of the Cross in Baptism
(though with permission to omit it), but the Athanasian Creed
was still omitted and all of the essential features of the previously
developed organization were retained, including lay representation
and the trial of bishops by their own conventions, two provisions
to which strenuous objections had been made in Connecticut. It
was provided, however, that a diocese need not send lay delegates
to General Convention if it preferred not to, and for a time Con
necticut did not. Seabury felt that the results of the Convention

REVOLUTION AND REORGANIZATION 201

were in some measure a defeat for his party. In a letter which
he wrote to White the following spring he complained that, in
the matter of the Creeds, there appeared to have been "too great
an aim at victory" among his opponents at the Convention and
that he could see no reason for not restoring the Athanasian
Creed, with a permissive rubric, except "that it would not have
afforded matter of complete triumph." When, through a misun
derstanding between the two houses, the "descent into hell" in
the Apostles' Creed was placed in brackets with a rubric permit
ting its omission, he felt that this was the last straw, and doubted
for a time if he could accept the Book. In the end, however, his
zeal for the welfare of the Church overcame his personal feelings,
and he did his best, eventually with success, to bring the revised
Prayer Book into general use in Connecticut.

Before an answer could be received to letters sent to the Arch
bishops requesting their approval of the uniting of White and Consecration
Provoost with Seabury in the performance of episcopal acts, Vir- of James
ginia, where Griffith's death had vacated the post of bishop-elect, Madison
chose James Madison, president of the College of William and
Mary, instead and sent him to England for consecration. Before
he left he wrote to Seabury concerning the possibility of his being
consecrated in this country, but the letter was apparently intended
merely as a polite gesture, for he did not wait to receive an answer
before sailing. His return solved the difficulties respecting the
succession, and the four bishops united in consecrating Thomas
John Claggett to be the first Bishop of Maryland in 1792. Edward
Bass, Bishop of Massachusetts, was not consecrated until five years
later, the Massachusetts convention having become somewhat
lethargic after 1789.

It had been agreed between White and Seabury at the Conven
tion of 1789 that the senior bishop present should preside over the
House of Bishops. At the next Convention, because of the objec
tions of Provoost and Madison, this rule was modified, and the
presidency placed in rotation, but in 1795 the rule of seniority was
restored and continued until the organization of the National
Council in 1919. As Seabury died in 1796, White presided over
the Convention of 1798 and every Convention thereafter until his
death in 1836.

CHAPTER X

RECUPERATION

N CONTRAST to the periods which immediately preceded

A Quiet a nd followed it, the epoch of our history which extends approxi-

nterva mately from 1789, when the organization of the Episcopal Church

was completed, to 1811, when the consecration of Bishops Hobart
and Griswold may be said to have started the period of rapid
expansion, is so quiet that at first sight it almost seems that nothing
was being done. The very brilliance of the succeeding period,
should, however, serve to warn us against taking such a view. No
man can build on air, and the great achievements of the later
leaders would have been impossible had there not been a certain
amount of quiet repairing of the shattered foundations of the
Church in the years preceding.

The period can, perhaps, best be compared to that stage which
sometimes follows the crisis of a long sickness when the patient is
no longer in imminent danger but when day follows tedious day
without any sign of recovery. To the patient and his friends it
often seems as if he never would recover, but the experienced
physician assures them that the sick man is "doing as well as can
be expected," for he knows, in spite of appearances, that the
patient is gradually regaining his shattered strength.

So it was with the Church during the period which we are
discussing. The crisis precipitated by the Revolution had passed
with the organization of General Convention and the obtaining
of the episcopate, but the Church was still exhausted and a period
of quiet recuperation was required. While it seemed on the surface
that nothing was happening, some old parishes were being re
opened, those that had kept open were growing stronger, the
people were getting used to the necessity of self-support, the
presence of bishops and the functioning of diocesan conventions,
and new leaders were growing up who were accustomed to the

202

RECUPEKATION

203

Church as it now was, and were accordingly capable of thinking
in terms of present possibilities rather than of past powers.

Within eight years after the completion of the English succes
sion, the episcopate was extended to three states besides the four Extension of
which had obtained bishops from Great Britain. As we have seen, the E P isc P atc
Bishop Claggett was consecrated in 1792, and he was followed by
Robert Smith, Bishop of South Carolina, in 1795, and Edward
Bass, Bishop of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in 1797. As Bishop
White exercised some jurisdiction over New Jersey and Delaware,
there were ten states with at least a partial claim on the services
of a bishop. The election of Bishop Smith was the occasion of an
incident which illustrates the strong jealousy of the episcopate pre- purccli
vailing in some sections. Shortly before that election took place Incident
Henry Purcell and two other South Carolinians sent a circular
letter to the rectors and vestries of the state asserting that they
were a select committee appointed by seven churches to ask the
cooperation of the other Episcopalians in the state in sending one
of their clergy immediately northward to obtain power solely to
ordain and confirm, but not to have any of the usual attributes of
episcopal authority, even in the dilute form in which they then
existed in the country. The reason given for making this move was
that the House of Deputies had announced in 1792 its intention of
considering at the next Convention the granting of an absolute
negative to the House of Bishops, and the signers of the circular
were confident that the passage of such a measure would lead to
the secession of Virginia and South Carolina from the General
Convention. As a result of this circular a convention assembled
and elected Robert Smith bishop. When, however, Bishop White,
acting on instructions from the House of Bishops, asked Smith if
the sentiments expressed in the letter had been approved by the
state convention, he was told that they had not, and on this
understanding the consecration was allowed to proceed.

In the meantime, Purcell had delivered himself of an anonymous
pamphlet entitled Strictures on the Love of Power in the Prelacy,
in which, after attacking all bishops generally, he made a par
ticular attack upon the American bishops, excepting White, and
especially upon Bishop Seabury, who was supposed to be in favor
of the veto power. As Purcell represented South Carolina in the
House of Deputies, the attention of that body was called to this

204 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

pamphlet by the Rev. John Andrews, Vice-provost of the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania, and it was declared to contain "very offen
sive and censurable matter." Purcell would, in fact, have been
expelled from the Convention, had not the Bishops intervened to
ask for clemency after he had, with many tears, signed a recanta
tion in the presence of Bishop White and William Smith, presi
dent of the lower house. After the Convention had adjourned,
Purcell showed the insincerity of his repentance by sending to Dr.
Andrews a letter charging him with slandering the author and
apparently implying that either a threat of violence or a challenge
to a duel was to be conveyed by the bearer. As a result of this
Purcell was hailed before the Mayor of Philadelphia and bound
over to keep the peace.

Two or three other states made efforts to obtain bishops in
these early years, but were prevented by various circumstances.
Other States J n J794 a convention in North Carolina elected the Rev. Charles
See is ops p ett jg rew bishop, but he was unable to reach the General Con
vention before its adjournment, and the application for consecra
tion was not subsequently renewed, though Pettigrew lived until
1807. It was some years, in fact, before the Church in that state
actually secured a delegation to General Convention, and much
longer before it had a bishop. In the year 1795 the Rev. Samuel
Peters, former missionary at Hebron, Connecticut, applied for
consecration as Bishop of Vermont, but was refused it on the
ground that Vermont had not acceded to the Constitution of the
General Church. There had been only one clergyman in Vermont
at the time of Peters' election and he had left shortly after. As a
result of this incident a canon was passed providing that no bishop
should be consecrated for a state unless there were at least six
presbyters resident within it. Because of this canon the House of
Deputies at the next Convention declined to sign the testimonials
of Uzal Ogden who had been elected Bishop of New Jersey.
Though more than six clergy had voted in his election, a majority
of them were held not to be canonically resident, as they were
only employed on a temporary basis by their vestries, and it is
possible that a desire to discourage this type of tenure had some
thing to do with the refusal to confirm the election, though it was
also charged by his opponents that Ogden was insufficiently at
tached to the teachings of the Church.

RECUPERATION 205

During the period of organization and afterwards, some efforts
were made to reunite the Methodists, or followers of John Wesley,
who were then just beginning to develop as a separate denomina- wst ^ ^
tion, with the Episcopal Church, from which most of them had Mctfiodl
originally come. Shortly after the close of the Revolution, when a
serious want of ministers was felt in this country, Wesley ap
pointed the Rev. Thomas Coke, a presbyter of the Church of
England, to act as "superintendent" of the Methodists here, with
power to ordain ministers. Coke was to "lay hands" upon the
Rev. Francis Asbury, the actual leader of the American Meth
odists, who then received a similar authority. In 1784, not long
after this event, Coke and Asbury were interviewed by two Epis
copalian clergymen, the Rev. John Andrews and the Rev. William
West, who urged them not to separate from the Episcopal Church,
and suggested that when a regular succession had been obtained
special bishops might be consecrated for the Methodists. Both of
the superintendents rejected this proposal and when Andrews
again urged it in a private interview with Coke, the latter replied
that as the "new system" was now in successful operation he saw
no advantage for the Methodists in obtaining a more traditional
succession.

When William White went to England to obtain consecration in
1787, he sought an interview with John Wesley on the position of
the American Methodists, but, though he had a letter of introduc
tion from the Rev. Joseph Pilmore, one of Wesley's followers who
remained in the Episcopal Church, he received so cool a reply to
his request that he did not renew it. He did, however, have an
interview with Charles Wesley, who expressed disapproval of the
separation.

In 1791, an overture was made from the other side, for Thomas
Coke, who had so definitely rejected the proposals of Andrews Coke's
and West in 1784, had suffered a change of heart as the result of Proposal
subsequent developments. As he had been the first of the super
intendents to be named by Wesley, he had expected to become the
principal leader of the Methodist Church, but the prestige already
acquired by Asbury, his tremendous energy and unflagging devo
tion to his work, and his superior administrative ability made him
the dominant member of the partnership and in time not only was
Coke largely eclipsed but even the influence of John Wesley was

206

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Bishop
Madison's
Proposed
Declaration

considerably weakened. Under these circumstances Coke sought to
strengthen his position by forming an alliance with the Episcopal
Church, and he wrote to White and Seabury suggesting an ar
rangement not unlike that which he had rejected earlier. As the
chief obstacle to reunion, he thought, would be the unwillingness
of the present ordained ministers to give up the right of admin
istering the sacraments, though they might submit to being reor-
dained, and the reluctance of the lay preachers, whose literary
qualifications were limited, to let their future ordination depend
upon the present bishops of the Episcopal Church, he hinted to
White and definitely suggested to Seabury that he and Asbury
should both be consecrated bishops, though he did not undertake
to state exactly what relationship they should then have to the
Episcopal Church.

Seabury returned no answer to the letter sent to him, but White
sent a non-committal reply, which was the only thing he thought
proper since he personally had no authority to act in the matter.
Had the proposal been more cordially received it might, perhaps,
have resulted in bringing a few Methodists into the Episcopal
Church, but it is hardly possible that it could have effected a
general union, for Asbury, whose influence was by then all-
powerful, would certainly have opposed it. Moreover, a condition
which Coke himself regarded as essential to the plan, the coopera
tion of Wesley, was rendered impossible by that gentleman's death,
news of which reached this country between the sending of Coke's
letter and his receipt of White's answer. Coke subsequently had
one or two interviews with White, but nothing of importance
transpired during them and he presently returned to England,
having despaired of regaining his influence among the American
Methodists.

The issue of this and the previous attempts at union convinced
most of those who were acquainted with the situation that the
object, however desirable, was impossible of attainment. At the
General Convention of 1792, however, Bishop Madison of Vir
ginia was still anxious to promote the cause, if possible, and he
persuaded his fellow bishops to propose to the lower house a joint
declaration that the Episcopal Church was willing to modify such
features of her system as she considered properly subject to human
alteration if by so doing she could effect a union with any other

RECUPERATION 207

Christian denomination. It was also proposed chat the state con
ventions should be advised to enter into such conferences with
other religious groups as they thought desirable, and report the
results to the next General Convention. This resolution was
strongly opposed by a majority of the House of Deputies, however,
and in order to avoid an open breach between the two houses the
Bishops were given leave to withdraw it, which they did.

In 1797 overtures for union were made by the Lutheran Con
sistory in the state of New York to the Episcopal diocese of that Overtures
state, and a committee was appointed by the diocesan convention & or ? the
to confer on the subject and to bring the matter before the next ut enms
General Convention if necessary, but nothing came of it. The
meeting of General Convention was postponed until 1799 because
of an epidemic of yellow fever in 1798 when it should have met,
and the state convention did not meet again until 1801, when it
was preoccupied with the resignation of Bishop Provoost, and in
the general uncertainty, the opportunity for union with the Luth
erans was lost sight of.

The bishops of the first generation in the American Episcopal
Church (those who were consecrated during the period of organi- The Early
zation or shortly after), are generally supposed to have been highly Bishops
inactive, and this view is, on the whole, correct. It is not correct,
however, to assume that the inactivity was necessarily due to lazi
ness or indifference on the part of the bishops. In some cases it
may have been, but in others it certainly was not, and there were
other reasons why the early bishops should have preferred not to
be too vigorous in the exercise of their office. We have just seen,
in the Purcell incident, with how much suspicion episcopacy was
regarded in South Carolina. Other states were not quite so extreme
in their views, but there was probably none, outside of Connecti
cut, where the office was not looked upon with a certain amount
of distrust by most professed Episcopalians. Bishops were a novelty
in this country, and it was also, so far as the experience of English
men and Americans went, a novelty to have them entirely deprived
of temporal power. As experiments always make people uneasy,
the feeling was everywhere latent that if a careful watch were not
kept on the bishops, they might acquire an amount of power
which would seriously curtail the liberties of the lower orders of
clergy and the laity.

208 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

For this reason the office was at first surrounded with a good
Distrust of the many restrictions, some of which still remain. The Maryland con-
Episcopate vention of 1734 had declared, "According to what we conceive to
be of true Apostolic Institution, the duty and office of a bishop
differs in nothing from that of other priests, except in the power
of ordination and confirmation, and the right of presidency in
ecclesiastical meetings or synods," and this principle governed the
provisions made for the episcopate in nearly all of the states. Some,
indeed, denied the bishop even the right of presidency in their
conventions, giving him only an ex officio seat, though the obvious
inconvenience of such an arrangement led to its early abandon
ment. All of the states subjected their bishops to trial by their
own conventions, though most of them required that a member
of the episcopal order should preside at such trials and pronounce
the sentence. Some did not, however, require the presence of a
bishop for the trial and sentencing of members of the lower orders.
In the few matters in which he was allowed to exercise jurisdic
tion, moreover, such as the approval of candidates for ordination,
the bishop was generally required to act only with the concurrence
of the diocesan convention or of its permanent representative, the
Standing Committee. This latter institution, which is peculiar to
our branch of the Church, had its origin in the need of providing
some interim authority for the convention before bishops had been
obtained, and its continuance thereafter, though it has persisted
down to the present day, is explicable only by the desire which
was felt to place a curb upon the episcopal authority.

Under these circumstances, it is easy to see why the bishops
Moderation should have been very cautious in asserting their authority. They
Necessary h ac [ ] Deen c h osm to do the two things for which their office, ac
cording to the usage of the Church, was absolutely essential: to
ordain and to confirm. Little else was allowed them. Indeed, they
found it inexpedient even to visit parishes for Confirmation unless
they were definitely invited. All of the various administrative func
tions which make the work of a bishop so important to the proper
functioning of a diocese today were denied them. There were, as
yet, no diocesan missions, or other institutions, no diocesan funds,
and no diocesan organizations or diocesan branches of national
organizations. The power of settling disputes between parishes
and their rectors had not yet been granted to the bishops, nor had

RECUPERATION 209

they been given the right to be consulted in the appointment of
a rector. All of the less tangible influence which comes to a bishop
from the prestige of his office had also to be slowly developed.
For the present, the vital thing was that nothing should happen
which would frighten or disgust the people with the episcopate,
and in this negative respect, at least, the conduct of the early bish
ops was unexceptionable. They claimed no authority which was
not given them, and by their moderation and restraint they even
tually obtained privileges which undoubtedly would have been
denied them had they been requested, so that the next generation
of bishops was able to take over an office which had come to be
trusted and respected, and to develop possibilities in it which
would have shocked the people of an earlier time.

Connecticut represented a partial exception to this situation,
and there Seabury, and his successor, Abraham Jarvis, were able Work of
to exercise a jurisdiction somewhat resembling that of later bishops, Seabury and
though backed by far fewer resources. Elsewhere, most of die * ams
bishops seem to have done what they could, or at least what
was expected of them, but we must make some exceptions even
to this limited commendation. Bishop Madison, after some earnest
efforts at reviving the Church in Virginia, gave up in despair, and
became entirely absorbed in his duties as president of the College
of William and Mary. According to an early historian of the dio
cese of South Carolina, Bishop Smith did not perform any con
firmations, but this may have been the result of the jealousy of his
office prevailing in that state and not to indifference on his part.
He probably performed some ordinations. In Maryland, Bishop
Claggett carried on his work fairly regularly, except when he
was incapacitated with the gout, and the condition of his diocese
was generally pretty good.

In Massachusetts, Bishop Bass performed a number of ordina
tions and some confirmations. As there were but few active par
ishes left in the state, his duties cannot have been great, however.
He was also Bishop of Rhode Island, but it does not appear that
he did much work there. He died in 1804, and Samuel Parker,
who was the real leader of the Church in Massachusetts, succeeded
him, but died within less than a year after his consecration. There
after, the state, like all the rest of New England except Connecti
cut, was without a bishop until the organization of the Eastern

210 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Bishops

York

Bishop White
in Pcnnsyl-

vama

Diocese in 1811. There must have been some growth in the mean
time, however. Bishop Griswold, at a later date, estimated the
number of clergy in the four states comprising the Eastern Diocese
to have been about fifteen at the time of its organization, and
most of these were in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Bishop Provoost of New York made regular visitations for Con-
firmation and the consecration of churches in the district around

NCW Y rk City and n L ng Island ' which were the onl y P arts
f f hc state where the Church was then active, except at Albany.

He also performed a respectable number of ordinations. In 1801
he resigned his jurisdiction, because of ill health, and went to live
on his farm in the Bowery. He was succeeded by Benjamin Moore,
who, as we have seen, had been the Tory choice for rector of Trin
ity after the Revolution, and who had served as assistant there
after his demotion. Under Moore, the Church expanded along
the Hudson between Westchester and Albany, and a start was
made on missionary work in the western part of the state, which
was beginning to be filled up with settlers from New England. In
1811 Moore was stricken with paralysis, which incapacitated him
for active work, and John Henry Hobart was chosen as his assist
ant Because of the spectacular growth of the Episcopal Church in
New York during Hobart's episcopate, it has been customary to
represent the preceding period as one of deadness, but actually
the revival of the Church began under Bishop Provoost, and its
growth was continuous throughout the episcopate of Bishop Moore.
During the latter part of this period, however, the energetic influ
ence of Hobart was already being felt in the diocese, for he had
become an assistant at Trinity in 1800, and he took an important
place in the affairs of the diocese from the start. He published some
devotional manuals calculated to raise the standards of personal
religion within the state, he engaged in a pamphlet controversy
with the Presbyterians which will be noticed later, and, with the
cooperation and advice of Bishop Moore, he organized a number
of societies designed to stimulate the laity to greater efforts in
supporting missionary work, promoting theological education, and
distributing Bibles and Prayer Books.

Bishop White was the only one of the early bishops to live very
f ar i n to the later period, and his career illustrates the fact that the
greater activity of the later bishops was due at least as much to a

Courtesy, Bishop White Prayer Book Society

CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, IN 1784

Cintrtesy, The Reliijhiis Motion Picture Foundation
BISHOP WHITE
From a portrait by Gilbert Stuart.

RECUPERATION 211

change in circumstances as to a change in personalities, for he
performed much more extensive visitations in his later years than
he did at the beginning of his episcopate. The regular reports of
his activities to the diocesan convention do not begin, or, at least,
were not printed, until 1811. Before this he apparently visited any
towns which asked him to come, but he would not have covered a
large area in doing so, for the Church was pretty well restricted to
the southeastern part of the state. He probably also made some
visitations in southern New Jersey and Delaware. In 1811 he re
ported that parochial duties had prevented his visiting other
parishes, but thereafter he made regular visitations. In 1813 he
visited York and Lancaster, as well as some towns farther east. In
1814 he reported the confirmation of 465 persons, a record for
these early years, but 275 of these were in Philadelphia, and the
rest in towns of Pennsylvania and New Jersey not far from Phila
delphia. For some years Lancaster county represented the west
ern limit of his activities, for York was not revisited until 1822.
In 1824 he got as far north as Wilkes Barre, and the next year he
projected a visit to Pittsburgh and the other missions that had
grown up beyond the Alleghenies. This purpose was defeated by
an accident in which he suffered a fractured wrist, but before that His
happened he had already reached Lewistown, near the center of Western Tour
the state. In 1826 he succeeded in completing his western tour. He
visited Pittsburgh and some other towns near the western border
of the state and went on to Wheeling, Virginia, which Bishop
Moore, of that state, had asked him to visit. The total distance
covered in this trip was 830 miles and the number confirmed 503,
a respectable achievement for a man of seventy-three at a time
when the horse was the fastest means of locomotion, and when
conditions in a large part of the state were still primitive. In 1827
White made a tour of 400 miles in the northeastern part of
the state. In that year he was given an assistant, Henry Ustick
Onderdonk, who had no parochial connection, and thereafter
White left the care of the remoter parts of the state to him.

White, like all of the early bishops, except Madison, who was a
college president, was the rector of a large parish as well as head
of the diocese, for he retained his position at Christ Church
until his death. Besides his diocesan and parochial activities, he
also took an important part in the civic affairs of Philadelphia,

212 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

His Civk being a founder and leader of a number of charitable and religiou;

Leadership organizations, including the Philadelphia Bible Society, the firs;
such society in the country. These activities probably benefited th<
Church indirectly by enhancing its prestige. He also cooperatec
with some of the clergy of his diocese in 1812 in organizing the
Society for the Advancement of Christianity in Pennsylvania. Th<
chief function of this society was the support of missionaries in the
remoter parts of the state, and its principal leader was Jackson
Kemper, later first Missionary Bishop of the Northwest, but then
and for many years, assistant at Christ Church. He was also the
companion of White on his western tour in 1826.

CHAPTER XI

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION

JL HE MOST convenient date to mark the beginning of the
period of active expansion in the history of the Episcopal Church,
that is, the period during which it began to pass the limits of its
colonial activity and enter new territory, is 1811, for that date saw
the consecration of the two bishops who were to be the first and
probably the most important leaders of the new epoch, John Henry
Hobart of New York, and Alexander Viets Griswold of the East
ern Diocese. It must be borne in mind, however, that the division
thus fixed is, like all historical divisions, an indefinite one. As we
have seen, some beginning of expansion was made, at least in New
York, before this date, and in many other places the movement
cannot be said to have begun until somewhat later. In the older
states of the South, moreover, the period should probably be de
scribed as one of active revival rather than expansion, for, inas
much as the Church never did recover the predominance in those
states which it had enjoyed in colonial times, it is not altogether
accurate to speak of it as expanding there.

The selection of the Hobart-Griswold consecration as the start
ing point of the period has a further advantage in that the two
subjects of the consecration were outstanding representatives of the
two types of Churchmanship which were to dominate the era:
High Churchmanship and Evangelicalism. Of the former Hobart
was not only the outstanding leader, but to some extent the re-
molder also, for he infused the movement with the ardor of his
own spirit, giving it a warmth and vitality which it had not pos
sessed since the days of its great seventeenth-century leaders, and
he also injected into it a note of personal piety which may in some
measure have been borrowed from its rivals. Hobart was the out
standing opponent of the Evangelicals, but it is a rare contro
versialist who is not influenced to some extent by the other side,

213

Consecration
of Hobart and
Griswold

"Hobart
Churchman-
ship"

214 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

and Hobart's watchword of "Evangelical truth and Apostolic
order" would at least suggest the possibility that such an influence
existed. At any rate, so great was Hobart's influence upon his fel
low High Churchmen that the theological position which the)
held was known for some time, in this country, as a Hoban
Churchmanship."

Griswold was much less of a party leader than Hobart, and.
Gmwold indeed, he disliked to think of himself as a party man at all, but
Evangelicals nevertheless it was generally recognized by his contemporaries
that he could be counted upon to act with the Evangelical party,
or, at least, with its more conservative and churchly section, and
under his leadership the Eastern Diocese acquired a moderately
Evangelical character. This party, which was to exercise a great
influence upon the revival and expansion of the Episcopal Church,
had its origin, like Methodism, in the preaching and teaching of
John and Charles Wesley and their followers. The Wesleys were
both of them clergymen of the Church of England, and they
both remained within it, at least officially, all their days. Charles
Wesley, indeed, was strongly attached to the Church. John, who
was the principal leader of the movement, was less so, but he was
opposed for various reasons to any separation of the English Meth
odists from the Established Church. He was, however, convinced
of the principle that presbyters had as good a claim to the power
of ordination as bishops, and after the Revolution he put this
theory into practice, as we have seen, by ordaining superintendents
(later called bishops), for the Methodists in this country. This
move caused, or rather, completed the separation of the American
Methodists from the Episcopal Church, and eventually a separa
tion took place in England also.

The more conservative members of the movement, however,
remained within the Church of England and the Episcopal Church
in this country. Even a few of those whose names are associated
more or less prominently with the founding of American Meth
odism refused to join the separation, and continued all their lives
within the Episcopal Church. Joseph Pilmore, who had come to
this country as a lay preacher among the Methodists, was one of
the first candidates ordained by Bishop Seabury, and became rector
of St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia. Another clergyman who had
been associated with the Methodists in his early years was the Rev.

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 215

Devereux Jarratt, who served the Church for many years in his
native state of Virginia. He had been ordained in colonial times
by the Bishops of London and Chester.

Most of the later Evangelicals, however, had had no direct con
tact with the Methodists, but were followers of the more con- Evangelical
scrvative phase of the movement. Theologically, they agreed with Methods* *"
all of the leading denominations of Protestants in teaching that
men were saved only by an active, personal faith in Christ, and
that good actions were of no account except as they furnished
evidence of such a faith. They agreed with the Calvinists in stress
ing the necessity of conversion, by which they meant conscious
acceptance of and submission to Christ, but they disagreed with
them by rejecting the doctrine of predestination.

These two last points, taken together., resulted in those peculiari
ties of method which, much more than any technicalities of theol
ogy, gave to the Evangelicals their distinctive character. Since
conversion was necessary, and since, while it was certainly de
pendent on and primarily the result of divine grace, it was not
absolutely predetermined, but could be obtained by all who freely
and earnestly sought it, it followed that it was the duty of the
pastor to do everything in his power to make people seek it and to
bring them to the state of mind in which they would be most
likely to receive it. The Wesleys had found that the most effective
means to this end was preaching of an emotional sort, supple
mented by classes for religious instruction, usually in the Bible,
by evening "lectures," which were simply a specialized form of
sermon, and by "prayer meetings," or informal assemblies at
which not only the minister, but such of the people as felt moved
to do so, engaged in extemporaneous prayer. The Evangelicals
took over these devices, and superimposed them upon the regular
devotional system of the Church as represented in the Prayer
Book. They adhered strictly to that book in their regular Sunday
services, except that they claimed the right to add an extem
poraneous prayer before or after the sermon, but the most vital
part of their devotional life was expressed in the informal exercises
already mentioned, and in their sermons. Some of their special
meetings were held on Sunday evenings, after the regular services
for the day were over, but most of them had to be held on week
days, and it was the boast of the more advanced Evangelicals

216

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Attitude
Towards the
Sacraments

Missionary
Spirit

that they had some sort of religious exercise in their churche
nearly every night.

A conversion theology necessarily stresses the internal and pei
sonal aspects of religious life, rather than the institutional an
external It was inevitable, therefore, that the sacraments an
orders of the Church should not fill a very important place in th
Evangelical scheme of things. They objected to the phrase "bap
tismal regeneration," which was frequently used by the Hig!
Churchmen, because they held that a man could be regeneratei
only by a personal conversion, and they generally insisted tha
Confirmation should be postponed until after the individual ha<
been converted. The Eucharist they regarded chiefly as a servic
of commemoration, valuable to the devout, but not a regula
means of transmitting supernatural grace. Towards the ministr
they took the traditional attitude of Low Churchmen, holding
episcopacy to be of Apostolic origin, and consequently preferabl
to any other form of ecclesiastical organization, but not absolutel 1
essential to a valid ministry. In their preaching they sought t<
stress the fundamental truths of the Gospel, as they understooc
them, rather than the distinctive claims and doctrines of th<
Church. Because of this emphasis on "Gospel preaching," the^
got into the habit of referring to themselves as "evangelical men, 1
and it was from this phrase that their party name was derived

Any vital religious movement tends to develop a strong mis
sionary spirit, and this was conspicuously true of the Evangelicals
They were notably active in the organization of the Church'
missionary work, both along diocesan and national lines, and the]
supplied a large proportion of the recruits for service in the variou
missionary fields. The theological seminary in Virginia, which wa;
under their control, displayed from the start a strong missionary
zeal which has characterized it down to the present day. The^
also showed their religious spirit in the field of social service b]
organizing charitable enterprises of all sorts, and by supporting
most of the conspicuous social reforms of the day.

In their moral standards the Evangelicals tended to resembl<
the Puritans, condemning all forms of self-indulgence and looking
with disapproval upon all of the lighter social amusements, sucl
as dancing, card-playing, and theater-going. They also shared th<
Puritan consciousness of the supernatural in everyday life, oftei

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 217

seeing the direct operation of the Divine Hand in events which
would generally be regarded as fortuitous. Their conversion was
naturally looked upon as a definitely supernatural visitation, and
thereafter every misfortune was regarded as a specific arrangement
of God for their discipline and every fortunate circumstance as a
sign of His special favor. Something of this consciousness is, no
doubt, the heritage of every Christian, but with the Evangelicals it
was stronger and more vivid than is usually the case.

The High Churchman was not less conscious of the Divine
Presence than the Evangelical, but he was more inclined to High
regard it as being expressed according to regular laws. Even its Churchman-
supernatural manifestations, he thought, had been regularized in
the sacraments and other institutions of the Church. He did not,
if he was a Hobart High Churchman, at least, underestimate the
importance of personal devotion, but neither did he believe in the
necessity of a definite conversion experience, and he did believe
that only those whose spiritual development took place within the
Church, and through the use of her sacraments, could regard
themselves as walking in the "covenanted" way of salvation. He
maintained that Christ had founded a definite institution, the
Church, to carry on His work, that He had supplied it with a
definite, threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, and
that only to those who submitted to the Church thus constituted
and accepted its ministrations was salvation definitely promised.
He would not say that God, in His mercy, might not save others
also, but no others could claim the benefit of any promises.

For this reason the High Churchman thought it his duty, while
not neglecting the fundamental teachings of the Gospel, to lay a
good deal of emphasis upon the exclusive claim of the Church
to be the institution through which the Gospel promises would
be realized. Hence that phrase of Hobart's about "Evangelical
truth and Apostolic order," and hence also a remark he used to
make in defense of his support of societies for distributing the
Bible and Prayer Book together, rather than the Bible alone, that
in so doing the Church was distributed together with the Scrip
tures. In other words, he believed that the Gospel could not be
properly proclaimed except by the institution to which he held
that it had originally been intrusted by Our Lord.

The differences between the two parties were carried out into

The Church

.me! S<Kiety:
Hi>ih Church

V2W

Evangelical
View

218 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

a number of matters of detail and even affected to some extent
their relations with civil society. After the Revolution the High
Churchmen tended to favor making the separation of Church and
State as complete as possible. They refused, if they were clergymen,
to appear at any gathering of a political character, or to take part
in organizations or enterprises that might have even remotely a
political bearing, and some of them went to the length of re
fusing to vote. This was the direct opposite of the position taken
by the party in England, but the reversal was an understandable
one. Where the Church was supported by the State it was natural
for those who took the highest view of the claims of the Church
to favor such a relationship more vigorously than others. Where
the Church was completely separated from the State and there
was no prospect of obtaining State support, it was as natural for
the same party to try to emphasize its dignity and independence
by carrying the separation as far as possible. This aloofness like
wise made High Church clergymen unwilling to join the Masons,
though not opposed to Masonry as such.

Prominent Evangelicals, on the other hand, were very likely to
belong to that organization and, while they did not as a rule par
ticipate actively in politics, were much more ready than the High
Churchman to take part in civic enterprises and to give their
support to quasi-political reform movements, such as the temper
ance movement and Abolition, though the support of the latter
was, of course, confined to the northern wing of the party.

As they represented the more Protestant tradition of the
Church, the Evangelicals felt a greater kinship with Protestants
of other denominations than did the High Churchmen, who
were fond of representing the Church as standing midway be
tween Protestant errors and Roman corruptions. The Evangelicals,
therefore, generally participated in the inter-denominational Bible
societies, Tract societies, and Sunday school unions which were
a prominent feature of the religious life of the time, whereas the
High Churchmen preferred to form similar organizations com
posed exclusively of Episcopalians. The more extreme among the
Evangelicals also liked to unite with the members of other denomi
nations in their services, and resented the canons and rubrics
which hindered them from doing so. It was also characteristic of
this party that its members tended to unite in voluntary clerical

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 219

associations, sometimes called "convocations." In a diocese where
the Evangelicals were predominant, these associations would in
clude nearly all of the clergy, and they would sometimes meet at
strategic points for the holding of protracted revivals. High
Churchmen, probably because they feared the tendencies of the
associations, were opposed to any clerical organizations of an
unofficial character.

Between the extremes of these parties there were many grada
tions, and there were many devout Episcopalians of the middle
ground who could not be identified with any party. Moreover,
the differences between them, in spite of their numerous ramifi
cations, were not, after all, so very fundamental, and until the
situation was complicated by the Oxford Movement, their disputes
were not generally so bitter as to hamper seriously the efficiency
of the Church. Nevertheless, their presence must have been felt
in some measure by any Episcopalian of the period who took
much interest in the affairs of his Church, and they exerted some
influence on most of the major events of the time.

Of the two men who were consecrated bishops in 1811, Hobart,
as we have seen, was the outstanding leader of the High Church character of
party. Though he was younger than Griswold, both in age and Hobart
in ministerial service, he was already better known to the Church
at large. Born in Philadelphia in the first year of the Revolution,
he had grown up under the spiritual care of Bishop White, and
was always regarded by White with something of the affection of
a father for a favorite son. He was educated at the College of
Philadelphia and at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton,
graduating from the latter institution in 1793. He studied theology
under Bishop White, but he was of too ardent a temper to be
satisfied with White's moderate Churchmanship, and as a result
of his own reflection and study, and possibly also of the influence
of his father-in-law, Thomas Bradbury Chandler, he early became
a pronounced High Churchman. He possessed a tremendous
capacity for friendship and the ability to yield a whole-hearted
devotion to any cause that he might espouse. He gave himself
unstintedly to the Church and, as his constitution was not as vig
orous as it might have been, he probably brought himself to an
early grave by his exertions in her behalf. At the same time,
Hobart possessed the faults which are usually associated with

220 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

warm tempers. He was sensitive and impulsive, and intolerant
of all opposition to his policies. He sometimes allowed himself to
be drawn into prolonged controversies over trivial points, and he
was seldom able to keep a note of personal resentment from
creeping into his controversial writings. On the other hand, his
hostility was generally short-lived, and when he quarreled with
his friends the dispute was likely to end in a frank confession of
error on his part.

Hobart was ordained deacon by Bishop White in 1798, and
His Early after serving his diaconate at various stations in Pennsylvania and
Career New Jersey and on Long Island, he was called as assistant min

ister at Trinity Church, New York City, in 1800 and ordained
to the priesthood by Bishop Provoost shortly afterwards. He
began almost at once to rise into prominence in the diocese and
in the general Church. He was elected secretary of the diocesan
convention in 1801 and sent as delegate to the General Conven
tion in 1804. The latter year also saw the appearance of two books
bearing his name: A Companion to the Altar and A Companion
of the Festivals and Fasts. The former was a series of exercises
and instructions for use preparatory to Communion and during
it, and the latter was a series of meditations and instructions for
use in connection with the holy days for which Collects, Gospels,
and Epistles were provided in the Prayer Book. Both works were
frankly based upon some older English manuals of devotion, but
Hobart modified much and added much, and infused the whole
with his own warmth of spirit and vigorous piety. To some of
the older High Churchmen, it seemed that they were a little
tainted with "enthusiasm," and they probably brought entirely
new standards of personal devotion to many members of the
Church. A Companion to the Altar remained for many years the
standard, if not the only Eucharistic, manual among American
Episcopalians.

To A Companion of the Festivals and Fasts Hobart prefaced
some "Preliminary Instructions Concerning the Church" in
which he advanced the usual thesis of his party that the Church
was a divinely formed society whose officers (bishops, priests, and
deacons) had their commission from Christ through the Aposdes,
and that all men were morally obliged to belong to this society.
In conclusion he said, "The obligation of communion with the

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 221

Church is founded on its being a society established by God to
which He has annexed all the privileges and blessings of the
Gospel Covenant. . . . Though we presume to judge no man,
leaving all judgment to that Being who is alone qualified to
make allowance for the ignorance, invincible prejudices, imper
fect reasonings, and mistaken judgments of His frail creatures,
yet it must not from hence be concluded that it is a matter of
indifference whether Christians communicate with the Church
or not, or that there is doubt upon the subject of schism, whether
it be a sin or not."

Naturally, this strong statement of the claims of a Church
which included but a small fraction of the total number of Controversy
American Christians produced resentment among outsiders, and p ith K the .
it was presently attacked by the Rev. Dr. Linn, a Presbyterian re5 ytcnans
clergyman who had undertaken to furnish some papers upon
religious subjects for the Albany Centind. His strictures were
replied to by an Episcopalian layman, Thomas Yardley How, a
close personal friend of Hobart's, and a controversy was precipi
tated which was soon joined by Hobart himself, by Frederick
Beasley, the rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany, and by Bishop
Moore of New York, all writing, as was the custom of the time,
under various pseudonyms, such as "Layman," "Cyprian," "De
tector," and "Vindex," while Dr. Linn continued to support the
Presbyterian side, signing himself variously as "The Miscellanist,"
"Umpire/ 5 "Inquirer," and "Clemens." Eventually even Bishop
White was drawn into the controversy, for an allusion of Linn
to his Case of the Episcopal Churches caused him to write a let
ter explaining the special circumstances under which this pamphlet
was written, though not retracting its basic position.

After the newspaper controversy had subsided, Hobart, in 1806,
published the various letters under the title of A Collection of Dr. Mason
Essays on the Subject of Episcopacy. This had the effect of reviv
ing the dispute, for the Essays were very ably but severely re
viewed in the Christian Magazine by its editor, the Rev. John
M. Mason, one of the outstanding Presbyterian ministers of the
day, and Hobart replied in another series of letters, which he
published as An Apology for Apostolic Order and Its Advocates.
This was in turn reviewed by Dr. Mason, and the controversy
was then closed. In this later phase of the debate it would seem

222 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Difficulty of
Assembling
Bishops for
Consecration

Cave Jones
Affair

that the Presbyterians had rather the advantage, for Dr. Mason
was both more learned and more logical than his younger oppo
nent. The importance of such controversies, however, has little
to do with the question of which side gains the dialectical vic
tory. Their value, if they have any, lies in the fact that they draw
attention to the claims of the less known party, and in this par
ticular instance the very desultoriness of Hobart's reasoning may
have been an asset, for it caused him to drag in the doctrine of
predestination, the rejection of which by most Episcopalians gave
the Church its strongest appeal to the many who at this period
were finding the tenets of orthodox Calvinism too severe.

When the time came for the consecration of Hobart and Gris-
wold to the episcopate, some difficulty was experienced in obtain
ing the number of bishops necessary to perform the rite. Bishop
Moore, whose paralysis was the occasion for Hobart's election,
was confined to his room, and Bishop Madison was unwilling
to leave the College of William and Mary. Bishop Claggett, who
was just recovering from an attack of the gout, tried to come to
the General Convention, which met at New Haven, but suffered
a relapse and was unable to do so. Bishops White -and Jarvis
were, therefore, the only members of their order at the Conven
tion. Bishop Provoost was still alive, but, besides having retired,
he was partially paralyzed and was just recovering from an attack
of jaundice, so that he was unwilling to go as far as New Haven.
He did, however, finally consent to assist at the consecration if it
were held in New York, and so the two bishops and the two
candidates went there for the ceremony, which was performed in
Trinity Church on May 29, 1811.

Hobart had been elected assistant-bishop of New York by a
large majority of the diocesan convention, but the choice was
not quite unanimous, and after the election had occurred, his
opponents made a futile attempt to prevent his consecration.
The dispute was a personal rather than a party one, for the par
ticipants were all of them men who had, or thought they had, been
slighted by Hobart, or who were in a position which caused them
to feel more or less embarrassed by his advancement. The leader
of the attack was the Rev. Cave Jones, one of Hobart's fellow
assistants at Trinity Church. Between the election and the conse
cration, Jones published a Solemn Appeal to the Church, in which

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 223

he set forth a long list of grievances against Hohart which, he
thought, made that person unworthy of being elevated to the
episcopate. Most of the injuries were purely imaginary, and the
rest were trivial instances of the effect of Hobart's impulsiveness
upon a proud and sensitive nature,

The pamphlet had no effect upon the consecration, hut the
controversy was continued afterwards, Jones being supported by Supporters o
Richard Channing Moore, the rector of St. Stephen's Church, J nes
New York, and Henry I. Feltus, rector oE St. Ann's, Brooklyn,
two Evangelical clergymen of whom Hobart had once or twice
spoken severely; by Abraham Beach, who was then the senior
assistant at Trinity; and by a number of the laity under the lead
ership of John Jay and his family. Beach had no especial grievance
against Hobart, but he felt some embarrassment at having a sub
ordinate in the parish made bishop. The vestry of Trinity Church
supported Hobart, and when Jones refused to resign, they ap
pealed to Bishop Moore, under a canon passed by General Con
vention in 1804, to sever the pastoral relationship. When Moore
did this, the Jones faction, possibly through the influence of Jay,
persuaded Bishop Provoost to write to the diocesan convention
to the effect that he had decided his resignation was invalid, and
would, therefore, expect to be consulted on diocesan affairs, though
he could do no active work. The Convention, however, refused
to restore his jurisdiction, and the dispute between Jones and
Trinity was eventually referred to five judges of the state supreme
court who ruled that Jones must accept the separation, but
granted him a money compensation. After his withdrawal the
dispute subsided rapidly. Dr. Beach was retired on a pension and
Dr. Moore was presently elected Bishop of Virginia, and de
parted from New York. Hobart preached his consecration sermon
and declared himself satisfied with Moore's declaration of his
intention to adhere to the doctrines and discipline of the Church,
though, as he had apparently never done anything else, it is diffi
cult to see why the matter had to be emphasized. Feltus soon
fell under the spell of Hobart's personality and became one of
his most ardent followers.

After his consecration Hobart continued his efforts to set forth
the principles of the Church as he understood them, adopting
for this purpose the English custom of delivering occasional

224 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Hobart's
"Charge***

ami

Letters' 1

Controversies

"charges'* to the clergy ami laity of the diocese. The titles of some
of these are, in themselves, an indication of his ecclesiastical posi
tion. In 1818 he delivered one on The Corruptions of the Church
of Rome Contrasted with Certain Protestant Errors, and he fol
lowed this the next year with one entitled The Churchman: The
Principles of the Churchman Stated and Explained in Distinction
from the Corruptions of the Church of Rome and the Errors of
Certain Protestant Sects. In 1826 he delivered one called The High
Churchman Vindicated, and in 1829 he published one on The
Duty of the Clergy with Respect to Inculcating the Doctrine of
the Trinity. He also published a number of "pastoral letters,"
which generally dealt with subjects of a more immediate and
transitory nature than the charges. Besides these occasional pro
nouncements, Hobart delivered an address at every convention in
which he gave an account of the state of the Church, reported
the number of episcopal acts which he had performed, and some
times touched upon other topics which seemed to him to require
comment. This custom was not a new one, but it had been
observed irregularly by the earlier bishops.

Hobart's opposition to interdenominational Bible societies in
volved him in a number of controversies during his episcopate,
because these societies were very popular with all varieties of
Protestants at that time, and with a section of the Episcopal
Church. The most serious of these disputes occurred in 1823,
when some strictures of Hobart on the American Bible Society
were attacked in a pamphlet by William Jay, a son of John Jay.
Hobart replied, and a prolonged debate ensued between the two
of them.

Near the close of his episcopate, Hobart got into a dispute with
a few of his clergy in the City of New York who had organized
a society known as the Protestant Episcopal Clerical Association.
The objects of the association were simply personal intercourse
and mutual improvement, but as a majority, though not all, of its
members were Evangelicals, Hobart distrusted it, and issued a
pastoral letter against it. As the members had no desire to make
their association an instrument of party, they promptly disbanded,
but they felt obliged to defend themselves from the charges of
the pastoral, and so another pamphlet war ensued.

These controversies are mentioned merely because they serve to

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION

225

illustrate Hobart's religious position and the zeal with which he
held it. The subjects with which they dealt were not, after all,
of great importance, and the impression which they tend to
create of dissension within the diocese is an erroneous one. An
overwhelming majority, both of the clergy and the laity through
out the state of New York, were in sympathy with most of Ho-
bart's policies and warmly attached to him personally. With the
exception of the Jay family, the few who were not in sympathy
with him rarely ventured upon public opposition. The Clerical
Association was not intended as an opposition measure at all, and
its members were much surprised when Hobart so interpreted it.

Valuable as Hobart's various presentations of Church principles
may well have been, it was not in them but in his tireless ef- His Work
forts for the building up of his diocese that his greatest services as a
lay. New York at this time presented a situation which has been
rather too rare in our Church history: a splendid opportunity for
development with a man in charge who was ideally fitted to take
advantage of it, and with at least tolerably adequate resources at
his back. The part of New York state which lies west of the
Hudson had remained entirely unsettled in colonial times, except
for one or two trading posts and forts. With the coming of the
nineteenth century this region began to be filled up with settlers
who were poured into it by the first wave of westward migration
from New England. This movement was approaching its highest
momentum when Hobart became bishop, and it continued at a
high rate throughout his episcopate.

In a weak diocese not even the ablest and most energetic of
bishops, as Hobart certainly was, could have done much to take Financial
advantage of the opportunity thus presented, for at that time Su PP rt
there was no possibility of obtaining help from outside. As we
have seen, however, the Church had been growing quietly but
steadily in New York during the period of alleged deadness, and
in the older part of the state it was now in a fairly strong posi
tion. Trinity, thanks to the large landed endowment which it
had inherited from colonial times, and which, in spite of occa
sional manifestations of jealousy by the legislature, it had suc
ceeded in preserving since, was the richest parish in the Episcopal
Church and, probably, in any American denomination. Under
the prudent management of Provbost and Moore, its resources

226 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

had increased and from the first it used its surplus generously in
helping weaker parishes. When Hobart came into practical con
trol of the parish after Bishop Moore's illness and Dr. Beach's
retirement, these gifts were increased to such an extent that the
finances of the parish were impaired, and a curtailment had to
follow. Under Hobart's stirring influence the laity of the city and
state were roused from the habits o inactivity which had been
produced by the colonial Establishment, and they generously sup
ported the missionary society and other organizations which were
called into being.

Before Hobart's election the Church had expanded along the

Growth of the Hudson, and a few missionaries, of whom the most notable were

Church in Davenport Phelps and Daniel Nash, later known as "Father

New or - Kash," had been sent to serve the western counties, but the work

there was definitely in its infancy. In 1815, Hobart wrote to the

lieutenant-governor protesting against a proposed law which

would have forbidden ministers to perform marriages outside of

the counties where they resided, on the ground that there were

many counties where no Episcopal minister was resident, and

this, too, though the number of clergymen in the state had

doubled since his consecration. By the time of his death in 1830

there was probably not an important community in the state

that did not have its Episcopal parish and resident clergyman,

and in Rochester and Buffalo there were two parishes.

In 1812, at the end of his first year as bishop, Hobart reported
the confirmation of five hundred persons and the visitation of
parishes in Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Ontario, and Otsego
counties, all of which are in central or western New York.
Four churches had been consecrated, including St. Peter's, Au
burn, in Cayuga County. In 1813 he reported eleven hundred
confirmations. Seven hundred and eighty of these were in New
York City, but the rest had been confirmed in a visitation to the
towns along the Hudson, and the counties of the "Southern Tier."
Every year thereafter saw the visitation of a large part of the
state, and almost every year saw the consecration of one or more
new churches. The visitations were not merely occasions for Con
firmation or consecration, but they brought, both to the pastor
and his people, inspiration, advice, and, if necessary, material
help. In between them, moreover, Hobart was in constant corre-

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION

227

spondence with his clergy, who turned to him for help and advice
in every problem from the wearing of a surplice or dealing with
anti-Masons to saving their churches from foreclosure. " They
never turned in vain. Somehow, somewhere, Hobart found means
to help them in every difficulty.

In order to obtain support for his work, and to arouse the
laity to a sense of their obligations to the Church, Hobart organ- organized
ized a large number of societies for the pursuit of various churchly Societies
ends. Some of these he had formed, or helped to form, before his
elevation to the episcopate. Thus the Protestant Episcopal Society
for the Promotion of Religion and Learning in the State of New
York was organized under his leadership and that of Bishop
Moore in 1802, its objects being to help in educating theological
students, and to aid in missionary work. This was followed in
1806 by the New York Protestant Episcopal Theological Edu
cation Society, devoted more exclusively to the training of candi
dates for Holy Orders, by the New York Bible and Common
Prayer Book Society in 1809, the Protestant Episcopal Tract So
ciety in 1810, and the Young Men's Auxiliary Bible and Common
Prayer Book Society in 1816. Subsequently he organized a dio
cesan missionary society, and the New York Protestant Episcopal
Sunday School Society. All of these societies were originally only
statewide, though some of them later became affiliated with na
tional institutions. Hobart's distrust of the Evangelicals made him
somewhat hesitant about participating in general Church organi
zations unless he was sure of being able to control them. He also
organized a publishing house, the Protestant Episcopal Press,
which flourished for a number of years, and he became the
proprietor of the Church-man s Magazine, formerly published at
New Haven, and moved it to New York.

Hobart combined the direction of the largest parish in the
country with the duties of the episcopate, for he became rector Bishop
of Trinity after the death of Bishop Moore, in 1815, having been Onderdonk
in practical charge of the parish since 1811. After his own death,
in 1830, the two positions were separated, the Rev. Benjamin
Treadwell Onderdonk, a brother of the Assistant Bishop of
Pennsylvania, succeeding Hobart as bishop, while the Rev. Wil
liam Berrian succeeded him as rector. Under Bishop Onderdonk
the diocese continued to prosper, though, as the course of empire

228 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Organization
of Eastern
Diocese

Early Career
of Griswold

had now proceeded farther westward, its growth was less spec
tacular. By 1838 it had become strong enough to be divided, and
the Diocese of Western New York was organized, making the
first instance of the formation of a diocese which was not
bounded by state lines, except for an abortive attempt which had
been made in the 1790*s to combine western New Hampshire and
eastern Vermont into one diocese. The first Bishop of Western
New York was William Heathcote De Lancey, a descendant of
that Colonel Heathcote who figured so prominently in our account
of colonial New York and Connecticut.

The Eastern Diocese, over which Griswold was to preside,
included the states of Massachusetts (to which Maine was still
attached), Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont. It was
organized in 1811 as the result of overtures which had been made
to the other states by Massachusetts in 1809. Its exact character
was never clearly determined, but it was commonly described as
a "federated diocese," a type of institution of which the only other
example in our history was the short-lived Southwestern Diocese
which was organized in imitation of this one but proved unsuc
cessful. Essentially, it was a device to obtain the services of a
bishop for several states without giving any one state a special
claim upon him. The constituent states retained their own
diocesan organizations and functioned independently in all mat
ters not relating to the episcopate, including the sending of dele
gates to the General Convention. It was, in fact, several years
before that body gave an official recognition to the Eastern Diocese
as such, except to list Griswold as its bishop in the journals.
When his testimonials were presented in 1811, the House of
Bishops required proof that his election had been concurred in
by each of the individual states before they would consent to his
consecration. When Maine finally became separated from Massa
chusetts, it immediately organized itself as a separate diocese, yet
retained the services of the bishop.

Griswold himself was about ten years older than Hobart, hav
ing been born in Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1766. His mother's
family, the Viets, were of German extraction and had been Pres
byterians until they were brought into the Church by his uncle,
Roger Viets, who was converted while at Yale, and became a mis
sionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 229

Griswolds, who were of English origin, had always been Church
men. The future bishop was prevented by the Revolutionary
War and an early marriage from obtaining a college education,
but he enjoyed a satisfactory equivalent in the tuition of Roger
Viets, a man of learning, and in private study. He became a can
didate for Holy Orders in 1794 and was ordained deacon and
priest by Bishop Seabury the next year. After serving for some
time as rector of three small parishes in Litchfield County, Con
necticut, he accepted a call to Bristol, Rhode Island, in 1804. This
had been a strong parish in colonial times, but the Revolution
and the long vacancy in the rectorship which followed had
reduced it to a point where it had only twenty-five families and
twenty communicants. Under Griswold's skilful ministrations it
rapidly revived and soon surpassed even its colonial strength.

It was probably this pastoral success that led to Griswold's elec
tion as bishop of the new diocese, for he had done nothing to
make himself conspicuous outside of his own field of work. He
had participated in the early measures for the organization of the
Eastern Diocese, but he was contemplating a return to Connecti
cut at the time of the first convention, and only attended it be
cause an accident had prevented a visit to his prospective parish.
His election came as a surprise to him, for he himself had favored
Hobart for the post, and it was only after considerable hesitation
that he accepted the office.

In character Griswold was in many respects the opposite of
Hobart. He was outwardly cool and deliberate where Hobart was His
impulsive and emotional, and while Hobart's restless energy Character
pushed him ahead in any movement in which he participated,
Griswold's shyness and self-distrust prevented him from accepting
leadership until it was thrust upon him. He was less gifted than
Hobart in social qualities, and though he was not without a cer
tain quiet charm, his bashfulness and reserve prevented him,
except among his intimates, from being the delightful companion
that Hobart could be. The general affection with which he came
to be regarded arose rather from a gradual appreciation of his
kindness, tact, and simple-hearted devotion to the cause he served,
than from any more glamorous appeal to popularity. It was, per
haps, only in their whole-souled devotion to duty that the two
men can be said to have resembled one another, though Griswold,

230 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

like many quiet men, seems to have been all on fire within, and in
his preaching was inclined, like most of the Evangelicals, to
emotionalism, frequently moving his hearers to tears.

