USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. I > Part 18
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Through the abundant labors of Mr. Scovill, the churchmen within the limits of his Mission had so greatly increased as to warrant the formation of a separate parish in Westbury, (now Watertown,) and
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several individuals were active in the movement, and entered into an agreement, as early as 1764, "to hold public worship there on those Sundays when there was no preaching at Waterbury." By the month of October in the next year, a church, thirty-seven by forty-five feet, was so comfortably finished that the people assembled in it for the first time to hear a "dedicatory discourse" from the Rev. Samuel Andrews, and to worship Him who had put it into their hearts and enabled them to build a temple to the honor and glory of His holy name.
A parish was formed in Milford in 1764, thirty-one families participating in the formation; and by the assistance of that charitable layman, Mr. St. George Talbot, a small wooden church was begun in the spring of the next year, but it proceeded towards completion with a singular degree of moderation. A period of ten years elapsed before it was even enclosed and made fit for occupancy; and then, when the number of Epis- copalians in the town had been reported to be one hundred and fifty-three, it was opened with religious services by the Rev. Mr. Hubbard, aided by the neigh- boring Missionaries at Stratford and Derby.
In Fairfield County, it could be said of the Church that the place of her tent is enlarged, and the curtains of her habitations are stretched forth. Writing from Stratford, in the autumn of 1764, Dr. Johnson said: "Here are now about one hundred families, and one hundred and forty actual communicants; it may seem, perhaps, to the Society and others, difficult to account for it, that there are no more, here and in many other places, especially on the sea-coasts, after so many ac- counts, as have been given from time to time, of the
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increase of our numbers." And then he went on to assign as a reason, "that, besides many deaths, there are in these countries very frequent migrations, espe- cially from the sea-coasts to the inland parts, where land is much cheaper, and where many of our people, particularly the youth, have from time to time re- moved. In Stratford, for instance, had all that con- formed to the Church, with their descendants, con- tinued here hitherto, instead of one hundred, I believe there would be two hundred families." The parish ioners of Mr. Beach at Newtown frequently assembled to the number of four or five hundred, and he was most careful to fortify them as well by his printed as his preached discourses against both Antinomianism and enthusiasm.
But a storm was gathering now which was to burst in terrible fury upon the Church and arrest all this prosperity. It has been mentioned in a former chap- ter that one of the reasons urged with the British ministry to prevent the establishment of an American Episcopate was the fear that it would lead to the in- dependence of the colonies. The Missionaries utterly repudiated any such tendency, and insisted that the commercial interests of the home Government, to- wards which she always turned a jealous eye, could not and ought not to be in the least affected by this ecclesiastical provision. The first step which led to the independence of the colonies was the passage by Parliament, March 22, 1765, of the Stamp-Act, and the introduction of a Bill soon after, authorizing the quar- tering of troops in these parts. Opposition was at once raised to the Stamp-Act, as unjust in itself. A Gen- eral Congress of the colonies met for the first time
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at New York, and the son of Dr. Johnson was chosen by the Assembly one of the number to represent Con- necticut in that Congress. In order to procure a repeal of the Act, they adopted a declaration of rights and grievances, asserting taxation by themselves and trial by jury to be the inherent privilege of the sub- jects of the British realm, in all her dependencies. The Colonial Assemblies adopted similar measures; and popular gatherings throughout the land, heated essays in the newspapers, and more elaborate, but not less inflammatory pamphlets, served to set the whole country in a blaze. In some places the stamp-officers and their supporters were exposed to personal vio- lence; and on the first of November, the day designated for the Act to go into operation, neither stamps nor officers were to be found in the colonies, and business of all kinds was therefore transacted without the aid of stamped paper.
But what was the course of the poor, persecuted Church of England here amid these popular discon- tents and tumults? Always teaching her children to "honor and obey the civil authority," she was loyal then, as now, to the rightly constituted government, and seven of her Missionaries in Connecticut, acci- dentally convened in September of this same year, sent an address to the Venerable Society, to the ef- fect, that, "although the commotions and disaffec- tion in this country were very great relative to what was called the imposition of the Stamp-Act," yet they had the satisfaction of stating that the people of the Church of England in general in this colony, as they were able to assure the Society, and those particu- larly under their own respective charges, were of "a
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contrary temper and conduct, esteeming it nothing short of rebellion to speak evil of dignities and to avow opposition to this last act of Parliament."
