USA > Connecticut > The story of the Diocese of Connecticut : a new branch of the vine (Espiscopal Church) > Part 35
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
Ives visited Tennessee and discovered that the establishment of the Church in Nashville had been favored by two natives of Connecticut. They were Francis Brinley Fogg and Godfrey Mal- bone Fogg, who was named for Colonel Godfrey Malbone, the founder of Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Francis settled at Nash- ville in 1817 and became an eminent judge and legislator, a founder of the University of the South, and a patron of the Church. The Foggs were delegates to the organizing convention of the Diocese of Tennessee in 1829, and to the convention of 1833, which elected James H. Otey as the first bishop.
Otey's influence brought to the priesthood a man who for many years was Tennessee's most conspicuous Churchman -
·[ 385 ].
Charles Todd Quintard. He was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and became a prominent physician in Georgia and Tennessee before he entered the ministry. After serving as a missionary and as a pastor of churches, he was elected as the second Bishop of Ten- nessee in 1865. He was consecrated at the General Convention marking the reunion and reconciliation of the Northern and Southern dioceses after the Civil War. His episcopate, one of the most brilliant in the American Church, reorganized the disrupted, war-torn diocese and the University of the South.
As in the Northwest, early Southern missionary ventures were sporadic and individual. The organizer was Bishop Brownell of Connecticut. His three tours - between 1829 and 1837 - promoted the formation of dioceses in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and their union as the "Southwestern Diocese" under his supervision. (See Appendix I, under Thomas Church Brownell) Through his devoted friend and ordinand, Caleb S. Ives, an alumnus of Trinity College, Brownell influenced the Church's origin in Texas. Ives became a missionary at the old Spanish town of Matagorda, and established an academy. In 1839 he presided at the organi- zation of Christ Church, the first parish in Texas. He held the first Episcopal services at Austin in 1840, and in 1849 the organizing convention of the Diocese met in his church at Matagorda.
Another pioneer was John Wurts Cloud, who retired from the ministry and lived in Texas as a planter from 1831 until his death in 1850. Cloud was educated at the Episcopal Academy and Yale College, and was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Brownell and as a priest by Bishop Hobart. He served as a pastor in Mississippi and helped to organize the diocese, but soon became a prominent layman in Texas.
The first native Texan in the ministry was Walter Richard- son. He studied at the Berkeley Divinity School and was ordained in 1862 at Christ Church, Houston. In 1868 he settled in San Antonio, where for forty years he was a beloved leader as rector of St. Mark's parish and as dean of the cathedral.
Far-reaching was the effect of Bishop Brownell's tour through the Deep South. His ordinand, William H. Judd, died as a mis- sionary at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1829. One of Judd's successors was Samuel Smith Lewis, a Vermont alumnus of Trinity College. He ministered in Tuscaloosa and in Mobile, where he died in 1846,
· [ 386 ].
worn out with work. He became known as the "Father of the Diocese" and presided over the convention for years, when there was no bishop. Alabama's first bishop, Nicholas H. Cobbs, once de- clared that Lewis "contributed much more than any other one man towards building up the Church in Alabama."9
After the admission of the Diocese of Alabama in 1832, the Board of Missions sent a missionary, the tireless Caleb S. Ives, an- other alumnus of Trinity College. He traveled all over the state, reviving the Church and raising money for his school in Mobile and for a bishop's fund. He was assisted by the visits of Bishop Jackson Kemper, who consecrated St. John's Church, Montgomery. The work of these men was consolidated by the second bishop, Richard Hooker Wilmer, a Virginian who was educated in Con- necticut and graduated from Yale College in 1836.
The Diocese of Louisiana was virtually erected by Bishop Brownell's tours in 1830, 1834-1835, and 1836-1837. He was the first bishop of the Episcopal Church to visit the vast region of the Louisiana Purchase. He consecrated the first church in New Orleans, performed the first confirmation, and presided at the first diocesan convention. On his last visit he was accompanied by the Rev. Nathaniel Sheldon Wheaton, president of Trinity College. Wheaton served as rector of Christ Church in New Orleans until 1844, deepening its spiritual life and making it a missionary center for the new diocese.