Though, as has been said, there had been some recuperation
Condition and within the states included in the Eastern Diocese before its organi-
o zation, the church was still in a precarious condition in most
rn of them. The Boston churches, with the exception of King's
Chapel, which was irrevocably lost, had been brought back to a
healthy condition, Bristol had been revived by Griswold himself,
and Newport was flourishing under the able leadership of Theo
dore Dehon, subsequently Bishop of South Carolina, but, on the
other hand, the Church at Portland seemed about to expire, that
at Marblehead was very weak, that at Taunton was just beginning
to show signs of life, that at Bridgewater was merely a name, and
many parishes had been lost sight of altogether. According to a
later statement of Griswold's, there were at that time thirteen
church buildings in Massachusetts, "three of them of but little
value," four in Rhode Island, five in New Hampshire, two in
Maine, of which that at Portland "was without a parish," and
none in Vermont. To serve these churches there were, according
to various estimates, fifteen or sixteen clergymen in the four states.
Moreover, the future prospects of the diocese seemed much less
encouraging than those which were presented in New York. The
westward migration, which was filling up a large section of that
state, was draining New England and taking from it precisely
those younger and more restless spirits who would be most likely
to turn to a Church which departed from the prevailing tradi
tions of the region. Yet this very circumstance, while it increased
the difficulty of the work, made it also vitally important, for if a
portion of these emigrants could be won over before they left,
they would form nuclei of the Church in the territories to which
they went. At the same time, the diocese had much more feeble
resources for carrying out its task than did New York. The
strongest parishes, those at Boston, were not only much less
wealthy than Trinity Church, New York, but they were also
much less generous, and were inclined to show but little interest
in the affairs of the Church beyond their own boundaries.

There was, however, one circumstance which operated in favor
of the growth of the Church in New England. The breakdown

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 231

of Puritanism, whose early stages we noticed in colonial times, Growth of the
was proceeding at an accelerated pace, and the religious opinions Diucese
of many were becoming increasingly unsettled. The bitter preju
dices against episcopacy were gradually dying out, and the pious,
temperate, and somewhat Puritanical character of its present rep
resentative hastened their demise. To this situation and to the
herculean labors of Bishop Griswold must be attributed the re
markable growth which came to the Church during the thirty
years of his episcopate. In 1811-12 he made his first visitation of
the diocese, and the people of a great many parishes in western
Massachusetts and in the other states had their first sight of a
bishop. On this tour he confirmed 1,212 persons, ordained one dea
con and two priests, consecrated two churches, and admitted five
candidates for orders. In 1831 he reported 530 confirmations at
forty-seven services, and in 1833 he spoke of having preached 123
times outside of his own parish. These are not exceptional years,
but are mentioned simply as typical examples of his yearly work.
Though he continued, until the last few years of his life, to serve
as rector at Bristol and later at Salem, it was his custom to visit
all of the parishes in his diocese annually, traveling by stage-coach
or horseback among the towns of New England from Rhode
Island to Maine. That he did not work himself into an early grave,
as Hobart did, was not because he worked less, but because he
had inherited a constitution of unusual vigor.

In 1839, four years before his death, he summarized the results
of his work by contrasting the state of the diocese then with
what it had been in 1811. In Massachusetts, seven of the thirteen
churches had been rebuilt, and the total number had been in
creased to thirty-eight. Rhode Island's four churches had become
seventeen, and one was being built. In New Hampshire the five
churches had increased to nine, and for the two in Maine there
were now five. Vermont, which had been without a church
building in 1811, had become strong enough to separate from the
Eastern Diocese in 1832 and elect its own bishop, having at that
time twelve churches, with four more being built.

At the time of Griswold's consecration it had been thought
that the life of one man would not be long enough to set the Division of the
individual dioceses upon their feet, and that the federation Diocese
would have to continue longer. Griswold, however, lived to be

232 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

seventy-seven and his work was so successful that only the un
willingness of the several states to relinquish his supervision pre
vented the dissolution of the diocese before his death. Vermont did
withdraw in 1832, choosing John Henry Hopkins as its bishop.
Massachusetts elected an assistant bishop, Manton H. Eastburn, in
1H42, who became bishop of that diocese on Griswold's death in
1843. After that event, Rhode Island elected John Prentiss Kcwley
Henshaw its bishop and he also exercised jurisdiction in Maine
until George Burgess became bishop there in 1847. New Hamp
shire elected a bishop, Carlton Chase, in 1843.

Griswold, as might be expected from his background, had been
Gmwold's inclined to High Churchmanship in the early days of his min-
Mcthods j str y B ^ t j east ^ ^ e te j| s us t j iat? f H ow i n g the example of those

whom he thought wiser than himself, he was accustomed to lay
a good deal of stress on the distinctive principles of the Church.
In time he decided that this was unwise, and began instead to
emphasize the fundamental truths of the Gospel. In other words,
he adopted the Evangelical ideal, and, though he tried to avoid
partisanship, he administered the diocese more or less along
Evangelical lines. He was not as prolific of organizations as Ho-
bart, but he, or those under him, created a number to support the
work of the diocese. Missionary societies of one sort or another
were organized in all of the states. Massachusetts, in 1836, made
its missionary work a function of its convention, and elected a
diocesan Board of Missions in imitation of the General Board,
an example which was followed by most of the dioceses of the
country sooner or later. In Rhode Island the missionary work was
supported through the Clerical Association or Convocation.
Prayer Book, tract, and Sunday school societies were also organ
ized, and many of the clergy cooperated with the interdenomi
national Bible societies, of which Griswold approved. He deliv
ered occasional "Charges," but not so many as Hobart, and upon
subjects of a less controversial nature. Before he became Presiding
Bishop in 1836 he prided himself upon never interfering in mat
ters that lay outside of his own diocese, but he was, nevertheless,
a prime mover in one of the most important actions of the Gen
eral Church at this period, the organization of the Domestic and
Foreign Missionary Society, of which more will be said later.
The revival of the Church in the South began about the same

*"*""*

WEST BUILDING, GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,

BUILT IN 1837

From the architect's design, printed in the Seminary Catalog

for 1834.

Courtesy, The Rcliyiiws Motion Picture Foundation

BISHOP MOORE OF VIRGINIA

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 233

time as the expansion in the North, the bishops o the second Revival o
generation coming there within a few years of Hobart and Gris- thc C
wold. In Virginia the most important leaders of the revival were MeS
Richard Channing Moore and William Meade. The latter, a Moore
native of Virginia, born in 1789, was a man of intense, if narrow,
piety, and his strengthening influence began to be felt in the
diocese from the very beginning of his ministry. Moore was a man
of milder temper, but equally devout and equally laborious, having
some resemblance to Bishop Griswold in character. He was
elected bishop in 1814, after Madison's death, largely through
the exertions of Meade. Both men were pronounced Evangelicals,
and in their efforts to reanimate the Church they followed the
lines of their party, holding frequent revivals and "protracted
meetings," though these were probably of a less ecstatic nature
than those held by other denominations. They also organized
missionary societies and clerical associations to support the work
of the diocese. To compensate for the shortage of ministers the
rectors of parishes which were supplied made a practice of visit
ing those which were vacant whenever they could. Moore also
made an extensive use of candidates for Holy Orders, permitting
them to preach, in spite of a canon of 1804 forbidding the practice.
The Evangelical influence in the diocese led to the insistence upon
much more rigid standards of personal conduct and a higher tone
of spiritual life than had been customary in colonial times, but,
as is generally the case, such an insistence was welcomed more
often than it was objected to by the laity, and on visiting parishes
which were apparently dead, the Bishop and his clergy were
frequently surprised at the eagerness with which the people
rallied to the standard of the Church.

Under such leadership, the diocese rapidly regained its vitality,
and in a few years it had become one of the strongest in the
country. Meade was^unanimously elected assistant bishop in 1828,
but with a provision that he should not succeed upon the death
of Bishop Moore unless he were chosen by the diocese to do so.
This condition met with the disapproval of the General Conven
tion, and though that body consented to Meade's consecration,
it passed a canon to forbid such an arrangement in the future.
When Moore died in 1841, Meade was named his successor with
out any difficulty. Moore also acted as Bishop of North Carolina

234 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

from 1819-23, and he performed some episcopal services in Mary
land between the period from the death of Bishop Kemp in 1827
to the consecration of Bishop Stone in 1830.

In South Carolina the revival of the Church was equally rapid,
South and had probably begun somewhat earlier. That state differed

Carolina from its neighbors in sharing with the more important northern
states the advantage of having a large urban center to provide a
base of operations in the restoration of the Church, for Charles
ton, though its prestige was declining, was still an important
city. As has been intimated, Bishop Smith's episcopate was not
a very active one, but with the coming of Nathaniel Bowen as
rector of St. Michael's, Charleston, a more vigorous spirit was felt
in the diocese. In 1804 Bowen succeeded in bringing about a
revival of the diocesan convention, which had been suspended
since 1798 because of the jealousy of the vestries. In 1809, with
the cooperation of his successor, Theodore Dehon, he organized
the Society for the Advancement of Christianity in South Caro
lina, which, like the later society of the same name in Pennsyl
vania, was designated to assist candidates for Holy Orders in
obtaining an education and to support diocesan missionaries.

Bowen was called to become the first rector of Grace Church,

Theodore New York, in 1809, and Dehon, who had had a successful rec-

Dehon torate at Newport, was chosen to succeed him. After visiting in

Charleston for a few months he accepted the call, and began to

carry on the good work begun by Dr. Bowen.

One of the objections of the laity to the diocesan convention
was the ex officio membership of the clergy, and to overcome
their prejudice against this by stressing the religious character of
the gatherings, Dehon secured the adoption of a rule that they
should always be opened with the Eucharist. In- his parish he
succeeded in "reviving the custom of public baptism, though he
carefully avoided any open controversy on the subject. His lead
ership in the diocese was acknowledged by his election as presi
dent of the Standing Committee in 1811, and in the following year
he was chosen bishop. Though he lived less than five years after
his consecration, he left the diocese in a vigorous and healthy
condition when he died. Besides performing the regular duties
of the episcopate and carrying on the work of his parish, he kept
up a familiar intercourse with his clergy, and helped in the vacant

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 235

parishes, often Instructing the candidates for Confirmation him
self. He projected a parish for the poor of Charleston, in which
the pews should be rented by wealthy patrons but left open
for general use one of the first proposals for a "free Church" in
this country. He also interested himself in the charitable institu
tions of the city, often holding services in the orphan asylum and
the poorhouse. He served for a time on the board of managers
of the Charleston Bible Society, but resigned, along with the
other Episcopal clergymen who had participated in it, w T hen tend
encies began to develop which seemed likely to endanger its
non-sectarian character. When he died in 1817, Dr. Bowen was
called back into South Carolina to succeed him, and the diocese
was insured a continuance of prosperity under that able and de
voted prelate. The Churchmanship of South Carolina was much
less definitely Evangelical than that of Virginia, and, indeed, can
not be readily identified as belonging to any party. Dehon was, per
haps, mildly Evangelical and Bowen might possibly be described
as a moderate High Churchman, but neither was in any sense
a party man. It is not surprising, therefore, that under their leader
ship the diocese was conspicuous for its support of the general
institutions of the Church, regardless of which party happened
to control them.

In Maryland the revival of the Church was less rapid than in
Virginia and South Carolina, but it began earlier and continued Maryland
steadily throughout this and a good part of the preceding period,
though as late as 1817 it was reported that parts of the diocese
were still decayed. Claggett became incapacitated by ill health
in 1814 and James Kemp was elected his assistant, succeeding to
the full jurisdiction on Claggett's death in 1816. Though he also
became Provost of the University of Maryland in 1815, and so
continued throughout his life, he was, nevertheless,- conscientious
in the performance of his episcopal duties. He was killed in a
stage-coach accident in 1827, and there was a vacancy of three
years in the episcopate before he was succeeded by William Murray
Stone in 1830. Under Kemp and Stone the diocese acquired a
generally High Church tendency which prepared it for the
Anglo-Catholicism of Bishop Whittingham.

North Carolina, after its abortive attempt to secure the conse
cration of Charles Pettigrew, lapsed into an inactivity from which

236 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

North

Carolina

New Jersey

Controversy
in Pennsyl
vania

it did not begin to rouse itself until 1817, when it held a con
vention and adopted a diocesan organization. At that time there
were three clergymen in the state. In 1818 the convention organ
ized a diocesan missionary society, and the next year it placed
itself under the jurisdiction of Bishop Moore of Virginia, where
it remained until 1823, when it obtained its first bishop, John
Stark Ravenscroft. Under him the diocese grew steadily, but the
Church never became as strong in North Carolina as in its neigh
bors to the north and south. Ravenscroft was a High Churchman,
and his successor, Bishop Ives, was even more so, but the conver
sion of the latter to Roman Catholicism in 1853 threw the diocese
back into the Evangelical fold.

New Jersey continued under outside jurisdiction, part of the
time from Pennsylvania and part of the time from New York,
until 1815, when it chose the Rev. John Croes, rector at New
Brunswick, to be its bishop. During his episcopate, which lasted
until 1832, and that of his successor, George Washington Doane,
the Church attained a strong position in the state. Delaware
shifted its supervision from Bishop White to Bishop Claggett in
1804 and back again to Bishop White, together with Bishop
Henry Onderdonk, in 1831. In 1816, because of the depressed
state of the Church in Delaware, the diocese requested that one
of the only two clergymen there the Rev. Robert Clay and the
Rev. William Wickes visit every congregation in the state twice
a year. The diocese did not obtain a bishop of its own until
1841, when Alfred Lee was elected.

In the preceding chapter, we carried the story of the growth
of the Church in Pennsylvania down to the election of the
assistant bishop in 1827. That election was, unfortunately, at
tended with a good deal of controversy. The Evangelicals and
High Churchmen were more nearly balanced in Pennsylvania
than in the other states and the conflict between them was conse
quently sharper. Though Bishop White had been a Low Church
man, in the older sense of the term, he had no sympathy what
ever with the Evangelicals, and they were, perhaps, the only group
to whom he ever tended to be seriously unfair. Habitually
reticent in all personal matters himself, he could not understand
the freedom with which they discussed the intimate details of
their spiritual life, and, observing the note of self-praise which

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 23"?

undoubtedly sometimes entered into such discussions, he was
unable to sense the earnest spirituality which at least as often lay
behind them. He was offended, too, by the rather cavalier manner
in which the more extreme members o the party dealt with the
rubrics and canons of the Church. Though his own opinions had
not undergone any marked change, he tended in his later years
to act more and more with the High Churchmen, by way of
reaction from the Evangelicals, and this tendency was probably
strengthened by his strong personal affection for Bishop Hobart,
Not only did he criticize the Evangelicals severely on a number of
occasions, but after 1825 he adopted the practice, in revising the
diocesan journals for publication, of deleting from the parochial
reports the general observations upon the spiritual condition of
their parishes which the members of that party were accustomed
to make, but which he regarded as being either false or irrelevant.

On their part, the Evangelicals did what they could to oppose
him, though generally in an indirect manner, for his personal
prestige was so great as to make direct opposition unwise. They
organized missionary societies of their own, instead of cooper
ating with the diocesan society, and carried on work over which
the Bishop could exercise but little control. They also sent such
candidates for Holy Orders as were attached to their party to the
Virginia Seminary, which was under Evangelical leadership, in
stead of to the General Seminary in New York, which White
supported.

The controversy reached a climax when White, under the
impression that his clergy desired him to do so, asked for the Disputed
election of an assistant bishop. At the special convention held for Electlon
this purpose in 1826 the "friends of the Bishop," including the
High Churchmen and a few survivors of the Bishop's own party,
nominated the Rev. Bird Wilson, a professor at General Seminary
and a former pupil of White's. The Evangelicals nominated Wil
liam Meade, who had not yet been elected assistant bishop of
Virginia. Neither side could obtain a majority of both clergy
and laity, however, and so the election was postponed until the
regular convention of 1827. In the meantime a good deal of elec
tioneering was carried on, and both candidates withdrew because
of the bitterness that was being displayed. The Evangelicals then
proposed to back the Rev. James Milnor, rector of St. George's

238 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Church, New York, but he also declined to run. At the conven
tion of 1827, the High Churchmen found themselves with a
majority of the laity, and a majority of one among the clergy.
After Wilson's withdrawal they had intended to back John Henry
Hopkins, the rector at Pittsburgh, but as he would not vote for
himself, it was necessary to look outside of the state, and they
finally decided upon Henry Ustick Onderdonk, then rector of a
church in New York, and a close personal friend of Hobart's.
Onderdonk was accordingly elected, but a great deal of bitterness
resulted, especially because some clergymen whom the minority
thought entitled to seats in the convention had been excluded.
The dispute subsided after a time, but the rancor between the
parties remained and eventually contributed to Onderdonk's un
doing. In the meantime, however, he devoted himself assiduously
to his duties and the diocese was undoubtedly strengthened by
his work.

It has been found necessary to go into some detail in discussing
Importance of the growth of the Episcopal Church in the older states during the
the Period period covered in this chapter because it is the period during
which the Church attained the relative position among American
religious groups which it has held ever since, not only in respect
to numbers, but as to the character and location of its members
as well, for by 1830 it had already become predominantly an urban
and upper-class denomination. The general religious upheaval of
the country, which began in colonial' times and which led to a
realignment of the main divisions of American Protestantism,
came to an end in the decade from 1830-40. Since then, though
there have been occasional conversions one way or another, there
has been no general shift from one denomination to another. The
only religious bodies which have experienced a conspicuous
change in their proportionate strength in later years have been
those which have grown by immigration.

As the Episcopal Church became accustomed to the idea of
Theological national unity and felt a return of health and strength in most
Education o f ; ts members, it naturally began to see the advisability of pro
viding for some of its needs along national rather than diocesan
lines. One of the most conspicuous of such needs was the provision
of theological training for the many young men who must be
induced to enter the Church's ministry if she were to meet the

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 239

opportunities presented to her by a rapidly growing country. In
colonial times most of the colleges of the country had .maintained
theological professors under whom candidates for the ministry
could obtain the necessary instruction, though if the college were
not under Episcopalian control it would be necessary to supple
ment this work with some study under a minister of the Church.
After the Revolution, as the character of the colleges became less
theological, this supplementary instruction became more important
and a sort of apprentice system developed, the candidate placing
himself under some more or less learned minister for the -pur
pose of being instructed in theology. In 1801 the House of Depu
ties of General Convention made an effort to standardize this
system by asking the bishops to prepare a course of theological
instruction, and at the next General Convention, that of 1804, a
course of study prepared by Bishop White was officially adopted,

It was not long, however, before the desirability of creating a
definite institution for theological education began to be felt, and General
the first move in this direction was made at the General Con- ^ mma ^ r
vention of 1814 when Christopher E. Gadsden of the diocese of isi4 SC '
South Carolina introduced a resolution to found a general theo
logical seminary for the whole Church. The measure was lost
that year, only South Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and a portion of the lay delegation from Maryland sup
porting it. A resolution, originating in the House of Bishops, was,
however, adopted requesting the bishop or other ecclesiastical
authority in each diocese to enquire into and consider the advisa
bility of establishing a general seminary, and to report at the
next convention.

The reason why the measure was defeated at this time was that
many of the leaders of the Church thought that the end could Committee
be better obtained by diocesan seminaries. In 1817, however, it ^3^ mtcd '
was decided to go through with the measure of founding a gen
eral seminary, and a committee composed of three bishops, White,
Hobart, and Croes; three clergymen, Charles Wharton, William
Harris, and Thomas Y. How, who had been ordained since the
epistolary controversy referred to earlier; and three laymen, William
Meredith, Rufus King, and Charles F. Mercer, were appointed to
make the necessary arrangements. None of the episcopal members
of the committee was much in favor of the project, for White and

240 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Hobart preferred diocesan seminaries and Crocs had doubts
about the desirability of any seminary, but they proceeded
nevertheless to carry out the task assigned them as well as
they were able, appointing Nathaniel Bowen and William H.
Wilmer, later replaced by Thomas Church Brownell, as agents
to raise money in the Middle and Southern States respectively.
In 1818 they appointed two more agents, Dr. How and Samuel
Farmar Jarvis, a son of Bishop Jarvis, to raise money in New
England and resolved to start the seminary as soon as they had
enough money to pay the professors. It was at first intended that
there should be three of these, Dr. Wharton, Dr. Jarvis, and
Samuel H. Turner, a gifted young protege of Bishop White's
from Pennsylvania, but as the funds were not sufficient for this
purpose the number was reduced to two, and in the spring of
Instruction 1819 the General Theological Seminary began its existence in New
Begun, 1819 York City with Jarvis and Turner for its faculty, and with a
student body of six, two of whom, Manton Eastburn and George
Washington Doane, subsequently became bishops. Jarvis resigned
shortly afterward to become rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston,
which had been organized by his admirers, and Turner was left
as the only professor.

Though Hobart had cooperated in organizing the Seminary,
he showed little interest in it after it was founded, and it met with
a cold reception in New York. With the coming of winter, the
Seminary's treatment proved literally cold, for it was forbidden the
privilege of meeting in a little room it had been using in St. John's
Chapel, unless it would supply its own firewood, so that in the end
meetings were held afternoons in a room where Lawson Carter,
one of the student, kept a girls' school during the mornings. In
1820 the General Convention moved the Seminary to New Haven,
Connecticut, where the presence of Dr. Brownell, its former agent,
as bishop promised a more friendly reception. Hobart was glad
to get rid of the Seminary, for he wanted to found a diocesan semi
nary, and promptly did so. While at New Haven, the General
Seminary "was patronized by many of the leading Churchmen,
especially in South Carolina and New York City," in spite of the
fact that Hobart objected to the soliciting of contributions for it
in his diocese. John Pintard, a New York merchant, gave a large

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION

241

number of books to form the basis of its library. The Seminary also
had its faculty doubled, the Rev. Bird Wilson becoming the second
professor, and added $29,690 to its endowment.

In 1821 another New York layman, Jacob Sherred, died and
left $60,000 to go either to a general seminary, if established in The Starred
New York, or to a seminary established by that diocese. A dis-
agreement naturally arose as to whether the General Seminary,
if it returned to New York, or the diocesan seminary already
functioning there would have the best claim to the legacy, and
a special General Convention was called to settle the dispute. As
the best legal opinion favored the claims of the diocesan seminary,
it was found necessary to yield to a compromise which was, in
reality, a surrender to New York. The two institutions were to
be united and the faculties of both to be retained. The trustees,
except for the bishops, who were ex officio members of the Board,
were to be elected by the dioceses in proportion to the numbers
of their clergy and the size of their contributions to the Seminary.
This gave New York almost, if not quite, a majority of the total
Board, and, as that body would naturally meet in New York
City, there was little doubt that the diocese could muster a work
ing majority at any meeting. Such an arrangement imparted a
partisan character to the Seminary, which it was a long time in
losing, and cost the support of some of the Evangelicals, but it
resulted in the active cooperation of the most energetic, and, next
to White, the most influential of the bishops, for Hobart promptly
forgot his former opinions and decided that the founding of
diocesan seminaries showed a lack of loyalty to the Church. In
1829 the Seminary was left $100,000 by Frederick Kohne of Penn
sylvania and South Carolina, but its use of the legacy was delayed
for some time by a life interest which had been bequeathed to the
testator's widow. In the meantime, the finances of the institution
became precarious, for the existence of the bequest caused other
contributors to lose interest. Its first building was erected in 1827.

Even before the delivery of General Seminary to New York,
the Diocese of Virginia began to seek some local provision for the The Virginia
education of its candidates, endeavoring, in 1820, to secure the Scmmar y
appointment of a theological professor at William and Mary.
When this project failed, it was decided to establish a diocesan

242 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

seminary at Williamsburg, and efforts to raise money for that pur
pose \\crc begun in 1821. In 1824 the Virginia Seminary opened
with the Rev. Reuel Keith and the Rev. William H. Wilmer as
irs first professors. Its location had, however, been changed to
Alexandria, and there it has continued its useful career ever since,
earning especial honor by the number of its graduates who have
gone into the mission field. As might be expected from the Semi
nary's origin, its ecclesiastical tradition has been Evangelical.

Two other eastern dioceses, Maryland and Massachusetts, made
Efforts to efforts to found seminaries at this period, but without success. The
Found a _ Maryland attempt, which was begun in 1822, w r as given up the

f! mma , ry !I J year following at the insistence of Bishop Kemp, who was opposed
Massachusetts ~ . , & . , , , t A i r

to any institution that would compete with General Seminary.
In Massachusetts two attempts were made. In 1830 a committee
was appointed to consider the expediency of establishing a diocesan
seminary and at the next convention it reported that, as the Rev.
John Henry Hopkins, who had been instructing theological stu
dents in western Pennsylvania, had come as assistant at Trinity
Church, Boston, with the hope of continuing his work there, it
recommended the founding of a seminary at Cambridge under his
leadership. Some beginning of the work was, in fact, actually
made, but Hopkins felt that he was not receiving sufficient en
couragement, and was induced to accept the episcopate in Ver
mont in 1832. In 1835 the project was revived. The year following
the committee appointed to consider it reported the raising of
$32,000, and more was pledged at the convention. These bright
prospects were destroyed by the panic of 1837 and the ensuing
depression.

There were some changes in the outward arrangements of
Church life which took place at this period, the effects of
which can still be seen in our ecclesiastical habits. The interior
arrangement of the church building was not much altered until
after the Oxford Movement, though a growing emphasis upon
the Eucharist led to an increase of the practice of placing the
Communion Table between the pulpit and the congregation. The
outward appearance of the church was altered, however, by the
shift from Greek to Gothic, or pseudo-Gothic, as the standard
pattern of Church architecture. This change began in the twenties
and thirties, but it was some years before the true principles of

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION

243

Gothic style came to be well enough understood to make possible
the production of respectable examples.

A more important development was the Sunday School Move
ment. This had its origin in the work of Robert Raikes, an Eng-
lish Churchman, at the close of the eighteenth century and spread
rapidly among all denominations in England and America in the
early years of the nineteenth. At first the schools were designed
for the purpose of giving religious instruction and teaching the
elements of reading and writing to the children of the poor, for
whom state schools had not yet been provided. It was not long,
however, before they were changed into a means of giving
religious instruction to all the children of the parish, and thus
took over the rector's traditional duty of catechizing the young
people in his cure. It is to be feared that too many parents also
shifted to them the responsibility which had previously been felt
of providing religious instruction in the home. Supplementary
to the Sunday schools, but not originally connected with them,
were the Bible classes for adolescents of both sexes and, in some
cases, for adults also. These originated among the Evangelicals,
but in course of time they came to be adopted by other types of
Churchmen also.

The multiplication of parish organizations of all sorts was a
characteristic of the period, and there were few parishes, whether
High or Low, which were without their complement of Sunday
school societies, Bible, or Bible and Prayer Book societies, Tract
societies, and female missionary societies. The last named were,
perhaps, the most important, for they supplied a good deal of the
support that was given to the missionary activities of the dioceses
and, subsequently, of the general Church, raising money by their
needlework and other products which they assembled and sold
at fairs. In the western country, where there was a shortage of
women, and, consequently, of female handiwork, these fairs prob
ably had a real economic value and the amount of money raised
by them was often quite large.

The early nineteenth century was an era of cheap printing such
as must excite the envy of everyone with an itching pen, and this Periodicals
fact, combined with the high postage rates, which restricted most
of the periodicals to a sectional circulation, led to a great multipli
cation of journals of all sorts, religious or otherwise. Of those

244 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

associated with the Episcopal Church, the most important, because
it was most continuous in publication and came nearest to having
a national circulation, was the Churchman's Magazine, controlled
for a time by Hohart, of which the present Churchman is the
successor. Other Church periodicals, more or less long-lived, were
the Banner of the Church, published by G. W. Doane when he
was at Boston; the Church Register, published at Philadelphia;
and the Protestant Episcopalian and its successor, the Banner of
the Cross, published in the same city. At a somewhat later time
a periodical of some importance was the Church Journal, pub
lished in New York by a son of Bishop Hopkins. It represented
the Anglo-Catholic interest. More important than any of these,
probably, was the Spirit of Missions, the official organ of the
Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, which was started in
1836 and has been published continuously ever since.

The foundation of Church boarding schools, both for boys and
Church girls, was also a characteristic feature of the period, a reaction,

50 ls probably, from the secular tendencies that were appearing in

other parts of the educational field. The movement had its begin
ning, apparently, with the organization of the Flushing Institute,
a boys' school at Flushing, Long Island, by William Augustus
Muhlenberg in 1827. This school, though run on paternalistic
lines, was successful as long as Muhlenberg remained at its head.
He subsequently attached a college to it, which he called St.
Paul's, and which was run in the same manner. His example was
soon followed by a number of other prominent Churchmen, in
cluding Bishop Hopkins and Bishop Doane. Most of the schools
were shipwrecked, sooner or later, upon the rocks of finance, but
Bishop Doane's St. Mary's Hall, a girls' school at Burlington,
New Jersey, has survived, though its founder was nearly ruined
by his efforts to carry it through the depression of 1837-40.

Two Church colleges were also founded in the East at this
Church period, in addition to the short-lived St. Paul's. Geneva, later

cgcs Hobart College, was chartered in 1822 in connection with an

attempt of Hobart's to found a branch theological seminary at
Geneva, New York. The seminary was discontinued in 1826, but
the college has continued to serve the Church down to the present
time. Washington, later Trinity, College was founded at Hart
ford, Connecticut, after an alliance of the Episcopalians with the

REVIVAL AND EXPANSION 245

Democrats had overcome the reluctance of the legislature to
charter a college which might compete with Yale. Prior to its
foundation, the Diocese of Connecticut had operated an Academy
at Cheshire whose upper classes seem to have given very nearly the
equivalent of a college education.

The age was one for action rather than study, but the Church
nevertheless possessed a number of distinguished scholars during Scholars of
this period. The combination of scholarship with parochial work
seems, indeed, to have been a more common practice then than
now. Bishop White, in addition to his other activities, was the
author of a number of able works upon various theological sub
jects. The most important of those published were his Compara
tive Views of the Controversy Between the Calmnists and the
Armenians and Lectures on the Catechism. He was thoroughly
familiar with the great English divines, and with the earlier Church
Fathers, though he had but little regard for those who came after
the third century. Bishop Hopkins was a yet more thorough stu
dent of Patristics and was probably responsible in some measure
for reviving the study of the Fathers in this country. He was also
an authority on canon law and a number of other subjects, being,
in fact, one of the most versatile men of his day. Before entering
the ministry he had been manager of a large iron smelter and had
become a successful lawyer. As an artist of some ability he had
prepared the plates for Alexander Wilson's Ornithology, one of
the first large publishing enterprises carried out in this country.
At a later time, he and his son sought to recoup the family
finances by taking up the new art of lithography. He also had a
hand in the Gothic revival, having published a volume of designs
for that style of architecture.

Another scholar deserving mention Is Francis Lister Hawks,
for some time rector of St. Thomas' Church, New York, who began
the systematic study of American Church History and made some
invaluable transcripts of those of the records of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel and the Bishop of London. His
work was carried on, in the succeeding period, by Bishop William
Stevens Perry, to whose labors all subsequent historians of the
American Episcopal Church must feel themselves indebted.

Of the men who were on the faculty of General Theological
Seminary, the two most distinguished scholars were probably

246 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Samuel H. Turner and Clement Clark Moore. Dr. Turner had, at
one time or another, taught all of the subjects in the curriculum,
but his specialty was the Old Testament, and in this field, though
not himself a "Higher Critic," he was one of those who were
responsible for introducing to the American public the German
scholars who had developed this science. Dr. Moore, who was a
son of Bishop Benjamin Moore, and the donor of the land upon
which the Seminary was built, though a layman, was probably
the outstanding Hebrew scholar of his day in America. He is best
known to later generations, however, as the author of A Visit
from St. Nicholas.

It is probable that women have always been in a majority
Preponderance among those who were actively interested in religion, but in the
h T^ mC h ^ n i neteent h century this preponderance began to assume alarming
proportions. The earliest complaints of the tendency came from
the Evangelicals, and it seems probable that the highly emotional
character of their movement was one of the causes of it. What
ever may have been the faults of the older High Churchmanship,
it possessed, at least, a sturdy masculinity that was lacking in later
religious parties. An age in which it was possible for a popular
religious author to write, "Supposing the degree of piety the
same, the woman always exhibits it in a- more engaging view than
the man," was obviously not a time in which we would look for
the development of a virile faith, and there was, in fact, a senti
mental quality to all of the religious movements which were char
acteristic of the nineteenth century that is, perhaps, not unrelated
to the present paucity of male attendants at our services.

CHAPTER XII

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

JL.HE DISTINCTION between missionary and non-mission
ary work within the Church is necessarily an arbitrary one, since, Meaning of
in the broadest sense of the term, all of the Church's work Is mis- * he , w rd
sionary. For a good many years, the official usage of the Episcopal onary
Church has tended to apply the term "missionary" to all activity
which is not self-supporting, but as this necessarily conveys the
implication that work which is self-supporting cannot be mission
ary, the usage is unfortunate. Since some distinction is necessary,
however, and since the growth of the Church in the older parts
of the country has been discussed In the preceding chapter, mis
sionary work, for the present purpose, may be defined as the
work of the Church in entirely new territory, domestic or foreign,
regardless of who pays for it.

The earliest domestic missionaries of the Episcopal Church, if
we use the term in the sense proposed, were, in fact, men who ar i y M^
relied upon whatever support they could obtain in the regions sionarics to
to which they went, not upon the assistance of any regularly thcWcst
organized missionary society, diocesan or national. Thus, Daniel
Nash, the pioneer missionary of the Church in western New
York, lived for many years upon the scanty contributions which
the struggling settlers were able to give him, before he entered
the employ of the diocesan missionary society, solely, as he said,
to obtain an adequate support for his family.

Nash ended his days in New York state, but some of these
early missionaries, like the pioneers they served, followed the
frontier steadily westward. The Rev. Palmer Dyer, for instance,
left his parish in Syracuse, New York, when that place had be
come a thriving village, to do his part in building up the Church
in the "Far West," settling at Peoria, Illinois, when there was but
one other Episcopal clergyman in the state, and no resident

247

248 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

minister or organized religious society of any sort in the county.
Ezekiel Gilbert Gear, who also began his work in western New
York, wandered even farther, for after leaving New York state,
where he had worked in the villages of Onondaga and Ithaca, he
served in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, and eventually became the
first missionary of the Church in Minnesota. There were many
other such men who could be named, if space permitted, though,
unfortunately, there were never nearly so many as were needed.
We might mention Henry Caswall among them, because he
wrote an interesting book on America and the American Church,
which tells us a good deal about missionary life in the early nine
teenth century. He was an Englishman who came to this coun
try in 1828 and gave himself for some years to the work of the
Church in the West. After serving in Ohio and Indiana, and
acting as professor in a theological seminary founded by Bishop
Bosworth Smith at Lexington, Kentucky, he traveled north to
continue his labors in Canada. During part of the time that he
worked in this country he was helped by the Domestic and For
eign Missionary Society.

The most prominent of these early missionaries, however, was
Philander Philander Chase, the first Bishop of Ohio and Illinois. Chase,
Chase and w j lo was a nat [ ve o f jsjew Hampshire, a brother of Senator Dudley

His Mission ^. r Tr . i r o i T-W i i />! T

to Ohio Chase of Vermont and uncle or Salmon Portland Chase, Lin

coln's Secretary of the Treasury, began his labors in western New
York. Ordained deacon by Bishop Provoost in 1798, he served
for a time as an itinerant missionary, first in the neighborhood of
Troy, New York, and later at Oneida Castle, Utica, and Auburn.
From 1803 to 1805 he was rector of the Church at Poughkeepsie
and taught a school there. In the latter year, on the recommenda
tions of Hobart, Chase became the first rector of Christ Church,
New Orleans. Ill health forced him to return north in 1811, and he
became rector of Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut. His spirit
was too restless for the work of a quiet eastern parish, however, and
in 1817 he went as missionary to Ohio, without any assured means
of support, except a small private income. At the time of his
coming to that state there was only one other Episcopal minister,
the Rev. Roger Searle. In January, 1818, the two of them, with
representatives of the laity, held a convention and organized the
diocese. In June of the same year, when the number of resident

Courtesy, The Religious Motion Picture Foundation

BISHOP CHASE OF OHIO

Courtesy, "'The Lfaing Church"

NASHOTAH HOUSE, NASHQTAH, WISCONSIN
From an etching by Wil King.

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 249

ministers had increased to four, a second convention was held,
and Chase was elected bishop.

There was, at this time, no general missionary society of the
Church and the older dioceses had not yet sufficiently mastered
their own problems to be able to lend much aid to, or even to
take much interest in, the work of the West. It was, therefore,
necessary for Ohio to struggle along as best it could on its own
resources. One of its early missionaries, Dr. Joseph Doddridge,
was able to support himself by his labors as a physician, and
another, the Rev. Thomas A. Osborne, had a professorship at
Cincinnati College, but the rest were compelled to rely upon
what support their parishioners could give them, or to eke out
their income, as did Chase, by teaching school. In 1821 they
organized a diocesan missionary society, which may have given
them some help.

In 1823, when Chase was feeling greatly discouraged at the lack
of interest in his work that was shown in the East, his son He^ Seeks
called his attention to an article in a British periodical, in which
his labors were very highly spoken of. This incident determined
Chase to seek help from England, and on further reflection, he
decided that such help could best take the form of founding a
theological seminary to furnish him the ministers he so much
needed. General Seminary was, it is true, already in existence, but,
apart from the sometimes prohibitive expense of sending candi
dates East, it was early observed that those who were sent tended
to settle in eastern parishes after graduation. Accordingly, Chase
sailed for England in 1823 to appeal for funds to found a western
seminary.

This application was disapproved by most of Chase's fellow
bishops, because they thought it unwise to appeal to England for Opposition of
any funds for the American Church, and it was bitterly opposed Hobart
by Hobart as conflicting with the interests of General Seminary
to which he was now whole-heartedly devoted. Hobart wrote to
the other bishops and stirred their latent opposition into an active
one. In his correspondence with them and with Chase, he hope
lessly confused their ground of opposition with his own, repre
senting to Chase that they agreed with him in objecting to the
measure as opposed to the interests of General Seminary, though
only one of them, Bishop Brownell, took this view, and though a

250 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

resolution had been adopted by General Convention in 1820, when
the General Seminary had been moved to New Haven, expressly
reserving to the <;everal dioceses the right to found seminaries of
their own. This resolution which, at the time, had had Hobart's
warm approval, was not repealed when the Seminary returned to
New York. Moreover, in a letter to White, Hobart professed to
agree with the general opposition to all solicitations in England,
though his own later conduct was quite inconsistent with this
profession.

Hobart and Chase both sailed for England at about the same
Founding of time, but Hobart carried his opposition to the length of refusing
Coilf? to trave ' on *ke same Packet with Chase, lest it should seem that

he approved of the latter's mission. He also wrote Chase that he
was sailing for England solely for the benefit of his health, though
at the time of his departure he had a commission from the trus
tees of General Theological Seminary to solicit funds for that
institution abroad. In this project he was not very successful, for
he only appears to have remitted $946.67 to the trustees, but he
did succeed in making a great deal of trouble for Chase, and for
a time it seemed that the latter's visit would be a failure. Chase,
however, was armed with a letter of introduction from Henry
Clay to Lord Gambier, whom Clay had met while negotiating
the Treaty of Ghent in 1814-15, and, through a casual meeting
with George Wharton Marriott, an English High Church clergy
man, he had the good fortune to obtain an introduction to Lord
Kenyon, a leading nobleman of that party. Through these two
noblemen he met other people of wealth and distinction and
eventually from them and from Lord Bexley, Lady Rosse, and
Miss Macfarlane, the daughter of a former Bishop of Inverness,
he obtained enough money so that he felt justified in starting the
seminary on his return to Ohio in 1824. To broaden its support
he attached to it a college which before long began to overshadow
the seminary. The institutions perpetuated the names of their
aristocratic benefactors, the College being called Kenyon, the semi
nary Bexley Hall, and the village which grew up around them,
Gambier. The chapel was named in honor of Lady Rosse.

Chase was, if possible, even less capable of tolerating opposition
than Hobart was, and he had not the latter's personal charm with
which to cover this intolerance. He had gone to England in spite

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

251

of the opposition of most of his brother bishops, and when he
started work upon his college he soon made it evident that he
did not intend to pay much attention to anyone else's advice.
Instead o founding the institution in a settled community, where
local pride would have insured it some support, he built it in the
wilderness on the theory that living would be cheaper there, and
the students would be kept out of temptation, though in both
respects he was disappointed. He caused the bishop to be made
ex officio president of the College in its charter; he assumed a
paternalistic attitude towards the faculty, most of whom w y ere, it
is true, very young men, and he was very much opposed to any
intervention from the board of trustees. It must be admitted that
he had some justification for this attitude, since everyone was quite
willing to let him do all of the work, and the College, in fact,
received very little help from Ohio. He did, however, obtain
increased help from the East after his visit to England, for Ho-
bart's opposition had insured him the support of at least a portion
of the Evangelicals. Benjamin Allen and Gregory Townsend
Bedell, the rectors of St. Paul's and St. Andrew's churches in
Philadelphia, and James Milnor, the rector of St. George's Church,
New York, gave him especially cordial support in raising money
for the College and in circulating a pamphlet of his called a Plea
for the West -a title which was borrowed by Lyman Beecher
some years later.

Chase's absolutism caused a rebellion in 1831 on the part of the
professors, who objected to the bishop's insistence on the right Rebellion of
to exercise episcopal as well as presidential authority within the an ^ Q^*
College, to veto all acts of the faculty, and even to direct their Resignation
personal lives. They also disliked his policy of leaving the dis
cipline of the College in charge of Mrs. Chase when he was
away. When the trustees supported the faculty, Chase appealed
to the diocesan convention, and when that body also failed him,
he resigned both the presidency and his episcopal jurisdiction in
Ohio, insisting that the two were inseparable.

The convention, after a languid attempt to induce Chase to
reconsider, accepted his resignation and elected Charles Pettit
Mcllvaine to take his place. These proceedings gave rise to a
lengthy debate at the General Convention which met the next
year, and though the deputies finally agreed to recognize a de

252 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHCRCH

facto vacancy and sign McIIvaine's testimonials, they attached a
clause to their resolution condemning Chase for "dereliction" in
resigning. The Bishops, in agreeing to the consecration, expressed
their disapproval of episcopal resignations in general, and a canon
was finally passed requiring the consent of two-thirds of the
diocese and of General Convention for such resignations.

In spite of the ill feeling which he stirred up, Chase had always
worked assiduously to promote the interests of his diocese, and
thanks to this exertion and to the rapid growth in the population
of the state, it was in a vigorous condition at the time of his resig
nation. Under Mcllvaine, who was one of the outstanding preach
ers of his day, an active growth continued and the diocese rapidly
became a strong one, while its bishop became one of the most
conspicuous leaders of the Evangelical party. After a short time,
Mcllvaine had the same difficulties at Kenyon that Chase had
had, but he held on, and eventually secured a settlement of the
dispute which left him in substantial control of the College while
relieving him of the active duties of the presidency.

Chase, after leaving Ohio, went into Michigan, which was
Chase in organized as a diocese shortly afterward, and admitted into union

Illinois with the General Convention in 1832, the first case of a territory

being so admitted. In 1835 he was elected Bishop of Illinois at its
primary convention, and again he assumed the burdens of a
pioneer bishop. He visited England a second time shortly after
his election to raise funds for his new work, but with only moderate
success. The diocese also received some help, though not much,
from the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and Chase
himself was granted a salary by that body in 1836, but this action
was held to be unconstitutional, because he was not subject to the
Society's jurisdiction, and it was discontinued the year following.
In 1839 Chase visited the South and succeeded in raising some
money towards a second college which he proposed to found. It
was not until 1847 that the institution was finally chartered, how
ever, taking the name of Jubilee College. It was located in the
center of a 3,000-acre tract o land and has recently been procured
by the State of Illinois for preservation as a state park.

The organization of a general missionary society was the most
important single event in the history of the Episcopal Church in
the early nineteenth century. This institution was organized by
the General Convention in 1820, under the title of the Domestic

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

253

and

of the
Domestic
Foreign
Missionary
Society, 1820

and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, a title which is still the legal designation of the missionary
agency of the Church. The measure was the result of the interest
and suggestions of many people, but one of the original sponsors
of the movement was Bishop Griswold, who had published a
charge and pastoral letter in 1816 advocating a greater interest in
missionary work and noting the general revival of missionary
interest among Protestants, and the work that was being done by
the missionary societies of other denominations. Subsequently he
had entered into a correspondence with the English Church Mis
sionary Society, which was probably one of the reasons why that
Society donated two hundred pounds to the American organiza
tion shortly after it was started.

The constitution of the new society provided at first for a con
tributors' membership, as was customary in such societies at the
time. A gift of three dollars made one an annual member, thirty
dollars secured a life membership, and fifty dollars constituted the
donor a "patron" with the privilege of a seat on the board of di
rectors. This last provision was abandoned in a short time because
the number of patrons increased so rapidly that the board became
too cumbersome. The Presiding Bishop of the Church was ex
officio president, making Bishop White the first person to hold
this office, and all of the other bishops were ex officio vice-presi
dents and directors. Twenty-four other directors were to be chosen
by ballot at each triennial meeting. Among those who showed
their interest in the missionary work of the Church by becoming
"patrons" of the Society during the first three years of its life were
the following clergymen whom we have already met in one place
or another: Frederick Beasley, S. H. Turner, James Milnor,
J. P. K. Henshaw, Jackson Kemper, and Benjamin Allen, and
two laymen whom everyone knows: John Jay and Francis Scott
Key. In the succeeding triennium four bishops, White, Griswold,
R. C. Moore, and Brownell, added their names to the list.

Though the interests of the Society, as its name suggests, were
about equally divided between the domestic and the foreign field, Work in the
and though the contributions to the two fields tended to be equal cst
after the first few years, it was some time before the foreign pro
gram could actually be undertaken, and a great many years before
the foreign missions of the Church could be said to have progressed

254 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

beyond their infancy. For the first half of its existence, at least the
most important work of the Society was done in the domestic field,
which generally meant the new territories of the West, though
some missionaries were also sent to Maine and to the far South.

At the time that the Society was organized there was, according
to a statement made in the Ohio convention of 1820, no minister
of the Episcopal Church in Indiana, Tennessee, Illinois, or Mis
souri, and it is probahle that there was none in any of the organ
ized territories either. Some beginning had been made, however,
in Kentucky, and in Louisiana, where, as we have seen, Christ
Church, New Orleans, was started under Philander Chase in 1805.
After its organization was completed, the Society sent Amos G.
Baldwin to investigate conditions in the West and see what could
be done there. His explorations seem to have been confined to
Kentucky, where he found a parish organized at Lexington, and
one in process of organization at Paris, under the Rev. William
Wall, who also officiated at Cynthiana and Georgetown. He him
self, being delayed for some time at Washington, Kentucky, held
service six times there and found a number of people who had
been brought up in the Episcopal Church and were still at
tached to it.

In 1823 the Society sent the Rev. Melish I. Motte to St. Augus-
Early Efforts tine, Florida, but he found the prospects so discouraging, and the
expenses so great, that he returned in less than a year and left the
service of the Society. In 1823 Henry H. Pfeiffer was sent to In
diana, where he remained two years, and reported the existence of
great spiritual necessities and an excellent opportunity for a mis
sionary at Vincennes, During the same period, Thomas Horrel
was sent to Jackson, Missouri, where he remained for a year and
then went to St. Louis. A church had been organized here by a
clergyman named Ward some years previously but had declined
when Ward left at the end of eighteen months. Horrel soon re
vived it and began raising money for a church building. He re
mained at this post several years, developing a flourishing parish.
When he came, St. Louis had a population of five or six thousand,
and was growing rapidly. Richard F. Cadle was sent about the
same time to Detroit, then numbering two thousand inhabitants,
where he held services in the territorial council house by permis
sion o Governor Cass. He found there a fairly large number of

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 255

Churchmen, and built up a strong parish. Norman Nash was sent
to establish a school at Green Bay, Wisconsin (then a part of
Michigan Territory), where the Oncida Indians had recently been
moved from New York. The project failed at that time, apparently
because Nash laid his plans upon too large a scale.

At the meeting of the Society in 1826 it was decided to extend
aid to the dioceses of Ohio and Delaware and to count as mission Indian School
stations all states and territories not yet organized into dioceses,
Indian settlements not located in organized dioceses, and some
place on the west coast of Africa to be selected by the executive
committee. From 1826 to 1829 the Society made a second attempt
to begin a mission in Florida, sending Addison Searle to Pensacola,
Horatio N. Gray to Tallahassee, and Raymond A. Henderson to
St. Augustine. The school at Green Bay was also revived under
Cadle, who carried it on fairly successfully for a number of years,
with government aid. In 1834, however, he got into trouble over
an excessive bit of discipline administered to one of the boys, and
though he was exonerated by the Society, after an investigation
conducted by Kemper and Milnor, he resigned and returned for
a time to parish work, but in a few years he was back with the
Society and serving as itinerant in Wisconsin. In 1828 Bishop
Hobart visited the Indians at Green Bay and, on his way, conse
crated the church at Detroit and confirmed twelve. In 1830 Bishop
Brownell made a visitation on behalf of the Society, covering
parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and
South Carolina, the apparently strange arrangement of the states
being accounted for by the fact that he followed the water route
down the Ohio and Mississippi and back along the Gulf of Mexico
and the Atlantic Coast. He evidently made another visit to the
South some years later, for his presence is recorded at the diocesan
conventions of Alabama in July, 1834, and January, 1835.

After the Society had been functioning long enough to acquire
a definite policy, it adopted in the domestic sphere the rule, which Policies of the
had been followed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Societ y
in colonial times, of requiring some measure of local support for
its missionaries, under ordinary circumstances, and of not contrib
uting toward the building of churches, though, like all wisely
managed organizations, it occasionally violated its own rules. It
also followed the policy of trying to bring the total stipends of its

2*>6 A HISTORY OF TOE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

missionaries up to five hundred dollars a year. This, though not
lavish, represented a fairly adequate support at the time, and was
more than was received by the rectors of some of the smaller set
tled parishes. Living expenses in the West, however, for one who
could not produce his own food, were generally higher than in the
East and the work was harder, so that, as there was still a marked
shortage of clergy to supply even the older parishes, the Society
generally had more difficulty in finding men than in finding the
money to pay them. As a rule missionaries were not sent to the
actual frontier, but to the region behind it, where stable settlements
had already begun to develop, and even there many splendid mis
sionary opportunities had to be neglected for want of ministers.
Had the Church been willing to lower drastically the educational
requirements for its regular clergy, to make a more extensive use
of lay workers, or to develop a system of itinerancy, its growth in
the West would have been much more rapid and its present
strength probably greater, but though there were some timid ges
tures in that direction, no serious attempt to adapt the Church's
system to the special needs of a rapidly growing country was ever
made, and the constant calls of the western leaders for men were
but feebly answered.

In its earliest years the Society obtained its support mainly from
Pennsylvania and South Carolina and, to a less extent, from the
rest of the South and New England, for Hobart was not cordial
towards its efforts to raise money in New York. His successor,
however, was more friendly, and after 1830 New York took the
lead, as it should have done, among the states supporting the
Society, South Carolina being second. The total contributions in
creased steadily and fairly rapidly, except during years of depres
sion, until the middle of the century when partisan bitterness
stirred up by the Oxford Movement and the Ritualistic contro
versy caused a lessening of the Society's support.

In 1835 the organization of the Society was completely remod-

Reorganiza- eled, the new constitution providing that every member of the

tion of the Episcopal Church should be regarded as a member of the Society,

Society, 1835 w j lose a fj a j rs were henceforth to be controlled by a "Board of

Missions," composed of all the bishops and thirty other members

elected by the General Convention. This body was to function

through two executive committees, one for domestic and one for

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 25?

foreign missions, and each committee was to employ a secretary
and general agent at an adequate salary to raise money and man
age its affairs generally. The most significant feature of this new
arrangement, at least in principle, was the making of the Society
co-extensive with the Church, but its practical importance has
sometimes been exaggerated. Though the support of the Society
increased after the arrangement, until checked by the depression
of 1837-40, it had been increasing steadily before, and the rate of
increase was not greatly accelerated. Some advance might, in any
case, have been expected from the better organization of the
Society's executive.

The General Convention of 1835, besides approving of the above
arrangement, passed a canon to provide for the election of "mis- "Missionary
sionary bishops" at home and abroad. The reader who has fol- Bishops"
lowed the labors of Hobart, Griswold, Chase, and their contempo- F vl c
raries may feel that they, if anyone, should be entitled to the
designation of "missionary bishops," but officially a bishop is a mis
sionary only if he is elected by General Convention instead of the
territory over which he has jurisdiction, and is supported by the
general Missionary Society and subject to its control. Before 1835
we had no bishops of this sort. The first two elected under the new
canon were Francis Lister Hawks, who was to be Bishop of
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida, and Jackson Kemper, who was
to be Bishop of Missouri and Indiana. Hawks declined, but
Kemper accepted, and was consecrated on September 25, 1835.

Before this time, bishops had been obtained in Kentucky and
Tennessee by the regular process of diocesan election, Kentucky
having chosen Benjamin Bosworth Smith to that office in 1832
and Tennessee having named James Harvey Otey in 1833. In the
following year an attempt had been made to unite the states of
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana as the "Southwestern Dio
cese," in imitation of the Eastern Diocese, but the project was
given up when the General Convention of 1835 repealed the canon
authorizing it in favor of the scheme of electing missionary
bishops.

Jackson Kemper, whose consecration made him our first mis
sionary bishop, in the official sense, was one of the most important Jackson
figures in the early history of our Church in the West, and by
his tireless labors he did much to supply the want of subordinate

258 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

ministers. The official title of his jurisdiction gives a very inade
quate idea of the extent of his activities. He subsequently added
the supervision of Wisconsin to his other work, and he frequently
made visitations in other states at the request of the Missionary
Society or of his brother bishops. As we have seen, Kemper had
served for years as assistant minister at Christ Church. He had
resigned in 1831, however, and was rector of St. Paul's Church,
Norwalk, Connecticut, at the time of his election. While at Phila
delphia he had made a visit for the Society for the Advancement
of Christianity in Pennsylvania to the western part of the state in
1812, and had gone into western Virginia, where a meeting with
the Dr. Doddridge previously mentioned had called his attention
to needs farther west. He made another tour on behalf of the same
organization in 1814, going as far as northern Ohio, and he accom
panied Bishop White on his western visitation in 1826. In 1834, as
we have seen, he went with James Milnor to settle the difficulties
of the mission at Green Bay.

