USA > Alabama > History of the Protestant Episcopal church in Alabama, 1763-1891 > Part 16
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They had not expected such a proposition, and the time was too short for them to come to a well-balanced decision. . Moreover, Assistant Bishops were not as plentiful as Coadjutors are today. All that was known of the working of a double Episcopate was derived from the custom in Virginia of always having an Assistant ; and the clergy were afraid of the possi- bilities. When, therefore, the Council convened, the Bishop withdrew his notification.
Though the Churchmen of Alabama were unwilling to elect an Assistant Bishop they were desirous to give the Bishop all possible non-episcopal assistance in his work. Accordingly, the Council of 1888 proceeded to create an office to which the Board of Missions should give the title. The Board called the officer "Archdeacon, " and the Council elected as first (and, so far (1898), only) Archdeacon of the diocese the Rev. Horace Stringfellow, D. D. The duty of the Archdeacon was to relieve the Bishop of all detail work and to have general supervision of missionary posts.
The same Council also provided for an Evangelist, but in tying to this provision another, that two thous- and dollars must be pledged specifically for the mis- sionary's salary, over and above the regular mission- ary offerings, before the Evangelist should be ap- pointed, it adopted the most effective method to kill the scheme at its birth. It is not improper to remark, in passing, that the Council has never been able to express the diocese's need for an Evangelist save in terms of two thousand dollars. It had added this
الاحتد بلي.
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same proviso to a like resolution adopted in 1887. It re-iterated the provision in 1891, and this time ren- dered success more improbable than ever by post- poning the appointment of the Evangelist until a salary of $2,500 a year should be guaranteed for three years.
In fulfilling his archdiaconal functions Dr. String- fellow visited many of the smaller congregations, when the onerous duties of his own large parish permitted, and set many things in order. The brusque- ness of his manner and the positiveness of his convic- tions sometimes made ministers and congregations unwilling to follow his counsel, but ultimately wisdom justified her child. In some cases the Archdeacon was called upon to settle serious difficulties and mis- understandings. Among other cases he was able to secure the peaceable settlement of an unnecessary ritual squabble that had arisen in the little congrega- tion of St. Peter's, Talladega. The minister in charge of this parish had accepted two memorial vases, and, in placing them on the re-table, had taken occasion to discuss and defend ritualistic practices and symbolism in general. He had then set up a strong defence of tliese vases in particular, before anyone had been offended at their presence. Thus he invited and succeeded in bringing about ritual discussion and parochial division in a congregation that had pre- viously felt no interest in such questions, and created an abnormal apprehension of ritualism that has not been quieted to this day. Under Dr. Stringfellow's
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advice the minister returned to Fond du Lac and the congregation to church.
It had been hoped by the more sanguine that with an Evangelist, an Archdeacon, and a Bishop, the supervision of missionary operations would be com- plete. So it would have been had the Evangelist been appointed, and the Bishop been able to visit all the places where confirmees were awaiting him. But the evangelist movement came to naught, and the Bishop was subject to more frequently recurring ill- ness. In 1889-90 he visited, in addition to the Mobile parishes, only the congregations at Evergreen, Green- ville, Hayneville, Lowndesboro, Selma, Uniontown, Faunsdale, Anniston, Jacksonville, and Talladega- fourteen in all. It was now evident to all that the well-being of the diocese demanded more Episcopal service than it was possible for Bishop Wilmer to give.
When the Council of 1890 met in St. John's chapel, Montgomery, on May 20, it was the determination of not a few to reopen the matter of electing an Assistant Bishop. Bishop Wilmer made no suggestion one way or another. At Huntsville he had said that he would not again trouble the diocese with the question, and that the initiative in any subsequent reviving of it must be taken by the Council. The Council deter- mined to take the initiative.
Dr. Stringfellow was presiding, Bishop Wilmer, though in the city, not being able to attend all the sessions. A committee was appointed to wait on the Bishop "with a view of ascertaining from him his wishes as to any episcopal assistance in the future."