The selfless devotion of these many ministers of Connecticut birth or education greatly helped to alter the entire aspect of the Episcopal Church west and north of Ohio, and in the Old South- west. Before they came, the Church was represented by scattered parishes and devout but isolated families. When Bishop Brownell began his first journey in 1829, he found no organized diocese west or south of Ohio, but in 1859 there were thirteen. The Episcopalian frontier had thus advanced to the Great Plains and the Gulf of Mexico.
·[ 387 ].
· [ 388 ].
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CONNECTICUT AND THE CHURCH'S MISSION
SUSTAINING THE MISSIONARY CAUSE
W HILE Connecticut priests and laymen voluntarily evange- lized the advancing frontier, their old neighbors and friends back home rallied to support them. As early as 1792 the Diocese appointed a special treasurer to receive gifts for frontier missions, but the very modest success of this official effort ap- parently convinced the Convention that local and voluntary action would be more effective.
That expectation was more than justified by the surge of missionary spirit that swept over the Diocese after 1820. It was Connecticut's expression of the Church's general response to the challenge of the frontier. In 1829 the Episcopal Watchman voiced the new zeal in an editorial, "Every Clergyman a Missionary." The Diocese instructed its delegates to the General Convention to propose a canon requiring every priest to serve at least two years as a missionary in a destitute region, or to establish a new church, before settling in a large community. The Watchman recommended the appointment of a missionary bishop for the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. The suggestion was adopted in 1835, with the appointment of Jackson Kemper.
During the decade 1825-1835 the Diocese was covered with a network of local auxiliaries to the Domestic and Foreign Mis- sionary Society. They were patterned after the societies of Christ Church, Hartford, and Trinity Church, New Haven. Backed by Bishop Brownell and the faculty of Trinity College, the societies held regular meetings to hear missionary sermons and reports from the field. They raised large sums to support Sunday schools and distribute Bibles, Prayer Books, and tracts.
Connecticut's generosity to the missionary cause in the half- century after 1835 has never been generally appreciated. The story is buried in reports published in The Spirit of Missions. If one is
·[ 389 ].
patient enough to total them, the financial contributions are im- mensely impressive. In 1836-1862 Connecticut gave nearly sixty- one thousand dollars for home missions, and over forty-one thousand for the foreign field. Even the economic droughts of the 1830's and 1857 did not seriously diminish the flow of the spring. The years 1875-1879, following the devastating "panic" of 1873, brought in nearly forty-one thousand dollars for home missions.
After 1880 the devoted giving and handiwork of the Woman's Auxiliary poured new enthusiasm into the cause. The Auxiliary imparted new life to missions among the poverty-stricken Negro freedmen and the Western Indians. Thousands of boxes of supplies went from many parishes to isolated missions throughout the nation and the world. There was a warm-hearted spiritual drive behind the sacrificial labor. It was stimulated not by campaigns, drives, and quotas, but by personal reports and the appeals of missionary bishops and priests.
The Woman's Auxiliary has continued to be the consecrated sustainer of missionary effort. But it was not the whole answer, and in the 1880's Connecticut started a determined campaign to enlist the interest of men, and to develop a more efficient organi- zation to support general missions. The Diocese adopted the General Convention's plan for an "Enrolment Fund" to aid the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Eventually the diocesan treasurer assumed charge of the fund, which in 1907 was divided among the Men's Missionary Thank Offering, the United Thank Offering of the Woman's Auxiliary, and the American Church Building Fund.
The Building Fund was inaugurated by the General Con- vention in the 1880's to help in erecting mission churches. Con- necticut appointed commissioners, who held public meetings to inspire interest, and especially stressed aid to Western missions and the maintenance of Connecticut's "legitimate influence" in the Church. Annual parish contributions helped to accumulate a national fund, which is still aiding the erection of churches.
The "Enrolment Fund" was liquidated because it had been replaced by a more systematic way of giving. That was the Men's Missionary Thank Offering, raised in a continuing campaign headed by the Rev. Ernest deF. Miel. It was intended as a nationwide gift to the General Convention in 1907, to commemorate the ter-
·[ 390 ] .
centenary of the planting of the Church at Jamestown, Virginia. Connecticut's participation was successful because Mr. Miel stirred the men's enthusiasm as only he could.