Kemper went west shortly after his consecration, accompanied
Bishop by the Rev. Samuel Roosevelt Johnson, who was to serve the

Kcmpcr's Church for a number of years in Indiana, where, at the time, there
Visitations was Qn jy Qne o ^ r m i ss ionary. Kemper himself became the rector
of the church at St. Louis, securing the services of the Rev. Peter
Minaud as assistant. He spent the winter of 1835 in Illinois, sup
plying for Bishop Chase, who was in England. In 1837 he organ
ized a college in Missouri to which his friends, in his absence,
gave the name of Kemper College. Their action was unfortunate,
for it caused the bishop to feel some embarrassment in appealing
for funds for the institution. It was closed in 1845. In 1838 Kemper
made a visitation of the states along the Mississippi, the Gulf, and
the southern Atlantic Coast, as Bishop Brownell had done in 1830,
though, as the number of stations had increased, Kemper's tour
was probably more arduous. It had originally been projected in
conjunction with Bishop Otey of Tennessee, but the latter was
prevented by illness from going.

Wisconsin, where Cadle had succeeded in opening a number of
stations, had originally been attached to Michigan, but when
Samuel Allen McCoskry was elected bishop for the latter state in
1836, Wisconsin objected to his jurisdiction and asked to be placed
under Kemper, a request which was eventually granted. Iowa was

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

259

also added to his jurisdiction about this time, Dtibuque having
previously been made a mission station at his suggestion.

General Seminary, in its earlier years, was not very prolific in
the number of graduates which it sent into the mission field, but Founding of
after the^studeat body fell under the influence of the Oxford Move-
ment in the late thirties, a stronger missionary spirit began to
develop. In 1840 a number of students who had been influenced
by this movement started discussing the possibility of organizing
a semi-monastic group to carry on missionary work somewhere in
the West under Kemper. Eventually four of them, James Warley
Miles, William Adams, James Lloyd Breck, and John Henry
Hobart, Jr., the son of Bishop Hobart, decided to go through with
it, if their respective bishops would permit them to do so. Miles'
bishop, Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, would not, but
the rest obtained the necessary permission, and in 1841 the three of
them settled at Prairieville, now Waukesha, Wisconsin, where they
built St. John's Church in the Wilderness. The next year they
moved to Nashotah, Wisconsin, where land had been purchased
for them. They were to be supported, to the extent of salaries of
$250 apiece, by the Missionary Society, and Cadle at first con
sented to become their "Superior." He resigned in a short time,
however, and Breck was reluctantly forced to take command.
Though they took no vows, and called their establishment an
"associate mission," it was their intention to give it more or less
of a monastic character. They were to wear a sort of habit and be
under a rule of obedience, and it was expected that they would not
marry while connected with the mission. They assumed respon
sibility for the work of the Church in a large area about their
mission which included several different races and types of settle
ment, and, as an incidental feature of their work, they undertook
the training of a few theological students.

To one of them, Adams, the teaching program proved the only
congenial feature of the work. He resigned from the mission in it Becomes a
1843, and when he returned two years later it was with the under-
standing that he was to serve as a teacher only. In 1848 he mar-
ried Bishop Kemper's daughter, Elizabeth. So thoroughly did that
young lady succeed in altering his principles that in 1850, when he
published a textbook on moral theology entitled The Elements of
Christian Science, he took the position that it was morally wrong

260

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

not to marry. By 1850 Hobart had also withdrawn from the mis
sion and it had so far lost its original character that Breck, who
alone still cherished the early ideal, resigned and went with two
young followers to found a similar station in Minnesota, where
Ezekiel G. Gear was then the only Episcopal minister. Nasho-
tah passed under the control o the Rev. Azel D. Cole, Adams
being unwilling to assume executive responsibility, and under the
two of them it developed into an educational institution pure and
simple. Breck himself, incidentally, married twice in the course of
his later career.

Kemper was relieved of his jurisdiction in Missouri in 1844
Othcr when Cicero Stephen Hawks was elected bishop of that state. In

" 1849 Geor U P fold bcame Bish P f Indiana. Kemper, however,

had by then taken over the care of Minnesota and in 1856 he was
given jurisdiction over Kansas. In 1859 he resigned his missionary
jurisdiction because of age, but remained Bishop of Wisconsin,
which had become an independent diocese, until his death in 1870.
In 1859 Henry Benjamin Whipple was elected Bishop of Minne
sota and the unorganized area of the West was divided into two
missionary jurisdictions, one of the Northwest and one of the
Southwest. Joseph Cruikshank Talbot became bishop of the
former and Henry Champlin Lay of the latter. Talbot, whose
jurisdiction included several million square miles, used to refer
to himself, with some justification, as "Bishop of All Outdoors."
While Kemper was carrying on his extensive work in the
Northwest, the Southwest was by no means neglected. In 1838
Leonidas Polk was elected Missionary Bishop of Arkansas, with
the proviso that he should perform episcopal functions in other
vacant southern dioceses also. In 1841 he became Bishop of Loui
siana. In 1844 Nicholas Hamner Cobbs was elected Bishop of
Alabama, and George W. Freeman was appointed by the General
Convention to be Bishop of Arkansas and to exercise jurisdiction
over the Indian Territory (where, however, we had no mission
aries) and the Republic of Texas. Freeman was subsequently given
a general jurisdiction for the Southwest. Francis L. Hawks was
also elected Bishop of Mississippi in 1844, having gone to that
state to escape prosecution by his creditors in New York. Charges
arising out of his financial embarrassments, which were the result
of the failure of a boys' school he had founded, were interposed

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

261

to prevent his consecration, and, though the Deputies declared him
exonerated, they referred the matter back to the diocesan conven
tion for further action. Before that was taken, Hawks declared
that he would not accept the election anyway, and Mississippi did
not finally obtain a bishop until 1850 when William Mercer Green
was elected. Texas, which had become a state in the meantime, was
admitted into union with General Convention in the same year.

Breck, after he went into Minnesota, established an associate
mission on a larger scale than Nashotah, having at one time
twelve co-workers of both sexes. He still had trouble with the
propensity of his colleagues for marriage and eventually, as has
been mentioned, succumbed to that temptation, himself. His
mission, which had its headquarters at Christ Church, St. Paul,
served a large part of the state and was largely responsible for
building up the Church there. Breck founded two branch missions
among the Chippeway Indians and took personal charge of this
part of the work himself, leaving the white mission under the di
rection of Dr. van Ingen. In 1857 he began the foundation of a
theological seminary at Faribault, which he named for Bishop
Seabury. This institution proved successful and continued at Fari-
bault until a short time ago when it was merged with the Western
Theological Seminary and moved to Evanston, Illinois.

Missionary work was begun in California in 1850, the year that
it became a state, the Rev. Dr. J. L. H. Ver Mehr being sent to
San Francisco, where he founded Grace Church. In 1853 Califor
nia applied for admission to General Convention, but as it had
failed to ratify the General Constitution its petition could not be
granted. The House of Deputies did, however, recommend the
appointment of a bishop and several presbyters for the state, which,
though capable of self-support, had difficulty in obtaining men.
In accordance with this suggestion, William Ingraham Kip was
elected by the upper house and duly consecrated for the post. Five
missionaries, in addition to the one already there, were sent
to help him within the next two years. In 1867 he was joined by
Breck, who went to the Coast in that year to found his third asso
ciate mission. In 1853 a bishop, Thomas F. Scott, had also been
sent to Oregon Territory, which then included the present state
of Oregon and a large part of Idaho. Two presbyters were sent to
work under him.

Breck in
Minnesota

California

262

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The increasing number of young men under the influence of the
Theological Oxford Movement who went into the domestic mission field, and
the refusal of the Society or its bishops to discriminate against
them, cost it in some measure the support of the Evangelicals,
who were angered when they found the western deputies voting
with the Anglo-Catholics at the General Convention of 1847. At
the next Convention, 1850, the committee on the Missionary Soci
ety reported an alarming decline in receipts, and in 1851 some
Evangelicals at Philadelphia organized The Missionary Society
for the West, which was to raise money that should be spent
through the Domestic Committee but with the contributing society
reserving the privilege to say on whom or how it should be spent.
In 1859 a still more radical measure was undertaken with the
organization of the American Church Missionary Society, which
proposed to carry on work entirely under its own direction, both
at home and abroad. One incidental result of its activities was the
commencement of our work in Latin America. It was named in
imitation of the English Church Missionary Society, which had
generally been under Evangelical control. After the strife of par
ties had begun to subside, it became an auxiliary of the Domestic
and Foreign Missionary Society.

It was inevitable that the foreign missionary work of the Church
should grow much more slowly than the domestic. The domestic
work was carried on in a rapidly growing section, among Chris
tians of our own race, and, for the most part, in communities
where there were at least some Episcopalians to provide a certain
amount of local support from the start. In the foreign field every
thing had to be begun by the Society.

It was, in fact, some time before the foreign work could be got
Greece under way at all. Shortly after its organization the Society pro

jected a mission to Africa, where the American Colonization
Society was settling such negroes as its philanthropic supporters
were able to bring out of slavery, but various circumstances forced
the repeated postponement of the enterprise, and in the end our
first foreign missionaries were sent, not to Africa, but to Greece.
The revolt of that country from the Turkish Empire, which led
to its independence in 1829, had excited the sympathy of the
whole Western World, and of our young republic in particular,
and this sympathy led the Rev. John J. Robertson to volunteer for

The Foreign

Field

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

service there. His object, of course, was not to convert the Greeks,
who were Christians already, but to provide them with opportu
nities for education which their long subjection and present pov
erty had prevented. He founded a school at Smyrna, where he was
joined two years later by the Rev. J. H. Hill and wife, and an
other clergyman. The school was subsequently moved to Athens,
where it was continued, under the Hills and their successors, for
many years, winning expressions of gratitude from the leaders of
the Greek people.

The African mission was at last started in 1835 when James M.
Thomson, a negro, was appointed as the first Episcopal mis- Africa
sionary. He was not in orders and served only as a teacher, though
a parish had been organized by the Episcopalian residents of
Monrovia the year before his coming. He died in 1838, but his
wife remained in the employ of the Society until her death in
1864. In 1836 the Rev. Thomas S. Savage, M.D., was sent out,
and remained in Africa for ten years, then returning to the United
States to enter parish work. With him in the same year went the
Rev. John Payne, who, in 1851, was consecrated first Bishop of
Liberia, or, as his title originally read, of West Africa. He was
supported by a number of other workers.

Our next foreign field was China, which was just then coming
within the orbit of expanding Europe. Our first missionaries there, China
the Rev. Henry Lockwood and the Rev. Francis R. Hanson, were
appointed in 1835, but they were requested to spend six months in
the study of medicine before leaving for their stations. They went
first to Canton, but later moved to Batavia, in Java, where there
seemed to be better opportunities of doing useful work while learn
ing the Chinese language. Hanson left the mission in 1837 and
Lockwood in 1839. The Rev. William J. Boone had been sent to
join the missionaries at Batavia in 1837 and in 1840 he moved the
mission back to China. In 1844 he was consecrated bishop, being
the first bishop consecrated for strictly foreign missionary service
within the Anglican communion. In 1845 he settled the mission
at Shanghai, where he was joined by the Rev. Cleveland Keith in
1851, by the Rev. Robert Nelson in 1852, and by the Rev. C. M.
Williams and the Rev. John Liggins in 1856. In 1859 the last two
were sent as the first Protestant missionaries to Japan. Liggins was
soon forced to leave because of ill health, but Williams continued

264 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Missionary
Spirit

The Indians

and became first Bishop of Japan in 1866. In 1859 Boone was
joined by the Rev. S. I. J. Schereschewsky, who devoted himself
for many years to translating the Bible into Chinese.

With the consecration of Bishop Boone and Bishop Payne, the
work in the two largest of our early mission fields may be said
to have gotten fairly under way. The effort which started that
work was a phase of the general revival of missionary interest
among, Protestants which marked the early nineteenth century.
This revival was partly the result of a growing sense of spiritual
responsibility and partly of the general urge for the spreading of
European culture which characterized the century. There was
about all of the early work, probably, something of the spirit of
"From Greenland's Icy Mountains," but the smugness of the early
missionaries and their sponsors is often exaggerated. The instruc
tions provided for the first missionaries to China, furnished by
Bishop White, and the instructions supplied to Bishop Boone by
Bishop Meade reminded them that they were going to a civilized
country and stressed the importance of an appreciative attitude
toward Chinese culture.

An attempt was also made at this period to establish a mission
in Persia, then as now under Mohammedan control. The Rev.
Horatio Southgate was sent there in 1835 to explore the field and
continued at the work for some years. In 1844 he was consecrated
bishop at the same time as Boone, an unwise move, since the
Christians in Persia were under the jurisdiction of Orthodox
bishops. He resigned in a few years because of disagreements with
the Society and returned to America where he became rector of
the Church of the Advent, Boston, one of the early centers of
Anglo-Catholicism in this country. A mission was also started in
Crete, but it was short-lived.

There was only a very slight amount of work done by the
Church among the American Indians at this period. The work
among the Oneidas in New York, which had been interrupted by
the Revolution, was vigorously revived under Hobart, and Eleazer
Williams, who was himself part Indian, being descended from a
white woman who was captured in an Indian raid in colonial
times and married to her captor, was sent to take charge of it, first
as catechist and then as presbyter. He went with the Indians to
Wisconsin and continued to work among them until someone

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES 265

persuaded him that it would be more profitable to capitalize his
striking facial resemblance to the Bourbons by posing as the Lost
Dauphin. Thereafter the work had to be carried on by less roman
tic characters. We have already traced, in part, the fortunes of the
school at Green Bay. It was at length abandoned, but a mission was
kept up at the Duck Creek Reservation, near Green Bay, under
the Rev. Solomon Davis, whose faithful labors extended over
many years. This was our only Indian mission until Breck began
his work among the Chippeways.

Work among the negroes was carried on more extensively and
successfully, but not, for the most part, under the Missionary The Negroes
Society, though the Domestic Committee did set up a special fund
for their benefit. Most of the work was done in the organized
dioceses and by regular ministers, though special negro churches
were organized in Philadelphia, New York, and some other north
ern cities, and some free negroes were ordained to the priesthood.
All of the southern bishops laid stress on work among the negroes,
and most of the southern rectors engaged in it. The prejudices
against the conversion of this race which had prevailed in colonial
times died out in the nineteenth century when it began to be dis
covered that Christian slaves were more docile than others. The
Episcopal Church had fair success among the negroes on the
plantations, where the masters could supervise their religious life,
but in the towns, where they had more opportunity to choose their
own churches, they generally preferred other denominations. By
the middle of the century most of the negroes had been converted
by some denomination or other and the defenders of slavery began
to describe that institution as one of the greatest missionary enter
prises of the age.

CHAPTER XIII

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

CHURCHMAN o today, even if he came from a parish
Changes in which was fairly conservative in the matter of ritual and ornament,
the Church would probably feel scarcely more at home in a church of his own
communion at the beginning of the nineteenth century than he
would in one of another denomination. The actual service of the
Prayer Book would be familiar, for, though it has been altered, the
changes have not been fundamental, but in nearly all of the things
which gave it its setting he would see a difference. The furnishings
of the church would be different, as one can see for himself if he
goes into one of the old churches which have been kept as they
were a century or more ago. There would be no altar with solid
sides, designed to resemble stone, even when it is not built of stone.
In its place, there would be a communion table, with recognizable
legs, and this, moreover, would not be placed squarely against the
"east" end of the church, as the altar is, but would be at least suf
ficiently removed so that the priest could stand behind it and face
the congregation while celebrating. It would have no colored
"hangings," but only the "fair linen cloth" required by the rubric.
There would be no candles and no cross or crucifix. The pulpit
would probably be more prominent than at present, and might
even hide the communion table.

When the service began, no vested choir would come marching
in. If there were a choir of any sort, it would be up in the gallery
out of sight. The only vestments worn by the priest would be a
long, white surplice while officiating, and a black gown while
preaching. Before ascending the pulpit, he would probably dis
appear behind a screen somewhere to change from one of these
garments to the other. It would be much less likely that the service
one happened to attend was the Eucharist, because that was less

266

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 267

often celebrated. If it was, it would be celebrated with the least
possible ceremonial by the priest facing the congregation.

These differences, which would go so far towards making the
familiar service unfamiliar, are the direct, though incidental, result Effects o & c
of the work performed by a group of young scholars, and one older Oxford
one, at Oxford University in the eighteen thirties. It was not the Movement
primary object of these men to introduce changes in ceremonial.
In the beginning it was not their object to introduce such changes
at all. But the changes came about as the result of the Movement
which those men started, and they are the consequences of that
Movement which present themselves most conspicuously to the
average layman. They also serve to symbolize it in another way,
for, just as they have affected the usages of many Episcopal
churches that are in no way associated with it, so there are many
Churchmen who would not care to be considered its followers
but who, nevertheless, think differently about the Church and its
teaching than they would if the changes had not occurred. On the
other hand, just as there are many professed followers of the
Movement today who use ceremonial of which its founders never
dreamed, so there are many such persons who hold theological
opinions quite different from those originally maintained by the
school, either because they have gone much further in the direc
tion in which it first started, or because, while retaining something
of its basic position, they have adopted many ideas originally put
forward by other groups. In other words, the Oxford Movement
has so thoroughly permeated the life of our Church, and has in
fluenced and been influenced by other tendencies and forces to
such a degree, that the extent of its influence can no longer be
measured by the use of the party names associated with it.

The Movement is generally regarded as having originated in a
plea for a more pronounced Churchmanship made by John Keble, rhc TracU
a Fellow of Oxford, in a sermon which he preached at the opening -for the Times
of the Assize in 1833, but it found its most important expression in
a series of pamphlets called Tracts for the Times which were writ
ten by Keble and some of his associates in that and the years fol
lowing. The principal authors of these papers, besides Keble, were
Hurrell Froude, who died in 1836, when the movement was still
in its infancy; Edward Bouverie Pusey, a Professor in Oxford,
older than the other -writers and already a distinguished scholar;

268 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

and John Henry Newman, who rapidly became the leader of the
group, and who wrote the most striking of the tracts.

English Churchmanship at this time was in a rather decayed
condition. The reviving influence exerted by Hobart upon Amer
ican High Churchmanship had not extended to the Old World,
and the party in England had lost a good deal of its original vigor.
Evangelicalism, though less decadent, had also lost some of its
early fire, and, in any case, it was not disposed to lay much empha
sis upon the distinctive claims of the Church. As a result of this
lassitude, there was serious talk of disestablishment, and it was
felt that only a vigorous restatement of Church principles could
avert this threat.

This was the original object of the Tracts., and, in fact, the earlier
The Tracta- numbers of the series were merely a restatement of the position of
rian Position seventeenth-century High Churchmanship, but as the discussion
progressed, some of the writers, and especially Newman, began to
go beyond this position. Newman was evidently moving towards
that theory of development in religious belief which was to become
the theme of one of his best-known works, and this led him into
a gradually increasing emphasis upon the tradition of the Catholic
Church until he finally reached the conclusion that the Bible could
be properly interpreted only in the light of this tradition. Such a
position was obviously in conflict with the principle of the suffi
ciency and self-interpretative quality of Scripture which, if any
doctrine can be so called, was the fundamental tenet of the Refor
mation and had hitherto been accepted, at least tacitly, by High
Churchman as well as Low. If the Tractarian view, which was
simply the traditional Catholic view, was to be accepted instead of
the Protestant one, it was obvious that a complete reappraisal of
the position of the Anglican communion would be called for. The
tendency of the Reformation, and of the churches which were
subjected to it, was to dismiss the centuries which had intervened
since the close of the Scriptural Revelation as centuries of growing
corruption, from which Christianity, or a part of it, had been
purified by the Protestant Revolt. Actually, most of the older
Protestant denominations accepted the results of Christian devel
opment up to Nicea, but they believed they did so only because the
Nicene theology could be proved from the Bible. If, however,
Anglicans were again to accept the theory that tradition was the

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

269

key to Scripture, it was obvious that ages of Christian thought
which had previously been contemptuously slighted must be re
spectfully reconsidered, and that much which had been dismissed
as corruption might have to be regarded as legitimate development.
In Tract Thirty-eight, which was in the form of a philosophic
dialogue, Newman made his protagonist say, "I receive the Church
as a messenger from Christ, rich in treasures old and new, rich
with the accumulated wealth of ages. ... As I will not consent to
be deprived of the records of the Reformation, so neither will I
part with those of former times." The full implications of this
statement were not developed in that tract, nor, indeed, in any of
them, but the hint was significant of things to come.

While,, however, it is probably correct to regard this view of the
importance of tradition as being the root of most of the later de- Evangelical
velopments of the movement, it was not the point upon which the Opposition
early controversy concerning the Tracts was waged most bitterly.
Even the earlier numbers had caused a good deal of uneasiness
among the Evangelicals and when, as the series continued, the
writers began to speak of the need for a "second Reformation,"
to wave aside "the prejudice which has been excited in the minds
of Protestants against the principle ... of anathematizing," to
hold that the Tridentine doctrine of Purgatory might be within
the bounds of permissible opinion, and to reproduce a large part
of the Roman Breviary with the comment that "There is so much
of excellence and beauty in the services of the Breviary that, were
it skilfully set before the Protestant by Roman controversialists as
the book of devotions received in their communion, it would un
doubtedly raise a prejudice in their favor," many of the older High
Churchmen also began to feel a trifle nervous. Even the statement
of the Tractarians that their purpose was to claim "whatever
is good and true in those Devotions . . . for the Church Cath
olic" did not prove entirely reassuring.

It was not, however, until the publication of Tract Ninety that
the storm actually broke and it became evident that what had gone Tract
before was but a premonitory rumbling. This Tract, which was Ninety
written by Newman, was an attempt to show that the Catholic
position, as it had been developed among the Tractarians, was
sanctioned by the Thirty-Nine Articles. These Articles have been
so badly battered in the years since this pamphlet was written that

270 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

it is difficult to understand the respect with which they were then
generally regarded. At the time of the organization of the Epis
copal Church in this country, Bishop White and some others had,
it is true, thought that it would be a good idea to revise them, but
the majority had not shared this opinion and they had, after a few
years, been adopted with but slight alteration. Generally speaking,
both High and Low Churchmen felt that the Articles gave a suf
ficient sanction to their respective positions, as, indeed, they prob
ably did, and were much attached to them. In England, all clergy
men were, and still are, required to sign them at their ordination.
When Newman tried to put his new wine into these old bottles,
it seemed to many that he was straining them to the breaking
point. They objected especially to his contention that the Articles
did not condemn all % doctrines of purgatory, that they gave no
sanction to the right of private judgment in interpreting Scripture,
and that they left one free to believe in the infallibility of some
kinds of general councils. Above all, his opponents, and especially
the Evangelicals, objected to his insistence that good works might
have a role, even if a minor one, in our justification, a view, in
deed, which Newman could reconcile with the Articles only by
ignoring the first half of Article XL Justification by faith only had
been one of the great watchwords of the Reformation, and it lay at
the very root of the Evangelical system. It was, therefore, at the
rejection of this doctrine that the Evangelicals leveled their heaviest
artillery.

As a result of the furor aroused by this Tract, the publication of
Spread of the the series was stopped and Newman retired for a period of reflec-
Movement tion which finally led him into the Roman Catholic Church. The
Movement, however, continued, and spread throughout the Angli
can communion under various titles of which the most common
were "The Oxford Movement," "Tractarianism," and "Pusey-
ism." Like all things Anglican, the Movement was never sharply
defined, and there was no specific statement of principles to which
all of its adherents felt obliged to give assent. Proceeding, how
ever, from the basic principle of Catholic tradition as the true
interpreter of Scripture, it developed certain features which served
to mark it off as a distinct party, though there was a good deal of
shading along the margins, and in time many people came to

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

271

Theological
Position

approve certain features of the Movement without accepting its
whole program.

Most of the adherents of the Movement agreed to define Cath
olic tradition, in the terms of the famous "canon" of St. Vincent
de Lerins, as that which had been believed "everywhere, always
and by all/' and for practical purposes they interpreted this as
referring to the generally received tradition of the Christian
Church before the division of East and West. They regarded the
seven General Councils, held before that division, as being infal
lible insofar as they expressed the general tradition. The legiti
mate heirs of the undivided Church, they thought, were the three
great communions, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Angli
can, and some minor groups which, like these three, had main
tained the succession of bishops without interruption and remained
substantially orthodox in doctrine. Such religious bodies they re
garded as being branches of the one Catholic Church, and through
their insistence upon the right of the Anglican Communion to be
called "Catholic" in this sense, they acquired the designation of
"Anglo-Catholic," which in time became the title most commonly
applied to them. The application of the adjective "Catholic" to the
Church of England was not a new thing, but it had not previously
been used so often, nor had it, since the Reformation, been
applied in a sense that was definitely antithetical to "Protestant."

Most of the Anglo-Catholics, though there were some excep
tions, did not regard as necessary of belief any doctrine which
could not be shown to have obtained general acceptance before
the division of the Church, and ordinarily they regarded its af
firmation by a General Council as the best test of such acceptance.
Some of them, however, were disposed to regard doctrines which
had developed in the Western Church during the Middle Ages,
such as the belief in purgatory and the Immaculate Conception of
the Virgin Mary, as falling within the bounds of permissible
opinion which the pious were justified in accepting if it appealed
to them.

In regard to religious institutions and ceremonies, the Anglo-
Catholics early showed a strong tendency to return to the customs Usages and
of the Middle Ages. The Movement had not been long under way Ceremonies
before proposals began to be made for the revival of monasticism,
and, though it was a long time before a successful order was

272 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

actually founded, experiments in that direction were constantly
being made. The first leaders of the party were opposed to intro
ducing actual changes in ceremonial, partly because they realized
that this would increase the bitterness of the opposition, and pardy
because they feared that any proposals for liturgical revision would
give the Evangelicals an opportunity to demand changes in the
opposite direction. They showed themselves, however, as in their
publication of the Breviary, sympathetic to many liturgical cus
toms of the Middle Ages which had been rejected at the Reforma
tion. When, in the next generation, some of the bolder spirits of
the party began to translate these sympathies into action, the op
position to the Movement was, as the older leaders had foreseen,
both intensified and extended, for the ritual changes which resulted
brought the implications of the Movement home to many, espe
cially of the laity, by whom its theological position had been but
little considered. Even at the beginning, the Tractarians intro
duced some changes in the internal arrangements of the churches,
such as placing the altar against the east wall and reducing the
conspicuousness of the pulpit, but these were, in any case, a natural
corollary of the revival of Gothic architecture for the external
construction of the churches.

The revival of interest in and respect for mediaeval usages were
Cultural natural consequences of the emphasis of the Anglo-Catholics

Overtones upon the continuous tradition of the Church, but it also fitted in
with the general interest in the Middle Ages that was one of the
features of nineteenth-century culture, and which had already
shown itself in literature, through the Romantic Movement, and
in architecture, through the Gothic Revival. In the field of history,
or, at least, of pseudo-history, this interest was to be forced into
an unnatural union with nationalism and democracy, and issue
in what may be called the Anglo-Saxon Legend, or the theory
that the democratic institutions of modern England were the result
of the triumph of a supposedly primitive Anglo-Saxon democracy
in its long struggle with foreign oppression as represented by the
Normans. Under more or less Anglo-Catholic auspices a corre
sponding theory developed in Church history which represented
the Church of England as having been from early times a distinct
branch of the Church Catholic, deriving its origin from the un
divided Church of primitive times, but properly independent in

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

273

its own sphere and subjected for a time to the supremacy of the
Popes only through the pusillanimity o its rulers. On this theory,
the Henrician Reformation became simply a proper declaration
of the Church's independence of Rome, and the more Protestant
tendencies displayed in the later stages of the revolt were attrib
uted to the influence of foreign reformers.

One of the most important practical consequences of the Oxford
Movement was the renewed vitality and fresh direction which it Devotional
gave to the devotional life of that portion of the Church which was Life
affected by it. Following the general tendency of their party, the
Anglo-Catholics revived the traditional classification of the Seven
Sacraments, and insisted that the devotions of Churchmen should
be centered around these rites. They emphasized, even more than
older High Churchmen, the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration,
and in their view of the Eucharist they tended to express a strong
belief in the Real Presence, sometimes even approaching the
Roman Catholic theory of Transubstantiation. They celebrated
the Communion much more often than had been customary, and
gave it a larger place in their religious life. Of the remaining five
sacraments, three, Confirmation, Matrimony, and Orders, had been
in constant use without being called sacraments. The other two,
Penance, in the form of auricular confession, and Holy Unction
were both revived sooner or later.

As a result of this program, a rich devotional life developed
among the followers of the Movement, and a spirit of religious
service showed itself which led many ministers to go into fields
that the older High Churchmen had generally neglected. In Eng
land they went into the cities to do religious work among the poor.
In this country many of their young men went to work in the
West, where previously the Evangelicals had supplied most of the
missionaries.

In recent years new forces have begun to operate within the
fold of Anglo-Catholicism, and new tendencies have developed.
A "Liberal Catholic" movement has grown up which is only just
becoming articulate, and there are probably many Anglo-Catholics
not identified with this new group who have, nevertheless, been
more or less influenced by some aspects of Liberalism. There is
also a growing section of the party which is interested in the social
implications of Catholicism. To these modern Anglo-Catholics

Recent
Liberalization

274 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the foregoing description is only partially applicable, but it is be
lieved to give a fairly accurate representation of the older phases of
the movement. As has been said before, however, it must be remem
bered that the party has never produced any definite formularies
accepted by all its adherents, and there have always been many
along its fringes who accepted only part of its program. There have
also been extremists on the other side who, shirking the consider
able exercise of scholarship which was necessary to work out a
distinctly Anglican position, have followed the easier course of
simply adopting all of Roman Catholicism except the Pope, but
these have been important merely as they seemed to give color to
the charges of its opponents that Anglo-Catholicism was "Roman
ism" in disguise.

In this country the controversy resulting from the Oxford Move-
The Move- ment did not assume reat proportions until 1843, or about two
mcntin years after the publication of Tract Ninety. While the Tracts were

America st |jj ^ t ' m g published some discussion pro and con appeared in the

Church papers and other mediums, but the general tendency of
those in positions of responsibility was to minimize the controversy
as much as possible. The Tracts did, however, win some followers
among the students of General Theological Seminary, which be
came the earliest, and remained for a long time, the most impor
tant center of Anglo-Catholicism in this country. Most of the
faculty, at this time, kept aloof from the Movement, but one of
the younger professors, the Rev. William Rollinson Whittingham,
who taught Ecclesiastical History, became an early convert, and,
as he enjoyed the popularity which belongs by right to the newest
member of any faculty, he soon had a number of followers among
the students. When these rhen graduated and went into parishes,
they naturally began to impress their views on those around them.
In 1839, Bishop Henry Onderdonk observed with gratification the
placing of a cross on the spire of St. Paul's Church, Washington
County, Pennsylvania, and in 1841 Bishop Griswold noted with
different sentiments certain alterations in the internal arrange
ments of Grace Church, Providence, and the church at Nantucket,
which he regarded as reminiscent of the Dark Ages. In the fol
lowing year, he complained that Nantucket had become even
worse, though he praised the unanimity of the people, and their
efforts to pay off the parish debt. 1841, as we have seen, was the

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

275

The Carey
Ordination,
1843

year in which Nashotah was organized under definitely Anglo- opposition to
Catholic auspices. In the same year Bishop Mcllvaine published a It
book called Oxford Divinity Corn fared with that of the Romish
and Anglican Churches, in which, while acquitting the Tractarians
of any deliberate intention of "Romanizing" the Church of Eng
land, he contended that this was the inevitable tendency o their
teaching, basing his argument chiefly upon their willingness to
admit "good works" into the scheme of salvation. Nevertheless,
when J. P. K. Henshaw, shortly to become Bishop of Rhode
Island, published his memoirs of Bishop R. C. Moore, in 1842,
he was able to say, "The excitement of the Tract controversy is
now rapidly subsiding."

A few months sufficed to show the premature character of this
prophecy. Dr. Whittingham had been elected Bishop of Maryland
in 1840, and had accordingly left General Seminary but his suc
cessor, the Rev. John D. Ogilby, held substantially the same posi
tion as Whittingham, and the interest of the students in the Ox
ford Movement tended to increase rather than diminish. This
interest was, from the first, regarded with a certain amount of
suspicion by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Church. Bishop
Henry Onderdonk, for instance, though he was more or less sym
pathetic to Tractarianism, felt obliged, before ordaining James
Lloyd Breck, to question him for three and a quarter hours con
cerning his views, and this quizz was followed by a session of an
hour and a half with one of the presbyters of the diocese. With
the ordination of Arthur Carey in the diocese of New York in
1843, a definite crisis developed. Carey, whose brilliance, earnest
ness, and charm were acknowledged even by his bitterest oppo
nents, had been a leader among the Tractarian students at General
Seminary, and came to accept some of the most advanced views of
his party. He had been associated, while at the Seminary, with St.
Peter's Church, New York City, whose rector, the Rev. Hugh
Smith, though aware of his sympathy with the Oxford theology,
thought highly of him and was glad to have him as a teacher in
his Sunday school.

Before the final signing of Carey's testimonials, however, Dr.
Smith heard reports which led him to believe that the young man's
opinions were more extreme than he thought. He accordingly had
a long conversation with the candidate, in the course of which he

276 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

elicited the information that, should he be denied admission to
our ministry, Carey might possibly enter that of the Roman
Catholic Church, though in the present state of his views he
thought it unlikely; that he did not regard the differences between
the two communions as embracing any "points of faith" in the
technical sense of that phrase; that he was not prepared to pro
nounce the doctrine of Transubstantiation absurd or impossible,
but regarded it "as taught within the last hundred years as possibly
meaning no more than what we mean by the Real Presence, which
we most assuredly hold"; that he did not feel sure the Tridentine
doctrine of purgatory was entirely untenable, though he did re
ject the doctrine as popularly received in the Roman communion;
that he was not prepared to say that the Church of Rome was no
longer "an integral or pure branch of the Church of Christ," or
to say whether she or the Anglican Church was at present more
pure; that, while he objected to the practice of withholding the
Cup from the laity, he did not regard it as invalidating the
Roman Catholic Eucharist; that he regarded many features of the
English Reformation as unjustifiable, though he admitted that
some reformation was then necessary; that, while he would not
himself undertake to prove doctrine from passages in the Apoc
rypha, he could not condemn the Roman Catholic Church for
calling it Holy Scripture; and that he did not consider the promise
of conformity in the Ordination service as committing him to an
acceptance of the Thirty-Nine Articles.

As a result of this conversation, Dr. Smith refused to sign
Protested by Carey's testimonials and presented a statement of his reasons for
Smith and refusing to Bishop Benjamin Onderdonk. He also consulted his
Amhon rierfdj the Rev Hemy Anthon? the rector o St> Mark > s Church,

who agreed with him as to the propriety of his conduct. Carey,
however, obtained the necessary testimonials from the Rev. Wil
liam Berrian, rector of Trinity Church. Bishop Onderdonk then
asked Doctors Smith and Anthon to assist at an examination of
Carey before himself and six of the leading presbyters of the dio
cese, including, besides Berrian, John McVickar, a professor at
Columbia College, Samuel Seabury (a grandson of Bishop Sea-
bury), editor of The Churchman, Joseph H. Price, rector of St.
Stephen's Church, Benjamin I. Haight, rector of All Saints'
Church and a professor at General, and another New York rector,

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 277

Edward Y. Higbee. The examination, though long and pain
ful, being conducted chiefly by the two protestors, did not elicit
anything as to Carey's opinions not already known. When it was
over, Bishop Onderdonk asked each of the presbyters individually
for his opinion. Smith and Anthon, of course, were dissatisfied,
but all of the others expressed the opinion that the candidate's
answers were satisfactory. The Bishop reserved decision for a time,
during which he considered a further protest from Smith and
Anthon, but he finally decided to go through with the ordination.

After so thorough a hearing had been given to the charges
against Carey, and the question had been decided by the only
person who had any authority to do so, it might be supposed
that the matter would have been allowed to drop, but the two
accusers thought it their duty to read a formal protest during the
Ordination service. When they had done so, the Bishop replied
that, as the matter had already been adjudicated, he would pro
ceed with the ordination, which he did. All parties to the pro
ceedings subsequently sought to justify themselves, and before the
storm had subsided Carey was dead. His health had never been
vigorous, and he died while on a voyage to Havana, where he had
gone in hope of recuperation.

The excitement caused by the Carey case served to heighten the
popular suspicion that General Seminary was rapidly becoming General
a Roman Catholic mission. To satisfy Doctors Smith and Anthon, Seminary
some special questions, designed to detect any subversive tenden- Investl s ated
cies, had been introduced into the examination of the senior class,
for though Carey had graduated the year before, there were other
suspects in the class, especially one B. B. J. McMaster, who sub
sequently did become a Roman Catholic. The Board of Trustees
also appointed a committee to investigate the condition of the
Seminary, and, on hearing its report, voted twenty-six to twenty-
five to inform the House of Bishops at the General Convention of
1844 that the Seminary had never been "in a more healthful
condition." As the majority also resolved not to give the Bishops
the details of the investigation, the minority decided to make a
report of its own indicating that the condition of the .Seminary
was not at its healthiest.

Having received these two reports, in 1844, the Bishops pre
pared a series of questions to be answered by all of the professors,

278 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Bishops*
Queries

The Oxford

Movement
Attacked in
General
Convention

designed to determine what theological ideas were being im
planted in the students' minds. This document was concocted in
a most amazing manner, every question relating to Catholic
teaching being balanced by one concerned with some feature of
Calvinism or German Rationalism. The latter group were, pos
sibly, intended for Professor Turner, whose use of German critics
exposed him to a certain amount of suspicion, but the questions
relating to Calvinism must certainly have been aimed in the air.
The purpose of the whole arrangement can only have been to
disguise the true object of the inquiry, which was obviously to find
out if Professor Ogilby, the only Tractarian on the faculty, was
teaching doctrines not admitted by the Episcopal Church. The
older professors answered the questions briefly and somewhat
testily, but Ogilby took great pains to make his position clear, and
certainly succeeded in indicating that he had not made any dan
gerous approach toward Roman Catholicism. Bishop Mcllvaine,
however, apparently suspected that Ogilby was making some
mental reservations, for he obtained permission to address further
questions to him individually. Ogilby emerged unscathed from
this cross-examination and the Bishops proceeded to acquit the
Seminary of teaching strange doctrines.

An unsuccessful attempt was made at this same convention to
obtain a specific condemnation of the Oxford Movement. After
a resolution had been introduced and withdrawn condemning the
use of any name but "Protestant Episcopal Church," or the omis
sion of that name in printed documents relating to the Church,
another was offered attacking the Tractarian theology and asking
the Bishops to take action against it. This was defeated, and in its
place the Deputies resolved that they considered "the Liturgy,
Offices and Articles of the Church sufficient exponents of her
sense of the essential doctrines of Holy Scripture," and the canons
an adequate means of maintaining discipline. They also resolved
that they die! not consider General Convention the proper place
for censuring the errors of individuals, or regard the Church as
responsible for such errors, even if the individuals were among
her members.

The Convention of 1844 also passed a canon allowing a bishop to
resign his jurisdiction directly to the House of Bishops, without
the consent of his diocese, and another one providing a mode of

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 279

procedure for the trial of a bishop before the same House. This
second canon culminated a movement which began with an
amendment to the constitution introduced by Bishop Doane in
1838 and passed in 1841, providing that a bishop should be tried
by a court composed only of bishops, and that the mode of trying
him should be provided by General Convention. A method of
procedure, prepared by Bishop Hopkins, was passed in 1841, and
the measure of 1844 was a revision of this. The whole arrangement
had originated with the High Churchmen, and was designed to
enhance the prestige of the bishops and secure them from the
jealousy of their own conventions. By one of the ironies of history,
however, the procedure was used by the Evangelicals, within a
decade of its passage, to bring to trial two High Church bishops,
neither of whom would have been prosecuted by his own diocese.
One of the changes made in the trial procedure in 1844 was a
provision allowing a bishop to avoid a formal trial by confessing Suspension of
his guilt. This, together with the canon on resignations, was de-
signed to cover the case of the Right Rev. Henry Ustick Onder-
donk, Bishop of Pennsylvania, who had been presented by his
diocesan convention for drunkenness. He admitted the offense,
but explained that he had begun the use of spiritous liquors on
the advice of his physician, in an effort to alleviate a chronic stom
ach disorder, and had given up their use when he became aware
of their effect. His case would seem to be one that called for
clemency, but the prevailing spirit of the time was not mercy.
The bitterness excited by his election had been intensified by his
friendliness to the Oxford Movement, and the Evangelicals, who
were now in control, refused to accept his resignation, which he
offered, in hopes that they could force him to stand trial After the
passage of the canons alluded to, Onderdonk resigned his juris
diction to the House of Bishops, and also confessed to them the
guilt of intemperance. His brethren, however, proved no more
merciful than his diocese, and he was indefinitely suspended from
his office. This sentence was removed in 1856, on Onderdonk's
profession of repentance, after a pamphlet controversy in which
Bishop Hopkins opposed the removal, and Horace Binney, of Phil
adelphia, one of the most prominent lawyers of his day, supported
it. Onderdonk's jurisdiction was never restored, Alonzo Potter,
a leading Evangelical, having become bishop after his resignation.

280 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Trial of
Bishop
Benjamin
Ondcrdonk

His
Condemnation

The first bishop to be subjected to a formal trial under the new
amendment and canon was Henry Onderdonk 's brother, Benja
min Tread well Onderdonk of New York. Shortly after the Carey
ordination, Bishop Onderdonk 's enemies, of whom the leader was
the Rev. James C. Richmond, an erratic clergyman of Evangelical
sympathies, who was known to his contemporaries as "crazy
Richmond," began to collect various charges which they thought
reflected seriously upon the Bishop's moral character. When the
diocesan convention refused to heed their accusations, they suc
ceeded in persuading three Evangelical bishops, Meade of Vir
ginia, Otey of Tennessee, and Elliott of Georgia, to present
Onderdonk to the House of Bishops. Some of the charges dug up
by the investigators were not even accepted by the presenters,
though their attitude toward the evidence was not a very critical
one. The charges as presented related to drunkenness and im
proper familiarities with women, which were not, however, al
leged to have extended to any overt act of adultery. The charge
of drunkenness was not sustained by any competent witness at all.
The worst of the other charges, and the only one which implied
a criminal intention, was not supported by the presenters' own
witness. The remaining counts in the presentment, if allowance
is made for the exaggeration to be expected from the sort o
women who would consent to appear in such a case, indicate no
more than that the Bishop, as is frequently the case with elderly
men of a certain type, was in the habit of handling people while
conversing with them. Such a habit is, no doubt, socially obnox
ious, but it is hardly criminal. One of the alleged offenses had
taken place seven years before the trial, and the most recent, two
and one-half years before. The defense was able to show, more
over, that until they were approached by Mr. Richmond, the wit
nesses had not acted towards the Bishop with the reserve that they
might have been expected to display if they really believed that
they had received improper advances from him. Nevertheless, the
Bishop was found guilty, and sentenced to indefinite suspension,
a punishment from which he was never released.

It is impossible not to see in this verdict the influence of the
bitter party feeling which prevailed at the time, especially as the
voting throughout the trial was pretty much along party lines, all
of the Evangelicals voting to condemn Bishop Onderdonk and

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 281

most, though not all, of the High Churchmen voting to acquit
him. Most of the witnesses also appear to have had their impres
sions of the Bishop's conduct affected by their Churchmanship.
Allowance must be made, however, for the inexperience of the
bishops in cases of this sort, for the peculiar nineteenth-century
sensitivity upon all matters relating to sex, and for the bad man
agement of the defense by Bishop Onderdonk's counsel, Robert
Graham, a man who was not a Churchman, and who had won
his reputation at the bar in the defense of notorious criminals.
The third bishop to come under the action of the Canon of
1844, and the second to be subjected to a formal trial, or what Trial of
passed for one, was George Washington Doane, of New Jersey, Blsh P Doane
who was brought to trial first in 1852 and again in 1853, on charges
of financial irregularities arising out of the difficulties he had met
with while trying to establish St. Mary's Hall in Burlington, New
Jersey. The chief presenter was again Bishop Meade, supported
this time by Bishops Mcllvaine of Ohio and Burgess of Maine.
The diocese of New Jersey had previously investigated most of
the charges, and decided that they did not show a criminal in
tention. In 1852 the House of Bishops decided to accept the
decision of the diocesan convention and drop further proceedings.
As this action was clearly uncanonical, the case was reopened in
1853. After a good deal of maneuvering, the Court accepted a
declaration of Bishop Doane's in which he confessed to having
misapplied trust funds under the impression that he could replace
them, and admitted a good many other financial irregularities,
but denied that he had meant to do anything wrong. On the basis
of this curious document, the Court again voted to drop all pro
ceedings. From the point of view of canon law, this trial was a
farce, but it is possible that substantial justice resulted. Doane's
mismanagement of his financial affairs was shocking, but it was
obviously the result of incompetence rather than criminality and
little would have been gained by raking over all his affairs. The
much greater clemency shown to him than to the Onderdonks
indicates a partial subsidence of party feeling and probably a
general conviction that the business of presenting bishops was
being carried too far. It is also possible that the other bishops were
better able to sympathize with financial incompetence than with
sexual impropriety, or drunkenness.

282 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Problem
of Providing
Episcopal
Supervision
for New
York

Controversy
in Maryland

We have anticipated our story a little, in order to include Bishop
Doane's case in the sequence of episcopal trials. The sentence of
indefinite suspension which was inflicted on the two Onderdonks
was a defective one from a canonical point of view, for it left
open the question of whether or not the respondent was perma
nently deprived of his jurisdiction. In Pennsylvania, where the
jurisdiction had been previously resigned, this did not matter
much, but in New York it raised a serious problem. Benjamin
Onderdonk was unwilling to make an implied confession of
guilt by resigning, and his diocese, which remained loyal to him,
was unwilling to take any action which might lessen the possibil
ity of his restoration. The General Convention of 1847 passed a
canon to prevent such difficulties in the future by requiring the
Bishops, when imposing the sentence of suspension, to fix the time
or conditions under which it should terminate. All the Convention
would do for New York, however, was to provide that a diocese
whose bishop was disqualified by judicial sentence, or for other
reasons, might employ the services of a neighboring bishop or a
missionary bishop. As such an arrangement was hardly adequate
for the largest diocese in the country, the Convention of 1850
passed a canon allowing a diocese whose bishop was under sen
tence of indefinite suspension to elect a provisional bishop, who
should exercise full jurisdiction until and unless the suspended
bishop was restored, in which case the provisional bishop would
become an assistant bishop. New York regarded this measure as
unsatisfactory and voted against it, but, as this was the only solu
tion offered, that state took advantage of it in 1852 and elected
Jonathan May hew Wainwright its provisional bishop.

The General Convention of 1850 also passed a canon relating
to the bishop's right and duty of visitation. The election of Dr.
Whittingham as Bishop of Maryland had, naturally, made that
diocese a center of Anglo-Catholicism, and many young converts
to the movement went there after ordination, so that they might
have the opportunity of serving under a Catholic-minded bishop.
Whittingham, like most of the early Tractarians, was conservative
in the matter of ritual, and, in order to check the innovations of
some of his young followers, on the one hand, and to bring the
rest of the diocese up to his own position on the other, he was
induced, as his principles amply justified him in doing, to make

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 283

what then seemed a strong assertion of his episcopal authority. In
the matter o visitations, specifically, he claimed the right of ad
ministering the Eucharist on all such occasions, with or without
the rector's consent, of appropriating the collections, and of pro
nouncing Absolution and Benediction in the services of Morning
and Evening Prayer. These claims were objected to by a part of
the diocese, and one clergyman, the Rev. Joseph Trapnell, was
brought to trial for opposing them. The case was decided against
him in the diocesan court, and since there was no method of
bringing a formal appeal, some of the Maryland parishes me
morialized the General Convention, asking it to take some action
in the premises.

As a result of this appeal, the Convention of 1850 passed the
canon alluded to, which stated that it was the duty of a bishop to
visit every parish in his diocese regularly "for the purpose of exam
ining the state of his church, inspecting the behavior of his clergy,
ministering the Word, and, if he think fit, the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper . . . and administering the Apostolic Rite of Con
firmation." It was "deemed proper that such visitation be made
once in three years, at least." The parish visited must pay the
bishop's expenses, and the other clergy must arrange to supply
his own parish, if he had one. Thus a part of the Maryland
dispute was settled in favor of the bishop. The remaining
points were left open, with a hint as to the desirability of mutual
accommodation.

It is probable that some of the provisions of this canon were
directed, not at the situation in Maryland, but in Massachusetts, Dispute in
where a dispute had arisen between Bishop Eastburn and the Massachusetts
Church of the Advent. That church had been organized by Wil
liam Croswell in 1844 as an. Anglo-Catholic parish. Bishop East-
burn, who was a bitter opponent of the Oxford Movement, refused
to visit the new parish unless its services and the internal arrange
ments of the building were brought into conformity with the
prevailing usage. This the rector and vestry refused to do, and so
the parish remained unvisited.

The crucial provision of the canon of 1850, that which called
for a visitation once every three years, was cast in such a form
that it amounted merely to an expression of opinion by the Con
vention. To this Eastburn gave little heed, and after a prolonged

284 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

attempt to effect a reconciliation locally, the Church of the Advent
memorialized the General Convention of 1856, asking it to adopt
a more mandatory regulation on the subject. This request was
granted, and it was further provided that a parish not visited once
in three years must apply to the Presiding Bishop for a Council
of Reconciliation, which should be composed of the bishops of
five neighboring dioceses.
We cannot, however, so quickly leave the year 1853, which was

Bishop a dramatic and, in some respects, an important year in our history.

L. S, Ives The second trial of Bishop Doane was probably the least striking
of the three major events of that year. The next to be considered
was the deposition of Bishop Levi Silliman Ives, of North Caro
lina, who had announced his conversion to Roman Catholicism at
the close of the preceding year. There had always been occasional
conversions from our Church to the Roman Catholic and vice-
versa^ as there always are between denominations which have any
contact with one another. After the conversion of Newman there
was an increase in the number of conversions from our side which,
while not especially striking when compared with the total num
ber of our clergy, was marked when compared with the previous
infrequency of such changes. Most of the converts were drawn
from among the younger Tractarians, and Bishop Ives was the
first in this country who had attained a prominent place in the
Episcopal Church before leaving it. He had been brought up a
Presbyterian but had come into the Episcopal Church as a young
man, and after graduating from General Seminary had fallen
under the influence of Bishop Hobart, whose son-in-law he be
came. With the coming of the Oxford Movement he moved over
from Hobart Churchmanship to Tractarianism, and sought to
introduce Anglo-Catholic usages into North Carolina, founding a
religious order at Valle Crucis, which was, however, disbanded
in 1849. In a Pastoral Letter on the Priestly Office, in 1849, and in
a series of sermons, he was understood to teach the necessity of
auricular confession, though he later explained that he had not
meant quite that, and he was believed to have expressed privately
his acceptance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation and his opin
ion that the Episcopal Church was guilty of schism. After a series
of disputes and explanations, he furnished a committee of the
diocesan convention of 1851 with a recantation in which he

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

285

attributed his previous opinion to a dream of uniting the two
communions, resulting from an excited state of mind induced by
the condition of his bodily health.

This recantation reassured the diocese for a time, and when in
1852 Ives asked for a leave of six months and an advance of one He Becomes a
thousand dollars on his salary to travel for his health, it was Roman
granted him. Before leaving this country, he deposited with Arch- a
bishop Hughes a renunciation of Protestantism and an expression
of his determination to enter the Roman Catholic Church, but he
did not notify his diocese of his decision until he had reached
Rome, whence he wrote on December 22, 1852, announcing his
conversion and resigning his diocese. This resignation, being ad
dressed to the diocesan convention and not to the House of
Bishops, was uncanonical, and in 1853 a canon was passed by
General Convention providing that any minister abandoning our
communion without availing himself of the provision for resig
nation, should be declared automatically deposed by his bishop,
or, if he was a bishop, by the Presiding Bishop with the consent
of the House. Under this canon, Bishop Ives was declared to have
been deposed, and the Rev. Thomas Atkinson, who had been pre
viously elected by the diocese, was consecrated Bishop of North
Carolina. Ives, some time after his conversion, became a pioneer
leader of Roman Catholic charities in this country. Within the
Episcopal Church his conversion caused a good deal of excitement,
but it produced no permanent results of any significance.

The third and most important event of the year 1853 was the
presentation of the so-called "Muhlenberg Memorial" to the House The "Muhlen-
of Bishops. William Augustus Muhlenberg, who was the orig-
inator of this document, was one of those who had been greatly
influenced by the Oxford Movement without accepting its basic
position. He is quoted by his biographer as saying, "I was far out
on the bridge . . . that crosses the gulf between us and Rome.
I had passed through the mists of vulgar Protestant prejudices
when I saw before me The Mystery of Abomination.' I flew back,
not to rest on the pier of High Churchism, from which this bridge
of Puseyism springs, but on the solid rock of Evangelical truth,
as republished by the Reformers." As a result of this experience he
evolved a system which he called "Evangelical Catholicism." It
consisted, apparently, in engrafting Anglo-Catholic usages upon a

286 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

moderately Evangelical theology. We have already mentioned the
school and college which he founded at Flushing. He gave this up
in 1844 and started the Church of the Holy Communion in New
York City, one of the first churches in the country not to have
rented pews. There he employed a fairly elaborate ritual, partly
traditional, partly of his own devising. He also founded the first
successful Sisterhood in our country, and he was a pioneer in
Church social work, founding St. Luke's Hospital in 1850 and
"St. Johnland," a charitable community on Long Island, in 1870.
The Memorial, which was signed by Muhlenberg and a good

Its Proposals many other prominent presbyters, after mentioning the decline of
religion that the subscribers thought was taking place, stated
that its object was to submit to the bishops "the practicality, under
your auspices, of some ecclesiastical system, broader and more
comprehensive than that which you now administer, surrounding
and including the Protestant Episcopal Church as it now is, leav
ing 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." The Memorial did not undertake to
explain how this end could be attained, but in a pamphlet which
he published shortly afterwards Muhlenberg suggested that the
bishops, acting on their inherent episcopal authority, and without
any other sanction, should ordain men for the ministry outside of
the Church. These men were to declare their belief in the Holy
Scriptures as the Word of God, the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds,
the divine institution of the two great sacraments, and the "doc
trines of grace" substantially as set forth in the Thirty-Nine Arti
cles. They were to use the Lord's Prayer, one of the creeds, the
Gloria Patri, and certain other specified prayers in their Sunday
services, and to follow the Prayer Book more or less closely in
the canon of the Eucharist. They would be required to report once
every three years to the bishop who had ordained them, but the
details of their discipline were to be worked out as circumstances
might require.
It is surprising that this proposal, involving, as it did, an almost

Et s Supporters unprecedented extension of episcopal authority, received its most
unqualified support from Evangelicals rather than High Church
men. There were a number of the latter party among the signers

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER

287

of the Memorial, but their names are found mostly among those
who, while agreeing with the general object of the Memorial, were
unable to approve of all its recommendations. It is probable that
most of the signers were concerned with the practical problem
rather than with theories of polity, and that they adopted this
appeal to the inherent powers of episcopacy in the hope that it
would win them support from the Anglo-Catholics, as to some
extent it did. Muhlenberg, in defending the proposal, stressed
chiefly the obvious failure of the Church with its present ministry
and usages to reach the common people, a failure which, he held,
ought not to be regarded complacently by any Church claiming
to be Catholic.

