USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 20
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applause elicited by the allusions to our Church and our country [in the Latin oration of welcome] from the undergraduates of the Univer- sity, hereafter to be among the Divines and Statesmen of England." Following were visits to Harrow School (of which Dr. C. J. Vaughn was then Master), to the Houses of Parliament, the Charter House, to Cambridge, Eton, Windsor, York, Durham, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Perth, Glasgow, Belfast, Armagh, Dublin, Bangor, S. Asaph, War- wick, Stratford-on-Avon, Malvern, Leeds (where the Bishop preached at the Commemoration of the consecration of the Parish Church to 120 clergymen and 2,000 people, and where he received and announced the news of Judge De Veaux's munificent bequest for De Veaux College, and preached again in the evening to 4,000 people), Liver- pool (at a public breakfast given by the Mayor "in honour of the American Bishops on the eve of their departure"),* the Savoy Chapel, and finally to a farewell service at Liverpool in which the Bishops were joined by Mr. Keble.
"Of the high personal gratification enjoyed in this visit, of its instructive and beneficial effect upon our minds, of its animating and cheering influence on our own hearts, and of the rich spiritual bless- ings which we trust and pray will flow to our own souls from this inter- course and association with our brethren in England, Scotland and Ireland, I need not speak. We return with stronger convic- tions of the stability, power, efficiency, and influence of the Church of England, with a higher estimate of her spiritual character, educa- tional control, and intellectual attainments, with firmer confidence in her strength as the bulwark of Protestantism, and in her unflinching adherence to Catholic truth as presented in the Bible and maintained in the Creeds, Liturgy, Offices and Articles of the Prayer Book ; with more earnest desire for synodical union and intercourse between the independent churches of England and Ireland, Scotland and the Uni- ted States, and stirred to more fervent prayers for the Church of Eng- land, that the blessings of the Holy Ghost may rest on all her missions, her societies and institutions, her universities, colleges and schools, her parishes and congregations, and on her Bishops and all her Cler- gy and Laity, to the widest extent, and to the end of time."t
* An " American Bishop" was a rarer sight in England then than now. The Bishop told me that on their arrival in London they found the streets placarded with " The American 'Bishops are coming !"-" The American Bishops are in town !" as if they were a new and remarkable kind of wild animals.
tJourn. 1852, p. 58. I must refer to p. 48 for the Bishop's account of his visit with Mrs. De Lancey to an Irish cabin near Culloville, where "the inmates
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DE VEAUX COLLEGE
The Convention of 1852 met at Syracuse, the Rev. Dr. Shelton presiding in the absence of the Bishop. Appropriate resolutions were adopted expressing the satisfaction of the Diocese at the Bishop's journey and reception in England, and providing for the expenses of the visit, for which $1,500 was readily given, although the Venerable S. P. G. had already undertaken to defray the expenses of the Del- egation from the American Church .*
The Committee on the Increase of the Episcopate Fund reported a good beginning of their work (about $4,500) and were continued.
The bequest of Judge De Veaux, of Niagara Falls, of all his resid- uary estate, for the foundation of " a benevolent Institution under the supervision of the Convention," was announced by Dr. Van Ingen, and some portions of the Will read by Mr. Peter A. Porter, one of the executors.
This Will, under the provisions of which De Veaux College was founded, is dated August 3, 1852, the day of Judge De Veaux's decease. More than a year before (June 15, 1851) he had made a Will bequeathing his property to Bishop De Lancey and Dr. Shelton, in trust for any one of five objects named which they might deter- mine. These were
" I. A Hospital, Asylum or Home for sick, wounded, disabled and aged persons of either sex, without regard to nationality, to colour or to sect.
" 2. A Home for Aged Persons of ages not less than sixty years, for both or one sex only, or for the support and education of orphan children.
" 3. A Church Asylum for female Church Communicants.
" 4. A College or Missionary School for the education of young men of the African, Indian or other coloured races, for missionaries among their own people, both within the United States and abroad.
" 5. A Home for Superannuated Clergymen of not less than sixty years of age."
