USA > New York > The centennial history of the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of New York, 1785-1885 > Part 1
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THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY
OF THE
DIOCESE OF NEW YORK.
Gc 974.7 P94c 1590209
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
V
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01068 6506
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/centennialhistor00epis_0
Samuel Provoost:
THE RIGHT REV. SAMUEL PROVOOST, D.D.
FIRST BISHOP OF NEW-YORK
Grata or more Portrait in the Dosguess of ET TE.
THE
CENTENNIAL HISTORY
OF THE
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH
IN THE
DIOCESE OF NEW YORK
1785-1885
EDITED BY JAMES GRANT WILSON
INTER .
D·A
FRUCTUS
· FOLIA·
NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY I886
COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY JAMES GRANT WILSON.
1590209
PREFACE.
BY a Resolution of the New York Diocesan Convention of 1885, a Committee on Historical Publications, consisting of
THE RT. REV. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D., LL.D.,
THE REV. MORGAN DIX, D.D., D.C.L., GEN. JAS. GRANT WILSON,
THE REV. FRANCIS LOBDELL, D.D., MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN,
THE REV. WILLIAM H. BENJAMIN, D.D.,
was appointed for the purpose of preparing and publishing an account of the Proceedings of the Centenary Celebration of the Diocese, together with such other historical matter as might be deemed appropriate. In accordance with this Resolution, the volume now offered to the public by the persons appointed by the One Hundredth Convention of the Diocese has been prepared for the press by a member of the Committee, under its direction.
The Committee desire to return their sincere thanks to Bishops Coxe and Doane, and to the Rev. Drs. De Costa, Seabury, Smith, and Spencer, for valuable contributions to the CENTENNIAL HISTORY. To Mr. Benjamin Moore, who kindly supplied the steel engraving of his grandfather, Bishop Moore, used in this work, and to Miss Potter, who procured for the same purpose the admirable portrait of her father, the venerable Bishop of the Diocese, the Com- mittee also desire to express their grateful acknowledgments.
NEW YORK, May, 1886.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Proceedings at Trinity Church, New York, September, 1885 .
3
Centennial Sermon by the Rev. William J. Seabury, D.D.
8
Proceedings at St. Thomas' Church, New York, September, 1885.
45
Historical Address by the Rev. B. F. De Costa, D.D.
87
Address by the Bishop of Western New York
105
Address by the Bishop of Albany .
IJ3
Address by the Bishop of Long Island.
119
Sketches of the Bishops :
The First Bishop of New York.
I27
The Second Bishop of New York
142
The Third Bishop of New York
148
The Fourth Bishop of New York
171
The Fifth Bishop of New York.
176
The Sixth Bishop of New York.
187
The Assistant Bishop of New York
.199
Historical notices of the Parishes.
. 203
Sketches of Institutions of Learning and Charity. 369 Church Literature of the Century 43I Index. 447
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
ARTIST.
ENGRAVER.
SAMUEL PROVOOST West. Buttre .. Frontispiece
BENJAMIN MOORE ..
. Sharpless Hall. Face 142
JOHN HENRY HOBART . Paradise Buttre. 148
BENJAMIN T. ONDERDONK
Brady Ormsby 66
I71
JONATHAN M. WAINWRIGHT
Unknown Rogers 66 176
HENRY C. POTTER
Rockwood . Williams. 199
OLD TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK . . Davis. Eddy
203
WOOD ENGRAVINGS.
PRESENT TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK
3
BISHOP PROVOOST'S BOOK-PLATE.
HORATIO POTTER Huntington. ..... Johnson. .. Face 187
I29
TWENTY-SEVEN AUTOGRAPH FAC-SIMILES : Bishops Coxe, Doane, Hobart, Madi- son, Moore, Onderdonk, Horatio Potter, Henry C Potter, Provoost, Seabury, Wainwright, White; General Wilson; Rev. Drs. De Costa, Dix, Hawks, Seabury, Smith, Spencer, and the Rev. Daniel Burhans.
The rise and growth of a Church in a Nation, or any portion of a Nation, which has expanded like the United States, is perhaps the most important theme in the history of the Nation itself .- CHAPLAIN-GENERAL GLEIG.
PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY.
PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
THE opening services of the One Hundred and Second Convention of the Diocese of New York were held in Trinity Church on Wednesday, September 30, 1885, and were designed to constitute a commemoration of the Centenary of the Diocese. Arrangements had been made by a committee appointed for that purpose by the Convention.
