USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > A history of Saint John's Church, Hartford, Connecticut, 1841-1941 > Part 3
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A goodly inheritance passed to the third Rector, the Reverend William Croswell Doane, who was instituted by Bishop Williams on May 9, 1863, "a bright spring day." He was indeed a man through whom the day-spring from on high could visit the parish. He was a son of the brilliant George Washington Doane, who served as a professor at Trinity College and was Bishop of New Jersey from 1832 to 1859.
The son was born in the year of his father's accession to the episcopate, and attended Burlington College in New Jersey, from which he graduated in 1850. He was ordained a deacon in 1853, priest in 1856, and for a time served as professor of literature at Burlington, later for four years as
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lecturer in the same subject at Trinity College in Hartford. Although he always remained a literary man, he was also active as a social reformer and was a staunch supporter of missions. He became one of the most influential leaders in the Church, and his fearless utterances on public questions made him one of the honored guides of American opinion. Unlike many such men, he was also an able leader in conven- tions, and was spokesman for the American episcopate at two Lambeth Conferences in England, attended by bishops of the Anglican Communion from all over the world. As an administrator, he showed his high abilities while bishop, in establishing and organizing the institutions that now cluster about All Saints' Cathedral in Albany, New York. To him is due much of the inspiration for the modern cathedrals of the Episcopal Church in America. In his vision he saw every diocese with a cathedral surrounded by institutions for social service and offering free seats to all.
With the discriminating literary taste inherited from his father came also a love of teaching and a gift for writing noble hymns, such as "Ancient of Days, who sittest, throned in glory," still a favorite processional. His father wrote the Church's beloved call to missions, "Fling out the banner!" and the vesper hymn that has comforted millions: "Softly now the light of day."
Throughout a long life Dr. Doane collected an impressive array of degrees from Princeton, Trinity, Columbia, Hobart, Union, Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin. He served Saint Barnabas's and Saint Mary's Parishes in Burlington, Saint John's in Hartford, and Saint Peter's in Albany, where in 1913 he finished his course as Bishop of Albany after an episcopate of forty-four years. In the spare time of a full life he wrote many books, addresses and learned essays. He perfectly fitted the old saying, that the busiest people are always those who make time to do more.
He followed Coxe's tradition of intense devotion to the Church's liturgy, with daily morning and evening prayer.
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Strict as he was, the effect evidently was to attract rather than repel. To his successor he left a parish of about two hundred and sixty families, nearly four hundred communi- cants and three hundred Church School pupils. His zeal for education and missions inspired the parishioners to an astonishing liberality and continued the church's name as a mother of parishes. In his first year they subscribed about eighteen thousand dollars to complete the endowment of Trinity College. He earnestly promoted a mission in Colt's Meadow and prevailed on the parish to grant him an assistant, the Reverend Henry W. Nelson, to care for it. His warm interest revived and strengthened the mission in East Hartford and favored the Sunday School on Washington Street that became Saint James's Church. In 1866, after but three years, he reported that Saint John's rejoiced in two daughter parishes-Saint John's in East Hartford and the Church of the Good Shepherd-while its own vigor was increased.
He revived Coxe's journal and we are deeply indebted to him for its picture of parish life in full bloom. Turning the pages, one receives a vivid impression of zealous mis- sionary work, large congregations, many communicants and a round of services that seems very strenuous. The strong- willed Rector decided to make an early stand against auctioning off the pews, which he considered an indecent and unchurchly transaction. He stood pat, even at the risk of alienating some supporters, even offered to resign, and carried his point. From that time the pews were simply assessed.
On January 20, 1867 he decided to go to Albany, and before he departed did a characteristic thing by making pro- vision for daily services until a new rector should come. Whatever difference of opinion he had with them, the parishioners felt a deep respect for him. They later praised his devotion as a priest, which they declared would find "its best and only worthy acknowledgment in the lives of those
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who through God's grace have thus been brought to a clearer knowledge of the truth and led to a higher purpose and stronger faith." After his departure the Reverend William Short officiated for a year.
