USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 30
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By this plan the Diocese was divided into the Deaneries of Buffalo, Lockport, Batavia, Rochester and Geneva, each one averaging three counties, and in each a Convocation of the resident clergy and one layman from each parish, with a Dean appointed by the Bishop on the nomination of the Convocation, and a Secretary. The Bishop, the Deans, and a layman from each Convocation, constituted the Diocesan Missionary Board, which was to assess each Deanery for
* Journ. 1877, p. 98. t Id. 1878, p. 69.
t Journ. 1879, pp. 35-9, 92 ; Our Church Work, II. 166. (Sept., 1879.)
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its share of missionary offerings, and assign its proportion of receipts to be expended under the direction of its Convocation. Times of meetings (which were generally quarterly), by-laws and other details of work were left to the Convocations. The effect of this plan was, not immediately, but gradually, to infuse new life into the missions of the Diocese. There was no considerable increase of offerings for several years, but a very decided increase of personal interest in the work was evident in the regular meetings of the Convocations and the occasional visits of the Deans to the Missions. In 1881 the Dean- eries were reduced to four, that of Lockport being consolidated with Buffalo and Batavia, and in this form the system remained, and, as it seems to me, with excellent results, for fifteen years more.
I find in the Journal of 1872 (p. 76) a communication furnished by the Bishop but not apparently written by him, pleading eloquently for the removal of limitations on the appropriations to beneficiaries of the Christmas Fund, especially clergymen, whose maximum allow- ance at that time, and for ten years later, was $250. The writer points out the fact that the cost of living had doubled since the limit was fixed, and asks " if it is a just or righteous policy to leave the sick and the aged to struggle with unhappy poverty in order that we may lay up a considerable portion of the alms of the Church contributed for their relief in a fund called permanent for the support of generations yet unborn. Is our Church growing or decaying ? Do we believe that in the next, or in any coming age, she will be less able to support her ministering servants than she is today?" And so on. In 1882 the limit was increased to $300 a year, at which it still re- mains. The Trustees reported to the Council of 1903 offerings from 7 1 out of 125 parishes amounting to $1, 151.34, almost exactly five cents for each communicant in the Diocese ; an accumulated fund of $26,587 ; and $2,650, being the entire income from offerings and in- vestments, disbursed to 16 annuitants, (averaging $160.63,) most of whom were the widows of clergymen. During the last year a con- siderable additional fund, $13,750, to be kept separately, and for the benefit of clergymen only, has been received from a bequest of the widow of the late Rev. Dr. Van Bokkelen. And to this it may be added that the Council of 1901 adopted unanimously a canon providing a " Retiring Pension " of $400 for every clergyman of 65 years, and 25 of active service in the Diocese, desiring to withdraw
CHURCH HOME, GENEVA
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from active duty in the ministry. So that the Diocese has practically a fair provision for the last days of its clergy, notwithstanding its discreditably insignificant offerings in that behalf.
At the Council of 1873, (held for the first time in the beautiful village of Bath, in the " Southern Tier,") a committee of clergymen and laymen appointed the previous year "to recommend, with the Bishop's approval, a Hymnal with Tunes, and a pointing of the Canticles and Psalter for this Diocese," unanimously report in favour of those edited by the Rev. Dr. Tucker ; which result the Bishop " cordially accepts," reserving, however, " the privilege of commend- ing any good work of the kind " desired by parishes " in which other views prevail." A resolution adopted at the same time requested the Bishop to appoint a clergyman skilled in ecclesiastical music, as " Precentor of the Diocese," to visit the parishes at the request of their Rectors, to train choirs and children in Church music, and to take charge of the music at Conventions. The Bishop appointed the Rev. Charles J. Machin, then of Olean, who had done some good work in training children and choirs in Buffalo, and did afterwards, I believe, in Rochester. But he left the Diocese two years later, and no further effort seems to have been made in this direction.
At the same Council was presented a report of much interest on Sunday School work, prepared mainly by the Rev. George S. Baker, then curate in S. Luke's Church, Rochester. It discusses various difficulties,-in obtaining efficient teachers, in securing regular attend- ance, in keeping on the older scholars, in bringing the children to church,-and suggests methods to overcome these obstacles, conclud- ing with strong commendation of the plan of instruction and service adopted by Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Perry in Geneva, i. e., a short afternoon instruction followed by a choral evensong and catechising in church, a system kept up with excellent results there, and I think in a few other parishes, to this day. These reports on Sunday Schools have been continued, year after year, and are often, like this one, very able and interesting. But I find nothing in them all to show how far the difficulties and imperfections have been obviated so as to make our Sunday Schools generally more efficient.