There is no doubt that Muhlenberg had laid his finger upon the
most glaring weakness of the Church, but it would seem that the i te weaknesses
particular solution which he offered involved difficulties which
would almost certainly have been insurmountable. Even suppos
ing that such a course of action on the part of the bishops would
not have caused a furor within the Church, as it certainly would
have, the problem of organizing and disciplining a body of min
isters "surrounding and including the Protestant Episcopal
Church," yet remaining outside of it, would have been tremen
dous. Moreover, there is no evidence of the existence of any large
number of popular preachers who were so anxious for episcopal
ordination that they would have accepted it upon these terms. A
few years later, Muhlenberg seems to have seen that his suggestion
was not likely to be accepted, for in a pamphlet entitled What the
Memorialists Want, published in 1856, he implied that all they
asked for was a greater degree of liturgical freedom within the
Church.

The House of Bishops, when it received the Memorial, ap
pointed a committee, which included Bishop Alonzo Potter of Memorial
Pennsylvania, one of the most statesmanlike of the Evangelical Papers
Bishops, to consider its suggestions and report at the next Con
vention. In order to ascertain the mind of the Church upon the
subject, Bishop Potter sought the opinion of all the leading bishops
and other clergymen of the Episcopal Church and of some repre
sentative men from other denominations. Their answers were pub
lished in a volume called Memorial Papers in 1857. They constitute
a thorough-going analysis of the Church's system as it was then

288 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

working, and are rich in suggestions for change, some of which
were adopted many years later, and some of which are still being
agitated. Most of the contributors were in favor of the general
aims of the Memorial, but thought its chief proposal too radical.
In the end not much was done about the matter. At the Conven-
Rcsuks o tion of 1856, Bishop Potter's committee recommended the adop-
Mcmonal t j Qn o ^ p ract j ce o f extemporaneous preaching (the prevailing
custom was for ministers to read sermons), and its use occasionally
outside of church buildings, the use of traveling evangelists, the
ministry of women in some sort of sisterhood, a greater attention
to the instruction of the young and their employment as teachers
in Sunday schools, a more rigorous training of candidates for the
ministry, better reading of the services, more participation of the
congregations in the services, an increase of the ministry, efforts
to promote Christian unity, the separation of the Litany and Morn
ing Prayer from the Communion Service (formerly, all were
read on Communion Sundays), and the adoption of some special
prayers which the committee had prepared.

Few of these suggestions were adopted at the time, but the
House of Bishops did resolve that the Morning Prayer, Litany,
and Communion might be separated, that on special occasions
ministers might use any parts of Scripture or the Prayer Book, at
discretion, and that individual bishops might provide special
prayers for use in their dioceses, though these must not be allowed
to supplant the Book of Common Prayer in congregations capable
of its use. They also declared their willingness to appoint a com
mittee of conference with any Christian body that might desire
it, but with the understanding that no such committee should
have power to mature plans of union or expound doctrine or dis
cipline. Even these resolutions, some of which merely sanctioned
existing customs, were too strong for the House of Deputies, and
in 1859 they asked the Bishops to withdraw them, on the ground
that they had disturbed the minds of many Churchmen, and were
believed to be unconstitutional. The Bishops avoided acting on this
request by pleading the lateness of the session.

This disagreement illustrates the growing friction between the
two houses which showed itself at this period. In the early years o
General Convention disagreements between the Bishops and Dep
uties were rare, and if the resolution of one house was unacceptable

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER 289

to the other, it was generally withdrawn. IXiring the middle years Friction in
of the century, however, such disagreements became almost the Com^ition
rule, and there was an increase in the length and asperity of the
debates within the separate houses as well. There was also, as
might be expected, a steady increase in the amount of business to
be transacted by the Convention.

A Split
Avoided

CHAPTER XIV

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE

HANKS to a number of circumstances, the Episcopal Church
passed through the Civil War without any lasting division. As has
j 3een a ] reac jy mentioned, though most of the northern Evangelicals
in the later stages of the slavery controversy took a stand in favor
of abolition, the High Churchmen either remained aloof from the
dispute, or openly supported slavery, as did Bishop Hopkins and
Dr. Samuel Seabury. This division possibly saved the Church from
splitting on the slavery question, as so many other denominations
had done in the forties and fifties, for the High Churchmen and
the Southern Evangelicals together always represented so large a
majority that it was obviously hopeless to introduce any resolutions
condemning slavery in General Convention.

When the war came, the southern dioceses quite properly or
ganized themselves into a union embracing the Confederate States,
which they hoped would continue as a separate country, and re
vised the Prayer Book so as to adapt it to the political changes. Had
the rebellion been successful, the division would necessarily have
continued, since it is an accepted principle of the Anglican Com
munion that the churches in separate countries should be inde
pendent. It was important, however, that nothing should be done
in the North which would prevent the reunion of the Church in
the event the political secession proved a failure.

At the General Convention of 1862 this fact was clearly under-
Thc General stood by the majority, and it was just as clearly their wish to avoid
any action that wou l d su gg e st the existence of a schism, or tend to
perpetuate the bitterness between the two sections once the war
was over, though, at the same time, they were anxious to express
their loyalty to the Union. The Convention was opened with a
belligerent sermon by Bishop McCoskry, but when the House of
Deputies organized, the committee on arrangements, under the

290

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 291

Rev. Francis Vinton, reported that it had provided seats for all of
the dioceses, absent as well as present. Some attempt was made,
however, to get the Convention to condemn the rebellion, resolu
tions to this effect being introduced by Mr. F. R. Brunot of Penn
sylvania, who had just made a visit to the battlefields, and Judge
Murray Hoffman of New York. The debate on the subject was
conducted mainly by the lay delegates, though a few of the clergy
participated, Vinton, in spite of his earlier action, supporting the
resolutions, and the Rev. Doctors W. C. Mead and Milo Mahan
opposing them. The laymen appear to have divided along political
rather than ecclesiastical lines. The important mid-term elections
were approaching and a strong condemnation of the rebellion by
General Convention would be, in effect, an endorsement of the
Republican administration. So far as their political affiliations are
traceable, the supporters of the resolutions seem to have been
persons interested in the welfare of the Republican Party, and
the opposition included such prominent Democrats as Judge
Ezekiel Chambers of Maryland and Horatio Seymour of New
York.

Eventually, the resolutions were tabled by a large majority, and
a committee of nine was appointed to draft some resolutions which The Corn-
would express the sense of the House. They reported a series lttee of
which affirmed the loyalty of the Episcopal Church, and its be
lief that a great evil would result to both the Church and the
country if secession were persisted in. While stedfastly refusing
to employ towards the seceders "any terms of condemnation or
reproach," they expressed repentance for the sins which had
brought this judgment on the country, stated the hope of the
Deputies as individuals and citizens that the cause of union would
triumph, and declared their readiness to use any special prayers
which the bishops might think proper under the circumstances.
After more debate and the introduction of a number of substi
tutes, many of which seem to have been designed chiefly to delay
the proceedings, these resolutions were passed by the House of
Deputies.

The Bishops merely passed a resolution, in which the lower
house concurred, setting apart a day of fasting, humiliation, and The Pastoral
prayer for the ills of the nation. They did, however, issue a bel- Letter
ligerent Pastoral Letter. As Bishop Brownell, the Presiding Bishop,

292 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The General
Convention of

18 5

Irenic
Resohmon

was unable to attend the Convention, Bishops Hopkins and Mc-
Ilvaine, the two senior bishops present, were asked to prepare
pastoral letters. That o Bishop Hopkins, as might be expected,
avoided political pronouncements, but that of Bishop Mcllvaine
was strongly pro-Union. The House adopted the latter. According
to Bishop Hopkins' son, who was then editing the Church Journal,
this action was taken as the result of considerable pressure from
Secretaries Seward and Chase, two Episcopal members of the
Lincoln Cabinet. The Convention refused to elect a new Board
of Missions, because of the impracticality of choosing southern
members, and the old Board was continued.

When the next General Convention met in 1865, the war was
over and the South was crushed. It was of the greatest importance
jj^ fa t representatives of the victorious section should avoid as-
suming a note of triumph or reproach that would antagonize the
vanquished. Most of the northern delegates came to the Conven
tion with a clear realization of this fact. When the House of Depu
ties assembled, the roll of all the states was called in alphabetical
order, Alabama thus coming first. No southern delegates were
present at the first roll call, but representatives from Texas and
North Carolina appeared during the first day. All of the "Border
States" were represented, though some of their deputies were late
in arriving. The Rev. James Craik, of Kentucky, who had been
President of the House of Deputies in 1862, was re-elected to that
office. On the second day of the session Rev. William Cooper
Mead and the Rev. Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe, subsequently
Bishop of Central Pennsylvania, offered resolutions expressing
gratitude for the restoration of peace and hope for the return of
the South. Those of Dr. Howe were regarded as sounding too
much of a note of triumph, and at the suggestion of Mr. Welsh of
Pennsylvania both resolutions were withdrawn, pending action
of the House of Bishops.

On the third day, after the appearance of the deputies from
Tennessee, the Rev. George David Cummins introduced a resolu-
^^ w ki c h h e said he hoped would be adopted without discus
sion, expressing gratitude for the presence of the representatives
from Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. There was, however,
a small group of radicals in the Convention who were unwilling
that the Church should be reunited without some gesture of

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 293

triumph from the North. These objected to the resolution and a
motion to lay it on the table was lost only by a tie vote, a large
number of the conservatives fearing that further discussion might
provoke bitterness. After two clerical delegates had spoken in its
favor, however, the measure was passed by an almost unanimous
vote.

The Convention also passed a resolution expressing its convic
tion that it was improper for the clergy to bear arms. This was
probably prompted by the case of Bishop Polk of Louisiana who
had served in the war as a Confederate General and had been killed
in action, but his name was not mentioned in the debate on the
resolution, and the election of Bishop Quintard of Tennessee,
who had also served in the Confederate Army, was confirmed
with only two dissenting votes. A more difficult case was that
of Bishop Richard Hooker Wilmer of Alabama, who had been
consecrated by the southern bishops during the war, though
his election, of course, had not been confirmed either by the Gen
eral Convention or by the bishops and standing committees of a
majority of the dioceses in the whole Church, as the constitution
requires. After some discussion, it was resolved to approve his
consecration on the condition that Bishop Wilmer would give a
promise of conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the Protes
tant Episcopal Church, and would furnish proof of the validity of
his consecration. This arrangement, which was based upon the
theory that Wilmer had been consecrated for a foreign country,
was proposed by Hamilton Fish, subsequently Secretary of State
in Grant's Cabinet, and supported by Judge Chambers.

As Bishop Brownell had died early in the year, the Presiding
Bishop in 1865 was Bishop Hopkins, who had always been a Proceedings

southern sympathizer. Bishop Atkinson, of North Carolina, ap- &* H
1 i r i ,-* 1 11- 1 or Bishops

peared at the opening or the Convention and took his seat in the

House of Bishops without comment. With the concurrence of the
Deputies, the Bishops resolved to set apart a day of thanksgiving
for "the return of peace to the country and unity to the Church."
As Bishop Wilmer had issued a Pastoral Letter expressing bitter
feelings against the North, the assembled bishops expressed their
"fraternal regrets" at his action and their "assured confidence that
no further occasion for such regrets" would occur. They decided
not to issue a Pastoral Letter themselves that year, but authorized

House

294

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Bishop Mcllvaine to publish one condemning the Essays and Re
views recently published by some liberal Churchmen in England.
As a result of the care exercised at this Convention to avoid giving
offense, all of the southern states were represented at the General
Convention of 1868.

One or two other incidents of the Civil War might be men-
Controversy tioned before leaving it. In 1861 Bishop Hopkins published a book
Between called the Bible View of Slavery, in which he set forth the various

kins and Potter occas i ns on which the Bible sanctioned slavery. In 1863 this was
reprinted, with Hopkins' consent, by some Philadelphia Church
men and used as a campaign document by the Pennsylvania
Democrats. Regarding this as, in some measure, an invasion of
his jurisdiction, Bishop Alonzo Potter published a Protest which
was, in turn, used as a Republican campaign document. Hopkins
replied in a pamphlet and subsequently in a longer work which
he called A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and Historical View of Slav
ery, in which he supplemented his earlier argument by showing
that slavery had frequently been sanctioned by the Christian
Church.

Bishop Mcllvaine went to England early in the war, at the
request of Secretary Seward, in an effort to win over English pub
lic opinion which, at least among the governing classes, was gen
erally hostile to the Union cause. It is impossible to say how much
was accomplished by his mission, but it was probably as useful
as the more famous but later visit of Henry Ward Beecher. Bishop
Thomas M. Clark served, during the war as a prominent member
of the Sanitary Commission, a semi-official body which did what
could be done to correct the unhealthy conditions prevailing in
military camps and hospitals, and to alleviate the lot of the com
mon soldiers in other ways.

The peaceful reunion of the Church after the Civil War had
scarcely been completed when its harmony was torn by what was
undoubtedly the bitterest conflict in its history. As we have seen,
the older Tractarians, though they took an appreciative attitude
toward mediaeval ceremonial, were unprepared, for reasons of ex
pediency, to introduce any movement for liturgical changes in
their own day. When the party had entered on its second genera
tion, however, many of its younger adherents began to feel that
the enrichment of the Church's services which they desired was

Services
Bishops
Mcllvaine
and Clark

Ritualistic
Controversy

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 295

worth the conflict they knew it would produce. During the fifties,
therefore, a few clergymen in England and America began the
introduction of ritualistic practices which were not in accord with
prevailing customs, and which were not specifically sanctioned by
the Prayer Book. In defense of these innovations it was asserted
that the Prayer Book itself contained no ceremonial rules, except
the bare minimum necessary to go through its services, and that
there had been no intention on the part of those who originally
prepared it to prohibit the customary usages which were prevalent
at the time of the Reformation, and continued for many years
after. As long, therefore, as no ritual specifically forbidden was
introduced, it was held that the revival of the lapsed ceremonial
was entirely legal.

Technically this contention was probably correct, though there
was some tendency to strain the rubrics and canons a bit in apply- Legality of
ing it, but it was obvious that the effect of the ritualistic revival 1 a lsm
upon most Churchmen had very little to do with its formal legal
ity. What the average layman, and, for that matter, the average
clergyman, also, saw was that usages which they had been accus
tomed to regard as peculiar to Roman Catholicism were being
introduced into a Church which they were used to regarding as
Protestant, and were changing the appearance of services they had
known and loved since childhood. That they should, therefore,
have lost their heads for a time is not altogether surprising. The
most bitter opponents of this, as of the earlier phases of the Oxford
Movement, were the Evangelicals, but they were supported by
many conservative Churchmen of all sorts, including many of the
older Tractarians, though these only appear to have joined in
active opposition when they became convinced that Ritualism was
seriously threatening the peace and even the unity of the Church.
The position of the Evangelicals was weakened by the fact that,
at the same time that they sought fresh canons to restrain the
Ritualists, they were also asking for a relaxation of the canons and
rubrics in favor of themselves. They objected especially to the
necessity of speaking of regeneration in the Baptismal Office and
to a canon recently passed which forbade any minister of the
Church to officiate within another minister's "parish/ 5 without his
consent. This was simply an imitation of the primitive and
mediaeval canons against "intrusion," but the effort to adapt it to

296 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Tyng Case

Bishop

Hopkins'

Opinion

General
Convention
of 1868

this country, where there are no definite parish boundaries, was
not altogether a happy one. For the purposes of the canon, a parish
was defined as including the whole community in which a church
was situated and if there was more than one church, the com
munity was regarded as a joint parish, so that a visiting clergyman
had to obtain the consent of all the ministers before officiating.
In practice the canon was used chiefly to prevent the Evangelicals
from joining in the services of other denominations.

In 1868 the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., was brought to trial
under this canon, in the Diocese of New York, and sentenced to
receive admonition for violating it. Though the penalty was not a
very severe one, the fact that Tyng's father, the successor of Milnor
at St. George's, was one of the most prominent of the Evangelicals,
gave the case a good deal of notoriety, and its outcome not only
made that party more anxious than ever for the repeal of the
canon, but probably, also, by way of reaction, increased their desire
to curb their opponents.

At first, many of the older High Churchmen refused to support
the Evangelicals. In 1867, Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity Church,
William Croswell Doane, a son of the late Bishop of New
Jersey and himself the future Bishop of Albany, and some
other High Church clergymen asked the Presiding Bishop, John
Henry Hopkins, to express his opinion upon the question of
Ritualism which, they said, "is extensively agitating the Church
of England and has already begun to make itself felt in our own
Church." Hopkins met their request by publishing a treatise on
The Law of Ritualism in which, after citing the Old Testament
and primitive Christian precedents for ritual, he asserted that, as
the use prevailing in the second year of Edward VI was, by statute,
the legal use of England, most of the practices of the Ritualists
were not only permitted but required by English canon law.
Reasoning from the widely accepted opinion that as much of
English canon law as had not been repealed was still in force in
our Church, he argued a fortiori that the practices must at least be
permitted here. This argument was not quite complete, for, as
was brought out in later discussions, some of the practices of the
Ritualists were forbidden by the English Canons of 1603, which,
on the principle stated, must also be in force in the Protestant
Episcopal Church.

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 297

At the General Convention of 1868 a serious attempt was made
to obtain canons condemnatory of Ritualism, but the only resolu
tions on this subject which passed the House of Deputies were one
asking the bishops to consider the possibility of changing the
rubrics to make the ceremonial law of the Church more precise,
and another recommending that changes in ritual should not be
introduced in any parish without the approval of the Ordinary
of the diocese. The bishops appointed a committee to report at the
next Convention on the desirability of any further provision for
ritual uniformity, and issued a Pastoral Letter against Ritualism.
They refused to consider the possibility of any change in the
rubrics, however. An unsuccessful attempt was also made by the
Evangelicals to obtain a relaxation of the canon on intrusion.

At the Convention of 1871 the bishops' committee reported a
canon which prohibited by name all of the ritualistic practices General
that they could think of, including incense, crucifixes, processional
crosses, lights on or about the Holy Table, "except when neces
sary," elevation, the mixing of water with the wine, "as part of
the service, or in the presence of the congregation," bowings or
genuflexions, except at the Holy Name, and many other usages.
They also proposed to forbid the introduction of a choral service
or vested choir by any minister without the explicit consent of his
vestry and the tacit consent of his bishop, and to regulate the vest
ments of all the clergy. The Bishops hesitated to present this strait-
jacket to the House of Deputies on their own responsibility, and
so they asked for the appointment of a joint committee to consider
the matter. This committee scrapped the proposed canon and
recommended instead a declaratory canon to the effect that the
ritual law of the Church was to be found in the Book of Common
Prayer and appended offices, such of the English canons of 1603
as were in force in the states in 1789, and the canons of General
Convention and the several dioceses. This measure passed the
House of Bishops but failed, though by a narrow margin, in the
House of Deputies.

The debate on this measure was chiefly important as it brought
into prominence the Rev. James De Koven, President of Racine James
College, Wisconsin, who was the only avowed ritualist in the
House of Deputies, and probably the only really brilliant orator
that that House ever produced. No man could be better fitted to

298 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

defend an unpopular cause. His forensic ability and high personal
integrity invariably commanded the respect of his opponents, and
his skill in debate made him almost a party in himself. His great
est argument, however, was to be delivered in the next convention,
not in this one. In the present discussion he pointed out that very
few of the canons of 1603 were ever in force in the American
colonies anyway, and that if they were to be salvaged from desue
tude now every clergyman would, among other things, be com
pelled to wear a plain night cap.

It was also proposed at the Convention of 1871 to amend the
canon on the use of the Prayer Book by adding a statement that
"this rule shall be understood to prohibit all additions to and
omissions from the prescribed order of said Book." This amend
ment passed both houses, but the Bishops refused to concur in a
further proviso attached to it by the Deputies, and the whole thing
was tabled. The Bishops, acting in Council, did, however, express
the opinion that the word "regenerate" in the Baptismal Office
did not imply a moral change.

The Evangelicals were greatly disappointed by their failure to
Right Rev. ^ obtain any definite action against Ritualism at this Convention,
George David anc j some o ^ m began to despair of the Protestantism of the

Cummins -^ . i /-M i i t s-^r i 1

Episcopal Church altogether. Of this group the most prominent
member was the Right Rev. George David Cummins, Assistant
Bishop of Kentucky. Cummins, whose honorable contribution to
the reunion of the Church after the Civil War we have already
noted, had had a brilliant career as a preacher which had brought
him into prominence at an early age. A consistent Evangelical,
he was greatly distressed by the ritualistic practices that Bishop
Smith tolerated in some of the parishes in Kentucky, and he also
became involved in one or two disputes with Bishop Whitehouse
of Illinois, who was especially bitter against the Evangelicals and
who twice tried to prevent Cummins from preaching in his dio
cese. Cummins appears to have received the first suggestion of a
separation from the Episcopal Church from Mason Gallagher in
1869, but at that time he thought the measure premature.

In 1872 Bishop Smith went to live at Hoboken, New Jersey, for
his health, and the diocese of Kentucky adopted the unprecedented
measure of asking him to exercise jurisdiction in absentia instead
of allowing it to devolve on the assistant bishop. This naturally

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE

299

aroused Cummins' resentment, but the last straw was furnished by
the criticism aroused by his receiving Communion and preaching
in a non-Episcopalian Church in New York City on October 12,
1873. No canonical proceedings were taken against him for this
act, but the controversy which it caused made him feel that his
liberty within the Protestant Episcopal Church was too restricted.
On November 10, 1873, he wrote to Bishop Smith, who was Pre
siding Bishop as well as his immediate superior, expressing his
intention of leaving the Church, because of the conscientious dif
ficulties he felt about visiting ritualistic parishes in Kentucky, his
loss of hope that the "system of error" prevailing in the Anglican
Communion would ever be eradicated, and the storm aroused by
his communing with members of other denominations.

He was followed in his departure from our communion by a
number of the more radical Evangelicals, and on December 2,
1873, the seceders met at New York and organized the Reformed
Episcopal Church. Curiously enough, they found the "Proposed
Book" prepared by White and Smith in 1785 so perfectly fitted to
their needs that they adopted it without revision as their official
Prayer Book. One of the leading members of the new Church was
the Rev. Charles Edward Cheney, whom Cummins presently or
dained as their second bishop. He had been a presbyter of the
Diocese of Illinois and had been deposed by Bishop Whitehouse
for omitting the word "regenerate" in the Baptismal Service, but
the sentence was reversed by a civil court.

This event was in the mind of everyone at the General Conven
tion of 1874, and it soon became evident that the majority was
resolved not to adjourn without passing some canon on ritual
that would be satisfactory enough to the Evangelicals to prevent
any further secession. The House of Deputies, at the preceding
Convention, had been wearied by the long-windedness of certain
lay delegates, and when the discussion of Ritualism came up this
time, a resolution was proposed limiting each speaker to thirty
minutes. De Koven, who had evidently come with a prepared
speech, objected to this rule, and the delegate who proposed it
declared that he was always glad to hear from Dr. De Koven and
would be happy to move an exception in that gentleman's favor
when the time came. With this understanding the resolution
was passed.

Withdrawal
of Bishop
Cummins and
Others From
the Church

The General
Convention of
1874

300 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The canon finally adopted by this Convention provided that if
a bishop had reason to believe that use was being made within
his jurisdiction of ceremonies or practices symbolizing false or
doubtful doctrine, he must summon his Standing Committee to
investigate the rumor. If it proved true, he must first admonish
the offending minister and, if he proved recalcitrant, bring him
to trial for a violation of "his ordination vows. As examples of the
practices meant, the canon referred specifically to the Elevation of
the Elements in the Eucharist or other acts of adoration towards
them, the displaying of a crucifix in the church, and the use of
incense. The complexity of this canon was the result of the desire
of its sponsors to indicate that, though their immediate object was
the prohibition of certain liturgical practices, their ultimate pur
pose was to prevent the presentation of doctrines which they
considered inconsistent with the teaching of the Church.

The debate on the canon centered mainly on the question of
De Kovcn's Eucharistic Adoration, which was about the only ritualistic prac-
Specch tj ce then advocated involving an important doctrinal issue. De

Koven's speech, when he delivered it, amply justified the conces
sion in regard to time which had been made to him. Not only was
it a brilliant forensic effort, but it put the argument upon an
entirely new basis. Heretofore both sides had shown a tendency to
seek the greatest possible freedom for themselves while placing
the greatest possible restraint upon their opponents. De Koven,
however, placed his defense squarely upon the plea of compre
hensiveness. He intimated that he was willing to see the bishops
make any allowance they could for conscientious scruples concern
ing Baptismal Regeneration. He observed that, with respect to the
Eucharist, Zwinglianism had been openly advocated in the Church,
and that he, for one, had no desire to drive it out. He felt, how
ever, that a similar tolerance should be shown to extreme opinions
in the other direction, He quoted Dr. S. F. Jarvis, a distinguished
canonist, as having said, in a sermon before the Board of Mis
sions, that both those who believed in a real change in the
Eucharist, "by which the very elements themselves, though they
retain their original properties, are corporally united with and
transformed into Christ," and those who held to a purely spiritual
presence must be tolerated in the Church. And he concluded by

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 301

saying that the Church should strive to meet the challenge of the
times and not dissipate its strength in fighting over unessentials.

This view of the comprehensiveness of the Church was not a
new one, as De Koven's quotation from Dr. Jarvis indicates, but
it had been lost sight of in the bitterness of the controversy stirred
up by the Oxford Movement. It was reasserted, independently, by
John Cotton Smith in a paper read at the first meeting of the
Church Congress, held shortly before the Convention, but De
Koven's presentation was more widely circulated and attracted
more attention.

Eventually the settlement of the controversy suggested by these
men proved to be the one that was found most consistent with Ritual
the genius of the Episcopal Church, but it required some time
for the ideas which they presented to take hold of men's minds,
and the canon which De Koven opposed was passed by a sub
stantial majority, the Evangelicals being supported not only by the
more conservative High Churchmen, but even by some of the
older Tractarians, such as Bishop Coxe of Western New York and
the Rev. William Dexter Wilson of Cornell University, author of
The Church Identified, a popular presentation of the Tractarian
position. The attitude of such men was probably caused partly by
a fear of further schism and partly by a distrust of the ritualistic
attitude towards the Eucharist, which was thought to imply a
belief in the corporeal Presence.

The Ritualists suffered another defeat at this Convention when
the Deputies refused to confirm the election of the Rev. George F. Seymour
Seymour as Bishop of Illinois. Seymour was a professor at General Case
Seminary, and the most serious charges against him were that he
had once refused to concur with the rest of the faculty in a reso
lution designed to curb advanced views on the Eucharist and Con
fession among the students, though it was not alleged that he
himself held such views, and that, when acting as Dean, he had
permitted Father Grafton, a representative of the Confraternity
of the Blessed Sacrament, to present "his peculiar views of the
Holy Eucharist" to some Seminary students in a private room.
Seymour had declared that the incident had occurred without his
knowledge and no proof to the contrary was ever offered, but the
mere suspicion of his connivance in Grafton's action was consid
ered enough to justify his exclusion from the episcopate. There

302 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

appears, indeed, to have been some doubt as to Seymour's personal
honesty in the minds of the delegates, but the basis or this distrust

is unknown. , _. . , T

After Seymour's rejection, the Diocese of Illinois chose James
De Koven as bishop. This was an even more direct challenge to
the anti-Ritualists, for not only was De Koven the outstanding
champion of Ritualism, but his personal integrity and worth were
above the suspicion of even the most hostile minds. If he were to
be rejected, it could be only on the ground that no one who held
his views was worthy of elevation to the episcopate, and on this
ground he was, in fact, rejected, the action being taken by a ma
jority of the standing committees during the interim of General

Convention. . . ,

As so often happens, this extreme gesture of intolerance marked
Feelings the beginning of a reaction, and a decline in partisan bitterness

55 may be seen as beginning at this point. The older High Church-

Sotel men and Tractarians gradually got over the fright occasioned by

the withdrawal of Bishop Cummins and his followers, and the
more liberal wing of the Evangelical party began to see the incon
sistency of seeking to broaden the Church in one direction at the
same time they were trying to narrow it in another. This change ot
attitude may be marked very clearly in the case of Dr. William
Reed Huntington, a liberal Evangelical, who subsequently became
rector of Grace Church, New York. At the General Convention
of 1871, Huntington had urged the specific prohibition of ritualis
tic practices on the ground that doing so would emphasize what
he evidently suspected, that the Ritualists were not honorable men
and had very little respect for their ordination vows. In 1874 he
supported the ritual canon and opposed the consecration of Sey
mour. But when De Koven was elected he advocated his confirma
tion. He explained this on the ground that he had more confidence
in De Koven's personal integrity than he had in Dr. Seymour's,
but in view of his stand in 1871, it would seem that his own
opinions had changed also.

In 1878, four years after his rejection by the General Convention
as Bishop of Illinois, Dr. Seymour became Bishop of Springfield,
a diocese that had been called into being by the division of the
Diocese of Illinois, his election having been confirmed without
difficulty. In 1889, Father Grafton, with whom the mere suspicion

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE

303

of an association had proven so damaging to Seymour in 1874,
was consecrated Bishop of Fond du Lac-
While the foregoing conflict was going on, a number of devel
opments took place which should be noticed before we proceed
to the consideration of a later period. The fact that General
Seminary came to be regarded as a center of Anglo-Catholicism
cost it considerable support, and before the Civil War it had become
largely dependent upon contributions from the Diocese of New
York, most of its endowment having been dissipated by poor
management or necessity. It seemed only fair, therefore, that the
control of New York over the Seminary should be increased, and
in 1859 a committee was appointed to consider the desirability of
severing the Seminary's connection with General Convention alto
gether. The Civil War prevented this committee from reporting
in 1862, but in 1865 it recommended increasing the control of
New York over the institution by raising the number of clergy
and the size of the contributions required to elect a trustee. These
changes were approved by the Convention but they were not ac
cepted by the trustees and so never became a part of the Seminary's
constitution. By 1868, when the non-concurrence of the trustees
was reported to General Convention, the financial condition of
the Seminary had improved, and though some alteration in the
mode of election was made in 1877, the trustees were continued
essentially upon the old basis until 1883, when the proposals of
1865 were reversed, and the Seminary was brought into a much
closer relationship with General Convention. The amendment
then adopted provided for fifty elected members of the Board, half
of whom were to be chosen by General Convention and half by
the several dioceses upon the basis of their previous contributions.
All of the bishops and the Dean of the Seminary were to be ex
officio trustees. The Dean at this time was the Very Rev. Eugene
Augustus Hoffman, and under his administration the Seminary
rapidly attained a high degree of economic prosperity, largely
through the generous gifts of himself and his family.

While the General Seminary was undergoing these various
changes and proposed changes in its constitution, two new sem
inaries of the Church were being founded. The first of these, the
Philadelphia Divinity School, was founded by Bishop Potter of
Pennsylvania in 1861, when the Civil War made it impossible to

Difficulties
of General
Seminary

Two New
Seminaries

Monasticism

Free Churches

304 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

send candidates from Pennsylvania to the Virginia ^Seminary.
Originally Evangelical in its associations, the Divinity School
Inter came under the influence of the Liberal Movement. The Very
Rev. George Emlen Hare served as its first Dean. The other
seminary was founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the result
of a gift of $100,000 which was made by a wealthy Bostonian,
Benjamin Tyler Reed, for the founding of an Episcopal Theo
logical School which should "distinctly set forth the great doctrine
of Justification by Faith alone in the Atonement and Righteousness
of Christ, as taught in ... the Thirty-Nine Articles, according to
the natural construction of the said Articles (Scripture alone being
the standard) as adopted at the Reformation, and not according to
any tradition, doctrine, or usage prior to said Reformation not
contained in Scripture." This sounds like the language of the
older Evangelicals but, in fact, the new seminary became from the
first a center of the new Liberal Movement which was then de
veloping as the most recent expression of the more Protestant tra
dition of the Church. Its first Dean was the Very Rev. John Seely
Stone. Because of its liberal position, it performed valuable services
as an early center of the science of Higher Criticism.

A new attempt at introducing monasticism into the American
Episcopal Church was made in 1865 when two American priests,
Father Grafton and Father Prescott, were professed in the English
Society of Saint John the Evangelist. After remaining in England
for several years, they returned to this country but subsequently
withdrew from the Society because of a disagreement as to their
proper relations with the American bishops. The Order continued
its work in America, however, and other priests were sent over.
There was a growing tendency throughout this period towards
the use of "free churches" as distinct from those with rented pews.
The earliest free churches were established as city missions for
work among the poor in the larger cities, and were supported by
the dioceses or by missionary societies. It would appear that the
first free churches which were self-supporting were Muhlenberg's
Church of the Holy Communion in New York and the Church
of the Advent in Boston, both of which were founded in 1844.
The movement spread rapidly after the Civil War, being gener
ally supported by the Anglo-Catholics. In 1877 an effort was made
to secure the passage of a canon forbidding the consecration of

CIVIL WAR AND PARTY STRIFE 3O5

churches with rented pews, but the General Convention resolved
that it was inexpedient to act upon the subject at that time.

There was also a movement on foot for the organization of
smaller dioceses. The tradition that a diocese should cover a Small
whole state had been broken by the organization of the Diocese Dioceses
of Western New York in 1838, but it was some time before any
other states were divided, and the general tendency to have
dioceses cover a large area continued. As Church membership
increased, this led to the severance of the bishop from any paro
chial connection and there were some to whom such a separation
seemed undesirable. It was also felt that the organization of small
dioceses would allow for more intensive work and, perhaps, for
a greater variety of usages also. This movement did lead to the
division of a number of large dioceses, but the efforts of its spon
sors to obtain specific canonical sanction for it were unsuccessful.

CHAPTER XV
A BROADER UNITY

.HE General Convention of 1874 should probably be regarded
Later as Barking the high point of the conflict which necessarily resulted

Development from the introduction, through the Oxford Movement, of a new
of Ritualism force into the life of the Church. The ritual canon which was
passed in that year was obviously unenforceable, and no serious
attempt seems to have been made to enforce it. The use of ritual
has continued to spread steadily until, in some respects at least,
it has come fairly close to fulfilling the prophecy made by Bishop
Hopkins in 1867 that "Ritualism will grow into favor by degrees
until it becomes the prevailing system." It cannot actually be said
to have done this, for as the ritualistic system has spread it has
come to be divided along lines that are not always easy to under
stand. Some practices, such as the use of a solid altar with at least
two candles upon it and the employment of vested choirs, have
become general, while other customs, such as the use of incense,
which would not seem to be necessarily more radical, are still
regarded as being as characteristic of extreme Anglo-Catholicism
as are Eucharistic Adoration, the Invocation of Saints, and other
practices which do have a definite doctrinal significance.

While, however, the distinction thus drawn is not altogether
understandable in some of its details, it serves as a whole to illus
trate the new attitude towards Ritualism which began to develop
after 1874. In the earlier stages of the controversy, as in the debate
over the older Tractarianism, it was assumed by the champions
of both sides that the Church must either be wholly Catholic or
wholly Protestant, so that the dispute took on the aspect of a life
and death struggle between the two parties. When, however,
De Koven and Smith made their pleas for comprehensiveness in
1874, they opened men's minds to the possibility that the two
traditions might be able to live together in a working unity,

306

A BROADER UNITY

307

chafing each other, no doubt, but also learning from one another
and enriching one another.

This possibility was strengthened by a development that was
taking place at the same time in the Protestant wing of the Ri SC of
Church. This development was known in various phases as the Liberalism
Liberal Movement and the Broad Church Movement, but it
should probably be described as a tendency rather than a move
ment, for it lacked the definiteness of aim and principle that one
generally associates with the latter term. Those who were under
its influence often differed widely in their positive beliefs, but they
agreed with one another in their desire to make the Church as
comprehensive as possible and in their tendency to minimize the
importance of definite dogma, though to varying degrees. They
tended also to take a sympathetic attitude towards the prevailing
tendencies of contemporary thought, such as the belief in evolu
tion, and they were responsible for introducing the so-called
"Higher Criticism" of the Bible into the Church, though not all
of them were willing to accept its results. By "Higher Criticism,"
it should be observed, is meant the scientific investigation of the
original sources of the Biblical narratives with a view to ascer
taining their relation to the actual events described and their
consequent reliability. It necessarily conflicted with the old belief
in the verbal inspiration of Scripture, though not inconsistent
with less definite ^theories of inspiration, and it was at first re
garded by many as likely to undermine the Christian Faith.

Like the Oxford Movement, Liberalism had its origin in Eng
land, and its transplantation to this country proved a longer pro- rhc Essays
cess than the introduction of Tractarianism. It had certain affini- and R
ties with some earlier liberalizing tendencies of the English 1855
Church, including eighteenth-century Latitudinarianism, which
had also sought to minimize doctrinal differences and to achieve a
rationalistic approach to Christianity. In its modern phase it
obtained its first public expression with the publication in 1855
of a volume of Essays and Reviews by a group of English Church
men. The essays represented various viewpoints and it was ex
pressly stated in the preface that each writer should be held
responsible for his own contribution only, but the collection
showed a general tendency to take a scientific attitude towards
Christianity and to try to fit it into the general scheme of historical

308 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Bishop
Colenso

The First
Lambeth
Conference

development. Some of the essayists indicated their acceptance of
the results of Higher Criticism, and this fact caused the collection
to be bitterly attacked by many conservative Churchmen, for that
particular approach to the Bible was still largely confined to Ger
many. The publication seems, however, to have been not alto
gether unacceptable to the powers which controlled the English
Church, for Frederick Temple, who edited the series and con
tributed one of the more conservative essays, was made Bishop
of London some years later and subsequendy elevated to the
Archbishopric of Canterbury. In this country the Essays were
condemned in a Pastoral Letter, written by Bishop Mcllvaine
with the sanction of the House of Bishops, which declared that
Rationalism had no place in the Church. 4

A few years later the liberal tendency -was given a yet stronger
expression in England with the publication, in 1861, of a Com
mentary on Romans and in 1862 of the first volume of a work
called The Pentateuch and Joshua Critically Explained., both by
the Right Rev. John William Colenso, Bishop of Natal in Africa.
In these works the author, besides adopting the methods of
Higher Criticism, voiced some liberal views on theology, indi
cating his disbelief in eternal punishment, asserting that Christ's
Atonement was effected by reconciling us to God through a
supreme display of love and not by means of vicarious punish
ment, and denying the literal inerrancy of Scripture. For these
and other opinions that were supposed to be contrary to the offi
cial teaching of the Church of England Colenso was brought to
trial before the Most Rev. Robert Gray, Metropolitan of South
Africa, and deposed. There was, however, some question about
Bishop Gray's jurisdiction in the case, so Colenso defied the sen
tence and was supported by the civil authorities in doing so.

The opinion of the Church appears generally to have been in
favor of the Metropolitan's action. The General Convention of
the American Episcopal Church in 1865 approved it and when
all the bishops in communion with the Church of England were
invited to attend the first Lambeth Conference it was generally
understood that their chief object in assembling was to do like
wise. As Colenso was being supported by the British govern
ment, however, the bishops of the Established Church felt that
his condemnation by the conference might prove embarrassing

w -s

cc ^

A BROADER UNITY 309

to themselves, and so they carefully arranged an agenda in which
there was no place for the South African question to come up.
A discussion of the subject was finally forced upon the meeting
by the colonial bishops and by Bishop Hopkins from the United
States, but the conference declined to take any action. The
assembly was chiefly important as being the first of the frequent
conferences of Anglican bishops which have been held at Lam
beth since then, and which have helped to strengthen the sense
of unity within the Anglican communion.

Though Bishop Colenso and the Essayists undoubtedly had
some sympathizers in the United States, Liberalism did not exert The American
an important influence upon the history of the American Epis- Qoness
copal Church until the last quarter of the nineteenth century,
possibly because the minds of most Churchmen in the preceding
quarter century were taken up by the bitter conflict over ritual.
One of the first expressions of its influence was the organization
of the American Church Congress, which held its first session
in 1874. It was an imitation of an English institution of the same
name which had been founded some years previously. Its object
was to obtain a free discussion of issues which were before the
Church, in an assembly which was not, like General Convention,
compelled to take definite action. For this reason, it naturally
sought the participation of men from all parties, but its original
sponsors were most of them Liberals. Its first session was held in
New York shortly before the meeting of General Convention, and
Bishop Horatio Potter was asked to preside. He declined, express
ing a strong disapproval of the Congress. Nevertheless, it was able
to secure the support of a representative group of clergymen,
including, besides Liberals such as Bishop Clark of Rhode Island,
Phillips Brooks, William Reed Huntington, and Edward A.
Washburn, some older Evangelicals such as Alexander H. Vinton
and Heman Dyer; conservative High Churchmen, such as Bishop
Williams of Connecticut; Tractarians like Professor W. D.
Wilson of Cornell; and two prominent missionary bishops
Bishop Whipple of Minnesota and Bishop Hare of the Indian
Jurisdiction of Niobrara. The papers delivered at its first meeting
dealt with a timely topic of the "Limits of Legislation as to Doc
trine and Ritual" and one of the speakers, the Rev. John Cotton

310 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Smith, as has already been noted, anticipated De Koven's more
brilliant plea for comprehensiveness.

Liberalism of any kind is necessarily individualistic and the
Phillips liberalism which developed in the Church at this time found its

Brooks c hief expression, even more than earlier movements, in the per-

sonalitics of a few great leaders. Its most famous representative
was unquestionably the Rev. Phillips Brooks, rector of Trinity
Church, Boston, and subsequently Bishop of Massachusetts A
native of Massachusetts, Brooks had obtained his theological edu
cation at the Virginia Seminary, and had begun his ministry in
Philadelphia where he served as rector, first of the Church of
the Advent, and later of the Church of the Holy Trinity His
brilliance as a preacher brought him into prominence almost from
the first, but his greatest celebrity was attained after his removal
to Boston, where he was called in 1869. While there he became
one of the most famous and influential American preachers of
any denomination, in an age of great preachers.

Brooks had been brought up under Evangelical influences, his
early religious training having been supervised by two of the most
prominent of the older Evangelicals, the Rev. John S. Stone and
the Rev. Alexander H. Vinton, successive rectors at St. Paul's
Church, Boston. As his mind matured, however, he became more
in sympathy with the trend of contemporary thought and de
veloped a more liberal theology. In his personal views, though he
was averse to any definite dogmatic formulations, he does not
seem to have departed very far from orthodox Christianity but
he was disposed to show his sympathy and fellowship ^ with Lib
erals of all degrees, even inviting two prominent Unitarian clergy
men to be present and receive Communion at the consecration of
Trinity Church, which was rebuilt under his rectorship. When
he was elected Bishop of Massachusetts in 1892, this proceeding
was made a ground for objecting to his consecration by Bishop
Seymour of Springfield, whose own election as Bishop of Illinois
had been opposed for a different reason in 1874. Brooks' election
was, however, confirmed without difficulty, the confirmation being
supported not only by the Liberals and the Evangelicals, but by a
majority of the High Churchmen and Anglo-Catholics also, in
cluding Bishop William Croswell Doane of Albany, a son of the
second Bishop of New Jersey, and the Rev. Arthur C. A. Hall,

A BROADER UNITY 311

rector of the Church of the Advent, who had opposed Brooks'
election in the diocesan convention but could see no valid reason
why he should not be consecrated after he had been elected.
Father Hall, who was a member of the Society of St. John the
Evangelist, was recalled to England by his Order as a measure of
discipline for his stand upon this question. He subsequently with
drew from the Society and returned to this country where he
became Bishop of Vermont.

Less famous than Brooks outside of the Church, but probably
exerting a more lasting influence within it, were Bishop Henry Bishop Henry
Codman Potter of New York and Rev. William Reed Hunting- CPotter
ton, rector of Grace Church, New York. Potter was a son of
Bishop Alonzo Potter of Pennsylvania and a nephew of Bishop
Horatio Potter, his own predecessor in the See of New York.
Before his election as bishop, he had served for fifteen years as
rector of Grace Church, where he had succeeded the Rev.
Thomas House Taylor in 1868. Under his leadership Grace Parish
developed into an early example of what came to be called an
"institutional church," that is, a Church which supplemented its
religious activity with a number of social institutions. Like so
many new things in the Church, this type of parish probably had
its origin in the work of William Augustus Muhlenberg, who,
as we have seen in an earlier chapter, surrounded his Church of
the Holy Communion with various charitable enterprises. The
general interest in social work which developed at the turn of the
century caused the institutional parish to become common in our
larger cities, and its popularity has only begun to decline in recent
years. One of its earliest exponents, after Muhlenberg, was the Rev.
W. S. Rainsford, rector of St. George's Church, New York City.

In 1883 Henry Potter was elected assistant bishop of New
York, and, even before his uncle's death in 1887, he was in active
charge of the diocese. He had been the choice of the Low Church
men, in opposition to the Rev. Morgan Dix, the rector of Trinity
Church, but he made a scrupulous effort to be thoroughly non-
partisan and his administration of the diocese was marked by a
breadth and tolerance that were unusual for the time. In 1884
he had to deal with the case of the Rev. R. Heber Newton, the
rector of All Souls' Church, who had delivered and published
some sermons in which he advocated the Higher Criticism of the

The Briggs
Case

Influence of
Lux Mundi

312 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHUKCH

Bible. For this he was presented to Bishop Horatio Potter by two
clergymen in 1883, and the case shortly fell from that Bishop's
hands into those of his nephew. Henry Potter requested that New
ton desist from giving lectures on Higher Criticism in his parish,
for the sake of peace, while admitting that he probably had no
authority to compel him to do so. Newton complied with this
request, though reluctantly, and the Bishop proceeded to pigeon
hole the presentment.

In 1899 he gave a more definite sanction to Higher Criticism
by ordaining to the Priesthood the Rev. Charles Augustus Briggs,
professor of Biblical Theology at Union Theological Seminary.
Professor Briggs had been a pioneer exponent in this country of
the ne\v methods of Biblical criticism, and had been deposed from
the Presbyterian ministry as a result. Having always entertained
a certain admiration for the Episcopal Church, he applied to
Bishop Potter for ordination. Though a number of English
Anglo-Catholics had lately indicated their acceptance of Higher
Criticism in a collection of essays called Lux Mundi, edited by
Canon Charles Gore, most of their party in this country were
still opposed to the science, and the proposed ordination of one
of its chief exponents excited a good deal of criticism. Neverthe
less, he was ordained, and the incident may be regarded as having
settled for the American Episcopal Church a point which had
already been determined in England: That the literal inerrancy
of Scripture was not an official teaching of this Church and that
its ministers were at liberty to undertake a critical study of the
Bible, provided their doing so did not lead them to deny doc
trines that were supposed to be officially approved. The subse
quent heresy trials of this period, which we will notice presently,
though they involved questions of Higher Criticism, did not turn
upon the merits of that science per se, but upon certain theological
opinions at which the accused ministers had arrived by means
of it.

This does not mean that all controversy on the subject ended
with the Briggs ordination. The development of the science
within the Episcopal Church continued to meet with strong oppo
sition and for some time Cambridge was the only seminary in
which it was admitted. Two of the professors of that institution,
Nash and Steenstra, were among the earliest Higher Critics of the

A BROADER UNITY

313

Episcopal Church. The position taken by Anglo-Catholics under
the influence of Lux Mundi, that a belief in the verbal inspiration
of the Bible was not necessary to the acceptance of Catholic tra
dition, however, gave Higher Criticism a bi-partisan support
which made possible its acceptance without the bitter conflict that
has attended its progress in some other denominations.

Bishop Potter was not the type of man who is broad in one
direction only. In the same year in which he pigeon-holed the
charges against Newton, he exposed himself to criticism from
another quarter by professing Father James O. S. Huntington as
the first member of the Order of the Holy Cross. The year fol
lowing, he handled the case of the Rev. Arthur Ritchie, rector of
St. Ignatius' Church, much as he had that of Dr. Newton. Father
Ritchie was an advanced Ritualist who had already exposed him
self to the censure of the Right Rev. William E. McLaren, the
Anglo-Catholic Bishop of Chicago. In New York his introduc
tion of ceremonies not permitted by the Prayer Book induced
Bishop Potter to refuse to visit St. Ignatius'. A correspondence
ensued in which Ritchie agreed to give up the practices if the
bishop would waive the canonical question of his right to forbid
them, and to this Potter agreed. In the present age of liturgical
freedom, it may not seem that such a proceeding displayed any
great latitude of mind, but it was more of a concession than
would have been made by most bishops at that time. It is worth
noting that Father Ritchie's position was criticized both by Bishop
Seymour and by Father Grafton.

When Potter was elected bishop, he was succeeded at Grace
Church by William Reed Huntington, who previously had been
rector at Worcester. In his later years Huntington acquired the
title of "First Presbyter of the Church," largely because of his lead
ership in the Prayer Book revision which was carried out during
the eighties, though there were a number of other grounds on
which he might have claimed the title. He was one of the most
influential advocates of this Church's participation in the move
ment for Christian unity which began to show itself at that period,
and he was also a leader in the development of new Church insti
tutions which was a characteristic of the day. He developed the
institutional side of Grace Church even more than had Dr. Pot
ter, and he was the chief advocate of the revival of the Order of

Father
Huntington
and the
Order of the
Holy Cross

William Reed
Huntington

Heresy
Trials

Growth of
Anglo-
Catholicism

314 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHUHCH

Deaconesses. He also served on the fabric committee of the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, first projected by Bishop Horatio
Potter though in this position his inexperience, according to his
bio-rapher, the Rev. J. W. Suter, caused a number of mistakes
which had to be rectified at considerable expense later.

Huntington and Potter were Liberals of a conservative stamp,
whose essential orthodoxy was never questioned by anyone but
there were some other Liberals of the period who felt them
selves compelled to advocate opinions that were held to be con
trary to the official teaching of the Church. One of these the Rev.
Howard MacQueary, published in 1890 a book called The Evo-
lution of Man and Christianity, in which he claimed the right
to interpret the articles in the Creeds relating to the Resurrection
and the Virgin Birth in a different way from that m which they
have been generally understood. He was suspended by Bishop
Bedell of Ohio and resigned his ministry. A more famous case
involving a similar issue was that of the Rev. Algernon Sidney
Crapsey, rector of St. Andrew's Church, Rochester, who, in the
course of some parochial lectures in 1905, expressed his disbelief
in the Virgin Birth. He was brought to trial before a court pre
sided over by Bishop Walker of western New York and convicted
of teaching doctrines contrary to those of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. He was suspended from his ministry, and when the ver
dict of the diocesan court was upheld by the newly created Pro
vincial Court of Review, he resigned his office altogether.

The development of Liberalism within the Church did not
interrupt the advance of Anglo-Catholicism. In some respects it
probably fostered it, softening the opposition with its theory of
comprehensiveness, and, in its more radical forms, giving the
conservative members of the Church something else to worry
about besides the threat of a movement towards Roman Cathol
icism. Ritualism, as we have seen, continued to spread, and as
some of the more conservative ritualistic practices came into gen
eral use, the more radical representatives of the movement became
more daring, reviving an increasing number of mediaeval customs,
imitating those of modern Roman Catholicism and even, some
times, making liturgical experiments on their own account. Reli
gious brotherhoods and sisterhoods, especially the latter, increased
steadily, though not very rapidly. Repeated efforts were made to

A BROADER UNITY

315

secure their sanction by General Convention, but for a long time
these did not meet with much success, though a number of com
mittees were appointed on the subject. A canon governing religious
communities was not passed until 1913. By then, they had be
come so settled a feature of Church life that it was a question of
regulating rather than of encouraging them. To provide a means
of discussing various aspects of the Catholic viewpoint, an Anglo-
Catholic Congress was created, resembling the Church Congress.

As the Anglo-Catholics tended to regard the terms "Protestant"
and "Catholic" as antithetical, the spread of their movement
naturally led to a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the pres
ent name of the Church. Proposals to change the name have been
offered at nearly every General Convention since 1877, but none
has been adopted. In 1910 a motion to omit the word "Protestant"
from the title page of the Book of Common Prayer and identify
the Episcopal Church as a "portion" of "the Holy Catholic
Church" was lost in the House of Deputies only by a technicality,
a plurality of both orders favoring it, but a number of dioceses
being divided, and consequently, according to the rules of the
House, being counted in the negative. No proposal for a complete
legal change of name has, however, ever come to nearly so close a
vote. Such a change would be exceedingly difficult, as nearly all
of the agencies of the Church, local as well as national, have the
phrase "Protestant Episcopal" in their charters. There has, more
over, been no agreement as to what name should be adopted if
the present one were rejected. Those which have been most often
proposed are "The American Church," "The Church in Amer
ica," "The American Catholic Church," "The American Episco
pal Church," and "The Episcopal Church."

A natural corollary to the broadening of the idea of the Church
which took place at this period was the development of an in
creased interest in the possibility of union with other denomina
tions, an interest which corresponded with a general concern with
the problem of Christian unity that began to manifest itself at
that period. In dealing with this problem, it was necessary to con
sider both of the two major types of Christianity, Catholic and
Protestant, for if the Episcopal Church is to play an important
role in the reunion of Christendom, assuming that such a develop
ment takes place, it will probably be because of its ability to look

Proposed
Changes in
the Name of
the Church

Interest in

Christian

Reunion

316 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Committee on
the Swedish
Church

The Resolution
of 1865

in both directions and to maintain some contact with both tradi
tions. In Western Christianity the most important representative
of the Catholic tradition is the Roman Catholic Church, but at
present a working compromise with this body does not appear
to represent a practicable ideal. Efforts towards Catholic reunion
have, therefore, for the present to be concentrated upon coopera
tion with the Eastern Church, and with such western groups as
retain the episcopal succession and other features of the Catholic
tradition without submitting to the Pope.

As early as 1856 a committee was appointed by General Con
vention to examine into the validity of the orders of the Swedish
Church. As we have seen, Swedish ministers had been accepted
in the colonial Church without question, but their numbers had
hardly been sufficient to establish a general rule, and no definite
action had been taken to bring the two Churches into communion.
The committee of 1856 entered into correspondence with the King
of Sweden, but apparently never made a final report. Another
committee appointed on the same subject in 1892 functioned until
1901, when it reported that, as the enquiry had not been requested
by the denomination concerned, it was causing a certain amount
of irritation and impairing the cordial relations of the two
Churches. As a result of overtures made by the Lambeth Confer
ence, there has been inter-communion between them since 1920.

