USA > Alabama > History of the Protestant Episcopal church in Alabama, 1763-1891 > Part 2
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boro. The church building, a memorial of its first rector, the Rev. John Avery, D. D., who served the parish in 1836, was, in 1878, given to the congregation at Forkland, a neighboring village lying between the Tombigbee and Warrior rivers.
*Afterwards Macon, and now Gallion.
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We may here very properly conclude all reference to this scheme, fruitless so far as Alabama was imme- diately concerned. .
The three states interested sent deputies to the Con- vention, which sat in New Orleans on March 4 and 5, 1835. Fifteen persons were present. The Con- vention put forth a declaration to the effect that it understood from the special canon of the General Convention, under which it was acting, that the new body, which they were about to organize, was not to be merely a confederation of three organisms, enjoy- ing the benefits of the same Bishop and holding inter- communion only through him, but was to form one organic diocese. With this declaration as a basis the Southwestern Diocese was organized, a constitution was adopted, and a Bishop was elected. The choice fell upon Dr. Francis L. Hawks, rector of St. Thomas' Church, New York, and, with the possible exception of Stephen H. Tyng, the most powerful preacher of his generation. Dr. Hawks declined the office, and, while his declination caused much disappointment, it was doubtless well for the churches that he did not become their Bishop; for when, nine years later, Mis- sissippi, acting for herself, called him to be her Bishop, and subsequently iterated the election, charges made against him at that time of being given to ungovern- able bursts of temper and to financial irregularities ap- pear to have been not without some foundation. At any rate his declination ended Alabama's connection with the new diocese, for the Church grew so rapidly in the next few months that the Diocesan Convention,
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held in Mobile in 1836, passed resolutions affirming Alabama's withdrawal from the Sonthwestern Dio- cese and her intention to preserve her autonomy as an independent diocese.
The first clerical perversion in the diocese belongs to this period. The Rev. Norman Pinney, rector of Christ Church, Mobile, was the pervert. Even while at heart a Unitarian, he had taken the sacred vows of priesthood in a Church whose prescribed daily services required the minister to declare explicitly his belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ at least nineteen times in one day. For some time the Churchmen of Mobile had deemed his teaching unsound in its expressed or implied contravention of Creed and Articles, and rumor of this unsoundness finally reached Bishop Brownell's ears. As the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese of Alabama, the Bishop, in 1835, sum- moned Mr. Pinney to appear before him. He received from that minister's own lips a definite denial of belief in Christ as God. No hesitation was possible, and Mr, Pinney was promptly deposed from the sacred ministry. Mr. Pinney was an accomplished scholar, but he was not of magnetic mind, his personal follow- ing was not great, and his defection from the faith, followed by twenty years of school-teaching in Mobile, does not appear to have produced any evil effect either on the parish or on any individuals.
Mr. Pinney was succeeded as rector of Christ Church, Mobile, by the Rev. Samuel S. Lewis, who, removing thither from Tuskaloosa, shortly reported that his new parish numbered 114 communicants.
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Mr. Lewis was succeeded at Tuskaloosa by the Rev. Andrew Matthews. The Rev. William Johnson took charge of the shepherdless little congregation at Mont- gomery, in December, 1835, and, after leading their devotions first in a Baptist and then in a Universalist place of worship, succeeded in building a neat brick church, the first St. John's Church of the town, and had it ready for consecration by Bishop Kemper on occasion of his visit to Montgomery in 1837. We- tumpka, then hopeful of being the chief city of the interior, soon owned a brick house of worship, built by the energetic efforts of the Rev. Robert G. Hays, who had come from Tennessee. Florence began to give evidence of that Church life which Bishop Brownell had predicted five years before, and shortly after the arrival of the Rev. Thomas A. Cook, from South Carolina, had, though with only eight commu- nicants on the parish register, raised fifteen hundred dollars for a church building. Mr. Jacob Lorillard, of New York, transferred to the diocese six hundred and forty acres of land in Baldwin county for the support of the future Bishop, and to this gift were added subscriptions to the amount of $4,050, raised by Mr. Ives, who had been compelled by pecuniary necessities to retire temporarily from parish work and devote himself to the more lucrative pursuit of school- teaching in Mobile, and who, while traveling in the interest of his school, found opportunity to solicit subscriptions to the Bishop's Fund. The Baldwin county land was sold ten years later for five hundred dollars. That nothing whatever was realized from
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the subscriptions made to Mr. Ives, was due to a decade of financial stringency upon which the country was just entering.
