USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. II > Part 30
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" From among the clergy we have lost thirteen by death. One hundred and sixteen have taken letters dimissory, and left the Diocese. Eighty-one have been received from other Dioceses. This makes our loss by death and removal exceed, by forty-eight, the number received from other quarters, and yet through our accessions by ordination the roll of clergy has increased from one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty-five. I mention this more especially because it demonstrates the necessity of Trinity College and
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the Divinity School to the efficient working of the Diocese, and shows that by their agency we can not only supply our own wants, but also furnish pastors for other portions of the Church."
In closing this retrospect, grateful mention was made of the " paternal kindness and confidence," re- ceived from the senior Bishop. For several years, his advanced age and bodily infirmities had disqualified him for the performance of any of the active duties of the Episcopate; but he was still a judicious coun- sellor, who "had understanding of the times," and "knew what Israel ought to do."
New and startling events now occurred in the civil and political history of the country. All the better blessings of "unity, peace, and concord," were for- gotten amid the rage of envenomed feelings, and un- governed passions, and the excitement of mustering hosts for the battle was followed by actual warfare. The foot of civil strife was treading wildly, and the land was overspread with oppressive gloom. The dismemberment of the national Union, under which all sections had been signally prospered and blessed, was attempted, and a fearful expense of life and treasure, of suffering and sorrow, was before the coun- try. In such an alarming crisis, the Church could not remain unaffected, and her clergy and laity had momentous duties to perform. While no political revulsions can furnish any excuse for overlooking the infinitely great interests of the soul, a godly submis- sion to the laws and constitutional rulers of the land is ever a matter of religious obligation, - and no- where is this submission more faithfully taught than in the Protestant Episcopal Church.
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Bishop Williams, in his address for 1861, referred to the national troubles, and uttered sentiments and sug- gestions in unison with the feelings of the Conven- tion. It would be doing injustice to him, to withhold from the reader the following extended extract: -
" Brethren, this seventy-seventh Convention of our Diocese meets in a crisis of our country's history, which few of us, probably, had ever anticipated. Until within the last few months, we had been fain to believe that the forces which bound together the different portions of this great Republic were so much stronger than those which tended to separation, that under all misunderstandings and jealousies there was such a substantial basis of mutual good-will and com- mon interest; that, in a word, there was such a national life and unity among us, that we were as safe as any human government could make us. And it certainly appeared, in contrasting our condition for fifteen years past, with that of almost all other civilized countries, as if we had grounds for this belief. 'Our country,' to use the eloquent words of a late English states- man, 'was as a land of Goshen. Everywhere else were the thunder and the fire running along the ground, a very grievous storm, such as there was none like it since man was on the earth, and yet everything tranquil here ; and then, again, thick night, darkness that might be felt, and yet light in all our dwellings.' But the storm and the darkness are upon us now, and the season of fierce trial has overtaken us.
" At such a time, it could hardly be expected that an Episcopal Address should contain no allusion to our special duties as Christian ministers and people,
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no words of counsel or suggestion. My words will be few; but uttered, let me say, with a deep sense of the responsibility which they involve, and a constant remembrance that they are spoken in a Council of that Kingdom, which is not of this world. I am authorized to say that they are spoken for the Bishop of the Diocese as well as for myself.
"It is a great comfort that our chief duty in this exigency is so plain before us, that we need not be perplexed or at any loss about it. It is a great com- fort, too, that in bringing it home to ourselves, or, if such be our office, urging it upon others, we have only to follow on in that line of teaching which our Church has always commended to us, and placed before us. We have no new lessons on this point to learn, no old lessons to unlearn.
" Our American Prayer Book, as doubtless we all remember, was adopted in 1789, two years after the framing of the Federal Constitution. Since then, every child in our communion has been taught as a part of his Christian vocation, 'to honor and obey the civil authority.' On all ordinary occasions of our public worship, when that book has been used in its integrity, we have prayed for the 'President of the United States, and all others in authority ;' and regu- larly besought the good Lord to deliver us from 'sedi- tion, privy conspiracy, and rebellion.' Our articles were adopted in 1801; and the XXXVIIth of these declares, 'The power of the Civil Magistrate extend- eth to all men, as well clergy as laity, in all things temporal; but hath no authority in things purely spiritual. And we hold it to be the duty of all men who are professors of the Gospel, to pay respectful
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obedience to the civil authority, regularly and legiti- mately constituted.'
