USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 18
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* He resigned Sept. 1, 1854. The Parish was organized Feb. 19, 1845; the church consecrated Feb. 3, 1848, having been completed at a cost of $35,000. In 1855 a chancel was added and richly furnished. Its location (Washington and Swan Sts.) was then central and favourable, and for many years the Sunday evening services especially had a very large attendance. In 1869 it was restored after partial destruction by fire, and in 1893, after many vicissitudes, sold and dese- crated, and the present church built on the west side of the city.
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In Rochester, Trinity Church, organized Nov. 25, 1845, by a colony representing what was then the more radical element in S. Luke's, that is, most strongly opposed to the Bishop's " Puseyism," succeeded in building a brick church of no architectural character (or even pretension, which was so much in its favour), which was conse- crated Feb. 15, 1848, under the charge of the Rev. Charles D. Cooper. The parish had a hard struggle for a long time, partly on account of the position of the church building, and partly, perhaps, from the extreme " Low Church " element by which it was originally ruled ;* but this died away in time ; a new church of better character and in a better position took the place of the old one, and the Parish has long since maintained a good rank and character among the Rochester churches. The Rector under whom S. Luke's had become by far the first Parish in the Diocese,-Henry J. White- house,-resigned in May, 1844, and was succeeded the same year by the Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Pitkin, an accomplished scholar and faithful Pas- tor, but not in harmony with the "Evangelical " partizanship which was gaining ground in that Parish. In January, 1848, hegave way to the Rev. Henry W. Lee, afterwards Bishop of Iowa, who, though by no means a radical " Low Churchman," was much more acceptable to that element in the Parish. Meantime an important change had taken place in S. Luke's opposite neighbour (opposite in more than one sense) S. Paul's, then known canonically, but never colloquially, as " Grace Church," in the election of the Rev. John V. Van Ingen, D.D., as its Rector ; he having served in the Parish for a year before, as I have noted above, (p. 167), as Assistant to Bishop De Lancey in his temporary proprietorship. Before coming to Rochester, Dr. Van Ingen had been nine years a missionary-rector at Greene, Chenango county, where he had built up a substantial and well-ordered parish, and had gained the full confidence of the Bishop. He was a man of great gifts, and of wonderful capacity for making them available to the utmost in every sphere of work to which he was called ; as pastor, preacher, writer, administrator of affairs,-a born leader of men in many ways. Even those who differed from him and distrusted him could hardly help loving him personally. He became at once a chief leader, if not the leader, of the " High Churchmen " of the Diocese ;
* So that some of the old S. Luke's people used to call their Trinity friends " Reformed Presbyterians."
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and an astute and skillful one. But it was not until several years after this that he and Dr. Lee came in conflict, and then perhaps more by force of circumstances than from any desire for a fight.
In his Address of 1846 the Bishop brought together his various utterances of former years on Church principles and the Oxford movement, quoting largely from the Addresses of 1841,'42,'43 and '44, and his sermon at Bishop Eastburn's consecration, and repeating in full the article of 1843 on " What is not Puseyism." To this he added (for the first time) some remarks on the diversities in ritual matters which had been growing in the Diocese partly as a result of the Oxford movement, and partly from growing taste and more wealth, -a part, in fact, of the changes which were beginning to be visible in every department of public and household life. Among these sup- posed novelties were embroidered altar hangings, the credence, the disuse of the old-fashioned "reading pew " or desk-all of which he defended by the example of Bishop White, whom he always quoted as an authority wherever it was possible. "Emblematic candles" and " the surplice in the pulpit " were indeed unknown in the Diocese, except, in the latter case, in " the emergency of not having a gown." There might be, " as from the first in this country," a " Communion Table " or " Altar." Baptismal Fonts were rightly in use. [Some people then thought they were "Romish."] If people would come to week-day prayers, twice a week or every day, "God forbid that the clergy should not be ready to conduct their devotions." Such changes as had been made in the chancels of various churches had his full concurrence, " and had no more to do with Romanism than with Mahometanism."*
To this the Bishop added a note showing the secessions of clergy- men to the Roman Communion as not only few in number, but, almost without exception, of those not brought up as Churchmen.
