USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 15
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He makes the Gospel Messenger his " organ of communication with the Diocese," and earnestly recommends it as contrasted with many religious papers not only by its " moderation and freedom from asper- ity," but by its "consistency of piety and principle, and honest main- tenance of the sound principles of the Church of Christ." The Bishop was throughout his Episcopate a very frequent and most useful contri- butor to the paper, and some of his best and most memorable writ- ings appeared first in its columns.
He recommends that applications for aid in building churches and other parochial objects, especially to New York and other places outside the Diocese, should be made, if at all, by laymen, not by clergy- men ; and that the latter should do very much more to aid the mis- sionary work of the Diocese by explaining and enforcing it in their own parishes, in sermons and otherwise, by which he thinks the con- tributions of the Diocese for this work might be doubled. t
We find also this year the first allusion to the " controversy respect- ing the Oxford Tracts," which had penetrated this Diocese to a very limited extent. He "entertained no fears of injurious effects to the Church amongst us from these writings," which were " nowhere regarded as standard works, or tests of Churchmanship ; the intelli- gence of the Clergy and Laity who read them will sift the wheat from
* Journals of C. N. Y. 1871-98. The Rev. Robert M. Duff, D.D., has now been appointed (from May 1, 1903) Missionary for Chenango county on this Foundation.
t Journ. 1841, p. 32.
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FOREIGN MISSIONS, 1841
the chaff," taking advantage of " whatever in them tends to strengthen the walls of our Zion," and "repudiating whatever shall be found inconsistent with the Bible and the Prayer Book." The idea of divid- ing the Church by this controversy he holds to be " preposterous in the extreme."
Finally he commends most heartily the educational work going on in the Diocese, at Hobart (then " Geneva") College, at Hobart Hall, Holland Patent, under the Rev. Stephen M'Hugh, and at the School for Girls in Lockport, under the Rev. E. H. Cressey. At the Com- mencement at Geneva he was peculiarly gratified to have, as last year, the presence and counsels of the Bishop of New York, evincing his continued interest in the Institutions of the Diocese.
In the Gospel Messenger of this year (XV. 162) may be seen Bishop De Lancey's remarks on Foreign Missions in the General Convention of 1841, which for a long time subjected him to the imputation in some quarters of being "unfriendly to Foreign Missions." The fact is that the Foreign Missions of the Church were at that time not only deeply in debt but on the verge of bankruptcy ; and the Bishop, who had an inborn horror of all kinds of debt, pleaded only for a limitation of the work to points to which the Church in this country was evidently called by the visible circumstances of the case. He vindicates his position with great ability and eloquence, and was sustained heartily and unanimously by his own Diocese in the next year's Convention, at which he presented more fully his views as to serious defects both in the Constitution and practical work of the Board of Missions as then constituted .*
In the Messenger of New Year's Day 1842, I find a communication from Bishop De Lancey (which he says had come to him from some unknown source) telling the story of the starting of the Church in the first of what Bishop Coxe used to call " the three Sodi "-the beauti- ful little " Sodus' village, " sometimes known as " the Ridge." In the very early days of the nineteenth century, Thomas Wickham, a young man of old S. Michael's, Charleston, under Theodore Dehon, afterwards Bishop of South Carolina, found himself, during some years in the West Indies, cut off from all help to Christian living and worship except what he could find in his own Prayer-Book. Later, coming with his family to the early settlement at Sodus Point on
* Journ. 1842, pp. 23, 58.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Lake Ontario, he gathered his household for service each Sunday till they learned to their joy of another Church family * in the hamlet where no other ministrations had been known than those of the old Baptist " Elder Seba Norton," and the Methodist Mark Johnson. Soon others were found who were glad to unite in the service, read a sermon, and " lead in the singing." Davenport Phelps, then in his last days of illness at Pulteneyville, near by, came to visit the little flock ; then came an interview with Bishop Hobart and Orin Clark at Geneva, and a welcome gift of Prayer Books; then a Sunday School was begun, in which the coloured people were especially inter- ested ; then the Wickhams removed to the larger settlement at " the Ridge," and, with the visits and services of Mr. Clark to help them, began in earnest the founding of a parish and the building of a church, -with the hearty co-operation of the Church people at Sodus Point, but with small numbers and scanty means. Bishop Hobart now came himself to Sodus, not only to preach and confirm but to encourage them with commendation of their zeal, which he said " would carry the Church to Indiana" (i. e., to the ends of the earth of that day) if they went there, and with promises of help from New York which were subsequently fulfilled. The parish was organized and the church begun in 1826, but it was eight years later before the building (modelled after the old S. John's, Canandaigua, then considered " a pattern for all to follow") was finished, free from debt and ready for consecration, at Bishop Onderdonk's visitation of Sept. 8, 1834. Thomas Wickham became its first Warden and first Lay Delegate to the Convention of New York.t In the mid-years of the century the little parish saw some hard and discouraging times, with long vacan- cies, but it has never been without a little band of faithful, earnest and intelligent Churchmen both in its original home and in its two
* Doubtless that of Col. Peregrine Fitzhugh from Maryland, who with his large household of slaves had come to Sodus in 1803, after three years in Geneva. One of his sons, Bennett C. Fitzhugh, married the daughter of the Rev. Daven- port Phelps, and their daughter Henrietta became the wife of the late Rev. Henry Whitehouse Spalding, D.D.