The Bishops of the other dioceses contained within the State of New York were invited to be present and to send representatives of the clergy and laity, and invitations were also sent to the bishops of dioceses contiguous to that of New York or in its neighborhood.
The Bishops of Central New York and Pennsylvania sent apologies for their absence in the following letters, the former of which was addressed to the Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, the latter to the Assistant Bishop of New York :
HADLEY, September 21, 1885.
MY DEAR BROTHER :
Your favor of the ninth instant, requesting me to inform you whether it is my intention to be present at the approach- ing Centenary services of the Diocese of New York, came here while I was away from home. The Assistant Bishop whose personal courtesy I wish to acknowledge, has been aware for some weeks that I am obliged to forego the bene fits and enjoyments of that occasion. The Diocese of Central New York will be represented, I hope, by clerical and lay Delegates, duly appointed in accordance with the invitation with which we were honored. In many of the chief blessings which you will commemorate we are, with you, grateful partakers. Our common inheritance ought to preserve you and us in perpetual fellowship-the fellowship of the ever-
4
CENTENNIAL CHURCH HISTORY.
lasting Faith. Whatever measures of fruit, or accessions of power, are granted to you yield manifold benefits to us. We are quickened by your activities. We are enriched by your wisdom. We are enlarged by your liberality. We try to emulate your zeal. We rejoice in your abounding gifts of grace. If it seems to older nations than ours to be a rather youthful antiquity and a somewhat brief history that you are about to celebrate, the short record is not without some signal points of interest. Among these may be well reckoned, it appears to me, a manifest increase of toleration, an abate- ment of party spirit, and an advance in mutual sympathy and service among all classes of people, as both the duty and privilege of churchmen. New York has certainly done its part well towards the furtherance of church-life and the de- velopment of church-principles. Should the coming observ- ance and your ample resources prompt some fresh move- ment of general advantage to our whole Communion through- out the country, like the erection of a worthy Church-House, or the establishment of a great Theological Library in the national metropolis, or a generous Centennial missionary endowment, how beneficent its practical result would be, and how universal the thankfulness and joy.
With the highest esteem, I am,
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
F. D. HUNTINGTON.
To the Rev. MORGAN DIX, D.D.
PHILADELPHIA, September 28, 1885.
MY DEAR BISHOP POTTER :
I regret to find that I shall not be able to be present at the interesting services on Wednesday. Though my health has greatly improved yet my strength has not fully returned, and I must economize it in every way, in order to discharge the duties required of me here.
Our respective Dioceses have long been yoke-fellows in the great work of planting the Church, and fostering the Church in these Western lands. Their first Bishops were consecrated together, in the Chapel of Lambeth Palace, in London, by
5
PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
the same Prelates of the Church of England. The first Bishop of Pennsylvania consecrated three of the six Bishops of New York.
Your eminent Bishop Hobart was a native of Philadelphia, and began his ministry in this Diocese; and your own minis- try was commenced in what was then the Diocese of Penn- sylvania. Twice have the Dioceses of New York and Penn- sylvania had brothers as Bishops; and now again, has the Diocese of New York taken the son of my ever venerated and noble predecessor, and committed to him the jurisdiction of the largest Diocese in the United States.
We thus seem mortised into each other in various ways, and interlinked by many tender remembrances.
It is just one hundred years to-day since the first General Convention of the Middle and Southern States, seven in number, met in Christ Church in this city for organization, and for securing the Episcopacy, and for the revision of the Liturgy. The representatives were few, the churches were feeble, and the cause itself seemed hopeless. Yet, " the little one has become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation," because it was the Church of the Living God and the Living Christ has gone forth with His Church, conquering and to conquer.
I could not forbear writing you, my beloved brother, these few lines, and sending them to you as " the right hand of fellowship," from your father's diocese and your father's successor, to the cherished son who so well wears his father's honors, and on whose person and work I invoke God's most gracious blessing.
I remain, Very truly yours, WM. BACON STEVENS. Rt. Rev. H. C. POTTER, D.D., LL.D.
Morning Prayer was said at nine o'clock by the Rev. George W. Douglas, S.T.D., assisted by the Rev. Joseph W. Hill and the Rev. Henry Bedinger, Rector of St. Luke's Church, Matteawan, who read the first lesson for the day.
6
CENTENNIAL CHURCH HISTORY.