In 1865 a resolution was passed expressing sympathy with the
efforts of a party in the Italian Church to bring about a reforma
tion, and another was adopted, by the House of Deputies, to the
effect "That all those branches of the Apostolic Church which
accept the Holy Scriptures and the Niceo-Constantinopolitan
Creed, and which reject the usurpations and innovations of the
Bishop of Rome are called ... to renew those primitive relations
which the Roman schism has interrupted." This resolution was
not exactly calculated to improve our relations with the Roman
Catholic Church, but it did represent a gesture towards unity
with other Catholics. In 1874 the House of Bishops appointed a
committee to keep up a "fraternal correspondence" with the "Old
Catholics," a group which had withdrawn from the Roman
Catholic Church after the Council of the Vatican.

The first important move towards a revival of interest in re
union on the Protestant side was made by Dr. Huntington in

A BROADER UNITY

317

1870, when he published "an essay towards unity" which he
called The Church Idea. In this work, after setting forth his ideal
o the Christian Church, he proposed a "quadrilateral," or four
fold platform which he thought should be made the basis of pro
posals for unity by the Anglican communion. Its four points were
the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, the Apostles' and Nicene
Creeds as the rule of Faith, the two sacraments of Baptism and
Holy Communion, and the episcopate as the keystone of govern
mental unity. The theory of the Church thus put forward was
not a new one, but its reduction to four points made it a con
venient basis for popular discussion and official action. The
"quadrilateral" was accepted in substance in a declaration adopted
by the House of Bishops in 1886, at a meeting of the General
Convention in Chicago. Their declaration was reaffirmed with
some modifications by the next Lambeth Conference, and was
thenceforth known as the "Chicago-Lambeth Declaration." It was
adopted by the House of Deputies in 1892. Its chief difficulty as
a working basis for reunion is that it ranks as essential the major
points in which the Episcopal Church differs from most Protestant
denominations.

In 1880 the House of Bishops appointed a committee to consider
the validity of the Moravian episcopate. At the next convention
this committee reported that it could not act because the question
was before a committee of the Lambeth Conference. At the Con
vention of 1886 a number of memorials were presented urging
action favorable to Church unity. One of these was signed by over
a thousand clergymen. The House of Deputies adopted a resolu
tion offered by Phillips Brooks extending cordial greetings to the
General Assembly of the Congregational Church which was also
meeting in Chicago, but the Bishops refused to concur, on the
surprising ground that they were then maturing plans for Church
unity. Since that time it has, however, become customary for
General Convention to send greetings to any important Christian
assembly that happens to meet in the vicinity during its sessions.
The deliberations of the Bishops resulted in the declaration con
taining the quadrilateral.

At the General Convention of 1904 a Joint Committee on Chris
tian Unity was appointed and instructed to seek the cooperation
of other Christian bodies on matters of common interest, such as

Dr. Hunting-
ton's Platform

Committee on
Christian
Unity, 1904

318 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Sabbath observance, the sanctity of marriage, and religious educa
tion. In 1907 this committee was authorized to appoint a member
to represent itself, but not the Church as a whole, at the Inter-
Church Conference on Federation which was to be held the fol
lowing year. That conference resulted in the organization of the
National Federation of Churches, to secure the cooperation of
such denominations as would participate upon points of mutual
concern. At the next General Convention the Committees on
Christian Unity and on Social Service were both authorized to
send representatives to the Council of the Federation. In 1913
this authorization was repeated, but a proviso was attached ex
pressing the opinion that the sort of unity desired by Christ was
the union of all His followers in one body. Since then the Epis
copal Church has continued to cooperate with the Federal Council
in some departments, but has never become a full participant.

At the same time that the tendencies which we have been de-
Thc Social scribing were working to widen the range of tolerated opinion
Christian within the Church, other forces were working to broaden it in
Movement anot h er way by increasing the fields of activity in which it sought
to apply Christian principles. One incidental result of the sepa
ration of Church and State, as it was adopted by most modern
countries, was that the Church was expected to confine itself to
the fields of personal religion and private morality, and to refrain
from interfering with political, social, or economic problems,
which were either to be handled by the State or left to work
themselves out by natural laws. As a result of the intensification
of economic problems and the appearance of energetic demands
for social reform which marked the latter part of the nineteenth
century, however, a movement developed, generally known in
Europe as Christian Socialism and in this country as Social Chris
tianity., which demanded the application of Christian teachings
in the economic sphere. The general principles of this movement
had been formulated, in this country, by John Woolman, an
eighteenth-century Quaker, and it is probable that other individual
Christian thinkers could be found who had done the same, but as
they had no followers, their influence upon the development of
Christian thought was not important. With the multiplication of
demands for reform from secular sources, however, a Christian
movement developed which eventually forced the issue upon the

A BROADER UNITY

319

Resolutions on
World Peace

attention of the churches. One o the early advocates of this move
ment in America was a Churchman, Professor Richard T. Ely,
but its most influential leader was probably Walter Rauschenbusch,
a professor in the Baptist Seminary at Rochester, New York.

This movement did not directly influence the Episcopal Church
to a very great extent, but the general agitation relating to social Growth of a

problems that took place eventually forced them upon her atten- ? OC1 ? 1 S^ 00 ?
^ c i ii- i i r <~>\ i s-> in the Church

tion. One or the papers delivered at the first Church Congress,

that by Professor Wilson, dealt with "The Mutual Christian Obli
gations of Capital and Labor," and while it cannot be said to have
made any very important contribution to the problem, it did show
an awakening interest in social questions which was, in time, to
overcome the traditional aloofness of the Episcopal Church from
all questions of a political or semi-political nature.

The first of the new social ideals to attract the attention of Gen
eral Convention was that of world peace. In 1892 the Convention
adopted a petition to be addressed to the Christian rulers of the
world in favor of the use of peaceful arbitration for the settlement
of international disputes. In 1898 a joint resolution was addressed
to the Czar of Russia expressing gratification at his calling of the
first Hague Conference, and voicing a hope that it would lead
to a reduction of armaments and the establishment of an inter
national court. A resolution for the same purpose, introduced by
Mr. Stotsenberg, a lay delegate from Indiana, had branded war
as "cruel, inhuman, and un-Christian," but this language was too
strong for the Convention, and a milder form was substituted.
In 1904 the General Convention, sitting in Boston, addressed a
communication to the International Peace Congress, which was
meeting in the same city, expressing sympathy with its work. At
the next Convention a resolution of thankfulness for the second
Hague Conference was passed, and prayers were offered for its
success. In 1916, less than a year before the entry of the United
States into the World War, a joint committee was appointed to
further the ends of peace and to cooperate with the World Alli
ance for Promoting International Peace through the Churches.

The labor problem was later in arousing the official concern
of the Church. In 1901 a Joint Committee on Capital and Labor Committee on
was appointed to study the aims of the labor movement, investi- Capital and
gate particular disputes, and act as an arbitrator if requested. In

320 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Divorce
Problem

Revision o
the Prayer
Book and
Constitution

1904 it made a report which contained a number of vague gen
eralizations but did recommend specific legislation against child
labor. In 1910 its title was changed to Committee on Christian
Social Service.

Marriage and divorce present a social pk>blem that, because
o its close relation to personal morality, has always been consid
ered as lying within the field of action permitted to the Church.
In the Episcopal Church the traditional policy has always been to
oppose all divorce except for adultery, and to oppose remarriage,
except in the case of the innocent party to such a divorce. In 1868
this policy had been enacted into a canon, but no definite pro
cedure had been provided for its enforcement. As public opinion
became alarmed at the increase of divorce in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, efforts were made to obtain a more ade
quate canon on the subject. In 1886 both houses took action, but
they could not agree upon the details of the canon and so the
question was referred to the next Convention. The Deputies re
solved not to abandon the question until a satisfactory canon was
passed, as they felt that they could thus make a contribution
towards saving "American civilization, decaying already at its
roots." Nevertheless, no canon was agreed upon until 1904, when
one was passed affirming the old principle and providing a process
of enforcement.

One important indication of the growing harmony in the
Church after 1874 was the success of the Prayer Book revision that
was brought to a conclusion in 1892. By then the Prayer Book
of 1789 had been in use for slightly over a century, and until the
revision was commenced no important changes had been made
in it. In the first part of the century the attachment of Church
men of all parties to the book had prevented any strong demand
for revision. In the middle years, Muhlenberg and a few others
had asked for greater liturgical freedom, but with the increasing
intensity of party feeling, it was evident to most of the leaders of
the Church that any effort at revision would only precipitate a
bitter conflict. After the crisis had passed, and party feeling began
to cool off, demands for liturgical change increased until the
General Convention of 1880, on motion of Dr. Huntington, ap
pointed a joint committee to consider the propriety of revising the
Prayer Book with a view to liturgical enrichment and increased

A BROADER UNITY 321

flexibility. Huntington was not only the chief sponsor of the
measure, but he proved to be the most active member of the com
mittee, which presented a complete revision to the Convention of
1886 in the form of a "Book Annexed" to its report. When this
book was recommitted, however, as not meeting the wishes of the
Convention, he withdrew and the work was completed by others.
It was finally approved in 1892 and remained in general use until
1928, so that it should be familiar to most readers. It did not in
volve any fundamental change from the Book of 1789, but it was
enriched with some additional prayers and canticles, and made
slightly more flexible.

In die same year that it gave its final approval to the new
Prayer Book, General Convention appointed a committee to re
vise the constitution. The first report of this committee was not
approved and the revision was not fully completed until 1904,
though most of the amendments were approved three years
earlier. The chief changes were to recognize the ofEce of Presiding
Bishop which had theretofore existed simply by a rule of the
upper house, to provide for the creation of provinces, and to
authorize the House of Bishops to set up missionary jurisdictions
on its own responsibility.

The desire for change which manifested itself in these revisions
was shown also in the creation of various new agencies for carry- The Order of
ing on the work of the Church. In the formation of these institu- De aconesses
tions there appeared generally to be a twofold motive: to revive
some institution that had existed in other ages or branches of the
Catholic Church, but had been discontinued in the Episcopal
Church, and to provide a means of meeting the new problems that
confronted the Church. Ever since the Muhlenberg Memorial
there had been agitation in the Church for the creation of some
agency to utilize the services of women, though the Church had,
in fact, been using their services all along. Gradually the agitation
crystallized into a demand for the revival of the primitive order
of deaconesses, and of sisterhoods. The latter was too definitely
Catholic a measure to win official approval for some time, but the
deaconesses obtained the powerful support of Dr. Huntington
and a canon establishing their order was passed in 1889. They
were to be unmarried women of good character over twenty-five
years of age. They were not to work in a diocese except with the

322 A HISTORY OF THE AJMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

permission of the bishop, or in a parish without the consent of
the rector. When not connected with a parish, they were to be at
the command of the bishop in whose diocese they were located.
A deaconess might resign from the order at any time, but unless
her resignation was dictated by weighty reasons, she could not
be reinstated later.

A number of unofficial organizations were also created during
Other this period. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew was organized in this

Organizations country to enlist men in the work of the Church, and the Girls'
Friendly Society, first organized in England, was brought into
the United States in 1877. Its original object was to help girls of
the working class, but it developed into a social and religious
organization for young women of the Church. The Order of the
Daughters of the King was organized in 1885 from a senior Bible
class in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, New York City. The
Church Mission of Help, which was started in New York in 1911,
and has since spread into sixteen dioceses, was organized to pro
vide skilled assistance for girls between sixteen and twenty-five
whose personal problems were too great for them to solve alone.
The provision in the revised constitution authorizing the cre
ation of provinces was the result of an agitation for some sub
division of the Church larger than dioceses, which had begun
almost as soon as dioceses began to be organized in areas less
extensive than a whole state. The new provision was not given
effective expression, however, until 1907 when a canon was passed
dividing the Episcopal Church in the United States and its pos
sessions into eight provinces. The name given to the new unit
would seem to imply a desire to imitate the large divisions which
existed in the English Church and in the primitive Church, but
the American provinces have very little resemblance to any others.
They are governed by an elective synod to which few powers
have as yet been entrusted, and they have no regular presiding
officer. Except as providing a basis for the Provincial Court of
Review, they have no important function.

More significant, perhaps, than the creation of the provinces,

Cathedral was the movement for building cathedrals. The first regularly

Building organized cathedral in the American Episcopal Church was

founded by Bishop Whipple in the Diocese of Minnesota. In the

latter part of the century a number of dioceses built or started to

A BROADER UNITY

323

build cathedrals on a more or less elaborate scale. The best-known
and probably the most important are those at New York and
Washington, neither of which is yet completed.

With the development of more complicated methods of print
ing and a cheaper mail service, the numerous small Church papers Periodicals
mentioned in an earlier chapter tended to die out, though their
function was to some extent taken over by the development of
official diocesan papers. Of the larger periodicals. The Church
man continued to carry on though, in its reaction from Catholi
cism, it moved more and more towards a broad Church position.
The Southern Churchman, which, like The Churchman, had been
founded earlier in the century, continued to represent the older
Evangelical point of view. The Living Church, published first at
Chicago and later at Milwaukee, was founded to represent the
Anglo-Catholic interests. Its editor, Mr. Frederic C. Morehouse,
also served the Church in many other ways as a prominent layman.
All of these periodicals performed the function of reporting the
current news of the Church and commenting upon the events re
ported. The Living Church Annual, which absorbed a number of
older Church almanacs, continued the work, begun by Sword's
Pocket Almanac in 1816, of recording the statistical history of the
Church. During the decade of the nineties it was published as a
quarterly.

The increase in the work among negroes and in the negro min
istry which followed the Civil War caused the Church to be Provision for
seriously confronted with the race problem. A number of Suffragans
memorials were presented to General Convention from time to
time by colored Church workers, complaining of discriminations
against them in the southern dioceses, and, on the other hand, the
white Churchmen of the South frequently urged the creation
of a negro episcopate and even of a separate negro Church. When
their proposals were turned down with the statement that the
Church recognized no racial distinctions, they began an agitation
for the creation of "suffragan bishops," a term applied to assistant
bishops without the right of succession. This proposal was also
turned down as long as it was based primarily upon the racial
issue, but eventually the desire of some of the larger northern
dioceses to have assistants who were not assured of succession
made it possible to create the office without appearing to have the

324 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

negroes chiefly in mind, and an amendment for the purpose, put
forward in 1907, was finally approved in 1910. The suffragans
were to have seats but not votes in the House of Bishops, and
were to be eligible for election as diocesan bishops or coadjutors,
the latter term having been applied in the revised constitution to
assistant bishops of the older type. The new office has been widely
used by dioceses desiring to elect an assistant bishop without com
mitting themselves to making him their diocesan, but it has also
served the purpose intended by its original sponsors in making
possible the election of negro bishops.

Two seminaries were added to the Church during this period.
New Berkeley Divinity School, originally located at Middletown, but

Seminaries recently moved to New Haven, was founded by Bishop Williams
to serve as a center for Connecticut Churchmanship. Under its
present Dean, the Rev. William Palmer Ladd, it has come to be
identified with a program of liberal social teaching. Western
Theological Seminary was founded at Chicago by Bishop Mc
Laren as the result of a gift made especially for that purpose. It
has lately been merged with the Seabury Divinity School, and
the combined institution, known as Seabury-Western, is located
at Evanston, Illinois.

CHAPTER XVI
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS

ERE it not for the desirability of adhering to a more or
less chronological order, the story o the Church's missionary ex- Continuous
pansion since the organization of the Domestic and Foreign Activity in
Missionary Society might be told in a single chapter, or in sue- p^ issl n
cessive chapters, for it has been a continuous process, only in
directly affected by outside forces. New parties and movements
may, of course, send new types of men into the mission field.
They may increase or diminish the support given to the work by
the Church at large, as they tend to emphasize or neglect the
missionary spirit, or to stir up or allay party strife, but they affect
the basic character of the work very little. The fundamental pur
pose, to proclaim the Gospel through the Church, remains the
same, and though differing theories of Churchmanship may in
some measure affect missionary methods, these are determined to a
much greater extent by the practical conditions under which the
work has to be carried on.

For the sake of convenience we stopped our relation of mis
sionary history in Chapter Twelve at the beginning of the Civil Effects of the
War. That conflict necessarily brought a serious f alling-o^ in the Cml War
receipts of the Society, and this diminution was increased by the
effects of religious partisanship. In 1862, when the strain of the
war was not yet at its worst, the Domestic Committee reported
that its receipts had decreased from $63,303 to $35,223 since 1860,
but it had been informed that the Evangelical American Church
Missionary Society had received $12,500 and employed twenty-
eight missionaries in the domestic field during the current year.
For three of the war years the Foreign Committee was unable
to send any money at all to China, so that much of the work there
had to be abandoned, and other fields also suffered seriously.

The end of the war, though it led to a gradual recovery in the

325

326

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

New Work

Among

Negroes

Growth in
the West

Society's finances, also added something to the missionary respon
sibilities of the Church. In the first place, the general ruin which
followed in the South caused a number of parishes that had for
merly been self-supporting to feel the need of assistance from
the Missionary Society. In the second place, the creation of an
immense body of free citizens, almost entirely illiterate and com
pletely unaccustomed to independent action, furnished a problem
which the combined resources of all the social agencies in the
country proved inadequate to solve. An attempt on the part of the
Church to solve the problem resulted in the creation of a Freed-
man's Commission by the General Convention in 1865, with J.
Brinton Smith as Secretary and General Agent, and Robert B.
Minturn as Treasurer. The latter died shortly after the organiza
tion of the Commission and was replaced by Stewart Brown.
The year after its creation the Commission reported receipts of
$26,108, and expenditures of $24,723. After a preliminary survey,
it had started special schools at Richmond, Newbern, Norfolk,
Talcott, and Petersburg in Virginia; Wilmington and Raleigh in
North Carolina; Sumter and Winnsboro in South Carolina, and
Louisville in Kentucky. It had also taken over a school founded
by Dr. Lacey in Okolona, Mississippi, and had aided an orphanage
founded by Mrs. Canfield in Memphis.

As the year 1866 was the thirtieth anniversary of the organi
zation of the Board of Missions, the Domestic Committee, in its
report, gave a summary of the results that had been achieved in
the intervening years. Ohio in 1836 had already become a fairly
strong diocese, having forty-seven regular ministers besides four
missionaries. In 1866 there were 102 ministers and two mission
aries. A small allowance to that state had been made regularly in
the interim and it was the opinion of the committee that "no
other appropriations of the same magnitude have yielded more
abundant spiritual or material returns." In Illinois, where there had
been only six ministers besides Bishop Chase in 1836, there were,
sixty years later, one hundred parishes and nearly one hundred
ministers. Indiana had had three missionaries and four other
ministers in 1836. Church representation increased until it in
cluded forty parishes and thirty ministers. Michigan, which had
had only three missionaries and no other officiating minister, now
boasted sixty-eight parishes and sixty-four ministers. Wisconsin in

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 327

1836 had only two ministers and three stations. In 1866 it was
served by seventy parish ministers and eight missionaries. Minne
sota, where there had been only one minister when Breck went
there in 1853, had grown, under the leadership of Bishop Whipple,
who was elected in 1859, until it had fifty parishes and twenty-
seven ministers, seven of whom were employed by the Society.

The first two missionaries to go to Iowa were sent there in
1839. In 1866 there were thirty-seven ministers serving forty-six
parishes in that state. In Missouri the number of ministers had in
creased from four to thirty in thirty years. Kansas and Nebraska,
an unknown region to the Society in 1836, now had, between them,
twenty ministers. Tennessee's supply of clergymen had grown
from ten to nearly thirty. Kentucky, with twenty-one ministers,
had been fairly well developed in 1836. The number of its clergy
men had since increased to thirty-five. The first missionary to
California, the Rev. J. L. H. Ver Mehr, had been sent to San
Francisco in 1849. When Bishop Kip went there in 1853 there
were eight ministers. In 1866 there were thirty, and it was
said that more could be supported if they could be obtained. The
first service in the area covered by Oregon and Washington had
been held in 1847, and the first missionary sent there in 1851. Now
there were eleven parishes and nine ministers in the two terri
tories.

In the region between the Old West and the Pacific the work
of the Church was just beginning in 1866. In Colorado there were The New
seven parishes and five ministers, only one of whom was sup- Wcst
ported by the Society. In Nevada there were seven parishes but
only two ministers, neither of whom was aided by the Society.
Idaho and Dakota had one minister each. If any work was being
done in the other parts of this region, the Domestic Committee
did not know about it.

As the foregoing review shows, the Old West had become well
settled by this time and the Church there had become largely
self-supporting, though a few missionaries were to be maintained
by the Society in those states for some time to come. The West
with which this chapter is chiefly concerned is that vast region
of plain, desert, and mountain which lies between the Mississippi
Valley and the Pacific Slope. This was the West of the romantic
age, whose cowboys, miners, and desperadoes play so important

328 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

a part in that popular fiction which is our modern substitute for
folklore. It was, during most of the period, a region of great
crudity, and yet, as time went on, it became an area of striking
cultural contrasts also, for the wealth that was to be found in
cattle-raising in the heyday of the industry brought to the plains
many people of means and education from the East and from
Europe.

In 1866 George Maxwell Randall, who had been consecrated
Rapid Bishop of Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, the year

Growth before, said of the last-named portion of his jurisdiction, "I can

only report . . . that after diligent enquiry and research I have
been unable to discover any such territory in these 'parts.'"
Wyoming, in fact, did not have any official existence until 1868
when it was first set apart as a territory of the United States. In
that year Bishop Randall reported that he had found the region
on his way west in the spring and remarked that it had been a
wilderness until the Union Pacific was built. Since then, Cheyenne
had become a flourishing, if disorderly, city, and a missionary,
the Rev. J. W. Cook, had settled there. The bishop also mentioned
holding service at Trinidad, Colorado, in a dance hall connected
with a saloon, whose proprietor had not only offered the use of the
hall but, as a special inducement, had promised to close his bar
during the services. The fiddler's platform was used as a pulpit
and a washstand became a reading desk.

Twenty-two years later, when much of the region was still
Cultural primitive, the Right Rev. Ethelbert Talbot, "the Bishop" of The

Contrasts Virginian, was to write of arriving at a small Wyoming town one

Saturday afternoon and attending a lecture on "Jerusalem and the
Holy Land" delivered for the benefit of the local church by Miss
Kent, "a member of a distinguished Scottish family." During the
lecture, he said, "the cultivated speaker appealed several times to
persons in her audience who had traveled over the same sacred
grounds and could confirm her impressions." He also observed
that he found Sir Robert Peel, a grandson of the English states
man, living on a nearby ranch. In New Mexico, late in the seven
ties, General Lew Wallace was to sit quietly writing his famous
novel of ancient Rome and Jerusalem, oblivious of the fact that
"Billy the Kid," a notorious local bad man, had sworn to shoot him
at sight.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 329

Glamour, however, is generally the product of distance, either
in space or time, and for the missionaries the West was mainly Organization
a region of hard work, made inspiring only by that sense of otheWork
apostleship which is the heritage of their calling. The shortage
of men which had so hampered the work of the Church in the
Old West pursued it still, and many a Macedonian Cry had to
go unanswered because there was no one to heed it, but, thanks
to the existence of the Missionary Society, and to a longer experi
ence in collective action, the work was more systematically organ
ized and more generally supported. The Church had by now
consciously adopted the practice of using the episcopate as a mis
sionary agency, and the General Convention of 1865, at which
Bishop Randall was elected, divided the Far West, exclusive of
California, into five missionary jurisdictions: Oregon and Wash
ington; Arkansas and Indian Territory; Colorado, Montana,
Idaho, and Wyoming; Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico;
and Nebraska and Dakota. The first two of these jurisdictions
were already being served by Bishops Scott and Lay. Randall was
elected to the third, Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe to the fourth,
and Robert Hooper Clarkson to the fifth. Howe declined to serve
and Ozi William Whitaker was chosen to replace him at the
next Convention. His jurisdiction, however, only included Nevada
and Arizona, for at a special session in 1866 the House of Bishops
had constituted Montana, Utah, and Idaho a separate jurisdiction
under Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, and had attached New Mexico to
Colorado and Wyoming under Bishop Randall

It was, of course, impossible for these men to cover their large
jurisdictions in more than a superficial manner, and they had great shortage of
difficulty in obtaining missionaries to help them. In 1871 Bishop Ministers
Randall wrote, "From the outset my greatest trial has been to
obtain ministers ready to go to this land and stay there long
enough to 'possess it.' " Appeals which he had made for five
months after his consecration had obtained him one deacon. After
spying about the country he returned to the East and, as the result
of six months' effort, he obtained one other, but when he returned
to his jurisdiction he met the first deacon coming east. At the
time of writing, however, he had a few more. To correct this
shortage of ministers by arranging for a local supply, efforts were
made to establish colleges and theological schools in most of the

330 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

jurisdictions. Bishop Clarkson, shortly after his election, reported
the founding of a number of educational institutions, including
the Nebraska College and Divinity School and the Omaha Col
legiate Institute, and Bishop Randall in 1871 reported the found
ing of a collegiate school for boys at Golden, Colorado. Most of
these institutions were short-lived.

The financial support given to the work, though less seriously
Finances deficient than the supply of men, was also far from adequate. In

1868 the financial embarrassments of the Missionary Society were
so serious as to draw a resolution of sympathy from the House
of Deputies. Its condition began to improve thereafter, and its
receipts increased more or less steadily, but the increase was never
rapid enough to keep up with the increased demands upon it, and
many of the missionary jurisdictions had to be kept upon a short
allowance. Bishop Randall in 1871 reported that he had received
$106,000 for his work from all sources since his consecration, for
which he could then show properties appraised at $114,600, even
without allowing for the increase in real estate values. The annual
allowance of the Board of Missions for paying missionaries in his
three territories, however, was only $3,500, or, for each territory,
less than half the amount that was currently appropriated for
Maine. By way of contrast, he observed that the Presbyterians
were paying $1,500 to one of their missionaries in Wyoming.

The leaders of the western work also had to contend with the
Local inevitable period of economic distress and stationary or even

Set-backs decreasing population which followed the first boom in any new

state or territory. In 1871 Bishop Tuttle reported that Idaho and
Montana had reached this difficult state of transition from rapid
growth to stable settlement, and that the work of the Church had
been seriously hampered. For a time he had had no minister
in Montana, but the Rev. W. H. Stoy had lately gone to Deer
Lodge, and he hoped soon to obtain a missionary for Virginia
City. There was only one minister in Idaho. The Mormon state
of Utah, on the other hand, was receiving an influx of Gentiles
as the result of the discovery of silver, and the parish at Salt Lake
City, founded by the Rev. George W. Foote, since gone to Cali
fornia, was strong enough to elect Tuttle its rector and pay him
a salary of $2,000, which he used in procuring assistance. By 1875
the reaction had set in in Utah also, and the Gentile immigration

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 331

had been checked, but converts were still being made from
Mormonism.

The depression which was general throughout the United
States in 1875 was intensified in Nebraska and Dakota by a plague
of locusts, and Bishop Clarkson reported that the building of
churches had largely ceased, and the schools he had founded were
seriously distressed, though he hoped they would be able to
weather the crisis. In 1880, Bishop Wingfield of Northern Cali
fornia wrote that the "good times" of rapid growth which that
state had known in the past were "gone forever," and that in the
future "California must be content to go as other states." The year
1887, when Bishop Ethelbert Talbot first went to Wyoming, was a
disastrous one for that territory. During a severe winter seventy-
five per cent, of the cattle died from cold and hunger, and when
spring came it was found that the bottom had fallen out of the
cattle market, due to the rapid development of the industry else
where, so that the stock which survived could be sold for only
about half the former price. The industry never became as profit
able as it had been, and a few years later the silver market also
collapsed, so that much of Bishop Talbot's episcopate was cast
in hard times.

Nevada, whose growth had been based almost entirely upon
silver, declined more rapidly and permanently than any other
western state. In 1890, the Right Rev. Abiel Leonard, Bishop of
Nevada and Utah, wrote, "The census shows that the decline of
the population in Nevada has been going on steadily during the
past decade and there are today scarcely as many people in the
entire state as there are in the city of Salt Lake." As its easy
divorce laws proved, in time, to be almost the only means of
drawing trade to the state, a moral difficulty was added to the
economic one.

Nevertheless, the Church grew steadily throughout most of
the western region, though its growth was not always very even, steady
local variations of leadership, personnel, or environment often Growth
making its advance much more rapid at one time and place than
at another. In 1871, the Right Rev. Henry N. Pierce, who had
succeeded Bishop Lay as Bishop of Arkansas and Indian Terri
tory, reported that three parishes had become self-supporting
within his jurisdiction since the last General Convention, when

332 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

there was only one. Four churches had been consecrated, and two
were being built. In the same year, Bishop Clarkson reported that
there were six ministers working among the white people in
Dakota Territory, where five years ago there had been only one,
the Rev. Melanchthon Hoyt, a pioneer of long standing. Besides
these six there were three white and five Indian clergymen in the
Indian jurisdiction of Niobrara, which was temporarily under
his charge. In 1880 Bishop Whitaker reported that in the past ten
years the number of churches in Nevada had increased from three
to ten and the number of ministers from one to seven. This was
before the state began its rapid decline, but in the same report in
which he mentioned this decline, in 1890, Bishop Leonard, Bishop
Whitaker's successor, said that the Church was growing in the
three principal cities of the state.

The census of 1890 officially recorded the passing of the frontier.
Statistics of Thenceforth there was to be no fringe of settlement in the United
States ? for the whole country belonged in the "settled area,"
though in some parts the settlement was still thin. In the same
year, as shown by The Living Church Quarterly, the Episcopal
Church had 48,569 communicants in the region lying between the
Mississippi River and the states and territories on the Pacific
Coast. These communicants were divided among eight dioceses
and eight missionary jurisdictions, exclusive of the Indian Terri
tory (Oklahoma) with fifty communicants, which was under
the Bishop of Arkansas. Of the total number, the dioceses in
cluded 38,039, and the missionary jurisdictions 10,530. Five of the
dioceses, Missouri, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Kansas, had
been organized before the Civil War, and in the four first
named, the Church had already obtained a substantial growth
by 1866. The dioceses which had been organized since the Civil
War were Nebraska in 1868, Arkansas in 1871, and Colorado in
1887. A ninth missionary jurisdiction, The Platte, had been cre
ated in western Nebraska in 1889, but its statistics had not yet
been separated from those of the diocese. Four of the dioceses,
Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, included the four
states which lie immediately west of the Mississippi, where the
Church might be expected to develop first. From them, there
was a pronounced westward thrust in the central part of the
region, represented by Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, and

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 333

balanced, in part, by the diocese of Texas in the South. The
remoter sections of that state had, however, been separated from
the diocese to form the missionary jurisdictions of Northern and
Western Texas. Louisiana is not counted with these states as com
prising the Central West, because, though the bulk of its area is
west of the Mississippi, a majority of its Church population resides
in the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, on the eastern
bank of the Mississippi.

On the Pacific Coast in 1890 there were 11,197 communicants
of the Episcopal Church divided among two dioceses, Califor- The Pacific
nia and Oregon, and two missionary jurisdictions, Northern States
California and Washington. The diocese of California had been
organized in 1850 to include the whole state, but as a large part
of the northern section was incapable of self-support, the diocese
asked to be relieved of it, and, as the result of an amendment to
the constitution finally approved in 1874, it was cut off and made
a missionary jurisdiction under the Right Rev. John Henry Du-
cachet Wingfield. The principle upon which this action was based,
i. e., that the Church as a whole should assume responsibility for
the larger missionary areas, even though they occurred in a state
where the Church was elsewhere fairly strong, *has led in the
separation of a good many missionary districts from organized
dioceses since it was adopted. As the total number of communi
cants in the Episcopal Church in the continental United States in
1890 was 484,020, the number on the Pacific Coast represented two
per cent of the strength of the Church, and those in the interior
region represented ten per cent.

Much of the West remained a frontier region for the Church
long after it had ceased to be a frontier for population, and in The Central
some places this is still the situation. During the quarter century W estini9i5
following 1890, the work in that region was carried on under sub
stantially the same conditions as before. The population of the
West continued to grow rapidly, as did that of the whole United
States. In a few of the states of the interior the population growth
lagged behind that of the country as a whole, but in others it was
ahead. By 1915 the total number of Episcopal communicants
in the region between the Mississippi and the Pacific States was
105,531. Of these 75,302 were divided among fourteen indepen
dent dioceses and 30,229 were located within the same number

334 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

of missionary districts. Three of the missionary jurisdictions of
1890 Montana, where Bishop Tuttle and his successor. Bishop
Brewer, had carried on an important work; West Texas, where
the Church had been built up by Bishop R. W. B. Elliott and
Bishop J. S. Johnston; and North Texas, under Bishop Garrett
had become independent dioceses, the last named adopting the
designation of the Diocese of Dallas. Neither of the two new
Texas dioceses, however, included all of the missionary districts
from which they had been formed. The "Panhandle" and some
of the sterile central portion of the state, included in the old juris
diction of North Texas, had been continued as a missionary dis
trict under the same title, and some of the southwestern counties,
formerly belonging in West Texas, had been attached to New
Mexico. The other new dioceses were the result of the division
of two old ones, the former diocese of Minnesota having been
divided into Minnesota and Duluth, and that of Missouri into
Missouri and West Missouri. The increase in the number of mis
sionary districts had been caused by the division of those which
had included more than one state in 1890, and the creation of some
others out of portions of organized dioceses, Salina having been
separated from Kansas, and Western Colorado from Colorado.
Indian Territory, which had been opened to white settlement in
the interval, had developed two new missionary districts, Okla
homa and Eastern Oklahoma.

On the Pacific Coast the number of communicants had in-
The Pacific creased to 42,384, of whom 35,772 were in five dioceses and 6,612
States in 1915 in three missionary districts. Northern California had become self-
supporting and had adopted the name of Diocese of Sacramento.
The old Diocese of California had been divided into California
and Los Angeles, and a new missionary district, that of San
Joaquin, had been set up across the mountains. The states of
Oregon and Washington had also been divided, the western and
more populous sections becoming the dioceses of Oregon and
Olympia, respectively, and the eastern portions being formed into
the missionary districts of Eastern Oregon and Spokane.

As the total number of communicants in the Episcopal Church
in the continental United States in 1915 was 1,010,874, the number
on the Pacific Coast now represented four per cent of the strength
of the Church and the interior contained ten per cent. To produce

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 335

this result, the number o communicants in the interior had been
a little more than doubled, and that on the Pacific had been
multiplied about three and three-fourths times. The more rapid
growth in the latter region is probably accounted for partly
by a greater growth in population there and partly by the larger
number of urban centers. The growth of the Church as a
whole, it may be observed, had kept well ahead of that of the
total population during the twenty-five years, for it had more
than doubled by 1915, whereas the population had not yet done
so even by 1920, when the next census was taken.

The American Empire, if our scattered possessions deserve so
grandiloquent a title, was for the most part acquired in the second The Ameri-
half of the nineteenth century. The Territory of Alaska was pur- can Empire
chased from Russia in 1867, partly as an acknowledgment of that
country's supposed friendliness to us during the Civil War. In
1898, as a result of the Spanish-American War and the imperial
istic sentiments which attended it, we annexed the remnants of
the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Cuba, to which we gave
a nominal independence. The most important territories thus
acquired were the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea and
the Philippine Islands, off the coast of Southeastern Asia. In the
same year we annexed the Hawaiian Islands in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, as the result of a request made some time before by
the Americans and other foreigners who had gained control of
the local government. The Panama Canal Zone was added in
1903, and the Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in
1917. Alaska, where the Russian and Eskimo population were
soon supplanted by settlers from the United States, furnished a
situation which, except as it was conditioned by the climate, was
not unlike that to be found in the more extensive and less pop
ulous of the western jurisdictions, but the other colonies, having
predominantly non-European populations with varying degrees
of civilization, presented many problems hitherto more often en
countered in the foreign field.

The work of the Episcopal Church in Alaska was not begun
until 1889, when the Rev. John W. Chapman started his lifelong Alaska
labors at Anvik on the Yukon River. The Missionary Society had
provided him with a saw-mill and a boiler engine with which to
build himself a station, and he himself acquired the aid of a

336 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

native youth of about sixteen whom he planned to use as an
interpreter, and whom he later adopted as his son. By 1895 he had
been joined at Anvik by Miss Bertha W. Sabine, who ran a school
there, and by Dr. Mary V. Glenton, a medical missionary, who
was trying to found a maternity hospital. Two other missionaries,
the Rev. E. H. Edson and Dr. John B. Driggs, ran a school
in another part of the territory. In the same year the Right Rev.
Peter Trimble Rowe was consecrated Bishop of Alaska, and under
his capable and devoted direction the work grew rapidly. By 1900
the Church had mission stations at Sitka, Skagway, Juneau, Cape
Nome, and Rampart, and hospitals at Skagway, Circle City, Ram
part, and Nome. In 1905 Bishop Rowe reported that the Church
had seven hospitals in Alaska and that a new mission had been
opened at Seward. The mission at Tanana was cooperating with
the government in an effort to introduce the breeding of reindeer.
Schools for the natives were maintained at eight stations. In the
opinion of the leaders of the work, it was more important to
educate these people "in ways of living, in the care of the sick,
and in the ordinary sanitary precautions that make for health"
than in reading and writing, though these were not neglected.
As the native population was rapidly declining, a fear was ex
pressed that unless effective action was taken very soon there
would be no natives left to educate in anything. In 1915 Alaska
reported 1,021 communicants. For many years Bishop Rowe was
ably assisted in his work by his devoted Archdeacon, the Ven.
Hudson Stuck.

The acquisition of our principal island possessions led to more
Puerto Rico immediate action on the part of the Episcopal Church than did
and the the purchase of Alaska. The General Convention of 1898 ap-

uppines pointed a Committee on the Increased Responsibilities of the
Church, and as a result of its suggestions, some action was imme
diately taken with respect to all of the new territories. Two
missionaries, the Rev. George B. Pratt and the Rev. Frederick
Gaunt, were sent to Puerto Rico and one, the Rev. James L.
Smiley, was sent to the Philippines. There was also an Episco
palian army chaplain in each of these colonies who cooperated
with the missionaries. Puerto Rico was placed under the juris
diction of the Bishop of Chicago and, subsequently, of the Bishop
of Sacramento. By 1900, it had been visited, on behalf of Bishop

THE STRUGGLE .FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 337

Moreland, by Bishop Whipple of Minnesota. The Philippines
were placed under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Shanghai, and
visited by him. In 1902 the Right Rev. James Heartt Van Buren
was consecrated Bishop of Puerto Rico. In his report of 1910 he
observed that, as few Americans who came to the island regarded
it as a permanent home, the work there must be directed more
and more towards the native population. In 1915, 486 communi
cants were reported from the island. The Right Rev. Charles
Henry Brent was consecrated Bishop of the Philippine Islands in
1901, and in the years before the War he built an extensive work
there, both among the native population and within the American
colony at Manila. Of the missions to the natives, the most im
portant and effective was probably that of St. Mary the Virgin
under the Rev. J. A. Staunton, Jr., at Sagada. In 1915 the Philip
pines reported 1,130 communicants, but this represented a decrease
of seventy from the preceding year.

Work in the Hawaiian Islands had been begun by the Church
of England some years before their annexation by the United The Hawaiian
States. After that event, the work there was transferred to the Islands
American Episcopal Church, and in 1902 the Right Rev. Henry
B. Restarick was consecrated as the first American Bishop of
Honolulu, with jurisdiction in the islands and in the American
colony of Samoa. Lying, as they do, at the "Crossroads of the
Pacific," these islands have a very mixed population. The native
races appear to be dying out and the largest single element in the
population at present is Japanese. There are also a large number
of Chinese and an upper class of Americans and Europeans. At
the time of Bishop Restarick's consecration the number of com
municants was 412. By 1910 it had increased to 1,410 and 1,737
were reported in 1915.

After the Panama Canal Zone came under American control,
it was placed under the Presiding Bishop, who delegated the The Canal
Bishop of Washington, D. C, to act for him. A number of mis- Zone
sion stations were opened there while the Canal was being built,
but most of them were closed after its completion in 1915. That
at Empire, which also served Culebra, was reopened, however, to
meet the needs of the servants of the military garrison, eighty per
cent, of whom had expressed a preference for the Episcopal
Church.

338 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The work of the Church among the Indians and negroes was
Work Among carried on in a more systematic manner during this period than
the Negroes j t fad }y^ ca during the preceding one. The Freedman's Commis
sion, whose organization was mentioned at the beginning of the
present chapter, spent $90,000 during the first three years o its
existence, supporting twenty-six teachers during its first year
(1866), sixty-two during its second, and sixty-five during its third.
The number of pupils in its schools increased from 1,600 to 5,000
during the same period. Most of the instruction, at first, was
necessarily elementary, but in 1868 it started a high school at
Charleston. In 1870 the Commission was made permanent, and
given the name of Commission on Home Missions to Colored
People. The Board of Missions had recommended the raising of
$50,000 for the work, but by 1871 the Commission had succeeded
in raising only $21,308. Its failure was partly due to its unwilling
ness to employ a salaried agent, as there was a prejudice in the
Church against those unromantic but necessary officers. Never
theless, the Commission had succeeded in supporting, or helping
to support, seventeen schools. By 1875 the number of schools
assisted had increased to thirty-one. By 1890 the commission had
expanded its efforts to include specifically religious as well as
educational work. In that year it was supporting sixty-two white
and forty-four negro clergy, one hundred and seventeen Sunday
schools, sixty-five parochial schools and twelve industrial schools.
It is estimated that the contributions received from colored people,
of which it had only an imperfect record, were about equal to
those received from white people for negro work.

In 1906 the American Church Institute for Negroes was organ
ized to obtain support for the larger negro schools of the Episco
pal Church, including St. Augustine's School, Raleigh, the Bishop
Payne Divinity School, St. Paul's Industrial School, St. Athanasius'
School, Vicksburg Industrial School, and St. Mark's School. It
also set a standard of instruction for the schools associated with it.
Its organization had been approved by the Board of Missions,
though not specifically authorized by General Convention. As was
mentioned in the preceding chapter, the work among negroes at
this time led to a demand for a negro episcopate which was finally
satisfied in part by the canon on suffragans*
It will be remembered that at the beginning of the Civil War

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 339

the only important Indian work being carried on by the Church The Indians
was among the Oneidas in Wisconsin and among the Chippe-
ways in Minnesota, where Breck had started his mission. Bishop
Whipple, who, in addition to building up the Church among the
white people of Minnesota, carried on and extended Breck's
Indian work, was one of the first to urge upon the Church as a
whole a proper realization of its duty to the red man. In 1868 he
submitted to the Board of Missions a vigorous report in which
he denounced the general mistreatment of the Indian by the white
man, and urged the Church to take some action in his behalf.
In 1871, partly as a result of this appeal and partly, it would seem,
in response to a suggestion from President Grant, the General
Convention directed the Board of Missions to set up a Commis
sion on Indian Affairs, and the House of Deputies appointed a
committee of its own to cooperate with this Commission in de
fending the rights of the Indian. At the same time, a special mis
sionary jurisdiction, called Niobrara, was set up to include the
Indian reservations in what is now South Dakota, and in western
Nebraska.

The new jurisdiction was placed temporarily under the super
vision of Bishop Clarkson, of Nebraska and Dakota. In 1871 Bishop Hare
he reported there were five Indian and three white clergymen at
work within this area, and urged the appointment of a bishop.
This recommendation was complied with in 1873, when the
Right Rev. William Hobart Hare was consecrated Bishop of
Niobrara. Bishop Hare was a son of the first Dean of the Phila
delphia Divinity School, and had served for several years as Sec
retary of the Foreign Committee of the Board of Missions. During
his long episcopate, he identified himself heart and soul with the
Indians and their welfare. In 1875 the Indian Commission reported
that it had stations at White Earth and Mendota in Minnesota;
at Niobrara, Santee, Yankton, Ponka, Yanktonnais, Mackenzie's
Point and Upper Brule in the Niobrara Jurisdiction, and at
Cheyenne, Wyoming. Some of these, moreover, were large reser
vations where several missionaries were stationed, the greatest
number, eight white and two Indian ministers, being on the
Niobrara Reservation.

In 1885 Bishop Walker of North Dakota received a delegation
from five hundred Chippeway Indians then located in the Turtle

340 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Mountains in the northern part of that state. Forty of them had
been converted to Christianity while living near the White Earth
mission, and their fidelity had so impressed the rest of the tribe
that they applied to Walker for a missionary. As a result, he
succeeded in establishing a school among them.

In 1900 Bishop Hare,, the title of whose jurisdiction had been
changed to South Dakota, besides having charge of the white
work in that state, was responsible for Indian missions on ten
reservations, grouped together in the Niobrara Deanery. His
Indian work included ninety congregations, with fifty-seven
church buildings and 3,200 communicants, ministered to by six
white and fifteen Indian clergymen, and assisted by about fifteen
lay helpers and catechists. There were approximately 10,000
baptized persons associated with the mission out of a total Indian
population of 25,000. Regular Sunday services were held at about
eighty different points. There were also four industrial boarding
schools for Indians in the jurisdiction, supported partly by the
Missionary Society, partly by the Woman's Auxiliary, and partly
by government aid, which had, however, been recently reduced.

In 1905 Bishop Brooke of Oklahoma and Indian Territory re-
Oklahoma ported the operation of a number of day schools in the latter
part of his jurisdiction. He found these more useful than boarding
schools for the Indians in that region, as they encouraged the
parents of the children to settle in one place, thus counteracting
the nomadic propensities that were fostered by the practice of
leasing their farms for yearly rentals which, together with some
small annuities from the government, were just enough to keep
them in "indecent idleness."

The seeds sown in the foreign field in the earlier period of our
China missionary history began to bear fruit after the Civil War, and an

increasing number of converts was regularly reported from most
of the foreign stations. In 1865, Channing Moore Williams, the
first Episcopal missionary to Japan, was elected to succeed
Bishop Boone as Bishop of China and Japan. By 1871 the China
mission was served by seven presbyters, besides the bishop, two
native priests, six foreign female missionaries, and two native lay
missionaries of the masculine sex. A hospital had been started in
1868. According to Bishop Williams, the number of baptisms in
the three years between 1868 and 1871 was only eighteen less and

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS

341

the number of confirmations was twenty-seven more than in the
twenty-one years of the mission's previous existence.

In 1874, Bishop Williams was relieved of his responsibility for
China, and allowed to concentrate upon the work in Japan as
Bishop of Yedo. The Rev. S. I. J. Schereschewsky, the translator of
the Bible, was elected Bishop of Shanghai. He immediately set
about founding St. John's College (now a University), which has
made an important contribution to the cause of Christian educa
tion in China, as has its younger sister, Boone University at
Wuchang. Bishop Schereschewsky resigned in 1883 and was suc
ceeded by the Right Rev. William Jones Boone, who was in turn
succeeded by the Right Rev. Frederick Rogers Graves in 1893.
In 1901 the Chinese work was divided into the missionary dis
tricts of Shanghai, under Bishop Graves, and Hankow, under the
Right Rev. J. Addisqn Ingle, who was succeeded in 1904 by the
Right Rev. Logan H. Roots. In 1910 Hankow was divided by
the organization of the Missionary District of Wuhu, later Anking,
of which the Right Rev. David Trumbull Huntington became
bishop. In 1915 the Church in China was given a semi-independent
status by the organization of the work of the Anglican communion
in that country into the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, or Chinese
Holy Catholic Church. In 1890 China reported 460 communicants.
By 1915 the number had increased to 3,479.

Japan, in 1865, was just beginning her rapid acquisition of Euro
pean customs and did not look with favor upon Christianity, Japan
whose converts were still being persecuted. The most active spirit
in the Japanese mission had, moreover, been temporarily with
drawn by Bishop Williams' removal to China. In 1874 the edicts
against Christianity were relaxed, and in the same year Bishop
Williams, as has already been mentioned, was relieved of his
Chinese jurisdiction and made Bishop of Yedo (later Tokyo).
Thereafter the growth of the Church in Japan was rapid. The first
baptism reported from that country was in 1886 and there had
been no more until 1872. In 1874, twenty-one persons were bap
tized. In 1890 Japan reported more communicants (865) than
any other foreign field. By 1915 their number had increased to
3,181. The work in Japan, as in China, was strengthened by the
founding of educational and medical institutions, the two most

342 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

important being St. Luke's Hospital and St. Paul's University
in Tokyo. In 1898 the country was divided into the missionary dis
tricts of Tokyo and Kyoto. Tokyo was continued under the Right
Rev. John McKim, who had been elected in 1893, and Kyoto was
placed under the Right Rev. S. C. Partridge, who was succeeded
by the Right Rev. Henry St. George Tucker in 1912.
The mission to Liberia, which was under Bishop Payne, was

Liberia reported as being in a flourishing condition in 1865, and it so

continued under Bishop Payne and his successors, Bishop Penick
and Bishop Ferguson. In the first ten years of Bishop Ferguson's
episcopate (1883-93), there were more baptisms than in the fifty
previous years of the mission's existence. In 1890, Liberia reported
576 communicants and by 1915 the number had grown to 2,501.
Work which had been started in various Latin American coun-

Latin America trits by the Evangelical American Church Missionary Society was
taken over by the Board of Missions in the years following the
Civil War. The mission to Haiti, when it came under the control
of the Board in 1865, had three ministers and a catechist. In 1874 the
General Convention recognized the independence of the Protestant
Episcopal Church of Haiti, but with the understanding that it
would continue to receive aid from the Board of Missions. The
Right Rev. James Theodore Holly was consecrated its first bishop.
This action set an important precedent which was to be followed
by the creation of national churches in Mexico, China, and Japan.
Haiti, however, lost its independent status after the death of
Bishop Holly in 1911, and was administered by neighboring
bishops until 1923, when the Right Rev. Harry Roberts Carson
became its bishop. An independent Church was organized in
Mexico, under the Right Rev. Henry Chauncey Riley, Bishop of
Mexico Valley, but the experiment was not successful. In 1883,
as a result of disagreements within his Church and between him
self and the Board of Missions, Bishop Riley was asked to resign.
Thereafter the Mexican work was without a bishop until the
Right Rev. Henry D. Aves was consecrated in 1904. Work begun
by the American Church Missionary Society in Cuba and Brazil
was not taken over by the Board of Missions until 1905, but bishops
had been sent to these countries before that year. The Right Rev.
Lucien Lee Kinsolving had become Bishop of Southern Brazil

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST AND FOR OTHER LANDS 343

in 1899, and the Right Rev. Albion W. Knight had been conse
crated for Cuba in 1904. Bishop Knight was succeeded by the
Right Rev. Hiram R. Hulse in 1915. In 1915 Haiti reported 843
communicants; Mexico, 1,906; Brazil, 1,304, and Cuba, 1,677.

A number of changes in the constitution of the Domestic and
Foreign Missionary Society were made during this period, but The Woman's
none of them was of a fundamental nature. For a time, the Gen- Auxiliary
eral Convention constituted itself the Board of Missions, and the
working organization was called the Board of Managers. In 1877,
when party strife had begun to subside, the American Church
Missionary Society became a recognized auxiliary of the general
Society and by 1915 it had ceased to function except to administer
its endowments. The most important development of the period,
so far as the support of missionary work was concerned, was the
organization of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions
in 1868, to coordinate the work formerly done by a large number
of unrelated women's missionary societies. Its organization was
largely the work of Miss Mary A. and Miss Julia C. Emery, and
the latter continued for many years to be its active leader. Its first
title was the Ladies Domestic Missionary Relief Association, but
it assumed the more familiar designation when it was four years
old. It originally functioned chiefly in supplying boxes of clothing
and other goods to supplement the salaries of the missionaries,
and to provide them with materials for relieving others, but after
the institution of the United Thank Offering of prayer and material
gifts in 1890, it became an important source of financial support as
well. Miss Emery also organized a Junior Auxiliary to enlist the
support of young girls in the work. By 1910 the Woman's Auxiliary
had a branch in every diocese and missionary district of the Church.
The Spirit of Missions continued its useful -work in the field of
publicity throughout the period, and for a time the Domestic Com
mittee operated a missionary paper for children, known variously as
The Young Christian Soldier, The Christian Soldier and Children's
Guest, and The Young Christian Soldier and the Carrier Dove.

CHAPTER XVII
THE LATEST PHASE

.HE American people have never fought a war in which they
The World were so united as in the World War, nor one with which they be-
War came so quickly disillusioned afterwards. As a result, there are few

important social institutions or leaders who can look back upon
their wartime utterances and actions with entirely unmixed feel
ings. A strong pacifist movement had developed in this country
in the years before the War, and the administration in power was
composed mainly of pacifists. When, therefore, the leader of that
administration finally pronounced in favor of war, it was natural
to assume that every possible means of keeping peace had been
exhausted. As soon as war was declared, if not before, the admin
istration began making systematic use of the varied means of
propaganda presented by the modern press and other mediums of
publicity, employing these with a skill learned of modern psychol
ogy. This activity, moreover, merely continued an effective propa
ganda previously carried on in the United States by the Allied
Powers, and in a short time laws were passed to silence any con
trary testimony. It is not surprising, therefore, that most Americans
were convinced that in entering the War we were merely repelling
German aggression, and that we were fighting to preserve democ
racy and secure a permanent peace. In the decade and a half that
has followed, it has become evident that the War did not, in fact,
attain these ends, and we have, moreover, seen reason to believe
that, in the original issues of the struggle, the right was not so
exclusively on one side as we had supposed. In the reaction that
has followed, many, especially of the post-war generation, have
probably been more severe than is necessary in their judgment of
those leaders of public opinion who rallied to the support of our
suddenly militant government after the declaration of war in the
spring of 1917.

344

THE LATEST PHASE 345

The record of the Episcopal Church during the War was about War Record
the same as that o other American denominations. Most o the of *<= Church
clergy supported the War more or less vigorously, some of them
becoming army chaplains or participating in the struggle in other
ways, and a certain amount of war work was carried on in most
parishes. Those ministers who felt obliged to take a pacific attitude
were subjected to a good deal of popular abuse and, sometimes, to
the disapproval of their ecclesiastical superiors. The most serious
case of this sort was that of the Right Rev. Paul Jones, Missionary
Bishop of Utah. Bishop Spalding, Bishop Jones' predecessor, had
established a tradition of liberal social thought for the See which
the latter carried on after his own election in 1914. After the
United States entered the War, Bishop Jones' utterances and his
connection with various radical organizations caused suspicions to
arise as to his loyalty. When the House of Bishops held a special
meeting in October, 1917, to fill some vacancies in the missionary
episcopate, his Council of Advice called the attention of the House
to the situation. After experimenting with various resolutions, the
Bishops directed the Presiding Bishop to appoint a committee of
investigation and granted the accused Bishop a "leave o absence"
while the investigation was pending. At the request of this com
mittee, Bishop Jones submitted his resignation to the House when
it reconvened in April, 1918, but the Bishops declined to
accept it because they were unwilling to admit the propriety of
a member of their order resigning "in deference to an excited
state of public opinion," as Jones had indicated that he was doing.
He, therefore, tendered a resignation which gave no reasons of
any sort, and this was accepted "in view of Bishop Jones* impaired
usefulness," but "with full recognition of the right of every mem
ber of this House to freedom of speech in political and social
matters, subject to the law of the land." Before adjourning, the
House sent a telegram of congratulation to General Pershing upon
his confirmation in the Church.