t His widow, whom I knew personally in my college days at Geneva, became under Bishop Coxe, Nov. 20, 1873, the first Deaconess of the Diocese, but at an age when, as the Bishop says, she could do little more than " continue in prayer and supplication." She died at Grand Rapids, Mich., Aug. 2, 1884, aet. 93. (See Journ. 1874, p. 59.)
U.A CO
S. JOHN'S CHURCH, SODUS Consecrated 1834
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THE SODUS CHURCH
colonies of Christ Church, Sodus Point, and S. Luke's, Sodus Centre (both the outgrowth from Sunday Schools taught by earnest Church- women in their own homes) ; and at the end of eighty years it is now a fairly prosperous village church, and a constant helper in all diocesan work. It is but a commonplace history after all, the story of many a country parish in Western New York ; but as Bishop De Lancey thought it worth telling at much greater length, it may not unfitly come in here .*
* A few pages later in the Messenger comes another story of beginnings, not this time in Western New York : the editor learns through private letters that "the young missionaries who took up their abode at Prairieville last summer are faith - fully and effectually labouring," . . " as Missionaries of the Cross literally taking up their cross with joy, living in the very simplest and coarsest way that they may toil for the souls of men. They have organized a number of parishes in the section around their centre, Prairieville, a new and yet wild place where they have a church named S. John's in the Wilderness." The young missionaries were Hobart, Breck, and Adams, and the place is NASHOTAH.
CHAPTER XXV
FIRST CHARGE: CLERGY OF 1839-44
N the 17th of August, 1842, the Bishop had the pleasure of meeting the Fifth Convention in the new, and for that day, costly and stately church of S. Paul, Syracuse, which he had consecrated on the 5th of the preceding month, in the presence of eleven clergymen, and of a congregation which filled every sitting and standing place to the chancel steps. Syracuse was now a busy and prosperous village of some nine thousand inhabitants ; but the parish had been organ- ized and had a resident clergyman but sixteen years, and had now but ninety communicants. We have seen already, however (p. 89 above) that the people of S. Paul's were accustomed to show the same prompt and energetic spirit in ecclesiastical as in secular affairs ; and it is less wonderful then that under the leadership of HENRY GREG- ORY, one of the most able, enthusiastic and self-denying Priests that ever ministered in Western New York, they should have completed and paid for, within one year, this substantial Tudor church of stone, 102 feet by 51 (including its tower of II0 feet in height), with bell and organ, at a cost of more than $13,000 .*
At this Convention the Bishop gave his first Charge to the Clergy, on " The Extent of Redemption." The Messenger says that it occupied an hour and twelve minutes in delivery, and although Bishop De Lancey's very presence and manner compelled interest in everything which he said in public or in private (as all will attest who can remember him), I imagine that this Charge must have seemed long to some of his hearers. It is an exhaustive discussion of a purely theological subject, in his most systematic and formal manner, unrelieved by the stirring and eloquent passages which were sure to find their way into his ordinary sermons. He points out first the
* In 1858, under the rectorship of the Rev. George Morgan Hills, D.D., the church was enlarged, and a chancel added and fitted up from designs by the pres- ent writer. In 1885, under the present Rector, the Rev. Henry R. Lockwood, D.D., it was replaced by the present grand and beautiful church, which from that time until lately was the pro-cathedral of the Diocese.
