USA > New York > The centennial history of the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of New York, 1785-1885 > Part 15
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world were to be resisted on principle in his conscientious opinion, and whatever he felt to be right he never shrunk from enforcing at any cost of personal popularity.
Perhaps the intensely patriotic character of Hobart would never have been fully understood, but for the painful incidents that followed his sermon on returning from his European tour in 1825. He had been received in England with open arms, as the first prelate of the American succession who had been seen in the mother land that imparted it. When, in the sermon referred to, he indulged himself, with his usual ardor, in stating the vast advantage we enjoy as a non-established Church, and in drawing vividly the contrast between the blessings of American republicanism and foreign monarchies, he was bitterly reproached in England, as if he had ungrate- fully returned the lavish hospitalities he there received and had signalized his first opportunity, in returning to his own land, by ungenerous reflections upon the maternal country to which our Prayer-Book itself recognizes our vast obligations. He was nobly defended, even in England, however, by the kindred hand and heart of the truly illustrious Hugh James Rose, whose early death was so great and mysterious an affliction to the Church of England. And, the only lasting memory of the controversy that was stirred up at the time, has been the indisputable fact that Hobart was an American in every bone and fibre of his nature.
The life of Bishop Hobart remains to be written ; for the innumerable books and pamphlets that came forth on his de- cease were, necessarily, imperfect and suited only to express the emotions of the moment. These were, indeed, unex- ampled, and such as carried away all gainsaying, before the fact, so universally felt, that "a great man and a prince had fallen in Israel." It ought to be noted that his death illustra- ted the master-principles of his life in a striking manner, not only by the holy and beautiful submission with which he yielded his life, in the midst of his work and afar from his beloved home, but, also, by several minor matters not un- worthy of mention. His intense love of nature, and his ability to commune with God through its instrumentality, were strik-
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ingly instanced when he begged to be turned so that he might look at the setting sun, in all its splendors, as it sank upon his eyesight for the last time. So, when he stopped the officiating priest as he was about to receive the Holy Viaticum and insisted upon certain Liturgical proprieties, not for cere- monial effect, but for practical benefit, in his Confession of Sin, there was a memorable disclosure of the whole spirit with which he clung to the Liturgy, as the very breath of his in- ward life. It is further a most memorable fact, that he died a martyr to his convictions as to the best way of promoting the movement for temperance then stirring the whole country. He had opposed, for obvious reasons, the excesses of that movement, and was unwilling to subject himself, as a Chris- tian, to moral pledges which he regarded as superfluous in the light of the Baptismal vows. But, for himself, he had resolved to practice entire abstinence upon his official visitations, if not at other times, lest "the ministry should be blamed," and as an example and a warning to his clergy. The lime- stone water of the Western region of the diocese, however, had brought on a painful attack which rapidly became a virulent dysentery. At Rochester, he was warned to mingle a little brandy with the water used at table, but he refused. " Bishop," said his host, "you are already a sick man, and if you persist, you will die before you reach your home." "Then I will die," answered Hobart, with a smile, but very seriously : "I know what duty requires of me, in these times of public excitement, and in view of the stand I have taken." He would not inflict upon the Church the reproach of a dram- drinking bishop, and so he died in harness, a witness to the master-principle of his life.
If I have too much extended this narrative it will be par- doned, I trust, by all who reflect that the Church has but one Bishop Hobart; and that noteworthy as have been the services of many others of her illustrious sons, it was his mission, once and for all, to uplift the American Church from the low estate into which it had fallen and from the depen- dent and humiliating position that had dwarfed it in colonial days. So far as our dear Church is the American Church
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pre-eminently, and for the fact that it was so early brought into contact and influence with the thought and the organiza- tions of American Christianity, our lasting gratitude is due to the third Bishop of New York.
NOTE .- For the statements here made independently of my own recollections and the information gained in conversation with others, I have relied chiefly upon the biographical memoirs of my venerated friends, Drs. Berrian and McVickar, now long since deceased. Much interesting reflex light has been thrown upon the English episode here referred to by the publication of Churton's Memoirs of Joshua Watson, London, 1863.
