USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, from the settlement of the colony to the death of Bishop Seabury > Part 21
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1 Church Documents, Vol. II. p. 177.
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ping from the magistrates of all just civil power was to take place immediately after their arrival. In the excess of loyalty to the home Government, they pre- tended to see danger of another kind, even separation and independence, if this offensive measure was ac- complished. "Nothing," is a statement in one of the earliest letters, "seems to have such a direct tendency to weaken the dependence of the colonies upon Great Britain and to separate them from her; an event which would be ruinous and destructive to both, and which we, therefore, pray God long to avert. And we have abundant reason to believe that such would be the jealousies and uneasiness of all other denomina- tions of Christians among us, that we cannot but tremble at the prospect of the dreadful consequences that could not be prevented from taking place upon the establishment of an American Episcopate. We have so long tasted the sweets of civil and religious liberty, that we cannot be easily prevailed upon to submit to a yoke of bondage which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear." 1
The object of writing in this way to the Committee of Dissenters in London, was to enlist their active efforts on the side of their brethren in this country, and to have them use what little influence they pos- sessed with the men in place and power to prevent the establishment of Diocesan Episcopacy here. "We now stand in need, if ever," was the message of the Convention, sent over in the autumn of 1771, "of the assistance of all our friends, to use their utmost skill and interest to avert this impending blow that so surely threatens our civil and religious liberties, and
1 Minutes of Convention, p. 23.
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which, if not prevented, must again inflame all our colonies, that have so lately regained the blessings of peace." They professed not to be opposed to Bishops having simply the spiritual oversight of the members of their own communion,-the only thing which had ever been asked or desired; but they seemed to think it impossible that the Episcopal office should be clothed in this character, or divested of the power to encroach upon the rights of other denominations. "No Act of Parliament," they said in the same letter from which we have just quoted,1 "can secure us from the tyranny of their jurisdiction, as an Act of Parlia- ment may, and no doubt will be repealed at the im- portunate solicitations of the Bishops and others; nor can we have any security against being obliged in time to support their dignity, and to pay taxes to relieve the Society in paying their Missionaries; and the governors of our several colonies must either be submissive in all things to their will and pleasure, or be harassed and persecuted with continual complaints to all in power on your side of the water. In a word, we think Ecclesiastics vested with such powers dan- gerous to our civil and religious liberties; and it seems highly probable that it will in time break that strong connection which now happily subsists between Great Britain and her colonies, who are never like to shake off their dependence on the mother-country until they have Bishops established among them."
The tone of these letters varied slightly according to the prejudices of the writers, the temper of the Convention, and the state of the times; but in none of them was there any friendliness manifested to the
1 Minutes of Convention, p. 34.
*
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Church of England. An accurate and toilsome col- lection of statistics, relative to the number of Epis- copalians in the Colony of Connecticut, and their pro- portion to non-Episcopalians, was early undertaken by the Rev. Elizur Goodrich of Durham, a Congregational divine, acting by appointment of the Convention of Delegates. A similar thing was attempted with ref- erence to other provinces. After mentioning this census of the Episcopal tribes, in the letter to their London friends, of 1773, they added these mysterious words: "We beg leave also to inform you that we are collecting the state of religious liberty in the sev- eral colonies on this continent, and its progress in each of them from their first settlement, which may be capable of important uses in the grand struggle we or posterity may be called to make in this glori- ous cause, in which the happiness of thousands yet unborn is so deeply interested.
"Your known zeal against the unjust encroachments of Episcopal domination supersedes the necessity of our repeating our requests that you will continue your wonted care on this head." At one time they thought of sending a special agent to London to pro- mote their designs, but the Committee whom they first consulted replied, that if a suitable person could be found, he would not have any additional influence with the Ministry; "for, whatever he might at any time say, they would look upon him as an agent for the colonies and under their influence, whereas no such bias could be imputed to the Committee."
