USA > Alabama > History of the Protestant Episcopal church in Alabama, 1763-1891 > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18
Yet throughout this period, which from one point of view seems to have been full of doubt, half- heartedness, and gloom, betokening fast-approaching disintegration, the Bishop walked firmly and worked indefatigably, strong in his conviction that the life- giving Spirit of God would, in His own good time, move through the chaos.
CHAPTER V.
WITH LOINS BEGIRT.
T HE history of the Church in Alabama in the 'Forties and 'Fifties is not always to be pursued as in gloom and misgiving. We may speak of the reward of faithfulness and the sifting of the sunshine into the darkness.
While churches were vacant, clergy itinerant, Churchmen despondent, and sectarians sibilant, signs of increased life-pulsations and stronger heart-throbs began to appear here and there. The second year of this episcopate (1846) saw, in Mobile, the beginning of the "Free Episcopal Church," which, under the careful ministration of the Rev. B. M. Miller, soon. became an established congregation, known as Trinity Church; in Huntsville, the erection of a small brick church-building, which enabled the congregation to vacate the court house; and in Eutaw, the subscrip- tion of two thousand dollars towards the building of St. Stephen's Church. The clergy list had increased in the number of active workers to sixteen. Already there were seven candidates for the ministry.
In the following year ( 1847) a future Bishop, Henry C. Lay, then only twenty-three years old, became rector of the Church of the Nativity, Huntsville, and soon had impressed his strong young personality on the entire diocese.
The yearly confirmations did not increase apprecia-
64
65
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
bly for ten years, remaining constantly at about one hundred ; but at the end of that period they suddenly rose to two hundred, and seldom afterward fell below this number.
By immigration the communicant-roll grew with greater rapidity. While it took four years (1849- 1853) to grow from 729 to 1,019, the same increase was gained in the next two years ( 1853-1855).
The clergy were following the Bishop's lead in caring for isolated families, and were enabled the better to do this by the constant increase in their numbers. Twelve clergymen were at work in 1844, sixteen in 1850, and twenty-two in 1855. Every Church family was looked upon as the possible nucleus of a congre- gation, and not infrequently the possible became the actual. Six years of careful nursing so developed the diocese that, in 1852, the increase had been four- fold, and the congregations numbered seventy-eight.
In the autumn of 1851 the Bishop felt that the best interests of the diocese required him to reside in Montgomery. When he came to Alabama Tuskaloosa was the capital, and he made that place his home be- cause there his influence told for the most. From the capital radiated the three stage lines, to Montgomery (via Selma), Huntsville, and Columbus, Miss., and by these, the trunk-lines of early Alabama, Episcopal visitations and missionary excursions were rendered more practicable. But when the capital was moved to Montgomery, in 1847, Tuskaloosa was side-tracked, and facilities of intercourse with the provinces became quite poor. After suffering this inconvenience for
66
HISTORY OF THE
five years, the Bishop yielded to the same considera- tions that had carried him to Tuskaloosa, and, in the spring of .1852, removed to the new capital. Upon his removal the Churchmen of Montgomery presented him with three thousand dollars towards the purchase of a home. The Bishop bought a house and several acres of land in the edge of town and settled himself there. The long, low red brick house that was his home thenceforward is still occupied by the family of one of his sons, ex-State Treasurer John L. Cobbs, who as a boy accompanied his father on many a jour- ney through the diocese.
So soon as the awkwardness of living in an out-of- the-way place had been disposed of, Bishop Cobbs showed the ultimate possibilities of his vigor. In 1851-2 the amount of. work that he accomplished far surpassed that of any preceding year. A synopsis of his work-exclusive of sermonic, epistolary, execu- tive, and pastoral labors, which cannot be synoptized, but of all which he did a large amount-will not be unprofitable reading.
