USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 21
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" In this Diocese, as you all know, there is no excess in the pay- ment of the Clergy for their services. The money salary raised by the parishes themselves by pew-rents or by subscription, varies from one hundred dollars in the feeble country churches to nearly two thousand in some three or four city parishes. The average is from $350 to $400. It is a matter of wonder how the individual expenses, the clothing and feeding of their families, and the education of their children, apart from all reference to books for their improvement, can be secured on their very limited incomes, without incurring that bane of clerical influence, a debt. It is not a matter of surprise that they should listen so readily to proposals to remove to other posts which promise (often fallaciously) enlarged means of sustenance, and the' avoidance of impending debt.
" The true remedy for all this is undoubtedly AN INCREASE OF THE REGULAR STATED SALARIES OF THE CLERGY, PUNCTUALLY PAID.
" In some few cases, the Lord remember them for good ! the par- ishes have increased the salaries to meet this increased expense of living. But in the great majority of cases, nothing adequate has been done or attempted in this respect."f
Three years later Bishop De Lancey published a little pamphlet entitled " Parish Duties ; a Guide to Wardens and Vestrymen, in a Pastoral Letter to the Laity." It was republished, I think more than once, and widely distributed, but is, I fear, a rare book now.
It begins with the general structure of a Parish (giving legal instruc- tions and forms for organization, &c.), its relations to the Diocese, officers, their powers and duties ; then considers "how, under our Parochial System, the energies of any Parish may be properly devel- oped." First as to calling a Rector ; in which he strongly reprobates the common practice of asking clergymen to officiate as candidates. Then he specifies various duties, each one of which should be assigned to one of the Vestry, and gives directions for their fulfillment : I. In Temporalities. (As to the Rector's salary, &c.) 2. In the Sunday School. (One of the Vestry should be Superintendent.) 3. In Arrivals and Accessions of Persons to the Village. 4. In Attention to Strangers at the Church Door. 5. In the Parish Collections for
* It should be noted that 1851-5 were years of "inflation," immediately pre- ceding the disastrous financial collapse and "panic " of 1857. In 1855 I paid $12 a barrel for flour ; in the winter of 1857-S it was between $5 and $6. t Journ. 1854, p. 45.
SAMUEL HANSON COXE, D.D.
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Church objects. 6. In the Distribution of Books and Tracts in the
Parish. 7. In the Schools of the Parish, and particularly in the guiding of competent and qualified youth towards the Ministry. 8. In the Care of the Furniture of the Church. 9. In the Music of the Church. ( Here he quotes at length the very plain words of the Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops of 1856.) IO. In Atten- tion to the Poor, Sick and Destitute of the Parish. In each of these departments a Vestryman is to be the Chairman of a Committee " of both sexes " appointed by the Rector. Vestry meetings to be held quarterly. Annual statements of all departments to be given by the Rector at Easter. " Rector, Wardens, Vestrymen and Congregation all to feel that they constitute a Church Brotherhood and Sisterhood, under an organization at once simple and effective. The whole body to strengthen the Rector's hands by punctuality at church, by full responses in the services, by devout attention to the preaching, by regularly communing, by observance of Festivals and Fasts, and by presenting an uniform example of earnest, devout, holy and con- sistent members of the Church."
Then the Bishop goes on to answer objections. I wish I could give more from these admirable counsels. I need not say how careful the Bishop is through them all to guard the rights of the Rector, and to recognize his responsibility for leadership in all parochial work in the fullest extent. Probably some of the details of the Bishop's plan may be considered as not altogether suited to the ways and circum- stances of the Twentieth Century ; but I am sure that many Vestries and Parishes have been, and many more might be, greatly benefited by an earnest effort to work on the principles which he sets forth .*
* A little scheme of " Vestry By-Laws" adopted in the writer's own Parish a few years ago, and afterwards printed on a leaflet, follows generally the plan of Bishop De Lancey's Pastoral, and has been found useful in several Parishes besides the one for which it was prepared.
CHAPTER XXXIII
WESTERN NEW YORK CLERGY OF 1849-59
OMETHING must be said now of the clergy-or some of them-who were co-workers with Bishop De Lancey in the second decade of his Episcopate. And what can be said here must necessarily leave out many more names than are mentioned, and many, doubtless, as well worthy of mention as these. An ecclesiastical biography of Western New York clergy would be an interesting book for some, and probably a dull one for many more ; but whether desirable or not, it is not possible here.
