USA > New York > New York City > Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ; > Part 19
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Reminiscences: About the Greek, English and Amer- ican Branches of the Holy Catholic Tree," published in 1863, I extract the following, which gives a good idea both of his studies in Europe and also of the religious point of view which he maintained in his later life:
But to come to experience. In 1828, having gone ! through the Arian course in Harvard, under good old 1; Dr. Wall's pulpit teachings, I sought Germany; and in a year was made unhappy by the confusion confounded of t rising German infidelity called falsely, like Gnosis of S. Paul, Neology. Thence I fled to Italy; read the then unanswered, but not confuted, "End of Controversy"; saw the Pope and Cardinals, and consulted and disputed much with Bishops and priests and deacons. I found that Latinism was not Catholicity. But after another year in Italy and France, I turned my pilgrimage towards the fountain head, and reached the land where S. Paul taught, and where the language of the New Testament is still spoken. There, first, the light began to dawn upon my darkness. Edu- cated a New England Puritan, taught in a New Hampshire semi-Orthodox school, graduating at an Arian University, a student of Göttingen and Halle under infidel theological doctors, where every man is, orwas, a Church for himself, with my poor young head broken to pieces, and all confused and miserable in this dream of contradictions, and I, still a poor pilgrim; looking for teachers in this DESERT OF DOUBTS, finding no Catholicity in Rome, I now stood at last upon Mars' Hill, and heard around me, from living men, the words of the tongue in which S. Paul had spoken. One thing came quickly and forever; and doubt fled on that theme. If (said I in my twilight) the good Baptists are thickest in my native Rhode Island, because Roger Williams planted them there in March, 1639 (though he gave it all up himself more than four years before he died); if the good Quakers abound where William Penn planted them; if the
REV. JAMES COOK RICHMOND Fourth Rector, 1837-1842
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Mission to Greece
doctrines of Confucius prevail in China, he being a Chinese philosopher; those of Zoroaster in Persia, and of Mohammed first in Arabia, for the same reason: so, Episcopacy is still universal in the East, and the only way known to Oriental Christians, and the only way they ever heard of, till a new way was brought from a new world :- I say, Episcopacy is here, because the Lord and His Blessed Apostles planted it here! Ah! what is new is none. Guided by this single thread I wound my way, I trust and hope forever, out of the whole Puritan labyrinth, in which poor fragmentary New England and daughters still blindly grope for the light in an everlast- ing endless "Suspense of Faith," as Dr. Bellows tells us.
Then I began to talk with the Greek Priests and Bishops, and found we might be one. But the people in poor Greece had just emerged from a slavery of four-hundred years. With a learned and pious young Dane (now the Rev. Ferdinand Fenger, whom I have since visited in his own parsonage in Denmark, sat at table with his wife and eleven children, and heard his eloquence from his own pulpit) I walked through the Morea. I tried the children and the people and found not one boy of twelve years out of ten could read, not one school in ten villages, and in the tenth the teachers spelled the word school incorrectly, and not one woman in fifty could read. I formed a plan for America to pay back the debt, and enlighten Greece. Returning to Athens I found the Rev. Dr. Robertson and Mr. Hill had come in the interim; but of them and the Mission, I had never heard; for as I left America with doubts about the Holy Trinity, and doubts about everything else, I had not yet been bap- tized. I joined hands with them, the Missionaries, and when the hearts of their friends, even of the good Dr. Milnor, were beginning to fail, and the infant Mission was in danger of perishing, I hastened with Dr. Montgomery, of St. Stephen's Church, to Philadelphia, called a meeting, at which Bishop White presided, and Dr. Bedell and a host of the departed were present; did the same in New York, which Dr. Forbes reported in The Churchman; and then in
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all the chief Northern cities; until Mrs. Hill wrote, "under God you have saved the Mission." And America has paid back the debt; and has enlightened Greece. In a lecture Charles Sumner declares the Greek schools to be now "on a higher footing than our own."