From Montgomery as his starting-point he made his visitations in four distinct series. In the first series he went directly from Montgomery to Cahaba, where he preached on May 15. The next day he was at Selma, fifteen miles northeast, where he preached and confirmed two persons. The overturning of the stagecoach next day, and his consequent injuries, delayed him more than two weeks in his progress. On Whitsunday, however, he was at work again, preaching at Tuskaloosa in the morning in Christ
67
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
Church and in the afternoon in St. Philip's chapel to the Negroes. Thence he visited Eutaw, thirty-five miles southwest; went twelve miles further south into the " Fork of Greene," one of the most fertile regions of the whole South; thence into Sumter county to Gainesville, thirty miles northwest; thence to Sum- terville, ten miles southwest; and on to Livingston, ten miles due south. From Livingston he crossed the Tombigbee back into Greene county, and, visiting another portion of the "Fork," known as Burton's Hill,* went on to Tuskaloosa. Here he remained three weeks, preaching frequently and catching up with his correspondence. Throughout the next month he was working in Perry and Marengo counties, visit- ing successively Marion, St. John's-in-the-Prairies, and Woodville (now Uniontown), and remaining, not twelve hours, but an entire week in each place-much after the manner, and much with the success, of St. Paul. The next three months-it was now August- were spent in Tuskaloosa, and then the visitation of the northern portion of the diocese began. Elyton was the first stop, and then came a necessarily long jump through a sparsely. settled country to the Ten- nessee River, where the route was, in order, Hunts- ville, Athens, Decatur, Courtland, Florence, and Tus- cumbia. Passing back to Middle Alabama, he stopped at Tuskaloosa long enough to preach twice, and then went on down into Marengo county, where he began
-
* It was from this place that St. Mark's Church, Boligee, formerly known as "St. Mark's, Fork of Greene," was re- moved.
1
i
68
HISTORY OF THE
his visitations at Prairieville and Demopolis. His further work in this district was interrupted by his necessary presence at the consecration in Augusta, Georgia, of Bishop Rutledge of Florida; but while on his way to Georgia he visited Jacksonville. and on his return journey preached and confirmed at Talladega. The broken thread of Middle Alabama visitations was taken up at Selma, on October 22, and then the Bishop began to work eastward, taking in, on his route, Lowndesboro, Montgomery, Auburn, St. John's- in-the-Wilderness ( Russell county ), and Eufaula. He then made a long jump to those places that he visited earlier in the year, going to Greensboro, Tuskaloosa, Greene Springs Academy, back to Tuskaloosa, Bethsa- lem (in the Fork of Greene), and Eutaw. Two months after his former visits he returned to Greensboro, to make a deacon, and to Tuskaloosa, to officiate at tlie marriage of a daughter. After a three weeks' sojourn in Tuskaloosa, he went to Montgomery for a few days, and returned to Tuskaloosa for a stay of two weeks, remaining, on his way back, a week each at Selma and Greensboro. He was at Montgomery throughout Lent, assisting the rector in services and pastoral work, preaching for him, and making experimental visits to Wetumpka and Robinson's Springs. Immediately af- ter Easter he went to Mobile, worked there two weeks, and returned home by way of the Dallas county churches, St. David's, St. Peter's, and St. Paul's.
It will be seen, from this itinerary, that the four series of visitations were made, the first in the west, the second in the north, the third in the east, and the
!
69
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
fourth in the south of the state. Confirmation classes were uniformly small, seldom consisting of more than two persons, in only two cases exceeding four, and in one-half the congregations numbering only one.
The Bishop testified that in his visitations he was no stranger to mortifications, privations, and dangers; not the least of which was the occasional necessity of camping four days in the rain on the bank of a con- stantly rising river, waiting for a steamboat that might have come at any hour but did not come at all.
CHAPTER VI. THE CHURCH BUILDING ERA.
A BOUT 1850 one great cause of small confirmation classes began to disappear. So long as the con- gregation in any town, village, or settlement was con- pelled to worship in a dwelling house, many that were kindly disposed towards the Church but were not strong in the Faith declined to join their fortunes with those of the new-come Christian body. For aught that they knew its local existence was but ephemeral, and they did not care to be identified with an unsuccessful ecclesiastical experiment.
It is true that this very houseless and hopeless con- dition of many congregations was long their protec- tion against the gnat-like persecution that sectarian villagers are so well skilled to practice; and it is equally true that so soon as these congregations began to achieve a local habitation disdainful or pitying tol- erance was succeeded by aggressive opposition, char- acterized more by ignorant fanaticism than by Christ- like zeal. Sometimes, it must be confessed, this prej- udice was deepened and intensified with good reason by the intemperate sectarianism of a new-fledged parish. A young clergyman met a child of Methodist parents in the street of a village in Middle Alabama and, on ascertaining that the boy had received his baptism at the hands of a Methodist preacher, ex- claimed pityingly : "Poor child ! Poor benighted
70
71
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
little heathen !" The hatred of the Church aroused by this speech had not died out a generation later.