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The committee was appointed only after vigorous opposition, led by Dr. Stringfellow, who deprecated any action whatever on the ground that the financial barrier was insuperable. Dr. Stringfellow himself was made chairman of the committee, and he ap- pointed as the remaining members the Revs. J. M. Banister, D. D., and R. W. Barnwell, and Messrs. J. H. Fitts and R. M. Nelson. The committee had not been charged to express the Council's wishes; its in- structions were to ascertain the Bishop's wishes. The Bishop did not purpose to recede from his position taken three years before. He had no wishes; an assistant would be necessary in the future, but none was needed imperatively now; he trusted, on his physician's authority, that his present disability was but temporary; he expected to call in a neighboring Bishop to complete the visitation of the diocese.
This was such an answer as they who knew Bishop Wilmer might have expected, but it was not an an- swer that satisfied the majority of the Council. At the noon recess the younger clergy and laymen, led by the Rev. J. A. Van Hoose, determined to press forward and to make known the Council's wishes to the Bishop. Immediately upon reassembling, the Council had before it a resolution that it would meet at 5 P. M. in Committee of the Whole "to consider whether, in their judgment, the time has not arrived when the health and long and faithful services of the Bishop of the diocese demand such help as love and devotion to him and to the Church press upon us to offer, and to take into consideration the election of an
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Assistant Bishop." The battle over this proposition was won by its advocates after three hours of deter- mined opposition. For another hour and a half in Committee of the Whole it was attempted to stave off the inevitable, but at 6:30 P. M. a series of resolutions was adopted declaring that the Bishop needed an assistant, and that the Council desired the Bishop's permission to proceed to the election of an Assistant Bishop, promising that the payment of a salary of three thousand dollars to the assistant should not in- volve any reduction in the Bishop's salary. A strongly favorable committee-the Rev. Messrs. R. W. Barnwell and Philip A. Fitts, and Mr. R. M. Nelson- communicated this action to the Bishop, who, next morning, gave his canonical consent to the elec- tion.
The Council entered upon the election that after- noon. Three clergymen were placed in nomination- the Rev. Thomas F. Gailor of Sewanee, the Rev. Robert S. Barrett of Atlanta, and the Rev. J. S. Lindsay, D. D., of Boston. These clergymen were not candidates. They did not seek the office. They were nominated by their friends without previous consultation. Their friends, however, did considera- ble electioneering. It cannot be doubted that Mr. Gailor would have been elected but for the apparently well-founded assertion of some who knew him that he had unalterably cast in his lot with Tennessee. The choice then fell upon Dr. Lindsay, who, though rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston, was a native Virginian. A committee was appointed to notify Dr. Lindsay of
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his election. The parishes met the problem of the Assistant Bishop's support by voluntarily increasing their assessments. Then the Council adjourned. The committee on notification discharged its duty. Dr. Lindsay declined the office.
After ascertaining the further wishes of the diocese Bishop Wilmer convoked a special Council, which met in St. Paul's Church, Selma, on October 29, once more to elect an Assistant Bishop. The Rev. Mr. Barrett's friends, led by the Rev. L. W. Rose, of Birmingham, and Mr. George A. Wilkins, of Selma, again brought forward the name of Mr. Barrett. The clergy, convinced that the representations that had prevented his election at Montgomery were unfounded, nominated him to the laity by a vote of fifteen out. of a total of twenty-one votes cast -- the Rev. Henry Mel- ville Jackson, D. D., of Richmond, receiving four votes, and the Rev. Philip A. H. Brown, of New York, two. When the nomination was communicated to the laity the strongest Churchmen in the diocese stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to it. The nomination was rejected by a vote of fourteen parishes to seven.