In the year intervening between these Wills, and undoubtedly with
were astonished and gratified, as shown by the Irish warmth of expression and compliment," and where the Bishop had to confess his "utter inability to supply them with any of the tobacco which they seemed to identify with the presence of an American," but which he "repudiates in all its forms."
* Journ. 1852, p. 60. In the Memoir of the Rev. Dr. Van Ingen already referred to, will be found (pp. 41-66) a great number of interesting details of this visit from his own facile pen. I wish I could give some of them here.
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the counsel of Bishop De Lancey, and probably of Dr. Shelton (with both of whom he was in intimate relations) Judge De Veaux had reached a more definite conclusion as to the final disposition of his estate ; and there can be little doubt that the shape which it took was largely owing to the judgment of Bishop De Lancey .* It is remark- able that neither the Will itself, nor the Act of Incorporation founded upon it, give any indication whether the beneficiaries of the Institu- tion are to be boys, or girls, or both. It was unquestionably Bishop De Lancey who decided this point.
The College was incorporated by special Act, April 15, 1853, and the Trustees, of whom the Bishop was Chairman, began in 1855 the erection of a main building on the estate, which was completed and opened in the spring of 1857. In that year they report to the Con- vention a property of $154,432 yielding income, and real estate esti- mated at $36,213, exclusive of the "domain " of 330 acres. The Rev. Henry Gregory, D.D., was the " President," the Rev. Israel Foote " Professor," and Edward R. Welles " Tutor." Thirty pupils had been admitted at the opening of May 20, 1857. " In construct- ing and furnishing the building, and supporting the Institution thus far," they report, " only income has been used, and it is the intention of the Trustees to use income only in maintaining the Institution."t The Daily Service, with a special commemoration of the Founder, was an established feature of the school.
It is a yet unsolved problem whether the intentions of the Founder were fairly carried out in the original constitution and management of the School. The appointment of the "President,"# if it was suggested by the Bishop, was one of the very few instances in which his judgment was at fault ; for it was, so to speak, a case of the "square man in a round hole." A man of great ability, remarkably success- ful in all his Ministry, self-denying almost to asceticism, warm-heart- ed and generous, Dr. Gregory was for all this not the man to manage a school of boys ; he could not understand their nature or their needs of body and mind ; he was physically unequal to school discipline.
* See the Introduction to the Statutes of De Veaux College, 1899, p. 5.
t Journ. 1857, p. 54.
# As the Head Master was called for many years, by what seems to be a mis- apprehension of the Act of Incorporation ; in which the title clearly refers to the Chairman of the Trustees.
SAMUEL DE VEAUX
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DE VEAUX COLLEGE
A visit to the school in those first years left a painful impression of extreme economy-if it could be called by that name-like that of a county almshouse ; so far at least as one could judge by their table and their clothing. That the boys were not altogether happy appears from the fact that "runaways" were not infrequent and were per- sistent, as shown by the early records. Whether this ill-judged econ- omy, or rather parsimony, as it now seems, was the idea of the Head or of the Trustees it would be difficult to say. After two years of faithful but hardly effective service, Dr. Gregory resigned from con- tinued ill-health, and under his successor, the Rev. Dr. Maunsell Van Rensselaer, a very different system of management began. The later story of De Veaux belongs to a later Chapter.
The first week after Bishop De Lancey's return from England in the fall of 1852 was spent in the meeting of the Bishops to consider the presentment of the Bishop of New Jersey, happily unsuccessful, as was the renewed effort of the following year, ending in the sub- stantial vindication of that noble but not always prudent pioneer in the cause of Christian Education.