Dr. Leaming, not among these subscribers, but writ- ing from Norwalk in the same month, said: "I have the satisfaction to assure the Society, that Missionaries being placed in this colony, is not only very service- able in a religious, but in a civil sense. In the north- east part of this colony there have been most rebelli- ous outrages committed, on account of the Stamp-Act, while those towns where the Church has got footing have calmly submitted to the civil authority. This has been remarked, and by the dissenters themselves, to the honor of the Church. It is said that Mayhew, the day before the mob pulled down the Deputy-Gov- ernor's house, preached sedition from these words: I would they were even cut off that trouble you. He has abused the Church with impunity, and perhaps he thinks he may escape in abusing the State also." Mr. Beach, a day or two after, followed this letter of Dr. Leaming with another, describing the feeling in his own charge :- "I have, of late, taken pains to warn my people against having any concern in the sedi- tious tumults with relation to the Stamp-duty, enjoined upon us by the Legislature at home; and I can with truth and pleasure say, that I cannot discover the least inclination towards rebellious conduct in any of the churchpeople here, who remember, with the sin- cerest gratitude, the favors we have received from the mother-country, and we esteem ourselves under the strongest obligations of all dutiful obedience to the Government at home. I wish I could say the same of all sects in these parts."
VOL. I. 16
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The patient and worthy Mr. Lamson, at Fairfield, penning his communication six months later, said. "In a time of anarchy and disloyalty in this country the professors of the Church of England have in gen- eral, throughout the Province of New England, distin- guished themselves by a peaceable submission and quiet deportment. The Missionaries have exerted themselves upon the occasion in exhorting their own congregations and others to peace, and a due sub- mission to authority; by which means we have been exposed to the calumny and insult of the enemies of the Church and State. Some of us have been threat. ened with having our houses pulled down over our heads, though as yet they have kept themselves, in this part of the country, from acts of open violence. I pray God to send us better times."
These extracts are selected to show that the Mis- sionaries sought to guide their flocks to peace and quietness in the midst of the popular tumults. Nor did they stop with this, for while they were thus teaching, they were using their influence with their friends in England to procure a relaxation of the obnoxious policy of the home Government. When Franklin was about to cross the ocean as a special agent for Pennsylvania, the Rev. Dr. Johnson wrote to him and said: "Would to God you were charged with pleading the same cause in behalf of all the gov- ernments, that they might all alike be taken into the King's more immediate protection." The wish was so far realized that Franklin soon became actively and conspicuously interested in the affairs of all the col- onies, and took every step in his power, first to pre- vent the passage of the Stamp-Act, and then to pro-
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cure its repeal. Dr. Johnson was so impressed with the supreme importance of the American Episcopate, that on the very day when the Connecticut clergy, at their accidental meeting, addressed a letter to the Venerable Society, he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, referring to the course of the oppo- nents of his cherished scheme, added: "These people will stick at nothing to gain their point. It seems they make gentlemen believe that nineteen twen- tieths of America are wholly against it themselves, and that it would make a more dangerous clamor and dis- content than the Stamp-Act itself, than which nothing can be more false. Had it been done last spring, (when the dissenters themselves expected nothing else,) and the Stamp-Act postponed till the next, it would have been but a nine days' wonder, nor do I believe one half of the people of America would have been much, if at all, uneasy at it; and now a million of souls are really suffering for want of it."
The gifted and scholarly Dr. Chandler,1 of Elizabeth- town, writing more largely to the Society, under date of January 15th, 1766, among other things, said: "Such an universal spirit of clamor and discontent, little short of madness, and such an opinion of oppression, prevails throughout the colonies, as I believe was scarcely ever seen on any occasion in any country on earth. And it seems to be the determined, inflexible resolution of most people, from Halifax to Georgia, at all hazards, even of death and destruction, never to submit to what they esteem so great an infringement of their essential rights, as some of the late acts of the British Parliament.
1 He was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Uni- versity of Oxford in 1766.
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"Every friend, therefore, to the happiness of the col- onies, or even of Great Britain, who is acquainted with the case as it really is, must wish that the Parliament would relax of its severity; which yet, it must be con- fessed, will be no easy thing after such provocations as have been lately offered on the part of the colonies. But good policy, I humbly apprehend, will rather put up with almost anything than drive matters to a dan- gerous extremity. Most probably the Parliament is able (although most people here pretend not to be- lieve that they are) to enforce the Stamp-Act; yet should they resolve to do it, a disaffection of the col- onies, of which there have been no visible symptoms before, will be undoubtedly established; the Govern- ment must be put to a great expense, and the com- merce of the colonies, so beneficial to England here- tofore, will sink comparatively to a mere trifle. For none will dare import anything but the bare neces- saries of life, and, upon the examination that has been made, it is found that almost every real want can be supplied from ourselves.
"England has always been benefited nearly in pro- portion to the wealth and commerce of her colonies. Whether therefore any measures that directly tend to lessen that wealth and commerce can finally be of service to Great Britain, is a question which may not be unworthy the attention even of those who are the guardians of her interests. The Parliament has un- doubtedly been misinformed. For that the colonies in general abound in wealth, and are able to pay any considerable tax to the government after providing for their own necessary expenses, is just as true, in my opinion, (and indeed we understand is founded on
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the same testimony,) as that an American Episcopate would be utterly disagreeable to more than nineteen twentieths of all the people in America."