Upon the rejection of their nomination the clergy again withdrew for consultation. The friends of Mr. Barrett urged that the name of their nominee should once more be sent in to the laity. Failing in this, they next sought, but unsuccessfully, to bring about an adjournment of the Council without nomination. Many names were informally discussed, but none present seemed to have personal acquaintance with -19
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those whom they suggested, and at length only three were formally nominated-the Rev. R. W. Barnwell, of Selma, the Rev. Joseph Blount Cheshire, of Char- lotte, N. C., and the Rev. Henry Melville Jackson, D. D., of Richmond. The nomination of Mr. Barn- well met with general approbation, and by almost unanimous vote the clergy were about to nominate him to the laity when he arose and most earnestly as- serted that no earthy consideration could induce him to accept the office even though the laity should elect him. Despite this statement he came within two votes of the clerical nomination on the first ballot. As it was, repeated ballots were taken, some of the clergy firing aimlessly into the air and some using blank cartridges. Finally the clergy returned to the nave of the church for consultation with the laity. It was now far into the night, and the attempt to adjourn without action was renewed. Again it failed. Once more the clergy prepared to ballot, this time without withdrawing, and on the second ballot, taken amid the breathless excitement of a large gathering of the public, the Rev. Dr. Jackson received the clerical nomination by a majority of one vote. The laity im- mediately and unanimously concurred in the nomina- tion, and Dr. Jackson was declared Assistant-Bishop- elect. The Rev. Messrs. J. L. Lancaster (who had nominated Dr. Lindsay and again had nominated Dr. Jackson), R. W. Barnwell, and Gardiner C. Tucker were appointed the committee to notify Dr. Jackson of his election.
One or two clergymen, dissatisfied with the election,
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made certain representations to the Bishop-elect as to diocesan conditions, hoping that he would decline the office. Their hope was in vain, and Dr. Jackson was consecrated in St. Paul's Church, Selma, on January 21, 1891, Bishop Wilmer consecrating, Bishop Ran- dolph (Assistant of Virginia) preaching the sermon, and Bishops Thompson of Mississippi and Peterkin of West Virginia presenting the Bishop-elect. All of these, together with Bishop Howe of South Carolina, united in the Laying-on-of-Hands.
CHAPTER XIV.
LOOKING BACKWARD.
T HE first particular that attracts attention as we review the history of the Church in Alabama for the past generation is the apparent strangeness of diocesan development. From 1861 to 1872 the com- municants were quadrupled in number, increasing from 1,683 to 6, 196; the contributions were sextupled, rising from twenty thousand dollars to one hundred and twenty-five thousand; but the number of congre- gations had not materially changed, and the number of clergymen in the active exercise of the ministry was exactly the same. Many of the old-time clergy had passed, and younger men filled their places. Many of the country congregations had disappeared in the general movement townwards, and while new parishes appeared here and there the net increase in the whole diocese was only twelve; and that, despite the fact that, on an average, one new church was built in every year of the entire period.
We need not go far afield in search of ample ex- planation of this apparent combination of life and dry-rot. In these thirty years Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, Anniston, and Huntsville, at first small towns, villages, or even without existence, became cities. Their growth was at the expense of the country and was out of all proportion to the growth of population in the state at large. As the cities
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grew the city congregations increased in like propor- tion. As the villages and country were depopulated the rural congregations were diminished. As financial weakness came upon these little congregations some ministers were compelled to seek work elsewhere. Those that remained counteracted the reduced ability of single parishes by increasing the number of their charges. As the numbers and financial ability of the urban congregations increased new parishes were or- ganized and additional clergy called. Thus the loss in the rural clergy was met by the gain of clergymen in the city, and the extinction of country congrega- tions was about offset by the formation of new city parishes, while the average parish numbered many more communicants because of the increased propor- tion of city parishes.
Nothing more clearly shows the transition of the diocese from a rural to an urban Church than the fact that while in 1862 one-half the communicants lived in the larger towns, in 1892 two-thirds lived therein; and that while the city growth of communicants in the same length of time was four hundred per cent. (or from eight hundred to thirty-two hundred) the country growth was only fifty per cent. (or from eight hundred to twelve hundred). That is to say, the Church in Alabama has in thirty years grown four times as rapidly in the cities as in the smaller towns and the country. *
* Of the sixty-six church buildings at the end of this period exactly one-half were built since 1862. These church build- ings represent thirty-three new congregations, and testify
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Not less remarkable than the Church's peculiar growth was its absolute freedom from theological and ecclesiastical controversy. The clergy represented every school of thought that the Church tolerates, the questions of the day gave opportunity for wide differ- ences, and pugnacious men could have stirred up much trouble in diocesan consultations. The Cum- inins schism agitated the Church at large, ritual con- formity was sought through hard and fast limitations, . and the doctrine of Regeneration, as contained in the Office for Holy Baptism, was a battlefield wherein many doughty knights jousted and broke spears. The clergy of Alabama were interested in these mat- ters, and approached and treated them according to individual bias. Some occasionally disputed in gen- eral Church journals with brethren of other sections. But the general temper was practical rather than speculative, and each attended to his own business- remaining steadfast in the communion of the Church, rendering the services according to the simple inter- pretation of unaffected dignity, baptizing the children
to what few have sufficiently considered-that one-half the parishes and mission stations in Alabama were organized in the first thirty years of Bishop Wilmer's episcopate. The congregations organized in this period are: Athens, Anniston (3), Avondale, Auburn, Bessemer, Birmingham (2), Bon Secour, Clayton, Coalburg, Columbia, Dallas County (Grace), Decatur, Evergreen Fowl River, Gadsden, Gainesville, Hayne- ville, Mount Meigs, Montevallo, Montgomery (1), Prattville, Piedmont, Sheffield, Scottsboro, Talladega, Trinity, Troy, Union Springs, Whistler, and Woodlawn. (Journal of 1892, pp. 42 and 43.)