During his three or four years of study abroad, Mr. Richmond traveled, as will be seen, extensively. He possessed a peculiar facility for learning languages, and it was said at a later date that he could speak thirteen languages. Certainly he spoke German so fluently and understood it so thoroughly that he was able to preach in that language, not only correctly, but, if all reports are to be believed, eloquently. As a result of his special interests, of his method of travel and of his own personality, for he was a most striking man physically as well as intellectually, he enjoyed peculiar opportunities of meeting men of mark, visiting among others the great poet Goethe, then residing in his old age at Weimar. Leigh Hunt, who met him appar- ently at this time, was greatly attracted by him, and with facetious reference to his height used to call him his "little American."
The revolutionary movements in Central and Western Europe occurred during the period of his sojourn abroad, and with his temperament it was inevitable that he should interest himself in those events. He was fired with zeal for both Greek and Italian freedom. His im- prudent utterances in regard to the latter brought him under suspicion of the tyrants of that day, and he was finally arrested by the Austrian government, charged with sedition, and underwent a brief imprisonment, before he was released through the intervention of his own government.
On his return to this country he was baptized by his
,
26I
Baptism and Ordination
brother, the Rev. William Richmond. The record of his baptism, in the register of St. Michael's Church, is rather characteristic of the method of keeping records of both brothers. Under the year 1833, no nearer date being given, appears this entry:
James Cook Richmond was baptized by me some time since, but I neglected to insert his baptism at the time. He was born in Providence, R. I., son of William Richmond second and Clarissa his wife. Witnesses: Mrs. Sarah C. Richmond and Thomas Andrews Richmond.
James C. Richmond appears to have spent some time with his brother in New York, preparing for his ordina- tion, and during this period he worked under him in the missionary work which the latter was undertaking. I find this record in William Richmond's handwriting: "A Sunday School was established by me in the village of Seneca, inhabited by colored people. The Rev. James Cook Richmond was the first teacher, before he was in orders." He was ordained deacon and priest by Bishop Griswold of the Eastern Diocese, including all New England except Connecticut, at St. John's Church, Providence, in 1832 and 1833 respectively. Dur- ing the year of his diaconate he did missionary work in Maine under Bishop Griswold, founding at that time St. Mark's, Augusta. Shortly after his ordination as priest he went out to the missionary field of the northwest and was one of the three clergymen and six laymen who convened and organized the Diocese of Illinois in the city of Peoria, March 9, 1835, electing Bishop Philander Chase, formerly of Ohio, Bishop of of the new Diocese. Mr. Richmond was at that time rector of Christ Church, Rushville, Schuyler Co., and Grace Church, Beardstown, Morgan Co., Ill., and four
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of the six lay delegates to the Convention represented those churches. In the following year we find him at St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, Conn., from which he was called to be assistant minister to his brother, Rev. William Richmond, at St. Michael's, St. James's, St. Mary's, and St. Ann's, New York, to enable the latter, as narrated above, to undertake his free church enter- prise. According to Mr. Richmond's report of 1836 to the Convention Journal, Rev. James C. Richmond was then officiating four times on Sunday and once during the week. In 1837, William Richmond having resigned the charge of St. Michael's, St. James's, and St. Mary's, , James C. Richmond became rector in his stead. (St. Ann's Church seems to have been abandoned at this , time.) In his Convention report of that year, Rev. James C. Richmond notes that he "holds five services on Sundays in and around Bloomingdale;" that he offici- ates on Friday evenings at Yorkville and occasionally at St. Timothy's Church, the new German Church which had been started in the previous year. He also reports a great service in the German language, held in St. Michael's Church on Whitsun Monday of that year. In the following year, 1838, he reports that, with the assist- ance of Mr. Morris, the head of Trinity School, he is holding six services on Sunday, including one at the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum; that additional work is to be undertaken at Yorkville, and that St. Mary's Church, Manhattanville, heretofore opened only in the evenings, is to be opened in the mornings also. In 1841 there is no report from Rev. James C. Richmond in the Convention Journal, although he is still rector of St. Michael's Church.