I have already alluded (Ch. XLII. above) to the Bishop's desire to make the "Episcopal Library," mainly by his own gift, a trust for the benefit of the Clergy generally as well as of his own successors in
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office. At the Council of 1875 a Committee on " An Episcopal Library " report that the Bishop has been able to extend its usefulness by the loan of books to a number of the Clergy, and suggest the ap- pointment of a Librarian and an appropriation for binding. The next year further use of the Library by the Clergy is reported, and a catalogue of the books was ordered to be printed in the Journal for the information of those desiring to use it. In 1877 the Committee highly approve the recommendation to print and distribute the Cata- logue ; and this is the last we hear of it or of the Library except from the Bishop himself in 1879 and 1882, and in his final bequest of it to the Diocese, as already noted .*
The Council of 1876 adopted the following resolution, the outcome of an able report on a Permanent Diaconate suggested by the Bishop's Address :
" That it is desirable that the Order of Deacons should be restored to its primitive offices, by the ordination of duly qualified men, such as are now selected as lay readers, to minister in strict accordance with the promises of the Ordinal ; provided that the offices of a Deacon thus restored should in no respect interfere with the custom- ary use of the Diaconate as a preparatory and probationary degree in the said Ministry."
The Bishop carried this resolution into effect in a number of in- stances in succeeding years, and in some, at least, with most useful results. I cannot give, as I should be glad to, the names of all those thus ordered by him ; but I must mention two in Buffalo, Cyrus P. Lee and Thomas Dennis, both Wardens of their respective Parishes and men of the highest personal character, who, though advanced in years, and occupied in important secular business, were able to give themselves freely, devotedly and efficiently to a true Deacon's work, for the short time during which they were spared to the Church on earth.
This same year, in connection with a revision of the Constitution and Canons then beginning, the Bishop has some remarks on " a Dioc- esan Name," which I cannot help quoting in addition to all that has been said on that subject :
" The Church at large is actually disfigured by its uncatholic no- menclature. A ' chart of the winds' is hardly more complicated by
* See above, Chapter XLII. p. 294.
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minute reference to the points of the compass than our list of Dioceses is likely to become if this absurdity is to be carried much further. As the mischief began with the compound-adjective style of ' Western New York,' I wish the reform might also be started here. But I should not venture the suggestion, had I not a useful end in view. The time is sure to come when Rochester must be made the See of a new Diocese. Our existing Diocese, like Sodor and Man, might well be designated ' the Diocese of Buffalo and Rochester,' and were it so, I might, if it were thought best, take steps immediately for giving one of the churches in Rochester the character of a Cathedral. From this, as a centre, the future Diocese would be the more readily developed." *
But I find no action of the Council, then or later, on this suggestion of the Bishop. Such action was proposed before and at the Special Council of 1896 for the election of a Bishop, but failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds vote for its consideration.
In the following year (1877) an earnest effort to increase the Episcopate Fund was begun by one of its Trustees, Mr. William M. White. It did not bear much fruit till some years later (I can hardly say much fruit even then), and I mention it to quote a few words from the Bishop commending the effort.
" I ask rich men to unite in considerable contributions to this fund, and to give in advance of their wills and testaments what they may be happy to disburse as their own executors. It is a graceful and com- prehensive form of liberality ; a recognition of the value of that Apos- tolic office which the Lord has set in the Church ; a bounty to the whole Diocese, and a great relief to poor parishes and missionary stations which ought not to bear any large proportion of the expenses of an Episcopate in a wealthy Diocese.
" It has always appeared to me that an American Bishop should live very simply, but yet with a moderate dignity and with freedom from monetary cares. I could not conscientiously accept more than my Diocese now affords me as my stipend, because that would be out of proportion with what it gives to other instruments of Church work. If the Diocese wishes me to live on a smaller income I will do so cheer- fully ; but in that case I must remove to some quiet village where nothing will be expected of me beyond what comports with a decent retirement. I have often thought that what is paid to the Judges of our higher Courts of Law supplies a fair standard of what a Bishop must need for a respectable maintenance. Every clergyman should be supported on a scale graduated by some similar parallel. . I
* Journ. 1876, p. 55.