I have said elsewhere * that "I shall never forget the glow of satis- faction and happiness which lighted up Bishop De Lancey's face, when he told me [March 6, 1853] of the purchase he had just made" of the site and building in Geneva which became S. Peter's Chapel, so named by him " after his much loved church of other days in Philadelphia." One week later the Chapel was ready and opened for its first service (Passion Sunday, March 13), the little beginning which has since grown into such noble dimensions as his Memorial. I have noted also from the Bishop's own words that in this enterprise he had the hearty sympathy of the good Rector of Trinity Church (William H. A. Bissell, afterwards Bishop of Vermont, the most per- fect example of a true Parish Priest that it has been my happiness to know) and his people. Dr. Bissell himself gave constant and unself- ish ministrations in the new Mission through all its early years, and Drs. Hale, Wilson and Metcalf, then of the Faculty of Hobart College, were always ready to add their services ; but the Bishop himself always officiated at S. Peter's whenever his other duties permitted, until the Mission had a Priest of its own. The Chapel (which had
* "The Rankine Memorial House," 1902, p. 4.
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been bought from an unsuccessful Presbyterian Mission) was a little frame building of no architectural character, but was neatly fitted up for service by the Bishop, and later improved by the gift of a chancel, bell-turret, stained glass and furniture, (mostly gifts from himself or his family,) and so served a good purpose till its successor was erected by the Diocese as the Founder's Memorial.
CHAPTER XXXII
PROVINCES : THE TITHE: PARISH DUTIES
EFORE going on, as I purpose, to tell something of the general work and progress of the Diocese in this portion of Bishop De Lancey's Episcopate, from 1850 on, a word should be said on two points in which he placed himself on record before his own Diocese and the whole Church.
I. In the General Convention of 1850, Bishop De Lancey offered the following resolution, which was laid on the table for the next General Convention :
Resolved, The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies concurring, that a joint Committee, to consist of five Bishops, and of five Cler- gymen and five Laymen, be appointed to report to the next Triennial General Convention, on the expediency of arranging the Dioceses, according to geographical position, into four Provinces, to be desig- nated the Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western Provinces, and to be united under a General Convention or Council of the Provinces, having exclusive control over the Prayer Book, Articles, Offices and Homilies of this Church, to be held once every twenty years .*
In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1854, the Bishop says :
" The subject of dividing the Church in this country into Provinces, originally submitted by me to the General Convention of 1850, was brought up at the recent General Convention. A resolution of inquiry was adopted by the House of Bishops, and afterwards recon- sidered and referred to the next General Convention. I look to this measure as one main source of union, strength, and permanency for our Church system in this country."
Bishop De Lancey was then the first to propose and distinctly advocate a Provincial System for the Church in this country ; although in the idea of such a grouping of dioceses he had been anticipated, as we have seen, t by President Hale in 1837, and still earlier by Bishop
* Jour. Gen. Conv. 1850, p. 146. (House of Bishops, 13th day, afternoon session.)
+ P. 117 supra.
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White, in the final notes to his Memoirs of the Church .* Fifteen years passed by before any serious consideration was given to the subject in the General Convention, (after Bishop De Lancey's decease,) and debates in both Houses prolonged through a number of years have resulted thus far in nothing but the weak and practically ineffec- tive Canon on "Federate Councils." In this matter, as in the ques- tion of the See Episcopate and of Courts of Appeal, or any settled judicial system, the Church is still weighted down, so to speak, and suffers great practical loss, under the timid conservatism of her mem- bers, but mainly of her Bishops. All the more honour to Bishop De Lancey for being at least half a century in advance of his brethren in the Episcopate in this important movement.
2. In his Address of 1853, after urging, as so often before, the duty of more liberal support of the Missionary and other work of the Diocese, and especially of the parochial clergy to enforce it upon their people, the Bishop rises to a higher principle underlying the whole matter of Church support and Christian giving.
" In this connection," he says, "there is a view of Christian duty and obligation affecting all of us, both clergymen and laymen. I allude to the question, what portion of his pecuniary means a Chris- tian man ought, under the Gospel, to bestow upon objects of Chris- tian benevolence, on Church objects, on religious enterprises, the sustentation of the cause of God in the various forms in which it appeals to us, as the Ministry, Public Worship, Christian Missions, Christian Education, and the aid of the wants of our brethren, both temporal and spiritual.