"Such is the clear, outspoken, unmistakable teach- ing of our Church; and it does but echo the teaching and injunction of God's Holy Word. Whenever and wherever her ministers have taught anything else, they have done it in plain dereliction of their duty, and in contravention of their ordination vows. So far as we in this Diocese are concerned, I have never known or heard of any other teaching. ' Through evil report and good report, applauded or condemned,' we have always taught that ' every soul' is ' to be sub- ject to the higher powers ; for there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God ; ' and that this subjection is 'not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.'
" And what else need we teach now, in regard to the great question that stirs the depths of this nation's heart ? Surely, there is no room for the least doubt as to what and where that civil authority is, to which, as ' regularly and legitimately constituted,' we are bound 'to pay respectful obedience.' Surely, if this teaching had been everywhere received, and acted on as a part of a Christian's personal religion, things would never have come to the pass which they have reached now.
"Here, then, I am content to leave this matter. Patriotism, loyalty, every sentiment and every emo- tion, which man can know in his relations to the State, find their living utterance and only true life in loyal obedience to the lawful government under which we live. Apart from that obedience, they are utterly valueless, and become empty words. When
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then, Christ's ministers teach that, they teach all the rest; they teach what God's own Word declares ; they teach what their vows of ordination bind them to in- culcate."
As the battle-fields of the civil war were remote from New England, the clergy in Connecticut were not disturbed in their pastoral relations, except that a few of them fell under the operation of drafts for troops by the General Government. They were re- lieved, however, by the provision of substitutes, and devoting themselves to their ministerial duties, the Church continued quietly to gain in numbers and in strength. With some minds under divine grace, the tendency of national anxieties and excitements is to lead them nearer to God, while with others, -and this is the more general effect, -it is to carry them away from Him, to make His Word less precious, His holy day less sacredly regarded, and the ordinances of religion less faithfully observed. The present peril is ever more absorbing than the future, and in such a crisis the contributions and sympathies of Christians naturally follow their thoughts, and go largely to the relief and consolation of those who have enlisted in the service of their country, and become disabled by wounds or sickness.
But much was now done also for the advancement of the Church and her institutions. In the changes of private fortune, which war commonly produces, the ability of many to multiply their gifts to Christian charities was suddenly increased, and different sections of the Diocese reaped advantages from special efforts of benevolence made easier by an expanded currency. In some cases, parish debts of long standing were
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liquidated, and churches relieved from embarrassment, showed new life and vigor, and responded liberally to appeals for external objects. According to the sum- mary of parochial reports in 1862, the contributions to these objects for the previous Conventional year amounted to upwards of forty thousand dollars, and were nearly equal to those, "not including ordinary expenses," furnished for purposes within the parishes.
Death again fell among the elder clergy of the Diocese ; and the list no longer contained the familiar names of David Baldwin, Stephen Jewett, Ambrose S. Todd, and Nathaniel S. Wheaton.
Mr. Baldwin, who was the senior presbyter of Con- necticut, died in August, 1862, and Mr. Jewett in the same month of the preceding year. They were both ordained by Bishop Jarvis, and one for a quarter of a century was rector of the parish at Guilford, where he continued to reside after relinquishing it; and the balance of his ministerial life was devoted to the service of feeble churches in that vicinity. Mr. Jewett for thirteen years held the cure made vacant by the death of the patriarchal Mansfield; and for some time before he resigned it and removed to New Haven, he showed his unselfish heart by surrendering his salary, Providence having given into his possession the means of support without calling upon his people. But this was a step which he afterwards regarded as wholly unwise. The laborer in the vineyard of the Lord is worthy of his hire, and it is no excuse for the people to withhold it from him, on the ground that he is not actually in a state of penury. There never was a clergyman who had so large an income that he could not find ways to dispense it all in charity. In conse-
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quence of bodily infirmities, Mr. Jewett was compelled to withdraw from the active duties of the ministry many years before his death, but he left behind him the memory of faithful services to the Church, and of generous benefactions wisely bestowed in his lifetime to promote objects of learning and religion.