But it was better for the Church that it should grow through pain than that it should die through inani- tion. Sectarian intolerance injured itself by reducing the number of those who would have left the con- munion of the Church, and the prospect of permanent organization encouraged many to return to their spir- itual Mother.
The same impulse seems to have been felt through- out the entire diocese about this time. Within no other single decade have so many church buildings been erected as in 1850-60. In this period not fewer than eighteen congregations built permanent homes for themselves. Eleven of these were completed in the years 1852, '53, and '54. They were mostly in Middle Alabama. Eufaula, Demopolis, Faunsdale, Auburn, Macon, Sumterville, Montgomery, Cahaba, Burton's Hill, Camden, and Lowndesboro erected substantial houses of worship in the order named ; and Christ Church parish, Tuskaloosa, built a chapel for its Negro congregation. In South Alabama the erection in Mobile of St. John's Church for the poor of the southern portion of the city was due to the munificence of three liberal parishioners of Christ Church-Emanuel Jones, William P. Hammond, and John Johnson; St. Mary's was built at Summerville, a suburb of Mobile, and St. Paul's at Spring Hill, four miles further west. In North Alabama the con- gregations at Tuscumbia, Jacksonville, and Hunts- ville were well housed before the decade closed.
1
72
HISTORY OF THE
The majority of these churches were quite modest in appearance. Only two were of brick-St. John's, Montgomery, and the Nativity, Huntsville-and these, costing respectively $21,000 and $35,000, were built to replace older structures, which had become too small for the growing congregations. Every other church edifice built at this time, even that of St. John's, Mobile, was of wood.
With the exception of the three new churches in Mobile, Montgomery, and Huntsville, the church buildings of this decade were capable of seating any- where from one hundred to three hundred people, the smaller size predominating. Generally the architect- ural features, without and within, were devoid of beauty, taste, or significance. The designers seem to have drunk in their inspiration from Methodist houses of worship. * A plain rectangle, barely escaping squareness; two doors, dividing the front into three equal parts; rectangular windows, with clear glass and swinging shutters; a high-eaved, wide-angled Corinthian roof; these held the view from the exterior. Within, the body of the church was almost a perfect cube, with high, flat plastered ceiling; the line of beauty was absent, and the acoustics were inevitably bad. The chancel, when recess, was a minute, un- ventilated box; but usually it was only a platform divided from the remainder of the nave by a rail. Sometimes the font and sometimes the pulpit stood in the exact middle of this platform, hindering, and it
* Noteworthy exceptions were St. John's, Forkland, and St. Luke's, Jacksonville, planned by Dr. Upjohn.
73
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
would seem, hindering symbolically, clear view of the altar and unobstructed access to it. Not infrequently the reredos was made up of three large panels con- taining the Ten Commandments flanked by the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. Frequently there was no lecturn, and the Minister would either kneel at the rail or go within the Sanctuary for Morning Prayer and Litany as well as for the Holy Communion. The pulpit was far above the heads of the congrega- tion, and was, in some places, entered only by a flight of stairs from the vestry-room, wherein, during the singing of the hymn before the sermon, the preacher exchanged surplice and stole for black preaching- gown and gloves. The choir was placed at the farthest distance possible from the Minister, either on a low platform between the front doors, or in a gallery constructed, as the event proved, for the especial privacy of the singers, that they might not, in the intervals of repose after their arduous labors, be dis- turbed by the devotions of the congregation. Vested choirs had been heard of, but it is doubtful whether the Minister that suggested their introduction would thereafter have received any more respectful hearing than if he had dared preach in his surplice. The entire service and all the surroundings were barren of beauty and dignity, and if revived today would be unendurable to a city congregation-so far away have we traveled. In a few rural congregations some of these old customs still linger, but the most pronounced are fast fading from memory.
