USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 22
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* Journ. 1855, p. 46.
t Journ. 1856, p. 54.
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THE DIOCESAN TRAINING SCHOOL
for six years previous to the final establishment of the school in 1861, of the need of the school as a provision for candidates coming from the Ministry of other religious bodies. In 1857 the Bishop states as the result of a circular to the Clergy in Septen- ber, 1856, that " thirty boys from this Diocese could be had for the Junior Department, and fifteen young men for the Senior Department of such a school." He "feels bold to say that there are now fifty persons, youth and adults, in this Diocese, at this time ready and willing to be put in train for the Ministry of the Church." Already $4,500 had been offered towards endowing the school .* The Committee (Drs. Gregory, Van Rensselaer, Ashley and Brandegee, W. C. Pierrepont and Horatio Seymour) was continued in 1857 to raise funds, and Messrs. A. P. Grant, Horace White and J. J. Peck appointed Trustees of such funds. The commercial panic of 1857-8, and the Bishop's second visit to England in 1858-9, prevented any further action until 1860, when the Bishop reported that he had secured about $20,000 (all by his own personal efforts, chiefly at visitations of parishes) for the Senior Department of the School, which was to be opened on Oct. I, in Geneva, under the charge of the Rev. David H. Macurdy, and in connection with the missionary and parochial work of S. Peter's Chapel, which was included in the property of the School.t The plan adopted by the Convention in 1857 expressly provides that the "Senior Department " should be located at Geneva. In his appeal of May 9, 1860, for the endow- ment of this Department, the Bishop says, " This Department shall be located at Geneva, [he is quoting the plan of 1857,] and shall be opened as soon as an adequate endowment shall be obtained ; but the students shall prosecute their preparatory studies where the Bishop and Board shall direct." In the same letter he reluctantly gives up the " Junior Department " as demanding " an endowment of $100,000, and the application of more youthful energy than more than three-score years can supply to your Bishop. For young can- didates, we must look to Hobart College and De Veaux College." S. Peter's is to be a " free Chapel " for the Institution, and its offer- ings to aid in sustaining it.
It has been said of late years that the Training School was pro-
* Journ. 1857, p. 41.
t Journ. 1860, p. 70.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
bably located at Geneva only because that was the Bishop's residence. There is not the slightest ground for such a theory, and it is contrary to certain facts within my personal knowledge. I have no doubt that the Bishop was glad to have the school near his own residence, but a much more important consideration with him was that Geneva was the seat of Hobart College, with which the Bishop desired the work of the School to be brought into relation-as his former school had been-so far as was practicable. This I have heard from his own lips. The contributions for the endowment of the school were, in part if not wholly, given with the distinct understanding that it was to be placed at Geneva, and, as I have reason to know, would not have been given except on that assurance. It seems clear to me (but this is an opinion, not a fact) that this permanent location at Geneva and this reason for it were recognized in the action of the Convention of 1867, in assigning the School to Western New York, though its removal a mile east would have brought it into the Diocese which was left without a single endowed Institution .* And it was distinctly recognized by Bishop Coxe, both by word and act, through his whole Episcopate. t
Mr. Macurdy's declination of the charge of the School (from ill health) delayed its opening some months, but on the first day of Feb- ruary, 1861, its work began under the Rectorship of the Rev. JAMES RANKINE (later D.D., LL.D.), which continued to his decease, Dec. 16, 1896, nearly thirty-six years. Beginning his Candidateship in old S. John's, Canandaigua, then a student and professor under Bishop Williams, in Trinity College, Hartford, he came back in 1854 to make this Diocese his home for life. In the thirty-six years which followed, he carried on with wonderful judgment and success a work often small, perplexing and discouraging, but yielding results of good far beyond what could have been fairly expected from the material and the opportunities which were given him. The reports from the
* Journ. 1867, pp. 29, 31.
t I need hardly say that I am expressing no opinion here as to the legal or canonical right of the Diocese to locate the School elsewhere than in Geneva ; but only giving these historical facts, which do not seem to be always understood, as to the purpose of its original location and its maintenance in that place. The Bishop also counted, and with good reason, on the interest of the Church-people of Geneva in the School; an interest which, however, was largely due to Dr. Rankine's wise and able administration of its work.
