USA > Connecticut > The story of the Diocese of Connecticut : a new branch of the vine (Espiscopal Church) > Part 32
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philosophy of class war. The Church, he insisted, should not ad- vertise secular panaceas, but teach individual responsibility for social justice.
The Commission's field secretary, the Rev. C. Clark Kennedy, educated and organized the Diocese for a broader program of social service. He urged more chaplaincies in state institutions and worked closely with the Commission on Young Men and Boys. His impulse became pervasive also through social service con- ferences and volunteer committees. In 1929-1941 the Department circulated a description of Diocesan charitable institutions, and helped the unemployed to the limit of its ability. Bishop Budlong reconciled Churchmen's thought to the new philosophy of pensions and social security, which was partly an outgrowth of the Social Gospel. He also warned them not to regard charity as purely secular and neglect the Church's share.
In 1942 the Department suffered a serious loss in the re- signation of Floyd S. Kenyon, whose twenty years of service had shaped its policies and won confidence. Since 1942 the Department (renamed Christian Social Relations) has been supervised at various periods by the Rev. Messrs Burke Rivers, Arthur L. M. Worthey, Francis R. Belden, Warren E. Traub, Edward R. Merrill, Arthur W. Leaker, Edward H. Ehart, Jr., and F. X. Cheney.
Many social needs arising from World War II revealed how deeply the Social Gospel spirit had penetrated. The Department fostered Religion and Health Conferences to discuss the cooperation of clergymen and physicians in healing. The Committee on Social Legislation surveyed war industry areas and recommended special social and religious work, in cooperation with the Connecticut Council of Churches, particularly in Groton, East Hartford, and Bridgeport. A special wartime service which has continued is the ministry of the Armed Forces Division, to keep service people in touch with their parishes and welcome them to peacetime religious life and work. This service, under Suffragan Bishop Robert M. Hatch, devoted special care to the re-employment of returned soldiers and the welfare of workers suddenly released from war industry into an unsettled world.
Wartime witnessed the revival or increase of some other special ministries that still flourish. Especially important are the organized system of chaplains in state institutions and services in
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nursing homes. Other features are help to summer tobacco workers, and the committees on industrial relations, social service personnel, promotion of better race relations, study of child labor and legis- lation on planned parenthood, the Church Mission of Help, over- seas relief, and consideration of problems in family relations. Bishop Gray earnestly supported the displaced persons program, which in 1950 was active in over thirty parishes and missions, and had helped sixty-five persons. The Diocese held front rank in this service, especially during the flight of Hungarians from oppression and terrorism, in 1956-1957.
THE CHURCH MISSION OF HELP
For many years the Department has participated in one of Connecticut's outstanding social-service achievements, the Church Mission of Help. It originated in 1911 to interest Church people in helping wayward girls, through trained case work and spiritual guidance. Its concern, however, extends to all maladjusted young people, including boys and young men. Its preventive work reaches the younger sisters of clients with help and advice, and assists juvenile prisoners on parole and young women in need of work or friendship.
In 1923 the diocesan "C. M. H." began a wider service by acquiring a secretary, a women's auxiliary, a fulltime case worker, and several centers throughout the State. The women's committee helped to secure volunteer helpers, representatives from parishes, and positions for girls. The work is supported by a diocesan ap- propriation and by contributions from parishes and individuals, and for about thirty years has been efficiently and nobly supervised by Miss Florence Sanford.
In 1932 the Mission was placed under a special executive committee headed by the Rev. George B. Gilbert. He adopted a policy of cooperation with other social agencies and secured en- larged financial support. In the 1940's the Rev. John H. Esquirol of Southport (now the suffragan bishop) sought representatives in all parishes and missions, and the Woman's Auxiliary provided funds for an assistant. In 1942 the "C.M.H." was incorporated to hold and manage funds. In recent years it has been accumulating an endowment, and in 1947-1948 acquired the assets of the New Haven Lodge, a home for girls formerly run by the Girls' Friendly
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Society. Bishop Gray actively encouraged its work as vice-chair- man of the board of directors.