In this connection we recall the purport of a paper laid before the General Association of Congregational ministers in Connecticut, assembled at Stamford in
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1773. This paper appears to have met with their approval; and the following extract, if sincerely em- bracing the Episcopal Church, is, to say the least, not in unison with the spirit of the elect body from whose Minutes we have quoted. "We have, indeed, a re- ligious establishment; but it is of such a kind, and with such universal toleration, that the consciences of other sects cannot be affected or wounded by it, while every one is at perfect liberty to worship God in such way as is most agreeable to his own mind. Whatever oppressive measures have been heretofore adopted, we recollect with regret and disapprobation. We rejoice that these have ceased, and that there is such freedom of religious inquiry and worship, that no man need be in bondage. We desire not the aid of other sects to maintain our churches; and while we stand fast in the constitution we have chosen, and think it in doctrine and discipline most agreeable to the Scripture, the unerring standard of faith and wor- ship, we would not oppress others, nor be oppressed ourselves, but exercise good-will and charity to our brethren of other denominations, with fervent prayers that peace and holiness, liberty, truth, and purity, may be established more and more among those that name the name of Christ, and be universally diffused among mankind." 1
1 Kingsley, Hist. Dis. p. 97.
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CHAPTER XXII.
ENUMERATION OF EPISCOPALIANS IN CONNECTICUT; ITS INFLU- ENCE; AND THE DEATH OF DR. JOHNSON.
A. D. 1772-1774.
THE systematic and careful enumeration of the Epis- copalians, and the Convention of Delegates from the Synod and Congregational Associations, held annually until the disturbed state of public affairs prevented the gatherings, indicate the common apprehensions of the time, that the growth of the Church was hos- tile to the spirit of civil and religious liberty, and favorable to the ultimate establishment here of a "monarchical government with a legally associated hierarchy." In reading over now the accounts and proceedings of that period, one cannot but regret that so many mistakes were made, and that there was such a deplorable misunderstanding of the real object sought after by the Missionaries of the Venerable So- ciety.
The estimate of Episcopalians in Connecticut may be found printed in an appendix to the "Minutes of Convention." It was not complete, many important towns having been omitted in the report, such as Stratford, Fairfield, New London, Norwich, Middle- town, Waterbury, Woodbury, and New Milford; but, as far as it went, it gave one Episcopalian to twelve non-Episcopalians, nearly; or, to quote the words of
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Mr. Goodrich in closing his report, September 5, 1774, it "makes the Episcopalians about one in thirteen of the whole number of inhabitants; and probably there would be no great difference from this proportion were the account of all the towns come in, which I hope soon to gain." 1 Nowhere in the colony was the Church so strong, according to this estimate, as in Fairfield County, where it embraced about one third of the people; and at Newtown there was an equal division, the Episcopalians and non-Episcopalians being 1084, in either case. New Haven, which then in- cluded within its territorial limits West Haven, East Haven, North Haven, Hamden, and a part of Wood- bridge, came next to Newtown, and the number of Episcopalians in it was reckoned to be 942 at that date.
The public controversy concerning an American Episcopate, described in a former chapter, was some- thing to be met and managed upon its own merits; but here was a secret influence in opposition to the Church, which was felt without being reached. The strong representations that went over to London from this body, based on the statistics which were collected and on inquiries into the progress of civil and relig- ious liberty in the colonies, had the effect, with other things, to delay action until "the bigoted Epis- copalians," as they were termed, "on this side the water," were compelled by the events of the Revolu- tion to suspend entirely their efforts. One movement, as calculated to overcome all obstacles, was suggested to the Missionaries by their friends in England, and that was to procure the request of the colonial as-