I have said nothing of the various portraits of the bishop, although desired to do so, because I cannot speak of them with the certainty that several others are not in existence, and because I am not sure as to the artist, save only in a single instance. (I) There is a very interesting likeness of the bishop which must have been taken soon after his consecration, and which was formerly in the pos- session of the late Rev. John Murray Guion, of Cayuga Co., N. Y. (2) An in- ferior painting, which was no favorite with the bishop's family, is now in the Semi- nary at New York. (3) The portrait by which the bishop is popularly known was by Paradise. A fine engraving was made from it by Durand, and innumerable smaller copies have been made after that. It is an excellent map of the features, but fails in their expression, not only as to their fire when animated, but also as to their sweetness in repose. I think I have heard that the Guion portrait was by Jarvis ; it is certainly worthy of being copied, or made known by the burin, as it possesses historical interest.
A. Quelantone
is hop of New York
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THE FOURTH BISHOP OF NEW YORK .*
THE Rt. Rev. Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, D.D., fourth Bishop of New York, was born July 15, 1791, and bap- tized in Trinity Parish, New York, August 19, 1791. He was the son of Dr. John Onderdonk, a much-respected physician in the city of New York, and was brother to the Rt. Rev. Henry Ustick Onderdonk, D.D., sometime Bishop of Penn- sylvania. His wife, who at the writing of this paper still sur- vives him, was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Henry Mos- crop. The children of this marriage were William, Henry M., Benjamin T., Hobart and Elizabeth. He graduated in 1809 from Columbia College, from which, in 1816, he received the degree of M.A., and in 1826 that of S.T.D .; and he served
as a trustee of that institution from 1824 to 1853. In his twenty-second year he was ordained deacon by Bishop Ho- bart, by whom, also, he was admitted to the priesthood on attaining the canonical age. While yet a deacon he was made an assistant minister of Trinity Church, retaining that position while in priest's orders, and also during the first part of his episcopate until the year 1836, an arrangement re- sulting from the liberality of Trinity Church, rendered need- ful by the insufficiency of the Episcopal Fund prior to that date. He was consecrated Bishop of New York on the death of Bishop Hobart in 1830, and until 1838 his jurisdiction ex- tended throughout the State. The Diocese of Western New York being set off at that time, his jurisdiction for the remain- der of his episcopate covered the rest of the State, including both that part now known as the Diocese of New York and also those parts now included within the Dioceses of Central New York, Albany, and Long Island. In 1821 and 1822 he was Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the General Theo- logical Seminary, and from 1821 until his death he held, in
* Chiefly an abstract from the discourse delivered at the funeral of Bishop Onderdonk by the Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., rector of the Church of the An- nunciation (New York, 1861).
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the same institution, the Chair of the Nature, Ministry and Polity of the Church, now that of Ecclesiastical Polity and Law. Out of consideration, however, for the feelings of others, he refrained from exercising the duties of the pro- fessorship after the sentence imposed upon him in 1845, al- though his right to do so was not affected by that sentence, under the law either of the Church or of the Seminary.
Until his consecration opened for him a wider sphere Bishop Onderdonk was distinguished as an able and laborious parish priest. His powers for work, both bodily and mental, and his unremitting diligence in the use of those powers, were alike remarkable. His visitations among those committed to his charge, especially the poor, the sick, and the afflicted, were assiduous. His catechising and preaching were constant and effective. Not so eloquent in popular estimation as those of Bishop Hobart, his discourses were, nevertheless, always ac- knowledged to be sound, judicious, and instructive. His teach- ing then and throughout his ministry was based upon the doctrines of the fall of man ; of his redemption, by the vol- untary humiliation and sacrifice of the Son of God, to the ca- pacity of pardon and eternal life ; of the establishment of the Church on earth as the means of preserving the true religion, and of drawing from its Head in heaven, through the minis- try and sacraments of His appointment, that spiritual influ- ence which is necessary to open to man an access to the Father, through the Son and by the Holy Spirit, on the pre- scribed conditions of the Gospel covenant. His discourses in the pulpit, and the many papers, expository of the doc- trines, usages, canons, and rubrics of the Church, which he constantly contributed to the press, were an expansion and application of these principles. Upon these principles he shaped his course, both as bishop of the diocese and as a member of the House of Bishops and of General Convention ; and his patient submission to the discipline of the Church was the legitimate fruit of the same principles.