The whole nation had given itself over to specula- tion, and values had become greatly inflated. In Alabama the appearances of prosperity were so flat- tering as to beguile tradesmen into an extension of purchases and credits, and planters into extravagant investments in lands and slaves. These delusive an- ticipations were not realized, and the people became deeply involved. The magnitude of this disaster is perceptible when we recall that before the first day of May, 1837, the failures of the year in New York City alone aggregated $100,000,000, and in New Orleans, Alabama's chief market place, amounted to $27,000,- 000. A run was made on the banks. Specie pay- ment was suspended. The rapid depreciation of values to their normal size reduced many to poverty.
Although eight clergymen were now at work in the diocese, the general distress forbade all thought of the election of a Bishop. The few established par- ishes were pushed to the utmost to support their own ministers, without attempting, even by united effort, to support a Bishop. Bishop Brownell could not be expected to come from Connecticut as frequently as he was needed, for in those days the journey required nearer forty-eight days than forty-eight hours; and when he came he could not undertake the long jour- neys of exploration that are among the chief duties of a pioneer Bishop. Feeling that it was out of question for him longer to exercise Episcopal oversight of
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the diocese, he delegated his duties as Provisional Bishop of Alabama to the Rt. Rev. James H. Otey, who had, only two years before, become Bishop of Tennessee. Bishop Otey gave what Episcopal supervision he could afford, and in 1836 made visita- tions at which he confirmed altogether about two- score persons. Two years later, at Bishop Otey's re- quest, Bishop Kemper visited portions of the state, confirming about the same number and consecrating the Church buildings in Montgomery and the Prairies. These were the only visits that Alabama received from a Bishop during five years.
But it would not have sufficed had annual visita- tions been made. The diocese needed something more than an Episcopal confirming-machine that contents itself with visiting those parishes wherein classes await Confirmation; and, though it stumbled, and halted, and doubted sometimes, it knew what it needed. It needed a head to direct its spasmodic efforts to reach the spiritually deserted and famishing in those remote hamlets and sparsely settled neighbor- hoods that were a chief characteristic of a state yet in its minority. In plain words, it needed a resident Bishop. If it were to attempt the life of an exotic it would die.
Yet, thwarting every effort, there stood that grim and silent Cerberus-Cerberus Ecclesiasticus, with two heads substituted for the papal tiara-"six resident clergymen for a whole year previous to the election of a Bishop," and an "endowment of the Episcopate." That presbyters must be before Bishops in order of
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time, is a proposition that would have impressed St. Paul very deeply, and possibly have occasioned another Epistle. That the Bishopric must be en- dowed before the Bishop may be selected, and that all care shall be taken to prevent the head from suffer- ing even while the body may be dying, is doubtless a post-Apostolic tradition. It is a tradition, an heir- loom of our Anglican ancestry; but in many minds it has all the force of Constitutions and Canons.
It took several years and much patience to root out this prejudice from the minds of some of the Clergy and laity of Alabama. In 1838, when the canonical sop of "six resident clergy " was ready to be thrown, the cry of the Committee on the State of the Church, "Let us but have the head that we so much need," was not met with even the common courtesy, "A resolution to that effect was introduced." The next year, when twelve clergy were at work in the state, the immediate election of a Bishop was staved off by the adoption of instructions to the Standing Com- mittee to take a whole year to ascertain the condition of the Bishop's Fund, the resources of the diocese for the support of a Bishop, and the expediency of pro- ceeding to an election. When this year had passed, the Convention of 1840 decided, after sharp debate, that the diocese had no canonical right to elect a Bishop. On what ground this decision was based is not known; in the diocese ten clergymen were at work, and seven of them had been in residence more than twelve months. Yet once again, in 1841, when there were eleven resident clergy and seventeen organ-
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ized parishes, the old resolution came forward in its stereotyped form: "It is inexpedient to go into the election of a Bishop at the present Convention." Cause: "The supposed want of canonical right and the want of available means of supporting a Bishop at this time."
