USA > New York > New York City > A history of the parish of Trinity Church in the city of New York, pt 4 > Part 3
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9
Letter from Rev. H. H. Norris
1826]
of his affection unprovided for unless he altogether excludes his son from the inheritance. Neither can I see why our tenantry and even our labouring classes are not as free to all the genuine benefits of freedom as your own owners of the soil. I recollect you remarked upon the differ- ence between our servants and yours, but I think my Francis, who has lived with me these ten years, and could be a soil owner to-morrow if he pleased, stood rather high in your scale of comparison. Then again I do not understand why in setting off your own landscape you are not content with what actually belongs to it but must introduce to no- tice certain hideous objects-such as degraded vassals and miserable hovels-to advantage your picture by the alledged absence of these imaginary deformities. It should seem from your statement that these painful spectacles are common to all countries but yours-which I am sure is very far from your meaning. Were it to be said to any of our Bricklayers or Carpenters that they were degraded vassals, I should be very sorry to receive the retort which would follow, nor should I like my situation much better if the reproach were cast upon their resi- dences instead of themselves. I cannot think that you mean to in- clude England in these disparaging expressions, but by applying "sometimes " exclusively to the last member of the sentence, you make all your previous descriptions general; and indeed in a few pages forward you speak specifically of the 'often abject condition of the lower orders here,' as an unavoidable result of the aristocratic nature of our government, which is very much in unison with the former, but I cannot admit to be borne out by fact, except where vice or thought- lessness has produced it. Nor will the fact bear you out in your assertion that fear is our governing principle. Yours may be a 'broad ' freedom, ours is a deep one. But it seems we Tories are all wrong and government though in its general powers and sanctions it is the ordi- nance of God, yet in its form of administration it is the ordinance of Man and St. Peter so pronounces it. You must be desperately put to it to alledge that mistranslation of ours to bolster up your democracy with Scriptural authority. Where will you find a Scriptural critic of any chararacter who puts the construction that you do on avepozivn xriois? The literal translation of these words is 'human creature,' which as Lesley remarks does not mean a creature of man's making, but that 'creature which is man.' The Apostle first lays down the duty generally and then particularises. God is the Maker, the thing made is human government, or the government of man under God by men. Look at Parkhurst, look at Schleusner, look at Wolfius, look at Hammond-you will see your text sink under you and democracy go
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History of Trinity Church
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down to the bottomless pit to which it belongs, for you will find no countenance for it from one end of the Bible to the other except in the narrative of Absalom's rebellion where Hushai acting the part of a democrat, to lull Absalom into security, pledges himself to obey him whom ' God and this people should choose.' Let me recommend Lesley's Rehearsals to your serious study. There should by all means be a copy in the library of the Theological Institution and every student should study it. I will present a copy if you will promise me it shall be read.
"From the politics of your Sermon I turn to your remarks upon our Universities, which are incorrect with respect to the difficulty of admission as far as Cambridge is concerned, where not only are the Collegiate accommodations doubled within the last ten years but also Lodgings provided in the town where they fail to any extent. As applyed to Oxford the remarks are true. That University will only admit that number of students which can be received within the walls of the Colleges. The alternative is that all disappointed applicants go to Cambridge or else to Scotland. But all this is come upon us since the peace; and if war was to break out again, our Collegiate accom- modations would be ample. I do not, however, mean to justify Ox- ford. Some of the Colleges whose provisions are antiquated might help the case materially and the limitation of admissions ought to be suspended while the influx is so great. There is more correctness in what you say .of our deficiencies with reference to the study of the- ology. Our system only carries Collegiate education to the point where general knowledge is acquired, and it branches off to the different professions. Those designed for the Law then go for the prosecution of that Study to the Inns of Court-those designed for Physic either to London or Edinburgh-and certainly those designed for the Church are left too much to cater for themselves, and the consequence is that war of religious systems which prevails amongst us. The evil which results is not an absolute dearth of theologians, for the Clergy form Schools of Theology amongst themselves; there are in most neighborhoods, men matured in their profession and dis- posed to afford counsel and instruction to their younger brethren, and if you look to the fruit produced, I mean the theological productions of our Clergy, the inference I think will be that they are not very deficient-still I admit that Colleges for the Study of Theology like the Inns of Court for the Study of Law is a great desideratum amongst us especially with reference to its effects in producing uniformity of religious opinion. I should however tell you that Dr. Lloyd is not merely lecturing at Oxford, but forming classes amongst the A.B's
II
Letter from Rev. H. H. Norris
1826]
and young fellows at Colleges and is in that way rendering most valuable service, at an immense expense of voluntary labour to him- self; for he has two classes attendant upon him to each of whom he devotes three alternate mornings every week.