That campaign was still fresh in memory when the Diocese was thrilled by the consecration of a Connecticut priest, Daniel Trumbull Huntington, as missionary bishop of Wuhu (later An- king), China. The new Chinese republic was led mainly by alumni of Christian colleges, and Bishop Brewster eagerly expected Con- necticut to respond to its missionary challenge. His appeal inspired the creation of a commission which informed the Diocese of its opportunity and conducted a successful canvass for interest and funds.
The triumph inspired a thorough reformation of the diocesan missionary organization for more effective cooperation with the national Board of Missions. In 1913 the Convention established a Committee on General Missions with the Bishop as president. They adopted a plan to divide the diocesan quota among parishes and missions, and to secure gifts from all baptized members. The thorny problem of apportionment was solved by a pro-rata sliding scale based upon current parochial expenses. This system, with the duplex envelope and the Every Member Canvass, has stood the test of experience and is still in operation.
At first the response was hesitant. As the committee's first report drily noted, the clergy showed "remarkable restraint" in appealing for assistance. Success was due largely to the efficient zeal of a devoted lay leader, Harry H. Heminway. His challenge to the people, in 1918, stands as a classic expression of the duty to support missions. He declared that no parish could fail to raise its apportionment if the people were really informed of their obligation.
During the prosperous 1920's Connecticut responded generously to the Nation-Wide Campaign planned by the Board of Missions. It was managed by a hard-working committee, headed by the Rev. George L. Paine, who was succeeded by Louis B. Howell and John F. Plumb. Paine's house became the workshop of an unprecedented promotional effort, which swept the campaign forward for a decade. Its most encouraging feature was the sacrificial volunteer work of many laymen. The results appeared in new missions, the strengthening of old parishes, greater at-
·[ 391 ] .
tendance at services (especially of men), increased devotion to parochial work, larger pledges and missionary giving, and more adequate clerical salaries.
The years 1921-1924 were marked by a vigorous mission to youth in high schools and colleges to arouse interest in the ministry, and by more intense adult study of religion. The campaign melted frozen parochialism and indifference by the genuine warmth of the preaching missions - to the deep delight of Bishop Brewster. Regional conferences drew people closer than they had ever been, and the One Day Income Offering instilled in many families a sense of their responsibility to missions.
In the late 1920's the Diocese plunged into a successful effort to wipe out the Church's general debt. In 1927 the "Bishops' Crusade" evoked a cordial response, and Connecticut reckoned the largest annual amount ever given for missions in its previous history.
The economic debacle of the 1930's burdened the Diocese with a constant concern to keep the missionary cause from found- ering. In 1932 the people were startled to learn that some missions might be closed, and that seventy per cent of all parishioners were giving nothing to missions. Bishop Budlong personally assumed charge of the Emergency Fund Offering, and Bishop Acheson re- quested special prayers for missions. Even when the depression brought increased unemployment and distressing salary and wage cuts, the Diocese rose to Bishop Budlong's challenge. "The Church- men of Connecticut have never quailed before a serious problem nor faltered in an endeavor to solve it, they will not do so now."1
The highest obstacle to missions was not economic but mental - sheer ignorance, especially among men. And yet a cordial welcome met the men's "missionary teams" that toured the Diocese. By 1939 the missionary program was emerging from its long struggle with adversity, and even the children's mite boxes showed the recovery. In that year the supplementary offerings were de- dicated to the missionary district of South Dakota, whose Bishop Roberts came from Connecticut and was assisted by Connecticut priests.
Swept forward by renewed zeal, the "Presiding Bishop's Plan" of 1940 marked the turn from a decade of retrenchment to one of heartening advance. Missionary fervor began to reclaim many of the lapsed and the lukewarm and to appeal to the "un-
·[ 392 ].
churched." Connecticut gave plenteously to aid British missions improverished by war. It was a dramatic way of repaying the aid of the S. P. G. in planting colonial churches. Once the Church- men of Connecticut were convinced of the worthiness of a cause, they gave. For years the Diocese ranked fourth in missionary offerings, being surpassed only by New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. This record was achieved by comparatively small gifts from many individuals. "Nobody underwrites us," said Bishop Budlong, "and nobody provides extra sums to fill out our quotas."2
As the second World War accented the need of fellowship among men and nations, the missionary appeal began to assume a new tone. The Diocese entered more deeply into the worldwide missionary enterprise as the experiences of service men and women revealed the fruits of missions through the kindness of native Christians in distant lands. The new consciousness of the world's need still prevailed, when the end of war suddenly demanded still greater efforts to repair the damage to missionary properties, ful- fill long-delayed tasks, and enter new fields. The missionary chal- lenge has been met in the spirit expressed by Bishop Budlong's call to a rededication of stewardship, and to regard missionary offerings as "a sacrament of personality."