The Mission sometimes helps as many as one hundred and fifty girls in a year, and emphasizes the religious training which state institutions cannot provide. It has sent many girls to Episcopal schools and to the sisters at Saint Mary's-in-the-Field in Valhalla, New York, where they work in the garden and learn arts and crafts and domestic skills. The Mission has won an enviable re- putation among social-service agencies, and has a powerful hold upon the sentiment of many Church people, to whom it practically is the Department of Social Service.
THE SILENT MISSION
Another permanent and highly respected result of the Social Gospel movement is the "Silent Mission" to deaf-mutes. It origi- nated in 1909, with the support of the Missionary Society, private philanthropy, and Bishop Brewster. The Rev. George R. Hefflon started sign-language services as "Priest and Missioner to the Deaf," and in the first year reported over one hundred services and nearly four hundred calls. The people formed altar guilds, made the furnishings, organized sign-language choirs, and in Hartford started the first known literary society for deaf-mutes.
Mr. Hefflon continued his work for about seventeen years and made it a major diocesan enterprise, with large congregations, numerous baptisms and confirmations, and paid lay-readers. Al- though most of his flock were poor, they contributed to educate others. The readers in Hartford, E. C. Luther and W. G. Durian, ministered also in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and the choirs were led by Mr. A. A. Stevenson, a young deaf man from New Haven.
This mission in its early days was an arduous but thrilling adventure. In one of his vivid reports Mr. Hefflon wrote: "We have slept in Parish houses, lodging houses, Y. M. C. A. dormitories, homes of the deaf and even a railroad depot on one occasion. .. In one way and another, we have had considerable adventure for the Lord. But we rejoice in the opportunity, and hope we carry to the homes of our fellow deaf something of the christian spirit and service. We esteem it a sacred privilege to enter these homes of the deaf as pastor and friend. We have some knowledge of about 1,000
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of them here in New England - old and young and of many different church affiliations .. . "9 This consecrated, self-sacrificing priest left a memorial of himself in the hearts of innumerable people who lived in a world of perpetual silence.
He had the foresight to train a successor, J. Stanley Light. He was ordained in 1925 by Bishop Brewster, who greatly esteemed him as a man of mental gifts and culture. He has won increasing financial help and moral encouragement, as well as deep popular affection, during his long ministry in the Dioceses of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. He had three remarkable lay assistants, a father-and-sons team consisting of William F., Walter G. and Frank Durian of West Hartford. Ser- vices are held in several Connecticut cities. There have been frequent ministrations of Communion to the sick and the aged, many family visits, baptisms, confirmation classes, marriages, and guilds for the deaf in Bridgeport and Hartford. Mr. Light's modest reports tell the story of a rare, devoted Christian ministry, unknown to most Church people - "unfelt, unseen, unheard."
The many special ministries could not have flourished with- out the continual prayers, work, and gifts of societies of women, men, and young people. These have been, in large measure, in- spired by the social interpretation of the Gospel.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SOCIALIZING CHURCH LIFE
THE LIFE OF GOOD WORKS
T TODAY the parochial bulletin is so devoted to news of societies that the church seems to be a federation of "organizations." It was far different in the early 1800's, even though many Evan- gelical parishes cultivated organized prayer groups and charitable societies flourished in the large city churches. Even without much organization, astonishing sums sustained outside benevolences; St. Paul's in Norwalk, for example, gave over $100,000 between 1836 and 1879.
WOMEN'S WORK: SEWING SOCIETY TO AUXILIARY
The earliest benevolent societies were sewing circles inspired by Evangelical humanitarianism. In Connecticut they appeared spontaneously between 1820 and 1830, without diocesan encourage- ment. Reflecting the contemporary democratic spirit, they were organized by constitutions, sometimes written by the rector. The work generally centered in weekly or biweekly meetings, which before parish houses were available, were held in homes, including the rectory. They usually closed with a supper, attended also by the husbands and by escorts of the younger women. The rector often dropped in to say grace and do justice to the viands, and some- times there was dancing, closed by a Virginia reel and "Home, Sweet Home."
It would be hopeless to attempt a full account of the mani- fold activities of the early women's guilds. Some existed for more than a century, and in hard times were the backbones of small parishes. They ministered to the unfortunate and in wartime sewed tirelessly for soldiers. In the later 1800's they branched into many special activities, including altar guilds and girls' sewing classes.