1 P. 62.
19
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semblies for the introduction of Bishops into this coun- try. Good men named this plan to leading church- men in Connecticut. Lowth, then Bishop of Oxford, writing to Johnson, the statesman, in May 1773, and speaking of the American Episcopate, said: "You may be assured that it is not in our power to do anything in it. Matters must be prepared on your side. Nothing less than a strong and well supported application from your colonies in general, or at least from the principal colonies, will have any effect."1 The son of Bishop Berkeley, who inherited the genius and the noble spirit of his honored father, and was, therefore, deemed fit to wear the mitre in a land which had been blessed with the paternal presence and benefactions, wrote to the same gentleman, in a like strain, some months earlier, and "thinking aloud on the subject," confessed to him that he should re- joice to devote his life to the Episcopal interest in America. "Seriously," said he, "turn it over in your mind, whether an application could not be obtained from some assembly in your new world for an Amer- ican Bishop,-a Bishop who by law should be incapa- citated from accepting a Bishopric in England or Ire- land." And this is a part of the answer which was returned: "Do not, my dear friend, lose sight of the American mitre which you mention to me, but realize it, if it be possible. You cannot conceive how much good you would be able to do in this country in that situation. I do not think it probable that any of our assemblies could be induced to ask such a thing. They have all been industriously taught to apprehend the most terrible evils from such a measure. But 1 Johnson MSS.
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why should Government wait to be asked for a thing so just and reasonable in itself, so evidently benefi- cial for them?"1 Johnson penned a reply to the Bishop of Oxford, couched in still stronger terms, and, for the present, gave up with sorrow all hopes of attaining the object of his wishes, because he was persuaded that if the plan depended upon an official application from the colonies in general, or any one in particular, it would be long indeed before it would take effect.
We have seen the spirit which animated the Con- vention of Delegates in reference to this matter; and without questioning now the propriety and the neces- sity of the course which led to American indepen- dence, we must acknowledge that Johnson spoke truly when he said that the "colonies have all been taught to apprehend the most terrible evils" from the intro- duction of Bishops into this country. The work of numbering the Episcopalians, so extensively and sys- tematically carried on, appears to have had its influ- ence, if not in expediting, at least in aggravating the war of the Revolution, and among the causes of that war was the fear of a Church hierarchy. The elder Adams bore testimony to this, when, in 1815, he wrote: "The apprehension of Episcopacy contributed, fifty years ago, as much as any other cause, to arouse the attention, not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parliament over the colonies. This, nevertheless, was a fact as certain as any in the history of North America."
But the question of the Episcopate has received
1 Johnson MSS.
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ample consideration, and both sides of the struggle have been sufficiently, and we trust fairly, reviewed. Let us now resume our inquiries into the labors of the Missionaries, and the success of their pastoral care. Hubbard indicated a better feeling towards the Church in New Haven when he thus wrote to the Society, in April, 1772: "I am pleased and happy in my situa- tion; kindly treated and respected by my own people and the dissenters in this growing and populous town, many of whom occasionally attend our service on Sundays; and I have the happiness to see the great- est unanimity reigning amongst us and the denomi- nations with whom we live. My congregation, in something less than five years, has increased one third in number. The souls, white and black, belonging to the Church in New Haven, are 503; and in my church at West Haven there are 220." Connecticut had already been sending forth emigrants into the new settlements, to such an extent as to retard the natural growth of the Church in some parts of the colony; and but for frequent accessions from the de- nominations, a few parishes would have been nearly ruined in this way. Churchmen from the Missions of Beach and Viets, Andrews and Mansfield, pene- trated into the uncultivated regions of Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and were favored at different times with visits from their former pastors. They welcomed with grateful hearts these occasional ministrations, and looked to them for comfort in their spiritual need. Those in some of the older townships had long turned in this direction for counsel and succor; and the region far up the valley of the Housa- tonic had been, from the time of Thomas Davies, more
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than ten years, under the oversight of the Connecti- cut clergy. Gideon Bostwick, a native of New Mil- ford, and a graduate of Yale College in 1762, pro- ceeded to England for ordination when of suitable age, and became, on his return in 1770, the Missionary of the Venerable Society in Great Barrington, having read prayers in that place while a candidate for Holy Orders.
But as the Board had decided not to establish any new Missions at this period, the utmost which the people could expect to see accomplished was the sup- ply of places vacated by death or removal.