With the restlessness which characterized him, he had tired of parochial work and was planning a new mis-
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Rector of St. Michael's
sionary effort, growing out of his interest in the Greek Church-no less an enterprise than to bring about union, or rather communion between the Eastern Church and the American and Anglican Churches. On October 25, 1841, a leave of absence was granted him by the vestries of St. Michael's and St. James's until Easter of 1842, with the proviso that if he did not return by that date his failure to return was to be con- sidered in itself as a resignation and William Richmond was again to become rector in his stead. I find no record of the details of this interesting mission on Rev. James Richmond's part. His zeal and enthusiasm did not inspire the confidence of the conservative Anglican leaders. The Archbishop of Canterbury called him a lunatic,1 and he returned to this country in the early part of 1842, disappointed in his endeavors. Although in the country, he did not show himself at St. Michael's or St. James's by Easter Day. Under date of June 10, 1842, there is a minute in the Vestry records of St. Michael's Church that, "whereas Rev. James Richmond was in the country on Easter Day, 1842, but has not shown himself at church," therefore Rev. William Richmond is declared rector, in accordance with the terms of the leave of absence granted to Rev. James Richmond. The vestry of St. James's Church at about the same date writes to ask his intentions and receives a formal resignation.
1 Mr. Richmond desired among other things "to preach the Gospel to the Turks, for whom the Church has been praying every year on all these Good Fridays past, but has never lifted a finger for their salvation." He went to Lambeth and laid his plans before the Archbishop of Canterbury. His Grace told Mr. Rich- mond that the Turks would behead any one who should go to Constantinople on such an errand. Mr. Richmond replied: " My head is ready."
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Rev. James C. Richmond now became a general mis- sionary in Rhode Island, where he founded Trinity Church, Pawtucket; St. James's Church, Greenville; Emmanuel Church, Manville; and Christ Church, Lons- dale. But his most characteristic and most famous work in Rhode Island, for which he is remembered to this day, was his preaching under the Catholic Oak at Lonsdale. In 1843, while going to Diamond Hill, where he was to preach, he passed a large oak tree, which stands now between Broad Street, Lonsdale, and the street leading to the railroad station, surrounded by a brick mill and tenement houses and by railroad tracks, but which at that time stood in the centre of a grassy field, its wide-spreading branches nearly reaching out to cover the grave of the Rev. William Blackstone, then dead nearly two centuries, its base encompassed by a sort of mound. Impressed by the appearance of the tree and the possibilities of open-air preaching, which had never been attempted in this country in the Episcopal Church at that time, Mr. Richmond stopped and examined the site, finally saying: "What a beauti- ful tree this is! I think I will hold services here next Sunday." He went at once into the residence of a neigh- bor, Mr. Ezra Kent, wrote his notice of the meeting, and placed it on a guide-board which was then located near the oak. The next Sunday, in full robes, he took his place between two huge roots which ran out from the tree on one side and formed a natural chancel. Young men and young women from Christ Church, Lonsdale, formed his choir. There are said to have been 600 and more persons in attendance. Farmers had driven from a long distance and some people came even from Provi- dence to see this new marvel-an Episcopal preacher in full robes holding an out-of-door service. This serv-
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The Catholic Oak
ice Mr. Richmond called the dedication service of the temple, and the tree he named "The Catholic Oak," a name which became a household word to every one in the Blackstone valley. Persons were present who had never been induced to enter a church, and the occasion was a memorable one in the religious annals of Rhode Island. After that Mr. Richmond held services each month beneath this tree, preaching to large audiences who seemed willing and anxious to hear him, never mind how long he might preach to them. Men who never went inside the doors of a church were always ready to "hear Richmond preach." After he had maintained these services several months, he was sent to another part of the Diocese, but each year on Whit- sunday he came back to preach under the Catholic Oak until 1847, when he went to Europe. On his return to this country, in 1851, he preached for the last time under the branches of the old oak and this apparently was the last religious service ever held there. Thirty- seven years after his death, on the Sunday after Ascen- sion, May 24, 1903, a brass plate was put on the stump of a sawed-off branch of the Catholic Oak with this inscription: "Under this oak preached the Rev. James Cook Richmond, defender of the faith," and the old tree was surrounded by an iron railing to protect it from harm.