A certain amount of pacifist sentiment also manifested itself at
Berkeley Divinity School, in Connecticut, during the War, and the
school was subjected to a good deal of abuse from its neighbors in
Middletown as a result. It was not exposed to any formal ecclesi
astical censure, however.

When the General Convention met in 1919 the war spirit was

346 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

War Spirit still strong, and a number of resolutions were passed which would
in the General seem to have been influenced by it. The Churchwomen's League
^p cntlono for Patriotic Service was given official approval, and the Board of
Missions was urged to establish a bureau of Christian American
ization, Gratitude was expressed for "that host of noble American
youth who, for the sake of God's cause, were careless of their lives
even unto death," and approval was expressed of the establishment
of the American Field of Honor in France. A resolution was also
passed in favor of setting up the Church of the Holy Trinity in
Paris as "America's War Memorial Church in Europe for her
Hero Dead." On the other hand, a resolution was passed urging
the entrance of the United States in the League of Nations and the
Bishops passed one in favor of pardoning wartime prisoners. In
the latter resolution, however, the Deputies did not concur.

In 1920 a president was elected who was pledged to "Bring the
Post-war country back to normalcy," and while one may be permitted to
Reaction doubt that that is the word which exactly describes the resulting

condition, it is certain that things were very different from what
they had been during the War or before it. Post-war decades are
likely to be periods of reaction and lethargy, as a result, it may be
presumed, of emotional and economic fatigue. In the present case
the reaction was intensified by the rapid disillusionment with the
wartime ideals, and the consequent discrediting of the Progressive
leaders who had sponsored them. The old Progressive movement,
in fact, had completely disintegrated within a few years after the
War, and a new type of Liberalism had to be developed, which
did not begin to achieve cohesiveness until after a crisis had been
developed by the secondary post-war depression at the end of the
decade. With the collapse of Progressivism, there came a general
cynicism with respect to all professions of lofty ideals, and a vigor
ous "revolt of youth," and of many who were not young, against
all traditional restraints upon the pursuit of pleasure. This is also
a common post-war phenomenon, but in the present case it was
more vocal than usual, and it apparently involved a general re
jection of Victorian sexual standards, which had been receiving a
severe pounding from liberals ever since the closing decade of the
nineteenth century. It was also intensified by the general rebellion
of people of all ages against the unfortunate experiment of pro
hibition. In the resulting confusion quite a few people sought

THE LATEST PHASE 347

hysterically for ideals which were new enough not to have been
discredited, and others turned for refuge to a somewhat neurotic
hedonism.

Such an age was naturally a difficult one for the Church, as it
was for any institution that was committed to ideals of long stand
ing, and, though the total number of its members increased, there
was a slight decrease in the ratio of its membership to the total
population. Nevertheless, though much was said about the prob
lems confronting the Church, its internal history does not seem
to have been much affected by the spirit of the age, though pos
sibly sufficient time has not elapsed for such an effect to become
apparent. Some new agencies were developed in the effort to
regain the younger generation, the most important being the em
ployment of special student pastors at the larger universities of the
country, and the organization of the Young People's Fellowship,
an institution which differed from the earlier Church organiza
tions for young men and women in being open to both sexes. A
society of lay evangelists, known as the Church Army, which had
been organized in England, was transplanted to this country and
has done some work here. In 1931 it was given official approval
by General Convention.

The only thoroughly new movement which developed during
the period was that which is known variously as "Buchmanism," Budunanism
"The First Century Christian Fellowship," and "The Oxford
Group Movement." It represents an experiential type of religion,
and resembles early Methodism in its emphasis upon conversion
and public testimony. Unlike Methodism, however, it is not dis
tinctly a preaching movement, and its chief weakness would seem
to lie in the want of a means of popular appeal, for so far it has
shown itself most successful in personal evangelism among the
upper classes. The Movement is still too new to form any estimate
of its probable influence upon the Church, but it is possible that, if
it should succeed in finding a way of reaching the common people,
it may become an important factor in the Church's history, as it
possesses more emotional force than any other movement among
Churchmen at the present day.

In general, the internal development of the Episcopal Church
since the War seems to have followed the same tendencies of
Catholicization and Liberalization which were apparent in the

348

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Catholicism

and

Liberalism

Modernist
Controversy

earlier period. It might be expected that the growth of these two
apparently contrary tendencies would lead to a steadily sharpening
conflict, but on the whole the tendency has been towards coales
cence, producing, on the one hand, a somewhat liberalized Cathol
icism and, on the other, engendering a greater appreciation of the
Catholic tradition among many Liberals. Such a tendency may be
regarded either as a sign of growing maturity and open-minded-
ness in the Church, or as a symptom of decay, or both, according
to one's point of view. In the history of most institutions, liberalism
performs the same function as the ripening process in fruits. Up to
a certain point the process is necessary to bring complete maturity
and the full usefulness which that implies, but beyond that point
the same process leads to decay, and, unless it is interrupted, as it
often is, by the introduction of some new vitalizing force, to death.
It is, however, practically impossible to locate the exact point at
which the change takes place even when we are able to review
the whole process after it has been completed, and to attempt to
locate that point while the process is still going on would be rash
indeed.

There was a brief conflict between Liberalism and Orthodoxy at
the beginning of the present period when the expression by some
of the leading "Modernists" in the Church of doubts as to the
historicity of the Virgin Birth and the Bodily Resurrection of
Christ led the House of Bishops at a special session in 1923 to
issue a Pastoral Letter insisting upon these beliefs as taught by
the Church, and asserting that their historical accuracy was sup
ported by "the best scholarship of the day." The implication con
veyed in the Pastoral that those who rejected these doctrines could
not honestly remain in the Church, and a threat that had been
made to try a less conspicuous Modernist in another diocese, called
forth a vigorous protest from Dr. Leighton Parks, one of the out
standing leaders of the movement, in a sermon which he preached
in St. Bartholomew's Church, New York, on December 16, 1923.
His assertion in that sermon that, if the position of the Pastoral
were correct, he himself, Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts, Dr.
Worcester of Boston, and other leading Modernists ought to be
brought to trial, naturally provoked a certain amount o excite
ment, but the dispute subsided in a surprisingly short time. Since

THE LATEST PHASE

349

Liberal
Catholicism

then there has, apparently, been a tacit agreement on both sides not
to force the issue.

About the same time that this discussion was going on. Bishop
William Montgomery Brown of Arkansas was deposed for teach
ings contrary to those of the Episcopal Church, having denied,
among other things, the existence of a personal God, and expressed
doubts as to the historical existence of Christ. The event did not,
however, have any great effect upon the Church, as Bishop
Brown's views were too radical to have developed much of a
party. Another bishop, Frederick Joseph Kinsman, of Delaware,
had been lost to the Episcopal Church at the beginning of the
decade through his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Lately, the apparently growing approximation of Catholicism
and Liberalism has found expression in a movement consciously
describing itself as Liberal Catholicism, which expressed its views
in the publication of a collection of Essays Catholic and Critical,,
by a number of English clergymen in 1926, and of another series
called Liberal Catholicism in the Modern World, by a group of
Americans in 1934. The movement seems to represent an effort
to retain the chief features of the Catholic Tradition while, at the
same time, accepting whole-heartedly the results of Biblical criti
cism and of scientific research in all fields of knowledge. Remain
ing substantially orthodox in its teaching, it tends to favor a wider
latitude of belief than did the older Anglo-Catholicism and to
show a greater readiness to re-express traditional beliefs in new
thougRt forms. It has also shown an interest in social problems.

A Liberal Evangelical movement has likewise grown up in re
cent years, seeking to stress the positive contributions of the Refor- The Liberal
mation and of Evangelical Protestantism while retaining the Evangelicals
non-controversial spirit which is essential to Liberalism. While
recognizing the value of the Catholic witness to the corporate life
of the Church, the adherents of the movement believe that "The
spirit of Evangelicalism is the essential guardian of the Church
against the reversions to a lower level of religious life that con
stantly threaten it, externalism, ritualism, intellectualism." To
guard this spirit they have organized themselves into local groups
for prayer and study. As Liberals, they "desire freedom in the
Church for historical study, for theological interpretation, and for

350 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

reverent experimentation in worship ... to set the Spirit free to
reveal the truth of God to our own time."

A number of important institutional changes have marked the
The church post-war period. One of these, the organization of the Church
Pension Fund Pension Fund, took place before the War, but so shortly before
that its operation is a characteristic of the later period. In our
treatment of the colonial Church, we had occasion to mention the
organization of a number of insurance schemes for the relief of
widows and orphans of clergymen. Some of these survived the
Revolution, but they met the needs of only a small portion of the
clergy. During the early nineteenth century, no provision was
made for those who were not reached by these older funds, pos
sibly because the simplicity of the economic system and the fre
quency of remarriage made it comparatively unnecessary. In 1853
the General Convention instituted a fund for the relief of clergy
men's widows which was discontinued in 1868 for want of support
but revived later under the title of the General Clergy Relief Fund.
Unlike the colonial funds, it was a charitable enterprise, not a
system of insurance, and it was never adequate to meet the de
mands upon it.

As the economic strain upon the middle class grew increas
ingly severe with the passing years, and the economic position of
women and children grew steadily worse, a demand for a more
adequate pension system to provide both for widows and orphans
and for aged clergymen developed within the Church as well as
elsewhere. That it was effectively answered was due mainly to the
self-sacrificing exertions of the Right Rev. William Lawrence,
Bishop of Massachusetts, supported by the expert assistance of
Mr. Monell Sayre. Bishop Lawrence's attention was first drawn
to the problem when he discovered that many aged bishops and
other clergymen were obliged to remain in harness long after their
efficiency had been impaired because they lacked the money upon
which to retire. After his election as a trustee of the General Clergy
Relief Fund, he had an opportunity to observe the inefficiency of
the charity system at first hand.

In 1910 Bishop Lawrence introduced into General Convention
a resolution for the appointment of a joint Commission to con
sider the whole question of clerical support, though apparently with
the expectation that it would deal chiefly with the pension problem.

THE LATEST PHASE 351

Most of the work of the Commission fell, of course, upon his
shoulders. With the aid of Mr. Sayre, who had been recommended
to him as probably knowing more about pensions than anyone
else in the country, he set to work to invent a system which, while
being voluntary in character, would, nevertheless, have in it the
strongest possible elements of moral compulsion. The result was a
system based upon sound insurance principles, with the assess
ments, which were in proportion to the salary, being paid, not by
the clergyman, but by his parish or other employing institution.

This system was finally approved by the General Convention of
1916, but the problem still remained of raising an initial fund of
five million and fifty thousand dollars which was considered neces
sary to put it into successful operation. This was, at the time, an
almost unprecedented sum to raise by voluntary subscription.
Bishop Lawrence resigned his diocese to devote himself to the
task, and succeeded in getting the fund over-subscribed by the
spring of 1917. In doing so, he developed methods of campaigning
which were put to use again in many of the wartime "drives."

The next important institutional development of the period was
the coordination of the missionary and other activities of the The Presiding
general Church under the leadership of the Presiding Bishop, as-
sisted by a National Council, which thus replaced the old Board
of Missions. The first step towards this change was made by pro
viding that the office of Presiding Bishop should be elective, instead
of being filled by seniority as it had been before. Amendments for
this purpose were introduced at several General Conventions, but
the change was not finally approved until 1919. It was not to take
effect until the death of the then incumbent, Bishop Tuttle, but the
organization of the National Council was carried out at once
through a revision of the constitution of the Missionary Society.
Under the Council were to be departments of Missions and
Church Extension, Religious Education, Christian Social Service,
Finance, Publicity, and the Nationwide Campaign. Most of these,
except the missionary department and the one last named, repre
sented Commissions of General Convention which had previously
been uncoordinated. The first Presiding Bishop to be elected to the
office was the Right Rev. John Gardner Murray, Bishop of Mary
land, who was chosen in 1926. The term of office is six years, but
Bishop Murray died in 1929, and was succeeded by the Right Rev.

and

352 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Charles Palmerston Anderson of Chicago, who only lived until
the following year. His successor, the Right Rev. James DeWolf
Perry, is still in office. In W34 the system was again changed, by
relieving the Presiding Bishop of administrative work, so that he
might devote his time to spiritual leadership.

The executive functions formerly performed by the Presiding
Bishop are now entrusted to the President of the National Council,
of which office the Right Rev. Philip Cook is the present incum
bent. The work of the Council is organized in two divisions. The
first includes the departments of Domestic Missions, Foreign Mis
sions (which also administers the work in our extracontinental ter
ritories), Religious Education, and Christian Social Service. The
second division includes the departments of Finance and Publicity,
and the Field Department.

The World War showed the effectiveness which could be
achieved by large-scale "drives" for raising money, and after it was
over an attempt was made to apply the lesson in the Church by
organizing a "Nationwide Campaign" to raise money for its mis
sionary and other activities. The drive was only moderately suc
cessful, but it has been succeeded by several similar efforts. In
some of the later drives an effort was made to call forth a spiritual
revival as well, but it is probable that to the mind of the average
layman they have continued to appear chiefly as expedients for
raising money. The Forward Movement, which was set on foot by
the General Convention of 1934, has, however, concentrated its
efforts entirely upon deepening the devotional life o the Church,
especially through the distribution of daily Bible readings and
meditations. It appears to be meeting with a very satisfactory re
sponse from the laity.

The present period has witnessed a second revision of the Amer-
Praycr Book ican Book of Common Prayer, which was begun in 1913 and given
Revision na } a pp rO val by the General Convention of 1928. It resulted in

some alteration in the order of the Communion Service, the
Lord's Prayer being placed before the Prayer of Humble Access,
which was, in turn, moved up, in order to come immediately be
fore the Administration of the Elements. The Baptismal Service
was modified to provide a single service that could be used either
for infants or adults. Some changes were also made in the Burial
Service and the Marriage Service, including the omission from

THE LATEST PHASE 353

the latter of the promise of obedience. A number of special prayers
were added, the translation of the Psalter was revised, and pro
vision was made for a greater flexibility in the use of the Psalms
and Scripture lessons.

The development of an interest in child psychology and the
effort to turn the art of teaching into a science, which have been Religious
characteristic of the twentieth century, have had their effect upon Education
the Sunday schools of the Church, and the result has been the
adoption of a more elaborate systematization of the classes and the
attempt to secure technically trained teachers. As a result of this
tendency, a Commission on Religious Education was created be
fore the War, and it has become a department of the National
Council since. An effort was also made to develop a single course
of instruction for the whole Church, so that children transferring
from one Sunday school to another would find the same subjects
being taught. For this purpose the Christian Nurture Series was
worked out, and has been adopted by a great many parishes.

The Order of Deaconesses has not proven as popular with
women Church workers as its sponsors hoped that it would, and
only a small portion of such workers have joined it. At the General
Convention of 1931 an effort was made to increase the appeal of
the order to young women by relaxing some of the restrictions
upon its members. The requirement that they could not marry
while in the order was repealed, and they were freed from the
necessity of wearing a habit at all times. In 1934 the privilege of
marriage was withdrawn, but the deaconesses were allowed to
make addresses if licensed by the bishop.

Efforts for promoting Church unity have continued in the
present period along more or less the same lines as they did in church
the preceding one. In 1919, as the result of a concordat with the Unit y
Congregational Church, a canon was passed allowing for the
ordination of ministers to serve in congregations outside of the
Episcopal Church with the understanding that the congregations
were to continue under episcopally-ordained ministers, that the
Lord's Supper would be administered in the Words of Institution,
and only the baptized admitted to it. A hope was also expressed
that the rite of Confirmation would ultimately be adopted by such
Churches. The stipulation that the congregations would be ex
pected to remain under episcopally-ordained ministers was not in

354 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

the original concordat, and its addition by our Church has caused
the arrangement to become largely inoperative. At the same ses
sion, Cardinal Mercier, who, in addition to his heroic work in
Belgium during the German occupation, had been associated with
efforts at a rapprochement between the Roman and Anglican com
munions which have since been condemned by the Pope, was
presented to the Convention.

In 1925 General Convention voted to cooperate with the Federal
Council of Churches in the departments of Social Service, Race
Relations, International Justice and Good Will, Research and Edu
cation, Religious Press, Finance, and Army and Navy Chaplain
cies. In 1927 the Episcopal Church participated in the first World
Conference on Faith and Order at Lausanne, Switzerland, where
representatives of all the leading Christian bodies except the
Roman Catholic Church discussed the problems of unity. Prepa
rations are already being made for assisting at a second such con
ference in 1937. In 1931 conferences were held by committees of
General Convention with a number of Protestant denominations,
but no definite results were reached. Numerous conversations
have also been held with representatives of the Eastern Orthodox
Church, and there has been some practical cooperation in this
country, but as yet no official act of communion has taken place.
In 1934 inter-communion with the Old Catholics, as worked out
by the Lambeth Conference, was approved by General Conven
tion, and a canon on alien rites was adopted which made it pos
sible to receive into communion with this Church individual
congregations professing the Catholic Creed but not using our
forms of worship. An effort to give practical application to the
canon by the election of the Right Rev. John Torok, a bishop in
Eastern Orthodox orders, as Suffragan Bishop of Eau Claire was,
however, defeated by the House of Bishops.

The interest in social questions has also continued into the
Interest in present period. The Commission on Christian Social Service has
Questions become a department of the National Council, and carries on the
work of issuing publications, holding conferences, and giving ad
vice to the charitable institutions of the Church. General Con
vention, while not issuing any clear pronouncement upon
fundamental economic or political issues, has apparently felt that

THE LATEST PHASE 355

all sorts of minor social problems came within its competence, and
resolutions have been passed against mob violence, religious and
racial intolerance, opium, and the marriage of the unfit, and in
favor of the Boy Scouts, kindness to animals, and the Near East
Relief, as well as upon many other subjects of a similar character.
Approval has been expressed of the various disarmament confer
ences and the arbitration of international disputes, and aggressive
war has been declared a crime. Labor and Capital have been invited
to adopt the principle of "partnership as an expression of Christian
brotherhood in business." In 1934 adherence to the World Court
was advocated, and resolutions were adopted opposing the
Church's blessing of war in any way, appointing a commission to
cooperate with other denominations in opposing war, endorsing a
world conference on war and peace, and calling upon the Federal
Government to recognize the rights of conscientious objectors.
Through a parliamentary blunder on the part of the Liberals, no
resolutions on economic questions were adopted, but the Bishops
in their Pastoral Letter described the present economic order as
one of "lamentable inadequacy." A resolution was adopted advo
cating the legalization of instruction in birth control under proper
regulations.

In 1931 the General Convention adopted a canon regarding mar
riage and divorce which involved some modification of the tradi
tional position of the Episcopal Church upon that subject. It Marriage and
provided for instruction and a delay before marriage, and con- Divorce
tinued the prohibition of the marriage by Church ministers of
divorced persons, except the innocent party to a divorce for adul
tery, but it also provided for the annulment of a marriage in cer
tain cases. When this took place, remarriage was to be permitted.
Moreover, when a minister thought that persons desirous of re
ceiving Confirmation or Communion had been married contrary
to the Word of God and the discipline of the Church, he was to
refer the matter to the bishop, who should give his judgment in
writing "after due enquiry . . . and taking into consideration the
godly discipline both of justice and mercy," an expression which
would seem to imply that he might admit them even if they had
been so married. Persons who had been married by civil authority
and had any doubt as to the validity of their union might also

356 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Missionary
Work

The Foreign
Field in
1935

submit their cases to the bishop for judgment, a rule which was
presumably also intended to cover cases of remarriage.

The missionary work of the Church went on as usual in most
places during the war, but there was a certain amount of inter
ruption in some jurisdictions. Bishop Brent engaged extensively in
war work, and it would seem that his doing so distracted his at
tention from the affairs of the Philippines, for when his successor,
the Right Rev. Gouverneur Frank Mosher, went out in 1920, he
found some phases of the work in an unsatisfactory condition. The
cathedral at Manila had been nearly destroyed by white ants, the
cathedral dormitory was temporarily closed, the settlement work
had been given up, and so had the cathedral school for American
girls. It should be observed, however, that two years had elapsed
between Bishop Brent's resignation and the election of his suc
cessor, which might account for the decline. Bishop Ferguson of
Liberia had died in 1916, and his successor, the Right Rev. Walter
Henry Overs, was not consecrated until 1919. When he arrived he
found many of the mission structures badly broken down, and
had to assume the difficult task of rebuilding. He resigned in 1925
and was succeeded by the Right Rev. Robert Erskine Campbell of
the Order of the Holy Cross, which had long been carrying on an
important work in that field.

In 1935 the missionary district of Anking reported 1,831 com
municants, that of Hankow reported 2,635, and that of Shanghai
4,566, making a total for China of 9,032, or an increase of 5,553
over 1915. The figure was slightly lower than that reported in the
preceding year, however, because of a loss of 408 communicants
in Hankow. The Church in Japan had obtained a semi-inde
pendent status with the organization of the Nippon Sei Kokwai,
or Holy Catholic Church of Japan, in 1922, and a new district, that
of Tohoku, had been added in 1928. Tohoku reported 942 com
municants in 1935, North Tokyo (formerly Tokyo), reported
1,404, and Kyoto 1,876, making a total of 4,222, or an increase of
1,041 over 1915. It must be remembered that these figures do not
represent the totals for either the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui
or the Nippon Sei Kokwai, but only for the portions of those
Churches which are supported by the American Episcopal Church.
Liberia reported 5,539 communicants in 1935, or an increase of
3,038 over 1915. In Haiti the 843 communicants of 1915 had

THE LATEST PHASE 357

increased to 5,435, besides 1,066 in the Dominican Republic. Cuba
had added 1,464 communicants, making a total of 3,141, and
Brazil had increased from 1,304 to 4,058. Mexico, however, had
lost thirty-nine communicants, the number in 1935 being only
1,867. This decrease was probably the result, in part at least, of the
political difficulties which confronted the Church, as well as other
denominations, in that country.

The annual rate of increase in China had risen from 121 com
municants a year in the period from 1890 to 1915 to 278 a year Rate of
in the ensuing twenty years, and, in Liberia, from seventy-seven Increase
to 152. In Japan, however, the rate had declined from ninety-three
to fifty-two. This comparison cannot be made for the Latin Amer
ican countries as no statistics for them were reported in 1890. With
the exception of Mexico, however, their rate of increase for the
period from 1915 to 1935 compared favorably with those of the
other fields. The Church in Haiti had grown at a rate of 230 com
municants a year, that in Brazil at a rate of 138, and that in Cuba
at a rate of seventy-three. There was also a substantial growth of
the Church in most of our extra-continental possessions. Puerto
Rico showed the largest increase, the number of communicants
there having grown from 486 in 1915 to 6,146 in 1935. The
Philippines came next, with an increase of 5,593, making a total
of 6,723 in 1935. Honolulu reported 3,588, an increase of 1,851
over 1915. Alaska, in spite of a decreasing population, had added
609 communicants, having 1,630 in 1935.

The economic depression which began in 1929 and whose end
is still being awaited, has been widely regarded as marking the
end of an era. Historians should know better than to prophesy,
but the present writer is disposed to hazard the prediction that
when enough time has passed to permit viewing the present time
with a certain degree of perspective, the old era will be held to
have ended with the World War and the decade just past, and
probably the present one will be seen as the period of instability
and confusion that intervened before the standards of the new
era could be crystallized into a recognizable form. He does not,
however, pretend to have any idea what that era will be like when
it comes, or what role the Church will be called upon to play in it.

If the author is right in his understanding of the contemporary

358 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Statistics,
1935

Church
Organizations

situation, it is obvious that he cannot hope to end his narrative
with even that approximate finality which may be achieved by a
historian who terminates his work with the end of an epoch. It has
seemed best, therefore, to close by simply giving a brief summary
of the present position of the Episcopal Church, and to leave the
subsequent chapters to be written by time.

In 1935 the total number of communicants of the American
Episcopal Church in all countries was 1,363,414, of whom 35,657
were accounted for by the foreign field, leaving a total of 1,327,757
communicants in the United States and its possessions, 21,485
being located in the latter. Of the communicants within the con
tinental United States, 842,312, or 64 l / 2 per cent, were located north
of the Mason and Dixon line and the Ohio River, and east of the
Mississippi. In the southeastern states there were 245,966 com
municants, or 19 per cent, so that, in all, 83 ! /z per cent of the total
number of the communicants of the Episcopal Church were living
east of the Mississippi. In the region between the Mississippi and
the Pacific States there were 149,317 communicants, or ll l / 2 per
cent of the total, and in the 'Pacific States there were 68,677 or five
per cent of the total.

Thus, there had been little increase in the proportionate strength
of either of the western areas, and the membership of the Episcopal
Church was still overwhelmingly eastern. The center of Church
population was estimated to be at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
whereas the center of the general population was at Linton, Indi
ana, some six hundred miles farther west. There were still fifteen
missionary districts within the continental United States, all of
them west of the Mississippi. The Church was still predominantly
urban and upper class in its membership, though a growing in
terest in rural work had developed, as witnessed by the develop
ment of special diocesan missioners in many dioceses, and the
appointment of a secretary for rural work in the Department of
Christian Social Service.

The modern period has been very prolific in organizations, and
there are at present a great many official and unofficial institutions
functioning in the Church. Of the official organizations, the most
important, besides the National Council, are the Woman's Aux
iliary, the Commission on College Work, the Order of Deacon
esses, the Church Army, and the Church Pension Fund and its

THE LATEST PHASE 359

affiliates, the Church Properties Fire Insurance Corporation, and
the Church Life Insurance Corporation. The unofficial or semi
official organizations include institutions for special religious and
social work, such as the Church Mission of Help, the American
Church Institute for Negroes, and the City Mission Society; gen
eral social and devotional societies, such as the Brotherhood of
St. Andrew, the Girl's Friendly Society, the Young People's
Fellowship, and the Daughters of the King; organizations for
propaganda and discussion, such as the Church Congress, the
Anglo-Catholic Congress, the Church Club, and the Church
League for Industrial Democracy; and institutions for the per
formance of special services, such as the Church Periodical Club
and the Church Historical Society. There are also a large number
of hospitals, homes for the aged, orphan asylums, and other social
agencies connected with the Church in various cities. There are six
religious communities for men, of which the best known are the
Society of St. John the Evangelist and the Order of the Holy
Cross, and sixteen for women, including the Sisterhood of St.
Margaret, the Community of St. Mary, and the Sisterhood of the
Holy Nativity.

There are fourteen theological seminaries in the Church, of
which the most important are the General Theological Seminary, Theological
New York City; the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Seminaries
Massachusetts; the Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria,
Virginia; the Philadelphia Divinity School, Philadelphia, Penn
sylvania; Seabury- Western, Evanston, Illinois; Nashotah House,
Nashotah, Wisconsin; Bexley Hall, Gambier, Ohio; Berkeley
Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut; and the Divinity
School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California. The depression has
lessened the income of all of the seminaries to some extent, and a
few of them have been threatened with the necessity of closing alto
gether. Four colleges have some degree of association with the
Church: Hobart College, Geneva, New York; Trinity College,
Hartford, Connecticut; Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; and the
University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. Besides these there
are several schools for Deaconesses and other Church workers,
and a larger number of summer schools, intended chiefly for
training in religious education.

The periodicals mentioned in Chapter XIV, The Churchman,

360 A HISTORY OF Tt^E AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Living Church, and the Southern Churchman carried on their
work of reporting and commenting in the post-war period. In
recent years they have been joined by The Witness, published at
Chicago, under the editorship o Bishop Johnson of Colorado.
The Uving Church Annual continued its statistical record of the
Church's life throughout the period.

Though there were 6,356 ministers to 8,222 parishes and missions
* n t ^ ie ^ n * tec * States in 1935, the number of parishes which were
unable to support a minister, or dependent upon the part-time
services of one, was so great that there appeared to be a surplus of
clergy with respect to the paid positions. As an excess of ministers
is a new thing in the history of the American Episcopal Church,
it has attracted a good deal of attention, but whether it is to become
a permanent situation or not, it is impossible to say. It would
seem to be fairly certain that the surplus is created by a shortage
of funds rather than by a lack of work to be done, and it is equally
obvious that, unless the Episcopal Church is prepared to reconcile
itself to a condition of stagnation or, more probably, of decline, it
cannot go on indefinitely adhering to a policy of curtailment and
economy in the management of its afiairs, whether parochial,
diocesan, or national. When it has once again developed an ex
panding work, it may be doubted that it will find itself over-
supplied with ministers.

Courtesy, General Convention Committee, Diocese of New Jersey

PANORAMIC VIEW OF OPENING SERVK
Atlantic City, 1

N THE 5iST TRIENNIAL GENERAL CONVENTION
Jersey, October 10, 1934.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This list is not intended to be complete, but to serve as a guide
to further study. Only the most fruitful sources are mentioned.

I. OFFICIAL AND SEMI-OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
A. Colonial

Hawks Transcripts. Ms. copies of letters, reports, etc.,
bearing on the colonial Church, in files of S.P.G. and
Bishop of London. Basic source for eighteenth century.
Now in New York Historical Society Library, New
York City. Portions have been published as follows:
Hawks, F. L., and Perry, W. S., ed., Documentary
History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut,
2 vols. New York, 1863.

Perry, W. S., ed., Historical Collections Relating to
the American Colonial Church. Hartford, 1870 if.
One volume each for Maryland-Delaware, Massa-
. chusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Abstracts of
Proceedings, appended to annual Sermons. London,
1704-83.

B. Post-Revolutionary

Diocese of Illinois. Memorial to the Standing Committees,

signed by sundry laymen and presbyters, protesting the

De Koven election. Chicago, 1875.
Diocese of Illinois. The Legality of the Election of Dr.

De Koven, by the Chancellor (S. C. Judd). Chicago,

1875.
Diocese of Massachusetts. Correspondence between the

Bishop and the Rectors of the Parish of the Advent.

Boston, 1856.
Diocese of New York. Trial of the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng,

Jr. New York, 1868. Case of intrusion.
361

362 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Diocese of North Carolina. Statement of the Difficulties
between the Diocese and Dr. Ives, Lately Bishop of
Said Diocese, prepared by a committee of the Conven
tion. Fayetteville, 1853.

Diocesan Journals. Those of the older dioceses are espe
cially important in tracing the reorganization and early
growth of the Church after the Revolution.

Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Proceedings,
1823-1920. Contains acts of Society, summaries of work
being done, extracts from reports of missionaries, and
statistics.

General Convention. Journals. Published triennially.
Journals, 1784-1814; reprinted, Bioren, Philadelphia,
1817. The debates of the more important conventions,
as 1862, 1865, and 1874, should be followed in the Con
vention Dailies or other Church papers.

General Theological Seminary. Proceedings of the Board
of Trustees, 1821.

House of Bishops. Pastoral Letters. Published after nearly
every General Convention, and occasionally at special
meetings. Those for 1865, 1892, and 1923 are especially
important.

Parish Records and Histories, published or ms. Useful
chiefly for purposes of illustration, but those of some
old parishes, as Henrico, Virginia; Christ Church, Phil
adelphia; Trinity, New York; and King's Chapel, Bos
ton, contain material of general interest.

Presiding Bishop and Council. Annual Report, 1920 .
Continuation of Domestic and Foreign Missionary
Society. Proceedings.

Protestant Episcopal Church. The Decision of the Bishops
Who United in the Consecration of the Rev. Henry U.
Onderdonk, D.D. Philadelphia, 1827.

Protestant Episcopal Church. Proceedings of the Court
Convened for the Trial of the Right Rev. Benjamin T.
Onderdonk, D.D. New York, 1845.

Protestant Episcopal Church. Proceedings of the Court
Assembled for the Trial of the Rt. Rev. George Wash
ington Doane, D.D., LL.D. New York, 1853.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 363

Protestant Episcopal Church. In the Court of Review i In
the Matter of the Presentment of Bishop William Mont
gomery Brown; On Appeal from Trial Court. Cleve
land, 1925.

Province of South Africa. Trial of Dr. Colenso, Bishop of
Natal. Cape Town, 1863.

Year Books:

Swords' Pocket Almanac. New York, 1816-60.
Whittaker's Churchman s Almanac. New York, 1874-

1908.

Living Church Annual, The. Milwaukee, 1890 . Pub
lished, 1890-99, as The Living Church Quarterly.

II. UNOFFICIAL MANUSCRIPTS

Hobart, J. H., mss., 1800-30. In New York Historical Society
Library.

Jarvis, Abraham, mss., owned by Rev. H. C. Robbins (Not
consulted) .

Johnson, S. R., mss. In General Theological Seminary Li
brary. Illustrative of Church life in early nineteenth century,
especially in the West.

Kemper, Jackson, mss. In Library of Wisconsin Historical
Society. Illustrative of missionary work in the Northwest.
Can be used only with permission of the Bishop of Mil
waukee.

Smith, William, mss. In New York Historical Society Li
brary. Important for late colonial period and period of
organization.

White, William, mss. In New York Historical Society Li
brary. Essential to understanding of period of organization.
Valuable for Revolution and early nineteenth-century
history.

III. PERIODICALS

(All of those given, except the first two, have or have had a
national circulation. The two exceptions are chosen as
samples of the smaller papers characteristic of the early
nineteenth century.)

Banner of the Church. Boston, 1831-2.

Church Register. Philadelphia, 1823-9.

364 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Church Journal. New York, 1853-?.

Churchman, The. Hartford and New York, 180-1. Publica
tion Interrupted, 1812, 1816-20, and 1824.

Living Church f The. Chicago and Milwaukee, 1878 .

Spirit of Missions, The. New York, 1836 . An important
source for missionary history. The earlier volumes are of
greater value to the historian than the later, because the
reports of the missionaries received less editing.

Witness, The. Chicago.

IV. PAMPHLETS
A. Colonial.

(Titles marked with an asterisk (*) are taken from Cross,
A. L., Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies,
and were not consulted by the present writer.)
*Apthorp, East, Considerations on the Character and Con
duct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
Boston, 1763.
*Apthorp, East, A Review of Dr. Mayhew's Remarks on

the Answer to His Observations.
*Beach, John, A Calm and Dispassionate Vindication of

the Professors of the Church of England, 1749.
Blackburne, Francis, A Critical Commentary on Arch
bishop Seeder's Letter to the Right Honorable Horatio
Walpole, London, 1770.
Bray, Thomas, The Acts of Dr. Bray's Visitation Held at

Annapolis in Maryland. London, 1700.
Bray, Thomas, A General View of the English Colonies
in America with Respect to Religion. London, 1698.
Bray, Thomas, A Letter from Dr. Bray to Such as Have
Contributed Towards the Propagating of Christian
Knowledge in the Plantations. New York, 1700.
Bray, Thomas, A Memorial Representing the Present Case

of the Church in Maryland. 1700.

Bray, Thomas, A Memorial Representing the Present
State of Religion on the Continent of North America.
London, 1700.
Bray, Thomas, Proposals for the Encouragement and Pro-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 365

mating of Religion and Learning in the Foreign Planta
tions. 1701(?).

Bray, Thomas, Several Circular Letters to the Clergy of

Maryland. London, 1701. This and the preceding

pamphlets by Thomas Bray have been reprinted by the

Thomas Bray Club.

*Caner, Henry, A Candid Examination of Dr. Mayhew's

Observations. Boston, 1763.
*Chandler, T. B., An Appeal to the Public in Behalf of the

Church of England in America. New York, 1767.
Chandler, T. B., The Appeal Defended. New York, 1769.
Chandler, T. B., The Appeal Farther Defended. New

York, 1771.

Chandler, T. B., A Free Examination of the Critical Com
mentary on Archbishop Seeker's Letter. New York,
1774.
*Chauncy, Charles, An Appeal to the Public Answered.

Boston, 1768.

*Chauncy, Charles, A Letter to a Friend. Boston, 1767.
Cooper, Miles, et al. f An Address from the Clergy of New
Yor%_ and Neus Jersey to the 'Episcopalians of Virginia.
New York, 1771.
*Gwatkin, Thomas, A Letter to the Clergy of Neus Yorf^

and Neus Jersey. Williamsburg, Virginia, 1772.
*Hobart, Noah, A Serious Address to the Members of the
Episcopal Separation in New England. Boston, 1748.
*Inglis, Charles, A Vindication of the Bishop of Landlaff's

Sermon. New York, 1768.

Inglis, Charles, State of the Anglo- American Church in
1776. n. d. Also to be found in Hawks' Transcripts for
New York.

*Mayhew, Jonathan, Observations on the Charter and Con
duct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
London, 1763.
*"Wetmore, James, Vindication of the Professors of the

Church of England in Connecticut. 1747.
B. Post-Revolutionary

Allen, Benjamin, A Letter to the Right Reverend John
Henry Hobart, D.D. Philadelphia, 1827.

366 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Allen, Benjamin, Second letter to the Right Reverend
John Henry Hobart, D.D. Philadelphia, 1827. These
two letters relate to the election controversy in Penn
sylvania.

Binney, Horace, The Case of the Right Rev. Henry U.
Onderdon\, D.D. Philadelphia, 1853. A plea for Onder-
donk's restoration.
Griswold, A. V., An Address to the Biennial Convention

of the Eastern Diocese. Providence, 1818.
Griswold, A. V., An Address to the Tenth Convention of

the Eastern Diocese. Boston, 1825.
Griswold, A. V., An Address to the Twelfth Convention

of the Eastern Diocese. Middlebury, Vermont, 1827.
Griswold, A. V., A Charge Addressed to the Clergy of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Eastern Diocese, to
Which is Prefixed a Pastoral Letter. Boston, 1816. A
plea for missionary effort.

Harrison, Hall, Loose Him and Let Him Go. Boston,
189L A speech against recall of Father Hall for support
of Bishop Brooks.
Hobart, J. H., An Address to Episcopalians on the Subject

of the American Bible Society. New York, 1816.
Hobart, J. H., A Charge to the Clergy of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the State of New Yor^ New
York, 1815. His first charge. Deals with doctrine of the
ministry.

Hobart, J. H., The Churchman: The Principles of the
Churchman Stated and Explained in Distinction -from
the Corruptions of the Church of Rome and from the
Errors of Certain Protestant Sects. New York, 1819.
Third charge.

Hobart, J. H., The Corruptions of the Church of Rome
Contrasted with Certain Protestant Errors. New York,
1818. Second charge.
Hobart, J. H., The High Churchman Vindicated. New

York, 1826. Fourth charge.

Hobart, J. H., Letter to the Vestry of Trinity Church in
Answer to a Pamphlet Entitled, "A Solemn Appeal to

BIBLIOGRAPHY 367

the Church:' New York, 1811. Deals with "Cave Jones
Affair."

Hobart, J. H., A Pastoral Letter on the Subject of the
Protestant Episcopal Clerical Association. New York,
1829.

Hobart, J. H., A Pastoral Letter Relative to Measures for
the Theological Education of Candidates for Orders.
New York, 1820.

Hobart, J. H., A Statement to the Episcopalians in the
State of Neus Yor^ Relative to Some Recent Events in
the Protestant Episcopal Church in Said State. New
York, 1812. Deals with "Cave Jones Affair."

Hopkins, J. H., The Latv of Ritualism. New York, 1867.

Ives, L. S., The Priestly Office: A Pastoral JLetter to the
Clergy of North Carolina. New York, 1849.

Ives, L. S., A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and I^aity of
His Diocese. New York, 1849. Deals with controversies
that led to his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Jay, William, A Letter to the Right Reverend Bishop
Hobart Occasioned by the Strictures on Bible Societies
in His Late Charge to the Convention of Neus Yor^.
New York, 1823.

Jones, Cave, Dr. Hobart' s System of Intolerance Exempli
fied in His ILate Proceedings against His Colleague, the
Author. New York, n. d.

Jones, Cave, A Solemn Appeal to the Church. New York,
1811. The opening gun of his controversy with Hobart.

Meade, William, Statement in Reply to Some Parts of
Bishop OnderdonJ^s Statement. New York, 1845. De
fends his role in Onderdonk trial.

Muhlenberg, W. A., An Exposition of the Memorial of
Sundry Presbyters. New York, 1854,

Muhlenberg, W. A., Memorial of Sundry Presbyters of
the Protestant Episcopal Church, Presented to the
House of Bishops. October 18, 1853.

Muhlenberg, W. A., What the Memorialists Want. New
York, 1856.

Onderdonk, B. T., A Statement of the Pacts and Circum-

368 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

stances Connected with the Recent Trial of the Bishop
of New Yorj(. New York, 1845.

Onderdonk, B. T., et aL, Full and True Statement of the
Examination and Ordination of Mr. Arthur Carey.
New York, 1843. Extracted from The Churchman.
Parks, Leighton, Intellectual Integrity. New York, 1923.
Seymour, G. F., An Open Letter to the Right Rev. Wil
liam C. Doane in Reference to the Consecration of the
Right Rev. Dr. Broods. Springfield, Illinois, 1892. Gives
account of his reasons for opposing consecration and
measures he took to prevent it.

Smith, Hugh, and Anthon, Henry, A Statement of Facts

in Relation to the Recent Ordination in St. Stephen s

Church. New York, 1843. Presentation of the case

against the ordination of Arthur Carey.

White, William, The Case of the Episcopal Churches in

the United States Considered. Philadelphia, 1783.
White, William, The Integrity of Christian Doctrine and
the Sanctity of Christian Practice United in Christian
Preaching. New York, 1811. Illustrative of White's the
ological position.

White, William, The Past and Future, a Charge on Events
Connected with the Organization of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. Philadelphia, 1834.
Anonymous :

Considerations on the Eastern Diocese. Boston, 1837.

A discussion of its canonical status.

Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Clerical Asso
ciation of the City of New Yor^ and Forms of Prayer
Used by the Association. New York, 1829. This is the
association attacked by Hobart.

The Liberal Evangelicals: Purpose, Program and Or
ganization. 1933.

Resolutions Adopted at a Meeting of Episcopalians at

Mechanics Hall; also Ttt/o Letters from the Hon.

John Jay. New York, 1812. Relates to "Cave Jones

Affair."

A Statement of the Facts and Reasonings in Support of

BIBLIOGRAPHY 369

the 'Remonstrance against the Consecration of the
Rev. Henry U. Onderdon\, D.D. Philadelphia, 1827.

V. MISCELLANEOUS SOURCES

A. Colonial

(See note under IV-A.)

Bradford, William, History of Plymouth Plantation.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908.

Slafter, E. F., John Chec^ley, or the Evolution of Religious
Tolerance in Massachusetts Bay, 2 vols. Boston, 1897.
Writings o Checkley, prefixed with a somewhat parti
san biography.

Winthrop, John, Journal, 2 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons,

New York, 1908.

*The American Whig, 2 vols. New York, 1768-9. Re
printed from newspapers.

Collections of the Protestant Episcopal Historical Society
for the Year 1851. New York, 1851. Only year published.
Contains Journal and Letters of Keith and Talbot, dis
cussion of Nonjuring episcopate, and other documents
on colonial period.

B. Post-Revolutionary

CaswalL, Henry, America and the American Church.
London, 1839. The American Episcopal Church is seen
by an Englishman who served some years in the min
istry.

Gavin, F. S. B., ed., Liberal Catholicism and the Modern
World. Morehouse Publishing Co., Milwaukee, 1934.

Gore, Charles, ed., Lux Mundi, 2nd ed. John Murray,
London, 1890.

Griswold, A. V., Discourses on the Most Important Doc
trines and Duties of the Christian Religion. Philadel
phia, 1830. Sermons illustrative of the Evangelical point
of view.

Hobart, J. H., An Afology for Apostolic Order and Its
Advocates. New York, 1807.

Hobart, J. H., A Collection of the Essays on the Subject of

370 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Episcopacy which originally appeared in the Albany
CentineL New York, 1806 (with others).
Hobart, J. H., A Companion for the Altar, 4th ed. New

York, 1835.
Hobart, J. H., A Companion for the Boof^ of Common

Prayer. New York, 1805.
Hobart, J. H. ? A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts.

New York, 1804. Based on Nelson's Companion.
Hopkins, J. H., A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and Historical

View of Slavery. New York, 1864.

Huntington, W. R., The Church Idea, 5th ed. Boston,
1928. First published, 1870. Contains the famous "Quad
rilateral."

Ives, L. S., The Trials of a Mind in Its Progress to Ca
tholicism. Boston, 1854.

Kemper, Jackson, Journal of an Episcopalian Missionary's
Tour to Green Bay, 1834 f and Documents Relating to the
Episcopal Church and Mission in Green Bay, 1825-41.
Madison, 1898. Reprinted from Vol. XIV, Collections of
the Wisconsin State Historical Society, The record of
Kemper's first visit to the West. Important chiefly for
its account of Cadle's difficulties with Green Bay School.
Lowndes, Arthur, ed., Archives of General Convention,
6 vols. New York, 1911. Hobart Correspondence, 1798-
1806, edited with extensive notes.

Mason, J. M., Essays on Episcopacy and the Apology for

Apostolic Order and Its Advocates Reviewed. New

York, 1844. A Presbyterian answer to Hobart 's defense

of episcopacy.

Mcllvaine, Q P., Oxford Divinity Compared with that of

the Romish and Anglican Churches. London, 1841.
Muhlenberg, W. A., Evangelical Catholic Papers, 2 vols.
New York, 1875. Miscellaneous writings, collected by
Anne Ay res.
Newman, J. H., et al. f Tracts for the Times, 3 vols. New

York, 1839.

Perry, W. S., ed., Historical Notes Illustrating the Organ
ization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Claremont,

BIBLIOGRAPHY 371

New Hampshire, 1874. Mainly a collection of docu
ments.

Potter, Alonzo, ed., Memorial Papers. Philadelphia, 1857,
Essays by leading clergymen on subject of Muhlenberg
Memorial, collected by Bishops' Committee.

Selwyn, E. G,, ed., Essays Catholic and Critical. The Mac-
millan Company, New York, 1930. Expressive of Lib
eral Catholic viewpoint.

Temple, William, ed., Essays and Reviews, 4th ed. Bos
ton, 1862. Contains first use of Higher Criticism by
Anglican theologians.

Vail, T. H., The Comprehensive Church. Hartford, 1841.
A scheme of Church unity similar to that proposed by
Dr. Huntington 30 years later.

Walworth, C. A., The Oxford Movement in America.
New York, 1895. Reminiscences of General Seminary
in the early forties, by a student who became a convert
to Roman Catholicism.

Waylen, Edward, Ecclesiastical Reminiscences of the
United States. New York, 1846. The American Epis
copal Church as seen by an English traveler.

White, William, Commentaries Suited to Occasions of
Ordination. New York, 1833. Illustrative of "White's
theological position, as are also the three following
works.

W'hite, W'illiam, Comparative Views of the Controversy
between the Calvinists and the Arrninians, 2 vols. Phil
adelphia, 1817.

White, William, Counter- Apology against Robert Bar
clay, Quaker Apologist. Unpublished ms. in archives of
Christ Church, Philadelphia.

"White, William, Lectures on the Catechism of the Prot
estant Episcopal Church. Philadelphia, 1813.

White, William, Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, 3rd ed. New York, 1880. A valuable source for
period of organization and years following, but should
be checked by contemporary documents as it was writ
ten some years after the events it describes.

372 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

VI. BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

(Those listed are selected either because of the importance
of their subjects, or because they contain numerous letters
or other contemporary documents. Most of the authors are
contemporaries of their subjects.)

Allen, A. V. G., Phillips Broo\s, 1835-93, E. P. Dutton & Co.,
Inc., New York, 1907.

Allen, T. G,, Memoir of the Rev. Benjamin Allen. Philadel
phia, 1832.

Ayres, Anne, The Life and Wor\ of William Augustus
Muhlenberg. New York, 1894.

Barry,, J. G. H., Impressions and Opinions. Edwin S. Gor-
ham, Inc., New York, 1931. Autobiography.

Beardsley, E. E., Life and Correspondence of the Right Rev
erend Samuel Seabttry, D.D. Boston, 1881.

Breck, Charles, Life of the Reverend James Uoyd Brec^
D.D. New York, 1886. Chiefly a compilation of letters.

Brown, W. M., My Heresy. John Day Co., Inc., New York,
1931. Autobiography.

Chase, Philander, Reminiscences, 2 vols., 2nd ed. Boston,
1848.

Clark, T. M., Reminiscences, 2nd ed. New York, 1895. Deals
mostly with his contemporaries. Little about himself.

Coxe, G. W., Life of John William Colenso, D.D. London,
1888.

Crapsey, A. S., The Last of the Heretics. New York, 1924.
Autobiography.

Croswell, Harry, A Memoir of the Late Rev. William Cros-
well, D.D. New York, 1853.

Cummins, A. M. (Mrs.), Memoir of George David Cum
mins. New York, 1878.

Doane, W. C., A Memoir of the Life of George Washington
Doane, Bishop of Neu/ Jersey. New York, 1860. Highly
inaccurate, especially in regard to his trial.

Gadsden, C. E., An Essay on the Life of the Right Reverend
Theodore Dehon, D.D. Charleston, 1833. Rather inade
quate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 373

Grafton, C. C., A Journey Godward* Milwaukee, 1910. Auto
biography.

Henshaw, J. P. K., Memoir of the Life of the Right Rev.
Richard Charming Moore. Philadelphia, 1842.

Hodges, George, Henry Codrnan Potter, Seventh Bishop of
New Yor^. New York, 1915.

Hopkins, J. H., Jr., Life of the Late Right Reverend John
Henry Hopkins, First Bishop of Vermont and Seventh
Presiding Bishop. New York, 1873.

Howe, M. A. De Wolfe, Memoirs of the Lije and Services of
the Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter. Philadelphia, 1871.

Howe, M. A. De W., Jr., The Life and Labors of Bishop
Hare. New York, 1911.

Johns, John, A Memoir of the Life of the Right Rev. Wil
liam Meade, D.L>. Baltimore, 1867.

Lawrence, William, Memories of a Happy Life. Houghton
MifHin Company, Boston, 1926.

McVickar, John, The Early and Professional Years of Bishop
Hobart. Oxford, 1838.

O'Grady, John, Levi Silliman Ives, Pioneer Leader in Cath
olic Charities. P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1933. A
rather inaccurate sketch.

Perry, W. S., "The Life, Times, and Correspondence of
Bishop White." Published in Church Review, March, 1887-
January, 1888. Incomplete, but useful as far as it goes.

Slattery, C. L., David Hummell Greer. New York, 1921,

Smith, H. W., Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William
Smith, D.D., 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1880.

Sprague, W. B., ed., Annals of the American Episcopal Pul
pit. New York, 1859. Biographical sketches of all impor
tant Episcopalian clergymen who died before 1859. Written
by acquaintances wherever possible.

Stone, J. S., Memoir of the Life of the Rt. Rev. Alexander
Viets Gristuold, D.D. Philadelphia, 1844.

Stone, J. S., A Memoir of the Life of James Milnor f D.D.,
Late Rector of St. George's Church, New YorJ^. New
York, 1848.

Suter, J. W., The Life and Letters of William Heed Hunting-
ton. D. Appleton-Century Company, New York, 1925.

374 A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Turner, S. H., Autobiography. New York, 1863. Important
for early history of General Seminary.

Utley, G. B., The Life and Times of Thomas John Claggett.
Chicago, 1913.

Whipple, H. B., The Ughls and Shadows of a Long Episco
pate. New York, 1899. Autobiography.

White, Greenough, An Apostle of the Western Church.
New York, 1900. Life of Jackson Kemper.

White, Greenough, A Saint of the Southern Church. New
York, 1897. Life of Bishop Cobbs of Alabama. This, and
the biography of Kemper, are based on extensive research
and contain a wealth of information concerning contempo
rary men and manners, as well as their subjects.

Wilson, Bird, Memoir of the Life of the Right Reverend
William White. Philadelphia, 1839.

VII. SECONDARY WORKS

Cross, A. L., Anglican Episcopate and the American Colo
nies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1902. A definitive treatment of the subject.

Dalcho, Frederick, A Historical Account of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston, 1820.

Dix, Morgan, A History of the Parish of Trinity Church in
the City of 'New Yor^, 6 vols. New York, 1898 ff. Vols.
Ill and IV give extensive selections from Hobart corre
spondence.

Dorr, Benjamin, A Historical Account of Christ Church,
Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1841.

Foote, H. W., Annals of King's Chapel, 2 vols. Boston,
1882-96.

Greene, M. L., The Development of Religious Liberty in
Connecticut. Boston, 1905. A definitive work.

Hawks, F. L., Contributions to the 'Ecclesiastical History of
the United States of America, Vol. I, Virginia; Vol. II,
Maryland. New York, 1836-39.

Keith, C. P., Chronicles of Pennsylvania, 2 vols. Philadel
phia, 1917.

Osgood, H. L., The American Colonies in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries, 5 vols. New York, 1924. Useful

BIBLIOGRAPHY 375

chiefly for background, but also supplies some direct in
formation on the history o the Church.

Pascoe, C. F., Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G. London,
1901. Useful chiefly for its account of the Society's organ
ization.

Perry, W. S., The Alleged "Toryism" of the Clergy of the
United States. 1896(?).

Perry, W. S., The History of the American JLpiscopal Church,
2 vols. Boston, 1885. The first comprehensive history of the
Church, and still the most important.

Stevens, W. B., "The Church in Georgia before the Revolu
tion." Published in Church Review. July, 1885.