Dr. Todd was a son of the Rev. Mr. Todd, of Hun- tington, and like Mr. Jewett, acquired his classical and theological education at the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire. He was ordained to the Diaconate by Bishop Hobart, in the spring of 1818, and the whole period of his ministry, with the exception of the first five years, was spent in the service of St. John's Church, Stamford. From 1823 to the day of his death in 1861, he fulfilled the office of a priest of God among the same people, and was "permitted to see five parishes with seven churches and chapels grow up out of a single cure."
The Diocese must ever bear in grateful remem- brance the name of Dr. Wheaton.1 After graduating from Yale College in 1814, he proceeded to Maryland with the design of occupying himself as a teacher, and while there, pursued the study of theology, and was admitted first to the Diaconate, and then to the Priest- hood by Bishop Kemp. He returned to his native State in 1819, having been appointed to fill the vacancy in the rectorship of Christ Church, Hartford.
It has been seen in other chapters of this work, how his skill and taste in ecclesiastical architecture were applied to the erection of the stately edifice belong- ing to that parish, as well as what fidelity and power
1 He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from his Alma Mater in 1833.
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he evinced as a Christian minister, and the head of a collegiate institution, which he befriended from its very foundation. He never ceased to love the people to whom he had given the vigor of his best days. After resigning his church in New Orleans, in 1844, and spending a year in Europe, he returned to Con- necticut with broken health, and resided for a time at Hartford among the cherished friends of earlier years, officiating for his former parish during a vacancy in the rectorship, and rendering as they were needed services in other places. But disease increased upon him, and being a bachelor with ample means, he retired to Marbledale, his native village, and the humble home of his boyhood was as great an enjoy- ment to him in the decline of life, as had been the dwelling of his wealthiest parishioner. He was a benefactor to the parish in Marbledale - for besides assisting in the enlargement and remodelling of its house of worship, and supplying it with services on alternate Sundays when his health permitted, he en- dowed it with a parsonage and suitable grounds.
He died in March, 1862, showing to the last his interest in Trinity College, by leaving to its Trustees the sum of ten thousand dollars, to be applied in the erection of a chapel, and a residuary legacy, for the general fund of the institution, amounting to as much more. The pamphlets, which came from his pen, and the writings and occasional discourses that he pub- lished, are among the best and purest productions of the Connecticut clergy. "For myself," said Bishop Williams, mentioning his death to the Convention, "I desire always to remember him as I first knew him, when he occupied the Presidency of the College, as
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the clear and able expounder of the Word of God, the patient and accurate instructor, the well-balanced Christian man, carrying under a reserved and some- times cold exterior, an unselfish, warm, and generous heart."
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CHAPTER XXX.
MORE NEW CHURCHES AND PARISHES ; PROVISION FOR THE CLERGY ; DONATIONS AND BEQUESTS FOR CHURCH PURPOSES ; PROLONGED RECTORSHIPS ; AND DEATH OF BISHOP BROW- NELL.
A. D. 1862 - 1865.
EARLY in December, 1862, Bishop Williams conse- crated Trinity Church, Southport, a spacious edifice reconstructed of wood, after having been completely ruined on New Year's night by a frightful tornado. The parish had just finished the payment of a debt, incurred in the erection of a church, which was a suc- cessor to the one destroyed by fire, when this unex- pected calamity arose, and produced scarcely less devastation. Had the edifice been originally built of stone, and without a tall wooden spire, it would have been proof against the fury of the gale, that carried sorrow to the hearts of a band of zealous churchmen. It was located in the borough, where the shore of the sea trends to the southwest, and about a mile distant from the old Fairfield Church, which filled up for Dr. Dwight the vision of the " finished landscape," when he penned the lines in his " Greenfield Hill " 1-
" Beside yon Church that beams a modest ray With tidy neatness reputably gay."