"Your next point of comparison is the religious arrangements of Europe and America. Those of Rome and Geneva, the Equatorial and Arctic regions of Xtianity, are of course soon dismissed as bear- ing no analogy to yours, - but Mother and Child must of course have many lineaments in common and so the comparison resolves itself into one in which our respective Countries are exclusively con- cerned; and as age acts upon everything human-religious estab- lishments as well as men with a certain wear and tear,-it may be admitted without disparagement to an Establishment many centuries old, that it is not so vigorous in its energies as one that is only rising into manhood. I have no doubt that a similar comparison might be drawn in your own family to Mrs. Hobart's disadvantage, tho' proba- bly your marriage was so happily timed that she is contented to yield the palm of beauty to her daughters. But to the point-your system is the equal protection of what you call religion, i. e. false doctrine, heresy and schism, equally with Xtian truth and Unity; and so equally does the State hold the balance between you that I think I recollect the motion for appointment of a Chaplain either to Congress or one of your State Conventions being negatived, because the appointment must necessarily involve a preference of some one or other of the parties at issue upon this momentous question. Our system is that of protecting one confession of faith and tolerating all the others. The differences upon which you expatiate flow naturally out of these different arrangements. Both have their advantages and disadvan- tages which you admit, but on your drawing them out, these properties appear divided, and yours are all of the former description-ours all of the latter, tho' I can scarcely think that human nature is so much in perfection with you that if I were to traverse the Diocess of New York I should not discover some spots in your feasts of Charity; however of this I know nothing and will therefore hope all things. The first defect in our arrangements which you point out is that of patronage, the general tendency of which you consider as one of the clogs to the Church of England's progress, one of the alloys to her Apostolic and spiritual character. You have, however, in a note to the following page given a description of the other mode of forming the pastoral connection, and it applies to all cases, and I think that every one will admit that the choice being vested in a single individual
I2
History of Trinity Church
[1826-
offers a much fairer prospect of falling upon a worthy object than it would do if placed in such a popular Assembly. For us, therefore, constituted as we are, patronage is evidently best-our elected Pastors are for the most part religiously factious men -our presented and collated ones, taken as a whole, do the duties required of them with zeal, judgment and efficiency. I should not in the least hesi- tate to weigh them in the ballance either for professional learning or moral worth with any other bodies of men in the Kingdom, for I am confident that the result would be, as it ought to be, very greatly in their favour. The livings bought and sold in our Church are but as a drop in the ocean, comparatively with the whole. The great bulk of them being in the gift either of the King, the Bishops, the Universi- ties, the Corporations or the Nobility, who have derived their rights from the original founders of the Churches, who both built the edifices and endowed them. With you I perceive an approach to patronage in your great towns where the appointment has taken the first step towards it, being moved from the congregation at large to an aristocracy, and I think very judiciously so, for the best way for taking the sense of any body of men is to exclude the greatest number from the deliberations. In your smaller Churches, where the population is as you say humble and scattered, the elective plan will do very well, particularly when there is a master spirit of great energy to manage the whole. Popular election, under such circumstances, is a capital tub to throw out to the whale. He will play with it and become very manageable. I pray God the humility may continue when the population becomes dense, and then your system will go on working as well as at present, un- clogged by our obstructions. Tythes are the next disparaging point of comparison and I think you are a bold man to make it, for you hold all the soil of New York as Church property by endowment 1 and where the difference in principle is from a tenth being so devoted to the Church of God and your entire lordship of the soil I cannot per- ceive. Those who possessed the soil gave a tenth of its produce towards the maintenance of a standing Ministry and it has changed hands ever since saddled with that payment and when sold or given, always with a special exemption of that portion from the transfer and in the former case with a deduction of purchase money equal to the amount, and if abolished to-morrow would rather prejudice the culti- vator and only benefit the Landlord. But your objection is not against the reasonableness, but the expediency. There were times and cir- cumstances when you will admit it was a most wise appointment, and