15I
BISHOP DE LANCEY'S CHARGE, 1842
three theories of Redemption which have been held-Calvinism (particular election), Universalism (in its two forms of " restoration " and denial of all future punishment), and intermediate between them the Catholic doctrine of a Redemption unlimited, but dependent for its final issue on man's acceptance of it. This Catholic doctrine in all its points he shows to be the teaching of the Church in all times, sus- tained by the Apostolic Fathers and by Holy Scripture ; that it is fully reasonable in itself, and consistent with all we know of the attributes of God and man's relations towards Him, as well as with the analogy of all human relations ; and not less to be received because under some systems of religious teaching the doctrine of future pun- ishment, especially, has been grossly exaggerated by the imagina- tions of men. As printed, the Charge is supplemented by notes at some length on the testimony of Christian Antiquity, on the true teaching of Art. XVII. on Predestination and Election, on Purga- tory, and on explanations of Scripture supposed to be inconsistent with the Catholic doctrine.
The Convention unanimously requested the Bishop's consent to the publication of the Charge, and directed the printing of five thou- sand copies, which must have been done, as $188.50 seems to have been paid for it. But it is now a very rare pamphlet.
A considerable part of the Bishop's Address of 1842 is devoted to ยท the General Missions of the Church, then certainly in an unsatisfac- tory condition, judging by the very great deficiency in offerings for them. He had referred to the subject, as we have seen, (p. 148 above ) in the previous year, but he now points out what he regarded as radical defects not only in the action but in the organization of the Board of Missions, first as not corresponding at all in its mem- bership to the size and contributions of the Dioceses ; second as includ- ing certain ex-officio members who had no proper claim to such a character ; third as not sufficiently guarding the rights of Diocesans ; and fourth as giving no separate vote to the whole House of Bishops. These provisions, as well as the Double Secretaries, Treasurers and Committees for Domestic and Foreign Missions respectively, were understood to be a secret or at least unacknowledged "compromise" between the Church parties of that day, by which Domestic Missions were to be "High Church" and Foreign Missions "Low Church," as they actually were for many years later. That the position taken by
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Bishop De Lancey arose from no indifference to the General Missions of the Church, he shows conclusively by the facts that in three years the number of parishes in the Diocese contributing to such exterior objects had increased from 16 to 58 ; that one-fifth of all offerings for extra-parochial objects were given to the Board of Missions ; and finally that no diocese in the country, except South Carolina, had a larger proportion of parishes thus contributing, and all except New York and Western New York gave diminished support during the last year.
During this Diocesan year the Bishop had visited 87 parishes and missions, a larger number than in any previous year ; had conse- crated 8 churches, received 9 clergymen, preached 163 times, con- firmed 646 persons (the largest number thus far), and travelled on his visitations 4,525 miles,-a very large proportion of this journey- ing (though he does not say so) without any help from railways. There were now 103 clergymen and 17 candidates for Orders (more than for many years past in the present Diocese), 15 of the latter College graduates.
"Unbroken peace and harmony continue to prevail throughout the Diocese ; and so far as human eye can discern, there has been a proportionate advance in spiritual religion and enlightened attachment to the Cross and Church of Christ. The Church is pursuing her path of duty in turning men to righteousness,-not to one or two points of moral reformation, but to all ; not to making men better citizens only, but to rendering them fellow citizens with the Saints, and of the Household of God."
The condition of the Diocese in detail is given most fully in the Parochial and Missionary Reports, which are not mere figures as they mostly are now-a-days, but abound in "remarks " of much interest. There is no way in which they can be condensed for an outline his- tory like this, and still be readable ; those who are fortunate enough to possess the Journals of those days, and patient enough to read them, will find much to reward their search, not only in the story of the parish, but much more in the light it throws on the Clergy of those growing years-some of them indeed known and honoured through many a later year. Mostly they are full of encouragement and hope. Henry S. Attwater* making a beginning at Hunt's Hollow (through
* One of the four young men (all candidates for Orders) who made up the second graduating class ('27) of Hobart.
WILLIAM SHELTON, D.D.