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and trusting that God gave them new birth in the water of regeneration. Parochialism, prudence, and toleration make an incombustible mixture; and these were three distinct notes of the clerical character.
But perhaps it was Bishop Wilmer's catholicity of spirit that contributed more than all other factors to this diocesan peace. The Bishop did not consider himself wiser than the Church, and did not abuse the Church's toleration, as some Bishops did, by using her catholicity for a cloak of sectarianism. He was very desirous that the General Convention should make a pronouncement upon the lawful limitations of ritual, but when the General Convention refused to enact the desired legislation he refused to declare un- lawful what the national Church tolerated. He had clearly defined opinions upon many points of contro- versy, but he did not canonize them. He made known his opinions, but he did not urge them, or transform them into a "godly admonition," unless a congrega- tion took offence at its minister's eccentricities of ritual or of dogma. If a clergyman avowed his dis- belief in the efficacy of prayer to change atmospheric conditions, and his congregation expressed no desire in time of drought to pray for rain, in time of flood to pray for fair weather, the clergyman and his congre- gation were at liberty to indulge their Mohammedan fatalism to its farthest reach. If a clergyman held hazy views of Apostolic Succession, questioning whether it were essential to the being or only to the well-being of the Church, but did not, in his incertitude, invite unordained ministers to preach in his church and ad-
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minister the Sacraments, no Episcopal thunder rolled, and the utmost suggestion was that the head, and not the heart, must settle a matter of which Holy Scrip- ture and ancient authors give sufficient evidence. On the other hand, when unleavened bread was intro- duced it was not viewed as symbolic of Peter's Pence, but was highly commended by the Bishop, and all but universally adopted by the clergy, as being in sub- stance the Bread of original institution and in form most suitable for a decent administration of the Lord's Supper. When, too, genuflections, candles, anti- phons, Eucharistic vestments, and the like, were in- troduced by a few clergymen in small parishes, their innovations were left to work out their destiny in the congregation where they originated .* It was only when fundamentals were attacked, and the teachings of Christ as recorded in Holy Scripture were explained away, that the Bishop reproved both publicly and privately, and brought about, if not a return to purer doctrine, at least a discontinuance of heterodox teach- ing. Zwingianism and Transubstantiation, Mariola- try and Invocation of Saints, Papal Infallibility, the doctrine of Posthumous Purgation, and that of Univer- salism, were unsparingly brought under the search- light of Christ's words and impartially condemned as incompatible with Revelation.
Through the whole generation a steady, uniform im-
* The wisdom of this policy of non-interference is shown by the fact that except in one, and that a very weak, parish, ex- cessive ornateness of ritual, whether doctrinal or simply æs- thetic, has never survived the removal of its originator.