1 The writer evidently thought the grant of the Crown covered the whole city.
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Letter from Rev. H. H. Norris
1826]
those times were not exclusively the Jewish economy, for tythes were anterior to that intercalary institution given by Abraham and vowed by Jacob; you say they are calculated to prevent etc., surely this a strong word considering who appointed them. It would have been more accurate to have used the word liable. They do produce this evil in some instances where passion and prejudice predominate, but in numberless others they are paid with the greatest cheerfulness, the farmer knowing that it is much more to his advantage that the Clergy- man should hold them than the landed proprietor, and I can assure you that the Tythe Day in a great many of our parishes brings the Clergyman and all his farming parishioners together at his own table to partake of his hospitalities, with as cheerful countenances and as much good will towards each other as any party of neighbours meet on any convivial occasion, and there is this obvious advantage in the means of maintenance that whilst it makes it the interest of the Clergyman to do his duty, that he may make his parishioners feel that they have their money's worth in benefit received, and also enables him to in- gratiate himself into their affections by various good turns in the way of accommodations as to payment and remittances, it also places him sufficiently in a state of independence to be under no temptation to please them otherwise than to their edification or to withhold his re- proof when their conduct merits it. Your own case which you may take pride and pleasure in recounting as being equally creditable to yourself and to the Trustees of Trinity Church, is you must recollect a very singular one. They are not called upon to put their hands into their own pockets, but have a fund to go to which they must spend, because by the laws of the Union they cannot hold anything like what in consequence of its increased and increasing value it is an- nually producing.1 I do not, however, mean to say that they would have acted otherwise than they did had they been under the necessity of providing for you from their own resources. A life so valuable as yours was worth any sum that could be devoted to its reparation and I pray God that the profuseness with which you are now expending its renovated energies may be sustained by adequate supplies.
" I now come to the last point of comparison-our respective Hierarchies. In America the appointment is vested in the Clergy of the Diocess and the Lay Delegates. In England, in the King, and vir- tually, for the most part but far from always, in his Prime Minister. Yours is precisely as it ought to be in an un-established Church, except
1 Mr. Norris was misinformed; there was no general limitation as to the amount of property religious corporations could hold.