INDEX

Abolition (see Slavery)

Adams, John, 196

Adams, Rev. William, 259-260

Address from the Clergy of New Yor^ and New
Jersey to the Episcopalians in Virginia, 167

African missions (see Liberia)

Alabama, Diocese of, 257, 260

Alaska, 335, 336, 357

Albany, New York, 122, 123, 148

Alexandria, Virginia, 242

Alien rights, canon on, 354

All Saints 7 Church, New York City, 276

All Souls' Church, New York City, 311

Allen, Rev. Benjamin, 251, 253

Allerton, Isaac, 23

Allison, Rev. Francis, 170

Amadas, Philip, 3, 4

America and the American Church^ 248

American Church Institute for Negroes, 338,
359

American Church Missionary Society organ
ized, 262; becomes auxiliary of Domestic and
Foreign Missionary Society, 262, 343; receipts
of, 325; begins work in Latin America, 342

American Revolution (see Revolution, Amer
ican)

"American Whig," pseudonym of William Liv
ingston, 170

Amherst, Lord Jeffrey, 122, 145

"Anatomist" (William Smith), 170

Anderson, C. C., presiding bishop, 351, 352

Andover, Massachusetts, 93

Andrews, Rev. John in Revolution, 181; ac
cuses William Smith, 198; opposes Purcell,
204; interview of, with Coke and Asbury,
205

Andrews, Rev. William, 144

Andros, Sir Edmund governor of New Eng
land, 30, 31; aids Church in Boston, 32;
imprisoned, 33; deposes Nicolaus Van Rens-
selaer, 35; governor of Virginia, 66-68; dis
pute of, with Blair, 67

Anglo-Catholic Congress, 315, 359

Anglo-Catholicism in Church of the Advent,
264; origin of, in Oxford Movement, 266-

273; liberalization of, 273, 348, 349; in
General Seminary, 274-278; growth of, 314,
315; Liberal Catholic Movement within, 349

Anglo-Catholics theology of, 268-273; attitude
of, towards Roman Catholicism, 271, and
towards medieval thought and practice, 271,
272; theory of, regarding sacraments, 273;
missionary work of, 273; social interests of
some, 273; charged with "Romanizing," 274,
275, 314; favor free churches, 304; support
Brooks, 310, 311; attitude of, towards
Higher Criticism, 312, 313

Anglo-Saxon legend, 272

Anking, Missionary District of, 341, 356

Anne, Queen, 44, 120, 160

Anthon, Rev. Henry, 276, 277

Anvik, Alaska, mission to, 335, 336

Apocrypha, Carey's view of, 276

Apology for Apostolic Order and Its Advocates,
An, 221

Apostles 7 Creed, 189, 196

Appeal Answered, 169

Appeal Defended, 169

Appeal Further Defended, 169

Appeal to the Public on Behalf of the Church
of England in America, 169

Apthorp, Rev. East, 100, 145, 169

Archbishop of Canterbury (see Canterbury,
Archbishop of)

Archdeacon, suggested for colonies, 164

Argall, Gov., of Virginia, 10

Arkansas, Missionary Jurisdiction of, 260, 331,
332

Arnold, Rev. Jonathan, 104

Arrowsmith, L, 126

Asbury, Bishop Francis, 205, 206

"Associates of the late Dr. Bray, the,' 7 153

Athanasian Creed, 189, 196, 200

Athens, school at, 263

Atkinson, Bishop Thomas in North Carolina,
285; in General Convention, 1865, 293

Atonement, Colenso's view of, 308

Auchmuty, Rev. Samuel rector of Trinity Par
ish, 116; in Revolution, 178

Auricular Confession, 273, 284

377

378

INDEX

Aves, Bishop H. D., Bishop of Mexico, 342
Ayers, Rev. William, in Revolution, 181

Backhouse, Rev. Richard, 128

Bailey, Rev. Jacob in Maine, 109, 110; re
ports on Indians, 142

Baintree, Massachusetts, Church in, 97, 98

Baldwin, Rev. A. G., sent to West, 254

Baltimore, Lord, founds Maryland, 35, 36

Bankes, Richard, 31

Banner of the Church, 244

Banner of the Cross, 244

Baptismal Regeneration Evangelicals object to,
216, 295; Anglo-Catholic emphasis on, 273;
Bishops' resolution on, 298; DeKoven's com
ment on, 300

Baptismal Service, revised, 352

Baptists in New England, 42; influence of,
on Churchmen, 61; in colonies, 63; in Mary
land, 80; in South Carolina, 87; in North
Carolina, 90; in Connecticut, 101; in Rhode
Island, 107; in New Jersey, 133; in South,
184

Barclay, Rev. Henry Rector of Trinity Church,
116; work of, among Mohawks, 123, 145

Barclay, Rev. Thomas in Albany, 122, 123;
work of, among Indians, 122, 123, 143, 144;
madness of, 123; work of, among Negroes,
148

Barlowe, Arthur, 3, 4

Barnard, Rev. John, 111

Barton, Rev. Thomas in western Pennsylvania,
132; among Indians, 141; in Revolution,
181; petition of, 186

Bartow, Rev. John sent to Westchester, 117;
accused of inactivity, 118; visits New Jersey,
134

Bass, Rev. Edward in Revolution, 176; con
secration of, requested by Massachusetts, 199;
elected Bishop, 199; consecrated, 201, 203;
work of, as diocesan, 209; death of, 209

Bass, Gov. Jeremiah, of East Jersey, 133

Beach, Rev. Abraham in Revolution, 181; in
reorganization, 193; supports Cave Jones, 223

Beach, Rev. John in Connecticut, 104; con
troversies of, 111; in Revolution, 176

Bearcroft, Sect. Phillip, 55, 164

Beasley, Rev. Frederick, 221, 253

Beasley, Rev. John, work of, among Negroes,
148

Bedell, Rev. G. T., aids Bishop Chase, 251

Bedell, Bishop G. T., suspends MacQueary, 314

Beecher, Rev. H. W., 294

Bellomont, Lord, 143

Bennet, Mr., reports Virginia dissent, 13

Berkeley, Gov. William, of Virginia, 14, 16

Berkeley Divinity School founded, 324; Paci
fism of, 345; listed, 359

Berrian, Rev. William, 227, 276, 277

Bethesda College, 63

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, center of Church popu
lation, 358

Bethune, Rev. David, in Rhode Island, 107

Bexley, Lord, aids Bishop Chase, 250

Bexley Hall, 250, 359

Bible classes, 243

Bible *societies Hobart's opposition to, 217,
224; attitude of Churchmen towards, 218;
supported by Griswold, 232

Bible View of Slavery, 294

Biblical Criticism (see Higher Criticism)

"Billy the Kid," 328

Binney, Horace, 279

Birth control, 355

Bishop of London (see London, Bishop of)

Bishop Payne Divinity School, 338

Bishops, colonial early proposals for, 154;
need for, 154, 155; support of, 156, 160-
162; southern opposition to, 157, 166, 167;
petitioned for, 159, 16 1; project for sending,
defeated by death of Queen Anne, 160; ad
vocated by Pigot and Seeker, 161; Gibson's
Memorial on, 162; advocated by Sherlock,
162-164; intermittent appeals for, 164, 165;
campaign for, reopened in sixties, 164, 165;
appointment of, rumored among dissenters,
164; effect of colonial politics on campaign
for, 166, 167, 170; pamphlet controversy
on, 168-170; newspaper controversy over,
170

Bishops, English carry out Stuart policies, 158;
without temporal power unknown in Eng
lish Church, 155, 156; need for, acute after
Revolution, 183; restrictions on, 189; dis
trust of, 190, 203, 207, 209; plan for ob
taining, 195, 196; obtained, 196, 199, 200;
provisions for trial of, 200, 278, 279; alleged
inactivity of, 207; restraints on, 207-209;
moderation of, 209; vice-presidents of Mis
sionary Society, 253; use of, in mission field,
329

Blackburne, Archdeacon Francis, 169
Blackwell, Rev. Robert, 181
Blair, Commissary James career of, 44, 46,
47; founds College of William and Mary,
65, 66; controversies of, 67-68; protests

INDEX

379

against lack of induction in Virginia, 70;
death of, 71

Blair, Rev. John, in North Carolina, 88, 89
Blaxton, William, "old planter," 27
Board of Missions (see Domestic and Foreign

Missionary Society)
Bondet, Rev. Daniel in Westchester, 117, 118;

among Indians, 143
"Book Annexed," 321

Book of Common Prayer first use of, in
North America, 2; services of, read in Maine,
5; use of, in Virginia under Commonwealth,
15; use of, at Merry mount, 22; use of, in
Salem, 24; efforts to introduce, into New
England, 29; use of, in South Carolina, 81;
prayers for King required by, 174; Athana-
sian Creed omitted from, 189; revisions of,
195, 200, 320, 321, 352, 353; attitude of
Evangelicals towards, 215; in Confederate
States, 290; attitude of Ritualists towards,
295; said to contain law of Church on ritual,
297
Boone, Bishop W. J. (I) missionary to China,

263; Bishop of China, 263
Boone, Bishop W. J. (II), in Shanghai, 341
Boone University, Wuchang, 341
Bosomworth, Rev. Thomas, 91, 141
Boston sctded by Puritans, 25; choice of min
isters at, 26; "old planters," 26, 27; begin
nings of the Church in, 30-33; opposition to
witchcraft panic in, 93; French Church in,
97; work among Negroes in, 152; laity in,
favorable to Independence, 175, 176; Church
in, 1811, 230; early indifference to missions
in, 230; St. Paul's Church, 240; Church of
the Advent in, 264, 283, 284
Boston, Christ Church (see Christ Church, Bos
ton)

Boston, King's Chapel (see King's Chapel, Bos
ton)
Boston, Trinity Church (see Trinity Church,

Boston)

Bowen, Rev. Nathaniel in Charleston, 234;
rector of Grace Church, New York City, 234;
Bishop of South Carolina, 235; agent for
General Seminary, 240
Boyle, Robert, 47, 68, 138
Boys' schools (see Church schools)
Braddock's defeat, 141
Bradford, Gov. William, 21, 22
Bray, Commissary Thomas in Maryland, 46,
76; founds religious societies, 47-49; urges

sending a bishop to the colonies, 159; re
ceives letter from Urmiston, 170
Brazil (see Southern Brazil)
Breck, Rev. J. L. founder of Nashotah, 259;
goes to Minnesota, 260, 261; work of, among
Indians, 261, 265, 339; goes to California,
261; examined by Bishop Onderdonk, 275;
listed, 327

Brent, Bishop C. H., 337, 356
Brewer, Bishop L. R., in Montana, 334
Bridge, Rev. Christopher, at King's Chapel, 50,
95; in Newport, 95, 107; in Westchester,
118

Bridges, John, 98

Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Church in, 230
Briggs, Rev. C. A., 312
Bright, Rev. Francis, 27, 28
Bristol, Rhode Island Congregational ists in,

107; Church in, 108, 229-231
Broad Churchmanship, 307
Brooke, Bishop F. K., work of, among Indians,

340
Brooke, Rev. John, in New Jersey, 133, 134,

135
Brooklyn, New York first Church services in,

179; St. Ann's Church, 223
Brooks, Bishop Phillips at first Church Con
gress, 309; career of, 310; theological views
of, 310; objection to consecration of, 310,
311; proposes greeting to Congregationalists,
317

Brotherhood of St. Andrew, 322, 359
Brotherhoods, religious, 314, 315
Brown, Rev. Daniel, "Yale Convert," 103
Brown, Stewart, 326

Brown, Bishop W. M., tried for heresy, 349
Browne, Rev. Arthur in Providence, 108; in
Portsmouth, 109; opposes Dickinson, 111;
answers Mayhew, 168

Browne, Rev. Isaac, in Suffolk County, 121
Browne, Rev. Marmaduke sent to Newport,
108, 109; in New Hampshire, 109; work of,
among Negroes, 153

Browne brothers, opposition of, in Salem, 24
Brownell, Bishop T. C. agent for General
Seminary, 240; Bishop of Connecticut, 240;
opposes raising funds in England, 249; patron
of Missionary Society, 254; missionary tours
of, 255; death of, 291, 292
Brunot, F. R., 291
Buchmanism, 347
Buckley, "Yale Convert," 103

380

INDEX

Bull, Commissary W, T., Commissary in South

Carolina, 86; work of, among Negroes, 151
Bullivant, Dr. Benjamin, 31
Burgess, Bishop George Bishop of Maine, 252;

presents Bishop Doane, 281
Burial Service, revised, 352
Burlington, New Jersey Talbot in, 133, 135;

In campaign for bishops, 159-161; convention

in, 193; St. Mary's Hall in, 244
Burnet, Gov., 122, 171
Burton, Sect., 56
Butler, Bishop Joseph, 164
Byles, Rev. Mather, 175

Cabot, John, 1

Cadle, Rev. R. C. in Detroit, 254; at Green
Bay, 255; at Nashotah, 259

California, Diocese of work begun in, 26 1;
applies for admission to General Convention,
261; statistics, 327; divided, 333, 334

California, state of, 331

Calvert, Gov., 78

Calvert family, 37, 59, 76

Calvinism among Germans in New York, 123;
questions of Bishops concerning, 278

Cambridge, Massachusetts Church in, 100; in
Revolution, 176; seminary proposed in, 242

Cambridge Seminary (see Episcopal Theologi
cal School)

Campbell, Alexander, 121

Campbell, R. E., Bishop of Liberia, 356

Canada, 164, 177

Canal Zone (see Panama Canal Zone)

Candidates for Holy Orders in colonies, 62;
in Virginia, 233; forbidden to preach, 233

Caner, Rev. Henry in Boston, 99; in Fair-
field, 104; urges sending a bishop to colonies,
164; answers Mayhew, 168; flees to Halifax,
175

Canfield, Mrs., founds Memphis orphanage, 326

Canon on consecration of bishops, 204; on
candidates, 233; on episcopal resignations,
252, 279; on missionary bishops, 257; on trial
of a bishop, 279; on suspension, 282; on
provisional bishops, 282; on visitations, 282,
283; on abandonment of episcopal com
munion, 285; on intrusion, 295, 296; on
ritual, 300, 301; on religious communities,
315; on divorce, 320; on provinces, 322; on
deaconesses, 325; on ordination outside of
Church, 353, 354; on alien rights, 354; on
marriage, 355, 356

Canon law generally unenforced in colonies,
43; English, declared in force in American
Church, 296, 297

Canons of 1603, 296-298

Canterbury, Archbishop of proposal to transfer
government of New England to, 28; receives
petition from Maryland, 37; aids Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, 48, 49; cor
respondents of, 55; hearing of Andros before,
67, 68; receives petition from Swansea, 97;
petitioned by Christ Church, Philadelphia,
126; interest of, in work among Negroes and
Indians, 137; in campaign for colonial bish
ops, 162, 165, 166; objections of, to conse
cration of Seabury, 194; objections of, to
"Proposed Book," 198; agrees to consecrate
American bishops, 196, 197

Capital and labor Prof. Wilson's paper on,
319; joint committee on, 319, 320; advised
to seek partnership, 355

Carey, Rev. Arthur, ordination of, 275-277

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, missionary to, 132

Carson, H. R., Bishop of Haiti, 342

Carter, Lawson, 240

Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United
States Considered, 190, 221

Cass, Lewis, governor of Michigan, 254

Caswall, Rev. Henry, 248

Cathedral in New York City, 314, 323; in
Minnesota, 322; in Washington, 323

Catholic reunion, resolution of Deputies on,
316

Catholicism, Liberal (see Liberal Catholicism)

Catholicization, tendency towards, 347, 348

Caunt, Rev. Frederick, missionary to Puerto
Rico, 326

Census of 1890, 332, 333

"Centinel, The" (Rev. Francis Allison), 170

Centinel, Albany, 221

Ceremonial (see ritual)

Chamberlayne, Sect., 107, 121

Chambers, Judge Ezekiel, 291

Champlain, Samuel de, 142

Chanco, Indian convert, 11

Chandler, Rev. T. B. in New Jersey, 135, 136;
father-in-law of Hobart, 136, 219; first
choice for Bishop of Nova Scotia, 136;
pamphlets of, 169

Chapman, Rev. J. W., in Alaska, 335, 336

Charles I, execution of, 15

Charles II proclaimed in Virginia, 15; res
toration of, 16; dealings of, with Massachu
setts, 28-30

INDEX

381

harleston, South Carolina settled, 80; Mars-
ton in, 81; Johnston in, 83, 84; public
school in, 86; garden in, 86; Negro school
in, 152; St. Michael's Church in, 234
harleston Bible Society, 235
harlton, Rev. Robert, work of, among Negroes,

149

base, Bishop Carlton, Bishop of New Hamp
shire, 232

base, Senator Dudley, 248

base, Bishop Philander early career of, 248;
Bishop of Ohio, 248, 249; visits England,
249, 250; controversy of, with Hobart, 249,
250; founds Kenyon . College, 250; contro
versy of, over Kenyon, 251; resigns jurisdic
tion, 251; in Michigan, 252; Bishop of Illi
nois, 252; founds Jubilee College, 252;
listed, 326

;hase, S. P., 248, 292

lhauncy, Rev. Charles, opposes colonial bishops,

169

iheckley, Rev. John early history of, 95; con
troversies of, 96, 97; seeks ordination, 96,
97; ordained, 97; sent to Providence, 97, 108;
protests against Five Mile Act, 99; credited
with conversion of Cutler, 103

:heney, Bishop C. E., 299

^heroche Indians, work among, 142

^hesire Academy, 245

Chester, Maryland, Washington College in, 181

Chester, Pennsylvania, Church in, 127

Cheyenne, Wyoming, missions in, 328

Chicago, Bishop of, 336

Chicago, Diocese of, Western Seminary in, 324

Chicago-Lambeth Declaration, adopted by
Deputies, 317

Chickesaw Indians, work among, 14 1

Child labor, 320

Chinese Holy Catholic Church, 341

Chinese Mission organized, 263; history of,
340, 341; statistics, 1868-1871, 340, 341;
statistics, 1890, 1915, 341; independent
Church in, 341; statistics, 1935, 356, 357

Chippeway Indians, 261, 265, 339, 340

Choice Dialogues, 96

Christ Church, Boston founded, 95; work
among Negroes in, 152; petitions for a
bishop, 16 1; aids Paul Revere, 175

Christ Church, Hartford organized, 105; Chase,
rector of, 248

Christ Church, New Orleans, founded, 248, 254

Christ Church, Philadelphia organized, 126;
early history of, 126-130; Welton at, 129,

170; granted charter, 129; St. Peter's Church,
coordinated with, 130; has trouble with Mc-
Clennachan, 130; Sturgeon assists in, 149;
in Revolution, 180

Christian Magazine, 221

Christian Nurture Series, 353

Christian Social Service committee on, 320;
commission on, becomes department, 354

Christian Socialism, rise of, 318, 319

Christian Soldier and Children's Guest, 343

Christian unity (see Church unity)

Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, organized, 341

"Church in America, The," proposed as name
for Church, 315

Church of the Advent, Boston Southgate, rec
tor of, 264; controversy of, with Bishop
Eastburn, 283, 284; free church, 304; Hall,
rector of, 311

Church of England provided for in Gilbert's
charter, 2; in Monhegan Colony, 5; conformity
with, required in Virginia, 12, 16; in Ply
mouth Colony, 21-23; farewell of Winthrop
to, 25; in Boston, 32; indifference of mem
bers of, to colonial Church, 40; protected by
Pennsylvania charter, 42; conformity to re
quired in South Carolina, 81; protected by
Massachusetts charter, 98; freedom of, secured
in Pennsylvania charter, 125; unable to de
velop type of episcopate needed in colonies,
155; bishops declared unimportant in dis
cipline of, 168; on eve of Oxford Move
ment, 268; Anglo-Catholic theory of, 272,
273

Church of the Holy Communion, New York
City founded, 286; free church, 286, 304

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, New York City,
322

Church of the Holy Trinity, Paris, 346

Church architecture, 242, 243, 272

Church Army, 347, 358

Church buildings, 62, 242, 243

Church Club, 359

Church colleges in colonial period, 123, 131,
132; in early nineteenth century, 244, 245;
in the West, 330; at present, 359

Church Congress, American, 301, 309, 310,
319, 359

Church Congress, English, 309

Church furnishings in colonies, 62; changes in,
since Oxford Movement, 266, 267, 272

Church Historical Society, 359

Church Idea, The, 316, 317

Church Identified, The, 301

382

INDEX

Church Journal, The, 244, 292

Church League for Industrial Democracy, 359

Church lifein Virginia, 17, 18, 70, 71; in
colonies, 61, 62; in Maryland, 76, 77; in
South Carolina, 86; changes in, 242, 243

Church Life Insurance Corporation, 359

Church Mission of Help, 322, 359

Church papers (see Periodicals)

Church Pension Fund, 350, 351, 358, 359

Church Periodical Club, 359

Church Properties Fire Insurance Corporation,
359

Church Register, The, 244

Church schools, 244, 330

Church Unity declaration on, proposed by
Madison, 206, 207; advocated by commit
tee on Muhlenberg Memorial, 288; resolu
tions of Bishops on, 288; possible contribu
tions of the Church towards, 315, 316; with
Swedish Church, 316; the Quadrilateral, a
proposal for, 317; memorials on, 317; joint
committee on, 317, 318; post-war efforts for,
353, 354

Churchman, The, 244, 276, 323, 359, 360

Churchman; The Principles of the Churchman
Stated and Explained, The, 224

Churchman's Magazine, 227, 244

Churchwomen's League for Patriotic Service,
346

Cincinnati College, 249

City Mission Society, 359

Civil War, Church in, 290-294; effect of, on
missions, 325, 326

Claggett, Bishop T. J. in Maryland, 60; in
Revolution, 182; consecration of, 201, 203,
as diocesan, 209; illness of, 209, 222; juris
diction of, in Delaware, 236

Clark, Bishop T. M., 294, 309

Clark, Rev. William, in Revolution, 176

Clarkson, Bishop R. H., in Nebraska and
Dakota, 329-332, 339

Clay, Henry, 250

Clay, Rev. Robert, in Delaware, 236

Clayton, Rev. Thomas, in Philadelphia, 126

Clergy colonial, numbers of, in North, 50, 51;
salaries of, 52; discipline of, 56, 57; morals
of, 57-61; increase of native colonials among,
61; petition for a bishop, 159, 161; conven
tions of, 165-167; stand of, in Revolution,
173-182

Clergy, southern, in Revolution, 181, 182

Clergy relief in colonies, 62, 63; in nineteenth
century, 350; through Church Pension Fund,
350, 351

Clerical Associations Evangelical support of,
218, 219; High Church opposition to, 219

Cobbs, N. H., Bishop of Alabama, 260

Coke, Rev. Thomas, 205, 206

Cole, Rev. A. D., 260

Colenso, Bishop J. W., case of, 308

Collection of Essays on the Subject of Episcopacy,
221

College of Philadelphia (see Philadelphia Col
lege)

College of William and Mary founded, 65,
66; Indians at, 68, 138; Madison, President
of, 201, 209; theological professorship pro
posed at, 241

College Work, Commission on, 358

Colorado, Diocese of, 332, 334

Colorado Territory, 327

Columbia College, Prof. McVickar at, 276

Columbus, Christopher, 1

Commentary on Romans, 308

Commissaries first appointment of, 45; juris
diction of, 45, 46; controversies of, with
governors, 66-69, 71, 72; acceptance of, 156,
159; decline of, in Virginia, 72, 167

Commission on Home Missions to Colored
People, 338

Commissioners, for Indian Affairs in New Eng
land, 142

Commissioners, for settling the affairs of New
England, 29, 154

Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, 138

Common Sense, 174

Communion Service (see Holy Communion)

Community of St. Mary, 359

Companion to the Altar, 220

Companion to the Festivals and Fasts, 220

Comparative Views of the Controversy between
the Calvinists and the Arminians, 245

Comprehensiveness, pleas for, 300, 301, 309,
310

Compton, Bishop Henry asks investigation of
colonial jurisdiction, 45; appoints Commis
saries, 45, 48; aids College of William and
Mary, 66; sends minister to Newport, 107;
on colonial bishops, 159, 160

Confederate States, 290

Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, 301

Congregational Church, 317, 353, 354

Congregationalism accepted by Puritans, 26;
established in Connecticut, 105

INDEX

383

Congregationalists in Maryland, 37; rivalry of,
with Church, 54; dispute among, 97; Church
men required to support ministers of, 98,
99, 105; church membership among, 101;
conform to Church, 103, 104, 108, 110; in
Bristol, 107; controversies with, 111; in New
York, 113; convention of, 167, 168; oppose
sending bishops, 158, 159, 167, 168

Congress of the Confederation, 196

Connecticut, colonial Church in, 101-104, 106;
charter of, preserved, 101; Churchmen taxed
in, 105; diversion of funds in, 106; White-
field in, 106; work among Negroes in, 152,
153

Connecticut, Diocese of Churchmanship in,
189; in reorganization, 189, 190, 193, 195,
199, 200; under Seabury and Jarvis, 209;
Berkeley Divinity School in, 324

Connecticut, State of, Church in, 177, 182, 183

Constitution of the Church adopted, 195;
amended, 200; signed, 200; revised, 321

Continental Congress recommends fast, 179,
180; Duche, chaplain of, 180; White, chaplain
of, 180, 187; suspects Smith, 180

Conventions, clerical, in colonies, 165, 166, 168

Cook, Rev. J. W., 328

Cook, Bishop Philip, 352

Cook, Rev. Samuel, 149

Cooper, Rev. Myles president of King's Col
lege, 124; visits Mohawks, 146; goes to Eng
land, 166, 167; visits South, 166; writes
Address, 167; in Revolution, 178

Cornbury, Lord sends Honeyman to Newport,
107, 119; imprisons Presbyterian ministers,
115; promotes Church in New York, 117,
118; inducts Urquhart, 119; imprisons Moore,
134; authorizes Neau to act as catechist, 148

Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating
the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England,
47

Corporation for the Relief of Widows and
Orphans of Clergymen in Pennsylvania, New
York and New Jersey, 193

Corruptions of the Church of Rome Contrasted
with Certain Protestant Errors, 224

Cossit, Ranna, 176

Coxe, Bishop A. C., 301

Craik, Rev. James, 292

Cranmer, Archbishop Thomas, 191

Crapsey, Rev. A. C., case of, 314

Crete, mission to, 264

Critical Commentary on Archbishop Seeder's
Letter, 169

Croes, Bishop John, 236, 239

Cuba, work in, 342, 357

Culpeper, Lord, governor of Virginia, 17

Cummings, Rev. Archibald, in Philadelphia,
129

Cummins, Bishop G. D. in General Conven
tion, 292; denied full jurisdiction in Ken
tucky, 298, 299; withdraws from Church,
299; organizes Reformed Episcopal Church,
299

Curtice, Justice Joseph, 102

Cuder, Rev. Timothy in Christ Church, Bos
ton, 95, 103; in Stratford, 102; "Yale Con
vert," 103; work of, among Negroes, 152

Cutting, Rev. Leonard, 178

Dakota Territory statistics, 1866, 327; eco
nomic distress in, 331; growth of Church in,
332

Dale, Governor Thomas, 8, 9

"Dale's I^LWS," 8-10, 12

Dallas, Diocese of, organized, 334

Dare, Virginia, 4

Dartmouth College, 145

Daughters of the King, 322, 359

Davenport, Rev. Addington, 98, 99

Davies, Rev. Samuel, 72, 75

Davis, Rev. Solomon, missionary to Oneidas,
265

Davis, William, 5 1

Dawson, Commissary William, 71

Deaconesses Order of, 321, 322, 353, 358;
schools for, 359

Declaration of Independence, 172, 181

Dedham, Massachusetts, Church in, 100

Dehon, Bishop Theodore at Newport, 230;
in Charleston, 234; Bishop of South Carolina,
234, 235; Churchmanship of, 235

Deism, 39, 47, 185

DeKoven, Rev. James in General Convention,
297-299, 301; elected Bishop of Illinois, 302;
pleads for comprehensiveness, 306, 307, 310

DeLancey, Bishop W. H., in western New
York, 228

Delaware, colonial Church in, 132; Diocese
of, 236

Delaware, Lord, 8

Delaware River Church on, 125; Swedish set
tlements on, 128

Delius, Godfrey, work of, among Indians, 143

Democratic Party, 244 245, 291, 294

Derby, Connecticut, missionary to, 104

"Descent into Hell," 189, 196

384

INDEX

Detroit, Michigan, mission to, 254, 255

Dickinson, Rev. Jonathan, controversies of,
with Churchmen, 111

Dinwiddie, Gov. Robert, 71-73

Discourse Concerning Episcopacy, 96

Dissenters, colonial in Virginia, 13, 14, 72,
73; in eighteenth century, 40, 54; in South,
59; in Maryland, 79, 80; in South Carolina,
84, 87; in North Carolina, 90; in New York,
113, 115, 117, 119-121; oppose King's Col
lege, 124; oppose colonial bishops, 158,
159, 162, 167, 168; appointment of a bishop
rumored among, 164

Divinity School of the Pacific, 359

Divorce, 320, 355, 356

Dix, Rev. Morgan, 296, 311

Doane, Bishop G. W. Bishop of New Jersey,
236; at General Seminary, 240; founds St.
Mary's Hall, 244; publishes Banner of the
Church, 244; introduces amendment for
trial of bishops, 279; trial of, 281

Doane, Bishop W. C., 296, 310, 311

Dobbs, Gov. Arthur, 152

Doddridge, Rev. Joseph, in Ohio, 249, 258

Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society Gris-
wold's influence on, 232; publishes Spirit of
Missions, 244; aids Caswall, 248; aids Illi
nois, 252; founded, 252, 253; work of, in
Florida, 254, 255; work of, in West, 254-
262, 326-335; support of, 256; constitution
of, revised, 256, 257, 343, 351, 352; policies
of, 256, 257; supports Nashotah, 259; finan
cial difficulties of, 262, 330; foreign work
of, 262-264, 340-343; work of, among
Negroes, 265, 326, 338; effect of Civil
War on, 325, 326; American Church Mis
sionary Society, auxiliary to, 343

Dominican Republic, 357

Dover, Delaware, Church in, 133

Drake, Sir Francis, 2, 3

Driggs, Rev. John B., in Alaska, 336

Duche, Rev. Jacob in Christ Church, 180;
chaplain of Continental Congress, 180; be
comes a loyalist, 180; White studies under,
187 ,

Duck Creek Reservation, 265

Dudley, Governor Joseph in New England, 30,
31; aids Church, 98

Duluth, Diocese of, organized, 334

Durand, Mr., Puritan elder in Virginia, 14

Dutch at Albany, 122, 123, 143

Dutch in New York, control legislature, 113,
114

Dutch Church, New York City services of
Church held in, 34; ministers of, assist at
Vesey's induction, 115, and condemn desecra
tion of Trinity Church, 115, and support
work of Neau, 148; uses St. George's Chapel
178

Dutchess County, New York, 113, 123

Duty of the Clergy with Respect to Inculcating
the Doctrine of the Trinity, 224

Dyer, Rev. Heman, 309

Dyer, Rev. Palmer, 247, 248

Eager, Rev. Thomas, sent to Baintree, 97

Eastburn, Bishop M. H. in Massachusetts, 232;
in General Seminary, 240; and Church of the
Advent, 283, 284

Eastchester, New York, opposes Barton, 118

Eastern Diocese organized, 228; character of,
228; condition of, in 1811, 230; withdrawal
of Vermont from, 231; growth of, under
Griswold, 231; dissolution of, 232

Eastern Oklahoma, Missionary District of, 334

Eastern Oregon, Missionary District of, 334

Eastern Orthodox Church Tractarian view of,
271; efforts towards reunion with, 316, 354

Eau Claire, Diocese of, Torok case in, 354

Ecclesiastical customs (see Church life)

Edson, Rev. E. H., missionary to Alaska, 336

Edward VI, usage of, 296

Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, begins "Great Awaken
ing," 63, 100

Effingham, Lord governor of Virginia, 65;
resigns, 66

Eighteenth century, characteristics of, 38, 39

Elements of Christian Science, The, 259

Eliot, Rev. Andrew, attacks Seeker, 162

Eliot, Rev. John, work of, among Indians, 47,
137

Elizabeth, New Jersey Chandler in, 135, 136;
convention in, 168

Elizabeth, Queen, 1-3

Elliot, "Yale Convert," 103

Elliott, Bishop, presents Bishop B. T. Onder-
donk, 280

Elliott, Bishop R. W. B., in West Texas, 334

Ellis, Mathew, suit of, 99

Ely, Prof. Richard T., 319

Emery, Miss J. C., 343

Emery, Miss M. A., 343

Endicott, John, 24, 26

English Church Missionary Society, aids Domes
tic and Foreign Missionary Society, 253

INDEX

385

English Churchmen, indifference of, to colonial
Church, 40

English flag, mutilation of, at Salem, 26

English government ecclesiastical policy of, in
colonies, 40-42, 112, and New England, 41,
42; failure of, to support Church in New
England, 41, 42, 99; interest of, in conversion
of Indians, 138; policy of, under first two
Georges, 157; loyalty of Churchmen to, 166,
167, 169, 172-183; attitude of southern
Churchmen towards, 167; supports Colenso
308

English politicians, opposition of, to colonial
bishops, 156

English politics, colonial ignorance of, 159

Episcopal Theological School founded, 304;
Liberalism in, 304; Higher Criticism in, 304
312, 313; listed, 359

Episcopate (see Bishops)

Essays and Reviews, 294, 307, 308

Essays Catholic and Critical, 349

Establishment, colonial beginning of, in Vir
ginia, 10; policy of English government with
respect to, 40, 41, 112; effect of, on clerical
morals, 58; difficulties of, in Virginia, 67;
in Maryland, 74, 75; in South Carolina, 81;
in North Carolina, 89, 90; in New York,
112, 113

Eucharist (sec Holy Communion)

"Evangelical Catholicism," 285, 286

Evangelicalism Griswold's attitude towards,
214; origin and characteristics of, 214-217;
in Virginia, 233; White's opposition to, 236,
237; in Virginia Seminary, 242; in England,
268; in Philadelphia Divinity School, 304; in
Episcopal Theological School, 304; Liberal,
349-351

Evangelicals in the South, 185; start Bible
classes, 215, 243; methods of, 215; theology
of, 215, 216; view of ministry, 216; charac
teristics of, 216, 217, 218; seek greater free
dom, 218, 295, 296; organize New York
clerical association, 224; and Bishop Chase,
251; organize missionary societies, 262; atti
tude of, towards Oxford Movement, 269,
and towards Thirty-Nine Articles, 270; work
of, in the West, 273; opposition of, to Bishop
Henry Onderdonk, 279; prosecute High
Church bishops, 279, 280, 281; support
Muhlenberg Memorial, 286, 287; stand of,
on slavery, 290; object to Baptismal Re
generation, 295; stand of, on Ritualism, 295,
296; and Tyng case, 296; seek relaxation of

canon on intrusion, 297; disappointed in

General Convention of 1871, 298; radical,

secede, 299; distrust General Theological

Seminary, 303
Evans, Rev. Evan in Philadelphia, 50, 126-

128; visits England, 102, 128; urges sending

a bishop to colonies, 159
Evans, John, agent to Indians, 138
Evanston, Illinois, seat of Seabury- Western, 261,

324

Evolution of Man and Christianity, The, 314
Ewer, Bishop John, sermon of, 169

Fairfield, Connecticut Muirson in, 102; burned

in Revolution, 177
Falmouth, Maine, church at, 110
Farquier, Gov. Francis, 71
Federal Council of Churches, 318, 354
Feltus, Rev. H. I., 223
Ferguson, Bishop S. D. in Liberia, 342; death

of, 356

First Century Christian Fellowship, 347
Fish, Hamilton, 293
Five Mile Act in Massachusetts, 98
Fletcher, Gov. Benjamin, of New York gets

Establishment Act passed, 112, 113; prorogues

Assembly, 114; inducts Vesey, 115; gives

"Queen's Farm" to Trinity Church, 116
Florida, colonial the Church in, 91; state of,

early missions to, 254
Flushing Institute, 244, 286
Foote, Rev. G. W., 330
Foreign missions (see Missions, foreign)
Forward Movement, 352
Fox, George, in North Carolina, 88
Franklin, Benjamin and College of Philadel
phia, 130; quarrels with Smith, 131; aids

work among Germans, 132
Frazer, Rev. William, in Revolution, 181
"Free Church" Movement, 304, 305
Free Examination of the Critical Commentary,

A, 169, 170
Freedman's Commission created, 326; work

of, 326, 338 4

Freeman, Bishop G. W., Bishop of Arkansas,

260
French, influence of on Indians in Maine, 141,

142; hostility of Iroquois to, 142
French and Indian War, work of Barton in,

132

Frink, Rev. Samuel, 14 1
Frobisher, Martin, 1, 2

386

INDEX

Frontier few missions on, 256; passing of

the, 332, 333
Froude, Hurrell, 267

Gadsden, Bishop C. E., 239, 259
Gambier, Lord, aids Bishop Chase, 250
Gambier, Ohio, Kenyon College founded at,

250

Garden, Rev. Alexander, Commissary, 86, 152
Garrett, Bishop A. C., in North Texas, 334
Gates, Rev. Thomas, 191, 192
Gavin, Rev. Anthony, work of, on Virginia

frontier, 72

Gear, Rev. E. G., early missionary, 248, 260
General Clergy Relief Fund, established, 350
General Convention friction between houses
in, 288, 289; asked to sanction religious com
munities, 314, 315; post-war stand of, on
social questions, 354, 355; organization of,
193, 195, 200; social measures of, 354, 355
General Councils, Tractarian view of, 271
General Theological Seminary founded, 239,
240, 303; moved to New Haven, 240;
Sherred bequest to, 241; New York control
of, 241; scholars on faculty of, 245, 246;
graduates of, in East, 249; Hobart solicits
funds for, 250; graduates of, in mission field,
259; Anglo-Catholicism in, 259, 274, 277,
278, 301, 303; Evangelical distrust of, 303;
finances of, 303; constitution revised, 303;
listed, 359
Geneva College, 244
George I, 44, 157, 160
George II, 44, 157

George III favors Church, 44; aids King's
College, 124; memorialized in behalf of
colonial bishops, 162, 163
Georgia, clergy of (see Clergy of Georgia)
Georgia, colonial Whitefield and Wesley in,
63; Church in, 90, 91; interest in Indians
in, 141; work among Negroes in, 152
Germans in Virginia, 73; in New York, 123;

in Pennsylvania, 132

Gibson, Bishop Edmund obtains commission
to exercise jurisdiction in colonies, 46, 162;
queries of, 60, 70, 75, 85, 137, 141, 149;
ordains Checkley, 97; sends Cummings to
Philadelphia, 129; issues pastoral letter on
instruction of slaves, 150; in campaign for
colonial bishops, 161, 162
Gibson, Rev. Richard, 33, 34
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 2
Gilbert, Raleigh, 5

Girls' Friendly Society, 322, 359

Girls' schools (see Church schools)

Glebes, in Virginia, 10, 70, 71, 185

Glenton, Dr. Mary V., medical missionary to

Alaska, 336

"Glorious Revolution" in Boston, 33, 94; in
New York, 35; in Maryland, 37, 74; effects
of, 38; in Virginia, 65
Gloucester, Dean of, 165
Golden, Colorado, boys' school at, 330
Goose Creek, South Carolina Thomas in, 82,
139; Le Jau in, 82; work among Negroes
in, 150

Gore, Canon Charles, editor, Lux Mundi, 312
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, colonies of, 5, 6, 33,

Gorges, Robert, in Plymouth, 21
Gosnold, Bartholomew, 4
Gothic Revival beginning of, 242, 243; influ
ence of Hopkins on, 245; an expression of
interest in Middle Ages, 272
Governors, colonial, and Church, 43, 44
Grace Church, New York City, Potter rector of,

311
Grace Church, Providence, Anglo-Catholicism

in, 274

Grafton, Bishop C. C. in Seymour case, 301;
Bishop of Fond du Lac, 302, 303; professed,
304; criticizes Ritchie, 313
Graham, Robert, 281
Grant, Pres. Ulysses S., 339
Graves, Bishop F. R., Bishop of Shanghai, 341
Gray, Rev. Horatio N., missionary to Florida,

255
Gray, Robert, Metropolitan of South Africa,

308
"Great Awakening" Edwards and Whitefield

in, 63, 99, 100; effects of, 100
Great Barrington, missionary sent to, 100
Greece, mission to, 262, 263
Greek architecture, in colonies, 62
Green, Bishop W. M., Bishop of Mississippi, 261
Green Bay, school at, 255, 264, 265
Grenville, Sir Richard, 3
Griffin, Rev. Charles in Virginia, 72; work of,

among Indians, 139

Griffith, Rev. David in Virginia, 60; in Revo
lution, 182; in reorganization, 190; attends
Convention of 1784, 195; elected Bishop of
Virginia, 196;- fails to obtain consecration,
198; death of, 201

Griswold, Bishop A. V. estimates number of
clergy in Eastern Diocese, 210; consecrated

INDEX

387

bishop, 213, 222; sympathizes with Evangeli
calism, 214, 232; early life of, 228, 229;
elected bishop, 229; character of, 229, 230;
as diocesan, 231, 232; aids Missionary So
ciety, 232, 253; death of, 232; Presiding
Bishop, 232; opposition of, to Oxford Move
ment, 274

Guy, Rev. William, sent to Narragansett, 108
Gwatkin, Rev. Thomas, opposes sending bish
ops, 166

Hague Conference, 319

Haight, Rev. B. I., examines Carey, 26

Haiti Independent Church in, 342; statistics,

1915, 343; 1935, 356, 357
"Half-way Covenant," 101
Hall, Bishop A. C. A., 310, 311
Hall, T. C., 184

Halliday, Rev. Thomas, in New Jersey, 134, 135
Hankow, Missionary District of, 341, 356
Hanover, New Hampshire, Indian school in,

145

Hanson, Rev. F. R., in China, 263
Hare, Rev. G. E., in Philadelphia Divinity School,

304
Hare, Bishop W. H. at first Church Congress,

309; work of, among Indians, 339, 340
Hariot, Rev. Thomas, in Roanoke colony, 3
Harris, Rev. Henry, at King's Chapel, Boston,

95, 99
Harris, Rev. William, on seminary committee,

239

Harrison, Rev. Mr., in Virginia, 14
Harrison, Rev. William on Staten Island, 122;

in Newark, 122, 135; in Philadelphia, 128
Hart, Gov. John, in Maryland, 60, 76
Hart, Rev. Mr., "Yale Convert," 103
Hartford, Connecticut Church in, 105; Chase

in, 248

Harvard College, 100

Harwood, Rev. Nathaniel, in Burlington, 135
Hawaiian Islands annexed, 335; bishop sent

to, 337; statistics, 7902, 1910, 1915, 337;

statistics, 1935, 357
Hawks, Bishop C. S., in Missouri, 260
Hawks, Rev. F. L. historian, 10, 245; de
clines election as bishop, 257; election in

Mississippi not confirmed, 260, 261
Hcathcote, Col. Caleb in Connecticut, 102;

supports Honeyman, 107; aids Trinity

Church, 114; builds up Church in Westches-

ter, 117, 118

Hebron, Connecticut Church in, 104; Peters
in, 106

Hempstead, Long Island Church in, 121; in
Revolution, 178

Henderson, Commissary Jacob in Maryland,
44, 60, 76; celebration of Communion by,
77; urges work among Negroes, 150; charges
of, against Talbot and Welton, 170

Henderson, Rev. R. A., in Florida, 255

Henley, Rev. Samuel, opposes sending bishops,
166

Henrico Parish, Virginia, 9-11, 73

Henry, Patrick, 73

Henry VII, sponsors Cabot, 1

Henshaw, Bishop J. P. K. in Rhode Island,
232; in Missionary Society, 253; on Oxford
Movement, 275

Heresy trials, 31 4, 349

Hervey, Sir John, governor of Virginia, 12

Hicks, Robert, agent to Indians, 138

Higbee, Rev. E. Y., examines Carey, 276, 277

High Churchmanship of colonial missionaries,
57, 173; in New England, 110; Hobart's
leadership of, 213, 219; characteristics of,
217, 218, 246; in North Carolina, 236; in
Maryland, 235; in General Seminary, 24 1; de
cline of, in England, 268

High Churchmen in reorganization, 189; stand
of, on Oxford Movement, 269; in Onderdonk
trial, 280, 281; stand of, on Muhlenberg
Memorial, 286, 287; stand of, on slavery,
290; stand of, on Ritualism, 295, 296; sup
port Brooks, 310, 311

Higher Criticism introduction of, 307, 311 >
312; in Episcopal Theological School, 312,
313; Anglo-Catholic attitude towards, 312,
313; Liberal Catholic acceptance of, 349

Hill, Rev. J. H., and wife, in Greece, 263

Hind, Sect., 167

History oj the Non jurors, 111

Hobart, Bishop J. H. early career of, 210, 219,
220; Churchmanship of, 213, 219-221; con
secration of, 213, 222; opposition of, to Bible
societies, 217, 224; character of, 219, 220;
writings of, 220; controversy of, with Pres
byterians, 221, 222; in Cave Jones contro
versy, 222, 223; "charges" of, 223, 224;
pastoral letters of, 224; opposition of, to
clerical associations, 224; popularity of, 225;
work of, as diocesan, 225, 227; rector of
Trinity Church, 226, 227; acquires Church
man's- Magazine, 227; proposed as Bishop
of Eastern Diocese, 229; compared with

388

INDEX

Griswold, 229; and Pennsylvania election,
238; and General Seminary, 239-241, 250;
founds diocesan seminary, 240; controversy
of, with Philander Chase, 249, 250; visits
Green Bay, 255; attitude of, towards Mis
sionary Society, 256; work of, among Oneidas,
264; father-in-law of Bishop Ives, 284

Hobart, Rev. J. H., Jr., in Nashotah, 259, 260

Hobart, Rev. Noah, opposes Church, 111, 168

Hobart College founded, 244; at present, 359

Hoffman, Very Rev. E. A., Dean of General
Seminary, 303

Hoffman, Judge Murray, 291

Holbrook, Rev. John in Salem, New Jersey,
135; work of, among Negroes, 149

Holly, Bishop J. T., in Haiti, 342

Holt, Rev. Arthur, work of, among Negroes,
150

Holy Communion first, in North America, 2;
first, in Virginia, 7; infrequent celebration
of, in colonies, 18, 61, 71, 77, 86; Evan
gelical view of, 216; growing emphasis on,
242; neglect of, before Oxford Movement,
266, 267; Anglo-Catholic view of, 273; sepa
rated from Morning Prayer and Litany, 288;
in ritualistic controversy, 300, 301

Holy Communion, Church of the (see Church
of the Holy Communion)

Holy Cross, Order of the (see Order of the
Holy Cross)

Holy Unction, revived, 273

Honevman, Rev. James in Newport, 107,
108; sent to Jamaica, 119; work of, among
Negroes, 153

Honolulu, Missionary District of, 337, 357

Hooker, Rev. Richard opinion of, cited, 114;
cited by White, 191

Hopewcll, New Jersey, work of Halliday in,
134

Hopkins, Bishop J. H. in Vermont, 232, 242;
in Pennsylvania, 238; in Boston, 242; founds
school, 244; versatility of, 245; interest of,
in Gothic revival, 245; prepares procedure
for episcopal trials, 279; opposes H. U. Onder-
donk's restoration, 279; stand of, on slavery,
290; in Civil War, 292-294; Presiding Bishop,
293; stand of, on Ritualism, 296, 306; at first
Lambeth Conference, 309

Hopkins, Rev. J. H., Jr. comment of, on
lands in Vermont, 55; edits Church Journal,
244; interest of, in lithography, 245; com
ment of, on Pastoral Letter of 7562, 292

Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Church in, 99

Horrel, Rev. Thomas, in Missouri, 254
How, Rev. T. Y. in episcopal controversy, 221;
in organization of General Seminary, 239, 240
Howe, General, enters Ne\v York, 178
Howe, M. W. DeW. in General Convention,
292; declines election as missionary bishop
329

Hoyt, Rev. Melancthon, in Dakota, 332
Hudson's Bay, Communion celebrated on, 2
Hughes, Archbishop John, 285
Huguenots in Virginia, 73; in South Caro
lina, 87; in Boston, 97, 99; in Westchester,
117, 118

Hulse, Bishop W. R., in Cuba, 343
Hunt, Rev. Robert, in Virginia, 8
Hunter, Gov. Robert and Jamaica dispute, 120;
incorporates church on Staten Island, 122;
brings German settlers to New York, 123;
commissioned to buy episcopal residence, 160;
seeks colonial bishopric for Dean Swift, 161
Huntington, Long Island, in Revolution, 178
Huntington, Bishop D. T., in Anking, 341
Huntington, Rev. J. O. S., founds Order of

Holy Cross, 313

Huntington, Rev. W. R. stand of, on Ritual
ism, 302; rector of Grace Church, 302, 313;
at first Church Congress, 309; leader of
Liberals, 311; work of, on Prayer Book re
vision, 313, 320, 321; advocates Order of
Deaconesses, 313, 314, 321; and Cathedral
of St. John the Divine, 314; contributions
of, to Church unity, 316, 317

Idaho Territory statistics, 1866, 327; minister

in, 330

Illinois, Diocese of beginnings of the Church
in, 247, 248; organized, 252; elects Bishop
Chase, 252; and Seymour case, 301, 302;
elects DeKoven, 302; statistics for, 326
Immaculate Conception, doctrine of, 271
Independents (see Congregationalists)
Indian Territory under Bishop Freeman, 260;

missionary districts in, 334; work in, 340
Indian traders, bad influence of, 140, 145
Indiana, Diocese of early missionaries to, 248;
obtains bishop, 260; statistics, 1836-1866,
326

Indians at Roanoke, 3; first baptized, 4; re
volt of, in Virginia, 1 1 ; work among, in Vir
ginia, 10, 11, 68, 138, 139; kindness of
Maverick to, 27; work among, in Maryland,
77; work among, in South Carolina, 82; revolt
of, in South Carolina, 85; work of Eliot and

INDEX

389

Whcelock among, 137; indifference to con
version of, in colonies, 137; distrust Eng
lish, 138; discussion of, in South Carolina,
3.39^ 140; interest in, in Georgia, 14 1; work
among, in Pennsylvania, 141; attitude to
wards, in Maryland, 141; work among, in
New England, 14 1, 142; in Maine, 14 1,
142; work among, in New York, 142-146;
work among, in United States, 261, 264, 265,
338-340

Induction provision for, in Virginia, 12; dis
pute concerning, . in Virginia, 13, 67-70;
neglected in South Carolina, 87
Ingle, Bishop J. A., in Hankow, 341
Iriglish, Bishop Charles in New York, 116,
178; early Methodist leanings of, 116; be
comes Bishop of Nova Scotia, 116; work of,
in Dover, 133; visits Mohawks, 146; an
swers Paine, 174; corresponds with White,
191; furnishes testimonial to Seabury, 194
Ingoldsby, Lt.-Gov., excommunicated, 134
Innes, Rev. Alexander in New York, 35; in

New Jersey, 133
Institutional churches, 311
Inter-Church Conference on Federation, 318
International Peace Congress, 319
Iowa, Missionary District of, 258, 259, 327
Irish Protestants, in New York, 145
Iroquois Indians hostility of, to French, 142;

work among, 142-146
Isle of Kent, Maryland, Virginians on, 36
Isle of Shoals, Maine, Gibson on, 34
Ives, Bishop L. S. in North Carolina, 236;
conversion of, to Roman Catholicism, 284, 285

Jacobitism Checkley accused of, 96, 97; Tal-
bot accused of, 129, 135, 170; Welton ac
cused of, 129, 170; constant under first two
Georges, 157; among colonial missionaries,

173

Jamaica, Long Island Church in, 119-121; in
Revolution, 179

James I colonial policy of, 6; connives at Pil
grim settlement, 20, 28; declares slaves not
emancipated by Baptism, 147

James II, 30, 101

Jamestown, Virginia, 6, 7

Japan, persecution of Christians in, 341

Japanese Missionstarted, 263, 264; statistics,
1890, 1915, 341; history of, 341, 342; inde
pendent Church in, 356; statistics, 1935,
356, 357

Jarratt, Rev. Dcvereux, 214, 215

Jarvis, Bishop Abraham sent to Middletown,
106; in Revolution, 176, 177; elected Bishop
of Connecticut, 199; authority of, as bishop,
209; consecrates Hobart and Griswold, 222
Jarvis, Rev. S. F. in organization o General
Seminary, 240; quoted by DeKoven, 300, 301
Jay, James, 124
Jay, John, 196, 223, 253
Jay, William, opponent of Hobart, 224
Jenney, Rev. Robert in Trinity Church, 115,
128; in Rye, 115; in Hempstead, 121; in
Christ Church, Philadelphia, 128, 129; op
poses MacClennachan, 130; supplants Neau,
148; assisted by Sturgeon, 149
Jesuits in Maryland, 75, 79; among Iroquois,

143

Johnson, Bishop I. P., founds Witness, 124
Johnson, Gov. Nathaniel, in South Carolina, 82
Johnson, Rev. Samuel receives letter from
Seeker, 53, 164; on Church in Connecticut,
101; "Yale Convert," 103; ordained, 103; in
Connecticut, 104, 105; on Church usages,
110; controversies of, 111; President of
King's College, 124; sought as President of
College of Philadelphia, 130; suggests mis
sionary for Indians, 142; advocates colonial
bishops, 161, 164; prompts Chandler's Ap
peal, 169

Johnson, Rev. S. R., in Indiana, 258
Johnson, Sir William, and the mission to the

Mohawks, 145, 146

Johnston, Commissary Gideon on South Caro
lina clergy, 82; difficulties of, 83; reports
grievances of clergy, 84, 151; death of, 86;
interest of, in Indians, 140
Johnston, Bishop J. S., in West Texas, 334
Jones, Rev. Cave, controversy of, with Hobart,

222, 223

Jones, Bishop Paul, case of, 345
Jordan, Rev. Robert, 34
Jubilee College, founded, 252
Judson, Justice James, 102
Junior Auxiliary, organized, 343
Justification Evangelical view of, 215; Trac-
tarian and Protestant views of, 270

Kansas, Diocese of divided, 334; Missionary

Jurisdiction of, 260, 327
Kay, Rev. William, case of, 70
Keble, Rev. John, 267
Keith, Rev. Cleveland, in China, 263
Keith, C. P., quoted, 125

390

INDEX

Keith, Rev. George early career of, 49, 126;
missionary tour of, 50, 51; opens church in
Chester, 127; in New Jersey, 133

Keith, Rev. Reuel, 242

Keith, Gov. William, expels Welton, 129

Kemp, Bishop James death of, 234, 235;
Bishop of Maryland, 235; opposes diocesan
seminary, 242

Kemper, Bishop Jackson accompanies White,
211; in Society for Advancement of Chris
tianity in Pennsylvania, 212; missionary work
of, 212, 257-264.