The venerable editor of the Gospel Messenger, Dr. Rudd, died in 1849, and therefore does not come into this period. His pupil and successor, the Rev. Dr. William A. Matson (afterwards so well known as editor of the Church Journal in succession to Dr. John Henry Hopkins) continued that excellent paper on nearly the same lines, and with great ability, till 1861, carrying on at the same time an active parochial work in Utica and its vicinity, and serving also for many years as the Secretary of the Diocese in succession to Dr. Pierre Alexis Proal. The Nestor of the Diocese almost from its beginning was Dr. William Shelton of Buffalo, whose rectorship of more than half a century in S. Paul's awakens a host of memories of good works and " good things " which will, I fear, never be seen in print ; with a blunt and downright manner of speech which continu- ally offended those who did not know him, and, with his absolute sin- cerity and generosity, endeared him to all who did. But we shall hear more of him later.
I have said something already of his colleague in Buffalo, Edward Ingersoll, a man utterly different in externals, but in sincerity and goodness of heart, as in lifelong affection, a true brother to Dr. Shelton. Montgomery Schuyler, afterwards so honoured and beloved in Christ Church, S. Louis, was succeeded in S. John's Church, Buf- falo, in 1857, by William B. Ashley, who had been ten years Rector of S. Paul's, Syracuse, in succession to Dr. Gregory, and who attained the very highest standing in parochial and diocesan work here, as he
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CLERGY OF 1849-59
did afterwards in Milwaukee. One remembers best of Dr. Ashley, as we knew him here, his peculiar gentleness and sweetness of disposi- tion, which seemed apparent even in features as well as manner ; but he had the making of a martyr also. In Batavia there was for twenty years the good Dr. Bolles, ever full of life and restless energy and irresistible fun-another who early left the Diocese to be still more loved and venerated in later years in what we called "the West," i. e., Cleveland, Ohio. To Geneva came in 1848, in succession to Irving, Cooke, and Hobart, William H. A. Bissell, of whom I have often spoken as the best Parish Priest I ever knew, who, for twenty years, till he was called to the Episcopate of Vermont, gave to his flock a devoted pastoral care which had its reward in the beginning of what Trinity Church is now. Lloyd Windsor, a Priest of the Diocese at its organization, returned in 1856, and from 1859 till his death thirty years later was Rector of Christ Church, Hornellsville. His best work, however, especially in diocesan affairs, belongs rather to Bishop Coxe's time. Andrew Hull did for many years a good work at New Berlin and Elmira; in the former parish he was suc- ceeded by Richard Whittingham, brother of the great Bishop of Maryland, who added to his parish work an excellent and successful Girls' School ; equally notable as scholar, author, musician and Priest. William Sydney Walker was the faithful and beloved Rector of S. John's, Ithaca, from 1842 to 1865, twenty-three years. Pascal P. Kidder was an active Missionary during nearly all his ministry of fifty-four years in Western New York. Samuel Hanson Coxe, a younger brother of the Bishop, served first at Cazenovia, then at Oxford, and lastly for twenty years as Dr. Proal's successor in Trinity Church, Utica ; a calm, quiet man, as different as possible from his impulsive poet-brother, with curious limitations of thought in matters theological and ecclesiastical, but with an infinite fund of humour, and much beloved as a Pastor. Thomas P. Tyler, son of the dis- tinguished Chief Justice of Vermont, intellectually one of the first clergymen of his day, made his splendid record as a Pastor through twenty years in Fredonia, later, in 1854, succeeding Dr. Bolles at Batavia. Henry Stanley must not be forgotten, though he was away from the Diocese through most of this decade,-one whom to know was to love,-a very "mirror of chivalry" in absolute sincerity, unself- ishness, faithfulness to the highest ideals of life, all shining through