Funds from gifts, dues, and the sale of needle work helped to pay for buildings and bought fuel, decorations, carpets, chairs
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for the parish house, and furnishings for the rectory - not always to suit the taste of the rector's wife. Guilds have shingled the roof, furnished refreshments for meetings, and helped to meet salaries and mission quotas. Much of this work is never reported, except in the parish bulletin, which is read mostly by those who already know about it.
The bishops have never forgotten the Church's debt to the women's societies, and have mentioned it innumerable times. Bishop Brewster paid a handsome tribute to them in 1911, and in 1924 said: "It is time we recognized more adequately the work of the women."1 Again the report said: "The best expression of the spirit and will of the Parish in loyalty and faithfulness is quite often found in these unassuming, local organizations. Their loyalty often holds together the little Mission, which has lost its Minister; their courage stimulates a whole Parish in meeting unforeseen emergencies."2
And yet legal recognition of women's place in the Church was long delayed. As late as 1911 the Diocesan Convention insisted that only men should be elected to parish offices. But next year women were recognized as legal members of parishes.
THE WOMAN'S AUXILIARY
For about fifty years women's societies flourished without any diocesan organization. The impulse toward coordination be- gan with the call to help the missions. In 1844 the Misses Edwards of New Haven founded the Seabury Society, and later came the Bureau of Relief in Hartford and the Fairfield Indian Aid. These efforts suggested a national organization, and the General Con- vention of 1871 established the Woman's Auxiliary as an aid to the Board of Missions. Later the "W. A." became an adjunct to the National Council, to enlist women and girls in prayer and the giving for missions.
Connecticut's branch began in 1880 and next year joined the national Auxiliary, at the suggestion of Miss Julia Emery and with the consent of Bishop Williams. The "W. A." united the efforts of many parochial guilds, with a manager for each archdeaconry and diocesan officers and committees. It assumed responsibility for the United Thank Offering and for a small quota of missionaries. The membership consists of baptized women who agree to share in
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prayer life, reading and study, and to make gifts of work and money. Next to the Convention and the autumn clergy conference, the "W. A." annual meeting is the most important event in the diocese. Its reports suggest that the diocese could not flourish without this dedicated army.
A mere enumeration of its activities over the last seventy- five years would fill many pages. The more important ones are religious education, mission study classes, training young women for Church work, establishing libraries, aiding the sick and the needy, sustaining mission schools and hospitals, raising scholarships for priests' daughters, and studying Church history. The "W. A." helps other service groups, which are represented on its governing board: the Girls' Friendly Society, Daughters of the King, Church Periodical Club, Church Mission of Help, and Diocesan Altar Guild.
Inquiry among board members has supplied interesting answers to the question: "What makes a Churchwoman tick?" Many became converts through marriage, influences of friends, re- ligious schools, teachings of the clergy, and taking the places of faithful workers. Others came through the friendliness of "W. A." members, parental examples, experiences in social work, family traditions, the Junior Auxiliary, Church School teaching, civic work, the Girls' Friendly Society, and instruction in Church history. A "W. A." report has said: "It all adds up, perhaps, to the same story that's been happening over and over again in the Church since the beginning: we find Christ through one or two particular people, a few critical experiences. We are changed; as the new life of Christ takes hold in us, prayer, worship, service follow in our lives. Then we, too, endeavor to tell the Good News to others, by living it."3
Most of the cooperating societies have nearly as long a record of service as the "W. A."
DAUGHTERS OF THE KING
They originated in 1885 in a Bible class at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, New York, and were organized in Connecticut about 1891. The members, communicants in good standing, at a solemn admission service promise to pray for Christ's kingdom, their parishes, and the order. Their chief aims are aiding the rector, active worship and work, interesting others, and bringing women
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and girls to church. The Daughters do not organize "affairs" to raise money but help others with the rector's approval, and support missions through the Auxiliary.