" Some persons, you know, throw aside the question as one not worthy of settlement, and give haphazard, as feeling, passion, exigency and exterior urging may induce. Others aim to give liberally, but without any rule upon the subject ; others never institute a comparison between the amount they actually give, and the amount they ought to give. Others regard all such gifts to God as an interference with worldly
* "The time will probably come, but is not likely to be soon, when a representa- tion to each House will be constituted by deputation from sundry districts, into which the very extensive country occupied by us will become ecclesiastically divided. This may dictate another profitable arrangement-that of an ecclesias- tical assembling in each district, in each of the two years intervening between every two General Conventions. The assemblies now proposed need not be limited to the choice of representatives, and may profitably receive appeals from diocesan determinations in matters of discipline."
Memoirs of the Church, p. 466 (ed. 1880).
Be it nomn by these resents, That on Tuesday the twenty Eighth day of June in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and fifty three in Grace Church, Rochester, monroe County in the Diocese of Western New-York, our beloved in Christ,
Charles Wells Hayes , Deacon .
was by me rightly and canonically Ordained and made a Priest I being well assured of his virtuous and pious life and conversation, and competent learning, and knowledge in the Holy Scriptures ; and he having, in my presence, freely and voluntarily declared that he be- lieves the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation ; and having also solemnly engaged to conform to the doctrines and Worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
In Testimony Thereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, at Rochester this said went, ughthe day
of June in the year of our Lord one thou- sand eight hundred and fifty three and in the fifteenth year of my consecration.
William Heathrowe Delaney
BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW-YORK.
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THE CHRISTIAN TENTH
plans of profit, wealth and self-indulgence. Others purpose to give largely, by bequests to benevolent objects in their wills, and therefore give little or nothing to current objects of religious enterprise and duty. Others allow themselves to be controlled by prejudice, caprice, or partiality, and close their hands to entire classes of Christian objects, and sometimes even to all.
" But on this subject, as in all others which relate to our Christian duties, there are principles to guide us in the right path, and the faithful contemplation and application of them will neither abate our zeal, nor mar our moral and spiritual progress.
" Putting aside the question as to unjust acquisitions, for which the law of Christ prescribes that restitution should be made, and con- fining ourselves wholly to the question, how much of the income of a religious man should be given to the cause of God, I answer, that if we look to the example of Abraham, Jacob and Moses ; if we advert to the provisions which God Himself prescribed for the Church under the Law ; if we fairly interpret the ordinance founded on the analogy of the Mosaic rule, that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel, as they who served at the Altar were partakers with the Altar ; if we advert to the liberality of the early followers of Christ, by which a distribution was made as every man had need ; if we call to mind that for two hundred years after Christ, it was the spontane- ous rule and action of Christians to provide for the Ministry, the worship of God, and the extension of the Church ; if we refer to the published views of the Christian Fathers of the earliest ages, in their interpreta- tion of the rule of duty ; and if to all this we annex the fact indis- putable, that all we have comes from God's beneficence to us, I think we may reach the conclusion that there is no one amongst us, but may rightly and safely adopt the principle that the tenth of his income is the amount which he may and should as a Christian man, give to the cause of that God who has given to him the ALL that he possesses or controls.
" The carrying out of this principle by the members of almost any established congregation in the Diocese, would amply sustain it in health and vigour in all its departments of Ministry, Edifice, Schools, Charities and Public Worship. If adopted throughout the Diocese, it would give an impetus to our Missions, to Education, to the Par- ishes, to our Sunday Schools, and to our various Institutions, that would inspirit all beyond almost an estimate. If extended to the Church at large, it would invigorate, sustain, and amplify all her enterprises for the good of man and the glory of God.
" For the current demands for means for the sustentation of the Ministry, the Parish, the Diocese, and the Church at large, from this day forth the Christian Tenth would be ample.
" But besides the giving of the Christian Tenth to God from this time forth, there is another view to be taken.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
" Let a Christian man, who for his life past has neglected acting on this rule from ignorance or inattention, now make an honest esti- mate of what has been his annual income since the time when he began to receive an income from his labours or possessions. Let him place by the amount thus ascertained, the sum of his actual contributions to the cause of God in its several departments. If such contributions have amounted to the tenth of his income during his life, let him heartily thank God for having by His grace kept him up to the measure of his duty in this respect. But if not, if he finds, as, alas ! most of us will find, that a heavy balance is against him in this account, let him regard the deficiency as a debt due to His Maker, and commence at once the effort to repay to God what he has unhappily withheld.