A resolution had been offered in 1845 asking the Trustees of the General Theological Seminary to consider the question of the removal of the suspended Bishop of New York from his nominal pro- fessorship. The subject was debated in the Convention of 1846, to which it had been postponed, with only the result of a unanimous
* Journ. 1846, pp. 37-51.
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resolution recommending the Bishop's proposal to dissolve the Semi- nary " as a general Institution of the Church."*
The Bishop had expressed in 1845 his desire to bring his Candidates for Holy Orders into " closer personal intercourse " with himself than had seemed practicable under the present conditions of sustain- ing and educating them. This matter, probably by his wish, was referred to the Education and Missionary Board, who the next year were "not prepared to recommend any action," and wished the sub- ject " to be continued in their hands." Nothing more appears to have come of it, as far as the Board and the Convention were concerned; but we may trace in this thought, whether consciously or not, the germ of the little School of Candidates which began four years later at Geneva under the Bishop's personal direction.
The reports of 1847 showed a gratifying increase, in response to the Bishop's earnest appeals, in contributions for Diocesan Missions, although the collections for sufferers by famine in Ireland and Scot- land in the churches of the Diocese had amounted to nearly $2,000. The total of Diocesan offerings had increased to $8,920.17, of which $3,677.26 had been for objects outside the Diocese, and very nearly $1,300 for the Christmas Fund. For the present, no further reduc- tions of missionary stipends had become necessary.
On motion of Judge E. Darwin Smith (of S. Luke's Church, Roch- ester), the following resolution was unanimously adopted :
" Believing it to be a fact that those colleges only have flourished which are under the control of some one religious denomination ; and persuaded that the interests of the Episcopal Church and the true interests of religion can in no way be more surely and permanently advanced, than by the endowment and support of colleges under the control of Episcopalians, this Convention fully concurs in the application in behalf of Geneva College to Trinity Church, New York, for a liberal appropriation for the endowment and support of that College, and establishing the same upon a permanent basis.
"Resolved, That a Committee of six be appointed by the President to consider and report to the next Convention what measures may be fitly taken at such Convention to sustain Geneva College and promote its prosperity and the interests of the Church in connection there- with."
* Journ. 1846, p. 65.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE E. K. S. AND OTHER CONTROVERSIES OF 1848
SHORT but interesting controversy grew out of the effort to establish, in May, 1848, a diocesan branch of the " Evangelical Knowledge Society."
During the session of the General Convention of 1826, in S. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, a meeting of its members and others under the presidency of Bishop White, and on motion of " the Rev. William H. De Lancey," established the " General Protestant Episcopal Sunday School Union," for the pur- pose of " devising a method of concentrating and aiding the operations of Sunday Schools and Sunday School Societies." It was a volun- tary organization, over which the General Convention, as such, had no control ; but all the Bishops were ex-officio Vice-Presidents and Managers, and the Union was soon recognized as the sole instrumen- tality of the Church for the publication of books and pamphlets, primarily for Sunday School use, but also for general circulation. It maintained thus a quasi-official character and authority for many years, with the confidence and support of the great body of Church- men. Its earliest publications were largely under the direction of Bishop Hobart, and its first Sunday School manuals written by him ; its first manager was William R. Whittingham, afterwards Bishop of Maryland, who was succeeded by his brother-in-law, John V. Van Ingen ; and as time went on, the work of the Society was more and more on the basis of " High Church" principles and teaching, simply because those who believed in such principles took more interest in it. The Low Churchmen began to feel that it did not represent their views, especially their opposition to everything which they regarded as the fruit of the " Oxford Movement." In 1847, under the leader- ship of the Bishop of Virginia, the strongest opponent of the Sunday School Union, a new association was formed under the name of "the Evangelical Knowledge Society," and, of course, on a distinct party basis, the " General Sunday School Union" still claiming to repre- sent fairly the Church as a whole.
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In a Pastoral Letter of May 5, 1848, Bishop De Lancey gives quite fully his views of the proposed movement in his own Diocese.
" I perceive this morning in the Episcopal Recorder of Philadelphia a printed circular calling for a meeting to be held in S. Luke's Church, Rochester, on the 11th of May, 'to organize an auxiliary in the Diocese' to ' the Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge.'