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need not say how wicked it is to reduce the Ministers of Christ to a pittance inconsistent with honest and respectable living. I conjure every Churchman in the Diocese to consider himself responsible, in some degree, when a due and decent support is not punctually and cheerfully supplied to the man of God, who ministers in things not perishable, but spiritual and eternal, of magnitude unspeakable."*
* Journ. 1877, p. 69.
S. JOHN'S CHURCH, CANANDAIGUA, N. Y. Consecrated 1887
CHAPTER XLIV
PAROCHIAL WORK, SCHOOLS AND CHARITIES, 1869-79
HE general work and growth of the Diocese during the ten years following the setting off of Central New York is indicated more by new parishes and missions, the building of new churches, and the founding of new charities, than by any numerical increase. In fact, the general statistics of the Diocese in 1879 hardly vary from those of 1869, except in the addition of some 3,000, or 25 per cent., to the number of communicants, and 2,000, about the same proportion, to that of Sunday scholars. The offerings are about the same on the whole ; less for diocesan, more for general objects. The Episcopate Fund has added $1,600 to its $27,000, the Permanent Missionary Fund is $17,895 instead of $11, 127, the Divinity School Fund $21,217 instead of $ 17,465, the Christmas Fund $10,900 instead of $6,500.
From the Reports there would seem to be no more parishes and missions in 1879 than ten years before, but that is probably owing to a more careful weeding out of nominal missions which had been given up long ago. In Buffalo the new parish of S. Mary's-on-the-Hill had organized and begun its first church building ; that of the Ascension, under the able and devoted leadership of John M. Henderson (con- tinued for twenty-four years till his death in 1885) had built a new and permanent church of stone at a cost of $40,000 ; All Saints was just founded ; Christ Church, under Orlando Witherspoon, had built its fine chapel on Delaware Avenue, now inherited by Trinity Church ; and the Rev. Charles H. Smith had begun, with his Rectorship of S. James (from 1876), the splendid work of planting missions and building churches which made him within a few years virtually the Dean of the whole " East side " of Buffalo, as he still is. Missions, begun at Tonawanda by the Rev. George C. Pennell of Buffalo; at East Aurora by David A. Bonnar ; in Chautauqua county by Francis Granger ; at Randolph by Levi W. Norton, then of Jamestown ; at Salamanca, where a church was built with great effort under the untiring labours of Pascal P. Kidder ; at Attica by J. H. Waterbury ; in Livingston county by the veteran missionary Fortune C. Brown of
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Avon ; at Livonia by George S. Teller of Geneseo ; at Middleport by George W. Southwell ; at Oakfield by James R. Coe from his remark- ably successful headship of the Cary School ; in Schuyler county by Duncan C. Mann ; at Dresden and Dundee by Timothy F. Ward- well ; and at South Phelps and other places near Geneva (some of them in the Diocese of Central New York) by Hobart students under Dr. Rankine and Dr. Van Rensselaer ; all these had taken root, and-sometimes after long and patient waiting-were showing some substantial growth. In Rochester, S. Luke's Church had founded the mission of the Epiphany, and S. Paul's that of S. James, and each had built a church for those now strong parishes ; and S. Clement's, an offshoot of Christ Church founded mainly by the late William B. Douglas, had after much tribulation blossomed out into S. Andrew's, which soon, under the energetic pastoral work of Algernon S. Crap- sey, became one of the largest and most active churches in that city. The Mission church of the Good Shepherd, also founded by S. Luke's, and that of S. John by S. Paul's, did a good work for a time, but were eventually absorbed by the neighbouring parishes.
In a number of the older country parishes-among them Niagara Falls, Le Roy, Bath, Palmyra, Pittsford, Hammondsport, and Can- andaigua-new churches were built at considerable cost (most of them from thirty to fifty thousand dollars each) and of excellent arch- itectural character, equal in this respect to any in the Diocese. I have already noted the still greater work of the Memorial Church in Geneva. A great deal of church building, and what might be called restoration, in the smaller country parishes, belongs to this period.