ERASTUS SPALDING.
DUNCAN CAMERON MANN.
22I
CHURCH SCHOOLS
clergy on which Bishop De Lancey based his expectation of students seem to have been hardly trustworthy, for the actual number never exceeded ten, and usually varied from four to six, two-fifths of the whole being necessarily non-resident from the necessity of supporting themselves, and often their families, by work elsewhere, there never being funds for the maintenance of students, except what the Bishop gave or asked for, or the Rector himself provided, until within a few years. It had really no local habitation save the Rector's own house, and for thirty years no study except his dining-room. With all this he was gradually building the little mission of S. Peter's into a strong and active parish, by such faithful pastoral work as might have been counted sufficient to take all of any one man's time. But enough ; Bishop De Lancey never acted from a happier intuition, or a wiser foresight, than when he committed the work of what is now the De Lancey Divinity School to such a man as James Rankine.
The development of the Public School system, which has gradually forced out of existence all religious schools without large endowments, no doubt accounts in great part for the fact that the Church schools of Western New York were doing a much larger work half a century ago than they are today. It is of course no excuse for the wretched indifference of Church people to the religious training of their chil- dren outside of our-for the most part utterly inefficient-Sunday School instruction. The Diocese did report at one time a small num- ber of successful parish schools, as those under Dr. Gregory in Syra- cuse, Dr. Van Ingen in Rochester, Mr. Livermore in Waterloo, Dr. Babcock in Watertown, Bishop Paret in Pierrepont Manor, and others, and a larger number of excellent boarding schools, either co-educational, as at Holland Patent, Westmoreland, Wethersfield Springs, and Oakfield ; or for boys, as at Canandaigua, Buffalo, and Fredonia ; or girls, as the admirable ones of the Misses Hills in Buffalo, of " Lilac Grove " at New Hartford under the Eames family and Miss Proal, at Geneva under the Misses Bridge, -this last still continued in the " De Lancey School,"-at Mount Morris, Bingham- ton, Utica, Lockport under the Rev. Dr. Cressey, and other places which I cannot now recall. Two of these last, particularly-the Misses Hills's School in Buffalo, and Lilac Grove in New Hartford-had a long and successful career, and a high reputation, as many loving memories of them can yet attest. We have now two or three for girls, none of
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them too well sustained ; one, I believe, co-educational ; and none for boys except De Veaux with its little handful of "foundationers." It must be sorrowfully admitted that the Diocese has little to boast of in the progress of Christian education through the last forty years. It would be a comfort if we could think that our Sunday Schools and Catechising were enough better to be some compensation for our loss in weekday training.
I have said nothing, I believe, of Bishop De Lancey's Second Charge to his Clergy, at the Convention of 1849 in Geneva, on " Religious Training." It is of course systematic, formal and exhaustive in its treatment of the subject, like all his other writings.
There are two systems of religious education in use, he says ; the system of excitement, and the system of training. "The former sup- poses the baptized individual to be incapable of religious or spir- itual action, until he is, at some period of life, early or late, awakened, impressed and changed by the Holy Spirit ; with a view to whose action upon him it is necessary that human means should be used with a view to arrest, disturb and excite his mind on the sub- ject of his salvation. Prior to this period he is in sin and apathy. At this period he is converted. Hence he must needs submit to a system of excitements.
" The latter-the system of training-supposes the individual to be capable of religious exercises from the earliest period of intelli- gence, not by nature, but in virtue of imparted grace pledged by covenant to him ; by means of which, as he is empowered for moral action, so moral action is required, and may be acceptably rendered by him. Hence he is to be taught religious duties which he is to perform ; he is to be taught religious doctrine which he is to believe ; he is to be swayed by religious motives to which he is accessible ; he is to be led to moral obedience which he can render ; he is to share in Christian ordinances which are profitable to him. He is to be TRAINED in knowledge, holiness, virtues, graces, spiritual duties, doc- trines, ordinances, and in all of faith, holiness and grace that may attest his conformity to the will of God, and secure through Christ, as its meritorious origin, his everlasting salvation.
" The training system is the system of common sense, the system of analogy, the system of the Gospel, the true system."