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the quaintest exterior of features and manner and the most delightful absent-minded habits ; his best remembered work was at Whitesboro, and later in Little Falls, in the Diocese of Albany. Dr. Israel Foote, first at Guilford and Bainbridge, then succeeding Dr. Tyler at Fre- donia, and finally for twenty-three years Rector of S. Paul's, Rochester, became noted as an eloquent and fearless preacher and a successful Pastor. Levi W. Norton, who came back in his last years to James- town, one of his old homes in the Diocese, did his most notable work in 1847-53 in the building up of Trinity Church, Watertown, into one of the foremost parishes of Central New York. Timothy F. Ward- well spent twenty-two of his all too short ministry of twenty-seven years in Western New York, almost all of it in arduous and faithful missionary work in Ontario and Yates counties; another of those noble and large-hearted men for whom Bishop De Lancey's leader- ship seemed to have a special charm. Certainly it was so with Walter Ayrault, successively Rector at Auburn, Canandaigua, and Oxford, and in later years Chaplain of Hobart College ; the Bishop's Chap- lain in his first visit in England, and his special and trusted friend ever afterwards ; whose whole ministry, parochial and academical, was brightened with the fervour of the earliest and best years of the "Oxford Movement," and kindled it in all who came in contact with him ; bringing lofty ideals into the commonest things of daily life by his charm of person and conversation. Benjamin Wright, Bishop Whipple's brother-in-law and dearest friend, had ended his short but faithful ministry in the Diocese in 1849 to give his few remaining years to Mission work in Florida. Albert P. Smith gave nearly the whole of his forty years' work to the one little parish of S. Peter's, Caze- novia, not then a summer resort as now ; and what an example it was of sturdy, uncompromising adherence to every jot and tittle of the Church's doctrine and law, and fulfillment of every line of a country parson's duty to his flock! He received from the Bishop him- self, through Hobart College, his Doctor's degree as the rare reward of simple faithfulness in humble and commonplace pastoral work. William H. Hill gave up a successful career in the law to become Rector of another small country parish (Brownville), and an able writer for the Messenger. Charles Arey was missionary at Westfield and Dunkirk six years, and later (1864-75) at Fredonia and S. John's, Buffalo ; a man of fine intellect and character. David H. Macurdy
ISRAEL FOOTE
HENRY STANLEY
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was another of Bishop De Lancey's pupils at the University of Pennsylvania, whom the Bishop afterwards rescued, so to speak, from mercantile life to become one of his most devoted and efficient coun- try parsons, two years at Waterloo, and eight (1857-65) at Oxford, and who was the Bishop's first choice as Head of the " Diocesan Training School " in 1860. Maunsell Van Rensselaer came into the Diocese in 1847, and was successively Rector of Mount Morris, Oxford, and S. Paul's, Rochester, President of De Veaux College and of Hobart, in all nearly thirty years, doing excellent work and making warm friends in all those places ; not brilliant, but of sterling qualities, another who had the Bishop's special confidence and affec- tion from first to last. Theodore Marsh Bishop, one of Dr. Wilson's first students in Divinity, spent nearly all of his forty years' ministry in the Diocese, and had its highest honours, well deserved ; Secretary seventeen years, from 1870 to 1887 ; capable of the roughest and hardest and truest missionary and pastoral work, (most of this period at Fulton, Oswego county,) and an excellent teacher. Noble Palmer did most faithful work for fifteen years in one of the smallest and most secluded parishes, S. Luke's, Harpersville, (once known as " Ochquaga Hills," see p. 37 above,) and afterwards for many years in other country churches. Oran Reed Howard came from the Methodists in 1849, and spent his whole ministry of forty-four years in the Diocese, twenty-five of it (1857-82) as Rector of S. Thomas, Bath, whose costly and beautiful church is one memorial of his faith- ful and successful labours. Malcolm Douglass, one of four distin- guished sons of Major David Bates Douglass, was ordained by Bishop De Lancey in 1849, but gave only his first ten years to the Diocese, mostly at Waterloo, much of his later ministry being in Ver- mont, some years as President of Norwich University, having declined the Presidency of De Veaux College .* He was another who was " faithful in the least " and " faithful in much," and whose per- sonal friendship was a treasure to be greatly prized. Henry B. Whipple, taught by Dr. Wilson and ordained by Bishop De Lancey, left us in 1857, after eight years of remarkable pas- toral work at Rome, to build up the first free Church in
* He also virtually declined the Episcopate of Vermont, for which he was the first choice of the Clergy in succession to Bishop Hopkins.
