USA > New York > The centennial history of the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of New York, 1785-1885 > Part 10
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The body was carried on men's shoulders and covered with a pall, which six presbyters supported as pall-bearers. As they passed down Broadway a military company, or per- haps a larger portion of a regiment, met the funeral by acci- dent; but instinctively, reverently, by those methods which military men better understand than I can describe them, the ranks were separated and they stood with reversed arms while the remains of the great Bishop of New York passed between that file of solemn soldiery, offering an unbought tribute to his universally acknowledged merits as a prelate and a man of God.
I have exhausted one-half of my time and the story is not told. I ought to tell how the Diocese of Western New York originated. You are celebrating the one hundredth year of this maternal diocese. You are celebrating the fiftieth year of my diocese. Fifty years ago, and, if I am not wrong, at this very time of the year, there was gathered in the city of Utica one of the most memorable conventions that was ever held among us, to take into consideration whether the Dio- cese of New York should be " made two bands." Public sen- timent was greatly divided at that time. I remember it well, for, owing to circumstances, the idea had taken possession of our people that a diocese must always be commensurate with the State, so that the Diocese of New York, it was supposed, must be the Diocese of the State of New York. Who was it that woke us up to higher and more Catholic ideas? I an- swer, Dr. Whittingham, afterwards Bishop of Maryland : his memorable little tract it was that stirred the whole Church. And when one reflects on what is commonly said concerning the Catholic movement of Oxford fifty years ago, it may
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justly be suggested that it was all anticipated in the lofty character of Whittingham, at that time rector of St. Luke's Church. I saw him instituted; he was then one of the most interesting young ecclesiastics that ever lived; without charms of person ; without charms of that kind of eloquence which is called popular ; but a man perfectly saturated with the spirit of the primitive ages; a man concerning whom an English divine said to me, " If the whole Catholic Church was buried save only your Whittingham, I believe out of that one man the whole Catholic Church might rise up again like our Di- vine Lord in living glory." He anticipated the Oxford move- ment, and he might have saved it from its merited decline. His life, his character, and teachings were those of the first Christian ages. He lived them over again ; and what higher eulogy can we pay to the Diocese of New York, in its early history, than to say that it bred that man? He was the typi- cal, the characteristic son of the diocese, reflecting in his whole nature, not only the teaching of his great master, Bishop Ho- bart, but the spirit of the blessed apostles, the spirit of the Nicene Fathers, the spirit of the martyrs, as no other man of our times has done. He was really, what some only imagine themselves to be-a Catholic. In him Antiquity was known here, was professed here, and lived here; he was the grand apostle of it before we heard of Dr. Pusey-I say it not to disparage that great and venerated scholar. There are those in this church who know that what I say is a tribute to his- toric truth. The Diocese of Western New York originated in his great and most Catholic instructions. The whole Church responded. A diocese thereafter was not to be, necessarily, large enough for an empire. He pointed out the seven churches to which Jesus sent His apostles ; showed us the great high-priest of the Catholic Church addressing the bishop of Philadelphia, the Church of Tarsus, the Church of Smyrna and other cities. A diocese was originally a city. Every great city was to have its bishop, and to be the centre of power and influence to surrounding Paganism.
So, as I have said, just fifty years ago a reforming Council met at Utica, and it was glorified by a splendid debate.
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Again I must bear a tribute to St. Thomas' Church, for the eloquent tongue of Hawks was never more distinguished than on that occasion. In a brilliant debate he was met by a prominent layman well known as an American jurist,* and these representative men led the discussion. Then were set- tled the principles upon which the diocese should be divided; but, previously, the great question whether it should be di- vided at all; or, to use better ecclesiastical phraseology, whether a daughter diocese should be erected. Three years after that, in 1838, such a diocese was erected, and the graceful and learned De Lancey was taken from Philadelphia (he was a son of New York, of an old Westchester family), and was made the first bishop, taking up his pastoral staff at Auburn, where the great Hobart had closed his luminous career.