I53
PARISH PRIESTS OF 1842
the noted and large-hearted families of the Hunts, the Bennetts and the Brookses*), Portageville, Nunda, and a large part more of Liv- ingston and Allegany counties; Humphrey Hollis at Olean, keeping up the vacant and discouraged flock at Mayville; Beardsley North- rup at Moravia, rebuilding the little church burned down almost as soon as it was finished ; Lucius Smith at Fredonia and Forestville ; Major A. Nickerson (a most devoted Missionary, early removed by death) at Catharine, Havana (now Montour Falls), Watkins and Mill- port ; Kendrick Metcalf at Elmira ; John V. Van Ingen laying solid and permanent foundations (" without any of the arts of money gathering ") at Greene and elsewhere in Chenango county ; Andrew Hull at New Berlin ; William Shelton with S. Paul's, Buffalo, " in its usual condition of steady advancement " in knowledge, piety and Church principles ; Cicero Hawks completing the Doric temple without a front which was for forty-three years the spiritual home of Trinity Church ; James A. Bolles enlarging the yet severer Grecian fane occupied by S. James's Church, Batavia, to this day ; George D. Gillespie, the pattern Parish Priest at Le Roy, as he was after- wards in Palmyra ; Ferdinand Rogers at Brownville and Dexter in training for his almost life-long parish work in Greene; Edward Ingersoll similarly preparing at Geneseo for his lifelong service in Buffalo ; Henry Lockwood, home from the China Mission to give the rest of his days (forty-three years) to Honeoye Falls and Pittsford, and leave a fragrant memory of devoted service and pure character to all who knew him ; Henry J. Whitehouse, giving his three hundred and ninety-third Bible lecture, and his eleventh course of seventeen Lent Lectures in S. Luke's Rochester, with unfailing interest on the part of his people : Lloyd Windsor " finishing the foundations " of the noble parish of Grace Church, Lockport ; Marcus A. Perry carrying on the "Hobart Hall " School founded by Judge De Angelis at Holland Patent, together with the little parish of S.
* Descendants of one of the most noted " Major Generals " of old time W. N. Y. Militia, Micah Brooks. The Bennetts are still the foremost Church family of the little parish, which through their faithful service has been kept up through many trying years. The first of the family, Walter Bennett, a "Connecticut Churchman," came to " Hunt's Hollow " (now called " Hunt's ") in 1816, and he and Sanford Hunt were the founders and first Wardens of S. Mark's Church. Mr. Bennett died May 20, 1843. (See obit. in Gosp. Mess. XVII. 83.)
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Paul's ; Stephen M'Hugh, the warm-hearted and eccentric Irishman, doing a similar double work with the "De Lancey Institute " at Westmoreland ; Hobart Williams, the refined and scholarly Priest who had become Henry L. Storrs's successor at New Hartford ; Albert C. Patterson and Pierre Alexis Proal at Utica ; Joseph T. Clarke at Skaneateles ; Augustine Prevost pouring out the last year of life and strength in his most devoted pastorate in Canandaigua ; Pierre P. Irving at Geneva, Erastus Spalding at Phelps, John M'Carty at Oswego, Eli Wheeler at Waterloo, Phineas Whipple at Bath ;- what a galaxy of noble workers in the Lord's Vineyard here, (all, Bishop Gillespie only excepted, nunc ad astra),-though it will be but a mere catalogue of names, I fear, to many, even Western New York Church- men, who read it sixty years later.
Occasionally, indeed, there comes a sadly amusing variation from the hopeful if not confident tone of the reports ; as when good Mr. Spalding tells us in 1841 that his hopes of building a church in " Vienna " (Phelps) have " suffered almost every vicissitude," and at present " there appears to be a settled calm " in the matter ; and the next year in still sadder strains, expresses his conviction that "there is a power which is able to plant the Church of Christ in the very heart of Satan's Kingdom," and his "heartfelt prayer that that power may be exerted here," for " until it is most effectually done, there can be little to hope for the cause of the Church."* Well, he lived to go back there for the last year of his life (1853), and officiate in the beautiful stone church which had finally become an accomplished fact. t
* Journ. 1841, p. 83 ; 1842, p. 97.
t Another Missionary, the Rev. Rufus Murray, of Seneca Falls, writes (but this is a later Report) in a much more joyful but no less amusing strain. " When the Rector took charge of this parish, he found it greatly embarrassed by liabili- ties . . in consequence of which the congregation had become disheartened and dejected ; but by exertion, and the blessing of God, seconded by the liberal- ity of the people and aided by the Ladies' Sewing Society, the debts have all been paid,-the Church carpeted, confidence restored, and an increased and devout attendance on her services, with a prospect of future prosperity and happiness." (Journ. 1846, p. 99.) Another says more briefly : "Having nothing favourable to report of this parish, I close with the wish for its spiritual prosperity." (Journ. 1843, p. 62.) Still another reports that "a new carpet and entirely new dressings for the desk and pulpit have been purchased and applied to the use of the congre- gation, which continues in great union and harmony." (Journ. 1849, p. 56.)
