USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 11
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65. Cutler, Sermon, p. 21. By 'new church' Cutler meant that the society in 1827 had only had a settled minister for five years (since 1822), and that it found the idea of 'gradation of authority' in the clerical ranks, and the liturgies of the prayer book 'new' things. The more con- genial atmosphere of a Congregational society deprived Christ Church parish of a number of families [who] withdrew from that Church' in 1832. JED, 1834, p. 10; JM, 1832, p. 27. The town of Quincy was organizedfroma section of Braintreein 1792. Cook, Historical Data, p. 55. Episcopal clergymen who were near relatives of Ben-
jamin Clarke Cutler were: the Rt. Rev. Samuel Parker, the Revs. Samuel Parker, Benjamin Clarke Cutler Parker, Theodore Edson, and Nicholas Hoppin. See the Rev. Abner Morse, A.M., A Genealogical Record of Several Families Bearing the Name of Cutler in the United States (Boston, 1867), passim.
66. The Rev. Samuel B. Babcock, Rec- tor, A Historical Discourse etc. (Dedham,
Mass., 1846), p. 16; JM, 1795, p. 48; 1813, p. 120; 1836, p. 23.
67. The leases of St. Paul's property in 1827 netted $700 annually. Erastus Worth- ington, The History of Dedham From 1635 . . . to 1827 (Boston, 1827), p. 125; 'Ma- dame Esther Sprague' gave $500 to the parish in 1807. Babcock, Discourse, p. 15. Babcock, a Harvard graduate (1830), was made a deacon by Bishop Griswold in 1832, served at St. Paul's from that time, was ordained by Bishop Griswold in 1833, and remained as rector of St. Paul's until his death in 1873. Batchelder, Eastern Diocese, II, 73.
68. Francis S. Drake, The Town of Rox- bury (Roxbury, 1878), p. 210; JED, 1833, p. 13; 1834, p. 15.
69. The Rev. Mark Howe, later first Bishop of Central Pennsylvania, was one of the notable group of Brown graduates who ministered in the diocese; he was Class of 1828. He served as secretary of the Eastern Diocese for 1836 and the two ses- sions of 1837. JED, 1836, 1832, Jan. 1838.
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spite a large debt on the property in 1843, St. James' stood sixth in number of communicants among the churches of the Diocese of Massachusetts.70 An American-type chapel of ease of St. James', Roxbury, provided Episcopal services from 1840. Three miles from St. James', 'in the beautiful village of Jamaica Plain', grew up an Episcopal society as part of Howe's 'parochial cure'. By 1842 this society had built a church seating some 230 persons and owned an acre of land next to the church. Bishop Griswold consecrated this chapel by the name of St. John's Church in 1841. St. John's was first organized as a parish in 1843. Bishop Griswold encouraged this church in 1842, by visiting it three times.71 The proximity of Roxbury to Boston created a 'natural alliance' which subsisted be- tween them, aiding the church in the former place. It also illustrat- ed a contrast between the crowded state of one [Boston], and the romantic beauties of the other', which had early made Roxbury a site for country seats of some Bostonians. 72
Unlike the counties north and west of Boston, Plymouth County had no commercial or manufacturing centers comparable to Salem or Lowell. The population of Plymouth County, too, numbered somewhat less than other mainland counties having Episcopal so- cieties.73 The three Plymouth parishes of Marshfield, Hanover, and Bridgewater were small.74 The two latter parishes had some endow- ments in the original form of real estate. Dislike of the Episcopal Church in Hanover centered around the Stockbridge family, which was suspected to have been Loyalist in outlook. The parish grew slowly, however, and built a new St. Andrew's Church, which was
70. JED, 1835, p. 12; 1836, p. 11; 1842, p. 14; JM, 1843, pp. 62, 94. St. Anne's, Lowell, ranked fifth in the diocese. The other four were Boston parishes. Roxbury stood eighth in population among Massa- chusetts cities and towns in 1840. Hay- ward, Gazetteer, pp. 321-329.