James Nichols, born in Waterbury, and graduated at Yale College in 1771, was, three years later, the minister of the Church of England in Northbury and New Cambridge, now Plymouth and Bristol. He was the last of those who went from Connecticut on the perilous and expensive voyage across the ocean for Holy Orders. The troubles of the country were thickening, and the candidates prudently preferred to wait.
Public affairs began to wear a melancholy aspect, and the deepest anxiety for the welfare of the Church pervaded the breasts of her members. To add to their sorrow, one great and guiding light, placed aloft in the providence of God to conduct their move- ments, was about this time stricken from its eminent position. The death of the Rev. Solomon Palmer, at Litchfield, on the 2d of November, 1771, was fol- lowed, two months afterwards, by that of "the learned, pious, and most benevolent Dr. Johnson of Stratford." Thus the senior Missionary in the colony, and the largest participant in the early struggles of the Church
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here, passed to his glorious reward just as the clouds of the Revolution were gathering and rolling up in thicker folds. Perhaps it was providentially ordered that he who saw so much of the former trials should be spared, in his declining age, the bitterness of those which were now approaching. He had lived to wel- come the return to this country of his long absent son,1 and to hear him describe the varied events of his sojourn in the Old World, and his intercourse with leading statesmen and heads of English nobility, al- ready devising schemes to irritate and oppress the American provinces. How must his spirit, still fresh and buoyant, have been elated as he listened to his beloved son repeating his frequent interviews with Secker and Sherlock and Lowth, men whom his eyes had never beholden, but who had come near to him in the living impress of their characters, through the medium of an extended correspondence,-a corre- spondence upon matters intimately affecting the co- lonial Church, and the vindication of her Apostolic
1 The return of Dr. William Samuel Johnson was welcomed also by his friends and neighbors. He consented, at their request, to a public re- ception ; and on the day designated, people from hill-side and shore, and all the region round about, all ages and all conditions, flocked to his man- sion in Stratford. The wide green in front of it was filled with horses and lumbering vehicles, the common modes of conveyance in those times, and the apartments of his dwelling were crowded with an unusual as- . semblage, eager to pay their respects to the honored agent of Connecticut, and to learn from his own lips the chief events of his prolonged stay in England. His full court-dress, with deep Mechlin lace ruffles upon his shirt-frills and falling over his hands; his long, slender dress-sword swing- ing loose at his side ; his powdered locks flowing gracefully, and his charm- ing intonations of voice as lie stood in his spacious parlor and proceeded to describe the scenes through which he had passed, all combined - ac- cording to the account from an eye-witness - to give interest to the occa- sion, and to impress the gathered multitude with the dignity of his character and the importance of his mission.
1%
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Order! Archbishop Secker always began his letters to him with the gentle compellation "Good Dr. John- son," and closed them affectionately with "Your loving brother." The acceptable assistance of Mr. Kneeland, who assumed the outward and laborious duties of the parish, had made him easy in his retirement and decline, but his active mind yet worked amid his bodily infirmities, and apparently all the more so, as he saw the distance between earth and "the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" fast lessening. Slightly indisposed on the morning of Epiphany, 1772, a bright and glorious morning, he was conversing with his family respecting his own death, and calmly expressing the conviction that his strength was about to fail, and that he was soon, to quote his own words, "going home." One friend, at that moment, whom he had greatly loved, the sainted Berkeley, rose upon his fading vision, and he sighed for the tranquillity of his departure, and humbly de- sired that his own impending change might be like his. Heaven vouchsafed to grant his wish, for scarcely had he given utterance to it, when, like the good Bishop, he instantaneously expired in his chair, with- out a groan or the least convulsion.
His character has been woven into the thread of the previous chapters, but an eventful and consistent ministry in the Church of England of nearly half a century could not be thus wound up without great lamentation on the part of his brethren. They buried him with all the respect due to his memory, and one of their number, "the worthy Mr. Leaming," preached a funeral sermon, though that office had been assigned to his particular friend at Newtown, the Rev. Mr.
