USA > Alabama > History of the Protestant Episcopal church in Alabama, 1763-1891 > Part 5
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When Bishop Cobbs came to Alabama, increased attention was given to this work. In 1846 nearly one-half the baptisms in the entire diocese were of Negroes, and for many years thereafter this propor- tion was approximated. In a single year, sixty-eight Negro children were baptized in St. David's Church, Dallas county. In the ensuing year Mobile, Demop- olis, Uniontown and Faunsdale reported one hundred and fourteen baptisms of Negroes. In Livingston, twenty were baptized in a twelve-month. In Eutaw, the following year, thirty-six were baptized. In Hunts- ville, in 1854, fifty-one were baptized; and in Fauns- dale, the year after, forty-two. In single years Cahaba reported the baptism of twenty-two Negro infants, Uniontown thirty-two, and Lowndesboro fifty-seven. In 1860, two hundred and thirteen Negroes were bap- tized in the diocese. Very incomplete records show that the total of Negro baptisms in Alabama during the sixteen years of Bishop Cobbs' episcopate was sixteen hundred, of which about three hundred were of adults.
The number of confirmations was far less, for the very good reason that many proved themselves after · baptism to be unfit for admission to the higher privi- leges of the Church; whilst the caution and thorough instruction necessitated by the weak moral character
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of the candidates discouraged many more from perse- vering to the end. Yet that much good and effective work was done among them is evident from the num- ber of Negro communicants towards the close of the period. They had grown from fewer than fifty in 1845 to more than one hundred and fifty. They formed exclusively the congregations of the Good Shepherd, in Mobile, and St. John's-in-the-Wilder- ness, in Russell County. They predominated in St. Michael's, Faunsdale, and St. David's, in Dallas County. They formed a considerable portion of the congregations at Tuskaloosa, where they worshipped in a chapel built for their use, and at Spring Hill, in Mobile County. At Selma, alone of the larger con- gregations, nothing was done for the Negro; this par- 'ish having had, in all its history, only one negro com- municant.
Much of the religious instruction given the slaves would have been impossible but for the self-forgetful devotion of master and mistress, who would regularly on Sunday catechize the laborers and children, and in some instances even give a half-holiday that the Negroes might attend week-day services.
CHAPTER IX.
ENDOWMENT OF THE EPISCOPATE.
A LTHOUGH the immediate interests of the dio- cese, both temporal and spiritual, were thus care- fully guarded, its future welfare was not forgotten. The period was one of infancy, and, while present growth was small, it was felt that the removal of ob- stacles to the free exercise of the body would be fol- lowed in the years to come by the development of great strength.
The drags upon the Church were four in number: Ist, The taxation of weak congregations for the sup- port of the Bishop, and the consequent corporate struggle for daily bread and arrested development in good work; 2nd, The inability of many small congre- gations to secure the services of a minister, and the absence of concerted action to introduce the Church into new territory; 3rd, The almost inevitable destitu- tion that awaited the families of deceased clergymen, and the consequent unrest of the clergy, who were often induced, by offers of larger salaries, to leave a prosperous field; and, 4th, The ignorance that Churchwomen and the future mothers of Churchmen manifested of Churchmanship and the Eternal Veri- ties as distinguished from the evanescent opinions of men and centuries.
To overcome these obstacles to a higher and freer diocesan life, four great undertakings were manifestly
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necessary: Ist, To endow the Episcopate; 2nd, To organize the missionary operations; 3rd, To provide for the worn-out clergy, and the widows and orphans of deceased clergy; and, 4th, To furnish Church ed- ucation to the mothers of the next generation.
These were the four great divisions of work for the future so nobly undertaken, so patiently prosecuted, and so successfully achieved. The completion of all this work in so short a time is the chief glory of the ante-bellum Church in Alabama. How each under- taking was carried to a successful conclusion shall now be considered.
It has been told that the original foundation of the Episcopal endowment fund was the gift by Mr. Jacob Lorillard of a township of land in Baldwin County, and that this gift was the nucleus around which clus- tered unfulfilled promises amounting to four thousand dollars .* The Baldwin County land was sold for five hundred dollars. As late as 1844 this five hundred dollars was the entire endowment fund.