A still greater advance in the real work of the Diocese may be found in the fact that each of its three chief centres, Buffalo, Rochester and Geneva, had now its Church Home, though the latter was not fully planted till several years later, under the Rev. Henry W. Nelson, Jr., who began in 1877 his most faithful and fruitful pas- torate, the longest which even Trinity Church ever had, and carrying on to its full development the remarkable pastoral work begun in that parish by Bishop Bissell and continued by Bishop Perry. The Buf- falo Church Charity Foundation reported as early as 1873 a property of $60,000, and both its means and its charities increased steadily each year from that time. Many of the little children that it has rescued from destitution have gone on through De Veaux College, through
DE VEAUX COLLEGE 3II
Hobart College, through the General Theological Seminary into the Priesthood, repaying abundantly in the end all that the Church has done for them. The same may be said of the Church Home of Rochester ; that of Geneva has not attained yet to a children's department, but instead has maintained a well-managed and most useful Hospital. A Sunday service for deaf-mutes was established in 1874 in Christ Church, Rochester, the beginning of a work which has grown into larger dimensions as a recognized institution of the Diocese.
The Bishop spent a great deal of time and labour through all these and later years in an effort which, so far as I can find, originated with him, to develope the Foundation of Judge De Veaux "for Orphan and Destitute Children " into a great Diocesan School. Dr. Van Rensselaer, under whom this plan was begun, was succeeded in 1869 by Mr. (the next year Rev.) George Herbert Patterson, who during eleven years did a great and most useful work of Christian training for the boys now largely increased in number by the admission of " term pupils " in addition to the beneficiaries, or " foundationers " under Judge De Veaux's bequest. This addition was intended to be, and for much of the time was, not only a means of extending the ben- efits of the School, but of adding largely to its income from the fees for the board and tuition of term-pupils. The instruction and house- hold life were modelled on those of the best English Schools, with the addition of an admirable system of military discipline, and the whole effect of the change upon the boys of the Foundation was certainly most beneficial.
This enlargement of the original plan of the College involved neces- sarily a considerable addition to its cost of maintenance ; not merely in current expenses, but in permanent improvements in buildings and furnishings. The Bishop, and the Trustees under his leadership, felt certain that the large sums expended in this way would be eventually if not immediately repaid by the success of the term-pupil depart- ment. It seems reasonably certain that this would have been the case, had the measure received the hearty support of the Diocese as a whole. But it did not. Some of the Trustees themselves, and some others outside of their number, were opposed to the plan from the first, believing it to be in contravention of the conditions of the bequest ; but this theoretical objection would probably have had little weight if the term-pupil department had sustained in sufficient degree
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the large outlay which it demanded,-an outlay which, it is only just to say, was greatly increased by the imperfect construction and con- sequent bad condition of the original buildings. It is very difficult now to judge fairly how far the Bishop and the Trustees were at fault in their altogether too sanguine expectations and the expenditures based upon them ; but the fact remains that within ten years (1869- 79), with an average of only fifty term-pupils, the income-producing endowment had been reduced from $142,000 to $105,000, with the result of a wide-spread distrust of the financial management, finding expression in acrimonious and not always intelligent discussions of the annual reports in the Council of the Diocese, and in ineffec- tual efforts to bring about a change in the policy or the personnel of the 'Trustees. Under all these difficulties Mr. Patterson resigned in 1880, and his successor, Mr. Wilfred H. Munro, carried on the work for eight years, at a greatly reduced rate of expenditure, but with only from ten to sixteen foundationers during all this time. Thus far, certainly, the great purpose of the founder appeared to have been very imperfectly fulfilled. The further history of the work may be left to a later chapter .*
* The Bishop says, " We have adopted a policy which may yet bring into the fullest effect all the ideas of Judge De Veaux, through instrumentalities not sug- gested by him, but freely permitted by the terms of his bequest, and by the direc- tions given to his Trustees. Every year is giving the School a higher character ; and such abilities as I possess are largely concentrated upon the further develop- ment of its educational advantages. Let me add that in every step we have been guided by legal learning and experience; and, while patiently enduring much mistaken criticism, we have been sustained by the high sense of doing our best to carry out the noble plans of the Founder, so as to make his ' College ' not unwor- thy of his name, and so as to realize his grand purpose of rendering it the mother of valuable citizens to the State, and of enlightened and pious sons to this Church, of which, in his own words, he has made it a 'dependency.' Let us remember that he prescribed no mechanical and detailed conditions. He did not tie our hands, by impracticable and minute instructions, to a visionary and delusive scheme which nothing but inexperience and fatuity would suggest. But he left all this to be worked out by the wisdom of the Diocese, under a few precise but liberal instructions, invoking for his idea precisely such 'fostering care and pro- tection ' as we have conscientiously and laboriously devoted to our task." Journ. 1871, p. 46.