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provement in the conduct of public services was ap- parent. When Bishop Wilmer came to the diocese some of the clergy, overawed by sectarianism and willing to throw it a sop in return for toleration, were remarkably lax in their conduct of public worship, not infrequently interjecting extemporaneous prayers, and in more instances than one gathering the offerings of the people by sending around a hat, as if to reward the preacher for his sermon, and then indifferently thrusting it under the Communion Table or behind the vestry-door .* There was no rule, save that of personal inclination, as to the behavior of the congre- gation during the Baptismal, Confirmation, Marriage, and Burial services, and the majority remained seated throughout as mere onlookers at a spectacle in which they had no part. All this the Bishop succeeded in banishing, persistently urging uniformity and reason- able ritual on the clergy and their congregations, and finally bringing about a dignified symbolism, im- pressive by its very simplicity to him that seeks to understand it. But almost invariably extravagant ritual and extreme dogmatism lived short lives. Rash attempts at boy-choirs in St. Wilfred's, Marion, and Trinity, Mobile, were laughed to an early grave, and it was not until December 5, 1880, in St. John's, Mont- gomery, that the first permanent vested boy-choir was organized in the diocese. Choral services were spo- radic, met with small favor, and did not linger long. The exchange of surplice for preaching-gown and black gloves, in honor of the sermon, was a harmless
* Bishop Wilmer's Convention Address for 1871, page 44.
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bit of Evangelical ritual that also died long ago, but in Mobile the black gown is still used at funerals.
But while theological and ritual controversy were happily absent the clergy succeeded, with the un- selfish assistance of the many lawyers in attendance upon Councils, in improving themselves in dialectics by perennially offering and opposing amendments to the diocesan Constitution and Canons, and by period- ically hauling the entire system over the coals of re- vision. At irregular intervals the canons were amended into irreconcilable confusion, and committees were appointed to harmonize them by preparing a new set. These were, as a rule, hastily prepared, unanimousily adopted, and continually amended. By good fortune, small attendance at Councils, and economy in distributing the Journals, comparatively few knew much about the law department of the dio- cese ; and the Church did her work as well as if she had no canons, and lived as healthily as do all bodies that are unconscious that they have such a thing as a constitution.
Some diocesan legislation was very interesting. In 1867 deacons could sit and speak in Council, but not until 1876 were they allowed to vote. In 1868, and again in 1874, the deputies to the General Convention were instructed to urge that body to set forth an au- thorized translation of the Nicene Creed for use in churches, the Filioque to be omitted as an interpola- tion without ecumenical authority, however true the doctrine. As early as 1869 it was required that dele- gates to the diocesan Convention should be communi-
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cants,* but not till 1891 was a like restriction adopted as to vestrymen. In 1871 the Convention refused, on motion of the Rev. Dr. Fulton, to ratify a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the national Church, which provided that new dioceses could not be organ- ized until they had satisfied the General Convention that they had a sufficient endowment fund to support the Bishop. In .1886 the name "Convention," by which the diocesan legislature had been known, was laid aside as having political connotations, and in its stead was resumed the more ecclesiastical title " Coun- cil," which had been borne during the Civil War. In the same year the Council inemorialized the Gen- eral Convention on the subject of lay-readers, urging that they should be at least twenty-three years old, that they should be required to begin the service at the Lord's Prayer, and that they should be instructed to wear, as the canonical dress of lay-readers, "a short surplice worn over a cassock, without any stole or other ecclesiastical vestment or ornament."t About
* When the vote was taken and the result announced, two unconfirmed delegates arose and took formal and indignant leave of the Convention. They were both back again the following year-confirmed.
t The whole is wiser than any of its parts, and this memo- rial, which was adapted from a similar memorial presented in the same year by the Missionary Jurisdiction of Colorado, brought about no change in the existing canon. Twelve years before, in 1874, Bishop Bedell, of Ohio, wrote to a young candidate for Holy Orders, who was desirous to wear a choris- ter's cassock and cotta when officiating as lay-reader: " As to your request to wear a 'cotta ': I am much obliged by your description of it. But it is evidently a garment not knowu
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the same time the dignity of the Episcopate received additional safeguard, without diminution of its influ- ence, by a provision that the Bishop should not par- ticipate in any debate in the Council, but should have the privilege of delivering his sentiments upon the matter debated immediately before putting the ques_ tion.
This last mentioned action of the Council was in line with the uniform respect with which the Church in Alabama has ever treated its Bishops. No attempt has ever been consciously made to abridge the Episco- pal power, or to usurp any of its prerogatives .* Its Bishops have never been deemed infallible, and clergymen and laymen alike have dared differ from them on matters both of discipline and doctrine, of opinion and of dogma, but they have been regarded as possessing inalienable rights and as having excep- tional mental and spiritual gifts. In 1871 some dio- cesan Churchmen would fain have erected the Bishop into a third branch of the Council, with legislative
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