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History of Trinity Church
[1826-
that I doubt the latter introduction; ours is as it always has been by Royal influence, if not assumed right, since Kings became her nursing fathers and Queens her nursing mothers, till the Papacy usurped the supremacy in this respect, and thus upon the abrogation of that power, it passed with the Supremacy to our Sovereigns. What the operation of your system is as to the appointments which it secures of course I know little. One specimen we have seen, I will admit, above all praise, but we have seen another who I believe to have been as meagre in all Episcopal qualifications as he was expert in those arts which constitute the successful religious empyric and I have heard it whispered that when your Church shall sustain the loss of its venerable surviving Father he will in all probability be succeeded by another who will be no great gem in the Episcopate. From hence I argue that the Elec- tive method does not always answer, but I am so anxious for the prosperity of the American Church, that I pray God you may long be preserved in this particular at least from party politics, and that he may direct you always to the best. In stating the operation of our system you have hazarded an assertion in which the fact will not bear you out, that almost all our Prelates have owed their advancement to a secular interest, extraneous from Spiritual or Ecclesiastical considera- tions. There are instances on the Bench at present, where professional talents have been the sole cause of the Prelate's elevation. I could point out two without consideration, but there are many, and always have been, in which tho' the party would not have been elevated if he had possessed no interest, yet it cannot be said with any semblance of truth that the choice was made without respect to his Episcopal quali- fications. It was in fact his pre-eminent learning and good conduct, which put him in the way of gaining that interest thro' which he is elevated, and thus his first move towards Episcopacy was the produce of actual desert. You are quite right in the distinction which you draw between the Church in her Apostolic character and the Church as connected with the State, when you speak of her as the religious benefactor to America, and the State has been punished as she de- served for listening to the dissenters rather than to her, by the loss of her Colonies. She has as you say learnt wisdom in this particular, but you never hazarded a more groundless assertion than in describing our Colonial Bishops as dependent upon the Cabinet Ministry of Eng- land, and as not only appointed but controuled by them. For it is impossible for Court interest to have been more cast aside than in their selection, or for men to be more perfectly free than they are to exercise their own judgment in the administration of the great inter-
I5
Letter from Rev. H. H. Norris
1826]
ests committed to their care. Bishop Coleridge is quite indignant at being so represented and loudly protests against the representation.
"I come at length to our two Churches in their representative ca- pacity, and here I admit that you enjoy what we are virtually deprived, but deprived of by the abuse of the privilege by the Church herself at the period of the suspension ; and if it were to be restored to us to-morrow, whilst we continue distracted by religious differences within ourselves and there is amongst us an overweening party whose maxim is 'by our tongues we will prevail,' I very much doubt whether the restoration would contribute to our peace and not rather multiply our confusions. You are not, however, right in making the Convocation so compleat a nullity as you have done, for the King does not dissolve it but with the Parliament it adjourns itself, and on one occasion a few years ago held several sittings to deliberate.
"I have now gone thro' the topics of your sermon and I hope have so expressed myself as to shew you I am in perfect good humour both with yourself and it. I have not spared it, and why should I ? Truth comes out by the collision of statements and opinion, and I think the result of this investigation will be that you will know our Church better than you did. I admire the Sermon as an excellent stroke of Policy. You could not more effectually have conveyed the sensation to your whole Diocess, and indeed throughout the States, that the twenty horse power, whose energies had been for two years suspended, was at work again, and, I have no doubt, have called the attention of your whole communion to yourself with all the enthusiasm of popularity. I have little doubt also that your Sermon will conciliate esteem and awaken consideration amongst aliens and that Episcopacy will become more in favour and nothing will rejoice me more than such an effect. But I must have done, having both fagged myself and I fear wearied you and now I remain with the greatest regard and the best wishes both for your private welfare and public usefulness
"Your affectionate friend, "H. H. NORRIS.
" GROVE ST .- March 6th 1826.
"P. S. Mr. Watson desires me to say that he defended you tooth and nail till he read the Sermon, and that made his voice faulter, for that he could not but think that you [had] given both our radicals and the Presbyterians advantages which were not called for in the straight- forward course of your own argument. This was sent as a message, for he has been under surgical discipline, and I have had no oppor- tunity of talking with him since the sermon came to hand. He is, I
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History of Trinity Church
[1826-
am happy to say, just abroad again, and I hope in a much better state of health than when you took leave of him at Cheltenham. I have mislayed your letter, and, till I find it, cannot call to mind the Books you wish me to send you. Southey's Vandura is capital and you shall have it as also Molesworth's reply to Davison on Sacrifice.
Serjeant Sellon also wrote the Bishop in regard to his sermon, and we make two short extracts from his letters.
" CHAPTER-HOUSE, ST. PAUL's, May 1, 1826. " MY DEAR SIR,
" I was much gratified by the sight of your handwriting, for the next blessing to personal intercourse with a friend, is a letter from him. I had been for some time in expectation of hearing from you, finding from the public papers that you had arrived at New-York, and been most cordially received by your countrymen.