" The circular is signed by four clergymen and thirty-five laymen, in their individual capacity, not as representatives of the parishes ; being four from Geneva, one from Penn Pan, two from Mount Morris, one from Oxford, one from Le Roy, one from Oswego, one from Lockport, twenty-four from Rochester. It has been sent, I under- stand, to many of the Clergy and Laity in the Diocese, though not to me.
" As Bishop of the Diocese, I deem it my duty to say to you that this, as I understand it, is an attempt to form a Diocesan Society, ' a Society in the Diocese,' without previous consultation with the Parish Vestries, the Standing Committee, the Convention of the Diocese, or the Bishop. The meeting is not called to discuss the question of the expediency of organizing such a society, but to organize it. The names attached to the circular forbid the idea of any intentional, deliberate, and known design, to introduce a mode of action disrespectful to the authorities of the Diocese, in dis- regard of the Diocese, and which opens the door to distraction, divi- sion and schism.
" It will however, I trust, appear both to you and them, that in the same way, by a notice from a few gentlemen dispatching a circular, asserting the expediency of the step, without consultation with any of the authorities of the Diocese, any kind of irresponsible society, even an anti-protestant, a tractarian, or anti-evangelical society, may be formed, and claim the character of being a Diocesan Society ; and that in this way, every Diocese throughout the country, and in fact, every parish, may be involved in all the evils of party distraction and schism.
" Of the right of individuals to give their money to what object they please, to promote what kind of religious literature they desire, or of the right individually to combine for the object of pub- lishing, buying and circulating books for themselves, I do not raise a question. All are free to do so. But of the expediency and pro- priety, not to say the right, of individuals in a Diocese to organize in name or character, a Diocesan Society ' to furnish Episcopalians with a sound religious literature, in the shape of Sunday School books and tracts ' for children and parents, without any previous consultation with the Rectors, or even notifying the Vestries, Standing Committee, Convention, or Bishop in the Diocese, I trust that even the gentle-
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men who signed the circular, will, on a reconsideration of the sub- ject, judge adversely. . With the best judgment I can give to this project, I am bound frankly and affectionately to say that I cannot but regard it as an irregular, needless and distracting measure, and, how- ever undesigned to do so, yet calculated to rivet a party character on the Diocese from which we have been hitherto free, and to provoke and promote discussion and conflicts, rather than to advance unity, har- mony and peace. In this view, I cannot sanction it."
In his Address of 1848 the Bishop adds much more, especially contrasting the new society with the Sunday School Union, which he claims was formed with " the implied sanction of the constituted authorities of the Church," and from the outset " had openly sought their control and guidance."*
At the organization of the Diocesan Society in Rochester, its for- mation was justified by one at least of the four clergymen presentt on the ground that " parties " already existed in the Diocese, and the " minority " were practically " proscribed " by being denied a rep- resentation on the Standing Committee and delegation to the General Convention ; and that it was in no wise in opposition to the Bishop, except as he had placed himself in opposition to it.# Another meet- ing of the Diocesan Society was held in Rochester, Sept. 14, 1848, when it was voted to establish a diocesan " depository " of its publi- cations with a Rochester bookseller who was one of its members. The name of one more clergyman of the Diocese, the Rev. Bethel Judd, D.D., then a teacher at Avon Springs, appears as a member. This is the last notice I find of any action of the auxiliary Society. The parent Society has continued to this day, and done what those in sym- pathy with it consider a large and good work. § The "Sunday School Union " appears to have been dissolved, or at any rate to have ceased publishing, about 1887.
While the members of the E. K. S. could fairly claim that both Societies were " voluntary " in the strict sense of the term, and the existence of the one justified the other, the position of Bishop De Lancey that one was essentially a party organization and tended to
* Journ. 1848, pp. 41-9.
Tapping R. Chipman, Henry W. Lee, Benjamin W. Stone, Charles D. Cooper.
# Rev. T. R. Chipman's letter in Gospel Messenger, XXII. 81. (June 9, 1848.)
§ As I understand, it does not now publish any new books.