So passed the precious years of seed-time, forever irreclaimable, wasted away by short-sighted men, who would not elect a Bishop until they could ensure his dignity by making him comfortable.
Meanwhile some of the clergy were doing such missionary work as was possible, with the Church purely presbyterial and poorly articulated, and were preaching here and there, looking up the stray sheep, dropping seed from place to place, and nurturing it as trial of the soil's fruitfulness .* Some of these at- tempts were successful, but many were the disap- pointments. Movements of population, crystalization of opposition, spiritual paralysis, are contingencies that the most sagacious eye cannot infallibly foresee and provide against. Prevision is especially short in young countries just opening their arms to immigra- tion; and such a country was Alabama.
*Eufaula was thus visited in 1844 by the Rev. J. L. Gay, who set about gathering a congregation and establishing a parish. While the meeting for organization was in session, and the question of a name for the parish was under consider- ation, the stage rolled in from Columbus, bringing papers that told of the nomination of James K. Polk for President. One of the gentlemen present, Col. John L. Hunter, suggested that the parish be called St. James', and Mr., now ex-Senator, J. L. Pugh, seconded the motion, which prevailed unani- mously.
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Two examples will suffice to illustrate the uncer- tain outcome of missionary enterprise. One shall be an instance of failure, one of success. The former case shall be that of La Fayette, in East Alabama; the latter, Selma. The clergy were of equal zeal. The conditions were alike favorable. In neither case, apparently, was judgment at fault in the organizing of a congregation.
The church in La Fayette was founded in 1838 by the Rev. Thomas A. Cook. The village then had a population of about twelve hundred souls, and though in size equal only to the Auburn, Brewton, and Eutaw of today, was, on account of the small population of the state, of much greater relative importance than are these thriving villages. Within six months the minister reported eight communicants and a Sunday School of forty pupils, and was collecting funds for the building of what was to be Trinity Church. The beginning was auspicious; but in 1840 the sky had clouded over, and the report was full of despondency: "The present moment may be looked upon as the darkest page in the history of our enterprise. In all our demonstrations the people are neither hot nor cold; there is neither the voice of prayer nor praise, but a listless assent to anything. At present our Sunday School is not large; there are from twelve to twenty scholars." In 1841 a slight upward tendency was perceptible; but the community had been hard hit by the long-continued commercial depression, and the congregation worked with the listlessness of hope deferred. No further report was ever made from the
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ill-fated parish. Only once, and that in 1846, did it receive the visit of a Bishop. Year after year the Finance Committee assessed "Trinity Church, La Fayette," first five, and then, after the election of a Bishop, fifty dollars, for diocesan expenses, but the assessment remained unpaid and accumulating year by year, and was ultimately remitted by the Conven- tion. The Rev. Mr. Cook broke down in health, re- moved to Talladega, and quitted the active ministry. In 1846 Bishop Cobbs wrote concerning his recent visit to this region : "It is melancholy to reflect that, in all that beautiful country lying east of the Coosa river, there is not an officiating minister of the Church. May the Lord, in his good Providence, soon send forth a faithful clergyman to labor in that neglected field." The prayer has been answered after many days, and, though the Church is still a stranger in La Fayette, her ministrations are now reg- ularly received at Anniston, Talladega, Jacksonville, Piedmont, Sylacauga, and Childersburg, and at most of these places the prospect of future growth and use- fulness is most encouraging.