Of the churches thus built some no longer exist. -6
74
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
When the stir of war was calmed whole congrega- tions had disappeared. Trinity Church, Auburn, was almost forgotten. Cahaba was given over to bats and owls, the entire white population having emi- grated. Summerville's sparse population could reach the Mobile churches in twenty minutes by horse-cars, and preferring the more ornate services and sermons of the city, no longer maintained a separate organiza- tion. But in their life-time the churches of the past served their purpose. They labored and others have entered into their labors.
-
CHAPTER VII.
CONGREGATIONAL GROWTH.
HE building of churches by newly-established T T congregations was not the only evidence of ec- clesiastical growth. Congregations, old and new, were alike growing in size.
Naturally this numerical increase was most per- ceptible in Mobile, where the Church had struck her roots the deepest. In less than twelve months after its erection, St. John's Church was enlarged to meet the growth of its congregation, and in the next year its rector presented forty persons for confirmation. In Trinity in the same year twenty-eight were confirmed, and in Christ Church sixteen. The following year forty-seven were confirmed in St. John's, twenty-nine in Christ Church, and twenty-seven in Trinity. Of the two hundred and eleven confirmations in the dio- cese, more than one-half were in Mobile. Four- teen of these were Negroes, members of the newly- organized mission of the Good Shepherd. In sub- sequent years of the decade these large confirma- tion classes remained the rule. St. John's were the largest, for that parish was reaping among a people not previously touched by the Church. For the next five years its annual confirmations averaged nearly thirty, Trinity's twenty, and those of Christ Church fifteen. Knapp at Christ Church, Massey at Trinity, and Ingraham at St. John's were a trio of intellectual
75
76
HISTORY OF THE
and spiritual giants whose contemporaneous work was, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, irre- sistible.
Elsewhere parochial growth was, if not so pro- nounced, at least healthy and encouraging. In Mont- gomery the confirmations averaged about fourteen each year, and as early as 1853 St. John's had en- rolled more than one hundred communicants. In Tuskaloosa, where the rate of growth was nearest that of Montgomery, the yearly confirmations aver- aged ten, but not till 1859 did the communicants num- ber one hundred. Huntsville, Greensboro, and Selma come next in order of growth, but the storm of war broke over the land ere they, too, became a century. In 1860 Huntsville had only eighty-eight communi- cants, Greensboro seventy-two, and Selma fifty-seven.
But the strength of the diocese was not then, as now it is, relatively so much greater in the cities than in the country. Social conditions were unlike those of to-day. The most cultured people lived in true baro- nial style, far from centers of population. Many Churchmen lived in scattered settlements on their vast contiguous plantations, remote from railroad and telegraph, off the line of stage travel, and reaching the outside world by their own conveyances. Of Church families thus living not more than five, ten, or fifteen miles apart not a few congregations were formed; and though, from the nature of the condi- tions, numerical progress was either slow or entirely absent, yet growth of influence was plainly percepti- ble. In Lowndes county, St. Peter's Church; in
77
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
Marengo, St. Michael's; in Greene, St. Mark's; in Dallas, St. David's; in Russell, St. John's-in-the- Wilderness; in Madison, St. John's-all these were churches set down by the country roadside, and are to-day without parallel in all Alabama. One of these country congregations equaled in size the present con- gregations at Evergreen or Woodlawn. Another was as large as is the church at either Troy or Union Springs. Another's communicant roll equaled that of Marion or Athens to-day. One stood tenth in numbers on a roll of seventy-eight congregations. Several were larger than were the churches at Demopolis, Florence, Uniontown, Eufaula, Camden, Lowndesboro, and Auburn. They received the min- istrations, not of raw deacons, but of tried and expe- rienced men-of Morris, Hanson, Cobbs, the Stick- neys, the Smitlis, Perdue, Robertson, and Lee.
Of the encouragement given by the smaller congre- gations undoubtedly St. Paul's, Carlowville, is the mnost striking illustration. In 1839 a mere handful of communicants formed its congregation. The village was a sect-ridden little place, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians holding undisputed sway. The Rev. F. B. Lee, who was made deacon in this year, came directly to Carlowville, and lived and worked in this one charge throughout his ministerial life of fifty-seven years. The first few years of the congregation's life were devoid of special encouragement, but in 1844 the mission-station was large enough-though, in truth, no considerable size was demanded-to be admitted as a parish. Two years later its first statistical report
78
HISTORY OF THE
showed thirty communicants. The net increase of the next four years was only four communicants, but thereafter increase was marked, the number enrolled being, in 1855 forty-nine, and in 1860 eighty-three. In this year only six parishes ranked it in size, and of these Huntsville outnumbered it by but five commun- icants.
