USA > Massachusetts > The Diocese of Western Massachusetts, 1901-1951 > Part 3
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Mr. Davies was the son of the Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Davies, Bishop of Michigan, and the consecrator of Bishop Vinton in 1902. A graduate of Yale and of the General Theological
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Seminary, he had served as curate in the Church of the Incarnation, New York City, and Rector of Christ Church, Norwich, Connecti- cut, before coming to the Diocese of Western Massachusetts as Rector of All Saints Church, Worcester. His name appears in the Journal of the second Annual Meeting of the Diocese as one of the clergy entitled to a seat, but not a vote, in the Convention. He was thirty-nine years old when elected to the episcopate.
The Consecration Service took place in All Saints Church, Worcester, on St. Luke's Day, October 18, 1911. The Rt. Rev. Daniel Syl- vester Tuttle, Presiding Bishop of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church in the United States of America and Bishop of Missouri, was the con- secrator. He was assisted by the Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, Bishop of Massachusetts, and the Rt. Rev. Chauncey Bunce Brewster, Bishop of Connecticut. The preacher was the Rt. Rev. Frederick Burgess, Bishop of Long Island.
Bishop Davies began his episcopate in a Diocese the foundations of which had been well and wisely laid by his predecessor, Dr. Vinton. The Episcopalians of western Massachusetts had now become more conscious of their dioc- esan solidarity and less inclined to look toward Boston for advice and example. The Diocese was beginning to assume an individuality of its
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own, and was quite ready to stand upon its own ecclesiastical feet. On the foundation laid by Dr. Vinton, Bishop Davies was now to build a superstructure of expanding missionary work throughout the twenty-five years of his episco- pate. Inevitably, the work of the Diocese was both handicapped and complicated by the exist- ing world situation. A world war and a world depression discouraged the erection of church buildings and the establishment of new mis- sions, while the easy money and the rash extrav- agancies of the late nineteen-twenties encour- aged the less thoughtful into adventures which in saner times would have been regarded as in- defensible. That the Diocese did not become involved in injudicious expenditures was large- ly due to the restraining hand of the Bishop and his council of advice. In his first Annual Ad- dress to the Convention, Bishop Davies made it clear that he felt the time was now ripe for increased emphasis upon a diocesan program. The only strictly diocesan enterprise in the past eleven years had been the purchase of an epis- copal residence at 1154 Worthington Street. Now the Bishop suggested the purchase of a Diocesan House in which the various depart- ments of church work might find a center. Meanwhile, as a temporary substitute, he se- cured some small rooms on the upper floor of an office building at 1379 Main Street. He also
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pointed out the need of a diocesan paper to en- able the Bishop to speak directly to the people of his Diocese. The first issue of The Pastoral Staff appeared in October, 1912, and the publi- cation has continued in unbroken succession to the present day. In 1901 the Diocese received $100,000.00 as an endowment fund. This fund still remained at the same sum. Bishop Davies now suggested that the fund should be in- creased to $200,000.00 and thus make it possi- ble to reduce the assessments on the parishes and missions for diocesan support. The Bishop kept the ideal of a larger endowment constantly before the church people of the Diocese, and at the close of his episcopate the Endowment Fund had reached $201,697.00. The Diocesan House, however, still remains a future hope.
Missionary activity within the Diocese con- tinued to increase year by year, and the prob- lem of providing churches and chapels became more pressing. In 1916 there were unchurched missions in Southbridge, Palmer, West Spring- field, Whitinsville and Turners Falls. The Bishop's Church Extension Fund was organized to meet this lack of church buildings. Subscrib- ers to the fund gave five dollars annually. It was estimated that five hundred subscriptions (together with what could be raised locally ) would build one church each year. The fund continued its useful service until the need for
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church buildings was met and the period of missionary expansion was over.