71. JM, 1840, p. 27; 1841, pp. 41-42; 1843, p. 62; JED, 1841, p. 17; 1842, p. 14.
72. Hayward, Gazetteer, pp. 254-255. Martin Brimmer had as his home the origi- nal estate of Sir Francis Bernard on Jamai-
ca Pond. Drake, Roxbury, pp. 428-429. From the 'center' of Boston to the 'center' of Roxbury was three miles.
73. Of mainland counties east of Wor- cester, only Barnstable County, with no Episcopal society in 1843, had less popu- lation than Plymouth. Hayward, Gazetteer, P· 329.
74. Total communicants in Plymouth County in 1843 was 197; St. Andrew's had 129 of this figure. JM, 1843, p. 94.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
the first church consecrated by Bishop Griswold in Massachusetts. 75 Griswold confirmed sixty-four persons in St. Andrew's in 1842, which trebled the number of communicants reported two years before.
The three parishes in Bristol County at Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford were all incorporated after 1819. St. Thomas', Taun- ton, which dated its origin from 1739-40, was actually a new parish dating from 1820, but 'retaining the same name thanks to a proper reverence for the past'.76 Bishop Griswold in his last visit to Taun- ton, found St. Thomas' 'recovering' from a change in ministers, Bent being the incumbent.77 The Church of the Ascension, Fall River, and Grace Church, New Bedford, being more in the sphere of Rhode Island's influence than that of Boston, grew up from early missionary efforts by the Rhode Island Clerical Convocation. The Church of Rome preceded the Episcopal society in New Bedford by some fifteen years, but in Fall River, St. Mary's Roman Catholic parish was organized the same year as the Church of the Ascen- sion.78 Both Fall River and New Bedford were large towns before
75. The histories of Trinity, Marshfield, St. Andrew's, Hanover, and Trinity, Bridgewater, appear in L. S. Richards, History of Marshfield (Plymouth, 1901), I, 95; Marshfield Tercentenary Committee, Marshfield . .. 1640-1940 (Marshfield, Mass., 1940), p. 107; Samuel Cutler, Rec- tor, Sermon . . . [of] November 8, 1846 (Boston, 1848), passim; John S. Barry, An Historical Sketch of . . . Hanover (Boston, 1853), p. 79; Nahum Mitchell, History of ... Bridgewater . . . (Boston, 1840), pp. 51, 152; JED, 1842, p. 13. Mr. Cutler of St. Andrew's was occasionally 'ministering to the little flock in Marshfield'. JED, 1842, p. 13. He was not of the Benjamin Clarke Cutler family.
76. The Rev. N. T. Bent, Rector, A Dis- course Historical of St. Thomas' Church, Taunton ... Easter-Day, 1844 (Taunton, Mass., 1844), p. 21. The rector made the following comment about the Episcopal Church in New England: "It is true that
the Protestant Episcopal Church was com- pletely organized in the United States soon after the declaration of peace. . . . But most of her old parishes, especially in the coun- try towns, were slow to feel her progress. There, changes are slower and prejudices more stereotyped to this day. New Eng- land has not a few among her worthy sons, whom it is hard to convince, that a Church- man is not a monarchist-a Bishop a would-be Pope, and the whole Episcopal Church a secret worker for foreign domi- nation.' Ibid., pp. 18-19.
77. JED, 1842, p. 14.
78. JM, 1837, pp. 31-33; [J. F. Kelley and Adam Mackie,] History of the Churches of New Bedford, etc. (New Bedford, 1869 [1854]), pp. 8, 109. Both the Roman Cath- olic and Protestant Episcopal societies changed their original names, which were St. Jean Baptist and Christ Church. A. S. Phillips, The Phillips History of Fall River (Fall River, Mass., 1945), II, 30.