The case illustrative of successful planting is that of Selma. Services were begun here about the same time as at La Fayette, and were conducted twice a month by the Rev. Lucien B. Wright, who served this parish in conjunction with Hayneville. La Fayette and Selma had about the same population. Very nearly the same number of communicants was reported at each place, La Fayette reporting eight and Selma seven. But here the points of similarity
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cease. Whilst in La Fayette the Church first re- mained stationary and then retrograded, in Selina it grew from the first. In 1839 Selma gained five com- municants-a seventy per cent. increase-and began the erection of a church, a substantial brick structure, which, at completion a few years later, had cost more than eight thousand dollars. The steady growth of the congregation was uninterrupted, although, from lack of Episcopal visitations, the communicant roll did not grow longer for several years. In 1846 the Rev. J. H. Linebaugh, who had recently become rec- tor, reported very despondently that he saw but little in the condition of the parish to give encouragement, as there were only sixteen communicants and the congregation was struggling under a debt of $2,400, contracted for the building of the church. However, this hopelessness soon passed. In 1847 the creditors accepted $637 in satisfaction of the entire debt, several hundred dollars were raised toward the completion of the building, the communicants increased in number to twenty-two, and the congregation laid aside its mission swaddling clothes, and stepped forth a self- supporting parish. In throwing away the crutch of outside aid the congregation gained new strength and vigor. The communicants numbered 37 in 1850, 57 in 1860, 169 in 1870, 215 in 1880, and 280 in 1890. There were times of discouragement, and, in single years, of apparent retrogression, but the comparison of decade with decade shows continual progression, and today St. Paul's Church, Selma, which at the beginning had but two communicants, is the sixth
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parish in the diocese numerically, and the third finan- cially.
As in these two places, so in others growth and dis- solution were moving on with steps that, under the conditions, the wisdom of man could neither hasten nor retard. The acephalous Church was feeling its way blindly. Even as powerful members of the body as Lewis and Knapp could not give the oversight and superintendence without which the diocese must at last fail most miserably in its work. Parish priests have not the time to go out into the distant byways in search of the sheep. They have not the opportunity to know the needs of remote regions. They cannot, in their occasional experiments, act with authority. They have a line of duty marked out; and that duty is not the duty of the head. The Church has never done aggressive work without a Bishop. The Church cannot without a Bishop preserve health in what she already has. Alabama in 1840, and Alaska and Mex- ico in 1895, bore identical testimony to these truths across a chasm of more than half a century. Men may ofttimes close their ears to what both history and reason would fain tell them, but there is always a minority that will perceive the truth and proclaim it in season and out of season.
Some such men were living in Alabama in the early 'Forties, and they were heard at Convention after Con- vention. Headed by the Rev. J. J. Scott, of Living- ston, and the Rev. F. R. Hanson, they contended that the lack of an Episcopal head was an unhappy anom- aly, to remedy which the Convention should put forth
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all its energies. Yet so strong was the opposition of some of the clergy to an election, an opposition based chiefly, it would seem, on dread that in some indefin- able way a Bishop would rob them of a portion of their independence, that the clearer-headed were forced to lag with the short-sighted, penny-wise pound-foolish, majority.
But in 1842 the minority became the majority. The denial of canonical right was now untenable, for eight clergymen had been canonically resident more than twelve months. Only the endowment scheme could be used as a breakwater, and this was not pushed when seven parishes-Christ Church, Mobile, and the churches in Tuskaloosa, Greensboro, the Prairies, Liv- ingston, Florence and Tuscumbia-pledged themselves to raise one thousand dollars of the Bishop's salary, and St. John's, Montgomery, offered to increase this amount by another thousand dollars if the Bishop should also accept the rectorship of that parish. Thus the last obstacle to the election of a Bishop was re- moved. The election was accordingly entered upon, and the lot fell upon the Rev. Martin P. Parks, a presbyter of the diocese of Virginia, but, at the time, chaplain of the United States Military Academy at West Point. But Mr. Parks' reply to the call was, substantially, "Nolo Episcopari."
Another year passed, and again the Convention was assembled. Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, provisional Bishop of Alabama, was in the chair. He urged that the disappointment of the previous year should but make the members of the Convention more intent to
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secure a Bishop, and that all other business, however urgent, should be subordinated to this supreme neces- sity. The Bishop's charge was followed to the letter. The Episcopal salary was placed at $2,000 in connec- tion with a parochial charge, or $1,200 independently of such charge. The election resulted in the choice of the Rev. James T. Johnston, of Virginia. But he also declined the office.
The third choice was more successful. The Con- vention of 1844 met at Greensboro, and on May 3 again turned its eyes towards a Virginian-a record unbroken to this day. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it elected as first Bishop of the Diocese of Alabama the Rev. Nicholas Hamner Cobbs, D. D., rector of St. Paul's Church, Cincinnati. Dr. Cobbs accepted the election. He was consecrated during the General Convention at Philadelphia, on October 20, 1844, the Rt. Rev. Philander Chase being Conse- crator, and Bishops Brownell of Connecticut, Onder- donk of New York, Ives of North Carolina, and Smith of Kentucky, joining in the Laying-on-of-Hands.