From the views thus expressed Bishop Coxe never swerved to the day of his death.
CHURCH HOME ORPHANAGE, BUFFALO 1894
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Another work of Christian education dear to the Bishop's heart, and for a time very successful, was the " Jane Grey School " for girls at Mount Morris, founded in 1867 by the Rev. Thomas L. Franklin, Rector of the Parish, but named by the Bishop himself after " one of the loveliest of her sex, and one of the most accomplished of Christian women," who was also, in his estimation, not only "an illustrious sufferer, but a Confessor, if not a Martyr." Dr. Franklin was succeeded in 1871 by the Rev. Libertus Van Bokkelen, D.D., a former pupil of Dr. Muhlenberg at Flushing, who had been very efficient in similar work in Maryland, and who for three years gave himself earnestly and successfully to build up the school. In 1873 a Committee of the Council appointed at the Bishop's suggestion re- ported that the school had a property worth $17,000, in buildings and grounds ample for their purpose, with a mortgage debt of $6,000 ; and a Committee was appointed to endeavour to secure the property to the Diocese. The Committee reported next year that they had ac- complished nothing, but that the Bishop himself had secured the property by assuming and partly paying the debt, some friends in and out of the Diocese enabling him to meet the first payment of $2,500. A large-hearted Churchman of Lyons, Mr. D. W. Parshall, then held the mortgage for several years ; but in the financial distresses follow- ing, from 1876 to 1879, the enterprise seems to have been given up, in spite of a large bounty from the State .*
The Cary School at Oakfield, on the other hand, seems to have done well all these years, under the Rev. James R. Coe till his lamented death in 1874, and later under the Rev. Charles H. Kellogg, and the Rev. Henry M. Brown ; reporting most of the time from one hundred and eighty to two hundred pupils, boys and girls, (the former mostly and the latter wholly day-scholars,) trained as well as taught in the Church's ways.
During all this time a small number of Parish Schools were kept up in the Diocese, and in all of them a good work was done in its time ; but one after another seems to have succumbed sooner or later to the irresistible pressure of the State system of Public Schools, made irre- sistible, however, only by the lamentable indifference of Church peo- ple in regard to the Christian training of their children.
In two important respects the Bishop's earnest counsels to his clergy
* Reported by the Committee of 1874 as $10,000. (Journ. 1874, p. 23.)
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and laity, and not less his own example of life, brought about in course of time a change for the better in the parochial work of the Diocese which must have gladdened his heart. Coming back to Western New York in 1880 from a thirteen years' absence in New England, I was struck first of all by the fact that the country parishes were giving a far better support to their clergy and to all Church work than they had ever done in Bishop De Lancey's day. They had of course increased considerably in numbers and wealth, some of them more in wealth than in numbers; but they were for the most part doing much more in proportion to their means and ways of living,- so far as one could judge from appearances,-than they had been used to. I cannot but think that the Bishop's constant exhortations to a higher standard of Christian living had much to do with this. Let me quote some of them from his Annual Addresses.
In 1869 :- " Brethren of the Laity, the matter of clerical support is becoming a very serious one. How can I invite able and eminent divines into my Diocese, how can we retain those already with us, while the present utterly insufficient standard of stipends is continued in spite of their diminished nominal value? Again I ask, Are your parishes furnished with parsonages? Do you insure the life of your Rector ? Do you liberally share with him your increase ? When God gives you unexpected gains, or what are called windfalls, do you ever think of honouring the Giver by offering a portion thereof to His Am- bassadors ? What dishonour is done to God by the neglect of His Ministers ! Many of the Clergy are bidden to 'make bricks without straw '; they are expected to preach instructive sermons without books to teach them, without any means of providing themselves with the knowledge which the Priest's lips are to keep. Alas ! many of our Clergy cannot educate their children ! Let no one who makes a light thing of such a fact, in his own parish, forget that God makes it a very weighty matter, and will visit it, heavily, on everyone who is responsible for it ; while He will not fail to reward those who are bountiful to His servants. Such are his threats and promises, and let those who have been smitten with losses and disappointments and unaccountable mishaps ask themselves whether they have not per- chance 'robbed God in tithes and offerings.'"'
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