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perpetuate party spirit, was abundantly and almost unanimously vindi- cated by his own Diocese. There was no action or official notice in the Convention in response to the Bishop's Address, but the " auxiliary " Society was simply ignored throughout the Diocese except in two or three parishes, and soon perished, apparently from inanition. It is not necessary nor reasonable to suppose that all the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese agreed with the Bishop's view of the matter ; but the fact of his positive disapproval was sufficient, and their acquiescence in it was another signal proof of the remarkable unity of the people at that day in absolute loyalty to their Bishop.
It should be noted here that Bishop De Lancey maintained con- sistently throughout his Episcopate the same position in regard to all voluntary associations for doing what he thought could be done by the constituted authorities of the Diocese. At his last Convention, in 1864, a number of the Clergy and Laity united to form a " Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Clergy," partly to supply the want of any such provision in the " Christmas Fund," but beyond that, on a principle of mutual insurance. The writer, with the Rev. Drs. Wilson, Schuyler, Hills, Babcock, Rogers, Beach, and other clergymen and laymen of whose entire loyalty to the Bishop and the Diocese there could be no possible doubt, took an active part in this organization. But the Bishop promptly declined the Presidency of the Society, on the ground that its work could be better done by the Convention, and it was consequently given up, and the Christmas Fund enlarged to benefit widows and orphans, with the loss of the mutual insurance feature .*
The Bishop was not favourable even to " convocations " of the Clergy which assumed any formal or organized character. Such meetings were held in various parts of the Diocese from 1852, and the Bishop occasionally took part in them ; but they had no permanent organization or officers.
I have mentioned before (p. 136) a proposition offered in 1839 for the employment of itinerant missionaries, renewed in 1844 in combination with a plan to make the missionary parishes somewhat more independent of the supposed influence of the Bishop in the appointment of their rectors. In 1850 this latter proposition was
* Gospel Messenger, XXIII. 138, 142. (Sept., 1864.)
JOHN VISGER VAN INGEN
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MISSIONARY RECTORS
again brought forward and pressed with much earnestness by several of the clergymen and laymen who had been foremost in the matter of the Evangelical Knowledge Society. Their argument was in sub- stance that the power of appointing Missionaries in one-half the par- ishes in the Diocese tended to make the clergy subservient to the Bishop, and the vestries afraid to elect a Rector whose theological views might not be in accordance with his. This argument was met conclusively by the undisputed fact that no clergyman was ever nomi- nated (to the Board of Missions by the Bishop) as Missionary, until he had been freely elected by the vestry as Rector. It will be remem- bered that what are now called "Organized Missions" were then unknown, and all Missions were necessarily incorporated parishes. It is only fair to say that the gentlemen advocating the change dis- claimed earnestly, and no doubt sincerely, all distrust or opposition so far as Bishop De Lancey was concerned ; but their friends in such papers as the Protestant Churchman and Episcopal Recorder of New York and Philadelphia took up their cause with a bitterness towards the Bishop, and with such wilful imputation of bad motives on his part and that of all who stood by him, as to discredit utterly their cause throughout the Diocese. From 1851, when the Missionary · question was decided, it may be said that there was no "Low Church" party in the Diocese, though there were individual clergymen and laymen for years afterwards who considered themselves "a minority," and in a measure "proscribed " in influence and offices. But the clergymen had all left the Diocese, as far as I remember, before the Bishop's decease, and the laymen, with possibly one or two excep- tions, had became his steadfast and loyal friends. Of no Diocese in the country could it be more truly said in those last years of Bishop De Lancey's Episcopate, "Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself."*
The Rev. Dr. Van Ingen, who had become, as I said, a leader if not the leader of the High Churchmen of the Diocese, and was always equally ready with tongue and pen,-and his Rochester colleague Henry W. Lee, afterwards Bishop of Iowa, who was the leader of the Low Church party more from his parochial position and personal char- acter (and, I may add, his excellence as a parish Priest) rather than
* For the final action of the Convention on the Missionary Canon, see Journ. W. N. Y. 1851, pp. 43-7, 59-63.