A little farther on in the same letter, the statement is made, "If the interests of the Church of England in America had been made a national concern, accord- ing to the policy of all other nations that have had colonies, by this time a general submission to the par- ent country in everything not sinful, after no other efforts than dutiful remonstrances, might have been expected, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake. And who can be certain that the present rebellious disposition of the colonies is not intended by Provi- dence as a punishment for that neglect?
"Indeed, many wise and good persons at home have had the cause of religion and the Church here sin- cerely at heart; and the nation, whether sensible of it or not, is under obligations to that very worthy Society who, by their indefatigable endeavor to prop- agate the Gospel and assist the Church, have at the same time and thereby secured to the State, as far as their influence could be extended, the Loyalty and Fidelity of her American children."
In communicating a copy of this extract to the ven- erable Dr. Johnson, whom he affectionately regarded as a father, and whose wise and prudent counsels he constantly sought, the author appended the words, "Here are Politics! Here is Patriotism! But how far I shall be thanked for either, I cannot foresee. But it was next to impossible, when I was writing, to avoid saying something on the subject, and I said the above in the anguish and simplicity of my heart."1
1 Johnson MSS.
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The Stamp-Act was repealed by Parliament, to the honor of the Rockingham ministry and the great joy of the colonies, just one year after its passage, and the voices of such men as William Pitt and Edmund Burke were nobly lifted up in defence of the healing measure. But, as if fearful of conceding too much, the repeal was accompanied by a Declaratory Act, in which it was affirmed that "Parliament had a right to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever;" an act said to have been prompted by the indiscreet warmth of Pitt, but which Lord Mansfield, who was against the repeal, pronounced in the House of Lords to amount to nothing, and that it was a poor contrivance to save the dignity of Parliament. But whatever may have been its origin or design, the declaration was looked upon by the colonists as a sober reality, and it never ceased to rankle in their breasts. The whole and remoter effect of it has been so well and concisely described by New England's greatest statesman, that no apology need be offered for introducing his words in this connection :-
"The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty; and that was, in their eyes, enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactments, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They poured out their treasures and their blood like water, in a contest against an assertion, which those less saga-
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cious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil liberty would have regarded as barren phraseol- ogy, or mere parade of words. They saw in the claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power; they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its plausible disguises, struck at it; nor did it elude either their steady eye or their well-directed blow till they had extirpated and de- stroyed it, to the smallest fibre. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for pur- poses of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared: a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts; whose morn- ing drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping com- pany with the hours, circles the earth with one con- tinuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."1
Such is the eloquent description of the memorable struggle which involved at once so many precious hopes and interests for the mother-country and her American possessions. At this point of time there are trials and disasters preparing for the Church in Connecticut, greater and sadder than any she has yet experienced. The course which her Missionaries pur- sued in reference to the immediate causes that led to the Revolution, and ultimately to the Independence of the colonies, did not save them and their flocks from the bitterness of future persecution. But we will not anticipate the events of history. . We believe that, without foreseeing the violence of the storm,
1 Webster's Works, Vol. IV. pp. 109, 110.
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God strengthened them for its approach, by keeping them to their proper work. The faithful Beach at Newtown, not without fear of personal abuse from the lawless, "for no other reason than that of endeav- oring to cherish in his people a quiet submission to the civil government," and who implored the Venera- ble Society in their wisdom to direct him how he ought to conduct himself "in this new and melan- choly affair," was not unmindful of his duty as a preacher of the everlasting Gospel and a "watchman on the walls." He would not be drawn aside from the old path which he had so long and so well trod- den. For we find him, in the midst of his daily pas- toral toil, standing forward before the public as the firm and triumphant opponent of the many religious extravagances which then prevailed in various parts of New England. "Though my health," said he, in a letter written just after the passage of the Stamp-Act, but before the news of it had reached or been spread in this country, "is small, and my abilities less; and though I make it a rule never to enter into any dis- pute with them (the Independent ministers) unless they begin, yet now they have made the assault, and advanced such monstrous errors as do subvert the Gospel, I think myself obliged by my ordination vow to guard my people (as well as I can) against such doctrines, in which work, hitherto, I hope I have had some success." Other Missionaries were alike vigi- lant, though not so widely known nor possessed of so much official and personal influence. Born and educated in the colony, as they all had been, with one exception, they expected to share its fortunes; and in the full persuasion that the Church of Eng-
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land was modelled after the Apostolic order, and taught and preserved the truth, they could not and they would not consent to have her doctrines pub- licly misrepresented and her rights infringed without sending forth in all places a voice of solemn remon- strance. Their good and Christian lives caused them to be respected, even when they stoutly refused to sacrifice any of their principles to gain the popular favor. If they complained occasionally of the sedi- tious tumults and lawlessness of the people here, they complained much more of the policy of the home Gov- ernment, and of "the spirit of indifference to the real character and duties of the Church, so unhappily manifested by some of the leading Statesmen of that day."1
1 Anderson's Colonial Church, Vol. III. p. 436.
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CHAPTER XIX.