After a brief intermission the order for the Administra- tion of the Holy Communion was begun by the Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D., Assistant Bishop of the Diocese, as Celebrant, assisted by the Right Rev. A. N. Littlejohn, D.D., Bishop of Long Island, who read the Epistle, and the Right Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D.D., who read the Holy Gospel. The Bishops of Albany, Tennessee, and New Jersey were also present, and aided in communicating the clergy and laity.
The musical portion of the services was under the direc- tion of Mr. Arthur Messiter, Organist of Trinity Church. Morning Prayer was sung by a small but efficient choir; the full choir of the church, reinforced by additional singers, took part in the solemn celebration of the Holy Communion, the order being as follows :
Processional Hymn, No. 202. "The Church's one foundation."
Introit, Psalm cxxv. I. " All they that trust in the Lord, shall be even as the
Mount Zion, which may not be removed, but standeth fast forever." .. . Hiller. Responses to Commandments. . Cherubini.
Nicene Creed (Monotone with organ harmonies). " Round Jerusalem stand the mountains Offertory : Psalm cxxv. 2, 3, 4, 5. but peace shall be upon Israel. Hiller. Cherubini. Sanctus
Eucharistic Hymn, No. 205 : 2, 3. " Hail, sacred feast." Gloria in Excelsis. Old Chant. Recessional Hymn, No. 189. "Hark, the sound of holy voices."
Among the delegates present, and representing the other dioceses in the State of New York, were :
From the Diocese of Western New York :
The Rev. Lloyd Windsor, D.D. The Rev. E. N. Potter, D.D. The Rev. L. B. Van Dyck.
From the Diocese of Long Island : The Rev. Charles H. Hall, D.D. The Rev. William H. Moore, D. D.
From the Diocese of Albany : The Rev. William Payne, D.D. The Rev. John I. Tucker, D.D.
Mr. William B. Douglas. Prof. Hamilton Smith. Mr. Alfred Ely.
The Hon. John A. King. The Hon. Seth Low.
Chancellor Henry R. Pierson. The Hon. James Forsyth.
7
PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
From the Diocese of Central New York :
The Rev. Theodore Babcock, D.D. Mr. William H. Bogart. The Rev. Charles F. Olmsted. Mr. George J. Gardner.
The sermon was preached by the Rev. William J. Sea- bury, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Annunciation, New York, Professor of Ecclesiastical Polity and Law in the Gen- eral Theological Seminary.
8
CENTENNIAL CHURCH HISTORY.
SERMON.
Mark well her bulwarks, set up her houses : that ye may tell them that come after .- Psalm, xlviii. 12.
THE psalmist sings the glory of God as manifested in His Holy City. The burning words of praise which flow from his heart appear to commemorate some recent demonstration of the Divine power and providence; but they are general as well, and regard this particular instance as only one of a con- tinuous and unbroken succession of God's mercies, by reason whereof the stronghold of the chosen people was glorious and beautiful.
The hill of Sion is a fair place and the joy of the whole earth. The enemies of the Lord have compassed sea and land to work the ruin of the holy place. The kings of the earth are gathered against Jerusalem, but no sooner gathered than dispersed ; and the ships of the sea are broken. The deliverances wrought for Sion excited, indeed, the wonder of the nations, but to the people themselves there was no marvel. Astonishment and perplexity reigned without the city, but within, the calmness and joy of an assured faith ; for God is well known in her palaces as a sure refuge. So for general and continued mercies, as well as for recent deliverances, the citizens were incited to a thankful praise. And while with gladdened hearts they were to render their grateful adoration to the Object of all worship, they were to look with admiring and watchful love upon the site which that Divine Being had chosen to place His Name there-a love which was to lead not only to praise, but also to careful attention to the Holy City, which was to be scanned within and without, and held evermore in such reverend estimation as might tend to preserve it for a perpetual memorial of God to successive generations. Fortified against attacks from without, strength- ened and beautified in its several parts within, it was to en- dure as a standing monument to the honor and glory of the
9
PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
God of Israel. "Let the Mount Sion rejoice, and the daughter of Judah be glad, because of Thy judgments. Walk about Sion ; go round about her, and tell the towers thereof. Mark well her bulwarks, set up her houses, that ye may tell them that come after. For this God is our God for ever and ever. He shall be our guide unto death."