Their innumerable good works include calls upon poor, lonely, aged or afflicted people, and the inmates of hospitals and welfare institutions. Members bring countless children to Church School, baptism, and confirmation, serve as teachers, and conduct Bible and mission study classes. They sew for poor children, local charities, and missionary boxes, encourage the Girls' Friendly So- ciety, and aid in the education of women missionaries. They do chancel work, found junior chapters, and support blind girls, and have furnished a "Seabury Room" in the Glebe House at Wood- bury. Spiritual strength flows from a continual well-spring of prayer, and from monthly corporate Communions, in the quiet of early Sunday morning. Hundreds of rectors have found the Daughters a tower of strength in time of need.
CHURCH PERIODICAL CLUB
This performs devoted service, of which most church mem- bers seldom or never hear, although it has been flourishing since 1888. The club distributes books and magazines and donates sub- scriptions to poor, sick or lonely people, and supplies literature and libraries to hospitals, mining camps, ranches, and isolated places. The Connecticut branches have sent books from Bishop Budlong's library to the clergy and to St. Andrew's Seminary in the Philippines, and have supplied missionaries there with song books, New Testaments, and theological works. The Fairfield County branches have given greatly needed books to Cuttington College and Divinity School in Liberia, and to St. Benedict's Mission at Besao, P. I.
GUILD OF ST. BARNABAS
This is one of the oldest women's groups, and consists of graduate nurses, with laywomen as associates. From England it came to the United States in 1886, bearing as its motto "Blessed are the Merciful." Diocesan and local branches have befriended in- numerable nurses in training through their chaplains, regular church services, Girls' Friendly Society meetings, visits to the sick, and aid to missions. The Guild holds an annual service in memory
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of Florence Nightingale and a corporate Communion on St. Barnabas' Day.
GIRLS' FRIENDLY SOCIETY
The "G. F. S." began its ministrations to girls and young women in 1877. The Connecticut branch, organized in 1894, has accomplished an amount of work that would require a volume for adequate appreciation. Its sympathy has helped missions, social service, rural girls, schools, hospitals, sisterhoods, the Traveler's Aid, protection of women and children in industry, nurseries, play- grounds, and many projects for civic improvement. (See Chapter Twenty-Three, The Social Gospel)
The Society for many years sponsored a rest and lunch room in Hartford during Christmas week. It began in the "shop- ping rush" of 1908, when an associate member tried to cheer up a distracted sales girl, who promptly exploded: "I'll slap anybody's face who says 'Merry Christmas' to me! What is it to me, anyway? I'm so tired when it comes that I stay in bed all day."4 A sadder and wiser woman, the associate suggested that the "G. F. S." should provide two good meals every day for shop girls in Christ Church parish house. Four branches set to work and with gifts from Church people and nickels from the girls provided the meals, with members for waitresses and associates as hostesses. Girls of all faiths came to enjoy the hot food, sing around the piano, and tell their troubles.
During the early 1900's the "G. F. S." prospered, and by the 1920's had seventy-five branches and over 4300 members in the Diocese, with many candidates in training. In 1921 the Connecticut Society was hostess to the national council, with delegates from all parts of the country and featuring services at Christ Church Cathedral. Bishop Brewster lent his personal support by attending meetings, and was interested in the lodge for working girls in New Haven and the Society's best-known work, Holiday House at East Canaan.
Holiday House was opened in 1900 to provide vacations for girls who could not afford the expense of fashionable resorts. The leaders and counsellors, including college girls, receive no reward but the deep satisfaction of constructive work. Many have been leaders in religious education, youth ministry and other Church
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services, and return to the source of their inspiration. The place gives the girls a much deeper satisfaction than "fun in the sun." The daily routine of sports, hikes and craft work is spiritualized by religious life centering in the beautifully appointed chapel. It begins with a service planned by the girls with a theme for the day, continues with a sung grace at breakfast and a quiet hour, and closes with Evening Prayer. The girls' guild vests the altar for the weekly Communion celebrated by their chaplain. During one summer in recent years Holiday House was host to over 350 girls from about ninety parishes, and many more could not come be- cause accommodations did not equal the popularity of a religiously centered holiday.
