USA > New York > Our diocese : a study of the history and work of the Church in the Diocese of Central New York > Part 3
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Name of the Diocese. The Committee on the Name of the See found themselves hopelessly divided. The clergy wanted the new diocese named after the See city principle ; the laity wanted it Central New York. Discussion was long and animated and at times almost bitter and occasion- ally jocular. A resolution proposed that the Diocese should be known as Central New York. An amendment was offered to make the name Syracuse. An amendment was proposed to the amendment that it should be known as the Diocese of Syracuse and Utica. This seemed like trying to steer for both Scylla and Charibdis and to have not even the merit of the original motion, which was intended to steer between them. Another amendment was hurriedly
35
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
offered suggesting that the name read "The Diocese of Syracuse, Utica, Oswego, Auburn, Elmira and Bingham- ton." The official records do not show it (the Secretary was probably unable to keep pace with the debate) but it is reported that some one offered yet another amendment proposing the addition of Pompey Hill, Onondaga Hollow and Salt Point. Unable to come to a decision between Syracuse and Utica, all amendments were laid on the table, and the clergy joined the laity in adopting the original resolution by a vote of 62 to 36. And so we became " Cen- tral New York "-a name which sometimes led to amusing mistakes, for it is said to have been no unusual experience for the first Bishop to be addressed as Bishop of the New York Central ! Bishop Coxe, in consenting to the name, expressed his sincere regret that another conclusion had not been reached, saying "I grieve to say that this diocese has given itself the very worst name to be found in our Church records".
Election of our First Bishop. Bishop Coxe's sermon prior to the election reminded the Convention that in choos- ing a diocesan bishop we are "introducing to our House of Bishops a cipher or a power." In the Episcopate, according to the grand old Catholic maxim, consists the visible frame and fabric of the Church. The Bishop must have tact in an extraordinary degree to meet the peculiar difficulties of his position. To be a Catholic, and yet to make everybody feel that Catholicity is irreconcileable with Romanism ; to maintain a genuine sympathy with all that is genuine in the Protestantism of the nation, and yet to exhibit it in connection with principles older, deeper and more lasting than Protestantism ; to be a lover of good men, and to love what is good in every sect and body of men, and yet never to comprise the Church's living and changeless principles of Order, derived from Christ and his Apostles; always to speak the truth and yet always ' to speak the truth in love',
36
OUR DIOCESE
-alas ! who is sufficient for these things". He charged the Convention to elect a mature, learned and godly man.
On the fifth ballot the Rev. Dr. A. N. Littlejohn was elected. The following week he was elected Bishop of Long Island, and it was this election which he accepted, declining Central New York. A special Convention was called in : January, 1869 and was attended by 57 clergy and 147 lay deputies. Dr. Littlejohn, Bishop-elect of Long Island, preached the sermon.
In his address Bishop Coxe urged a reconsideration of the name, which he said, "gives an air of buffoonery to our map." "It was left," he says, " for civilization to de- form what barbarism had dignified and made beautiful- ignoble taste has sadly marred the beauty of a region to which the very savages gave names expressive of its loveli- ness. But that is not all. In choosing a name of awkward and uncouth device, you deliberately rejected an offering of $20,000, coupled with no unworthy conditions." So far as the record shows, no notice was taken of this recommenda- tion, and the question has never been since discussed, al- though the See has alternated from Syracuse to Utica. On the first ballot Frederick Dan Huntington was elected, and was consecrated April 8, 1869, in Emanuel Church, Boston. He. decided to locate in Syracuse.
Thus Syracuse got the Bishop but did not give its name to the See ; and the Diocese retained its geographical name, but received neither the $20,000 from Syracuse nor yet the proffered gifts of Utica ! Twice we had a bishop both in Syracuse and in Utica, so that the name Diocese of Syra- cuse and Utica would have been no misnomer. Now the gift of the Perkins property has induced our third Bishop to take up his residence in Utica and no one is disturbed thereat.