APPEAL OF THE CLERGY OF CONNECTICUT FOR A BISHOP; DR. CHANDLER'S PUBLICATIONS, AND THE REPLIES OF HIS AN- TAGONISTS.
A. D. 1766.
ON the 8th day of October, 1766, a Convention of the clergy of the Church of England in the Colony of Connecticut was held at Stratford, where twelve of their number, including Dr. Auchmuty of New York, were present. At this meeting, a formal address to the Bishop of London was prepared and signed by them, in which they "bitterly lamented the de- plorable condition" of the home Government, because for political reasons it refused a Protestant Bishop to the colonies, but allowed the Romanists in Canada and the Moravians elsewhere to have the full enjoy- ment of their ecclesiastical privileges and discipline. It was quite beyond the conception of these signers that such partiality should be shown, especially as the Crown might well be supposed to favor the interests of a communion which were so closely blended with its own prosperity. "The more the Church spreads in this country," wrote Mr. Beach from Newtown, in the spring of 1767, "the more we feel and groan under the want of a Bishop. And I am full in the opinion, that, if those great men, upon whose pleasure it de- pends to grant us such a blessing, did but know as sensibly as we do that the churchpeople here are
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the only fast friends to our subjection to, or connec- tion with England, as hath lately appeared, they would, even upon political reasons, grant us the favor which we have so long wished and prayed for; and would strengthen that cause which, compared with the dis- senters of all denominations, is very weak. It is some satisfaction to me to observe, that in this town, of late, in our elections, the churchpeople make the major vote, which is the first instance of that kind in this colony, if not in all New England."
But a timid regard to the objections of the dis- senters, and of those colonies at the South which were not heartily desirous of Bishops, prevailed above every other consideration, and even affected the action of good and prayerful men. In consequence of the clamors which arose from the passage of the Stamp- Act, the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel declined to establish any more missions in New England, a step which filled the clergy of the Church with real grief and concern. "God have mercy upon us," wrote Dibblee to the Secretary about this time, "if the Provinces here should throw off their connection, dependence, and subjection to the mother- country, for how much soever they are divided in relig- ious sentiment among themselves, they yet can unite heart and hand to oppose and check, if possible, the growth and progress of our holy Church, which, like rising Christianity, springs up and flourishes out of their religious confusions." "I wish it were in my power," said Leaming, seven months later, "to paint in lively colors the necessity there is, both in a civil and religious view, of our superiors giving attention to the affairs of the Church of England in America.
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If the Church is neglected at this juncture, America is totally ruined; and those of us who have been faith- ful to give notice of the true state of affairs will be the first victims that will fall in the sad catastrophe."
The effort to secure the appointment of Bishops for the American colonies, which had been renewed from time to time with more or less spirit since the begin- ning of the century,1 was now made in a somewhat different shape. Private appeals had proved unavail- ing. The frequent and earnest letters of the Mis- sionaries to their friends and patrons in England had only brought back the same evidence of "hope de- ferred which maketh the heart sick." "It appears to us," said Chandler, writing to Dr. Johnson on this sub- ject, "that Bishops will never be sent us until we are united and warm in our applications from this coun- try, and we can see no reasons to expect a more fa- vorable time by waiting." As far back as 1754, Secker, then Bishop of Oxford, wrote to the Missionary at Stratford in this despondent tone: "We have done all we can here in vain, and must wait for more favorable
1 The Rev. John Talbot, the associate of Mr. Keith in his missionary trav- els, and afterwards stationed at Burlington, N. J., visited England in 1720. While there, he, with the Rev. Dr. Welton, was consecrated to the Epis- copal office by the non-juring Bishops, and returned to Burlington. Wel- ton came to Philadelphia, having been invited to Christ Church in that city. "Such a step," says Hawkins, " admits of no justification, but we may well suppose that he [Talbot] was led to take it by no personal ambition, but by that strong and earnest conviction of the absolute necessity of an Episcopate for the welfare of the Church in America, of which his letters afford such abundant testimony. It appears that he occasionally assumed the Episcopal dress, and that he administered the ordinance of Confirma- tion. Whatever confusion or schism might have arisen by the irregular exercise of the Episcopal office was prevented by an order from the Privy Council for Welton's return to England, and by the death of Mr. Talbot, which occurred in 1727."
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