The Church Pension Fund was the most notable achievement of the Episcopal Church in 1917. Heretofore the "aged and indigent" clergy had received meager help from annual parish offerings. The new pension fund was placed upon an actuarial basis by an assessment upon every parish and mission throughout the country and was carefully estimated to produce the needed pension whenever a clergyman might retire. The success of the plan depended largely upon the raising of a considerable sum of money to cover the unpaid premiums of clergy ordained before 1917. Bishop Davies reported to the Convention of that year: "The vast task of raising the reserve for accrued liabilities of the Church Pension Fund has been accomplished. The Church rallied to the call, and around the magnificent venture of faith of one man, William Lawrence, Bishop of Massa- chusetts. Men have left some fine memorials behind them. Few will leave a finer than he. Generation after generation of our clergy and their families will bless his name." It is un- doubtedly true that no single undertaking of the Episcopal Church in this century has done more for the welfare of the Church than the establish- ment of this Fund, which assures to the clergy a reasonable financial protection in old age.
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On January 5, 1918, the Venerable Charles James Sniffen was called to the larger life. He came to the Diocese in 1902 as assistant minis- ter of St. Paul's Church, Stockbridge. In 1906 he became Diocesan Missionary. The office of Archdeacon of the Diocese was conferred upon him by the Convention of 1912. In the twelve years of his service as a missionary there were few roads in the Diocese that he did not travel in all sorts of weather. He was an indefatigable worker in that much neglected part of the Lord's vineyard, the many lonely farmhouses in the rural portions of the Diocese. He com- piled a list of these neglected persons which, in number, would have been a credit to any of the larger diocesan churches. At his death, the Archdeacon's fertile field was divided into two parts, and a succession of clergymen appointed to carry on the work. These diocesan mission- aries had varying success, but in the course of years, the number of our rural communicants has steadily dwindled. The present method of making a part of each rural field the direct re- sponsibility of the nearest parish or mission is perhaps the best that can be devised under the circumstances, but it falls far short of an ade- quate ministry to our rural Church people.
The war years took their toll of the youth of the Church for service in the armed forces. Churches were closed because it was impossible
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to get fuel to heat them. Services were held in the crowded rooms of parish houses and even in rented halls and lodge rooms which, by some administrative quirk, could obtain an allotment of fuel. There was an insistent call upon the clergy for chaplains' duties. The Bishop urged upon all vestries the need of increasing the sal- aries of the clergy to meet the rising cost of liv- ing. For some two years a collection had been taken throughout the Diocese on the second Sunday in June for a fund to purchase a Dioc- esan House. Apparently, it was not a popular fund, for in 1918 it had amounted to $902.00. The Bishop asked that the offerings for this fund be omitted for the present. They are still omitted.
On September 18, 1918, Bishop Davies sailed from New York as a secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association on special service in France. For three months he was on duty as a preacher to the American troops in their various barracks and camps. Twice, by permission, he celebrated the Holy Communion in the ruined Cathedral of Verdun. In his diary he noted that he held service and preached in German to two thousand prisoners of war in the prison camp at Rennes. In December he was back in Springfield, busily engaged in the duties of his office.
The Bishop's address to the Convention of
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1919 contains a list of those from the Diocese who had died in the service of their country. At the head of the list is the following notation: "The Rev. Walton Stoutenburg Danker, beloved Rector of St. John's, Worcester, and Dean of the Convocation of Worcester, Captain and Chaplain of the 104th U. S. Infantry, holder of the Croix de Guerre, died of shell wounds in France on June 18, 1918, the first American chaplain to give his life. Faithful priest, tender pastor, brave soldier, loyal friend!"
In 1920 Bishop Davies was again in Europe, this time for the purpose of making an episcopal visitation to the American Churches abroad. In his absence, his Address to the Diocese of Western Massachusetts was read by the Rev. Lewis G. Morris, Rector of All Saints Church, Worcester. The address was unusually em- phatic as to the necessity of an increased endow- ment for the Diocese and an increase in clergy salaries. By action of the Convention, the sal- aries of the diocesan clergy were printed in the Journal of 1920 and continued to be so printed until and including the Journal of 1940.
There was a strong feeling in this Conven- tion that Bishop Davies should be provided with assistance, and a committee was appointed to determine what form it should take. The committee decided upon an archdeacon and fixed his salary and place of residence. They
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even selected the man for the position: the Rev. Marshall E. Mott, Rector of St. John's Church, North Adams. Bishop Davies, when notified by cable of the committee's action, expressed his agreement, and on October 1, 1920, Mr. Mott became Archdeacon of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts.