As defender of the faith Mr. Richmond was keenly in- terested in the struggle which began in New York shortly before he left that Diocese between High and Low, and which waged around Bishop Onderdonk's trial, moral and ecclesiastical issues being almost hopelessly con- fused. Although a High-Churchman his outraged moral sense caused him to take an active part against the Bishop. To the controversy which ensued he con-
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tributed The Conspiracy against the Bishop of New York in the Laugh of a Layman, published in 1845, and an introduction and notes to Pott and Wain- wright's No Church without a Bishop.
Mr. Richmond was a thorough believer in free churches and wherever he went his endeavor was to organize a church of the people. So at Pawtucket it was a free church which he organized in 1845, becoming its rector without salary, throwing himself upon the offer- ings of the people for his support. Two years later, August 30, 1847, he held a memorable service, in which, with his own hands, he broke ground and devoted the spot on which the church now stands to the erection of the sacred edifice. With that day's service Mr. Rich- mond's connection with Trinity Church terminated. He was a man of a very nervous temperament and his mind, highly organized, had become unstrung by its own ceaseless activity.
He could not brook opposition. He must have loose rein or he could not work. He felt too much hampered by the restraints and limitations of a parochial charge. In Trinity Church, Pawtucket, the wardens could not hold him back. He was peculiarly interested in what he termed "Missions at large," and insisted on holding services and making efforts to create an interest in the church and thus leading to its permanent creation in places where it had been hitherto unknown. This he felt was the work for which he was specially needed. After officiating at a place for some time he would apply to his Bishop to send some one else to take up the work for it was time for him to go somewhere else. Diamond Hill, Spragueville, Crompton, Burrillville, Chepatchet and Greenville were among the places in which he labored. He thought "Trinity Church, Paw- tucket, Mass., promised to be the most prosperous of all. "1
1From an address on the occasion of placing the tablet in memory
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Travels in Holy Land
It was very difficult with Mr. Richmond to determine whether or when his peculiar genius passed beyond the limits of sanity. An obituary in the Boston Advertiser at the time of his death speaks of him as " distinguished for his originality, learning and eccentricity, but his peculiarities caused him to be looked upon sometimes as insane." His often startling actions, his vehement controversies and at times his personal denunciations (sometimes in preaching he would leave the pulpit and come down into the aisle of the church, that he might speak more directly to those for whom he felt he had a message) of those whom he counted evil-doers or recreants to the faith, led not a few to question his sanity. But Bishop Clark, who on another occasion styled him an "encyclopædia, " because of his astonish- ing scope and accuracy of information, when asked if he thought Mr. Richmond was insane, replied: "No, sir, surely not, but it is hard to distinguish the difference between a man of high genius and one who is insane."
As rest and change were absolutely essential to his recovery of balance, Mr. Richmond went abroad, as already narrated, returning to this country in 1851. During this period he visited the Holy Land with Dr. afterwards Bishop Wainwright, with whom he collabo- rated in the narrative and descriptive work Pathways and Abiding Places of Our Lord, Dr. Wainwright also dedicating to him, out of gratitude for his assist- ance, another work, Land of Bondage. This was the period of the great revolution in Europe. Mr. Richmond was stirred by this uprising, and especially by the Hungarian struggle for freedom. He made the ac-
of Rev. James Cook Richmond on the Catholic Oak, and the Semi- Centennial services of Trinity Church, Pawtucket, which grew out of Mr. Richmond's preaching beneath that tree.
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quaintance of Kossuth and later was instrumental in introducing him to this country. In England the Ecclesiastical revolutionists attracted him and he be- came an intimate of Pusey, Newman, and the Oxford group. In an article in the Liverpool Courier at the time of his return to America, describing his preaching in England, where he delivered lectures and preached both in English and in German, interesting himself among other things in advocating the cause of educa- tional and benevolent institutions, the writer speaks of his remarkable eloquence, unhesitatingly placing him in the very first rank of living preachers. During this trip Mr. Richmond published at Glasgow A Visit to Iona, and at London his Indian poem, Metacomet, already mentioned. On his return to this country he published The Rhode Island Cottage, a true narrative of the sorrows and religious experiences of a sorely afflicted family named Taggart, living on Rhode Island proper, almost opposite the Richmond homestead at Little Compton. The story was so pathetic and so touchingly told that the little book reached its fifth thousand before the close of 1851, and one result of this publication was the erection and endowment of a church at that place.