Another small parish of great promise was St. Luke's, Cahaba, which was born in the same year as St. Paul's, Carlowville. It was first served by the Rev. Lucien B. Wright, who divided his time equally be- tween this place and Selma. The services were well attended from the first, but there was no indication of permanent establishment. Still, after four years of persevering ministerial work the congregation became an entity. That it was a dim and shadowy entity is evident from the report made in 1846 by Mr. Wright's successor, the Rev. J. H. Linebaugh, on occasion of his first visit to the place: "I understand that there are perhaps two communicants in the village, and many who decidedly prefer the Church." One of these two communicants moved away the next year, but his place was filled by the removal of another into the town. Two persons were confirmed; and the " parish " now had four communicants. During the next five years the number fluctuated between five and ten. Ministers changed. Vacancies were of frequent re- currence. But a slowly improving state of affairs urged patience and perseverance. In 1853 a rectory was built, and the Rev. J. M. Mitchell, Bishop Cobbs' son-in-law, became the first resident minister. Growth
79
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
began at once. The number of communicants went to fifteen, to twenty-one, to thirty-five, and, in 1859, to thirty-seven, its highest number. A five-thousand- dollar church was built, paid for, and consecrated. The Rev. George F. Cushman, subsequently editor of The Churchman, was its rector several years. William L. Yancey was for a time a member of the vestry. The parish remained prosperous and vigorous so long as Cahaba retained its white population. It passed away more than twenty years ago, but neither the congregation nor the building was lost to the diocese. Martin's Station has the building, and Selma the congregation.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHURCH'S SLAVE CHILDREN.
W HILE thus slowly but surely developing her strength and influence among the whites of Alabama, the Church was not neglecting the slaves that came within her purview.
Dr. Muhlenberg's characteristically Northern mis- conception, to which he is said to have given utter- ance " wittily "* a decade before,
" The stars are the scars And the stripes are the wipes Of the lash on the Negro's back,"
had little foundation in fact. Forgetting that, aside from moral and religious considerations, selfish desire to keep their property in good condition would in itself be sufficient to prevent slave-holders from maltreating their slaves, writers like Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe were fanning sectionalism into a brighter flame by representing rare local conditions as types of universal practice.
But even so they were taken in their own craftiness. As Bishop Wilmer subsequently pointed out, the testi- mony of "Uncle Tom's Cabin " was a witness to any thoughtful man of the peaceful relationship between master and slave. "If you want a good, honest, and religious servant, seek him among the slaves-find an
* Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg, by Anne Ayres, page 137.
80
81
CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
Uncle Tom; if you want to see a glorious specimen of womanly loveliness, seek her among the slave-holders -find an Eva; and keep every Down-Easter from having any power over the poor creatures."*
In truth both the physical and the spiritual wants of the slaves were supplied most generously; and how- ever closely the motives of the slave-holders be ex- amined, however much it be charged that the slaves' bodies were cared for from selfishness rather than from philanthropy, and religious ministrations provided rather as a moral police-force than as an aid to spirit- ual life, the fact remains that in the South the slaves were admirably well cared for.
Especially in Alabama do we find evidence of such care. Into the material question it is foreign to the purpose of this history to enter; but from the very beginning parochial reports tell of Negro children baptized and Negro adults confirmed. What other religious bodies did for the slaves it is impossible for the writer to ascertain; but when it is considered that the work of which brief mention is herein made was done by the representatives of a body which numbered only three thousand souls, out of a total white popu- lation of a quarter of a million, and that religious zeal was not monopolized by Churchmen, some conception is possible of the Christian force brought to bear on the ante-bellum Negro.
In Mobile as early as 1840 the Rev. S. S. Lewis was preaching regularly to a congregation of these
* Bishop Wilmer's Reminiscences, pp. 43 and 44.
82
HISTORY OF THE
people, which, consisting at first of six or eight per- sons, soon numbered more than one hundred. At St. John's-in-the-Prairies twelve were communicants. Smaller numbers were attached to most of the other congregations.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.