If suitable stone can be dug out of the hills and quarries in the vicinity, or conveniently obtained else- 1 A Poem in seven parts with notes, 1794, p. 41.
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where, it is the best material for use in the construc- tion of churches; and the practice is becoming more common for parishes in the rural districts of Connecti- cut, to adopt it on the score of economy in the end.
Notwithstanding the pressure of the times, several enterprises were projected at this period, which put to the test the faith of clergymen and the benevolence and zeal of their people. The corner-stone of a new church for St. Matthew's parish, Wilton, was laid a week after the Annual Convention of 1862, and towards the end of August in the same year, a like ceremony was performed for Trinity Church, Bristol. The edifice at Wilton, in the cruciform style, was built of stone, with brick quoins and arches ; the other was constructed of wood. St. John's Church, Pine Meadow, was burnt in 1860, while the people were preparing it for the celebration of the Christmas festival, and another of wood to supply its place was consecrated in June, 1863.
An effort was begun in 1864, to provide a new stone church of attractive architecture for the ancient parish at Brooklyn. The venerable sanctuary built before the Revolution, chiefly at the expense of Godfrey Mal- bone, though beautiful for situation, and dear to the hearts of many from the associations of a lifetime, and the memories of the dead who sleep around it, was too far from the village, and every way unsuited to the wants and growth of the congregation. The work of building on a choice site in the centre of the population, progressed slowly, but with the aid of con- tributions from other parishes it was finally completed, and the toil of the faithful rector, who for nearly thirty years had stood at this lone outpost of the
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Diocese, was rewarded. The old church remains as a relic of former times, " overshadowed by huge oaks in the quiet churchyard," one of the very few buildings in New England which show the ancient style of ecclesiastical architecture. It is to be preserved from decay, and kept in repair for occasional use, by the interest of a legacy left for that purpose.
But important steps were now taken in the direc- tion of new parochial organizations. As the result of the labors of some of the students of the Berkeley Divinity School, working under the supervision of Bishop Williams, parishes were formed, and churches of wood built in Durham and Middlefield, towns adjoining the city of Middletown. On Good Friday, 1863, a parish was organized at Hazardville, in the town of Enfield, and a brick church erected mainly through the liberality of a wealthy gentleman 1 whose name the village bears. About two years earlier, Trinity Church, Hartford, was consecrated. This was a handsome edifice of Portland stone, originally built for a Unitarian Society, and located in a central and busy street. That Society was unsuccessful, and finally disposed of its property for secular uses, and it was a fitting thing in the new parish of Trinity Church to purchase the building, take it down, and reerect it in another and rapidly growing part of the city. The last public act of Bishop Brownell was to lay its corner-stone, and at the time of its consecra- tion to the worship of the Triune God, the Rev. Dr. Huntington, of Boston, formerly a distinguished Uni- tarian minister, and now a presbyter in the Episcopal
1 A. G. Hazard. He died in 1868, remembering among his bequests the parish which he had founded.
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Church, was present to preach the sermon, -" an exceedingly well-written and impressively delivered discourse on the doctrine of the Trinity."
A stone church, finished with great taste, was conse- crated on the 30th of June, 1863, for the new parish of the Holy Trinity in Westport. It was due to the design of a single individual who died before the walls were raised, but his widow,1 without regard to cost, more than completed the plans, and then dedicated the beautiful structure as a memorial to her late husband, and executed a deed conveying it to the "Trustees of Donations and Bequests for Church pur- poses," to hold the same in perpetuity for the benefit of the parish of the Holy Trinity. It was the first memorial church erected in Connecticut, and the whole cost of it, with the land and appendages, was about fifty-five thousand dollars.