If I could tell you of the humble men, living on a few hun- dred dollars, who had brought Western New York to the point where it could receive such a man as its first bishop, you would have the history of simple, persevering, suffering, fidelity to the truth of the Gospel, on the part of men who have left little record in this world except that of their good works, which still speak to all men, and which follow them to glory. Beloved, faithful missionary presbyters built up my diocese. See what " diocesan missions" mean. They rest from their labors; but let it be remembered of one, the illus- trious missionary of the West, whose work was in that region where my own labors are now expended, let it be remembered of Davenport Phelps, and to the honor of the second Bishop of New York, that he came to the city of New York to be ordained by Bishop Moore, because he was a bishop who "believed in missions." Bishop Moore-reverend and vener- able name-had started from the very outset of his episco- pate with an impression of the importance of missions, and with confidence in missionary effort. Mr. Phelps said: " I want to be ordained by that man who believes in my chosen work;" and wherever that missionary labored (going into lit- tle cottages, and baptizing children, and catechising them), now stands some monument of his life and of his faith.
* John C. Spencer, of Canandaigua.
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Under the guidance of that glorious character, Bishop De Lancey, the Diocese of Western New York grew from great feebleness to something like strength. When he rested from his labors in 1865 I was called from my beloved parish in this city, very reluctant to turn away from my work here, to suc- ceed that blessed man, or rather, to be consecrated by his hands, and to be his coadjutor ; a position I held for three months only, when his mantle and the great responsibilities of the whole diocese fell upon me. Three years after, in 1868, the Diocese of Western New York herself became a mother, and the admirable Diocese of Central New York was called into being. In 1869 was consecrated as its first bishop, that "burning and shining light," Bishop Huntington, form- erly the ornament of Harvard University, and now the faith- ful and devoted missionary apostle of Central New York, whose absence in this day of memories is about all that has given it any touch of disappointment.
I ought to sit down. I have told my story, and yet I have not told it. May I take a few minutes to say in close of my share in this solemn day's proceedings that it is a day which ought to be remembered and which should leave a deep im- pression on all who have been favored to attend it. If there ever have been divisions of hearts where there have been divisions of dioceses (I am not aware that there have been, but such things grow up with unavoidable estrangements), to-day it seems to me they are gone forever. It seems as if the beautiful services in Trinity Church this morning were animated from beginning to end by the spirit of that old hymn of the Church :
" Of strife and of dissension Dissolve, O Lord, the bands, And knit the knots of peace and love Throughout all Christian lands."
Touchingly has the bishop of this diocese been remem- bered in our prayers and in our constant reverence of filial affection. The names of the presiding bishops have been re- called with love and admiration ; the eminent names of God's
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servants who have entered into rest have passed before us in bright review : the names, among others, of Muhlenberg, dear saint, and of Milnor, and of Hill, the modern evangelist of Greece. But there is one name which I think was not mentioned this morning, and it ought to have been-the honored name of Dr. McVickar. He was one of the best preachers I heard in my early days, and his sermons, if not strictly what are called eloquent sermons, were most instruc- tive, and were delivered from the pulpit with a critical use of language and a command of his subject which made me look up to him and feel what a glorious thing it is to be a minister of Christ. And such it is, my brethren. If anything has been done in our country and for our country, it has been done, if not altogether by clergy, yet by means of them ; not by power, not by might, but by the Lord of Hosts, by the Spirit of God working in the lives and in the hearts and souls of faithful men who, looking upon the allurements of the world, counted all as dross, that they might preach Christ. They carried on the work for which the Son of God came down, and for which the most noble spirits that ever glorified humanity have lived and died. O, mothers, why are not your sons forthcoming, like Timothy and Titus and such as were the Chrysostoms and the Ambroses of the early Christ- ian day? Why do you not reflect that the work which stands first and last and will live forever is the work which the faithful man of God is permitted to do in his Master's name, winning souls which shall shine as the firmament and as the stars forever and ever?