Archdeacon Mott's entire ministry had been spent within the Diocese, in Leominster, Web- ster, and North Adams. He had been regularly elected Secretary of the Convention from 1907 on. He was well known in the Diocese and well fitted for the work that he was called upon to do. The new Archdeacon was given the super- vision of the missionary work of the Diocese with special emphasis upon the physical con- dition of the mission buildings. Bishop and Archdeacon, working together in mutual har- mony, brought the missions of the Diocese to a steadily advancing state of development. The Archdeacon was an energetic and efficient man with a high ideal of the duties required of the missionary clergy. He did not "suffer fools gladly." Extremely prompt and meticulously accurate in the performance of his own duties, he expected the same promptness and accuracy on the part of others. Woe betide the hapless vicar whose careless work and overdue reports brought down upon him the scathing comments of the Archdeacon! To his mind there was no
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excuse for not doing one's obvious duty. Need- less to say, under such leadership the mission- ary work of the Diocese progressed. Indiffer- ent workmen soon sought refuge in other fields.
The growing number of permanent and temporary committees, which seemed to be necessary for the efficient operation of the busi- ness of the Diocese, led to the suggestion for the creation of a diocesan council. In the Con- vention of 1921, a committee was appointed to consider the possibility of such a council. Mean- while, the Bishop had appointed a council of representative members of the Diocese. It was without canonical authority and was to serve in a purely advisory capacity. The committee brought back a discouraging report to the Con- vention of 1922, and for some years the unca- nonical council continued to be appointed by the Bishop.
The multiplied detail of diocesan business soon made the little room on the upper floor of 1379 Main Street wholly inadequate for a dioc- esan office. After the beginning of Mr. Mott's work as archdeacon, in 1920, new offices were found at 25 Harrison Avenue and Miss Maude A. Young was added to the diocesan staff as secretary both to the Bishop and the Archdea- con. The Convention of 1924 felt that there should be a further increase in the diocesan staff by the selection of a man learned in the
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law as advisor to the Bishop in legal matters. A new section was added to the Canons provid- ing for a Chancellor to be nominated by the Bishop and elected by the Convention. Bishop Davies nominated James Thayer Gaskill, a lawyer and a communicant of All Saints Church, Worcester. He was elected by the Convention and served with ability until his resignation in 1933. The wisdom of providing legal advice in diocesan affairs has been fully justified.
For some years the Bishop, with the assist- ance of the Trustees for the Diocese, had been quietly engaged in gathering a second one hun- dred thousand dollars to be added to the similar fund received from the Diocese of Massachu- setts in 1901. It was hoped that by thus in- creasing the endowment fund to two hundred thousand dollars it would be possible to relieve, in some measure, the burden of the percentage assessments upon the current expenses of the parishes and missions for the support of the Diocese. It was soon found that the relief was not too substantial. In 1926 the assessment for the support of the Diocese was two per cent. This was a reduction of only one half of one per cent from the previous year. It was, however, the lowest it had ever been since 1905. Un- fortunately the assessment did not even cover the budgeted expenses and bills had to be met
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by the device of using the working balance. The truth is the steady growth of the work which the Diocese was doing did not permit, for long, any decrease in assessments. Bishop Davies pointed out that there was still great need of further endowment, and asked for yet another one hundred thousand dollars. To date, twenty-five years later, the endowment fund remains at $212,688.14.
In 1926 the Diocese of Western Massachu- setts was twenty-five years old. That year also marked the fifteenth anniversary of Bishop Davies' consecration. There was no public ob- servance of either anniversary. In the fall of the same year, under the authority of the Synod of the Province of New England, the Lenox School was established for the purpose of providing, at a moderate price, a secondary education for boys under the guidance of the Episcopal Church. The record shows that the tuition was set at $700 and the enrollment figure for the first year was thirty-eight. Twenty-five years later, the tuition had increased to $1,050 and the enrollment to seventy-eight. There are now 479 boys on the alumni list, and the school property is valued at better than half a million dollars.
Another forward step in the diocesan pro- gram was made possible by a generous gift from George F. Crane of New York. In 1927 Mr.