CHAPTER IV OUR THREE BISHOPS
Frederic Dan Huntington, Our First Bishop. Bishop Huntington was a man of national reputation when he was chosen as first Bishop of the new diocese. He had been a Boston Unitarian, Plummer professor at Harvard, as im- bued with New England liberal thought as was St. Paul with the stricter orthodoxy of Israel ! Dr. Huntington wasone of the great- est preachers of New England and a power in Massachusetts. It may readily be imagined what a sensation his conversion to the Episcopal Church had created in the "Brahmin circles" of Bos- ton town. After his reception into the Church, he had organized and was first rector of Emanuel Church, Boston. He was des- tined, evidently, to a splendid pulpit career. His influence among Massachusetts churchmen was already recognized and respected. It may be imagined that the move to Central New York and the Episcopate was for him a great change. But he was a man of ideals and convictions and there was no question of his acceptance of the new office. The recep- tion which awaited him in Syracuse and the whole diocese was warm and openhearted. As the years passed he be- came one of the city's first citizens and everywhere, in the whole state as in its central section, and in the whole Church as well as in his own diocese, he was loved and respected.
He was, as just said, a man of ideals. What were his ideals ? His first convention address revealed some of them. In it the Bishop said : "First of all, we have it as a direct
38
OUR DIOCESE
and specific errand and trust from God to undertake that the Faith of Christ and the practical benefits of His Church shall through us be intelligently proclaimed and kindly offered to the entire population of this Diocese that is either now willing, or that by prayer and toil can be made willing, to hear our message . Our missions are to be conducted according to the rule and spirit of the Histori- cal Church to which we belong. There is a definable method and there is a certain genius of Church operation and Church propaganda. Not only have we no occasion to depart from it, but sooner or later a departure from it will bring damage. What we want is not so much the invention or manufacture of novel agencies, as the more earnest and universal development of those that God has stored up for us in the Kingdom of His Son The chief mis- sionary of a Diocese is its Episcopal Head; the entire missionary service in his jurisdiction is a conspicuous de- partment of his immediate, urgent and incessant care. Every member of the body by virtue of his baptismal and moral relation to Christ is a member of the missionary organization. In some way, and every rector in charge certainly has full freedom to devise such modes as he may conscientiously consider best suited to his own faculty and to his own congregation, a systematic plan should be set on foot to call out constantly and to the utmost possible extent, the offerings of the people, even to the youngest and poorest."
From the principles laid down in this first address, Bishop Huntington never materially deviated in his earnest prosecution of the missionary work of the Diocese.
Religious Education. The second Convention recom- mended unanimously the establishment, wherever practica- ble, of parochial infant and grammar schools, at least for children from 7 to 12 years. "Any system," said the report, "of secular education that is not supplemented by
39
OUR THREE BISHOPS
an inculation of the fundamental doctrine and precepts of Christianity must in the end fail to secure the real welfare of society and the perennial prosperity of the state."
The Bishop himself repeatedly advocated Church schools in addition to Sunday schools and family instruction, saying on one occasion, "Before long the question will be between Christianity itself and atheism. The day may yet be when no parish established will be considered complete which has not a school house beside its house of worship."
The present movement toward religious instruction on week days is but a return to the counsel which then was largely unheeded by its hearers, although parish schools were begun in Waterloo; St. Paul's, Syracuse ; Grace, Utica, Hamilton and Harpursville. Binghamton had a Seminary for young ladies with 103 pupils, and there were similar schools in Rome and Syracuse.
Times have changed, and times were changing even then, and they were not propitious for the policy of establishing such schools ; nor was the secular education they could give comparable to the public school education. The prin- ciple at stake, however, was great-education in spiritual things as careful, comprehensive and exact as in secular things ; training in the way of God and not merely in the work of men. The time is drawing near when, unless the principle be recognized, America's youth will be doomed.
Rural Conditions. Our first bishop clearly perceived the trend in rural districts. He said : "Already two great unsettling agencies are acting especially upon rural districts, which lose by emigration to the west and by the steady drain from villages and farms to cities, which operates chiefly on the more enterprising classes and on the young. The resources of parochial support are disastrously reduced, the vacancies being partially filled up by accessions of less effective material from the different denominations. It is observed that as the native landholders remove, their farms
40
OUR DIOCESE
are apt to be taken up by foreigners owing allegiance to a foreign Church. We shall be obliged to proceed more and more to group small parishes into a single cure, coupling with such combinations a corps of itinerant missionaries or evangelists to visit scattered Church families, to hold ser- vices wherever a score of people can be drawn together, to gather children for instruction and Holy Baptism, and to carry to regions that are sliding back towards the spiritual stupidity of Paganism the illumination of the Gospel and the Cross . .. Against the policy that would abandon the tillage of these outlying regions so as to concentrate all our strength on the large cities, I for one shall steadfastly hold out -- ' there is that scatterereth and yet increaseth ' "'
Early records show that the parochial clergy were con- tinually reaching out to the outlying hamlets and villages.