BISHOP POTTER at the conclusion of the address said, The Bishop of Western New York has reminded us of the one cloud upon the joy of this assemblage. I may men- tion one other, which will occur to all of you, in the ab- sence of the venerated bishop of this Diocese, who would most properly have presided on this occasion, and have given to you his paternal benediction. In his absence, how-
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ever, we are favored with the presence of one who succeeded him in the parish from which he was called to the charge of this diocese, and who to-day presides over that part of the State of New York to which Bishop Potter by his associa- tions was especially endeared. I have great pleasure in pre- senting to you the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Albany.
ADDRESS OF RIGHT REV. WILLIAM CROSWELL DOANE, D.D.
THIS is the second Convention of the Diocese of New York, said Bishop Doane, which it has been my privilege to attend. The first was in 1868, at which twin daughters were born to the mother ; Long Island the older, and Albany the younger of the two. And as I come back here to-night with so many memories revived, so many faces remembered, and so many missed, I confess almost the first thought in my mind has been that which my brother has so delicately and kindly alluded to just now; that it was my privilege some- what to relieve the shoulders of the venerable bishop of this diocese from a large part of what was a heavy burden both of travel and of travail; and at the same time, I know a por- tion of the burden which he was always most glad to bear. The history of the Diocese of Albany, I think is in certain ways a somewhat peculiar one. I remember, for instance, that you owe to what is now the Diocese of Albany, the bishop and the assistant bishop of this diocese ; one of whom was the rector of its old mother parish, and the other of whom won his first spurs in the important city of Troy-spurs which I am so glad he still wears and uses to stimulate to all noble and energetic efforts for the Church. I remember that the old Northern Convocation, which is now the Diocese of Albany, furnished at once the missionary field and the missionary spirit of the Diocese of New York; and I remember that I can say of it what Bishop Coxe has just said of Western New York, in its relation to Bishop Hobart, that it was the dearest portion of Bishop Potter's jurisdiction, which certainly will yield to no part of the diocese in the affection in which it held him ; and in the love and reverence in which 8
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it holds his memory now. I remember that Albany has given to the Church at large, not only these two bishops of whom I speak, but also the Bishop of Long Island, who began his work in Schenectady ; the Bishop of Missouri and Utah, of New Jersey and Northern Jersey, of Fond du Lac and Indiana and Nebraska, and the Assistant of Central Penn- sylvania. I remember among the names of this diocese, when it was one great undivided family, that chief missionary of the State, who won the name, because he bore the charac- ter of true fatherhood, of Father Nash, the great missionary of Otsego County, and the old names, familiar as were their faces to you, of Bostwick and of Payne, and Tucker, the latter of whom I miss so much to-day; and I remember the layman, whose gray hair was the type not only of the dignity and honor of his years, but of the ripeness and beauty of his intellect and character, my most beloved friend,-whose friendship was an heritage, which the bishop of this diocese, I cannot say handed down to me because I shared it with him-my beloved friend, Orlando Meads. When I remem- ber these men and these things I am disposed to feel that the history of Albany and its relation to this diocese are matter both of interest and importance. I go back to certain other things ; I am somewhat full of the traditions of the old part of this diocese. It was known as the Northern Convoca- tion. It was full of the most intense and earnest energy in the developments and progress of the Church, and it was saturated, down to the very children, with Catholic theology, as Bishop Hobart first taught it in this diocese and I might almost say in this land. I suppose I may seem to be making somewhat of a strong claim when I say that the great river, which gives to New York its wealth, finds it source in the Adirondack forests, a portion of the Diocese of Albany. The water-shed that is protected-I only wish it was better pro- tected and I only hope that it will be one of these days-the water-shed that is protected by that primitive forest is the source and spring of the wealth and commercial dignity of this great city of the Union ; "which thing is an allegory " of the men that came to you from us ; and of the tone and stand-
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ard of churchly teaching and feeling which those men always brought down with them, like a fresh pine odor and a fresh mountain breeze from the North, when they came to this Convention; to stand by Bishop Onderdonk in all his trials; to minister as they well could, soundness and strength to the counsels of this diocese. I am dis- posed to think I have some right to found upon these facts the statement of a claim, which I think Albany has upon the Diocese of New York. I hope nobody will imagine that I have forgotten the proprieties of this occasion, or that I have forgotten my own personal dignity so far as to feel that this is the time or place, even if there were any need, to speak of any claim that can be paid in money, whether it be the dower to be given, as I believe it will one day be given by the mother to the daughter ; or the help that I trust will one day be given, in recognition of the effort making to build a Cathedral Church in the capital city of this State. I am not thinking of any claim of this sort, or of any matter that money can repay ; I am thinking of just what my brother said who spoke before me.