The first three pastors were such a rare trio that it is doubtful whether any other Episcopal parish in the vicinity can rival them. To a certain degree that very fact made more difficult the task of the next three rectors, whose pastorates covered about fifteen years. They were the Reverend Lawrence H. Mills, 1868-1872; Dr. Matson Meier-Smith, 1872-1876; and the Reverend A. Douglass Miller, 1876-1882. They were all men of ability and devotion, who perhaps have suffered too much in comparison with their illustrious predecessors. Mr. Mills became a Doctor of Divinity and a professor at Oxford University in England. For eight months after his departure the Reverend Francis Goodwin of Hartford took charge of the parish during a vacancy in the rectorship. Dr. Meier-Smith resigned from Saint John's to become a professor at the Philadelphia Divinity School. Mr. Miller was an outstanding preacher and later served churches in Middletown, New London, Brooklyn and San Francisco. He survived until 1929, dying in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.
The most remarkable of these three rectors was Mr. Mills, who was born in New York City in 1837 and died in 1918. He was a native of New York City and was educated in the University of the City of New York, receiving the bachelor's degree in 1858, the master's in 1863. He received the degree of B. D. from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1861, when he was ordained a deacon. He became a priest in the following year and from 1864 to 1867 was rector of Saint Ann's Church in Brooklyn. After leaving Saint John's in 1872 he lived abroad. From 1873 to 1877 he was associate rector of the American Episcopal Church in Florence, Italy, then went to Germany to study the sacred literature of the Orient. He became an authority on Iranian literature and
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in 1887 settled at Oxford, England, where ten years later a group of his English and Indian friends established for him a chair in philology, which he held until his death. During the latter part of his life he was an internationally known authority in his subject, and a very productive writer, living the life of a profound and retired scholar. He was a refined and sensitive man and preferred such a life to the constant preaching and social duties of a parish.
The record of these pastorates makes a reader aware that the parish was crossing a divide between its first won- derful vigor and later days of relative decline and retrench- ment. Its zeal in planting offshoots proved to be at once its glory and its loss. As early as 1859 Trinity Parish on the "Hill" took away some valued members, and only seven years later a large secession founded the Church of the Good Shepherd. Only two more years passed, and still another withdrawal took place in the "South End." Another group of parishioners, largely of "High Church" tendencies, established the Church of the Incarnation-later called Saint James's-at the corner of Park and Washington Streets. It was all a natural swarming of the hive, but the effect upon Saint John's was depleting both in numerical and financial strength. The two hundred and sixty families and four hundred and twenty-five communicants in 1866 dropped to only one hundred families and one hundred and seventy-five communicants in 1873. Although there was some recovery in later years, the parish in its first location never again saw the congregations of Dr. Doane's time. Westward migration, deaths and transfers to newer churches tended to offset the most valiant efforts of pastors and people.
For a time many members were dismayed and seemed almost reconciled to the thought that Saint John's had no future where it was. Between 1874 and 1885 there were several proposals to abandon the location and build else- where, perhaps at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Trinity
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Street. In 1877 it was proposed to negotiate for a consolida- tion with the Church of the Incarnation, and eight years later to unite with the Church of the Good Shepherd or Christ Church. That these schemes all fell to the ground was due to the loyalty and devotion of the "Old Guard," who would die but never surrender.
The three pastors also deserve much credit for the per- sistence of a tough vitality in the parish. Mills worked hard, organizing a city mission with night schools and well- attended Bible classes. He favored the Mothers' Meeting begun in 1867-1868, and the Sewing Society, and in 1870 warmly praised the zeal and liberality of his parishioners. Despite heavy loss of wealthy members, pew rentals and offerings still amounted to about ten thousand dollars a year. The Sunday School held up well and was especially active. in the pastorate of Dr. Meier-Smith, whose wife and daughter took a deep, personal interest in its welfare. Miller strove to build up financial support by substituting the modern envelope system for pew rents, and was so successful that the parish not only met expenses but paid off some of the vexatious debt.