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any Episcopal societies were introduced there. Unlike Lowell, and Pawtucket in Rhode Island, no one religious society received en- couragement from the mill operators or from the proprietors of firms in the whaling industry.79 New Bedford's commerce relied upon peaceful intercourse among nations for its successful work- ing, and a threat of war in 1837 slowed down the prosperity of the town temporarily, and threatened Grace parish with hard times. The near conjunction of unusual water power with a seaport was to lead to the eventual establishment of half a dozen Episcopal socie- ties in Fall River. 80
Barnstable and Dukes Counties had no Episcopal societies in 1843. The one parish in Nantucket County, Trinity, presented twenty-two candidates for confirmation by Bishop Griswold in his final visitation to this southern outpost of the Massachusetts dio- cese. He reported that a debt 'still lies heavily upon them'. Further "change and derangement in the chancel, desk, etc.', he called 'superstitious fooleries of the dark ages of the church'.81 This con- demnation of Trinity's and its rector's slant toward ritualism was Bishop Griswold's bequest to his successor, Manton Eastburn.
On the basis of this final survey of Bishop Griswold's of the Dio- cese of Massachusetts, and the facts which underlay it, although small in membership, the Church in Massachusetts was organized on a strong and permanent foundation. The numerical position of
79. In 1846 Fall River had twelve churches, while New Bedford had seven- teen. Hayward, Gazetteer, p. 149, 213. In Pawtucket, Samuel Slater and David Wil- kinson were the 'Principal Patrons' of St. Paul's Church and parish at its organiza- tion in 1816. Rev. Edward H. Randall, A Discourse [on] the Fiftieth Anniversary of . . . St. Paul's Church, Pawtucket, R. I. (Paw- tucket, 1868), p. 8. See also JRI, 1835, p. 33.
80. Hayward, Gazetteer, pp. 147 ff., 211 ff .; JM, 1837, p. 23; Living Church Annual, 1951, pp. 201-202. The 'Fall River Quad- rangle' (1950) of the U. S. Geological Sur-
vey shows a fall of over 130 feet in the half mile long Quequechan, or Fall, River, which is the outlet to the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay of the Stafford and Watuppa (spring-fed) Ponds system.
81. JED, 1842, pp. 12-13. The number of Trinity's communicants was 84. The number of communicants east of Worces- ter County was 3461, or one out of 145.5 persons. The total number of communi- cants reported in the diocese was 4118, or one in 179. JM, 1843, p. 94. The national ratio in 1840 was one in 307.69. Living Church Annual, 1951, p. 26. There were 47 parishes.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts as reported by number of communicants to General Convention of 1844 was sixth. In the national census of 1840 Massachusetts ranked eighth in popula- tion. 82
82. JGC, 1844, p. 212; Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920 (Washington, Government Printing Office,
n.d.), I, 20-21. Connecticut ranked third in number of Church members, but twen- tieth in population.
CHAPTER XI
ANTON EASTBURN, already elected rector of Trinity parish on 9 October 1842, was consecrated the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts in Trinity Church, Boston, 29 De- cember 1842.1 Bishop Lawrence has written that Eastburn regard- ed the Oxford Movement as inspired by Rome; and that in regard to the Tractarians, he believed that 'even force must be brought to bear to silence these advocates of the Dark Ages and followers of the Scarlet Woman'.2 In short, Eastburn 'had brought with him from England a hostility to anything that smacked of ritualism, High Churchism, or Puseyism'.3 In the matter of ritualism, like his "revered predecessor in office', Eastburn, after two visitations to Trinity, Nantucket, reported to the diocese his grief that ‘certain peculiarities practiced by the Rector ... [and] objectionable singu- larities are still continued'.4 When Manton Eastburn succeeded Bishop Griswold, however, aside from the common, though minor, problem of the Nantucket incident, a different sort of difficulty claimed the new bishop's attention.