I was going to say, when I first spoke of the twin birth of Long Island and Albany, that twinship was the only thing in which they resembled Jacob and Esau, but I am a little dis- posed to think that the older brother has taken part of my right ; for the one thing I had saved to speak of here was the earnest longing-and I am quite sure I represent the diocese I have the honor and privilege of belonging to when I speak of it -the earnest longing to come back to this old mother diocese ; not, as St. Paul said of Onesiphorus, " not as a servant, but as a brother beloved." So I say, not as a child to be fostered and fed and cared for (we have a notion up North that we are walking pretty well alone) but to come back to that, which, in all human experience, is the sweetest of all com- panionship and the safest of all counselling, the relation between daughters grown up to be almost the sisters of their mother-" Facies non omnibus una, nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum;" the fair and well-grown sisters with their mother, taking counsel together for the things that
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pertain to the common interests. I am not speaking of this either out of sentiment or out of sympathy ; although I am a great believer in both. I do not believe that Jacob would ever have built his pillar or consecrated it, or gone back there again and doubly consecrated it, if he had not used those stones first for the pillow on which he dreamed. I do not think men do any great thing in the world that they do not dream about; and sentiment and sympathy give wings, and life, and airiness, and heavenly tendencies to the work that men are proposing to do. But this is not a matter, in my judg- ment, of mere sentiment or sympathy. I dimly caught to- day, rather hearing between lines, both in the admirable sermon this morning and in the historical sketch of this even- ing, a little sort of diminution, or degradation, or depravation of the idea of Provincial Synods or Federate Councils. I do not care what you call it (although I would rather call things by their right names than their wrong names), I do not care what you call it so you get it ; and I do ask you, my Right Reverend Brother and my friends, to take this matter in hand. There are a thousand and one things, which I think, if I were the Diocese of New York and were a hundred and one years old, I would resolve to do in the strength of the past and in the hope of the future ; but I am not the Diocese of New York and not a hundred and one years old ; so I do not propose to enumerate the one thousand things ; but I do press this one thing, as needful for the great interests which are common to us all within the limits of this State.
I live in Albany and some of you come there sometimes. There is a good deal of risk and danger going on there, now and then, in matters that concern, not questions of State, but questions of the Church, questions ecclesiastical and religious. I think we ought to be represented there not by the single bishop of a single diocese, but we ought to be represented, when the occasion comes, by the multitudinous voice of the great old Diocese of New York; stronger for its divisions, as some things do grow stronger when you cut them and plant them in proper places. For the administration of great trusts, for the government of general institutions already founded, for
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the foundation of other institutions, and the regulation of mat- ters of charity and mercy as well as of education; above all, for this great question, of somewhat controlling and shaping the ecclesiastical legislation, so far as civil legislators have anything to do with it; for such things as these, I believe in letting the thousand things go, so that this one thing, THE PROVINCE, worth praying for and thinking of, may be se- cured. This Diocese of New York, entering with renewed strength upon its work, perhaps has, perhaps has not, got through with the consideration of divisions; the question of " ex uno plures." The thing to treat of now is the " e pluribus unum," the reuniting of the parted members.
That is pretty much what I have to say, my Right Rever- end Brother. Last week in my Greene County visitations, if it had not been for a range of mountains, I might have shaken hands with the Assistant Bishop of New York, when we were both consecrating churches, within eight miles of each other. Coming home from these autumnal visits, with feet and thoughts set towards this great gathering, I was struck with three things. I went to an old parish in Delaware County, in a town which had the good sense, I do not know how many years ago, to change its name from an exceedingly common and secular appellation, to the dignified and honored name of Hobart. I was in St. Peter's Church, Hobart, only on Monday night, the eve of the Feast of St. Michael. I went the next day to consecrate a church in the adjoining village of Stamford, the outgrowth of the zeal and energy of the old parish in Hobart, and it seemed to me to be a fitting type of so much that we have to thank God for to-day, that out of the zeal and energy, the devotion and wisdom of that great bishop of this State, so much has grown.