And these words, spoken first with reference to the Holy City of the Jews, have ever been echoed by the faithful mem- bers of Christ, as the due expression of their grateful love to God for His mercies toward them in their earthly warfare, and of their heartfelt solicitude for the welfare of the Church, the true Sion, the new Jerusalem which came down from Heaven. Thankful adoration of God as our Creator and pre- server; joyful contentment with the blessed privileges of our heavenly citizenship ; watchful attention to the earthly needs of the heavenly city while it affords us shelter and refuge against the assaults of our enemies; and an earnest solicitude to hand down to succeeding generations the blessings which we have found within it, and thus to perpetuate through all time the memorial of human redemption through Christ- these are the thoughts suggested by this fragment of holy writing to the devout understanding of a Christian's faith. Let these thoughts suggest, in their turn, the direction which our meditations are to take to-day : and as we keep the feast of the memorial of God's good benediction for the century past, may our heart and mind be quickened by His Holy Spirit, to a grateful remembrance of His mercies toward us, and to such an observation of our Holy City as may both en- hance our thankfulness, and stimulate our watchfulness ; and thus aid us in our endeavor to realize the better both the na- ture of the trust which we hold for them that come after, and our duty in the discharge of that trust.
I know not how I can better serve the purpose for which a preacher was to be appointed for the present year than by drawing your attention to certain grounds of thankfulness and of watchfulness connected with the principles upon which our ecclesiastical system is based, as these may be inferred from the course pursued by the Church in New York in the work
IO
CENTENNIAL CHURCH HISTORY.
of organization, which we seem now particularly to commemo- rate; and then, with such brief allusion as occasion may re- quire and time may permit, noting something of the process of that growth, through which we have, by God's mercy, at- tained our present stature. And I bespeak your attention to these reflections, in the same spirit of candor and thankfulness in which I am disposed to present them, believing that those institutions by which the administration of our spiritual life in the Church is guarded, are as worthy of our observation and care as were the material defenses of the Holy City of such regard on the part of the chosen people of old ; and believing, too, that we cannot rightly provide for them that come after, unless we have first heartily appreciated the example and in- fluence of them that went before.
We look back to the Convention of 1785, as fixing the date of the organization of the Diocese of New York. That the Diocese came then first into being, is more than can with strict propriety be said, unless we regard the Convention as the Diocese. In effect, the Church in New York existed as a distinct Diocese when the jurisdiction over it of its tradition- ary Diocesan, the Bishop of London, was abandoned as a consequence of the recognition, by Great Britain, of the Col- ony of New York as an independent State. Formally com- plete the Diocese did not become until Bishop Provoost, having been consecrated at Lambeth in 1787, began the exer- cise of his Episcopal jurisdiction within the State. But, look- ing to the first step taken in the conscious possession of an independent corporate life, we may properly enough regard the present occasion as the Centennial of the Diocese of New York.
How far, when that first step was taken, the distinction may have been realized between the Church in a State, con- sidered as the Clergy and Laity grouped within an inde- pendent civil jurisdiction, and the Church in a Diocese, considered as the Clergy and Laity occupying a territory constituting the field for the jurisdiction of a single Bishop, it is not necessary to consider. In fact, the distinction could hardly have been noted, further than that the Church
II
PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
in a State being organized, it would be regarded as forming, as a matter of course, the jurisdiction of a single Bishop. Neither the number of the faithful, nor the facility of pro- curing Bishops, was then such as to point to the probability of having more Bishops than one in a single State. The Churchmen of New York in 1785 held the position of the Church in a State incomplete for want of a Bishop ; and, as in the supplying of that want they attained the position of a complete Diocese, so it is but reasonable to regard them as having held, before that, the position of a Diocese tempo- rarily deprived of a Diocesan. In short, they held, practically, at the time of their first organization, the position of the Church in a State, and of the Church in a Diocese, according as we regard their relations to political or to ecclesiastical divisions ; incomplete, indeed, in either aspect, but capable of completion, and actually in due time proceeding to comple- tion in both aspects-and in both at once.