The very existence of the Church in Massachusetts concerned Bishop Griswold during his earlier years as diocesan. Yet now Bish- op Eastburn could not feel any uneasiness that his new parish of
1. Eastburn, born in Leeds, England, 9 Feb. 1801, came to the United States with his father; he graduated from Colum- bia in 1817, and from General Theological Seminary in 1821. He was ordained dea- con by Hobart in 1822 and ordained priest by him in 1825. Bishop Griswold and the Rev. S. F. Jarvis, in Sept. 1822, tried un- successfully to get Eastburn 'to take charge of the parish [Christ Church] in Cam- bridge, Mass.'. Eastburn was rector of the
Church of the Ascension, New York City, when elected Bishop of Massachusetts. Eastburn MSS material, unsigned typed notes, at library of General Theological Seminary; John Seely Stone, Memoir of Alexander Viets Griswold (Philadelphia, 1844), p. 280.
2. Trinity Church, in the City of Boston, 1733-1933 (Boston, 1933), p. 55.
3. Trinity Church, p. 61.
4. JM, 1844, p. 22.
[113]
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Trinity Church would 'adopt the Reformed Liturgy of Stone Chapel', as seemed likely only twelve years before.5 The Unitarian threat, which alarmed Griswold, was subsiding. By mid-nineteenth century, Bishop Eastburn observed that the Church, which has had to contend for every step of its way in New England against suspicion and hostility,-has now obtained a name and a place'.6 That the name and place of the Episcopal Church were free from danger was not true in the judgment of some of the clergy, however.
In the springing up of many sects, especially in New England and New York State, 'a terrible power' threatened the Episcopal Church under the generic name of 'fanaticism', but more specifi- cally 'Mormonism, Millerism, Perfectionism, and a hundred other isms which prevail [ed ] on every side'.7 By the very confusion which the number of competing sects created in the ideas of persons who investigated their creeds and tenets, 'some minds [turned] to for- malism and Rome; while others, roused by fear of mental or spirit- ual bondage ... become either fanatics, obeying the supposed wit- ness of the Spirit within, or rationalists, taking for their only guide the dictates of their own reason'.8 Although the rector-elect of Grace Church, Boston, the Rev. Charles Mason, told the alumni and students of General Seminary, 'that the Theologian is loudly called upon to be prepared for the danger of Romanism', this same pronouncement characterized the thinking of Bishop Eastburn.9 To Eastburn the attractiveness of new religious sects did not threaten the Church, but Romanism did. Specifically this view of the Church meant that the bishop felt it to be his duty to define the doctrines and practices of the Church in his Diocese of Massachu- setts, and then to defend and preserve them. He readily inherited from his 'revered predecessor in office' the dislike of certain pe- culiarities practised by the Rector ... in conducting the service',
5. Ralph L. Rusk, ed., The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York, 1939), I, 361, a letter of Emerson to his brother, William, of 14 Dec. 1832.
6. Rt. Rev. Manton Eastburn, D.D., A Sermon Delivered on . . . June 22, 1851 . . . [on the ] 150th Anniversary of the Venerable
Society ... (Boston, 1851), p. 19.
7. Rev. Charles Mason, A Sermon Before the Associate Alumni of the General Theolo- gical Seminary . . . June ,1847 (New York, 1847), p. 15.
8. Mason, Sermon, pp. 14-15.
9. Mason, Sermon; JM, 1844, pp. 31-35.
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at Trinity, Nantucket. Bishop Eastburn, having confirmed thirty- three candidates there within nine months, was yet 'grieved to state' that nothing had induced the standing committee or the par- ish itself to amend its rector's ways.10
To Eastburn and Mason, this period, common to all New Eng- land and New York, of 'fluctuation of religious opinion . . . [of] the dissolution of old, and the formation of new sects; [of] the rapid decline in a prevailing denomination, from a rigid system of doc- trine and discipline, to the verge of infidelity, and the utter disre- gard of all unity of faith and order'11-this period offered to the Church her opportunity to set forth her strong points. These strong points of the Church as stated by the Rev. J. S. J. Gardiner a generation earlier were, 'the discipline and doctrine of the Church . .. which has obtained the truly golden mean of piety without cant, of orthodoxy without austerity, of liberality without latitudi- narianism-'.12 The Church in the light of a via media revealed its greatest strength, and its appeal to converts from other branches of the Christian faith worked largely by means of this aspect. To the non-Churchman, then, the theology of the Church provided the golden mean of religion between the dangerous, radical, newly- formed sects, and the threatening, chronically enduring lure of Romanism.13 Were a non-Churchman to join a religious society on the basis of the wealth, education, family standing, or service to the community of its members, he would have found that the Episcopal Church shared an equal place with the Orthodox or Congrega- tional, and Unitarian Churches, save in the fewness of Episcopal Church members.14 To enlarge the membership in the Episcopal