Old Saint John's was far from dead when the Reverend James Watson Bradin entered upon his long pastorate on May 21, 1882. His coming recalled the spacious days of Doane, as he was an alumnus of Burlington College in New Jersey, founded by Bishop George W. Doane. He graduated from Berkeley Divinity School in 1871, and was ordained deacon that year, priest in 1872. Before coming to Saint John's he had served at Grace, Saint Stephen's and Saint Paul's Churches in Brooklyn. In 1886 Trinity College con- ferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.
Mr. Bradin's ministry is green in the memory of some still among us, as his service-one of the longest in the city's history-extended to 1918, a period of thirty-six years. His unwavering devotion to sound Church principles was
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sweetened and humanized by an unfailing and positive tolerance. He resembled the English vicar who
. . held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad, It will not be improved by burning.
It is said of him, that he would minister to anybody of any faith, or even no faith. He was loved by many who were not regular churchgoers or members, but who admired him for what he was and resorted to him in trouble. That char- acteristic, of unfeigned condescension to men of low estate, inspired him to make the most of the church where it was, as a missionary venture in the heart of the city.
He was opposed to cultivating the airs of a merely fashionable parish, and protested against closing in summer, "believing that God's work cannot prosper under such con- ditions." When obliged to suffer a vacation in August, 1891, he insisted upon lay-reading every Sunday morning and wrote in the journal a sentence that typifies him: "During this month the sick poor were well cared for."
Mr. Bradin loved the Prayer Book services and read them with a clear and stately diction that made an indelible impression upon one who, as a choir boy, heard him Sunday after Sunday for years. On his lips the petitions of the Litany became awesome. One of the older parishioners has said that he read the Decalogue in the Ante-Communion service as though it were something new and wonderful.
He insisted that closing the church and abolishing the parish would be an unworthy surrender in the sight of people in the neighborhood who needed its ministrations. The old families, especially the women, rallied loyally around him, determined to carry on with him in defiance of death's cruel reaping of generous contributors. His salary had to be cut, and one year the entire parish budget was only four thousand dollars-hardly more than that of the poorest parishes in the diocese today.
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The Rector strengthened religious life by favoring the new Brotherhood of Saint Andrew and by having preaching missions in 1887 and 1889 to quicken the pulse of devotion. A vested choir of over thirty men and boys, introduced in 1886, enlivened and beautified the services. Evening services for young people started in 1891 and the Rector inaugurated a men's Bible Class. Considerable sums were spent in paint- ing and redecorating, and annual deficits had a way of vanishing when confronted by the renewal of devotion.
A great triumph of his ministry in the old church came on the fiftieth anniversary at Easter, 1892. Bishop Williams preached and Mr. Miller visited and delivered an his- torical address at the evening service. At the morning cele- brations about two hundred and twenty-five communicants received the sacrament. At the second the parishioners joy- fully watched a solemn ceremony marking extinction of the parish debt. The treasurer, Mr. Charles A. Pease, laid a quit-claim deed on the alms bason and the Rector presented it at the altar. Bishop Coxe came in July to preach an his- torical sermon and present two books for use on the altar. Bishop Doane visited and preached in 1894, and the ministry of Mr. Bradin continued its even course during the few more years in the old sanctuary.
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CHAPTER FOUR
Life in an Old-Time Parish
THE TRIO HE TRIO OF GREAT CLERGYMEN, WHO SERVED SAINT JOHN'S in its first quarter of a century, gave to its religious and intel- lectual life a quality of intense and regular devotion. To that, more than to any other thing, the parish owed the loyalty of old families who stood by it through prosperity and adversity. It trained men and women who would be in their pews in the bitterest winter weather and on suffocat- ing Sundays in August, spiritual athletes and probably not a few saints. Dr. Coxe started them on the right line. From the beginning he had two and frequently three services on Sunday, with a sermon or lecture morning and evening, and devotions every Friday evening throughout the year.
There were daily evening prayers throughout Lent, excepting Wednesdays, when morning service was cele- brated and the people could attend the evening lecture at Christ Church. He had at least one service on the great festivals of Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany and Ascen- sion, on the fast of Ash Wednesday, the days of Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Even. There was always an observ- ance of Thanksgiving Day as a religious occasion, and sermons prepared for the celebration of all minor festivals and saints' days.