Such is the thesis which the Bishop works out with copious illus- trations from the analogy of life, from the Bible, the Prayer Book and the Church's Law, and applies practically to the work for Children, in Sunday Schools, catechising, pastoral visiting and Parish Schools ; for Youth, in lectures and sermons, conversations, books and con-
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THE BISHOP'S CHARGES
firmation classes ; for Adults, in the Pulpit, the Lecture, the Press, personal intercourse, the sustaining of Church Institutions, and the cultivation of a spirit of devotion. And finally he urges his Clergy to think what all this demands, to what it leads, what grace it requires, and what will be its reward. Taking it up again after many years, one can almost see the burning eloquence of the good Bishop through all this old-fashioned elaborate style .*
In 1855, at Binghamton, the Bishop gave his Third Charge, on the " Avenues of Infidelity."
These he characterizes as arising in distorted views of the Doc- trine of Necessity (i. e. Calvinism), of Education, of Society ("Owenism," "Fourierism," "Mormonism," "Spiritualism "), of the Church (Romanism and Ultra-Protestantism), and of right Minis- terial Character. Against all these stands "the Christian Revela- tion which we proclaim and guard as the disclosure of God's will to man through Christ ; possible, probable, demonstrable, true; its foundation in the New Testament ; its substance in the Creeds of the Church ; its apparent medium the Church of the living God ; we, its advocates and agents, its commissioned Ministry, labouring in the power of the Holy Ghost under the great Captain of our Salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, its Author on earth and its Finisher in Heaven.
" Fidelity here will be glory there."
Little echoes of the old " High and Low Church " quarrel come up from time to time. In the Convention of 1855 the Bishop reported an application from some dissatisfied parishioners of S. John's Church, Canandaigua, for the formation of a new parish in that village of little more than 4,000 inhabitants. The Rector having naturally refused his consent, was sustained by the Bishop, who in turn was sustained by the almost unanimous vote of the Convention.t The next year a strong commendation in his Address of the " Church Book Society " (the new addition to the name of the old "G. P. E. S. S. Union ") was followed by a resolution in its behalf offered by Dr. Gregory, and strongly opposed by the few " Low Churchmen " left in the Diocese, who, like their party all over the country, had for several years with- drawn support from the Society on account of its supposed " Romish "
* I should add that he appends to this Charge some valuable notes on Catechising, Parish Schools, Church Colleges, Authorities on Church Teaching, the Gospel Messenger, Daily Service, Choirs and Frequent Communion.
t Journ, 1855, pp. 43, 61.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
tendencies, though its publications would be thought in this day very mild indeed. Again the Bishop's position was sustained, with two dis- senting votes of the Clergy and nine of the Laity .*
Another illustration of the persistence of this party spirit is noted the same year in the denunciation of the Bishop for deposing a clergy- man on his own acknowledgment of having received " confirmation of Orders " from the religious body popularly known as " Irvingites," on the ground that he had exceeded his authority in not subjecting the seceder to an ecclesiastical trial. t
In the Address of 1856 the Bishop suggests a plan for the gradual endowment of parishes, which will be found in detail in the Journal of that year, p. 44. It was commended by a resolution of the Con- vention, and, it is satisfactory to know, was adopted in several parishes with good results ; one especially I remember, Palmyra, then under a Rector of whose faithfulness and efficiency in all the details of parish work it is needless to say more than that he is now the revered and beloved Bishop of Western Michigan.
Appended to the Journal of 1857 is a note of some twenty pages on one of the many efforts made from time to time to wrest her estate from Trinity Church, New York, this time by means of a joint-stock company who were to receive, in case of success in the suit, three times the value of their subscriptions, the remainder of the prize going to the Common Schools. The note is still valuable as a full and inter- esting resumé of the whole question, so often fought over in the early years of the last century, and, to the credit of the State and its Courts, always with the same result. #
* Journ. 1856, pp. 43, 63.
1 Gospel Messenger, XXIX. 142. (Sept. 21, 1855.)
# See Journ. 1857, p. 131.
ANTHONY SCHUYLER 1862
JOHN J. BRANDEGEE
CHAPTER XXXV
THE BISHOP ABROAD : CHURCH-BUILDING AND RITUAL
E find in the Bishop's Address of 1858, some remarks on two events of that year, of great interest throughout the whole country.