The reason more was not accomplished permanently was doubtless the lack of money and men, and the latter diffi- culty Bishop Huntington set out partially to remedy by the founding of St. Andrew's Divinity School in 1876, " to pre- pare candidates to meet all classes and conditions of men as missionaries and evangelists and to interest them in religion and the Church." The School continued until after Bishop Huntington's death and trained nearly seventy-five candi- dates for the ministry, a dozen of whom are now priests in the diocese.
In those early days the spirit of self sacrifice was strong, and a young woman in Phoenix, poor in goods but rich in faith, proposed to devote her luxuriant hair as a gift for the benefit of the Church. But before the fatal shears closed upon it, a gentleman of another town gave $50 on condition that the sacrifice should not be exacted. Alas ! The un- romantic records do not state whether these two ever met.
Bishop Huntington recommended the extending of the system of pledged and stated offerings until all persons should act under such a system. The every member can-
41
OUR THREE BISHOPS
vass is therefore not a new idea, although some new feat- ures have been introduced in its operation.
The Rev. James G. Cameron and the Rev. J. O. S. Hunt- ington left the Diocese in 1882 to participate in the found- ing of the Order of The Holy Cross. Bishop Huntington was present when they took their vows, and pronounced the Benediction.
A Long Episcopate. We cannot stray into the interest- ing mass of details of the past, though the Convention Journals, with the addresses of the Bishop, are full of inter- est. Parochial reports have appended notes which give them human interest. Bishop Huntington's Episcopate was long, and it was exceedingly fruitful, whether we esti- mate it by statistics, by institutions founded, or by spiritual influence. He was a Bishop of deep scholarship, of rare spirituality, of great earnestness and piety. Doctrinally he was a strong Churchman, of deep convictions, clearly reasoned, never compromising on Orders, Faith or Sacra- ments ; but he had pronounced antipathy to any details of ritual observance which seemed to him to savor of mere de- light in outward show, or which hindered the progress of the service. He insisted that the Church was a Church of law and of authority, and he upheld the power of the Apostolic office. He had great breadth of sympathy and exhibited a warm interest in social questions, the problems of labor, etc. He preferred to avoid great public functions, especially such as were secular. He delighted in inter- course with thoughtful men and scholars, and yet he seemed to find real joy in going on great Feast Days of the Church to speak as a veritable "Father in God " to some simple village flock, and to provide Sacramental privileges for a congregation served by some humble lay reader or deacon.
Charles Tyler Olmsted, Our Second Bishop. For many years Bishop Huntington carried on the work of the Diocese alone, without even an Archdeacon to assist him, but in
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OUR DIOCESE
1902, he requested the Conven- tion to elect a Coadjutor. The choice fell upon the Rev. Charles Tyler Olmsted, D.D., then Vicar of St. Agnes's Chapel, New York City, but formerly the rector of Grace Church, Utica, and he was consecrated Oct. 2, 1902.
Bishop Olmsted had not long been Bishop when it was felt that some relief should be given him in the administration of mission- ary work and the office of Archdeacon was created, the Rev. William Cooke being the first to occupy the office.
In 1915 Bishop Olmsted requested that on account of his advancing years a Coadjutor be elected, and the Con- vention elected the Rev. Charles Fiske, D.D., rector of St. Michael and All Angels' Church, Baltimore, who was con- secrated in his parish Church September 29, that year, being the Festival of St. Michael and All Angels.
Charles Fiske, Our Third Bishop. In 1921 Bishop Olmstead, with the consent of the standing Committee transferred the Ecclesiastical Authority, which carries with it full responsibility for the en- tire management and over-sight of the Diocese, to Bishop Fiske. Up to that time Bishop Fiske had been in charge only of such parishes as received missionary aid, having the appointment of their clergy subject to Bishop Olmstead's approval and consent.
The present Bishops of the Diocese are personally known to
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OUR THREE BISHOPS
the readers of this book, and it is accordingly unneces- sary to attempt an estimate of their character, or to sum- marize their work. There are " diversities of gifts but the same spirit," and while " Paul plants and Apollos waters," it is "God that giveth the increase."