"Faithfully ascertained on the part of all of us, here will be a fund in the Church to meet munificently the demands made upon us for extra contributions for Christian Colleges and Education, for the erec- tion of churches, and the establishment of hospitals, asylums and schools. So that, my brethren, from these two sources, the Chris- tian Tenth for the future, faithfully given, and the balance of the Tenth withheld in the past, now faithfully and gradually repaid, may be derived the ample ways and means for the Church of Christ amongst us, not only for current and every-day demands,-the sup- port of her Ministry, Officers and Services, -- but also for those great objects of necessity, interest and usefulness, the payment of Church debts, the expansion of her Missions, the support of her Seminaries, Colleges and Schools, and the exigencies of Christian beneficence, -for which she in duty and necessity so often appeals to the mem- bers of the Church.
" Your devout attention to these views is earnestly invoked."*
The Convention seems to have been so far stirred up by the Bish- op's exhortation as to appoint a Committee of Laymen to report on the inadequacy of the support of the clergy and the neglect of prompt payment of their salaries. This Committee, through their chair- man, the Hon. Joseph Benedict, a zealous layman of Calvary Church, Utica, reported the next year quite fully on the subject. They state, in substance, that the clergy are for the most part receiv- ing salaries fixed when the cost of living was much less, and not increased either in proportion to the increased ability of the parishes or the advance in prices ; that the clergy have a right to such sup- port as will enable them to live as their office demands, and free from the necessity of "sharp bargaining " for household and other supplies ; that parishes which have withheld a just support from their
* Journ. W. N. Y. 1853, P. 44.
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Pastors should, according to Scripture rule, " restore fourfold ;" that the clergyman's salary should not be allowed to be in arrears, but on the contrary should be paid in advance. The causes of failure in such duty they believe to be the want of any proper standard of giving ; the commercial spirit growing out of the pew system ; unworthy per- sonal considerations ; simple thoughtlessness. One serious effect is to deter young men from entering on a work which they see so slightly esteemed and upheld by those whom they look up to as examples. They propose that this report shall be read in every parish (I fear that very few clergymen obeyed this recommendation); that a report of salary be included in the annual Parochial Report ; and that hereafter all salaries be paid " semi-annually in advance." And they end with a resolution which was adopted, and was the only action of the Convention on the subject, endorsing the Bishop's recommendation of a Thanksgiving Day Donation in every Parish, to which I have referred in Ch. XXVI. p. 163 sup. (This recommen- dation was part of the Bishop's Address of this year, 1854.)*
Another paragraph of the Address of 1854 is curious in the light of later years as showing how strongly, with all his large-heartedness, the Bishop clung to some of the old ways of thinking which he had inherited from Bishop White and Bishop Hobart :
" The establishment of Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods as organiza- tions in the Church I cannot but regard as alike a needless, cumber- some and hazardous instrumentality of usefulness ; needless, as its objects of benevolence can be met by existing agencies faithfully applied ; cumbersome, as demanding, in time, means and efforts, more than it is likely to yield ; and hazardous, as forming a Church within a Church, and what may readily become a sectional, exclusive, party organization, proving itself inimical to real unity in the great Brother- hood of Christ, that one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church with which all may well be content."t
And then he goes on to speak of the subject already referred to,- the support of the Clergy ; and I must quote a few of his words as additional to what I have said (Ch. XXVI.) of the condition of the Dio- cese in those days in this respect.
" I speak in behalf of a faithful, laborious and self-sacrificing body of men when I most earnestly urge the Laity to consider in their re-
* See Journ. W. N. Y. 1854, p. 45; and for the Committee's Report, p. 53. t Journ. 1854, p. 45.
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spective Parishes how seriously and painfully the condition of the Clergy is affected by the increased and increasing expense of the very necessaries of life .* In many items it has doubled within a few years.
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