Two conditions characterized their position. In the first place they were members of the Church of Christ in com- munion with the Church of England, under whose rightful jurisdiction they had received their baptisms and ordinations. In the second place they were so situated as to be able to act in the matter of organization without being responsible to any external authority whatever. One of these conditions was, no doubt, an offset to the other. There were many courses which, under the first, it would have been morally impossible for them to adopt, which, under the second, it might be said that they were quite at liberty to take. As members of the Church of England, they could not, without forfeiting their unity with that Church, depart from the substance either of her doctrine, discipline, or worship. But as an independent body, they might in fact have shaped their course as they pleased. Do I state this independence too strongly? Not at all. The civil power made no claim upon their allegiance in matters of religion. The Episcopate under which their membership in the Church had been established had of neces- sity left them to themselves, and they had no Bishops of their own. Nor was there any power amongst the members of
I2
CENTENNIAL CHURCH HISTORY.
their Communion scattered throughout the newly constituted States to which the churchmen of New York were responsible. The churchmen of every State were in like position. It could not be pretended that the churchmen of one State were re- . sponsible to those of another; nor that those of one State were responsible to those of all the rest considered as a whole, nor to any body representing that multitude. There was in fact no such body. The General Convention, considered as a representative body of supreme legislative powers, came first into being in 1789; and then claimed the obedience only of such churches in States as acceded to its Constitution. Be- fore our Convention of 1785 there had been a meeting of a body which may be said to have formed the nucleus of the subsequent General Convention ; but the meeting was tenta- tive, and its acts stood on recommendation only, having no sort of authority. So that the churchmen of New York could not have been more independent than they were.
In calling attention to the independent position of these men I emphasize the mercies shown to this spiritual house in the course which they adopted. Their very freedom from accountability-their power to go wrong in laying foundations upon which future generations were to build-enhances not only our admiration of their wisdom, but also our thankful- ness for the Divine guidance vouchsafed to them. And we must remember that many things which, in the hallowed use of a century, have become matters of course to us, were to a great extent matters of experiment with them. Everything seemed open and unsettled ; and, amid the anxieties and un- certainties of such a situation, they were to choose a course of action which would determine the position of the Church in New York; and which might unchurch it altogether, or hamper it with such impediments as would have made it hard to be proved, by and by, whether it had a name to live at all. But the course which they did pursue was remarkable, both for its conservatism of the essentials of their rightful inheri- tance of faith and order and for its progressiveness in the adaptation of new ideas to the welfare of the Church. Con- servative in respect to the necessity of the Episcopate, and
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PROCEEDINGS AT TRINITY CHURCH.
the preservation of that form of sound words, both of faith and worship, which was contained in the Book of Common Prayer, the Church in New York yet availed itself of its inde- pendent position to give its influence in support of ideas which, if not altogether new in the Church, were certainly new in the systematized form which they were now assuming.
Conservative and traditional ideas pointed to the necessity of the completion of the Church by the Episcopate, and an Episcopate, too, of the purely primitive pattern ; that is to say, without that temporal power and dignity which the ene- mies of Episcopacy were fond of assuming to be essential to it. But conservatism stopped here, and was desirous that the Bishop, when obtained, should be, also according to the primitive pattern, the Governor of that portion of Christ's kingdom on earth which was committed to him. Where con- servatism rested, however, the new ideas began to form, and the claim was made that Bishops, however supreme in the exercise of purely spiritual authority, were not the only ones concerned in the government of the Church, but that the other Clergy and the Laity were to be admitted into some share of that government.
There was indeed nothing new in the thought that arbi- trary, unchecked power was not characteristic of the Episcopal office, although it sometimes might have been of single Bish- ops. In the best ages of the Church, not only were the Bishops, as the co-equal administrators of a common office, a check upon each other, but also each one, in his own juris- diction, was presumed to regulate his government with due regard to the judgment and feeling of his people. The maxim that they should do nothing without the Bishop was hardly more fully recognized than its converse, that the Bishop should do nothing without them. Yet this by no means rested on the principle of a common authority. On the contrary, the authority belonged to the Bishop. But then, his was a power which worked by love and not by fear; not like that of the Civil Ruler, by coercion, but by the free con- sent of those whose obedience was for conscience' sake. Now, however, that which in the previous history of the Church
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CENTENNIAL CHURCH HISTORY.
had been permitted on a principle of love, seems to have been assumed as a matter of right, needing only to be declared and acted upon. Among the principles of Ecclesiastical Union, proposed by the voluntary gathering of 1784 in New York, was that which declared that the concurrence of both Clergy and Laity should be necessary to give validity to every meas- ure adopted by the General Convention, which was to con- sist of clerical and lay deputies from the Church in each State. And this principle retained its place throughout the process of organization, and was imbedded in the General and Dioce- san Constitutions.
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