USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. II > Part 29
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reelection, he was a member of the Standing Com- mittee.
His native shrewdness and sagacity, and his self-con- trol, gave him great influence in public bodies, and as a manager he seemed to have been made wiser by the experience which he acquired in the struggles of political life. He had a way of saying sharp things without intending to give offence, and he sometimes spoke disparagingly or sarcastically of those who failed to come up to his own standard of ritual and churchmanship. Though not a scholar himself, and, therefore, incapable of fully appreciating scholarship in others, he was better read than most busy pastors in polite literature, and what he knew of the works of the old English divines, he knew well.
But his chief excellences of character were exhib- ited in his own parish. He went to it without the advantages and supports of a liberal education, and though surrounded by the culture and learning of " the Standing Order," he so bore himself in his pas- toral duties, so went in and out among his people, so preached, and so prayed, that " the word of God grew and multiplied," and men of all shades of opinion and religious belief, became reverent admirers of his fidelity to the Church, and of his kind attentions and ceaseless charities to the sick and the needy. He was an eminently practical and instructive preacher, and his style of writing was pure, perspicuous, and free from redundancy. His majestic figure, and massive head, crowned, in the latter years of his life, with silvery hair, invited the attention of a congregation when he arose before it; and a stranger, meeting him in the streets, would have been struck with his form
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as that of a Christian gentleman of the old school. It was in reference to this that his gifted son1 wrote the lines which are just as true as if they were not prompted by filial affection : -
" My father, proud am I to bear Thy face, thy form, thy stature ; But happier far, might I but share More of thy better nature."
A fitting and tasteful monument, erected in the chancel of Trinity Church, marks the remembrance and gratitude of the parish for his long continued and faithful services.
The death of Dr. Croswell was followed a month later by that of the Rev. Zebediah H. Mansfield, a graduate of Trinity College, and still in the prime of his usefulness. He returned in 1854, from a warmer climate to Norwich Town, and the home of his child- hood, and though a sufferer from disease and occupied to some extent in teaching, he rendered important missionary services to Yantic, and bequeathed to the parish there valuable legacies, which will cause him to be held in grateful and lasting remembrance. In
1 Rev. William Croswell, D. D., "Poet, Pastor, Priest." The hand of death fell upon him while closing the services in the Church of the Advent, Boston, of which he was Rector, on Sunday afternoon, November 9th, 1851. He knelt down at the chancel rail, and repeated from memory - his book having fallen noiselessly by his side - an appropriate collect. Unable to rise, from the exhaustion of his strength, he remained on his knees, and pronounced with faltering voice the Apostolic benediction. A general alarm immediately pervaded the congregation, and he was borne by his friends through the church to the vestry-room, and from thence in a carriage to his residence, where he soon ceased to be mortal. His bereaved and sorrowing father prepared and published, in an octavo volume, a tender " Memoir " of him, containing not only a somewhat minute history of his life, but many of his charming poetical productions, and extracts from his voluminous correspondence.
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his first report to the Bishop, after his return to the Diocese, he mentioned his ministrations in this place, and said : "It is within my recollection that there was but one church in Norwich, and the congregation not larger than the new parish " of Grace Church, Yantic.
As the venerable presbyters of a preceding genera- tion passed away, so did the wooden churches, asso- ciated with the memories of colonial times, and with the labors and prayers of self-sacrificing and godly men. Only two or three of these were now left standing. That which belonged to the oldest parish in the Diocese, Christ Church, Stratford, was the most remarkable of them, and the richest in historical asso- ciations. Around it clustered the memories of more than a century - memories connected with the first foundation and early trials of Episcopacy in Connec- ticut. Its walls had echoed with the voice of Dr. Johnson, and as an interesting link, uniting them with the past, the people cherished it, and were reluc- tant to take the necessary steps to replace it by another of larger dimensions, and more in accordance with the prevailing style of ecclesiastical architecture. But the prosperity of the parish and the march of improvement demanded a new edifice, and friends from abroad, -" they of the city," - mindful of the fragrant blessings of the Church in their native vil- lage, made generous contributions to aid in its erec- tion. It was constructed of wood, in the Gothic style, with sittings for about seven hundred and fifty per- sons, and is the third house of worship built by the parish. It was consecrated by Bishop Williams, on the 29th of July, 1858, one hundred and fourteen years after its immediate predecessor had been
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opened with suitable services by Dr. Johnson. He described that second temple in one of his letters to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, as " almost finished in a very neat and elegant manner, the architecture being allowed in some things to exceed anything done before in New England."