Though the election of a Bishop entailed an addi- tional expense of less than sixteen hundred dollars, this small sum was not easily raised by the fourteen congregations that comprised the assessable strength of the diocese. The attempt of 1845 to ease this bur- den was, from its nature, doomed to failure. It sought to revive the notes given Mr. Ives during "Flush Times," and proposed to credit on any parish's assess- ment for the Bishop's salary all the interest that any member of that parish would pay on his long-neg-
*See page 29.
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lected note. This proposition received no response. It was nullified the following year, and was succeeded by another fruitless experiment: The Senior War- dens of the various parishes were requested to solicit subscriptions to the Bishop's Fund. The result was not at all startling. Not one cent was raised.
Meanwhile the original five hundred dollars had remained in the hands of the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund-Judge E. W. Peck, Mr. Isaac Croom, and Mr. H. A. Tayloe-increasing slowly by the yearly addi- tion of interest to principal. By 1849 the sum thus accumulated amounted to $818. In this year the apathy caused by the two failures of 1845 and 1846 passed away, and new efforts were made to increase the endowment. The responsibility of urging sub- scriptions was laid upon a single person. Mr. Henry A. Tayloe was appointed to solicit contributions throughout the diocese. A better selection could not have been made. Mr. Tayloe had a wide acquaint- ance through the State, and at the end of a single year was able to report that he had raised, in cash and in subscriptions in the shape of responsible notes, the sum of $10,829. Of this amount the two Mobile Churches gave $2,338, Montgomery $1,005, Huntsville $1,060, and St. David's (Dallas County ) $1, 185. Mr. Tayloe's entire expense account in collecting these subscriptions was only $69.70.
The amounts subscribed and paid in were given by one hundred and fifty-eight persons, living in twenty- six different parishes. The subscriptions were cred-
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ited by the Convention to the parish and not to the individual.
In connection with these subscriptions the aban- doned plan of 1845 was applied to the adjustment of parochial assessments. It was ordered that the Trus- tees of the Bishop's Fund should collect interest on the cash and notes, and pay it into the treasury of the diocese; that such collections should be counted as so much paid on the diocesan assessment by the parish in which the donor lived; that when the pay- ment of interest in any one year was greater than the parish's assessment for that year, the surplus of inter- est should be added to tlie principal of the endow- ment fund; and that when the annual interest should become equal to the annual assessment the parish should be released from further assessment.
It was a complicated scheme, and in its execution it imposed much labor on the Trustees of the Bish- op's Fund; for not only were they required to keep the cash subscriptions of three thousand dollars at interest and in reliable hands, but it was also their duty to keep track of the individual notes, amounting to $7,837, and collect interest at various times through the entire year. The Treasurer of the diocese was, as his part of the labor, required to keep account of the canonical removal, and the date of removal, of a subscriber from one parish to another, in order to make proper debits and credits on diocesan assess- ments. Questions of equity in connection with these subscriptions not infrequently demanded the best
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judgment not only of the Finance Committee but of the Convention itself.
It was an awkward scheme, yet the only scheme practicable; for the great bulk of these notes, while nominally payable in five years, were not to be paid, it was orally agreed, so long as interest on them was kept up. It was the only practicable scheme, yet a scheme unsafe and unreliable; for another period of general financial stringency such as the country had but recently weathered would render all personal security worthless and leave the subscriptions worth only the paper on which they were written.
But these difficulties were inevitable. The proba- bility of loss was reduced to the minimum by the fact that many of the largest notes were signed by the most responsible men of the state, whose failure to pay would synchronize with stoppage of payment on all securities save those of National issue-men like the Ellerbees and Pegueses, in Dallas county; the Alisons and Lees, of Carlowville; Isaac Croom, and the Pick- enses and Stickneys, of Greensboro; R. W. Nicolson and the Minges, of Uniontown and Faunsdale; W. F. Pierce and Alexander Jarvis, of Eutaw; William P. Gould, of Burton's Hill; John Marrast, of Tuskaloosa; F. S. Lyon, of Demopolis; J. M. Robertson, G. P. Beirne, and the Clays, of Huntsville; Emanuel Jones, William M. Garrow, T. Lesesne, and the Battles, of Mobile; and Charles T. Pollard, William Knox, and the Taylors, of Montgomery. These names indicate an array of personal integrity and financial responsi- bility that fully justified the Trustees in their remark
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of 1852: "These notes are believed to be as good as the same number and date can be, taken under like circumstances. If it were proper to collect them, so long as the interest is regularly paid, we doubt very much whether the amount could be invested on any security to make it more safe and reliable than it is at present."