10. JM, 1844, pp. 14, 22.
11. Annual Report of Board of Missions, by the Rev. Charles Mason', JM, 1842, p. 19.
12. J. S. J. Gardiner, A.M., Rector, A Sermon Preached . .. Before the Trustees of .. . Donations, and the Episcopal Convention of ... Massachusetts, May 25, 1813 (Bos- ton, 1813), p. 29.
13. Of the 'ism' sects that Mason named -Shakerism, Millerism, Mormonism, and Perfectionism-only the Perfectionists in-
cluded a group of families whose back- ground, wealth, and education matched the social position of the Congregational- ists, Unitarians, and Episcopalians. This fact was shown in the Poultney, Vermont, period of Perfectionism. See Robert A. Parker, A Yankee Saint, John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community (New York, 1935), pp. 64, 90.
14. A close approximation to actual fig- ures for church population' in 1845 in Boston shows Romanists 30,000 (church
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Church was a natural and obvious objective of the diocese, espe- cially in the city of Boston. Boston was, of course, the strength of the diocese, as its citizens provided for Bishop Griswold the chief means by which he was 'able to travel through this Diocese, and to visit our Churches'.15 Yet, with the great increase of wealth and population which occurred during Griswold's episcopate, virtually but two Episcopal societies had been formed in the city proper.16 Again, Boston represented a weak area in the diocese, as its Epis- copal societies had neglected for too long 'the poorer classes of the community in their provisions for public worship'.17 It is a truism today, recognized equally by all religious societies, that the most important field for missionary effort lies in that always sizable group of persons which is allied with no religious body. In the early 1840's this fact was true also. In Boston there were 'many thousands of men, women, and children, who seldom, if ever, enter [ed] a church of God, and who never . . . [would ], until sought out by the Christian missionary'.18 To the diocesan Board of Missions in 1842, the issue seemed clear. Said its secretary, Mason, "Too long have the poorer classes of the community been neglected in her [i.e., the Church's ] provisions for public worship .... The Church should be opened wide, the gospel preached freely to the poor.'19 Mason did not advocate 'opening' Trinity, or St. Paul's, or Grace Churches to the poor. Bishop Eastburn likewise could not have urged the giving up of pew-rates, one of the main sources of paro- chial income. Rather was 'opening wide the Church' the support of
membership not stated, but all baptized Romanists are members of the Church), Unitarians 18,000 (ch. mem. 2810), Or- thodox 14,500 (ch. mem. 4830), Episco- palians 6000 (ch. mem. 1631). Lemuel Shattuck, Census of Boston for the year 1845 (Boston, 1846), p. 125.
15. JED, 1827, p. 4. Griswold refers here to the Eastern Diocese.
16. The Third Census (1810) listed Boston's population at 33,787. In 1845 the city census gave 114,366. Shattuck, Census of Boston, p. 26. Grace and St. Paul's par- ishes were outstanding societies. The other
Boston Episcopal society, St. Matthew's, South Boston, was actually remote from Boston proper, and relatively unimportant in the Diocese of Massachusetts. Under its rector, Joseph H. Clinch, St. Matthew's congregation chiefly composed of the manufacturing and laboring classes .. . de- fray [ed ] the expenses of the parish, with- out pecuniary assistance from other sources'. JM, 1840, p. 22; 1841, p. 28; 1842, p. 30; 1843, p. 58; JED, 1827, p. 4. 17. JM, 1842, p. 19.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
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missions and ministers for it in sections of the community which lacked religious societies.20 When Eastburn became the diocesan, then, in 1843, the laymen of the diocese had a clear enough con- cept of what were the general needs and problems of the Church in Massachusetts.