" Many thanks for your sermon-but one had reached my hands before yours arrived. It is written with great nerve and spirit, as if the heart felt what the mind dictated. I almost fancied you in your Episcopal arm-chair at the Chapter-House fire-side, expressing, in your usual animated style, eulogiums on your country. But I rather expect that your animadversions will not pass sub silentio. Some, I believe, have taken umbrage at the sermon, but chiefly on account of the notes.
"With regard to the work itself, I concur with you in many main points, but not in all. Whatever faults may be inherent in our consti- tution by reason of the aristocracy, I look upon an hereditary nobility as a defence and ornament to a state.
" And although evil does in some respects result from the disposi- tion of our Church preferment of pluralities and the like, I cannot but disapprove of ministers and pastors being placed in a dependent state on their congregations, and even exposed to the temptation of seeking the favour of men rather than of God. As to your mode of training young men to the Church, and electing your ministers and bishops, it may be far preferable, I think, to ours ; but, I should like them, when elected, to be perfectly independent by a fixed stipend or endowment." 1
In another letter he writes :
" I have often lamented the uncomfortable sensations which I fear were excited in your mind by the irascible and ill founded criticism which appeared in the Theological Quarterly Review; but I think they 1 Berrian's Memoir, p. 356.
17
Letter from Miss Norris
1826]
sank into insignificance by the side of the sound, manly and sensible answer which afterwards appeared in another periodical publication.
" At the same time, if every one knew your heart, temper, and dis- position as well as myself, every ill-natured observation would have been spared." 1
Since the Third Part of this History went to press a letter was received by the Rev. Dr. Lowndes from Miss Annie H. Norris which reads in part as follows :
" ADDERBURY, "NR BANBURY, " OXON.
"As the granddaughter of the Rector of South Hackney, Henry Handley Norris, I am glad to say that 4 letters, dated Liverpool, Oct. 30, 1823, York, Dec. 8, 1823, Rome, May 25, 1824, and New York, Jan. 15, 1828 are in my possession as well as copy in my grandfather's hand- writing of a letter, 3 large sheets ! to Bp. Hobart, but this is undated, & evidently refers to a Sermon of the Bishop's preached on his return to America, to some of the terms of which my grandfather objected. There were other letters from Bp. Hobart & I hope to find and send them to you, with the ones I have on hearing from you . . Af-
ter my grandfather's death in 1851 my father and I looked over-it took months of hard work-the enormous correspondence that was stored away at Grove S! South Hackney, which had belonged to our family for several generations and was not the Rectory, though the Rector (my grandfather, who built the Church and was its first Rec- tor) lived in it-he had been at first Curate to my great uncle, Arch- deacon Watson, Rector of Great Hackney. The old house at Grove St. was a rendezvous for very many of the Colonial and other Bishops -with all, or nearly all of whom my grandfather was in constant cor- respondence. I well remember meeting Bp. Inglis, and Bp. Coleridge- there, and among the letters were many from the Scotch and Irish Bps. as well as the English-"
The "long letter " referred to by Miss Norris from her grandfather is the one which we have just presented to our readers. It shows the importance which Mr. Norris attached to it that he kept an exact copy of it.
' Berrian's Memoir, p. 357.
VOL. IV .- 2.
·
18
History of Trinity Church
[1823-
The four letters from Bishop Hobart which Miss Norris sent, and which are now in the possession of Dr. Lowndes, are a valuable addition to the Hobart corre- spondence.
Although somewhat out of their chronological order we print three of them here, and the fourth will be found later on in its proper place.
" LIVERPOOL. Oct. 30. 1823.
" MY DEAR SIR,
"I set my foot on English ground which on so many accounts I deeply venerate, but especially as the seat of that Apostolical & primi- tive Church which the American Church acknowledges & reveres as her parent, this morning. And to my great mortification I find that a letter from you which arrived a few days since to the care of Mr Law- rence has been sent by the last packet to America.
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