THE CHURCH MISSIONS PUBLISHING COMPANY
For seventy years the Diocese of Connecticut has stimulated missionary interest through the Church Missions Publishing Com- pany. This enterprise originated about 1890 in efforts of the Junior Branch of the Woman's Auxiliary to train its members in assuming responsibility for missions. The Junior Auxiliary Publishing Com- pany was organized at a meeting in Middletown in December, 1891, with a constitution designating the Presiding Bishop of the Church as president. In June, 1894, the Company was formally incor- porated under the laws of Connecticut, by Bishop John Williams, Samuel Hart, William C. Sturges, Samuel R. Colladay, Gouverneur F. Mosher, Harriett F. Giraud, Edith Beach, Mary E. Beach, and Lucy C. Jarvis. Its stated object was "To publish and disseminate information regarding the history and work of the Church in such a way as to arouse special interest."
In June, 1898, the Company became an authorized auxiliary to the Church's general Board of Missions, and in the following
· [ 393 ] .
year its name was changed to "The Church Missions Publishing Company." Its affairs have always been conducted by a board of managers, assisted in the early years by an advisory committee of bishops, priests, and laymen from various parts of the country, and by a committee representing diocesan boards of the Woman's Auxiliary.
The Company grew out of a spontaneous movement among the Church's young people. An essay in the Young Christian Soldier magazine had proposed a publishing company similar to the his- toric English Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and suggested that its support should come from Sunday schools and children's missionary societies. The first gift - a dime - came from a boy in Maryland, and contributions soon streamed in from children throughout the nation, from the Berkeley Divinity School missionary society and other missionary organizations, and from Sunday schools and friends. These funds paid for printing the first issues of the long-lived "Round Robin" series on missions. These were written in December, 1891, by several students at the Berkeley Divinity School, at the request of the Junior Auxiliary officers.
Since that time the "C. M. P. C." has issued innumerable books, brochures, pamphlets, and leaflets on the history and ac- tivities of missions, for general reading and for courses of in- struction. Especially popular, for many years, were the "Round Robins" for children; and the "Missionary Leaflets," which were lesson papers on the general history of Anglican missions. Popular also were the "Soldier and Servant" series, consisting of biographies of famous missionaries; and the "Story and Pageant" series devoted to Church history and drama. Among the most widely used pub- lications have been the Christmas and Easter plays and pageants for Sunday schools, and the many accounts of missions to Negroes and white people in the Southern States, and to Indians on the Western reservations. Funds for publication formerly depended upon sales and gifts, but the Company over the years has ac- cumulated a large endowment. This was greatly augmented by legacies from two of its most loyal supporters, the Misses Mary and Edith Beach of "Vine Hill," West Hartford, who for fifty years were indeed the very soul of the enterprise.
The accomplishments of the "C. M. P. C." are the more
· [ 394 ] .
notable, because they have depended almost entirely upon the devoted work of volunteers. Especially distinguished were the ser- vices of the Rev. Dr. Melville K. Bailey, who labored for many years as editor and wrote a considerable number of the publications.
The Company's office is now in the old parish house of Christ Church Cathedral. Its funds largely sustain the publication of Pan-Anglican, a magazine of news and history of the Anglican world. The latest large enterprise is this history of the Diocese of Connecticut.
CONNECTICUT CHURCHMEN AND GENERAL CONVENTION
For generations Connecticut Churchmen have been a con- servative element in the Church's national councils. This persistent attitude, derived from the colonial High Churchmen, placed the Diocese on the side of caution in organization, doctrine, discipline, and liturgy.