Bishop Eastburn's first episcopal address to the diocese, 14 June 1843, contained four 'topics, more or less connected with the prosperity of our Church', given in the order of their importance: missions, theological education, church buildings, church music.21 Underlying these four topics, broadly interpreted, were the im- portant grounds of meeting and of divergence of bishop and mem- bers of his diocese.
Eastburn defined missions by stating their purpose, which was to impart 'to a dying world the knowledge of Christ and Him cruci- fied ... [both] to them ... far off, and to them ... nigh'.22 To ac- complish this goal, he urged that missions be financed by 'that stream of steady and systematized charity, which is the only scrip- tural method of supply'.23 Bishop Eastburn did not comprehend that 'sudden and spasmodic efforts' in raising money (which he did not favor) often aroused the imagination of, and dramatized the appeal to, possible benefactors. 24
On the ground of theological education, Bishop Eastburn ex- horted the diocesan trustees of General Theological Seminary to round out their numbers at the annual board meeting. As an alum- nus of that school, the bishop felt that because of the school's loca- tion and its 'course of instruction' it had and could, under the
20. St. Matthew's Church, South Bos- ton, founded in 1816, represented a part self-supporting, part missionary society sponsored originally by Christ Church and Trinity. Thomas C. Simonds, History of South Boston (Boston, 1857), pp. 158-160. The Romanist society of St. Augustine's, South Boston, started in 1819; by the 'ac- tivity and assistance' of Bishop Cheverus a church was built, and consecrated in 1833 by Bishop Fenwick. Simonds, South Boston, pp. 161-162.
21. JM, 1843, pp. 31-35.
22. JM, 1843, p. 31.
23. JM, 1843, p. 30. As rector of Grace Church, Thomas M. Clark had begun both weekly and monthly pledges in 1838. JM, 1838, p. 19; 1839, p. 25. Tithing was not in the spirit of the Episcopal Church in the sense that it was and is in the Methodist Church or the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
24. JM, 1843, p. 30.
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watchful eyes of its trustees, provide the best education for the ministry in the Church. 25 That Eastburn had found Boston some- what cold to the Episcopal Church appeared from his reference to New York as 'a city which is the centre of information, [and ] affords the students great facilities for acquiring an extensive knowledge of our Church, and of its affairs'.26 Putting his defense against Ro- manism in more and better education, Eastburn cited the need at the college level also, for 'a more general diffusion of sound schol- arship among the ranks of the [future ] Clergy'.27
The bishop's third point took up the subject of church build- ings. He offered to the annual convention a plan to standardize the erection of churches by supervision of the convention or its dele- gates, and to receive money for this purpose which would be given more freely, as the givers might rely on the 'judicious expenditure' of any sums received.28 The few Episcopal churches built in the Congregational, traditionally New England meetinghouse style under Bishop Griswold, all of wood, did not strike a favorable note in Bishop Eastburn's mind. Individualist that he was, he favored what was an Upjohn Gothic style of church architecture, restricted by his own modifications, revealed in stone and wood in the Church of the Ascension, New York City. 29 Eastburn apparently favored
25. During the annual convention of 1844, the election of the Rev. Clement M. Butler to fill a vacancy brought the num- ber of trustees of General Theological Sem- inary from the diocese to eight, six clergy and two laymen. JM, 1844, pp. 59-60. In 1843-44, the faculty of General Theologi- cal Seminary were undergoing a period of questioning following a wave of anti- Romanism among a majority of the House of Bishops. The attempt to block the ordi- nation (1843) of Arthur Carey, a General Theological Seminary student, furthered the intolerance of the Rome-fearing fac- tion. The Carey case, said Perry, 'shook the American Church from its center to its circumference'. The discussion touched the Diocese of Massachusetts largely by way of Bishop Eastburn. JM, 1844, pp. 59- 60; W. S. Perry, The History of the Ameri- can Episcopal Church, 1857-1883 (Boston,
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