The disastrous financial panic of 1857 had been fol- lowed by what might be truly called a " revival of relig- ion," the most wide-spread and remarkable, I think, which the his- tory of our country in the nineteenth century records. I only speak of that here in relation to its influence on the work of the Diocese, which is summed up in the words of the Bishop *
" Our Diocese," he says, " we humbly trust, is advancing in zeal, piety and good works, and for its steady progress through the pecun- iary and property panic on one side, and the religious excitement on the other, which have marked the last Conventional year, we have ample reason to bless God and take courage.
" The number confirmed, 1503, when the average annual number for my whole Episcopate is less than 600, and the largest number ever before reported in one year is 1006-the great number of aged persons confirmed, varying from sixty to eighty years of age-the enlarged attendance on the services of the Church, and the increased number of the services-the discontinuance of the objections to the Wednesday and Friday prayers, and to the daily services, all bespeak an external reverence and devotion which we trust is founded on the higher principle within-a heart quickened and sanctified by the Spirit of God. The Providential rebuke administered so suddenly, powerfully and extensively to the Mammon of unrighteousness in the panic and pressure, was met by the Church not wholly asleep and unprepared. For a dozen years, at the head of Wall street, the bells of Trinity Church had sent forth almost the only Protestant summons to the daily worship of God, while some nine or ten other Episcopal Churches in the city were treading in the same almost derided steps.
" The excitement met the Church in the humiliation of Lent, hum- bled before God in the appointed services of the season. Nothing extra to the usual services provided in the Book of Common Prayer was required. The rebuke was blest to her spiritual good, while her
* Journ. 1858, p. 53.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
solemn devotions were found appropriate to the exigency, and she has come forth from the awakening, we humbly trust, thus far, enlarged, invigorated and spiritualized, without sacrificing a principle or dimin- ishing confidence in her system of training men for Heaven, not by artificial and spasmodic excitements, but by a steady course of instruc- tion, worship, guidance, care and nurture, in full accordance with the word and will of God, the admonition of experience and the nature of man, vindicating the rise and progress of religion in the soul.
" While blessing God for whatever spiritual good has occurred from this Divine rebuke, to other religious bodies, let us thankfully adore Him for the spiritual blessings which, falling on the Church through her appointed services, have vindicated, now, as heretofore, the wis- dom, piety, and suitableness of her arrangements for worship, instruc- tion and devotion."
In these utterances, it need hardly be said, the Bishop had the full sympathy of his Diocese; but there were a few who were not satisfied without a much fuller recognition of the "revival" of the year, and had prepared a series of resolutions expressing their views. One of them, the Rev. Robert J. Parvin of Le Roy, moved to sus- pend the order of business to refer the Bishop's remarks to a com- mittee. This was refused, and later in the session a resolution offer- ed by the same clergyman, -of gratitude for "the gift of grace bestow- ed upon us" in the large number of confirmations reported, though entirely unobjectionable in language, was first amended by Dr. Gib- son to express "continued confidence and renewed zeal in the faith- ful use of the means of grace" bestowed on the Church and "pre- served in their integrity" for her (an amendment accepted at once by Mr. Parvin), and finally gave way to a substitute by Dr. Beach, "unit- ing with the Bishop in his acknowledgment of the blessing bestowed on the Church," etc. As the record stands, the "Evangelical" cler- gy seem to have the best of it ; the real fact being that the Conven- tion was unwilling to give any possible chance for committing the Dio- cese to an approval of the "revival" system generally. The substi- tute was followed, however, by another resolution from the same side, with which their original series of resolutions was to have ended, requesting the Bishop to take a vacation of three months for a visit to Europe, and assessing the parishes of the Diocese $1,500 for his expenses. This motion was put by the Secretary, and of course unan- imously adopted, though it was an utter surprise to the members of the Convention generally, and to some of them, probably, not an
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CONVENTION OF 1858
agreeable one, so far as the assessment was concerned. It was felt that on the whole the Low Churchmen had scored a triumph, though not the one they meant to have had.
The Convention responded to the second special point in the Bishop's Address, relating to the supposed completion of the first Atlantic Cable (which, it will be remembered, proved a failure for the time being), with a series of resolutions of congratulation, framed, I have no doubt, by one of the two distinguished laymen on the Committee, Governors Horatio Seymour and Washington Hunt, both of them deeply interested Churchmen of the old Western New York type.