A movement, stimulated by a peculiar state of feel- ing among the supporters of St. John's Church, led to the formation of a third parish within the compact limits of the city of Bridgeport. The swarm does not always leave with the utmost good will of the old hive. Unpleasant things often occur in the establish- ment of new parochial organizations, and jealousies and contentions, from which Christian men are not free, sometimes spring up and produce estrangements that last for a generation, and conflict with the best interests of the Church. The movement in Bridge- port was attended with a little trouble in its earlier stages. Sixty-three heads of families, most of whom had been connected with St. John's parish, went through the legal and canonical form of organizing 1 Mrs. Mary Fitch Winslow.
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themselves into a society by the name of Trinity Church, and then, 1863, applied for admission into union with the Convention of the Diocese. The com- mittee, to whom the documents were referred, reported unanimously in favor of the application ; but when it came up for consideration, it was warmly opposed, on the ground that no such parish should be received, especially if it was permitted to build its church on a site which had been selected almost under the very droppings of the old sanctuary. The Convention re- fused to be guided by any partial view of the case, and admitted the parish to the usual privileges upon the broad principle that the necessary legal and ca- nonical steps having been taken, and the sanction of the ecclesiastical authority obtained, the right of admission could not be denied. The responsibility of choosing a lot on which to build, so near the mother church as to be in the judgment of many a perpetual reminder of strife and division, was for those to bear who were immediately concerned in the enterprise.
Measures were at once adopted to erect a stone church in early English style, without spire or tower, and affording sittings for six hundred persons. The expense of its erection, furniture, and lot -about twenty thousand dollars - was promptly provided for, and the edifice consecrated on the 2d of Novem- ber, 1864. The parish entered upon a life of zealous activity, - which served to attest the claim of its founders, that " it was formed to do the work of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ, and to advance His Kingdom, a kingdom of truth, righteousness, mercy, candor, and honor."
The two older parishes in the same city relieved
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themselves of the inconvenient debts which they had carried for many years, and as something which belongs to that period, it may be mentioned that the Mission established by St. John's, in East Bridgeport, now (1868) promises, under a resident minister, who devotes his whole energies to its welfare, soon to become a strong and vigorous parish with a substan- tial stone edifice, - the erection of which has already been commenced.
The clouds of civil war hung heavily over the country when most of these enterprises were initi- ated. Money was easily earned, and circulated freely, and judicious schemes for the advancement of the parish, or the institutions of the Church at large, were sure to meet with favorable attention. Some chari- ties, however, conceived before the war, now took shape. Two homes for aged and destitute women, one under the auspices of Trinity Church, New Haven, and the other under the direction of the Church of the Holy Trinity (formerly Christ Church), Middle- town, arose at this season, and were the beginning of a new form of parish work in the Diocese. Wealthy laymen whose "liberal things," were suspended by the outbreak of national troubles, returned to them, and what was not given or laid out immediately, has since been bestowed with generous and unostentatious benevolence.1
1 Mr. Joseph E. Sheffield, of New Haven, has recently commenced on the same grounds in that city suitable buildings, including a chapel, which will cost when completed, about seventy thousand dollars, intending the whole as a free gift for the use and benefit of the " Parish School of Trinity Church," and " The Trinity Church Home." This, with his previous dona- tions to the cause of education, and to the Church in the Diocese, will perpetuate his name as a liberal benefactor.
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All commodities are enhanced in price as money cheapens, and clergymen with salaries barely sufficient to support their households at former rates had before them a gloomy and disheartening prospect, as the year 1863 was drawing to its close. The two bishops, therefore, shortly before Christmas, addressed a pas- toral letter to the vestries, and to the members of the parishes of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, call- ing their attention to the condition of many of the clergy, and asking them to make further provision for their wants in a " period of the advanced and advan- cing prices of all the necessaries of life." Unless relief in some shape was afforded, it was evident that there were parishes then faithfully served by their ministers, which must either be abandoned, or else " indebted- ness, suffering, and untold trials " would ensue. The circular of the Bishops reached the laity in a season of thankful joy for the mercies of redemption, and met with such a general and cordial response that Bishop Williams, in his address to the Convention the next year, referred to it with gratitude, and said : -
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