SUMMARY OF STATISTICS
Year
No. Clergy Communicants S.S. Teachers
Pupils
Offerings
I869
65
8,093
I25
6,795
181,425
1879
96
12,033
1,123
8,469
167,600
I889
108
14,8c9
1,08I
8,853
248,740
1899
II8
18,562
972
8, 12I
261,045
1909
II2
22,978
952
8,703
325,720
1919
I20
25,273
847
7,39I
431,594
1922
I25
26,018
1,059
8,193
729,434
Forty-two of our present parishes were organized under the Diocese of New York ; forty more came into being under the Diocese of Western New York. St. Mary's, Truxton ; St. Paul's, Belleville ; St. Stephen's, Perryville ; St. Andrew's, Augusta ; St. John's, East Florence ; Christ Church, Danby, were early parishes but are now extinct.
CHAPTER V
DIOCESAN CONTRIBUTIONS
T HIS is not a chapter about money. The real contribu- tion of the Church to the World is a contribution of character, by which the world is leavened. It would be impossible to reckon all the sons and daughters of the Church who have gone out from Central New York to leaven the lump of society. But a few names of those who have contributed to the leadership of the Church call for comment.
Bishops from Central New York. Philander Chase, the first Bishop of Ohio, was, as we have already seen, one or the early missionary clergy in this Diocese. What he did for the Church must be read in the story of his life. He is accounted one of the great pioneers of the Church in the West. His "Cathedral " (1831) was about such a building as St. Paul's Church, Paris Hill, but his influence for good throughout the great western country was immeasurable.
Bishop Whipple, first Bishop of Minnesota, whom the Indians called "Straight Tongue " as the only white man who never told a lie, was born in Adams, and was instructed by Bishop De Lancey and Dr. W. D. Wilson, leaving for his diocese in the West in 1857. The prominence of this great man in national as well as in diocesan affairs, in secular as in ecclesiastical policies was too marked to need more than a reference.
Bishop Paret of Maryland was a candidate for Holy Orders in this Diocese and a teacher at Moravia; rector at Pierrepont Manor and at Trinity, Elmira.
Bishop Tuttle, the much-loved Presiding Bishop of the Church, was born in Windham, New York, and while never a resident clergyman of Central New York, he escaped it only by a narrow margin. He was once consid-
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DIOCESAN CONTRIBUTIONS
ered by the vestry of one of our parishes, and rejected on account of his youth. That is a fault which is usually remedied, and in his case it has been well remedied indeed. His family is associated in Big Flats, while Bishop Leonard of Ohio has family ties with Owego. On both, therefore, we lay some claim.
Bishop Brewer of Montana, originator of the "Appor- tionment" system, was formerly rector of St. Paul's Church, Watertown.
Bishop Longley of Iowa went to the west from Christ Church, Binghamton, and afterward became Bishop.
Bishop Saphore of Arkansas was ordained by Bishop Huntington and had charge of parishes in Watertown and Syracuse.
Bishop Ferris of Western New York was once in charge of St. John's, Elmira Heights, and St. Matthew's, Horse- heads, having been ordained by Bishop Huntington.
Bishop Fox of Montana was also ordained by the first Bishop of this Diocese and served as missionary at Slater- ville and Speedsville-on such a meagre salary that he had to borrow money for his railroad fare when he left the Diocese for Western New York.
Henry A. Neely, Bishop of Maine, born at Fayetteville, N. Y., where his parents were members of Trinity Church, was once stationed in Utica ; while Edward R. Welles, Bishop of Wisconsin, was a pupil of Dr. Gibson in Waterloo.
Two noted bishops were boys in Skaneateless village. The one was Bishop Alfred Lee of Delaware, son of Capt. Benjamin Lee, a member and benefactor of St. James' parish ; the other was Bishop Theodore B. Lyman, fourth Bishop of North Carolina. Full accounts of his varied life may be read in Haywood's "Lives of the Bishops of North Carolina," 1910.
It will be seen therefore that Central New York has fur- nished its share of bishops to the Church, although it is
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OUR DIOCESE
curious that no one has ever been elected a bishop while residing within the limits of this diocese.