Unlike that of most others, the life of Bishop Onderdonk was divided into two distinct portions : the one distinguished chiefly by resolute action, the other distinguished exclusively by patient suffering. His active life extended from 1812 to
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1845 ; and its influence was important, extended, and lasting. Hardly less so, in its own way, was that of the remaining sixteen years which were passed in seclusion.
In October, 1844, Bishop Onderdonk was at the zenith of his fame. At the expiration of three months from this time, accused of acts of immorality, not by his own diocese, but by the bishops of three remote dioceses, he was, by a court com- posed of bishops, suspended from the exercise of his ministry, and from the office of a bishop in the Church of God. This sentence was passed on the 3d of January, 1845, being Friday. On Sunday, the 5th of the same month, he attended the di- vine service at the Church of the Annunciation, and received at the hands of Bishop Gadsden of South Carolina, who offi- ciated there on that day, the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The sentence which on moral grounds had ad- judged him unworthy of the sacred ministry, did not debar him from the Holy Communion, thus publicly and with ex- press episcopal sanction administered to him; and in the communion of the Church, and, by consequence, in the com- munion of those bishops by whom he had been condemned, he continued unto his life's end.
All of the offences alleged against the bishop were alleged to have been committed between June, 1837, and July, 1842. The law under which he was tried was enacted more than two years after the last of these dates, in 1844 .* It provided for sentence either of admonition, suspension, or deposition. Of the seventeen bishops who composed the Court six voted at first for admonition, three of the remaining eleven voting for suspension, and eight for deposition. The six, concurring afterwards with the three, appear to have consented to sus- pension to avoid deposition. The canon did not define sus- pension, or state whether it was to be from the ministry en- tirely, or from the episcopate. The sentence was that of suspension both from the office of a bishop and from all the functions of the sacred ministry. It was unlimited either by
Canon III. of 1844. This was the first canon ever enacted by General Convention for the trial of bishops. 'It repealed one (Canon IV. of 1841) entitled "on the trial of bishops," but providing only for their presentment (see the canon), and was itself repealed in 1856.
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term of time or condition ; nor did the canon provide for any possible revocation. In the next General Convention (1847) it was enacted that the bishops entitled to seats in the House of Bishops may altogether remit and terminate any judicial sentence which may have been imposed by bishops acting collectively as a judicial tribunal, or modify the same so as to designate a precise period of time or other specific contin- gency, on the occurrence of which such sentence shall cease and be of no further force or effect ; * and that whenever the penalty of suspension shall be inflicted on a bishop, priest, or deacon in this Church, the sentence shall specify on what terms or at what time the penalty shall cease.} The sen- tence of Bishop Onderdonk was neither remitted nor modified. He remained under its operation for more than sixteen years (1845-1861) after the Church had provided that no such sen- tence should be pronounced in future on any clergyman within her jurisdiction ; and for nearly fourteen years (1847-1861) after the General Convention, by empowering the bishops to remit it, had done all that a legislative body could do for its removal.
Of the charges on which he was condemned the bishop constantly maintained his innocence. He regarded his sen- tence as both unjust and illegal, but he made no attempt to oppose or evade it. An appeal to the civil courts was often urged upon him, and advocated by most eminent counsel, but it was steadfastly declined as inconsistent with his sense of duty to the Church. With equal firmness he con- stantly refused to comply with the wish of those who (either from unwillingness that he should ever exercise the functions of his office, or as a means of securing the remission of his sentence) desired him to resign his jurisdiction. He scrupu- lously conformed both to the letter and the spirit of his sen- tence ; and withdrawing himself as much as possible from the world, he waited in patient humility for the clemency which was never to be shown. Three ineffectual movements were made by memorial and formal address to induce the bishops to use the power vested in them for his relief. And when the last memorial, supported by a resolution of the conven- tion of his diocese was rejected by the bishops at the General
Canon II. of 1847.
+ Canon III. of 1847.