At the time of the consecration of the new church, a scene was presented in Stratford very different from the one witnessed there a century and a half before, when Heathcote and Muirson rode into the village, and were met with vehement opposition because they came to initiate the services of the Church of Eng- land. They came upon the invitation of a few families, who were attached to the faith of their fore- fathers, and desirous of worshipping God in the forms of the Liturgy. But how changed now! Instead of the lone presbyter appearing with his lone attendant, and seeking in some private dwelling to " sign with the sign of the cross," a child in baptism, or to minis- ter to a little despised flock, forty-nine clergymen approached the village in various groups, and from different places, and uniting in a surpliced band with a bishop at their head, entered the newly erected edi- fice, and were welcomed by a waiting multitude, who joined them in the glad response, "This is the gen- eration of them that seek him; even of them that seek thy face, O Jacob." The sermon at the consecra- tion was preached by the writer of these pages, and published at the request of the vestry of the parish, and whatever merit it possessed was due to "an occasion fraught with holy memories, and suggesting the most solemn and weighty duties."
Additions to the sacred edifices of the Diocese, and
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improvements in the old ones, still continued. A new parish was formed in an outlying district of Bridge- port, by the name of the Church of the Nativity, and a neat though small structure of stone was conse- crated for it in the middle of January, 1859. Three weeks later, the corner-stone of a church for the new parish of St. James, Glastenbury, was laid, and not long after, a similar ceremony was performed for St.
Mark's Church, Bridgewater. " Up to the second Sunday in August, 1859, no service of the Book of Common Prayer had ever been celebrated in that part of the town of Farmington " called Plainville. Lay reading was then commenced by a candidate for Holy Orders, who, shortly before, was a licentiate among the Congregationalists, and supplied their church in that place. An Episcopal parish was duly organized, and a convenient brick church erected, and conse- crated Tuesday, in Easter week, 1860. On the follow- ing Tuesday, another " beautiful structure " of brick was consecrated for St. Andrew's Church, Thomp- sonville, - a manufacturing village in the town of Enfield. This was a new parish admitted into union with the Convention in 1855. Internal troubles in the ancient parish at Simsbury, the scene of the labors of the unfortunate Gibbs, and the faithful Viets, led to the formation in 1849, of Trinity Church, Tariff- ville, at that time a prosperous village of the town, where carpets were extensively manufactured. The church of the Presbyterian Society was ultimately , purchased and fitted up for our services, and a clergy- man sustained there by the people, with the aid of appropriations from the Missionary fund. During the next month, the ground was broken for a chapel
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at South Norwalk, and for another at Stamford. They were respectively projected by the mother parishes in those places, and a conviction that they were needed to meet the spiritual wants of the people, was not too soon put into practice. They were built of stone, capacious enough to hold several hundred persons, and the worshippers in them have since organized into independent parishes, each one of which is now supplied with a rector, to whom a liberal salary is paid. A neat stone church was commenced in the summer of 1856, for the new parish in Darien - a town about midway between Norwalk and Stamford ; and though finished, and an object of interest to its little band of devoted supporters, it was not conse- crated, owing to the encumbrance of a debt, until early in the spring of 1863.
Connecticut was now better supplied with clergy- men than at any former period. She had twenty- three candidates for Holy Orders, nearly all of whom were pursuing their studies at the Berkeley Divinity School, and scarcely a parish within her borders was destitute of a minister. But a like favorable state- ment could not be made of other Dioceses in our land. The new ones were rapidly filling up with an active and intelligent population, and their bishops were constantly calling for more men of the right stamp to do "the work of the ministry " -men of holy and unselfish character, who were willing to take the risk of a support anywhere, or rather to depend mainly on opening the fountains of charity and grace in the hearts of the people for aid and sympathy in carrying out the design and offices of the Church. None of the old and favored Dioceses were over-
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stocked with working clergy, and vacant parishes in any of them were generally filled by turning to quarters where there was the greatest supply. This was the natural course of things, and Connecticut continued to be the bed from which many flowers were transplanted to grace other gardens.
The ranks of her ministry would have been thin- ner, but for the agency of the "Church Scholarship Society " - a strictly Diocesan institution. As this failed to reach the great want of the whole Church, a scheme of wider influence was projected and carried into operation. Bishop Williams, in his address to the Convention of 1859, speaking of the number of can- didates for Holy Orders, said : -
" In this connection, I would call attention to the. 'Society for the Increase of the Ministry,'1 organized about a year ago, but lately incorporated by the Legislature of this State, and commencing its labors under flattering auspices, and with every prospect of eminent success. The favor with which it has already been received by the clergy and laity of the Diocese, may, I trust, be regarded as only the beginning of an ever increasing interest in the important duty which it has undertaken. Let the heart of the Church be
1 The " Society for the Increase of the Ministry " originated in Connec- ticut, and the first public meeting after its organization was held in Hart- ford, on the last day of June, 1858. The officers chosen were chiefly from New England, and this gave an impression abroad that it was to be an institution of a local character. But the Society, which from neces- sity appeared to be local in its earliest movements, soon became general in its work, and furnished practical evidence that it was not to operate in favor of one particular section of the country. " The object of this corpora- tion," as defined by the charter, " shall be to furnish means for the educa- tion of candidates for Holy Orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States."