Feeling with the Trustees that the security of these notes could not be increased, even if it were attempted, in violation of explicit understanding to the contrary, to collect them, the Convention endorsed Mr. Tayloe's action, and instructed the Trustees, in accordance with the agreement between him and the subscribers, "to postpone the collection of the principal due upon the notes so long as they were considered good and the interest was annually paid." But in the ensuing year drawers of notes voluntarily took them up to the amount ot fourteen hundred dollars. This money, together with the cash subscriptions previously in hand, was lent at eight per cent. to various individuals in sums ranging from twenty-five dollars to eight hundred.
The income from the endowment fund was already almost as great as it is today from a principal more than three times as great. In this as in all other cases safety of investment has been purchased with a portion of the income.
In 1854 the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund drew attention to the distinction between the "Special Fund," whose entire interest was to be paid each year towards the Bishop's salary, and the " Permanent -7
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Fund," which was made up of Christmas offerings, and whose interest was to go entirely to the augmen- tation of the principal. At this time the permanent fund amounted to $2,233.34, and the special fund to $11,979.75.
Renewed effort was now made to increase the en- dowment. A layman had done noble work before, and now a clergyman was selected-the Rev. Henry C. Lay, of Huntsville. For several months after his appointment Mr. Lay was unable to enter upon the work. Bnt so soon as he began his canvass, in 1855, it became manifest that the Convention had once again made wise choice of an agent. Mr. Lay visited twenty-one congregations, and secured a total amount, above his expenses, of $11,882. Of this amount $4,052 was in cash and $7,830 in notes. Nearly one- fourth of the whole, or $2,245, was given by parish- ioners of Christ Church, Mobile. Greensboro stood next, with a subscription of $1,615, paid in gold, and Montgomery third, with $1,235. Many of those who had given to the same object ten years before, on Mr. Tayloe's canvass, were even more liberal this time than before. The new list was somewhat more of a popular subscription than the former. Fewer parishes were represented, but the subscribers numbered one hundred and sixty-nine.
The work of the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund was now onerous. About two hundred separate notes had to be watched, both for collection of interest and for proper credit of interest on parochial assessments. On the latter point misunderstanding and complaint
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became more frequent than in previous years. As a whole, the method was as cumbersome as the Ptole- maic system of astronomy. ' In 1856 the Convention forgot the original understanding with subscribers, and attempted to secure simplicity of detail by directing the Trustees to consolidate all notes given by the same person at different times, and as fast as they fell due to collect them and reinvest the proceeds in such securities as seemed both safe and permanent. But if the Convention forgot the agreement that the notes should not be collected so long as interest was paid, the drawers of the notes had a better memory, and the collections were inconsiderable.
In 1858 the Special Fund* amounted to a little less than $23,000, of which $1,700 in cash was not invested; $4,346 was invested in eight per cent. bonds of the Mobile and Ohio and Alabama and Mis- sissippi (now Alabama Central division of the South- ern) railroads. The next year sixteen hundred dollars more of Alabama and Mississippi Railroad bonds were bought, and the following year four thousand dollars was invested in bonds of the Alabama and Florida Railroad.
In this year, 1860, it was evident that trying times were ahead, and the Convention deemed it wise to provide for diocesan interests by refusing to grant further time on the notes, now many years overdue legally, but never due morally. On recommendation of the Finance Committee it began to take in sail by
*See page 89.
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resolving "That the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund be positively instructed to collect all the notes of con- tributors to the Fund now due." It was one thing for the Convention to pass the resolution; it was another thing to carry the resolution into effect. Ten years later, when the tidal wave of war had rolled back and the few that were not dead or bankrupt had made good their subscriptions, it was found that notes and securities whose face value was $24,724 were worth less than $15,000; of which $5,000 was a note given by the vestry of St. John's parish, Montgomery, secured by a mortgage on Hamner Hall, and destined to be the source of years of contention and of ulti- mate blessing to the diocese.