Saint John's emphasized the great sacraments, with Holy Communion on the first Sunday in every month and on the high festivals of Christmas, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost and Holy Trinity. Dr. Coxe frequently celebrated at visitation of the sick, and administered baptism to adults on Easter Even and Whitsunday. He regularly catechized
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children and adults and gave special courses of instruction for Sunday School teachers.
There was no careless instruction in his ministry, and the parish had a marked intellectual flavor that set an example in the city and the diocese. The Rector personally watched over the Sunday School, which had a large library and held an annual service with a sermon, catechism and awarding of prizes, on Holy Innocents' Day. Many modern parishes would prefer to have a "Christmas party" and let it go at that. Adult education, so deplorably neglected by all denominations today, was started with a complete course of lectures on "the Rites, Liturgies, History and Creed of the Catholic Church," delivered at the Friday evening serv- ices. The course continued right through the summer-a contrast with our time hardly needing comment. A con- gregation that would sit through lectures on the Catholic Epistles, and make good use of the parish library, had the spirit to become real Churchmen.
That strenuous education continued to the end of Dr. Coxe's ministry. There were classes in church history for young ladies, lectures on the Prayer Book, instruction for adults in the catechism, examination of Church School pupils every Sunday, preparatory classes for baptism, con- firmation and first Communion, and a class in Christian morals for young men, based on the Book of Proverbs. On Wednesdays and Fridays after morning prayers, Dr. Coxe used to read short, interesting passages from the lives of eminent Christians and the early saints, or from missionary periodicals. In 1846 he established a society of Trinity Col- lege students to study church architecture. In the following year he gave lectures on the seven capital sins, and an address on the Ember season, asking prayers for the Church of England "persecuted by a semi-infidel government." On the feast of King Charles the Martyr in 1849 he lectured to the parishioners and "many citizens assembled in the church." A few months later came a commemorative sermon
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on the three hundredth anniversary of the Reformed service. Next year he treated the congregation to lectures on the history of the Church of England and the Greek Church. In 1851 came theological lectures to the students of Trinity College. One Sunday evening in October, 1852, the Rector returned from West Hartford during the service to lecture on Saints Ambrose and Augustine and the modern church of Milan. In the Lenten season and spring of 1851 the Rev. Dr. John Williams, soon to be assistant bishop of Connecti- cut, preached on the Seven Words from the Cross and the sayings to the Seven Churches.
Dr. Washburn continued the splendid tradition of sound intellectual training, and in that respect Doane proved himself worthy of his brilliant father. Throughout the whole period on Main Street the rectors' efforts to build a well- rounded intellectual and spiritual life were greatly assisted by a fine Church School. It was organized in the first year, with a definite aim of thorough training for confirmation. The teaching, based on the catechism, was intended to produce life-long communicants and surely succeeded. It was never a very large school, generally around twenty teachers and one hundred and fifty to two hundred pupils, and lacked the present elaborate equipment. It was a devo- tional school, centered in the services and nourished by the Bible and catechism. Its beautiful Easter Festival became a cherished tradition of the parish.
Dr. Coxe strongly sympathized with the movement for parochial schools that inspired many Episcopalians in the 'forties. It was a reaction against the growing public-school system, which many devout people called "godless." Some bishops, including Doane of New Jersey, predicted that the unreligious school would become in effect anti-religious-a prophecy which some educators now consider as not wholly absurd. The rector earnestly wanted a parish day school, and in 1845 the generosity of William T. Lee enabled him to found a parochial school for about thirty girls. Under his
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personal care they received "the elements of a truly Christian education," and some were charity scholars. The school met in a building at No. 8 Mulberry St. and for some years was taught by Mary Vallant, who died in 1850. She was of English birth and the rector praised her as "a very useful and worthy young lady." There can be no doubt that her pupils became good Churchwomen.