Mr. Richmond visited Europe again the next year or the year after and was in Greece in 1853. After his final return to this country he went west and took charge as rector of St. Paul's Church, Milwaukee. Among his friends and parishioners there was the late U. S. Senator Matthew H. Carpenter. An address which the latter delivered at a meeting in St. Paul's Church, shortly after the death of Mr. Richmond, in 1866, gives such an admirable picture of the man, his personality, his doctrinal views, and the character of
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His Teaching and Preaching
his preaching that I need make no apology for quot- ing it in some detail:
No man ever assailed his orthodoxy. He believed most thoroughly, conscientiously, that the faith of the church to which he belonged was the faith once delivered to the saints, and the duty of contending, striving for the gospel, was with him no figure of speech. The divinity of Jesus, he believed to be the corner stone of the faith; and moreover he believed this to be the doctrine most assailed in our time. Against all such assailants he levelled his heaviest guns; he reasoned, argued, declaimed, denounced; not always in the most amiable style, but always in the warmest zeal, against all doubt upon this cardinal point. There was nothing that so often occupied his thoughts, nothing that so warmed the combativeness of his nature, and aroused the antagonism of his soul as this; and we who so often heard him can never forget his zeal, and the very great ability with which he always treated this grand and lofty theme. He was a stickler for all the services and ceremonies of the church; he believed all had been ordained in wisdom, for our good, and that even the minutest particulars ought rigidly to be obeyed. He was obedient to the etiquette of the Priesthood. With what unaffected reverence he always spoke of our venerable Bishop! Bishops in his belief had as absolute control over the subordinate priesthood, as a general over his soldiers. The subordinate might approve or disapprove, rejoice or regret, but must obey. The Bishop, he taught us, was an officer divinely commissioned in the church; the Vice Gerent of Christ, the Shepherd of our Souls. From him we must receive instruction, from him we must seek Confirmation. Though he did tell us, while the cradle of this church was being rocked in some discord of contention, that, if we were true believers, had been bap- tized in the church and confirmed by the Bishop, we could go to Heaven without the consent of the General Convention of Wisconsin. And I believe he knew.
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But his manner, his gestures, his eloquence, who can describe? And who that has witnessed, can ever forget them?
He was tall, raw-boned, with a haggard look, and in social life was extremely awkward; but when the abrupt and angular motions of his arms and body were disguised with robes, he seemed the personification of majesty. With what dignity of action he approached the altar. His manner was so impressive that I never wondered very much at the excited and susceptible little girl, who, the first time she ever attended any church, saw Father Richmond robed and entering the chancel; and when he opened the prayer book, and read in his authoritative style: "The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth-keep silence-before Him," turned to her mother, and, in a whisper, asked, "is that God, mamma?" His lofty bearing, his careworn, haggard visage, his solemn, penetrating, awe inspiring voice, his clear articulation, his majestic and expressive accent, made you feel, in a moment, that you were in the presence of a master. Considering the service as a mere human compo- sition, and tested by the usual canons of rhetoric, I have heard it read better by other men. But regarded as a service for a universal church; as a medium of communication be- tween the heart of man and the Jehovah of the universe; as an utterance of exultant glowing praise, or the shriek of a soul writhing in the anguish of almost annihilating peni- tence, he is the only man I ever heard read it in a manner worthy of its high design. He would read the same psalms or prayers under a thousand different circumstances, and make you feel that they must have been composed for each particular occasion. His style both of reading and speak- ing, conformed to no system, was built upon no model, that I know of. It was his own, a part of himself, a heaven- sent gift. He imitated no man,-no man could imitate him.
The lessons, interrupted by explanations and comments from the fulness of his knowledge of the history, geography
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Conflict with Vestry
and topography of the holy land, its hills and valleys, its caves and grottos, its fields and gardens, seemed always like a letter from some high-toned poetical friend.
In taking up the collections, in the beginning of the offertory, when he repeated (for he knew the service by heart, and though he held the book for form's sake, he read nothing) after a great sermon:
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