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Beach. Illness prevented him from performing it but the discourse which he had prepared was after wards delivered in the church at Stratford and pub- lished by request of the congregation. Dr. Johnson left an Autobiography, which, with other manuscripts and letters, were put into the hands of Dr. Chandler of Elizabethtown, who had sustained confidential re- lations to him, and was therefore a very suitable per- son to compile his Life. He completed his task early in the summer of 1774, and submitted it to the inspec- tion and judgment of his friends; but there were good reasons why the publication was withholden at that time. Mr. Beach, whose opinion was sought by the son, without denying that a time might come when it could be published to advantage, as showing the origin and growth of the Church in Connecticut, said: "Dr. Chandler has omitted some things which I should have thought to have been as important as some others which he has related. As to the good ends to be obtained by the publication, may they not be obtained by his works published in his lifetime? Is not overdoing, sometimes undoing? However, of this we are sure, his character now stands, and his mem- ory is like to remain quite unblemished, as well as amiable and exalted. But if ill-natured Mayhews un- dertake to fling dirt, (and they are not all dead,) being excited by our excess, in that case I should fear that the love and labor of his friends could not perfectly wipe off all, so as to leave it as clear and brilliant as now it is. Why should we run the venture without a necessity? ... Dr. Hodges, in his oration, represents Dr. Johnson as employed in converting Indos Occiden- tales. I am not sure if our adversaries will not trans-
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late it the Western Indians; and eagerly catch at it, as a full proof that we cheat the nation, and by lies obtain donations."1
The original manuscript of Dr. Chandler fell at length into the hands of Bishop Hobart, his son-in- law, who sent it to the press more than thirty years after its preparation, without appearing to know any- thing of this secret history.
Mr. Kneeland succeeded to the Mission in Stratford, with all the emoluments of his venerable predecessor. The Church-wardens and others, in requesting his ap- pointment, gave these reasons for claiming a continu- ance of the Society's bounty: "As Stratford is sit- uate upon the great road from Boston to New York, Mr. Kneeland must inevitably be at a greater expense than any Missionary in the interior towns; so that from the decline of trade, the death and failure of several of our principal members, from the increasing price of the necessaries of life, the scarcity of money, and the extraordinary expenses a Missionary must be here at, we may truly say we have not needed the assistance of the Venerable Society more for fifteen years past than we do at present. ... We are now endeavoring to raise money to enlarge the glebe, but, for the reasons before mentioned, fear we shall meet with but little success; however, our best endeavors shall not be wanting to complete the same."
Mr. Beach, next to Dr. Johnson, was the ablest de- fender of the Church in the Colony of Connecticut. In some respects he rose above him, and was scarcely inferior to him in strength of intellect, in knowledge of the Church, and in the toils and trials of his vocation.
1 Johnson MSS.
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He kept his eye upon every rood of ground where the seed had been sown, and, as fearless as faultless, travelled by night and by day, amid storms and snow- drifts, and across deep and rushing streams, to preach the word, to visit and comfort the sick, and to bury the dead. He still lingered at the post where he had been in the employment of the Society now forty years; and, giving a brief account, May 5, 1772, of the manner in which he had spent his time and improved the charity of his benefactors, said: "Every Sunday I have performed divine service, and preached twice at Newtown and Redding, alternately. And in these forty years I have lost only two Sundays through sickness, although in all that time I have been af- flicted with a constant colic, which has not allowed me one day's ease or freedom from pain. The dis- tance between the churches at Newtown and Redding is between eight and nine miles, and no very good road, yet have I never failed one time to attend each place according to custom, through the badness of the weather, but have rode it in the severest rains and snow-storms, even when there has been no track, and my horse near miring down in the snow-banks; which has had this good effect on my parishioners, that they are ashamed to stay from church on account of bad weather, so that they are remarkably forward to attend public worship. As to my labors without my parish, I have formerly performed divine service in many towns where the Common Prayer had never been heard, nor the Holy Scriptures read in public, and where now are flourishing congregations of the Church of England; and in some places where there never had been any public worship at all, nor any ser-
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