Old Saint John's drew much of its intellectual quality from a close and friendly association with Trinity College. On March 26, 1842, even before their church was con- secrated, the Wardens and Vestry offered the south gallery to the students free of charge, provided one of the college officers would sit with them. It was a natural kindness, as four of the first members were professors. President John Williams was a friend of the rector and chose Saint John's as the place of his consecration to the episcopate in 1851. The first three rectors lectured at the college, and professors in orders used to assist in the services or supply in the rec- tor's absence. The association has never lapsed and the present head of the college has often preached in the new Saint John's. In early days the parish contributed liberally to the college, in one year subscribing eighteen thousand dollars to its endowment. Students and professors were regular communicants and took a prominent part in parish life, teaching and lecturing. The rectors cultivated the spir- itual lives of many boys and directed some to the holy ministry. In time the parish had two scholarships at the college, with the right of nomination. Parish life would have been poorer without those years of fraternal relations.
It would have languished without the impulse of many benevolent, religious and social groups that flourished from time to time and were the origins of the present Church Service League. One of the first sprang from an inspiration of Dr. Coxe in 1850, to bring the Church into touch with many immigrants who were settling in Hartford and often had no religious life. On the evening of Sunday, September
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8th, he called a meeting of immigrants in the parish, to start missionary work for others. The result was a Church City Mission Society, founded in co-operation with members of Christ Church. The society established and supported Saint Paul's "free church" on Market Street, where for nearly thirty years the beloved "Father" Fisher ministered to the poorer folk of the East Side.
Another fruit of that impulse was the Benevolent Society, organized in 1851-52 to meet the wants of immigrants and strangers and "stimulate their zeal and affection for the Church." About the same time Saint John's began holding meetings to aid the Home for the Sick, established by Episcopalians of the city. It was the real origin of the Hart- ford Hospital. Charity received untold help from the Ladies' Sewing Society, begun about 1868. It held regular meetings, sometimes with forty or more women, and was warmly praised by the rector for its important work. Another helpful women's group was the Mothers' Meeting started in the years 1867-68.
In the later years on Main Street Mr. Bradin stressed the need of attracting the devotion and service of younger people. Early in 1886 he encouraged the establishment of a Saint Andrew's Guild for young men, anticipating the Brotherhood of Saint Andrew. In 1890 the diocesan chapter held its annual conference in the Hartford churches, with meetings in Saint John's. The Girls' Friendly Society was warmly welcomed and soon had a very active and helpful chapter. In the spring of 1891 the girls held a fair and enter- tainment in co-operation with the Girls' Guild, which earned them the hearty thanks of the parish.
The missionary work of old Saint John's could be the subject of a book. Dr. Coxe never tired of urging generosity to missions and started a systematic method of alms-giving for missions and charities. He used to give lectures on missions at the evening services, ask the people to pray for them, and read letters from missionaries in the West. Interest
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was kept alive by personal visits of eminent missionaries, like Bishop Philander Chase of Ohio and Illinois, who came in 1844 and signed his name in the parish journal with a typical flourish. In the winter of 1850 James Lloyd Breck told the people about missions at Nashotah, Wisconsin and in Minnesota. In June, 1853 the students of Trinity College held a missionary service in behalf of Racine College in Wisconsin.
The parish journal teems with notes on special services, addresses, sermons and collections for missions in the Western states, China, Constantinople, neglected places in Connecticut, and the founding of new churches near Hartford. As early as 1843 the rector made missionary trips to West Hartford, East Windsor, Newington, Poquonock, Manchester and "Old Windsor." Twenty-one years later we find Dr. Doane and Mr. Nelson, his assistant, supplying services in the "South End" of Hartford and in several neighboring towns. To that ardent missionary zeal several parishes in and around Hartford owe their origin or their survival in hard years. Mr. Bradin nobly carried on the tradition by work among the poor on the East Side, and by encouraging a small group of Negro Churchmen who founded Saint Monica's Mission.' *
The missionary succeeds because he is sustained by prayer and the services of the altar, the powerhouses of the Church in all ages. Saint John's was a missionary church because it was a devout church. A congregation that flocked to six o'clock Communion services, and sustained daily morning and evening prayers, could be nothing else. Under Dr. Coxe even annual business meetings closed with a church service, the rector vested to read the collects at the altar and give his benediction. In Rector Doane's time there was Communion on all important saints' days, and All Saints' Day was famed for its "noble congregations," many com- munions and exquisite flowers. The evening celebrations
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