USA > Connecticut > The story of the Diocese of Connecticut : a new branch of the vine (Espiscopal Church) > Part 39
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Large sums already had been allocated for Camp Wash- ington, for loans and gifts to missions, for the renovation of Diocesan House, and for youth and laymen's work. Other sums had been authorized for Sunniecroft and a chapel at the University of Connecticut. Five major projects already were realized, and the Convention of 1952 pledged continuance of the effort to obtain them all. Doctor Franklin suggested several special ways to bring them to the attention of parishes and individuals, even though a general solicitation did not seem practicable at that time.
By May, 1955 cash, pledges, and donated real estate had exceeded the total goal. Still more was needed for further ex- pansion and gifts continued to stream in. The effects were evident in the repair and enlargement of Camp Washington, the numerous gifts and loans to missions, special assistance to the Department
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of Christian Social Relations, and the appointment of a second Diocesan Missionary. An indirect benefit was the gift of a house in New Haven for the chaplain at Yale. It was sold to the Berkeley Divinity School, and the proceeds were used to buy a house pre- viously rented from the University which was in a better location for student work.
Accomplishments of the Episcopal Development Program were the more remarkable because they overlapped the campaign to raise the diocesan share ($152,000) of the fund for the Builders for Christ Program. Inaugurated by the General Convention in 1952, its purpose was to improve and expand seminaries, over- seas missions, and Southern Negro colleges, and to start missions in rapidly growing regions of the United States. Connecticut's effort was well started in 1953, and by the winter of 1955 most of the quota had been filled.
Bishop Gray was eager to see Connecticut rival or surpass the record of neighboring dioceses, and called for sacrificial giv- ing. Considering the recent demands of the Episcopal Develop- ment Program, the response was magnificent. By May, 1955, the quota had been exceeded by over seventeen thousand dollars. Considerably more than half (117) of the parishes and missions had subscribed one hundred percent or more of their shares, and only two had failed to contribute anything. Eight gave one hun- dred and fifty per cent or more, and only thirty-four contributed less than fifty per cent.
These earnest enterprises have stirred parishes and mis- sions to efforts probably unparalleled during any period of similar length in the history of the Diocese. Reports of growth, including Notable Accomplishments in Parishes and Missions, teem with references to dedications and consecrations of new or rebuilt churches. There are numerous mentions of new rectories, recog- nitions of missions and their admission as parishes, new equipment, memorials, and record numbers of men studying for Holy Orders. Clerical salaries have risen, although many still are below the standards of other dioceses and professions. Missionary giving has held up well, although not always to the full quotas.
Gains have appeared in the numbers of baptized persons, confirmations, receptions from other churches, baptisms, and church school teachers and pupils. Every Member Canvass rallies,
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teachers' institutes, and laymen's conferences have reported the largest attendances ever known. Notable success has distinguished the conferences on urban industrial work and the rehabilitation of displaced persons, and the efforts to establish new chapters of the Brotherhood of Saint Andrew.
The Convention of 1954 was the largest in the history of the Diocese, with about four hundred clerical and lay delegates. In that year a Committee on Diocesan Organization, appointed in 1952, made many recommendations for greater efficiency. These included an Assistant Executive Secretary, more clergy and laity in responsible administrative positions, enlargement of the Ex- ecutive Council, and greater usefulness of the archdeacons in per- forming ecclesiastical acts for the Bishops.
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the forward move- ment is the reclamation or occupation of areas which had been abandoned or had never been penetrated. The Diocese has revived inactive missions, as in Old Lyme and Orange. The Bishop's plan of gradually decreasing aid, to encourage missions to become in- dependent, has borne fruit in the admission of several as parishes. Churches in poor locations have been moved, as St. Andrew's in Hartford (to Bloomfield) and Grace Church in Newington, to a more central location. A few historic churches, which formerly had been used only for summer services (like St. Andrew's, North Bloomfield) are now open throughout the year.
In the period 1951-1961 over half a million dollars was given as grants to thirty-nine different parishes and missions and ap- proximately the same amount loaned to forty-three. In addition, over half a million dollars was loaned to twenty-three parishes and missions under the agreement between the Diocese and a local bank. In other words, parishes and missions were aided to the ex- tent of over one and a half million dollars.