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Convention of 1859, the remaining earthly hope of his life was quenched. His health from this time gradually declined ; his age seemed visibly to increase upon him; and it was not long before his final illness overpowered him. Toward the close of that illness he humbly professed, in answer to the questions proposed in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, ministered to him by one of his presbyters, his friend, the Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton, his forgiveness and charity for all ; his sincere repentance of sin; his sole hope in Jesus Christ his Saviour ; but added in solemn earnestness, as he fixed his eyes upon his interrogator : " Of the crimes of which I have been accused and for which I have been condemned my conscience acquits me in the sight of God." This was on Friday, April 26, 1861. On the Sunday follow- ing he received the Viaticum at the hands of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Seabury, the rector of his parish church, and on Tuesday of the same week, April 30th, he departed this life. His funeral rites, solemnized in Trinity Church on Tuesday of the week following (such as no one who witnessed could ever forget), testified to the love and reverence in which he was held by the great body of his people, both clergy and laity. Watched through the night by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Roosevelt Johnson and other loving friends, his body was on the following day laid to rest at Trinity Cemetery.
Few have passed through such a fight of afflictions ; few have had, and few have better used, such opportunities to exemplify the highest graces of the Christian life, as fell to the lot of this venerable man. In his twofold testimony of action and suffering, undertaken and endured in the simple desire to promote the Christian edification of the clergy and people committed to his charge, few have better illustrated than he the words which our Lord applied to the Holy Bap- tist, and which were used as the text for the discourse deliv- ered at his funeral : " He was a burning and a shining light, and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light."
Umflabury
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THE FIFTH BISHOP OF NEW YORK .*
I AM thankful to associate the name of my dear father, with this memoir of his lifelong and beloved friend. Drawn with the discriminating hand of intimate friendship, it is so truly the picture of an " old master," that I do not presume to spoil it by any touches of a modern brush. And yet I am glad to add to it the tribute of my boyish and reverent recol- lection of Bishop Wainwright, in all the majesty of his digni- fied manhood and all the courtesy and charm of his character, as a gentleman, as a distinguished citizen, as scholar, pastor, and bishop.
JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT was born in Liver- pool, England, on the 24th day of February, 1792. Peter
Wainwright, his father, was an English merchant, who had established himself not long after the War of Independence in the city of Boston.
Here he married Elizabeth, daughter of Jonathan May- hew, D.D., a Congregational minister. Dr. Mayhew was a descendant of Sir Thomas Mayhew, one of the early settlers of the country, and the first Governor of Martha's Vineyard. He was a Unitarian in doctrine, and bitterly opposed to Epis- copacy. He took an active part against its introduction into America ; and was engaged in an extensive controversy with Archbishop Secker, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, of New Jersey, and others. An anecdote related by a ven- erable presbyter illustrates well the relation which Dr. Mayhew held toward the Church, and sheds a half-prophetic ray upon his grandson's course. The Rev. Dr. Eaton, now more than forty years ago, was dining with a friend at Cam- bridge. In the room was a portrait of Dr. Mayhew with an inverted mitre in one corner. "What a pity," said the guest, " that Dr. Mayhew should have felt such enmity toward the
* Extract from the memoir of Bishop Wainwright, written by Bishop Doane of New Jersey.
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Church as to have a mitre upside down inserted in his por- trait !" " Oh, well," said the lady of the house, "perhaps his grandson, Jonathan Wainwright, may turn it back again." " And wear it himself," said Dr. Eaton, happily. The grand- son had then lately graduated at Harvard University, and had no thought of entering the ministry. The first school to which Jonathan was sent was taught by the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Lewin, a Dissenting Minister in Liverpool. From there he went to the school of the Rev. Mr. Hughes, a clergy- man at Ruthven in North Wales. To his instructions and example he always ascribed his attachment to the Church. No doubt, much was also due to the influence of his excellent godmother, Mrs. Hartwell, with whom he often spent his holidays at Holyhead.