I55
" THE FAITHFUL BISHOP "
The Bishop mentions with hearty commendation the beginning of a new Church in Geneva to replace the little wooden edifice of 1810, and the completion and consecration of churches in several of the smaller villages,-Clyde, Stafford, Honeoye Falls, East Bloomfield, Granby and Cape Vincent ; and the high character of " Geneva Col- lege " for " sound, efficient, and faithful teaching,"-"supplying the means of adequate education for our youth generally, and of sound and thorough preliminary instruction for our theological students in particular." But this is only to quote what he said publicly and pri- vately with the fullest conviction, every year of his Episcopate. He thoroughly believed in Catholic Christianity as the sine qua non of all true education, not of childhood merely but of full manhood ; and no man ever did more to promote it within the sphere of his office and duty.
The last important duty of the Bishop for 1842 was as the Preach- er at the Consecration of the Rev. Manton Eastburn, D.D., as Bishop-Coadjutor ( as it is now called ) of Massachusetts. His ser- mon on that occasion was published in Boston, under the title of "The Faithful Bishop : His Office, Character and Reward," with some historical notes appended, making a handsome large-type pamphlet of 64 pages, now, I presume, like all his published Ser- mons and Charges, very rare. It is one of unusual excellence even for him, both in substance and language, and attracted attention and high commendation at the time from all parts of the Church .* The text was Rev. II. 10, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
I wish I could quote in full the allusion to the desolate Isle of Pat- mos, with which the Sermon opens-the island which for the
* The Sermon was printed by request of "all the Clergy present,"the Commit- tee of their number being the Rev. Drs. John L. Watson ( of Boston ) and Thomas M. Clark (the late Presiding Bishop). Among those who listened to it was Frederick D. Huntington, then Minister of a Unitarian congregation in Boston, who has in later years spoken of that sermon as having no slight influence in attracting him towards the Church in which he is now one of Bishop De Lancey's successors. The reader of that delightful book, the " Reminis- cences " of Bishop Clark, will not forget his brief but apt characterization of Bishop De Lancey, as the "old-fashioned Churchman of the Hobart School, courteous and attractive in his demeanour, an accomplished scholar, a winning and interesting preacher, and a true man."
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Beloved Disciple's sake is now " so deep in the memory, and so attractive to the thoughts of the followers of Christ," which is " among the objects of Christian childhood's early researches," which "the trembling finger of age points out with interest, and even the busy and stern mind of world-devoted manhood " instinctively regards as " a sacred spot, when eye or ear receives the impress of its name."
"In this far-off land, we are convened to witness the commission- ing by those who, according to the will of Christ, have authority for the same, of one who, though centuries roll between the periods, as oceans roll between the spots, is to sustain the same responsible min- istry, which was exercised by the Angels of the several Churches of the Apocalypse. Not more appropriately to the Angel, the Messen- ger, the Bishop of the Church of Smyrna, than to you, my Rever- end Brother about to enter upon the same office, could the inspired exhortation of the text and its heart-stirring promise be addressed. As from the right hand of the Majesty on High comes this day to you the Divine assurance, ' Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.'
" The Faithful Bishop, then, in his OFFICE, his CHARACTER, and his REWARD, shall constitute the subject of this discourse. May the Spirit, which dictated the words of the text, seal its lessons on our hearts !"*
He cannot hope that his treatment of the subject will correspond with the views of all who hear it, but he does not allow himself on account of this diversity of views to " withhold or conceal any portion of Gospel truth upon this topic," in the hope that his words may be " received and weighed, not in the scales of prejudice or feeling, but in those of truth and fact."
Then he sets forth, first, the Office of a Bishop,-as defined by Hooker, as received by four-fifths at least of the Church of this day, as acknowledged by the whole Church for centuries before the Refor- mation, as disclosed in the earliest records of Christian history, and as distinctly presented to our view on the pages of Holy Scripture ; and answers various objections (too familiar to need specifying here). Then, secondly, he sums up the Character in one word, "fidelity" : to the doctrine of Christ as taught in the Church, as untouched by all the "refinement, learning or philosophy" of present times, setting forth especially in this connection the Divine obligation and power of the Word and the Sacraments as indispensable to spiritual life,-to the "order and purity of the prescribed worship of the Church,"- to cherishing among his Clergy "anxiety for the souls of men," and
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