All over the Diocese missions have sprung up in towns that have never or rarely been penetrated, like Bolton, Sherman, Madison, and Mansfield. Others have appeared in the new suburbs and residential parks, like Turn-of-River in Stamford, North Greenwich, Middlebury, Hamden, Simsbury, Suffield, East Hart- ford, Rocky Hill, Wolcott, and Gales Ferry. Two Diocesan Mission- aries are working continually to strengthen new missions and to in- vestigate possible locations of others. The Diocese is no longer
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content merely to hold territory already gained; it is rising to meet the challenge of Connecticut's growth. It seems to be entering a new era of expansion, which might equal or surpass the great for- ward surge under Bishop Brownell and Bishop Williams.
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APPENDIX I THE CONNECTICUT EPISCOPATE
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APPENDIX I
THE CONNECTICUT EPISCOPATE
SAMUEL SEABURY: 1784-1796
T HE newly consecrated bishop who arrived in Connecticut in 1785 was not generally welcome as a Churchman, yet could hardly be regarded as a foreigner. He was descended from John Seabury, who had settled in Boston in 1639. His grandmother, Elizabeth Alden Seabury, was a grand-daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of the Mayflower. Elizabeth and her husband, John, moved to Stonington and in 1704 to Groton. There the bishop's father, Samuel, was born in 1706. Although the college has no record, family tradition says that he was a resident at Yale in 1722, when certain members of the faculty became Episcopalians. He was graduated from Harvard in 1724, and two years later be- came the Congregational pastor in North Groton.
The incident at Yale perhaps inspired the young preacher's inclination toward the Church of England. It was confirmed by his marriage to Abigail Mumford, whose father was a leader in the parish of Wickford, Rhode Island, and later was one of the first wardens of St. James's, New London. Probably nobody was surprised when Samuel resigned and was ordained in England in 1731. After serving as missionary at New London for about ten years, he became the pastor at St. George's in Hempstead, Long Island, until his death in 1764.
Samuel's son, the future bishop, was born in North Groton on November 30, 1729 - the day of Saint Andrew, patron of Scot- land, where the bishop was to be consecrated. His father trained him for Yale, where he was graduated in 1748. Too young to be ordained, young Samuel studied theology with his father and be- came a catechist in Huntington, Long Island. It was the custom of prospective priests to study medicine, and the fame of the Uni- versity of Edinburgh in that field beckoned him to Scotland. Many years later he used to entertain friends by relating how he had
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once worshipped in secret with a congregation of the persecuted Scottish Episcopal Church.
The pleasant sojourn abroad led to his ordination as dea- con and priest in December, 1753. The S. P. G. appointed him missionary at New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he served briefly but effectively. At one time he visited the vacant parish in Jamaica, Long Island. On his journeys by way of Staten Island he would stop at the home of a retired Philadelphia merchant, Edward Hicks, who had an attractive daughter, Mary. Before long, she and the young missionary were married in New York City by Seabury's father. They had six children, and from their son Charles are descended the Seaburys of New York.
The parishioners in Jamaica deeply respected and wanted Seabury, and in December of 1756 he became their rector. He stayed about ten years, holding their loyalty and strengthening their spiritual fibre, which had been "languid". His father's death loosened the ties with Long Island, and he accepted a call to St. Peter's in Westchester. He was diligent in pastoral work, but also found time for theological writing, and to act as secretary of the New York clergy conventions. There he formed friendships with the Connecticut clergy which later influenced their choice of him as bishop.
Seabury's facile pen earned him a reputation as one of his Church's most eminent defenders. His part in the founding of King's College (now Columbia University) in New York involved him in a newspaper controversy with Presbyterian leaders. He became widely known also as a champion of the party in favor of an American episcopate. These literary wars were mild in com- parison with the one provoked by his defense of the Crown. His courage and ability as a Loyalist pamphleteer earned him a doctor's degree from Oxford University, and the cordial dislike of American patriots. They were enraged especially by his four pamphlets, signed "A. W. Farmer" and known to historians as Letters of a Westchester Farmer.