CO-ORDINATION OF WOMEN'S WORK
Except the Auxiliary, this was little considered until 1910- 1911, when Bishop Brewster summoned a conference of dea- conesses and other trained workers representing several organi- zations. With his earnest support, in 1919-1920 women's work was centered in the Church Service League, with diocesan, arch- deaconry, and parish councils. In 1924 the archdeaconry meetings thoroughly reviewed all activities and authorized the parish com- mittees on women's work. The Diocesan Convention heartily ap- proved the plan, which was especially helpful to small parishes. It inaugurated a new spirit of efficiency, and inspired Bishop Acheson to suggest that clergymen and laymen should be more interested in the efforts of their wives and daughters. With his well-known gentle sarcasm he pictured easy-going laymen who let women work for missionary money and use it to pay for coal.
Acheson's vision and his genuine appreciation of women's sacrifices inspired the founding of the DIOCESAN ALTAR GUILD. It was not intended to supplant or dictate to parochial guilds, but to help small parishes and missions by taking orders and making furnishings and vestments, with aid from the Woman's Auxiliary offerings. The Guild gives instruction in making linens and hang- ings, and promotes appreciation of the spiritual quality in altar work.
The same spiritual purpose inspires the Auxiliary's effort to inform and organize women's work. The president in 1951 observed that a good financial record is not the sole measure of success.
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The purpose may be achieved without impressive gifts, if mem- bers realize their duty to learn about the Church and her teachings, to strengthen their own spiritual lives, and to win others. Religious devotion is the dynamo of the Auxiliary's manifold activities. These range from parish mission study groups to work among college students, supporting women missionaries, promoting the Con- necticut Churchman, and sponsoring television programs on the Church's work.
To ensure the continuance of so many varied endeavors, the Auxiliary encouraged summer work projects for young people and the training of women at Windham House, New York. In 1954 the "W. A." began the Diocesan Vocational Conference for women, to inspire college students and housewives to undertake service. Eminent leaders presented the opportunities in addresses and dis- cussion groups. The Conference emphasizes its spiritual motive by retreats and meetings for clergymen's wives and church workers, particularly those on personal and group worship, sponsored by the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross at South Byfield, Massachusetts. In conformity with action by the national or- ganization, the Auxiliary is now entitled "Episcopal Churchwomen, Diocese of Connecticut."
LAYMEN, BOYS AND YOUTH
For about half a century the women's guilds comprised the organized voluntary work. Men and boys were aware of it, when they heard the annual parish report or dropped in for supper after the sewing.
LAY-READERS
Except for services as wardens and vestrymen, for many years lay-reading was almost the only men's activity. Faithful readers kept pastorless churches open or assisted the rector at Morning or Evening Prayer. Although their licenses were more or less regularly renewed, there was no organized effort to recruit and train them, and no impressive service introduced them to their duties.
This haphazard situation disturbed Bishop Acheson, who was impressed by the high caliber of the readers and wondered why the Church did not make better use of them. He saw them as
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promising candidates for the ministry, or as lay missionaries to the stranger and the lapsed. It was not enough merely to wait for an invitation to read an occasional service. The result of his challenge appeared in the greater use of readers during the depressed 1930's, when some small parishes could not afford full-time pastors.
The problem of organizing and training readers was solved in 1951 by the Diocesan Lay Readers' Conference. Annual meet- ings are opened with a celebration of Holy Communion by the Bishop. The concept of the reader's service is elevated by ad- dresses and discussions on duties and responsibilities, and lectures on reading services and lessons. The meeting in 1952 inaugurated a close co-operation between the readers and Morton O. Nace, the new General Secretary for Youth and Laymen's Work. His inspir- ing address outlined a policy of stressing the reader's part in spirit- ual leadership, and of including representation of readers in the Laymen's Division of his department. The readers elected a chair- man, and requested the appointment of a committee to plan con- ferences and recommend a definite program.
The result has been a revolution. The whole diocese has become well acquainted with the reader's emblem - a wooden cross with an open Bible imposed. The Conference has become a diocesan institution, with a school of religion, quiet days, and weekend retreats. The members hear reports on the Laymen's Di- vision, attend sessions on speech training and lectures on the Holy Communion, join in "hymn sings" as a great choir, and usually end the meeting with the service of compline. A typical meeting, in 1955, heard a talk on the necessity of faith and spiritual private life, a discussion of canon law, and a lecture on the Eucharist as the Church's central service, and closed with the service of Family Prayer. In the past year readers had served in at least ninety-two parishes and conducted hundreds of church and school services.
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