In 1803 Peter Wainwright returned to America with his family. Jonathan, then eleven years old, was sent to the Academy at Sandwich, on Cape Cod, at first under the tui- tion of the Rev. Mr. Burr, and afterward of Mr. Elisha Clapp, under whose direction he was prepared for college. From the academy at Sandwich young Wainwright went, in 1808, to Harvard College at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1812. Of his college life no details have been obtained.
It is believed that during his academic life he indulged the love of sacred music, which was a passion in him, by act- ing gratuitously as the organist of Christ Church, at which he worshiped. Soon after his graduation he was appointed a Proctor of the University and instructor in rhetoric. He held this office for several years and discharged its duties with entire acceptance.
Not long after he had graduated, he entered the office of the late William Sullivan, Esq., of Boston, as a student of law; but the study was not congenial to his taste, and he abandoned it. Determining to devote his life to the work of the sacred ministry, he became a candidate for holy orders, and pursued his theological studies, chiefly under the care of the Rev. Dr. Gardiner, rector of Trinity Church, Boston.
In the year 1816 he was ordained deacon in St. John's Church, Providence, Rhode Island, by Bishop Griswold. His
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first parish, to which he was called while yet a deacon, was Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut. While there he was admitted to the priesthood by Bishop Hobart, who, in a, vacancy of the diocese, had provisional charge of it; and he was instituted rector of the parish by the same prelate, on the 29th day of May, 1818. It was his first love, and he was entirely happy in it ; and the more, when the light of human endearment came in upon his hearth to brighten and to sanc- tify it. He was married in August, 1818, to Amelia Maria, the daughter of Timothy Phelps, Esq., of New Haven.
In the year 1819, the Rev. Thomas Church Brownell, one of the assistant ministers of Trinity Church, in the city of New York, was chosen Bishop of the Diocese of Connecti- cut, which, since the death of Bishop Jarvis in 1813, had continued vacant. To the vacancy in Trinity Church, New York, thus created, Mr. Wainwright was called on the 25th day of November, in that year. During his connection with this Mother of our Churches, he declined an invitation to the rectorship of Grace Church, in New York. But, when the call was repeated, he deemed it his duty to accept it. This was in 1821. With all the considerations which bound him to the position which he held so happily, it was natural that he should yield to this renewed invitation to a parish second to none but that with which he was connected, in importance and influence for good.
He was, with all his gentleness and yieldingness, a man of independent mind, and bold and resolute in action, however mild and affable in manner. He needed, to make full proof of his ministry, a separate parish. He had it at Grace Church, and he made it the scene of the most assiduous industry and of the widest influence. He spent here thirteen years of the very vigor and lustihood of his life-from twenty-nine to forty-two. They developed in him the fullest and best pro- portioned manhood. They demonstrated what a city pastor can do who combines sound judgment with earnestness and zeal. They made a mark on the whole Church, and they made him, in the eyes of the whole Church, a man of highest mark and likelihood. Very few of our clergy have ever held a
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position so elevated, so widely regarded, so variously and deeply influential, as Dr. Wainwright, during his rectorship of Grace Church.
He had collected an extensive library, admirably chosen. He found or made the leisure, amid his numerous and ardu- ous duties, to be much among his books. He cultivated most ardently his love for sacred music, which was carried to great perfection by his choir; and made it tell most bene- ficially throughout the land, in increased attention to the sub- ject, in his Music of the Church. His hearth was the cen- ter of the most refined and generous hospitality, and strangers of every clime were attracted about him by his cul- tivated tastes, his wide and varied information, his elegant manners, and his kind and sympathizing heart.
At the end of those thirteen years of happiness and use- fulness in the rectory of Grace Church, a change passed over his life. The ancient parish of Trinity Church, in Boston, had been more than a year without a rector, and was suffer- ing greatly from the vacancy. The venerable Bishop of the Eastern Diocese was advanced in years, with gathering in- firmities ; there were divisions, in sentiment and action, among those of the same household, and there was a general state of unsatisfactoriness in the Church in Massachusetts. Under these circumstances, his prominence in the Church, his eminent success as a preacher and as a pastor, and his well- deserved reputation as a man of peace, averse to all extremes, and the consideration, peculiarly attractive to Boston people, that he had been a Boston man, directed attention strongly to Dr. Wainwright.
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