A convincing evidence of Connecticut conservatism appeared during the agitation for a correct version of the Bible. For about a quarter of a century the General Convention took no action and Baskett's edition of the authorized King James version remained the standard. Connecticut wanted a clear definition and in 1816 instructed its delegates to the next General Convention to propose a resolution recognizing some specific edition as the standard "by which the genuineness of all copies of the Holy Scriptures used by Episcopalians is to be ascertained, thereby to secure them against perversions, and the people of our Communion from error, either in discipline or doctrine."3
The General Convention of 1817 observed that an edition had been published, in which Acts vi: 3 read, "whom ye [ instead of "we"] may appoint over this business." It was not known whether the change was a mere error or was intended to favor a certain view of ordination. The House of Deputies accordingly re- quested the Bishops to designate a standard Bible. In 1820 they declared that the editions of Eyre and Strahan (1806 and 1812) were the most perfect, and a joint committee was named to re- port in 1823. The General Convention then adopted the edition of 1812 as the standard, provided for a joint committee on the Bible, and passed a canon ordering the correction of all new editions. That canon was reenacted in 1832, and the committee continued
· [ 395 ].
to be appointed as late as 1871. The edition designated in 1823 was used in Connecticut until the 1880's.
The appearance of the Revised Version reopened this question early in the episcopate of Bishop Brewster. In 1904 the Diocese of California recognized a growing general sentiment in favor of reading that version in public worship, and petitioned the General Convention to permit its use. Notice of this action was forwarded to Connecticut and precipitated a lengthy debate. The Diocesan Convention finally decided that the version was con- servative and reliable, and petitioned the General Convention of 1904 to grant permissive use of the Revised or the American version in Morning and Evening Prayer.
Quite as typical of Connecticut conservatism was the attitude toward changes in the Prayer Book. Anglo-Catholics were dis- satisfied with the service of Holy Communion, and many Evan- gelicals were taking liberties which moderate and conservative Churchmen regarded as lawless. Against such tendencies Con- necticut was resolute. The matter came to a head in 1871 and the Diocesan Convention aimed a pair of resolutions at "ritualism." The first expressed "unabated regard for the Prayer Book as it is, as the truest exponent of Scriptural truth, and the surest guarantee of the Church's peace." The second instructed the delegates to the next General Convention to oppose, as "unwise and untimely," any proposal to change the rubrics or formularies.4
Agitation continued regarding changes in the rubrics for Holy Communion. In 1880 the General Convention appointed a committee to consider revision, significantly including conservative Bishop Williams. His influence appeared in the unanimous de- cision not to make any alterations in statements of doctrine, and to be "guided by those principles of liturgical construction and ritual use which have guided the compilation and amendments of the Book of Common Prayer .. . ""
For twelve years revision proceeded slowly, with Bishop Williams taking a notable part. Some suspected that, in his words, there was "a deep laid plan in 1880 to revolutionize both Doctrine and Worship in the Church." But when the revised book appeared in 1892, Connecticut Churchmen generally were gratified by the unanimity of its adoption, and by the fulfillment of their Bishop's conviction that no radical changes would be made. Bishop Wil-
·[ 396 ].
liams reinforced this attitude by requiring the revision of 1892 to be used throughout the Diocese. That was his decree against "ritual lawlessness."
Connecticut Churchmen gave to the General Convention other evidence that they would hew to the conservative line. One instance concerned the agitation for an authoritative version of the Nicene Creed. The Diocesan Convention of 1873 instructed its deputies to petition for a version "as conformable as may be to the original text." Twelve years later the deputies were instructed to vote for restoration of the rubric relating to the use of the Nicene Creed, as it was first reported by the Committee on Liturgical Enrichment, and to use "their utmost diligence" to secure an ac- curate version. This persistent defense of the Nicene Creed, as an impregnable bulwark against doctrinal laxity, would have been ap- proved by Bishop Seabury without reservation.
Connecticut pressed the national Church to abolish the prevalent lax definition of a communicant. The Diocesan Con- vention of 1881 instructed its Committee on Constitution and Canons to review the law regarding registration. The committee found the matter complicated and took about two years to report. Finding the rule better than the practice, they plainly indicated that persons who habitually neglected Communion still remained on the parish rolls. One cause of the evil was the ease with which people in larger places moved from parish to parish. Connecticut had conformed its law for registration to the standard of the General Convention, and the committee could not propose any change. They suggested that confirmed persons should not be re- gistered until they had actually received, and that every effort should be made to avoid inaccurate registration.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.