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fully roused to the real grandeur of the work which is here opening before her, for the increase of a well- trained and educated ministry, and it will afford the best of all possible endowments; an endowment the income from which will be made living in prayer and love, and bless alike givers and receivers to the glory of their God and Saviour."
The General Convention, held at Richmond, in the autumn of the same year, appointed a large commit- tee of laymen for the recess, with instructions "to devise and carry out such means and measures as they might deem advisable," for the welfare of the Church; and especially to impress upon their lay brethren the great necessity for more ministers. The same Convention, in view of the impossibility of sup- plying regular clerical services in parishes and con- gregations already in existence, " earnestly requested the parochial clergy to bring the Church's pressing need of additional laborers before their respective congregations," and also to solicit from them con- tributions to aid in the education of indigent and deserving young men seeking admission into the sacred ministry. The next year, 1860, the number of candidates for Holy Orders in Connecticut rose to twenty-eight, and it may have increased in a similar ratio in several of the older Dioceses; but upon the breaking out of civil war, and the general prostration and derangement of business during its frightful deso- lations, the call to arms was made a paramount duty, and the country demanded for services in the field the freshness and flower of her youth. Under these circumstances, the candidates for the ministry were slightly diminished, and the yearly number in Con- necticut has not been so high since that date.
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The necessity for them, however, in this Diocese and throughout the country has not ceased. For never did the Church require a larger supply of edu- cated, intellectual, and judicious ministers. The spread of knowledge, the propagation of infidel opin- ions, and the secret growth of loose views in religion and morality, all render it more than ever important that candidates for the ministry should not only be multiplied, but be well trained and taught, and fitted for their godly work. There is much for Christian men to do in the way of checking the progress of moral evil. The lapse of years has not changed the truth of what Bishop Williams said in his sermon before the Diocesan Convention of 1857 : -
" Surely, in an age and land like ours, where wealth, and the worldliness and luxury that wait on wealth, are pouring in upon us; when that simple state of society, which was at once our pride and safeguard, is giving way to an artificial civilization, which ever bears in its bosom the elements of the most fearful barbarism; when, before this tide of worldliness, pub- lic morality is falling to a lower standard, the private life is sinking to a lower level, the 'old domestic morals of the land,' are becoming matters of history ; when all this is so, then, I say, it does become us, clergy and people alike, to see to it, each for our- selves, each in our place and station, that something shall be done to stay the plague. " 1
1 Sermon, pp. 18, 19.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CONVENTION AT NEW LONDON; DIOCESAN MISSIONS; EPISCOPAL DUTIES; CIVIL WAR; AND DEATHS AMONG THE CLERGY.
A. D. 1860 - 1862.
THE opening of a railway, through the towns along the shore from New Haven to New London, made the latter place more convenient of access by residents in the interior and western parts of the State. The power of steam tends to annihilate distances, and the Annual Convention which met at New London, in 1860, was as numerously attended as the same Con- vention which assembled in Waterbury two years before. The interest of the laity in the legislation of the Church carried their delegates to these yearly gatherings, and by a canon of the Diocese, it is de- clared to be " the duty of every clergyman, having a seat in the Convention, to attend every meeting of the same, or send a reasonable excuse to the Bishop for his absence."
The Convention at New London was marked by an effort to introduce greater efficiency into the work of Diocesan Missions. Discontent with the operations of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowl- edge, and also with its cherished title, prevailed to some extent, and nine clergymen from different sec- tions of the Diocese were appointed a committee to "inquire into the character and condition of the mis-
-
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sionary work," with instructions to present to the next Annual Convention any further measures that might be deemed necessary to excite in its behalf more zeal and sympathy among churchmen. Time was thus given for considering the subject, in order that the several members of the committee might have an opportunity to produce such statistical and other information as would lead to satisfactory results and conclusions. The year went round, and they had embodied their researches and views in an elaborate report, which covers nearly six closely printed pages of the Journal. Testimony was borne in it to the immense good accomplished by the Society in former days; and while " the Church in Connecticut seemed called to a bolder and more enlarged line of effort," the debt of gratitude for its humble charities to feeble and destitute parishes, was not to be forgotten.