Kemper College, founded, 258

Kennett, Bishop, sermon of, 160

Kentucky, Diocese of early missionaries in,
254; obtains a bishop, 257; Ritualism in,
298; action of, on Smith's resignation, 298,
299; statistics, 1836-1866, 327

Kenyon, Lord, aids Chase, 250

Kenyon College, 250, 251, 359

Key, F. S., patron of Missionary Society, 253

Kilgour, Bishop, consecrates Seabury, 194

King, Bishop John, 44

King, Rufus, on seminary committee, 239

King's Chapel, Boston organized, 31; built,
32, 33; in "Glorious Revolution," 33, 94;
Keith in, 50; growth of, 94, 95; under
Price and Caner, 99; petitions for a bishop,
161; lost to Unitarians, 175, 176

King's College founded, 123, 124; becomes
Columbia, 124; in Revolution, 178

"King's Farm," given to Trinity Church, 116

Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 131

Kinsman, Bishop F. J., 349

Kinsolving, Bishop L. L., in southern Brazil,
342, 343

Kip, Bishop W. L, sent to California, 261, 327

Knight, Bishop A. W., in Cuba, 343

Knowlys, Rev. Mr,, sent to Virginia, 14

Kohne, Frederick, 241

Kyoto, Missionary District of, 242, 356

Labor and capital paper of Dr. Wilson on,
319; joint committee on, 319, 320; advised
to seek partnership, 355
Lacey, Dr., Negro school of, 326
Ladd, Rev. W. P., Dean of Berkeley, 324
Laity lack of discipline among, in Virginia,
18; in Revolution, 173, 174; representation
of, in ecclesiastical councils, 189, 191; in
Civil War, 291

Lambeth Conference first, 308, 309; arranges
inter-communion with Swedish Church, 316;

adopts Quadrilateral, 317; secures inter -com
munion with Old Catholics, 354
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Barton in, 132
Lane, Gov. Ralph, at Roanoke, 3
Lang, Rev. John, complaint of, 149
Latin America, work in, 262, 342, 343, 356,

357

Laud, Archbishop William, 28, 45, 154
Lausanne Conference, 354
Law of Ritualism, The, 296
Lawrence, Sect. Thomas, 74, 126
Lawrence, Bishop William, 348, 350, 351
Lay, Bishop H. C., 260, 329
League of Nations, 344

Learning, Rev. Jeremiah in Norwalk, 106;
in Newport, 106; work of, among Negroes,
153; in Revolution, 177; declines election as
Bishop of Connecticut, 193, 194; furnishes
testimonial to Seabury, 194; corresponds with
White, 199

Lectures on the Catechism, 245
Lee, Bishop Alfred, in Delaware, 236
Lee, R. H., aids consecration of bishops, 196
Leisler, Jacob, 35

Lejau, Rev. Francis in Goose Creek, 82; work
of, among Negroes, 82, 150, 151; interest
of, in Indians, 82, 139, 140; comment of, on
Maule, 83; poverty of, 84
Leonard, Bishop Abiel, 331, 332
Leslie, Rev. Charles, 96
Letters of a Westchester Farmer, 17 4
Lewes, Delaware, missionary sent to, 133
Lexington, Kentucky, seminary in, 248
Liberal Catholicism, 273, 274, 349
Liberal Catholicism in the Modern World, 349
Liberal Evangelicalism, 349, 350
Liberalism and Ritualism, 302; in Philadelphia
Divinity School, 304; in Episcopal Theologi
cal School, 304; rise of, 307, 308; comes to
America, 309, 310; in Church Congress,
309, 310; leading exponents of, 310-314;
lessens opposition to Anglo-Catholicism, 314;
function of, 348

Liberalization of the Church, 347, 348
Liberian Mission, started, 263; history of, 1865-
1915, 342; statistics, 1890, 1915, 342; after
World War, 356; statistics, 1935, 356, 357
Liggins, Rev. John, in Japan, 263
Lincoln, Dean of, sermon of, 49
Linn, Rev. Dr., opposes Hobart, 221
Living Church, The, 323, 360
Living Church Annual, The, 323, 360
Living Church Quarterly, The, 332, 333

INDEX

391

Livingston, Robert, 143

Livingston, William, 169, 170; writes as "Amer
ican Whig," 170

Livingstons, the, won over to Church, 123
LlandlafF, Bishop of, 169
Locke, John, 80

Lockier, Rev. John, in Newport, 107
Lockwood, Rev. Henry, in China, 263
London, Bishop of asked to find ministers for
Virginia, 10, 44; aids proposed college in
Virginia, 11; jurisdiction of, in colonies, 17,
44-46, 76, 183; proposal to transfer gov
ernment of New England to, 28; corre
spondents of, 55; quarrel of, with Cal verts,
59; aids College of William and Mary, 66;
hearing of Andros before, 67; forbids Vir
ginia clergy to support Nicholson, 68; sends
Johnston to Charleston, 83; assistant at King's
Chapel appointed by, 95; ordains Checkley,
97; sends minister to Newport, 107; supports
Honeyman, 107; ordains Vesey, 115; sends
Vicary to Philadelphia, 128, 129; interest
of, in work among Indians, 137; in cam
paign for bishops, 154, 159-166; records of,
in Hawk's transcripts, 245
London Company chartered, 6; religious in
terests of, 7; charter of, revised, 8, 10; seeks
ministers for Virginia, 10; dissolved, 12;
grants charter to Pilgrims, 20
Long Island the Church on, 119-121; in Revo
lution, 178, 179
Los Angeles, Diocese of, 334
Lotteries, 62

Louisiana, Diocese of, 257, 333
Low Churchmanship, pre-Evangelical, 188
Low Churchmen leadership of, in reorgani
zation, 188, 189; view of episcopacy among,
188; attitude of, towards Thirty-Nine Ar
ticles, 270

Lutheranism among Germans in New York, 123
Lutherans, overtures for union from, 207
Lux Uundi, 312, 313
Lyford, John, 21, 22

Macfarlane, Miss, aids Chase, 240

Mackenzie, Rev. Aeneas, on Staten Island, 122

MacQueary, Howard, trial of, 314

Madison, Bishop James in Revolution, 181,
182; hinders consecration of Griffith, 198;
election and consecration of, 201; objects to
presidency of Senior Bishop, 201; proposes
declaration on Church unity, 206, 207; con
fines himself to College, 209, 222

Mahan, Rev. Milo, 291

Maine, colonial Church in, 34, 109, 110;
annexed by Massachusetts, 34; Roman Catho
lics in, 141, 142

Maine, Diocese of in Eastern Diocese, 228;
in 1811, 230; growth of, under Griswold,
231; elects Bishop Burgess, 232

Maine Coast, colony on, 5

Mansfield, Rev. Richard, 176

Manteo, Indian convert, 4

Marblehead, Massachusetts, Church in, 98, 230

Marriage cooperation on, proposed, 317, 318;
canons on, 320, 355, 356; discussed, 320;
of deaconesses, 353

Marriage Service, revised, 352, 353

Marriott, Rev. G. W., aids Chase, 250

Marsden, Rev. Richard, in Charleston, 83

Marshall, Rev. Samuel, in South Carolina, 80

Marston, Rev. Edward removed from Charles
ton, 81; seeks re-instatement, 83

Martin, Rev. David, in Philadelphia Academy,
130

Mary, Queen, 66, 94

Maryland, colonial founded, 35, 36; Church
in, 36, 37; Protestant revolution in, 37; Hen
derson in, 44; Bray in, 46; report of Keith
on, 51; case of Tibbs in, 60; Church estab
lished in, 74, 75; education in, 75; moral
conditions in, 76; Church life in, 76, 77;
attempts to discipline the clergy in, 77, 79;
tobacco acts in, 78; Roman Catholicism in,
79; attitude towards Indians in, 141; work
among Negroes in, 149, 150; in campaign
for bishops, 16 1

Maryland, Diocese of in reorganization, 186,

191, 192, 196; declaration of, on episcopate,

, 208; under Bishpp Claggett, 209; elects

Bishop Stone, 234, 235; elects Bishop Kemp,

235; seminary proposed in, 242; Ajiglo-Ca-

tholicism in, 282, 283; Trapnell case in, 282,

283

Maryland, State of, Church disestablished in,

186; Vestry Act in, 186
Mason, Capt. John, 33
Mason, Rev. J. M., 221, 222
Masons, attitude of Churchmen towards, 218
Massachusetts, colonial sends ministers to Vir
ginia, 14; and Morton, 23, 24; first settle
ment in, 25, 26; "old planters" in, 26, 27;
petition for religious toleration from, 28;
under Charles II, 28-30; weakening of Puri
tanism in, 92-94; Church in, 94, 95, 97-100;
activities of Checkley in, 95, 97; toleration

392

INDEX

required by charter of, 98; laws against
Churchmen in, 98, 99; Whitefield in, 99,
100; work among Negroes in, 152

Massachusetts, Diocese of in reorganization,
195, 199, 200, 201; under Bishop Bass, 209;
elects Bishop Parker, 209; without a bishop,
209, 210; in Eastern Diocese, 228; growth
of, under Griswold, 231; elects Bishop East-
burn, 232; supports motion for a general
seminary, 239; efforts to found a seminary in,
242; controversy on visitations in, 283, 284;
elects Bishop Brooks, 310

Massachusetts, State of, Church in, in Revo
lution, 175

Massachusetts Coast, early settlements on, 4, 5

Mather, Rev. Cotton, 92, 93, 104

Mather, Rev. Increase attacks Church, 33;
attacks Keith, 50; interest of, in witches, 92,
93; opposes Church in Connecticut, 104

Maule, Rev. Robert, in South Carolina, 83

Maverick, Samuel, "old planter," 27

Mayflower, the, 20

Mayhew, Rev. Jonathan, 168

McClennachan, Rev. William, 109, 130

McCoskry, Bishop S. A. in Michigan, 258;
sermon of, 290

Mcllvaine, Bishop C. P. in Ohio, 251; and
Kenyon College, 252; opposes Oxford Move
ment, 275, 278; presents Bishop Doane, 281;
writes pastoral letters, 292-294; goes to Eng
land, 294

McKean, Rev. Robert, 166

McKim, Bishop John, in Japan, 342

McLaren, Bishop W. E., 313, 324

McMaster, B. B. J., 277

McSparran, Rev. James, in Rhode Island, 108;
sermon of, 111; work of, among Negroes,
153

McVickar, Rev. John, examines Carey, 276, 277

Mead, Rev. W. C., 291, 292

Meade, Bishop William in Virginia, 233, 234;
candidate for assistant bishop in Pennsylvania,
237; instructions of, to Bishop Boone, 264;
presents Bishop Onderdonk, 280; presents
Bishop Doane, 281

Memorial Papers, 287, 288

Mercer, C. F., on seminary committee, 239

Mercier, Cardinal, 354

Meredith, William, on seminary committee, 239

Merrymount, 22, 23

Methodists, 184, 205-207, 214

Mexico, 342, 343, 357

Michigan, Diocese of, 254, 255, 258, 326

Middle Ages, Anglo-Catholic interest in, 272

Middle Colonies, characteristics of, 112

Middle States at close of Revolution, 182; in
reorganization, 189

Middle West (see West, Central)

Middletown, Connecticut Church in, 104;
Jarvis sent to, 106

Miles, Rev. J. W., 259

Miller, Rev. Ebenezer, 98

Miller, Rev. John, 154

Miln, Rev. John in Albany, 123; work of,
among Indians, 123, 144, 145; reports on
work among Negroes, 148

Milnor, Rev. James in Pennsylvania election,
237, 238; aids Chase, 251; patron of Mis
sionary Society, 253; visits Green Bay, 255,
258

Minaud, Rev. Peter, in St. Louis, 258

Ministers shortage of, 256, 329, 330; number
of, 1935, 360

Minnesota, Diocese of organized, 260; cathe
dral in, 322; statistics, 1836-1866, 327; di
vided, 334

Minnesota, missionary district of first mission
ary to, 248; under Kemper, 260; Breck in,
261

Minturn, R. B., 326

Missionary bishops, provision for, 257

Missionary Society for the West, organized, 262

Missions, domestic in the West, 247-262, 326-
335; in Florida, 254, 255; among Indians,
261, 264, 265, 338-340

Missions, foreign work begun in, 262-264; re
vival of interest in, 264; growth of, 1865-
1915, 340-342; statistics, 1935, 356, 357

Missions, territorial, begun, 335-337; after
World War, 356, 357; statistics, 1935, 357

Mississippi, Diocese of in Southwestern Dio
cese, 257; case of Dr. Hawks in, 260; obtains
a bishop, 261

Missouri, Diocese of early missionaries in, 254;
obtains a bishop, 260; statistics, 183 6-1 866 ',
327; divided, 334

Modernist controversy, 348, 349

Modest Proof of the Order and Government in
the Church, 96

Mohawk Indians work among, 123, 142-146;
driven out by rebels, 146, 179

Mohican Indians, 142

Moir, Rev. James, 152

Monasticism, revival of, 271, 272, 304, 313

Monhegan Island, Maine, settlement on, 5

INDEX

393

Monmouth County, New Jersey Innes in, 133;
seeks a missionary, 135; work among Ne
groes in, 149

Monrovia, Liberia, Church in, 263

Montana Diocese of, 334; Territory of, 330

Montgomery, General, 180

Moore, Col., in South Carolina, 85

Moore, Bishop Benjamin in Revolution, 179;
furnishes testimonial to Seabury, 194; Bishop
of New York, 210; paralysis of, 210, 222;
in episcopal controversy, 221; in Cave Jones'
controversy, 223; rector of Trinity Church,
225, 226; death of, 227

Moore, Rev. C. C., and General Seminary, 246

Moore, Bishop R. C. supports Cave Jones, 223;
work of, in Virginia, 233, 234; Churchman-
ship of, 233; patron of Missionary Society,
253

Moore, Rev. Thorogood, 134

Moore, William,' 131

Morals of colonial clergy, 57-61

Moravians, 137, 317

Morehouse, F. C., 323

Morell, Rev. William, 21

Mormonism, converts from, 331

Morris, Lewis and Trinity Parish, 114; criti
cizes Bartow, 118; and Jamaica dispute, 120;
and Thorogood Moore, 134

Morritt, Rev, Thomas, in Charleston, 86

Morton, Thomas, 22, 23

Mosher, Bishop G. F., in Philippines, 356

Moskito Indians, 142

Motte, Rev. M. I., hi Florida, 254

Muhlenberg, Rev. W. A. founds boys' school,
244, 286; theological position of, 285, 286;
Memorial of, 285-288; social work of, 286,
311; founds sisterhood, 286; explains Me
morial, 287; and free church movement, 304;
seeks greater liturgical freedom, 320

Muhlenberg Memorial presented, 285, 286; ex
plained, 287; results of, 287, 288

Muirson, Rev. George in Connecticut, 101,
102; in Westchester, 118

Munro, Rev. Henry, in Albany, 123, 145, 179

Murray, Bishop J. G., Presiding Bishop, 351

Myles, Rev. Samuel invites Keith to preach,
50; rector of King's Chapel, 94; has trouble
with Bridge, 95; seeks aid for French Church,
97; death of, 99

Name of the Church adopted, 186, 187; pro
posals to change, 315

Nantucket, Massachusetts, Anglo-Catholicism in,
274

Narragansett, Rhode Island Church in, 107j
108; work among Negroes in, 153

Narragansett Indians, seek a missionary, l4l

Nash, Prof., higher critic, 312, 313

Nash, Rev. Daniel, early missionary, 226, 247

Nash, Rev. Norman, 255

Nashotah House early history of, 259, 260,
274, 275; at present, 359

National Council, 351, 352, 354

National Federation of Churches, 318

Nationwide Campaign, 351, 352

Neau, Rev. Elias, work of, among Negroes, 148

Nebraska, Diocese of organized, 332; Terri
tory of, statistics, 1836-1866, 327; economic
distress in, 331

Negroes first cargo of, 10; work among, in
Maryland, 77, 149, 150; general indiffer
ence to conversion of, 137; difficulties of
work among, 146, 147, 150, 151; effect of
conversion on, 147, 151, 265; work among,
in the colonies, 146-153; in a minority in
the South, 183; work among, before the
Civil War, 265; complaints of discrimination
against, 323; work of Freedman's Commis
sion among, 326, 338; American Church In
stitute for, 338

Nelson, Rev. Robert, in China, 263

Nevada State of, 331; Territory of, statistics,
1866, 327

New Amsterdam, becomes New York, 34

New Brunswick, New Jersey, Convention at,
1784, 193

New England, in Revolution, 173, 175-177;
role of, in reorganization, 189; in General
Convention, 1189, 200; loss of population
in, 230

New England, clergy of (see Clergy of New
England)

New England, colonial united with New
York, 30; feared by English government, 41,
42; special interest of Society for the Propa
gation of the Gospel in, 52, 53; Churchman-
ship in, 110; controversies in, 111; .indiffer
ence to Indians in, 14 1; work among Negroes
in, 152, 153

New English Canaan, The, 23

New Hampshire, colonial Church in, 33, 34,
109; captured by Puritans, 34

New Hampshire, Diocese of in General Con
vention, 1795, 200; in Eastern Diocese, 228;

394

INDEX

in 2811, 230; under Griswold, 231; elects
Bishop Carlton Chase, 232

New Haven, Connecticut Church in, 105;
General Seminary moved to, 240; Berkeley
Divinity School moved to, 324

New Jersey, clergy of (see Clergy of New Jersey)

New Jersey, colonial clergy relief in, 63;
Church in, 133-136; work among Negroes
in, 149; petition for a bishop from, 16 1

New Jersey, Diocese of supports anti-Seabury
resolutions, 197; Ogden case in, 204; elects
Bishop Crocs, 236; trial of Bishop Doane in,
281

New Jersey, State of, Church in, in Revolution,
181

"New Lights," 80, 90

New Orleans, Louisiana, Church in, 254

New Rochelle, New York, Bondet in, 117

New York, colonial beginnings of the Church
in, 34, 35; Leisler's revolt in, 35; Establish
ment Act in, 41, 113, 114; clergy relief in,
63; characteristics of, 112; Church in West-
chester County, 117-119; Church on Long
Island, 119-121; Church on Staten Island,
121, 122; Church in Albany, 122, 123; King's
College in, 124; work among Indians in,
142-146; work among Negroes in, 148, 149;
petition for a bishop from, 161; visited by
Sherlock's agent, 163

New York, Diocese of elects Bishop Provoost,
196; opposes Seabury, 197; receives over
tures from Lutherans, 207; under Bishops
Provoost and Moore, 210, 225, 226; elects
Bishop Hobart, 222; Cave Jones' controversy
in, 222, 223; action of, concerning Bishop
Provoost, 223; under Hobart, 226, 227; di
vided, 228; captures General Seminary, 241;
support of Missionary Society in, 256; Onder-
donk case in, 280, 281; chooses provisional
bishop, 282; Tyng case in, 296; proposal to
increase control of, over General Seminary,
303; elects Bishop H. C. Potter, 311

New York Bible and Common Prayer Book
Society, 227

New York City Church organized in, 113,
114; St. George's Chapel in, 116, 178; St.
Paul's Chapel in, 116; King's College in, 123,
124; work among Negroes in, 148; contro
versy in, over bishops, 170; Tory clergy in,
175, 177, 178; burned in Revolution, 178;
convention in, 1784, 195; St. Stephen's
Church in, 223; clerical association in, 224;

General Seminary in, 240, 241; St. Thomas*
Church in, 245; St. Peter's Church in, 275;
All Saints' Church in, 276; St. Luke's Hos
pital in, 286; Church of the Holy Com
munion in, 304; Church Congress in, 309;
Grace Church in, 311; All Souls' Church in,
311; St. Ignatius' Church in, 313; cathedral
in, 314, 323; Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in, 322; St. George's Church in (see St.
George's Church, New York City); Trinity
Church in (see Trinity Church, New York
City)

New York Presbytery, 72

New York Protestant Episcopal Education So
ciety, 227

New York Protestant Episcopal Sunday School
Society, 227

Newark, New Jersey, Church in, 122, 135

Newbury, Massachusetts Church in, 97, 98;
work among Negroes in, 152

Newcastle, Delaware occupied by English, 125;
Ross in, 133

Newcastle, Duke of, 163

Newman, Rev. J. H., 268-270

Newport, Rhode Island Church in, 107, 108;
work among Negroes in, 153; Dehon in,
230

Newton, Rev. Christopher, 152

Newton, Rev. R. H., 311, 312

Newtown, Connecticut, 104

Nicene Creed, 196, 198

Nicholson, Sir Francis aids King's Chapel, 32;
expelled by Leisler, 35; in Virginia, 65, 66,
68; in Maryland, 74, 75; in South Carolina,
85; influence of, in Pennsylvania, 126; bene
factor of Christ Church, 127; efforts of, for
education of Indians, 138, 139

Nicolls, Col. Richard, 34

Ninaagret, C. A., 141

Niobrara, Missionary District of statistics, 332,
339, 340; history of, 339, 340

Nippon Sei Kokwai, 356

Nonjuring episcopate, in the colonies, 51, 170,
171

Nonjurors, 95, 129, 170

Norridgewolk Indians, 142

North Carolina, colonial establishment in, 41,
89, 90; report of Keith on, 51; clerical
morals in, 59; the Church in, 88, 89; re
ligious divisions in 88-90; work among In
dians in, 141; work among Negroes in, 152

North Carolina, Diocese of elects Pettigrew,
204; under Bishop Moore, 233, 234, 236;

INDEX

395

revival in, 236; Ives case in, 284, 285; in
General Convention, 1865, 292

North Carolina, State of, Church in, in Revo
lution, 181

North Dakota, Missionary District of, 339, 340

North Texas Diocese of, 334; Missionary Dis
trict of, 333

North Tokyo, Missionary District of, 356

Northeast, statistics, 1935, 358

Northwest, Missionary Jurisdiction of the, 260

Norwalk, Connecticut Church in, 105; work
among Negroes in, 153; burned in Revo
lution, 177; Kemper in, 258

Nowell, Increase, 26

Observations on the Charter and Conduct of
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,
168

Odell, Rev. Jonathan, 174

Ogden, Rev. Uzal, 181, 204

Ogilby, Rev. J. D., 275, 278

Ogilvie, Rev. John, 145

Oglethorpe, Gen., 90

Ohio, Diocese of first missionary to, 248; or
ganized, 248, 249; Chase in, 248-251; under
Mcllvaine, 251, 252; MacQueary case in,
314; statistics, 1838-1866, 326

Oklahoma, Missionary District of, 334

Old Catholics, 316, 354

Old North Church, Boston (see Christ Church,
Boston)

"Old planters," in Boston, 26, 27

Old South Church, Boston, 32

Oldom, John, in Plymouth Colony, 21

Olympia, Diocese of, 334

Onderdonk, Bishop B. T. elected, 227; sup
ports Missionary Society, 256; in Carey case,
276, 277; trial of, 280, 281

Onderdonk, Bishop H. U. elected, 211, 238;
jurisdiction of, in Delaware, 236; friendly to
Oxford Movement, 274, 275, 279; suspended,
279; restored, 279

Oneida Indians in New York, 144, 264, 265;
in Wisconsin, 255

Order of the Holy Cross, 313, 359

Oregon Diocese of, 334; Territory of, 261,
327

Orem, Rev. John, in Bristol, 108

Orthodoxy, conflict of, with Liberalism, 348

Osborne, Rev. T. A., in Ohio, 249

Otey, Bishop J. H. in Tennessee, 257; plans
missionary tour, 258; presents Bishop Onder
donk, 280

Overs, Bishop W. H., in Liberia, 356

Oxford, Pennsylvania, Church in, 128

Oxford Divinity Compared with that of the

Roman and Anglican Churches, 275
Oxford Group Movement, 347
Oxford Movement effect of, on Missionary

Society, 256, 262; results of, 266, 267; early

history of, 267-273; in America, 274, 275;

in General Seminary, 274-278

Paca, Governor William, 192

Pacific States, statistics, 327, 333-335, 358;
191$, 334, 335; 1935, 358

Paine, Thomas, 174

Palatines, in New York, 123

Panama Canal Zone, 335, 337

Paris, France, war memorial church in, 346

Paris, Kentucky, Church in, 254

Paris life (see Church life)

Parishes, definition of, 296

Parker, Bishop Samuel in Revolution, 176;
in reorganization, 189; Bishop of Massachu
setts, 209

Parks, Rev. Leighton, 348

Partridge, Bishop S. C., in Japan, 342

Pastoral Letters of House of Bishops, 291-294,
348, 355

Payne, Bishop John, in Liberia, 263, 342

Peace resolutions, 319, 355

Peel, Sir Robert, 328

Penance, revival of, 273

Penick, Bishop C. C., in Liberia, 342

Penn, Thomas, 124, 131

Penn, William, 125

Pennsylvania, clergy of (see Clergy of Penn
sylvania)

Pennsylvania, colonial religious toleration in,
42, 125; clergy relief in, 63; characteristics
of, 112; Church in, 125-130; Germans in,
132; work on frontier in, 132; work among
Indians in, l4l; work among Negroes in,
149; petition for bishop from, 161

Pennsylvania, Diocese of first convention in,
192, 193; votes to restore Nicene Creed,
196; elects Bishop White, 196; disputed elec
tion in, 236-239; supports Missionary So
ciety, 256; case of Bishop Onderdonk in,
279; Philadelphia Divinity School in, 303,
304

Pennsylvania, State of, Church in, in Revolu
tion, 179, 180

Pension Fund organized, 350, 351; at pres
ent, 358, 359

396

INDEX

Pentateuch and Joshua Critically Explained, The,
308

Perceval, on nonjuring episcopate, 171

Percy, Rev. William, in Revolution, 181

Periodicals, Church, 243, 244, 323, 343, 359,
360

Pershing, General John, 345

Perry, Bishop J. DeW., Presiding Bishop, 352

Perry, Bishop W. S., historical work of, 6, 245

Persia, mission to, 264

Perth Amboy, opposition to Halliday in, 134

Peters, Rev. Richard in Christ Church, 129;
political career of, 129; aids Philadelphia
College, 130; aids Germans, 132; presents
plan for colonial bishops, 165; in Revolution,
179, 180; White studies under, 187

Peters, Rev. Samuel in Hebron, Connecticut,
106; in Revolution, 176; seeks bishopric in
Vermont, 176, 204

Petrie, Bishop, consecrates Seabury, 194

Pettigrew, Rev. Charles in Revolution, 181;
elected bishop, 204

PfeifTer, Rev. H. H., in Indiana, 254

Phelps, Rev. Davenport, early missionary, 226

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Church organized
in, 126; St. Peter's Church in, 130; work
among Negroes in, 149; in campaign for
bishops, 161, 163, 170; occupied by British
troops, 180; meeting of vestries in, 192; con
vention in, 195, 196; St. Andrew's Church
in, 251; Church of the Advent in, 310;
Holy Trinity Church in, 310

Philadelphia, Christ Church (see Christ Church,
Philadelphia); St. Paul's Church (see St.
Paul's Church, Philadelphia)

Philadelphia Academy, 130, 131

Philadelphia Bible Society, 212

Philadelphia College, 130, 180, 181, 187, 219

Philadelphia Divinity School, 303, 304, 359

Philippine Islands annexed, 335; work begun
in, 336; Bishop Brent in, 337; after World
War, 356; statistics, 1935, 357

Phillips, Rev. Francis in Stratford, 102; in
Philadelphia, 128

Pierce, Bishop H. N., 331, 332

Pigot, Rev. George in Stratford, 102; and
'Tale Converts," 103; in Providence, 108;
defends Christmas, 111

Pilgrims, 20

Pilmore, Rev. Joseph, 214

Pintard, John, 240

piscatacjua, New Jersey, Halliday in, 134

Plant, Rev. Matthias, work of, among Negroes,
152

Platte, Missionary District of the, 332

Plea for the West, 251

Plymouth Colony religious character of, 20;
Robert Gorges in, 21; Lyford in, 21, 22;
Morton and, 22, 23

Plymouth Company, 6, 20

Pocahontas, 9

Polk, Bishop Leonidas in Arkansas and Louisi
ana, 260; in Civil War, 293

"Popery and prelacy," 94

Popham, George, 5

Popham, Sir John, 5, 6

Portland, Maine, Church in, 230

Portsmouth, New Hampshire Walford in, 30;
Church in, 33, 109; Keith visits, 50

Potter, Bishop Alonzo in Pennsylvania, 279;
edits Memorial Papers, 287, 288; contro
versy of, with Hopkins, 294; founds Phila
delphia Divinity School, 303, 304; father of
H. C. Potter, 311

Potter, Bishop H. C. rector of Grace Church,
311; Bishop of New York, 311; and Newton
case, 311, 312; ordains Briggs, 312; pro
fesses Father Huntington, 313; and Ritchie
case, 313

Potter, Bishop Horatio opposes Church Con
gress, 309; uncle of H. C. Potter, 311; New
ton presented to, 312; projects cathedral, 314

Poughkeepsie, New York, missionary sent to,
123

Poyer, Rev. Thomas, in Jamaica, 120

Pratt, Rev. G. B., in Puerto Rico, 336

Prayer Book (see Book of Common Prayer)

Presbyterians in colonies, 50, 54, 72, 73, 80,
87, 168, 184; imprisoned by Cornbury, 115;
in Jamaica dispute, 120; opposition of, to
colonial bishops, 158, 167, 168; convention
of, 167, 168; controversy of, with Hobart,
221, 222

Prescott, Father, professed, 304

Present State of Virginia, 67

Presiding Bishop senior bishop, ex officio, 201;
president of Missionary Society, 253; juris
diction of, in Canal Zone, 337; constitutional
provision for, 321; placed in charge of mis
sionary work, 351, 352; relieved of executive
duties, 352

Presiding Bishop and Council (see National
Council)

Price, Rev. J. H., examines Carey, 276, 277

Price, Rev. Roger, in Boston, 99

INDEX

397

Priestley, Joseph, 199

Princeton College, 72, 219

Pring, Martin, 5

Pritchard, Rev. Thomas, in Westchester, 118

Privy Council, 37, 46

Progressive Movement, 346

Prohibition, effect of, 346

"Proposed Book" issued, 196; adopted b>
Reformed Episcopal Church, 299

"Protestant" meaning of, in eighteenth cen
tury, 186; held antithetical to "Catholic,"
271, 315; motion to delete from Prayer
Book, 315

"Protestant Episcopal," colonial use of, 186, 187

Protestant Episcopal Church, name adopted in
Maryland, 186

Protestant Episcopal Clerical Association, 224

Protestant Episcopal Press, 227

Protestant Episcopal Tract Society, 227

Protestant Episcopalian, 244

Protestant view of Justification, 270; of tra
dition, 268

Protestants relations of Church with continen
tal, 35; in Maryland, 36, 37

Providence, Rhode Island Checkley in, 97, 108;
Church in, 108; Grace Church in, 274

Provinces, in American Church, 322

Provincial Court of Review, 314

Provoost, Bishop Samuel in Revolution, 179;
rector of Trinity Church, 179, 225, 226;
elected Bishop of New York, 196; in reor
ganization, 196, 198, 199, 201; consecrated,
198; resignation of, 207, 210, 222; as dio
cesan, 210; consecrates Hobart and Griswold,
222; retracts resignation, 223; ordains Chase,
248

Psalter, translation of, revised, 353

Puerto Rico annexed, 335; work begun in,
336, 337; statistics, 1915, 337; 1935, 357

Purcell, Rev. Henry in Revolution, 182; at
tack of, on bishops, 203, 204

Purgatory, Anglo-Catholic views of, 269, 271,
276

Puritanism, decline of, 38, 92, 94, 100, 230,
231

Puritans in Virginia, 13, 14; theology of, 19;
in Plymouth Colony, 20; conflict of, with
Morton, 22-24; in Salem, 24, 25; in Boston,
26, 32; in Maine and New Hampshire, 34;
influence of, on Churchmen, 61, 62; in Con
necticut, 101, 102, 104; controversies of,
with Churchmen, 110, 111; attitude of, to
wards bishops, 158

Pusey, Rev. E. B., in Oxford Movement, 26"
Puseyism (see Oxford Movement)

Quadrilateral, 317

Quakerism Keith withdraws from, 49, 126;
some Churchmen return to, 128

Quakers in Massachusetts, 29: in Maryland,
37, 74, 79; in New England, 42; contro
versies of, with Keith, 50, 51; baptized by
Keith, 51; influence of, on Churchmen, 61;
in Virginia, 72; in South Carolina, 87; in
North Carolina, 88; in Connecticut, 101; in
Rhode Island, 107; in Westchester County,
119; in Pennsylvania, 125; conversion of, by
Evans, 127; in New Jersey, 133, 135

Quarry, Col. Robert, 107, 126

Quebec, Canada, bishop proposed for, 164

Queers County, New York, Church in, 113,
119-121

"Queen's Farm," given to Trinity Church, 116*

Queries of Dean of Gloucester, 165

Quincy, Rev. Samuel, in Georgia, 90

Quintard, Bishop C. T., 293

Racine College, 297

Radnor, Pennsylvania, Church in, 128

Raikes, Robert, 243

Rainsford, Rev. Giles on morals of Maryland
clergy, 77; sent to North Carolina, 89; inter
est of, in Indians, 140

Rainsford, Rev. W. S., 311

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 2, 3, 4

Randall, Bishop G. M. unable to find Wyo
ming, 328; elected bishop, 329; lacks minis
ters, 329; educational work of, 330; on mis
sionary finances, 330

Randolph, Edward champions Church, 29, 31;
imprisoned, 33

Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, in Boston, 30, 31

Rationalism Turner suspected of, 278; con
demned by Mcllvaine, 308

Rauschenbusch, Prof. Walter, 319

Ravenscroft, Bishop, J. S., in North Carolina,
236

Real Presence, Anglo-Catholic emphasis on, 273,
276

Reed, B. T., 304

Reformation influence of, upon American his
tory, 1; Anglo-Catholic theory of, 272, 273,
276

Reformed Episcopal Church, organized, 299

"Reformed Episcopal Church," proposed as
name for Church, 187

398

INDEX

Reindeer, efforts to breed, 336

Religious Background of American Culture, The,
184

Religious Communities in American Church,
284, 304, 313-315; canon on, 315

Religious education cooperation on, proposed,
317, 318; changes in, 353; commission on,
353

Religious toleration petitioned for, 28; in New
York, 34; in Maryland, 35-37; approved by
English government, 40, 41; growth of, 42;
required by Massachusetts charter, 98; strug
gle for, in Connecticut, 105; advocated by
Roger Williams, 107; in Delaware, 125; in
Pennsylvania, 125; in Philadelphia College,
131; urged as justifying colonial bishops,
168

Religious unrest, 39, 40

Reliquiae Hernianae, 171

Remarks upon the Bishop of Oxford's Sermon,
162

Republican Party, 291, 292, 294

Restarick, Bishop H. B., 337

Resurrection, 314, 348

Revere, Paul, 175

Revolution, American effect of, on Church, 43,
172, 182-185; role of Churchmen in, 172-
182; military situation in, 175; Treaty of
Peace in, 191

Rhode Island, colonial attitude of other colo
nies towards, 20, 21; Blaxton in, 27; Bap
tists in, 63; founding of, 107; Church in,
107, 198; work among Negroes in, 153

Rhode Island, Diocese of in reorganization,
195; in Eastern Diocese, 228; in 1811, 230;
under Griswold, 231; elects Bishop Henshaw,
232; supports motion for general seminary,
239

Richmond, Rev. J. C., 280

Riley, Bishop H. C., in Mexico, 342

Ritchie, Rev. Arthur, case of, 313

Ritual, changes in, 266, 267

Ritualism effect of, on Missionary Society, 256;
controversy over, 294-300; action of General
Convention on, 297-300; in Seymour case,
301, 302; diffusion of, 302, 306, 314, 315;
discussed in Church Congress, 309, 310; in
Ritchie case, 313

Roanoke, colonies at, 3, 4

Robertson, Rev. J. J., in Greece, 262, 263

Robinson, Bishop John, 46

Robinson, Commissary William, 71, 72

Roe, Rev. Stephen, 141, 142

Rolfe, John, 9

Roman Catholic Church converts to, 270, 277,
284, 285, 316, 349; attitude of Anglo-Cath
olics towards, 271, 274, 276; relations with,
316, 354

Roman Catholics in Maryland, 35, 36, 75, 79;
in South Carolina, 87; work of, among In
dians, 137, 141, 142

Roots, Bishop L. H., in Hankow, 341

Ross, Rev. George, in Delaware, 133

Rosse, Lady, aids Chase, 250

Rowe, Bishop P. T., in Alaska, 336

Rudman, Rev. Andreas, in Pennsylvania, 128

Rural work, 358

Rye, New York, Church in, 115, 118

Sabbath observance in Virginia, 9, 18; laws
on, in Massachusetts, 98, 99; cooperation on,
proposed, 317, 318

Sabine, Miss B. W., teacher, Alaska, 336
Sacramentalism of Oxford Movement, 273
Sacramento, Diocese of, 334, 336
Sagada, Philippine Islands, mission to, 337
St. Andrew's Church, Philadelphia, 251
St. Andrew's Church, Staten Island, 121, 122
St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn, 233
St. Augustine's School, Raleigh, North Caro
lina, 338

St. Bartholomew's Church, New York City, 348
St. George's Church, New York City founded,
116; Tyng, rector of, 296; Rainsford, rector
of, 311

St. Ignatius' Church, New York City, 313
St. Johnland, Long Island, founded, 1870, 286
St. John's Chapel, New York City, use of, re
fused to General Theological Seminary, 240
St. John's College, Shanghai, founded, 341
St. Louis, mission at, 254
St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, founded,

286

St. Luke's Hospital, Tokyo, 341, 342
St. Mark's Church, New York City, 276
St. Mark's School, for Negroes, 338
St. Mary's, Maryland, Church in, 36
St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, New Jersey, 244,

281
St. Paul's Chapel, New York City, founded,

116

St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia organized, 130;
Joseph Pilmore, rector, 214; Benjamin Allen,
rector, 251

St. Paul's College, Flushing, 244
St. Paul's Industrial School, 338

INDEX

399

St. Paul's University, Tokyo, 341, 342

St. Peter's Church, New York City, 275

St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, 130

St. Stephen's Church, New York City, 233

St. Vincent de Lerins, canon of, 271

Salem, Massachusetts Congregationalism in, 24;

witchcraft panic in, 92, 93; Church organized

at, 98; Griswold, rector at, 231
Salem, New Jersey missionary sent to, 135;

work among Negroes in, 149
Salina, Missionary District of, 334
Salt Lake City, Utah, Church in, 330
Salterne, Robert, with Pring, 5
Sandelands, family, builds Church in Chester,

Pennsylvania, 127

San Joaquin, missionary district of, 334
San Francisco first missionary to, 261; Grace

Church founded, 261
Sanitary Commission, 294
Savage, Rev. T. S., M.D., missionary to Liberia,

263
Savannah, Georgia Whitefield and Wesley in,

63; Church in, in eighteenth century, 90, 91;

work among Negroes in, 152
"Saybrook Platform," 105
Sayre, Rev. James, Brooklyn, 179
Sayre, Rev. John, 177
Sayre, Monell, 350, 351
Schereschewsky, Rev. S. I. J. translates Bible

into Chinese, 264; Bishop of Shanghai, 341;

resigns, 341
Schuylers, the, 123
Scituate, Massachusetts, Church organized at,

98
Scotch among Virginia clergy, 67; presence

of, in Virginia, 72
Scotch-Irish, in Virginia, 72
Scott, Bishop T. F. sent to Oregon, 261; Bishop

of Oregon, 329

Scottish Bishops, consecrate Seabury, 194
Scottish Church, concordat of, with Connecticut,

194
Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and Historical View

of Slavery, A, 294
Scripture literal inerrancy of, rejected by

Higher Critics, 307, denied by Colenso, 308,

and not official teaching of Church, 312
Seabury, Rev. Samuel, I in Connecticut, 104;

in Hempstead, 121; in Jamaica, 121
Seabury, Bishop Samuel, II in Westchestcr,

121; in Jamaica, 121; in Revolution, 174,

179; consecration of, 194; in reorganization,

196-201; attacked by Purccll, 203; receives

letter from Coke, 206; as diocesan, 209; or
dains Pilmore, 214
Seabury, Rev. Samuel, III examines Carey;

276, 277; stand of, on slavery, 290
Seabury Divinity School organized, 261;

merged with Western Theological Seminary,

261, 324
Seabury-Westcrn Theological Seminary moved

to Evanston, 324; listed, 354
Searle, Rev. Addison, missionary to Florida, 255
Searle, Rev. Roger, missionary to Ohio, 248
Seeker, Archbishop Thomas on missionary

policies, 53; relations of, with Smith, 124,

132; interest of, in work among Indians,

137, 138, 145; in campaign for bishops,

161, 164, 165, 168, 169
Separatists, 20
Serious Address, 168
Seward, Sect., W. H., 292, 294
Seymour, Bishop G. F., 301, 302, 310, 313
Seymour, Horatio, 291
Seymour, Rev. Richard, 5
Shanghai, Missionary District of, 337, 341, 356
Sheepscot River, 5, 6
Sheldon, Archbishop, 37
Sherburne, Henry, 33
Sherlock, Bishop Thomas, in campaign for

bishops, 42, 156, 157, 162-164, 170
Sherred, Jacob, bequest of, 24 1
Short and Easy Method with the Deists, 96
Sign of the Cross in baptism, 196, 200
Simsbury, Connecticut, Church in, 104
Sisterhood of the Holy Nativity, 359
Sisterhood of St. Margaret, 359
Sisterhoods, religious, increase of, 314, 315
Skinner, Bishop, consecrates Seabury, 194
Skinner, Rev. William, work of, in New Jersey,

135
Slavery called a missionary enterprise, 265;

stand of Churchmen on, 290
Slaves (see Negroes)
Sloughter, Gov., of New York, seeks colonial

establishment, 112
Small dioceses advocated, 305
Smiley, Rev. J. L., missionary to Philippines,

336
Smith, Bishop B. B. founds seminary, 248;

Bishop of Kentucky, 1832, 257; tolerates
Ritualism, 298; retirement of, 298; Presiding

Bishop, 299

400

INDEX

Smith, Rev. Hugh, opposes Carey ordination,
275-277

Smith, J. B., secretary, Freedman's Commission,
326

Smith, Rev, J. C., plea of, for comprehensive
ness, 301, 306, 309-310

Smith, Capt. John, and Pocahontas, 9

Smith, Bishop Robert in South Carolina, 60;
in Revolution, 182; opposes Seabury, 197;
Bishop of South Carolina, 203; and Purcell
incident, 203, 204; inactivity of, 209

Smith, Rev. William leads in clergy relief, 62,
63; in Philadelphia College, 124, 130, 131;
opposes MacCIennachan, 130; imprisonment
of, 131; character and influence of, 131,
132; work of, among Germans, 132; praises
Barton, 132; interest of, in Indians, 14 1; in
campaign for bishops, 164, 167, 170; in
Revolution, 180, 181; founds Washington
College, 181; leads reorganization in Mary
land, 186; White studies under, 187; in re
organization, 189-199

Social Christianity, 318, 319

Social questions, 318-320, 354, 355

Social service, committee on Christian, ap
pointed, 320

Society for the Advancement of Christianity in
Pennsylvania founded, 212; sends Kemper
to western counties, 258

Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowl
edge, 48

Society for the Promotion of Religion and
Learning in the State of New York, 227

Society for Propagating Knowledge among the
Germans of Pennsylvania, 132

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sup
port of, 40, 54, 55; founded, 47-49; begins
work, 49; importance of, 51, 52; policies of,
52-54; criticisms of, 53; Secretary of, 55;
discipline of, 56-58; High Churchmanship
of, 57, 173; character of missionaries of,
57-60; aids clergy relief, 63; aids Huguenots
and Germans, 73, 87; in South Carolina,
82-87, 139, 152; in North Carolina and
Georgia, 87-89; in Massachusetts, 97-100;
in Connecticut, 100-106; in Rhode Island,
107-109; in New Hampshire, 109; in Maine,
109, 110; in New York, 117-120, 122, 123;
in Pennsylvania, 127, 128, 132; dealings of,
with Talbot, 129, 135, 170, 171; influence
of Smith on, 132; in Delaware, 133; in New
Jersey, 133, 134; work of, among Indians,
137, 139, 141-143, 146; work of, among

Negroes, 137, 148, 149, 152; in campaign for
bishops, 154, 159-161; accused of design to
root out Presbyterians, 165; loyalty of mis
sionaries of, to Crown, 173; aids Tory clergy,
178; aid of, withdrawn after Revolution, 182;
Roger Viets employed by, 228; in Hawks'
Transcripts, 245

Society for the Relief of the Widows and Or
phans of Clergymen in Pennsylvania, New
York, and New Jersey, organized, 62, 63

Society of Jesus (see Jesuits)

Society of St. John the Evangelist introduced
into United States, 304; recalls Father Hall,
311; listed, 359

Socinians, societies to combat, 47

Solemn Appeal to the Church, A t 222, 223

South, theChurch in, in Revolution, 181, 182;
Church in, at close of Revolution, 182; causes
of decline of social classes in, 183, 184;
Church in, 183-185; growth of dissent in,
184, 185; disestablishment of Church in, 185;
role of, in reorganization of Church, 190

South African question, 308, 309

South Carolina, colonial clergy relief in, 62;
founding of, 80; Church in, 80, 83, 88;
establishment in, 81, 85-87; unhealthiness of,
83; Yamassee revolt in, 85; revolt against
proprietors in, 85; Church life in, 86; de
terioration of clergy in, 86, 87; religious
divisions in, 87; work on frontier of, 87,
88; interest in Indians in, 139, 140; work
among Negroes in, 150-152

South Carolina, Diocese in reorganization, 190,
197; Purcell incident in, 203, 204; revival
of, 234, 235; Churchmanship of, 235; sup
ports motion for general seminary, 239; aids
General Theological Seminary, 240; supports
Missionary Society, 256

South Carolina, State of, Church in, in Revo
lution, 181, 182

South Dakota, Missionary District of, 340

Southeast, statistics, 1935, 358

Southern Brazil, work in, 342, 343, 357

Southern Churchman, 323, 360

Southern Churchmen, 13, 167

Southern clergy morals of, 58-61; oppose send
ing bishops, 155, 166, 167

Southgate, Rev. Horatio, 264

Southwest, Missionary Jurisdiction of the, 260

Southwestern Diocese, 228, 257

Spalding, Bishop F. S., 345

Spirit of Missions, 244, 343

Spokane, Missionary District of, 334

INDEX

401

Spottswood, Gov., 69, 72, 139, 141

Springfield, Diocese of, 302

Stamford, Connecticut, 105

Stamp Act, 159, 166

Standard, Rev. Thomas, 148

Standing committees, 208

Standish, Miles, 22, 23

Staten Island Church on, 113, 121, 122; work

among Negroes on, 149; in Revolution, 178
Staunton, Rev. J. A., in Philippines, 337
Steenstra, Prof., Higher Critic, 312, 313
Stillingfleet, Bishop, 66
Stone, Rev. J. S., 304, 317
' Stone, Bishop W. M., in Maryland, 234, 235
Stoy, Rev. W. H., 330
Stratford, Connecticut, Church in, 101-104
Strictures on the Love of Power in the Prelacy,

203

Stuart, Rev. John, 146, 179
Stuck, Ven. Hudson, in Alaska, 336
Sturgeon, Rev. William, 149
Suffragan bishops proposed for colonies, 154,

159-161, 163, 165; agitation for, in South,

323; provided for, 323, 324
Sunday Schools, 243, 353
Sussex County, Delaware, 133
Suter, Rev. J. W., 314
Swansea, Massachusetts, 97
Swedish Church ministers of, in colonies, 128;

inter-communion with, 316
Swift, Jonathan, 161
Swiss Protestants, 87
Sword's Pocket Almanac, 323
Syracuse, New York, 247

Talbot, Bishop Ethelbert, in Wyoming, 328,

331

Talbot, Bishop J. C., in Northwest, 260
Talbot, Rev. John joins Keith, 50; settles in
Burlington, 51, 133; dismissed, 55; in Christ
Church, 129; suspected of being a bishop, 129,
170; objections of politicians to, 138; in cam
paign for bishops, 159, 160
Talbot, St. George, 55
Talcott, Governor, 105
Taylor, Rev. Ebenezer, 151, 152
Taylor, Rev. T. H., 311
Temple, Archbishop Frederick, 308
Tenison, Archbishop Thomas, 48, 49, 16 1
Tennessee, Diocese of, 257, 262, 333
Territories, work in, 335-338, 356, 357
Texas, Diocese of, 261, 292, 333

Thirty-nine Articles and Tract Ninety, 269,
270; early respect for, 269, 270; adopted by
American Church, 270; Carey's view of, 276

Thomas, Rev. John, 121, 127

Thomas, Rev. Samuel, 82, 139

Thomson, J. M., 263

Thomson, Rev, William, 132

Tibbs, Rev. William, 60

Tillotson, Archbishop John, 66

"Timothy Tickle," 170

Tobacco Acts, 71, 73, 74, 78, 79

Tohoku, Missionary District of, 356

Tokyo, Missionary District of, 342, 356

Toleration, Religious (see Religious toleration)

Toleration Act, in colonies, 72, 105

Tory clergy, 174-179, 181, 182

Tract Ninety, 269, 270

Tract Thirty-eight, 269

Tractarianism (see Oxford Movement)

Tractarians stand of on Rituals, 272, 294;
accused of "Romanizing," 274, 275

Transubstantiation, 273, 276, 284

Trapnell, Rev. Joseph, 283

Trinity Church, Boston organized, 95, 99;
Phillips Brooks, rector, 310

Trinity Church, New York City rector of,
asked to visit Stratford, 101; organized, 113,
114, 116; Vesey rector of, 114-116; obtains
"Queen's Farm,'* 116; gift of, to King's Col
lege, 124; work among Negroes in, 148; in
Revolution, 178, 179; Hobart and Griswold
consecrated in, 222; Cave Jones consecrated
in, 223; aids missions, 225, 226; Hobart
rector of, 227; Berrian rector of, 276; Carey
ordained in, 277

Trinity College, Hartford founded, 244, 245;
at present, 359

Tryon, Governor and General secures Estab
lishment in North Carolina, 89; receives pe
tition from Mansfield, 176; burns Norwalk
and Fairfield, 177

Tucker, Bishop H. St. J., in Japan, 342

Turner, Rev. S. H. professor in General Semi
nary, scholarship of, 246; patron of Mission
ary Society, 253; suspected of Rationalism,
278

Tuttle, Bishop D. S. in Montana and Idaho,
329, 330, 334; Presiding Bishop, 351

Tyng, Rev. S. H., Sr M rector of St. George's
Church, New York, 296

Tyng, S. H., Jr., trial of, 296

402

INDEX

Union Theological Seminary, 312

Unitarians and Phillips Brooks, 310

United Thank Offering, 343

University of Maryland, 235

University of the South, 359

Unlawfulness of the Common Prayer Worship,

Upfold, Bishop George, in Indiana, 260
Urmiston, Rev. John in North Carolina, 89;

in Philadelphia, 129; drunkenness of, 89,

129, 170; charges of, against Talbot, 129,

170

Urquhart, Rev. William, in Jamaica, 119
Usher, Bishop James, 191
Usher, Rev. John, in Rhode Island, 108
Utah, conditions in, 330, 331

Valle Crucis, religious community at, 284

Van Buren, Bishop J. H., in Puerto Rico, 337

Van Ingen, Dr., assists Breck, 261

Van Rensselaer, Nicolaus, 35

Van Rensselaers, the, won to Church, 123

Varnod, Rev. Francis, interest of, in Indians, 140

Vaughan, Rev. Edward, in New Jersey, 134,

135

VerMehr, Rev. J. L. H., in California, 261, 327
Vermont, Diocese of obtains lands, 55; and
Peters case, 204; in Eastern Diocese, 228; in
1811, 230; withdraws from Eastern Diocese,
231; Hopkins, Bishop of, 242; elects Bishop
Hall, 311

Vesey, Rev. William called to Trinity Church,

New York, 113, 114; ordained, 115; death

of, 116; aids Church in Westchester, 117;

opposes Neau, 148

Vestries, beginnings of, 9, 15, 16; in Maryland,

Vicary, Rev. John, in Philadelphia, 128
Vicksburg Industrial School, 338
Viets, Rev. Roger, tutor of Griswold, 228
Vinton, Bishop A. H. at first Church Con
gress, 309; and Phillips Brooks, 310
Vinton, Rev. Francis, in General Convention,

1862, 290, 291
Virgin Birth denied by MacQueary and Crapsey,

314; controversy over, 348, 349
Virgin Islands, 335

Virginia, Clergy of (see Clergy of Virginia)
Virginia, colonial named for Queen Elizabeth,
3; settlement of, 6, 7, 8; "Dale's Laws" in,
8, 9; Church discipline in, 8, 9, 11, 17, 47,
68; Herico Parish in, 9; first assembly in, 10;
college projected in, 10, 11; religious laws

in, 11-13, 15, 16; dissent in, 13, 14, 72, 73;
and the Puritan Revolution, 13, 14, 16, 17;
Church life in, 17, 70, 71; Keith on, 51;
clergy relief in, 62; Blair in, 44, 65-71; Col
lege of William and Mary in f 66; disputes
between governor and Commissary in, 66-69;
induction controversy in, 67, 69, 70; work
among Indians in, 68, 71, 138, 139; To
bacco Act in, 71, 73; work among Negroes
in, 71, 149; work on frontier in, 72; oppo
sition to bishops in, 166, 167; decline of
Commissaries in, 167

Virginia, Diocese of first convention in, 181,
185; deprived of glebes, 185; restricted by
legislature, 186, 190; in reorganization, 190,
195, 196, 198; under Moore and Meade,
233, 234; supports motion for general semi
nary, 239; founds seminary, 241, 242

Virginia, Seminary founded, 241, 242; char
acteristics of, 242; at present, 359

Virginian, The, 328

Visit from St. Nicholas, A, 246

Visitations, canons on, 282-284

Wainwright, Bishop J. M., provisional bishop,

282
Walford, Thomas "old planter," 26, 27;

warden, 33
Walker, Bishop W. D. presides at Crapsey trial,

314; work of, among Indians, 339, 340
Wall, Rev. William missionary to Kentucky,

254

Wallace, Gen. Lew, 328
Wallingford, Connecticut, missionary to, 104
Walpole, Horatio letter of, to Bishop Sherlock,

156, 157, 163; letter of Archbishop Seeker

to, 169

Walpole, Robert, 156
Walter, Rev. William flees to New York, 175;

aids refugees, 178
War, resolutions against, 355
Ward, Moses, petition of, in Connecticut, 105
Warwick, Rhode Island, church organized at,

109
Washburn, Rev. E. A., at first Church Congress,

309
Washington, Bishop jurisdiction of, in Canal

Zone, 337; Territory of, first missionary of,

1851, and statistics, 1847, 1851, 1866, 327
Washington, George attends Trinity Church,

178; patron of Washington College, Chester,

181
Washington, D. C., cathedral in, 323

INDEX

403

Washington College, Chester, founded, 181

Washington College, Hartford, 244, 245

Waymouth, George, 5

Welsh, Mr., in Convention, 292

Welton, Dr. Richard at Christ Church, Phila
delphia, 129, 170; suspected of being a
bishop, 170; expelled from colonies, 171

Wentworth, Gov. Benning, of New Hampshire,
109

Wesley, Rev. Charles in Georgia, 91; White
interviews, 205; co-founder of Evangelical
ism, 214

Wesley, Rev. John rector at Savannah, 90;
White seeks interview with, 205; appoints
superintendent for American Methodists, 205,
214; death of, 206; co-founder of Evangeli
calism, 214

West, the early missions to, 248-262; living
expenses in, 256; shortage of ministers in,
256, 329, 330; growth of Church in, 1836-
1866, 326, 327; character of, after Civil
War, 327, 328; growth of Church in, 1866-
1915, 327-335; Central, statistics, 1890, 332,
333, and 1915, 333, 335; statistics, 1955,
357; Central, statistics, 1935, 358