The war inflicted upon him a host of troubles that would have crushed almost any man with a less granitic character. The patriot militia pursued him; cavalrymen arrested him in his school and carried him to New Haven, where he was paraded and imprisoned; he was quizzed by committees, and often locked himself in his
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SAMUEL SEABURY First Bishop of Connecticut 1784-1796
(From the Diocesan Archives )
THOMAS CHURCH BROWNELL Third Bishop of Connecticut 1819-1865
(From an engraving in the Evergreen magazine, Vol. 4, 1847.)
room or fled secretly to neighbors' homes. Soldiers even plundered his farm and beat his children to make them tell his hiding place. When the situation became intolerable, he took refuge on Long Island, and later in New York. There he lived on credit, the prac- tice of medicine, gifts from the fund for suffering clergymen, and his small pay as a chaplain. During those gloomy years he lost his wife and witnessed the misery of his many fellow refugees. The crowning blow was the news of peace negotiations, which seemed to leave him no choice but the bitter road of exile. But a message came from Connecticut in the spring of 1783, and he sailed to Eng- land, not as an exile but as a candidate for consecration as a bishop.
After his consecration, Seabury lingered in England for several months on business. His return was further delayed by rough weather, and by a stop at Halifax and a visit to his daughter Abigail (the wife of the Rev. Colin Campbell, Jr.), in St. John, New Brunswick. On June 20, 1785 he reached Newport, and there preached his first sermon as a bishop in the United States. A week later he arrived in New London, where he resided until his death as the rector of St. James's Church.
His public position was somewhat painful because of his previous loyalty to the Crown. The ministers of the established Congregational Church were offended by his assumption of the title of bishop. But there was so much to accomplish that he was too busy to be seriously worried by opposition. On August 2, at Middletown, he held the first meeting of the Connecticut clergy, who acknowledged him as their bishop. His first charge stressed the need of more careful scrutiny of the qualifications of candi- dates for ordination. After dissolving the "convention", he met the clergy in "Convocation" to consult them on the spiritual interest, welfare, and discipline of the Diocese.
The next few years were so crowded by tasks of adminis- tration and spiritual ministrations that his episcopate was one of the busiest in the history of the American Church. Under his guidance, Convocation adapted the prayers for the state to American inde- pendence, and these were authorized in his first pastoral letter, dated August 12, 1785.
Remembering his solemn pledge to his consecrators, Sea- bury consulted the clergy and in 1786 published a slightly altered version of the Scottish Communion Office of 1764. He justified
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the action by his belief that bishops in the Apostolic Church had provided a liturgy with the advice of their clergy. The remark- able feature of the office was its use of the Institution, Oblation, and Invocation in the primitive order. It placed the Prayer of Humble Access immediately before Communion, where it stands since the latest revision. The clergy immediately approved and older priests continued to use it for nearly fifty years.
In the meantime, the bishop was travelling almost incessantly over rough roads and in all weather to perform episcopal acts which had long been neglected. Most Episcopalians in New England expected him to be their bishop, and he occasionally visited Long Island. In 1791 he traveled nearly four hundred miles, and spent over six weeks in visiting parishes in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. His journal, from May, 1791 to November, 1795, records between fifteen hundred and two thousand miles of travel, about eighteen hundred con- firmations, fifteen ordinations, and the consecration of six churches and one bishop, Thomas J. Claggett of Maryland. Candidates for ordination came to him continually, even from the Middle and Southern States. In less than eleven years he ordained ninety- three deacons and priests; his last ordination was that of Alexander Viets Griswold, who in 1811 became bishop of all New England except Connecticut. He confirmed thousands of persons, including over four hundred on one occasion. One wonders how Seabury found time to write his many closely-reasoned sermons, addresses, and theological essays.
Such incessant toil wore down the magnificent physique that had withstood the pain of bereavement and the shocks and trials of revolution. Late in 1794, for the first time, illness forced him to miss an appointment. His labors ended suddenly on February 25, 1796, when he was seized by a violent heart attack, while visiting the home of a warden in New London. The Rev. Abraham Jarvis of Middletown trembled as he read the letter announcing the event, and wrote to the exiled Samuel Peters in London: "By his death we have suffered a loss to our church, perhaps irreparable."1
Seabury's short episcopate witnessed an astonishing recovery from damages of the Revolution and the succeeding depression. The energy which he poured into the Diocese strengthened the
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faithful and aroused the languid. This growth occurred in an era which historians generally have considered as the ebb tide of re- ligion in the United States. Seabury's teaching became the standard of his Diocese, and defined the principles which were to influence the Episcopal Church in many other states.