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Crane transferred St. Andrew's Church and the adjacent manor house in the town of Wash- ington to the Trustees for the Diocese, together with an endowment of $15,000. Bishop Davies had long felt the need of a place for summer conferences, and, more especially, a holiday house for the members of the Girls' Friendly Society. The beautiful stone chapel and the commodious and attractive residence provided an ideal place for the development of the Bishop's plans. For more than ten years, Buck- steep Manor served as a holiday house and as a center for rural missionary work. However, it was found later that the girls of western Massa- chusetts did not care to spend their brief vaca- tions in the town of Washington. What they wanted was a trip to the seashore. This was natural enough for those who lived in a diocese which lacked a seacoast but it caused a decrease in the use of Bucksteep Manor by the Girls' Friendly Society, until finally the holiday house was closed, resting a while before an even more active phase of its existence began.
In 1928 three new church buildings were added to the diocesan equipment, all in the mis- sion field. Emmanuel Church, Winchendon, organized in 1888, had long been worshipping in a hired hall. The new church building was the gift of William M. Whitney, a generous citizen of the town of Winchendon and for many
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years warden of the Emmanuel Mission. St. Michael's Church, Worcester, organized in 1927, one year later bought land in the northern part of the city and erected a portable building for use as a temporary place of worship. The funds were raised partly from the community and partly from liberal assistance by the Board of Missions. St. David's Church, Agawam, was organized in 1925 and the present church build- ing was erected in 1928 to replace a portable church destroyed by a windstorm in the previ- ous year.
It was also in 1928 that the Diocese received the offer of another most generous gift. The Rev. John Moore McGann, Rector of Christ Church, Springfield, with the authorization of the wardens, vestrymen, and congregation, of- fered Christ Church, together with land, build- ings and endowments, as a Cathedral Church for the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. This offer from the Springfield parish was accepted unanimously by the Convention. The same Convention accepted the Constitution and Statutes for the new Cathedral. The Preamble to the Constitution proclaims the purpose for which the Cathedral is established.
PREAMBLE
The Cathedral is established in the Faith of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for the glory of God
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and the good of men. It is the Diocesan Church of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, belonging to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese and for their use, and also a House of Prayer for all people who may resort thereto to worship God.
The Cathedral is the official seat and spiritual home of the Bishop, and the center of Diocesan wor- ship and work. It shall set an example of constant and well-ordered worship, of effective preaching, of missionary zeal, and of devotion to good works.
The Cathedral was another forward step in the life of the Diocese. It centered the official business of the Diocese in the See City of Springfield. It provided for the Bishop a church and a pulpit from which he could address his people. It was an acceptable place for large diocesan services. It could set an example of orderly and dignified services for the parishes of the Diocese. It would, in course of time, tend to break down the isolationism of the separate parishes and unite them into a natural and spiritual whole. The Diocese was begin- ning to have a life of its own and ceasing to be merely an aggregation of parishes.
It took time to arrange the details for the establishment of the Cathedral. Property and funds had to be transferred from Christ Church to the new foundation. Three honorary Canons and three laymen, elected by the Convention, gave a touch of diocesan color to an otherwise parochial organization. The entire vestry of
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Christ Church, some seventeen men, came into the Chapter of the new Cathedral, with the pro- viso that they should continue to be elected by the Cathedral congregation "until such time as death, removal, or resignation shall have re- duced their number to nine." The voting strength of the Chapter was then, and is still, heavily weighted in favor of the parish. At last the manifold details, legal, financial and politi- cal, were settled (for the time being), upon a working basis, and with the Act of Incorpora- tion by the General Court of the Common- wealth of Massachusetts, on February 7, 1929, Christ Church became Christ Church Ca- thedral.
On February 24, 1930, in Lindley Memorial Chapel of Emmanuel Church, Boston, Bishop Davies and Annie M. Patton, widow of William S. Patton and daughter of Nathaniel Thayer of Lancaster, were united in marriage by the Rt. Rev. Charles Lewis Slattery, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts and sometime Rector of Christ Church, Springfield.