I wonder if I dare say here that the village of Stamford, adjoining the village of Hobart, in which I consecrated the Church, the Church being due to the energy of the Rector of Hobart, used to be known as the " Devil's half-acre ; " and now it rejoices in the possession of as good and peaceful a body of villagers as I know of anywhere. This is not an un- fit symbol of Bishop Hobart's battle with evil, and because he
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fought it so well, the Church has its great strength and vigor to-day.
Close by Stamford runs a little narrow stream, flowing from a lake with a long name which I cannot remember, which is the headwaters of the Delaware River. It took me back fifty-two years to that most beautiful and beloved place where my dear father lived, and labored, and died ; who, if he called any one master, and swore by the words of any master in the world, that man was Bishop Hobart. And the old stream of personal memories carried me back to many and many a thought and longing and wish; that, as such great, great blessings flowed from such small beginnings as that little stream seemed there ; so, from such little things as we are able to do in our life and labor, God may bring great and gracious results of spiritual refreshment to the world. Then I came down the other side of the same mountain, through those marvellous colors on the hillsides, which realize, into almost material fact, the truth, that God " maketh His Angels spirits and His Ministers a flame of fire ;" kindling a tongue of flame on every tree, upon the hills, and, it seemed to me, that in the midst of all those unearthly glories, I could feel, not merely that gracious appointment of God, by which He has set men and angels in a wonderful order, to work; but that I could realize also how the beloved in Paradise, in the pure and fair and unveiled vision of the glories of the Eternal City, absent from our eyes, were none the less sharers with us, by interest and intercession, in perpetually carrying on the work, for which they lived and for which they laid down their lives.
As the traveller crosses the Atlantic on his homeward way, said Bishop Potter, he is saluted, when he approaches this port of ours, as the first sign of the home which he seeks, by that magnificent light, which, heralding Long Island, greets the traveller from that other, which we know as Fire Island. Another light clear and commanding has ruled the peaceful history of the Diocese of Long Island, as
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witness to the influence of a life of service, both in letters and of labors, and has made that jurisdiction one of the most commanding in the whole American Church. We are favored and honored to-night, dear brethren, with the pres- ence of the Bishop of Long Island, who will speak for the diocese over which he presides.
ADDRESS OF THE RIGHT REV. A. N. LITTLEJOHN, D.D.
THE past century of the Church in this State, remarked Bishop Littlejohn, has been eloquently reproduced to-day. The master-builders of our ecclesiastical life ; its movements ; its schools of thought ; its alternations of success and failure ; the creation of five dioceses out of one, together with the new lines of development thus originated-all have been vividly put before us. The duty of the hour, before all else, is to interpret and apply the lessons they teach. Rich as the occasion is in historic interest, it should be equally so in its practical uses ; and it is only as we enter into both that we can be intelligently grateful to the mother diocese, whose loving heart has called her children about her for the pur- poses of this celebration.
All questions of the hour centre in this: What have we done? What do we mean to do with what has been commit- ted to our keeping? Granted that our lineage and our inheri- tance, our gifts, endowments, and opportunities, are what we claim; what has been in the past, what is likely to be in the future, the fruit of them in our hands? It matters little what commemorative dignity and splendor may be thrown around this day ; the only thing that can make it truly great and memorable, is the answer we give to these questions. If we may not be proud of our record, certainly we need not be ashamed of it. It is written on the forefront of the century, where all men may read it. It witnesses to a growth which, when rightly viewed, has been scarcely less than marvellous. A century of growth for the Nation, and a century of growth for the Church, are not to be measured by the same tests. The former because it has been social, political, intellectual,
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