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Chicago,* and two years later to become the first Bishop of Minnesota and the " Apostle of the Indians." Two broth- ers, Amos B. and Alfred B. Beach, sons of the Rev. Stephen Beach of East Haddam, Connecticut, both warm-hearted, genial men of fine character and ability, were successively Rectors of S. John's Church, Canandaigua. The younger, Alfred, went in 1853 to the old parish of S. Peter's, New York, of which he remained Rector for thirty-seven years ; the elder remained in Western and Central New York through life. George Morgan Hills began his ministry in Lyons, going from there to Watertown, thence to Syracuse, and finally to S. Mary's, Burlington, N. J. In all these places he was distinguished as Preacher and Pastor, and in the latter also as author of the well known " History of the Church in Burlington." No one gave more loyal and useful service to the two successive Bishops of the Diocese, for the twenty years in which he remained in it. The same year came Edward Livermore, to remain with us only ten years, and then to spend the rest of his life as Bishop Whipple's loyal Priest and bosom friend. The first half of his residence here was in Waterloo, which has always managed to get a Rector of more than common excellence ; the last half mostly in the two little missionary parishes of East Bloomfield and Allen's Hill, his frail health making a larger work impracticable then. He added to the intellect inherited from his distinguished New Hampshire ancestry (his father, Judge Arthur Livermore, is remembered yet as one ot the most brilliant men who ever adorned the Senate of the United States) a charm of person and conversation which no one who knew him can ever forget ; " the type of an old-fashioned gentleman," Bishop Whipple truly says, " one of those loyal souls on whom Bishops and Clergy could lean, and to no
* In the winter of 1856-7 I met in Bishop Neely's study in Rochester (where he was then Rector of Christ Church ), his brother, the late Albert E. Neely, of Chicago, who with one other young man from Western New York had founded the Free Church of the Holy Communion, and had come to ask where he could look for a Rector. After listening to his enthusiastic account of the new under- taking and its requirements, I said, "I know just the man you want, but you can't get him."-" Who is he? "-" Henry B. Whipple, of Rome." Bishop Neely at once seconded my suggestion ; his brother went directly to Rome, and persuaded Mr. Whipple to visit Chicago, which visit resulted eventually in his election as Bishop of Minnesota.
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one who trusted him was he ever a broken reed."* He was another who absorbed, as it were by instinct, all the best of the Oxford revival for his own parish work and teaching, and brought it home also to his younger brethren in Orders.
Dr. Anthony Schuyler, a Hobart man of 1835, had been a successful lawyer some years when, following his cousin Montgomery, he took Holy Orders. He too is well remembered, keeping up his good work in Oswego and Christ Church, Rochester, to 1868, and making almost annual summer visits to his Geneva relatives till his decease only three years ago ; retaining to the last, like almost all the clergy of his day, a deep affection for the Diocese and the memory of Bishop De Lancey. Lawrence S. Stevens and Albert Wood, classmates of 1848 in Hobart, from the same Oneida county village (Camden), and intimate friends, were yet very unlike in character, tastes and life, the one essentially a man of affairs and active Pastor, the other a student and thoughtful writer on many varied subjects, one of his pub- lications being an excellent but little-known manual of Church Hymns and Tunes. Mr. Stevens was an early Rector of S. James, Buffalo, and later of Grace Church, Lockport. His classmate did in his earlier years a great deal of hard and faithful missionary work in the Diocese, in which he spent nearly his whole ministry.
This brings us to the little group of whom I have spoken before (Ch. XXX. p. 194) as Divinity students at Geneva under Bishop De Lancey and Dr. Wilson in 1850-54, nearly all of whom were my own classmates. Five besides myself are living, four of them still in more or less active service, but not one remaining in the present Western New York. Dr. Parke's work in the Diocese was at Albion, Waterloo and Binghamton ; Bishop Paret's. at Clyde, Pierrepont Manor and Elmira ; Dr. Herrick's at Manlius ; Dr. Barrows's at Corn- ing, Calvary, Utica, and Rome ; H. Gaylord Wood's at Sackett's Harbor, and Grace, Buffalo. Of those who have entered into rest there are to be specially remembered, first, Julius Sylvester Town- send, who brought into his short but fruitful ministry all the fervour and enthusiasm of his original Methodism, tempered by a full appreciation and love of the teaching and spirit of the Prayer Book. Of Joseph
* A somewhat full account of him and of the Livermore family, written for the (W. N. Y.) Church Kalendar of June, 1886, is reprinted in the Church Eclectic of Sept., 1886, and also in the Living Church of August of the same year.