His teaching and personality have made him a controversial figure, even to the present day. In his own time he was generally well received, although some critics magnified his sulky into a regal coach and abused him as a pensioned "Tory". At first there was so much hostility that Jeremiah Leaming even wrote that if he had known of Seabury's "many personal enemies", he would not have himself refused the episcopal election. Seabury, however, could "live down" the enmity for he was not a petty man. He rose to the challenge, performing his tasks with great patience, courage, and devotion. After one severe trial, he wrote in his journal: "To bear abuse and reviling language and misrepresentation for His sake who bore them all for me is my duty."2
His endurance owed much to a resolute character firmly grounded upon a massive and robust frame. His physical solidity stands out in the portrait painted by Thomas Spence Duché, which was presented to the Diocese in 1813 by Bishop White of Penn- sylvania. People were impressed by his high forehead, full face, and dark gray eyes, and were somewhat awed by his great dignity and resonant voice. With all his earnestness and solemnity, he was naturally cheerful and agreeable and witty in conversation. The kindness beneath the bluff exterior appeared especially in his care of the poor and afflicted, who remembered his many charities and free medical service, and genuinely mourned him.
Seabury was a champion of revealed religion, which he believed could be reconciled with reason. His sermons were de- livered with a dramatic flavor not usual in his time. They were grounded upon a profound knowledge of the Bible, and empha- sized the sacraments, faith and polity of the Church, without neglecting practical virtue and personal religion. If they were sometimes controversial, they were also charitable, and people paid him the compliment of reading them. His cardinal doctrines were the apostolic origin of the ministry, baptismal regeneration, and the necessity of confirmation, penance, and frequent and worthy reception of the Eucharist.
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Bishop Seabury grew used to the criticism that he was ambitious and loved power. But he was always ready to let an- other be bishop and to yield the office of presiding bishop to Provoost. Some said that he used pompous language and titles. But he did not invent them; they had been used by bishops for centuries, without objection. Others accused him of disloyalty to the national government, but Governor Huntington and the Council of Connecticut were delighted to receive his letter expressing friendliness to the government and enclosing a prayer for Congress adopted by Convocation. He was said to be arbitrary and un- reasonable in discipline, but his letters to refractory clergymen are simply firm and dignified. It is sometimes charged that he was hasty in securing consecration. But he waited long and pa- tiently, and went to Scotland only after informing the English archbishops. The critical Doctor George Horne, Dean of Canter- bury, admitted that Seabury had taken the right course.
Today Seabury's real significance is appreciated. His con- secration owed nothing to any state-church, and originated a distinctive, free and American office of bishop. His influence helped to make the American Episcopal Church more than a nationalistic religion and a community agency - something new and fresh in the stagnant, controlled ecclesiasticism of the eighteenth century.
Within fifty years after his death, Seabury became a vene- rated figure. In 1847 the Diocese decided to commemorate him in the new St. James's Church, New London. The famous architect, Richard Upjohn, designed the memorial, which was paid for by subscriptions and completed in 1849. The bishop's remains were removed from the cemetery and deposited inside the stately Gothic church, in a tomb bearing this inscription: "He was duly qualified to discharge the duties of the Christian and the Bishop".
In 1883-1885 the Diocese celebrated the organization of the American Episcopal Church and Seabury's part in it. Bishop Williams proclaimed a thanksgiving on Easter Day, March 25, 1883, the centennial of the election. The Convention of 1883 opened with Morning Prayer, read by Samuel F. Jarvis, a grand- son of Seabury's friend, Abraham Jarvis. He was assisted by George D. Johnson, a great-grandson of Samuel Johnson, founding father of the Church in Connecticut; Thomas Brinley Fogg, a
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grandson of one of Seabury's electors; and Samuel Hart, a de- scendant of a Yale alumnus who declared for episcopacy in 1722. Bishop Williams preached the sermon and was assisted at Holy Communion by Seabury's great-grandson, William J. Seabury, and by his biographer, Eben Edwards Beardsley. They used the paten and chalice always employed by Seabury in New London.