Clergy of Central New York. The Rev. Henry Gregory, an early rector of St. Paul's, Syracuse, led in the free church movement there. This led to the organization of St. James' Church, of which he became the rector. Later, he was president of De Veaux Col- lege, near Niagara Falls, but soon returned to his earlier field, doing such work as his health allowed. He was suc- ceeded by the Rev. Joseph M. Clarke, who was rector of St. James for twenty-eight years. In 1886, Dr. Clarke was offered the presidency of the Nashotah Theological Sem- inary, but he declined, preferring a vacant professorship, as teaching had been his earliest choice. For five years he was there as Professor of Exegesis, Biblical Literature and Hebrew. Then he returned to Syracuse to become Bishop Huntington's chaplain and again professor of St. Andrew's Divinity School. It is not easy to speak too highly of his ability, learning, and many virtues.
The Rev. William Croswell, son of the Rev. Dr. Cross- well of New Haven, was rector of St. Peter's, Auburn, in its early days. He was the author of many religious poems and his friend, Bishop G. W. Doan of New Jersey, once said of him that "he had more unwritten poetry in him " than any other man he knew.
One of the most picturesque of the early clergymen in the diocese, not mentioned heretofore, was the Rev. Eleazar Williams who spent many years among privation and suffer- ings, ministering to the Indians. Some glimpses have been saved for us of his forest services, of his vested choirs, of the long procession of horsemen going out to meet and escort Bishop Hobart on the occasion of his visitation to the well-filled church, of the Indian hymns and their quaint attire. Mr. Williams made translations from the old
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DIOCESAN CONTRIBUTIONS
Mohawk dialect into that of the Oneidas which are still used by them in their new home in Wisconsin.
The Rev. Davenport Phelps and Father Nash have already been mentioned among the pioneers in this diocese and many others might be mentioned. They labored and we have entered into the fruits of their labors. It is well to recall their optimism and zeal, their wisdom and unselfish- ness, their hard work and love for God and man, that we may be inspired by their good examples and thus advance the good of all.
Dean Hodges, for so long the wise head of the New York Theological Seminary and the gifted author of so many religious books, was ordered deacon by Bishop Huntington and for a time was a student at our own St. Andrew's Divinity School.
Father Huntington, of the order of the Holy Cross, was the son of our first Bishop and was Vicar in charge of Calvary Church, Syracuse.
Presbyter Ignotus, anything but "ignotus " now, was a student at St. Andrew's, was ordained by Bishop Hunting- ton, and had charge of Grace Church, Elmira, as well as some of the missions of the Old Sixth District. His eloquence and his wealth of learning, as well as his admin- istration of the Church of the Advent, Boston, have made him a national figure.
Central New York sent forth the first medical missionary to Japan in the person of Dr. Henry Laning of McLean, a pioneer whose example has had a wonderful effect on missionary effort.
And if Central New York has made her contributions to the Church, so has she drawn her life blood from afar. On her parochial list are some native sons, indeed, of whom the Rev. William M. Beauchamp is first in priority, as he is first in our affections. He has lived in Onondaga County since his first year, and yet has lived in three different
48
OUR DIOCESE
dioceses, under Bishops Hobart, Onderdonk, De Lancey, Coxe, Huntington, Olmsted, and Fiske, and is one of the three clerical survivors of the erection of this dioeese. He is still busy in Church work in his ninety-third year.
But even a casual glance at the clergy list reveals also the name of men who have come to us from England and Canada, from the far West and from the South, from the near East and from the far East, reminding us that the Church is one great fellowship, in which none liveth to himself or dieth to himself, and that if we have given, so have we received.
Laymen of Central New York. Of the many devoted laymen in the diocese, who have, by their labors and ex- ample, contributed so largely to the growth of the Church, only three will be cited. Not that, in every parish, similar examples cannot be had and hundreds if not thousands of of faithful souls have everywhere in the diocese been found constant even unto death. But space would be found lack- ing even to recall their names. These three, however, may serve as types.
The far-seeing missionary zeal of Mr. Gerritt H. Van Wagener of Oxford, who laid the foundations for the present rural work in Chenango County by establishing a perma- nent missionary fund, illustrates a practical way of ensuring continuing ministrations.
Judge William Marvin of Skaneateles, at one time pro- visional Governor of Florida, was a jurist of distinction.
At the same time he was a churchman of devout faith and a thorough student of theology. He most ably represented the diocese in the General Convention and illustrates the really educated Churchman.
The late Judge Charles Andrews of Syracuse was another eminent jurist who gave freely of his talents to the Church. As Chancellor of the Diocese, his legal knowledge was placed freely at the disposal of the Bishop and Standing
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