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CHAPTER X.
THE DIOCESAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
IT has ever been a loss to the diocese, a loss that 1 increases with the growth of successive genera- tions, that Church families, living far from organized congregations, waiting long years for the promised coming of a missionary, surrounded by the sectarian bodies whose members, pioneer settlers of the country, had come in sufficient numbers to receive regular min- istrations from the beginning, have at last grown hope- less of the Church's ever-deferred mothering, and, impelled by zealous desire to worship God in the company of their fellow-men, or seduced by the spe- cious accusation of Pharisaic righteousness, have at last given the right hand of fellowship to the system of religious opinion prevailing in their immediate vicinity.
In the early days of the diocese this evil was most marked, for these isolated families formed a larger proportion of the entire number of communicants than they now form. As late as 1860 one-fifteenth of the Churchmen of Alabama were thus isolated. It is a moderate estimate that in 1850 the proportion was one- eighth. The necessity for some provision for these families was felt quite as keenly then as now. Ala- bama Churchmen have always rallied loyally to the call of their leaders, whether to go forward or to hold fast what they already have. From the beginning
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the same moving Spirit that impelled the Church in Alabama to seek a head was urging the Churchmen in Alabama to keep whole the Body under the head.
Parishes and clergymen here and there had been spasmodically doing missionary work, but not until 1843 was organized work attempted. In that year the Rev. Messrs. S. S. Lewis of Mobile, F. R. Hanson of Greene county, and J. J. Scott of Livingston, and Messrs. A. B. Winn of Demopolis, and George Cleve- land of Mobile, were appointed a committee "to en- quire into the expediency of originating a Diocesan Missionary Society, and, if deemed expedient, to re- port to the next Convention suitable measures to carry the same into effect."
The proposed Society was organized in 1844, on the day before Bishop Cobbs' election. With truly Cath- ·olic spirit the very first Article of its Constitution de- clared that "every baptized member of this Church shall be regarded as a member of this Society." With wisdom and statesmanship that the Church needs to emulate today the method of operations was thus out- lined: "Your committee are prepared to recommend the appointment, first, of one general Missionary, who shall visit every portion of the diocese, record the names of Episcopal families wherever he might find then not in communion with existing parishes, bap- tize their children, etc., and encourage them with the hope that, by proper exertions on their part, they might soon enjoy the services of the Church at regu- lar periods; and do all other things in accordance with his missionary character. Thus new congregations
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will be gradually built up throughout the diocese, and whenever one or two parishes felt able, with or with- out assistance, [to join] in the support of a clergy- man, the general Missionary should then give up those parishes, and extend his services to other new places. * We want a man full of Apostolic zeal, and fired with the spirit of that love and devotion to the souls of men which animated the hearts and strength- ened the physical energies of the first Evangelists and Missionaries, and, with God's blessing, success will be certain to attend us; and in a short time, instead of one, some five or six missionaries may be in the ser- vice of the Society."
How to raise the necessary income-whether by stated offerings or by individual subscriptions-the Committee left for the Convention to determine. The question of method, it felt, was of minor importance. The proper spirit was not, "Let us adopt a method, and try to do this work," but, "Here is a divinely iniposed duty. We will do it. How can we do it best?"
When, in due time, this question of method was reached, the Society answered it by calling on par- ishes instead of individuals, and, without expression of preference, left each parish to determine its own method. This was eminently the wisest course. Only experience could determine the scheme most practi- cable in Alabama; and it required experience extend- ing through nearly half a century to lead the diocese at large to adopt the present successful system.
The original necessity for an Evangelist vanished
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with the coming of Bishop Cobbs. The Bishop was himself the Evangelist, and his example roused the dormant missionary zeal of the clergy to some measure of care for hitherto neglected Churchmen. Conse- quently the Missionary Society's activity was restricted to supplementing the meager incomes of those who ministered to already established congregations; the distribution of stipends and the allotment of work it reposed entirely in the Bishop's hands. Its income the first year was quite modest, being only $245, and this sum was divided between two missionaries. This, however, does not represent Alabama's missionary spirit at the time; for in the same year the diocese gave $600 to the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society; and the total of $845 was a creditable amount for a diocese of only 663 communicants to give to mis- sionary work in a single year.