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Morison Clarke I have spoken before (Ch. XXX. p. 193) ; and have said of him elsewhere that " in all elements of character, intellectual, moral, social, he was one of the greatest and noblest among the Alumni of whom Hobart College is justly proud ; one who should have been in her Faculty many years ago ; who won devoted friends in every sphere of life ; whose brilliant social qualities, which made him one of the most delightful of companions and friends, were excelled only by his higher character as Theologian, Priest, Churchman and Christian."* That is a great deal to say, but it is every word true. He began his pastoral work at Niagara Falls (the first Rector of that Parish), but in 1868 became Rector of S. James, Syracuse, Dr. Gregory's "Free Church," which charge he retained for twenty-eight years ; then for five years was Professor of Bib- lical Literature in Nashotah Seminary, and later Bishop's Chaplain and Professor in S. Andrew's Divinity School at Syracuse. Henry Adams Neely is another who, though he left the Diocese so early for his long and hard work in the Episcopate of Maine, had to the last day of his life devoted and loving friends not only in his old parishes in Utica and Rochester, but in every part of Western New York. Dr. William T. Gibson spent his whole ministry of forty-three years in what is now Central New York, nearly all of it in Utica, first as founder (under Bishop De Lancey's express direction) of S. George's Church, and editor of the Messenger, and later of the Church Journal (in company with Dr. Matson) and the Church Eclectic, which last splendid magazine he founded and kept up single-handed to the last years of his life. He was indeed a born editor ; but so was he a born preacher, teacher, philosopher, theologian, an instructor of men in every possible way, as no one needs to be told who remembers the charm of his every-day conversation. John G. Webster began his academical preparation for Holy Orders under Bishop Paret, (then himself a candidate for Orders and teacher at Moravia, ) earning his living meanwhile as a carpenter (and a first-rate carpenter, as so much beautiful furniture of church and rectory remains to testify) and clerk in a village post-office while studying his Greek Testament. Bishop Paret has done many good things for the Church, but none much better than when he led this young man to see his way into her min- istry. His thirty-four years of service was nearly all in two country
* Alumni of Hobart College, Report of 1900.
JOSEPH MORISON CLARKE, D.D.
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parishes of the Diocese, Jordan and Palmyra, in each of which his memory is preserved in a beautiful church, but much more in the hearts of the people to whom he was such a loving and devoted Pas- tor. He was another whose every-day talk, full of shrewd philoso- phy, wit and humour, was the delight of all who could once break through the crust of his habitual modest and almost shy reserve. Before him I should have named a kindred spirit, James Andrew Robinson, whose forty-five years in Orders was nearly all in quiet country places in Central New York, where, as in his student life, he made loving friends of all who came to know him well.
Somewhat later among Dr. Wilson's Geneva students came Lyman Hinsdale Sherwood, a brilliant and accomplished scholar in many things, most of all in music, to which in fact most of his life was given ; William White Bours, who died in Florida in 1857, after five years of most earnest and devoted Missionary work ; Robert Hor- wood, who came from England as a Wesleyan preacher, to become a faithful Rector in Angelica and Belmont, and finally a country parson in England, where so many of his old W. N. Y. friends found a cordial welcome from him and his lovely wife ;* and Edward Randolph Welles, Dr. Gibson's pupil in Waterloo, afterwards so well known by his remarkable work in Minnesota and as the third Bishop of Wisconsin.
All these, as I have said, were fellow-students in those happy years at Geneva under Bishop De Lancey; and they, and nearly all whom I have named in this chapter, were personal friends, of whom it is hard to write in what will not seem to others unmeasured terms of praise, while for myself I can only feel how much more might be and should be said.
* Elizabeth Church, daughter of Judge Philip Church of Angelica, and grand- daughter of the Angelica Schuyler whose life was saved when a child in the attack on Gen. Schuyler's mansion in the Revolution.
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CHAPTER XXXIV
THE TRAINING SCHOOL: TWO EPISCOPAL CHARGES
N his Address of 1855 Bishop De Lancey alludes again to the "want of additional clergy" as " the distressing want of this Diocese," and expresses his conviction of the need of a " Training School for Candidates ;" by which, as he explains, he means a Diocesan School where both preparatory and advanced education " can be obtained by children designed by their parents or themselves for the Ministry, without the expenses to which they are now subjected ; a literal 'school of the prophets,' where ' education for the Ministry ' is not a side or contingent object, but the sole object of the instructions, associations, devotions, influences and labours of the entire establish- ment."
It is evident from other remarks in the Address, which I cannot give in full here, that it is preparatory, not theological education which the Bishop has in mind, " an institution," as he says, "for earlier control, guidance, protection and training, to lead the open- ing mind to God's work, as Samuel was led, as Timothy was led, from the earliest dawn of the spiritual mind, to its full development."* A Committee appointed at his request reported briefly, and the next year much more fully, and the discussion of the subject occupied much of the time of the Convention of 1856 at Watertown. The plan reported and adopted (with but one dissenting vote, if I remem- ber rightly) proposed a school of two departments (under the Bishop and Standing Committee as a Board of Education), the Junior Depart- ment for youth of twelve to eighteen years designing to become candi- dates, the Senior Department for young men over 18, communicants, recommended by their pastors as applicants for candidate- ship, to be guided and aided in their preparatory studies by the Board of Education. The Junior Department to be opened as soon as an endowment of $20,000 should be obtained. ยก Nothing is said in this report, nor in the Bishop's Addresses
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