The Bishop's marriage made the existing Bishop's House not only inconvenient but much too small for the changed condition. It was bought for a bachelor and lacked many of the requisites for gracious living. The location had been chosen because it was on a direct trolley line to the Union Station. In a day when but
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few persons owned automobiles, it was easy of access for the clergy and convenient for a bishop who had to depend almost entirely upon trains for making his official visitations. Twenty-two years had passed since the house was bought. Now, both clergy and laity owned cars and the location of the Bishop's House was a matter of less importance. Only necessary repairs had been made on the Worthington Street property, and extensive renovations were imperative if it was to be made ready to receive a hostess. The most attractive part of the building was the ora- tory of St. Michael and All Angels which had been added by Bishop Vinton and is now in use as a chapel in Springfield Hospital. The prop- erty on Worthington Street was held by the Trustees for the Diocese. It was eventually sold, and in 1933 the Trustees purchased a new Bishop's House at 83 Ridgewood Terrace, more commodious, better arranged, and as easily ac- cessible.
In the Convention of 1931, the perennial question of the creation of a diocesan council by canon law again came to the front. From the time it was first proposed, in 1921, argu- ments for and against had been the subject of discussion both in and out of the Convention. There was a very general feeling that a diocesan council would decrease the authority of the Convention and place too much power in the
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hands of a small group of the clergy and laity. However, as the amount and complexity of the business affairs of the Diocese increased, the Convention began to realize that in its brief sessions it could wisely do no more than make general plans for the welfare of the Diocese, leaving the details of carrying out those plans in the hands of a smaller group. A diocesan council would be admirably fitted for this detailed work. There were many committees and commissions, headed by the highly impor- tant Board of Missions, which not only could, but did, work at cross purposes with each other. Some sort of coordination was needed to get diocesan business successfully carried out. This cooperation a diocesan council could supply. For the past ten years there had been a council of sorts, but it was an appointed group and, with the exception of the Board of Missions, without legal authority to transact diocesan business. It had done excellent work within its limited powers, but in 1931 the Convention began to think seriously of the need of delegating some of its powers to an elected council. In that year a committee was appointed to study the matter and to examine the working of councils in other dioceses. This committee reported to the Con- vention of 1932 and submitted a Canon for the creation of a council. The report was referred back to the committee for further consideration.
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To the Convention of 1933, the committee re- ported that in their opinion the Canon pre- sented at the previous meeting was highly satis- factory but that the time did not seem to be opportune for such drastic changes in the Con- stitution. They recommended that the matter be left in abeyance until the dawn of a more favorable day. The favorable day for such drastic action did not dawn until 1938, five years later. Possibly it is just as well that new ideas develop slowly in the minds of conservative churchmen and spare us the danger of being the "first by whom the new is tried," but it does seem an unnecessarily long period of germina- tion for what was, after all, only a matter of ad- ministration. When it was eventually estab- lished in 1938, the Diocesan Council with its seven or more departments (including the Board of Missions) went a long way towards making the work of the Diocese a coherent and intelligent whole.
Among the missionary problems of the Dio- cese of Western Massachusetts are a number of missions in towns of declining population, some of them with large and well-built churches which were quite beyond the ability of the local congregation to heat or to keep in repair. They cannot be sold or given away because of legal restrictions imposed by the original donor of the property. The small mission congregation
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rattles about in a large and unheated auditori- um or retires to a room in the basement where it can find more comfort. One can sympathize with the wish of the donor of a memorial that it should be permanent, but it would still be a memorial if the donor had provided for the con- tingency of a declining congregation and per- mitted the sale of the building, under proper restrictions, for a memorial library, a town hall, or a public auditorium.
It was fortunate that St. Thomas' Church, Cherry Valley, did not suffer from such restric- tions. It was situated in that part of the town of Leicester where there was a considerable population of English mill operatives. With changing times, the type of mill operative changed to those who were allergic to the Episcopal Church. The mission declined in numbers until only a few families were left. In December of 1928, the last regular services were held in Cherry Valley, though the building was used for occasional services on festival days. Meanwhile, an energetic group of Church people had been worshipping in a rented store in the adjacent town of Auburn. In 1933, to provide the Auburn congregation with a church, the building at Cherry Valley was cut into sec- tions and erected again on another foundation and in another town where, with a new lease of life, St. Thomas' Church is doing a larger work
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