The following year the Bishop's appeal for increased liberality toward missionary work in the diocese was answered by an increase of the Society's income to four hundred dollars; and this was the average income until 1860. The missionaries, therefore, numbered only two or three until 1856, when the number was increased to four. The number varied from four to six for the next five years.
Manifestly the Bishop's apportionment to individual missionaries was not overlarge. In 1853 the Rev. J. M. Mitchell, then assisting Bishop Cobbs, in St. John's Church, Montgomery, and in connection with this work doing good service in the mission field of the county, received from the Society fifty dollars; the same amount
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was given the Rev. T. A. Morris, working in Jack- son county; and the largest beneficiary, the Rev. R. D. Nevius, then a deacon officiating in St. David's Church, Dallas county, received only seventy dollars. In 1857 the stipends ranged between seventy-five and one hundred dollars. In 1859-60 improvement was visible, and the Society's allowances were increased to a minimum of one hundred dollars and a maximum of one hundred and fifty.
This increase was due to a sudden increase of the Society's income from five hundred dollars, towards which it had been slowly growing for several years, to thirteen hundred dollars. That this remarkable increase did not arouse a feeling of thankfulness in the Bishop, but only called forth the statement that "although this is a larger amount than has been con- tributed in any former year, yet it is obvious that the Bishop can do but little toward strengthening weak parishes and occupying new stations until a much greater sum is put at his disposal," must be attributed solely to his physical ill health, which was now be- coming pronounced. The great increase was declara- tive of new zeal in the Church, and was the first ripple of an increasing flow which told that the brook had become a river. Although the Bishop did not live to see it, the Society's income next year had risen to $1,500; and all through the trying years of civil war it remained, after the first year, above one thousand dollars.
Seven different missionaries were employed during the last ten years. They were the Rev. Messrs. J. F.
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Smith, J. S. Jarratt, F. B. Lee, Edward Denniston, W. M. Bartley, J. A. Wheelock, and J. C. Waddill. The congregations served by them were eighteen in number: Autaugaville and Prattville; Greenville, Letohatchie, and Hayneville; Carlowville; Opelika, Auburn, Yongesboro, and Salem; Tuskegee and Tal- lassee; Eutaw and Gainesville; and Pushmataha, Butler, Mount Stirling, and Bladon Springs. Some of these congregations are to-day extinct, a few have a service when the Bishop makes his annual visita- tion, and of those that are provided with regular min- isters not one is self-supporting. Movements of population have apparently made futile the missionary work of a generation of work.
But only superficial observers will call that work a failure. The work of Christ, the work of Christ's Church, is rather to establish souls than to establish congregations. If the souls are established the con- gregations may disappear but are not lost. The mis- sionaries in these villages and towns were the real founders of the churches in Anniston and Birming- ham, and were not insignificant factors in the growth of the large congregations in Mobile, Montgomery, and Selma.
CHAPTER XI.
THE RELIEF OF THE CLERGY.
T' HE relief of disabled clergy and of the families of deceased clergy was one of the first undertakings that followed the securing of a Bishop. It was deemed the natural condition of the parish priest that he should be married. It was perceived that clerical stipends were not large enough to dispel gloomy fore- bodings, and that these, increasing with the on-rolling years, beclouded the life and weighed down the heart of the most faithful minister. It was felt that the au- thority of the Church calling a man to leave all was attended with the responsibility of caring for her ser- vants and their families when the call was obeyed.
It cannot be said that these thoughts led to passion- ate or even deep-rooted conviction in the minds of many. Most of the Churchmen that felt anything about the matter thought that, as an abstract proposi- tion, it was the right thing for the Church to pension the incapacitated and their dependent families. A few were willing, if occasionally urged, to reduce the principle to action by contributing towards a pension fund. A very few were thoroughly in earnest in the formulation of a scheme by which Alabama should do her duty to her clergy.
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