This Convention of 1858, which was held in S. Paul's Church, Rochester, was attended by many clerical visitors from other Dioceses, including several from Canada,-among them Archdeacon Bethune (afterwards Bishop of Toronto), Dean Fuller (afterwards Bishop of Niagara) and Dr. Adam Townley, all of whom made addresses of much interest in response to their reception.
Immediately after the Convention the Bishop took part as Preacher in the consecration of Bishop Bowman in Christ Church, Philadelphia. His sermon on that occasion is given, not in full, however, in the Messenger of Sept. 3, 1858. On the 24th of November following, having taken leave of his Diocese in a letter of earnest exhortation to Clergy and Laity,* he set out on his last visit to England. He gives
* Given in Journ. 1859, p. 28. On the Sunday before, the Bishop ordained in Trinity Church, Utica, three Priests and three Deacons. The examination of the candidates illustrates curiously the utter want of system in such matters at that day. It was on the eve of the ordination : there were no Examining Chaplains then. The examiners besides the Bishop were the Revs. S. Hanson Coxe, Wm. A. Matson, Wm. T. Gibson, William J. Alger and myself. One of the candi- dates for Priest's Orders (the Rev. J. S. Shipman) had been examined a day or two before by Dr. Gibson and myself, and I presume has never forgotten what he underwent from the former, who did not often get such a first-class scholar and thinker to "put through." At the general examination, one of the Candidates for Deacon's Orders only, was Charles Edward Cheney, (now " Reformed Epis- copal Bishop" in Chicago,) and it is noteworthy that not a single question was asked him on the Prayer Book or the Ordinal for "want of time." Another had come in from the Methodists six months before (and went back to them six months later, I believe) and appeared to be almost as ignorant of the Bible as of the Prayer Book ; I remember that he had not the faintest idea of any relation between the "Old and New Dispensations!" As I write this, there comes to me the news of the decease (April 20, 1903) of WILLIAM JAMES ALGER, who had been received into the Diocese that same year (1858) and for many years did a
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
a general and very interesting account of it in his Address of 1859. His own health as well as Mrs. De Lancey's made it much more quiet than that of 1852, but he was received, of course, as before, with the most cordial regard and hospitality, and attended many functions of special interest, among others taking part in the consecration of a colonial and of a Scotch Bishop ; spending some weeks on the con- tinent, and visiting his ancestral homes in Caen, Normandy, and Verberie in Picardy, and " with veneration " the church and grave of Calvin, " however discordant in theology and polity." On account of Mrs. De Lancey's health, and by special request of some of the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese, the visit was prolonged to more than double the time originally contemplated, enabling the Bishop to obtain a large contribution in books for the Library of Hobart College, to attend the consecration of All Saints, Margaret St., London, (in which he was greatly interested,)* the opening of the Convocation of Can- terbury, and a concert at Buckingham Palace by invitation of the Queen, and to present to the Archbishop of Canterbury vivâ voce the message of congratulation on the Atlantic Cable which that great instrument had as yet failed to transmit. ; He was greatly interested in S. Aidan's College, Birkenhead, as a model for his own Diocesan Training School, and in a confirmation near Chester of 400 candidates, " two by two," with a choral Amen after each blessing.
On the 29th of June, in Trinity Church, Geneva, he had "the unspeakable gratification" of a hearty welcome back to the Diocese from a large number of the Clergy and Laity, with a special Thanks-
noble missionary work, first at Paris Hill, and Clinton, W. N. Y., and afterwards at Saco and Biddeford, Me .; one of the brightest men in intellect, and the noblest in heart, that either of those Dioceses ever had.
* I never heard the Bishop speak with more enthusiasm of anything than of the Choral Service (then almost unknown in this country), I think on this occa- sion; though he had been always told, and believed, that he could not sing a note himself, nor tell one tune from another. Yet at this very time, I remember his remarking with much acumen on the superiority of the violin to the piano- forte in musical quality, a remark hardly to be expected from one who had "neither ear nor voice." His voice, indeed, was one of the most musical I ever heard ; and I have no doubt that he could have learned to sing in spite of any defect of ear.
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