The centennial of the consecration was marked by special services and addresses in New London and Hartford, and at the opening of Convention. It was observed also by a splendid ser- vice in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, with a sermon by the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. In August, 1885, Bishop Williams cele- brated the centennial of the first ordinations in Middletown.
These events strengthened Connecticut's ties with the Church of Scotland. Bishop Williams visited Aberdeen with Doctors Beardsley and Hart, bearing addresses of thanks from the House of Bishops and the Connecticut Convention. The Dio- cese expressed its deep gratitude to the Scottish Church by the gift of a specially designed chalice and paten.
The relations have been constantly renewed. After 1927, in spite of depression and war, the Diocese contributed to a me- morial to Seabury in the rebuilt cathedral of Aberdeen. Bishops Brewster, Acheson, and Budlong lent their earnest support to the work, which was dedicated in 1948, in the presence of Bishop Budlong, Bishop Coadjutor Gray, and several other American bishops. After becoming the Diocesan, Bishop Gray served as one of the Presenting Bishops at the Consecration in Aberdeen of the Rt. Rev. Edward F. Easson as Bishop of Aberdeen and Ork- ney, and visited the diocese again during the Lambeth Con- ference of 1958.
Upon nomination of the Bishop of Connecticut, the Rev. H. Francis Hine, Rector of Trinity Church, Torrington, was made an American Canon of St. Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen. Upon his retirement, he became an Honorary Canon, being suc- ceeded in the Canonry by the Rev. Douglas W. Kennedy, Rector of St. James's Church, West Hartford, who was nominated by Bishop Gray. The Rev. John V. Butler, Jr., Rector of Trinity Church, Princeton, New Jersey (later Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York), upon nomination of Bishop Gray, was made the other American Canon. The Provosts of St. Andrew's
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Cathedral, Aberdeen, are Honorary Canons of Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford. The sesquicentennial of the consecration was observed by services throughout the Diocese, a huge meeting in New Haven with historical addresses, and an exhibition of Sea- bury memorabilia at the Yale University Library.
The Diocese had already succeeded in preserving the old rectory or "Glebe House" in Woodbury, where Seabury was elected. A group of friends presented it to Bishop Williams as a Christmas present in 1892, and the title was vested in the Bishop of Con- necticut. Inspired by Bishop Acheson's enthusiasm, after 1922 Church people began to restore the house to its state in 1783. They also raised an endowment, which is supervised by the Sea- bury Society for the Preservation of the Glebe House. Under the auspices of Bishops Budlong and Gray, the enterprise has made the house a carefully tended shrine to Seabury's memory.
ABRAHAM JARVIS: 1797-1813
The bishop's ancestors were Massachusetts Puritans who later settled on Long Island. From there his father, Samuel, moved with his wife (Naomi Brush) to Norwalk. There Abraham, the ninth of their ten children, was born on May 5, 1739. About that time Samuel changed from the Congregational to the Episcopal Church. He became so ardent that he punished some of his boys when he caught them at a Whitefield revival meeting.
His zeal as a Churchman was tempered by enough common sense to let Noah Welles, the learned Congregational minister at Stamford, prepare young Abraham for Yale. The family has cherished a homespun legend that he studied in the evening by the oily flare of a pitch-pine knot. His eyes survived that ordeal, and he read without glasses and wrote firmly to the day of his death.
The youth was marked for the priesthood and soon after graduation became a lay-reader at Middletown. The people re- cognized his sturdy qualities and insisted that he must go to Eng- land for ordination and then return as their pastor. For a short time he lived in the home of Thomas B. Chandler, rector of St. John's in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey, and there he was indoc- trinated in the strictest High principles.
Jarvis voyaged to England in the autumn of 1763, and in
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February, 1764 was ordained deacon and priest. Like many or- dinands, he lingered for several months to enjoy the flavor of England. His journal narrates several sight-seeing trips, including a walk from London to Windsor, and a description of Windsor Castle and its lovely grounds. When he returned to Connecticut during the annual election and attended the election-day sermon at Hartford, he received a foretaste of the enmity that later was to beset him. The preacher, pointing directly at him, asked, "What do they not deserve, who cross the Atlantic to bring in Episcopal tyranny and superstition among us!"
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