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from special intellectual ability,-these two kept up for two or three years from 1849-50 the interest of the diocesan controversy by ser- mons and pamphlets on Baptismal Regeneration, "the Papal Aggres- sion " (in England), and "Remarks" on the same, and like subjects, on which they probably found in later years that their differences were really very slight. I believe that the Diocese never had a Rec- tor more loyal in heart than Bishop Lee, though he could not always keep himself from entangling alliances with men of a very different spirit .*
The last reference to an exhibition of party-spirit occurs in the Bishop's Address of 1853, and was occasioned by the sending into the Diocese a variety of pamphlets whose very names are forgotten now, but mostly of a fierce partizan tone. The Bishop's own words characterize the whole movement (which had no acknowl- edged help within the Diocese) very fairly.
" The attempts to impress partizan views upon the members of the Church in the Diocese during the past year, through the press and the post-office, can hardly have escaped the notice of any of you. A formal communication signed by several of the Clergy, and private statements from many others, have been made to me, of this inter- ference to molest their respective parishes by the secret circulation among them of such misrepresentations of the views of Churchmen as are calculated to engender distrust, strife, suspicion, ill-will, and error, instead of that peace and good-will among Christian men, which it is the primary duty of the Gospel and its Ministers to promote. Many of these pamphlets are anonymous. They present perverted, and distorted, and defective views on fundamental points, attribute errors to the Clergy which they do not hold, and laboriously counter- act positions directly or impliedly ascribed to them, which are a per- version of the views of the Church as they are presented in the Bible and Prayer Book, have been held by the Whites, and Hobarts, and Dehons, and Griswolds, and Moores, that have gone before us, and are generally maintained and taught amongst ourselves. It would seem that as such pamphlets will not be bought to be read, they
* He became Bishop of Iowa in 1854, as the nominee (as it was generally understood) of the Low Churchmen of New York and Philadelphia, and under promise of support by them, -- the first Bishop they had been able to obtain in the Western States. But he said to me, after some experience of Missionary work in the West, " Wherever I go I distribute the Prayer Book as freely as possible ; it is by far the best Missionary Tract I can find." And it was he who joined Bishop Whipple in a most earnest but fruitless effort to arrest the beginning of the "Reformed Episcopal" schism in Chicago.
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PARTIZAN PAMPHLETS
must, by their abettors, be printed and distributed gratuitously, and from the large and wealthy cities of the Union,* come to the country those missiles of error and party, seeking to pervade and pervert the parishes. If a Romanist should send stealthily to the leading com- municants of the parish of a clergyman of the Church, his insinuating errors, we should not hesitate to denounce it as an act of Jesuitism. The name seems to be equally applicable to those secret and irre- sponsible attempts to undermine the stability, disturb the faith, and distract the minds of the clergy and the laity. Against anonymous and irresponsible pamphlets, we can only urge the remedy prescribed for anonymous letters-utter disregard and the flames.
"To open, manly, fair and Christian argument, on any subject connected with the doctrines, worship, ministry and usages of the Church, I am sure none of you would object. But to distort, obscure, and darken the truth as held on these topics, that it may assume a startling and alarming aspect to unsophisticated minds, and to do it under a fictitious name, and with an obvious view to create and diffuse distrust, collisions, party feelings and strife, constitute pri- ma facie evidence of error, both in faith and practice. Dark lan- terns are used principally by those who love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. In most cases the name of its author would stamp such pamphlet with its true character. The hard- ened partizan, the unfledged novitiate, the actual errorist, and the designing enemy, shrink from connecting with the publication a name that would at once mar its influence, counteract its evils, and serve as a beacon to warn against its errors.
"When, on such topics as the process of conversion, the effects of sacraments, the obligations of the ministry, the nature of the Chris- tian Church, the authority of Gospel institutions, the personal evi- dences of our relations to Christ, and the workings of the Holy Spirit in Divine institutions, a flood of disturbing, unsettling, denunciatory and erroneous publications has been started, portentous of evil to the peace, harmony and prosperity of the Church, and aiming, as I think, at designs and attempts to CHANGE THE PRAYER BOOK, which, in its Prayers, Offices, Articles, and its whole spirit and tenor, is inimical to the views thus insidiously presented and urged, I deem it my duty to lift my voice in warning against the revolutionary move- ment, and to invoke the clergy and laity to be on their guard against insidious instruction, however offered, which in this, or in any direc- tion, seeks to undermine the ramparts of truth and worship as held by our fathers and transmitted to us in the Bible and the Prayer Book."*
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