The Church in Alabama now had a head.
PART SECOND.
The Episcopate of Bishop Cobbs.
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INDERS-CO ST.LOUIS
NICHOLAS HAMNER COBBS FIRST BISHOP OF ALABAMA (From a daguerreotype taken in 1850 and now in possession of Mrs. A. P. Hogan, of Tuskaloosa).
CHAPTER I. BISHOP COBBS' EARLY LIFE.
" IS that the worst they say about me? I can tell them miany worse things about myself."
This was Bishop Cobbs' only response to a bit of malicious backbiting that was once brought to his attention. It was an answer inspired not by hypocrisy but by genuine humility. It gives the key-note of the character of Alabama's first Bishop.
A brief survey of his early life will reveal the spirit- ual power which made such repression and sincere meekness possible.
Nicholas Hamner Cobbs was born in Bedford county, Virginia, on February 5, 1795. In boyhood and youth he knew nothing of Church influences. The clergy were few and far between. The only preaching that he heard in his minority was the hair-raising exhorting of an ultra-Calvinistic divine, who held forth in the neighborhood in a style strongly resembling that of Jonathan Edwards in the moments of his most lurid word-painting. That such distortion of the Gospel neither cast a dark shadow over his faith nor drove him into the prevailing unbelief and defiance was due largely to the devotion of his mother, by whom he was so carefully nurtured.
From his baptism in infancy to the day of his ordi- nation he never joined in the Church services; but many of the treasures of English theology were scat-
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tered among the private libraries, and to these young Cobbs, as " the school-master," had free access. His pedagogic duties, which began at the early age of seventeen, gave him the mental discipline requisite to profitable study of theology, and the theological litera- ture that he studied in the intervals of school-room work, gave definiteness to the vague feelings of pietism which passed current for religion. He worked out his own salvation, and after twelve years of hard study he offered himself, when twenty-nine years of age, to Bishop Moore for ordination.
He was not even confirmed, but his zeal, his learn- ing, and his piety were so marked that on the very day-May 23, 1824-on which he was confirmed and admitted to the Holy Communion he was made a deacon. This took place at Staunton, Va., where the Diocesan Convention was in session. In after years Bishop Cobbs related that often in the lonely horse- back journey from Bedford to Staunton his natural timidity rose within him like a flood and almost made him determine to return home. The Angel of the Lord opposed Balaam going to curse, and urged on Cobbs going to bless.
Immediately after his ordination Mr. Cobbs returned to his home as the place marked out for the exercise of his ministry. He had married his fifteen-year-old cousin three years before, and the freedom of a celi- bate was not for him. Five days in the week he worked in the school-room, and two days in the week he preached the Gospel. He had to gather his own congregation. It was a virgin soil, but his work pros-
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pered, and at the end of two years he had built two brick churches where none had stood before. Already his labors were so blessed that many larger congrega- tions were inviting him to come to them, but he felt that the care of Bedford was, at least in its infant state, of divine obligation.
So for thirteen years he remained in this one charge, until, at the request of the officers of the University of Virginia, the Diocesan Convention appointed him Chaplain to the University .* Though he had for eight years been a deputy to the General Convention, his manner was so modest and retiring, and his esti- mate of his own ability so low, that to some these char- acteristics seemed to render him unfit to cope with the aggressive materialistic spirit of the University. Yet they proved his most powerful natural agents in dis- arming opposition and giving point to his simple re- cital of the wondrous old story of the love of Christ.
On one occasion, when he was dining at a friend's house, a student of the University amused himself, after under-graduate fashion, and thought that he was amusing others, by jokes that reflected upon the cler- ical vocation. Mr. Cobbs said nothing and did not manifest the least annoyance; but as the company was about to rise from the table he went up to the young man, and, taking his hand in a friendly man- ner, said: "My young friend, I am greatly obliged to you for your admonitions. We of the clergy sel- dom have our faults told us so plainly, and I trust that I shall profit by your discourse." The youth's
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