" There are two forms of Church work and Church growth," said the committee, " which may be respec- tively called the spontaneous and the aggressive. Hitherto the Church in this Diocese has confined her- self almost exclusively to the former. But she will never fulfill her mission till she enters upon and pros- ecutes the latter energetically. Hitherto she has grown as the plant grows that sends out its leaders, and multiplies by their clinging to the neighboring soil, and repeating itself in the spot to which they adhere. When from any cause an interest in favor of the Church has sprung up in any locality, and measures have already been taken in her favor, she has recognized the movement, and extended to it her fostering care. But she has followed, not led. Rarely has she gone into any place, and set up her Master's
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banner, and called men to enroll themselves under her standard, and stood among them, and proclaimed the truth, and patiently waited to see the effect. Yet this is true missionary work, and without it she will never diffuse herself through the land, and do her Master's work as it ought to be done. There is a multitude of places where the Church is scarcely known and greatly needed, and where, by suitable efforts, she could be firmly established and perma- nently maintained, if her services were sent to them, and steadily and perseveringly sustained. It will not do to wait till we are invited to come. It will not do to expect the people to pay for the services to any considerable extent. This supposes the previous ex- istence of the very interest which it is the object of true missionary work to awaken. There are places where a prejudice exists against a paid clergy, who are stigmatized as hirelings - the fruit of fanatical excitements that began more than a century ago. What is needed is that suitable men should be sent upon the ground, sufficiently paid, and kept there long enough to give the experiment a fair trial."
The Convention, in accepting the report, adopted a series of resolutions, the object of which was to create a greater interest throughout the Diocese in the work of its missionary organization. As no economy would enable the Society to do its appropriate work without a greatly enlarged income, the Board of Directors was required to hold four public services, during the year, at such times and places as the Convention might designate, and by addresses and statements of facts to stimulate churchmen to be more liberal in their contributions to Diocesan Missions. In view of the
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necessity of special attention to the spiritual wants of many neglected places, it was further recommended to the Board to appoint at least one itinerant Mission- ary "to explore, and as far as may be, occupy the vacant fields of the Diocese."
The result of these new movements was not as beneficial as had been hoped for and anticipated. The quarterly missionary meetings were held on week days, and therefore, large congregations were not generally drawn out to hear the appeals and statements of the Directors. Some progress, however, was made, and the annual amount afterwards received from collections in all the parishes compared favor- ably with those reported in preceding years. But the stream of sympathy, and of alms, did not rise high enough for the necessities of the Church. An itiner- ant Missionary was sent into the destitute localities lying east of the Connecticut River; but his solitary work was, for the most part, confined to a survey of the whole field - essential, indeed, to intelligent action in selecting the best places for building up parishes ; but not reaching to the extent of occupying them, or even of supplying them with stated ministrations.
The western and southern portions of the State, especially the Counties of New Haven, Fairfield, and Litchfield, afforded, at this time, the least room for missionary effort. Scarcely in any of them might a call for the services of our Church be made without finding a response from some parochial clergyman. Only three or four towns, and those thinly inhab- ited, either in New Haven, or Fairfield County, were destitute of houses of Episcopal worship. A few of the towns had several, and the Church in these sec-
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tions was full of vigor and steadily progressing. But this could not be said of the eastern and northeastern parts of the Diocese. The counties of Windham and Tolland, as a whole, were the most spiritually desti- tute, and presented some of the best openings for the introduction of faithful missionary labor. More atten- tion has since been given to them, and liberal and special contributions made to sustain the services of the Church in places where there seemed to be rapidly rising a flood of " that evil which is worse even than original heathenism - the evil of a lost Christianity."
Bishop Williams opened his annual address in 1861, with these words : -
" Ten years have elapsed since I was elected by the Convention of this Diocese to the office of its Assist- ant Bishop, and it may not be amiss, that, before I present the customary statistics, I should lay before you a summary view of the period, which this day closes. Ten years form a large part of an average Episcopate, and one who has gone through them can- not but feel that he has reached a point, the like to which he very probably will never reach again. In some sort, then, a summing up of such a period is like the summing up of all one's stewardship; and though the briefly stated results cover but little space, and occupy but little time in the statement, yet they are surrounded with thoughts and memories, with hopes and fears, with consciousness of shortcomings and failures, with joys and sorrows, that give to the other- wise dry statistics, at least for him who makes them, a very real and a very solemn life.
"Seven thousand six hundred and forty-four per- sons have received the laying on of hands.
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" Eighty-five candidates for Holy Orders have been ordained to the Diaconate.
" Sixty-five Deacons have been ordained to the Priesthood.
" Twenty-eight churches and chapels have been consecrated, and two, which have been erected, and are in use, are awaiting consecration - making thirty new churches and chapels in all.
" Twenty-four churches have been reopened after enlargements and improvements in various ways. So that fifty-four churches and chapels have been built, or re-edified and enlarged.
" During the period under review, I have preached on one thousand four hundred and seventy-three occa- sions, delivered six hundred and two confirmation and other addresses, and administered the Holy Commun- ion two hundred and twenty times. It ought also to be recorded, with feelings of devout gratitude for God's protecting mercy, that in travelling more than fifty-nine thousand miles, I have met with no serious accident, and very rarely with even a detention, though illness has sometimes prevented me from ful- filling my appointments.
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