USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 31
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In 1871 :- " I desire to fortify my Diocese with clergymen of ability and efficiency. . This is what might be effected if only the Laity would resolve to raise the requisite support for their Pastors. What is meant by support, they can easily understand from their own experiences ; by observing what are the salaries of clerks and book- keepers, or even the wages of day-labourers. Do you wish your
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spiritual teachers, the guides and examples of your children, to starve on less than is given to persons in these humbler situations ? There are, thank God, signs of improvement in this matter in divers places. Less than $1,000 and a parsonage is no longer considered a salary for any competent Pastor. If there be self-denying men who will consent to labour for less, let the difference be reckoned as their subscription to the parochial funds ; and let the Laity fairly note how such subscriptions compare with their own."
In 1872 :- " With you it rests to make your several parishes flourish. In many places the work could be nobly sustained if the Laity would devote to the Divine offices of the Church of God, the time, the thought, the energies and the money which they lavish on political clubs, on social unions, lodges and fraternities. Such institutions may be good in themselves, but they are ' of the earth, earthy '; they are incapable of supplying the spiritual and moral necessities of man ; and they are made positively bad when they take the place in men's minds and affections, of that Society of which the Son of God is the Founder, and which it is every man's highest interest to promote, whether as respects the rewards of this life or of those which we seek in the solemn issues of eternity."
In 1874 :- " Large colonies of our people live abroad ; they derive their incomes from America, and lavish them in Europe, if not luxuriously, yet with large indulgence of ' the lust of the eye and the pride of life.' And I hold it a great abuse, when the treasures God has given to any steward are thus withdrawn from the support and encouragement of those institutions of religion and learning on which the future of his country must depend. I ask my reverend brethren to remind affluent persons going abroad of their increased obligations to all good works at home; to their parishes, to our Missionary Boards, and to every worthy object for which our over-taxed Episco- pate is forced to plead and struggle so often in vain. I know of some beautiful exceptions to the evil of which I complain ; some Chris- tians, committing themselves to perilous voyages and long absences, set aside conscientiously God's portion of their income, and provide for its regular distribution."
In 1876 :- " To the mere man of the market, were he only here, I would say, pointing to you, my brethren of the Clergy, 'Behold your greatest benefactors.' To say nothing of things unseen, which alone are eternal, I remind you that the things temporal derive all their worth from the lives and exertions of these Priests of God. Without them society has no foundation, civilization no corner-stone. Let the church-bells cease to ring, let spires and temples fall, and the voice of prayer and praise no longer sound ; let there be no Sundays, no Christmas, no Easter, through all the dull year of unbelief ; let there be no christenings and no training of children in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments ; no conscience
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awakened, no moral duties enforced ; no tongues to exhort, none to teach the love and fear of the Lord; no plea for the Cross, no promise of Resurrection ; no blessing for the bride, no solemn burial for the dead, no hope of the life everlasting ; let all these things cease from among us, as they must when there are no more reverend Pas- tors to carry on these works in the name of the Lord; I ask you, what sort of a land would this be?"
I have already quoted (p.307 supra) from the Address of 1877. In 1878 the Bishop enforces another lesson.
" A year of continued commercial and financial embarrassments, extending through the country and even through the world, has naturally been felt in all our diocesan interests. Yet it is my convic- tion that we magnify this source of difficulties unreasonably, when we ascribe to it our feeble contributions to the work of Christ and His Church. In many years you have made wealth rapidly, and thousands among us have become affluent, as if by the magic of those purses and lamps of fortune of which we read in Oriental fables. In those days did we give commensurately? I fear not. We feel poor only because we are not rapidly accumulating ; but few of us are without that kind of abundance which would be counted wealth in many countries, and all of us could give more by a little self-denial."
Another advance apparent everywhere in the Diocese during this period was in the frequency of public services, and especially of cele- brations of the Holy Communion, and the increased care and rever- ence in the worship of God on the part of Clergy and Laity. Here too the Church was moving in a drift, so to speak, of the whole country, even of Protestantism outside our borders, towards a better sense of these things ; but the gain was more marked here than in many other Dioceses, and was due largely, I cannot doubt, to the teaching and example of the Bishop. The truth is that Bishop Coxe, though born a Presbyterian, was nevertheless a born Catholic, and a born Ritualist, in the true sense of those terms, as well as a born Poet ; and he could not have been the author of the Christian Ballads if he had not been a Catholic and a Ritualist. His deep-set prejudice-for it was, in part, a prejudice as well as a principle- against everything which seemed to him the outcome of Romanist error, often held him back from the expression of his inmost thought ; but the thought was there all the same, and sooner or later would show its true self in word and act. We may see instances of this later ; I only speak of it now to show how his instinctive sense of deep
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reverence as the foundation of all true worship made itself felt in counsel and example to Clergy and Laity alike. Repeatedly (as in his Address of 1875) he urges upon every Parish Priest to institute the weekly Eucharist in his church, so that at least those can come who desire it. "The people will never comprehend the true nature of worship," he says, "till we sanctify every Lord's Day by the Lord's Supper" ; nor till we do this " according to the primitive example, can we claim to be a Scriptural Church. Think of these words, ' As often as ye eat this Bread.' mean ? There is but one answer ; .
How often did the Apostle . it was at least on every first
day of the week." The first subject he assigned (in 1866) for a Convocation essay and discussion was " The Devout and Reverent Celebration of the Holy Communion." I was hardly surprised when some years later I found a much nearer approach to such a cele- bration prevalent in the Diocese, than I had ever seen before.
I should like to quote also in this connection his counsels on regu- lar and systematic Catechising, -on the long and timely preparation of classes for Confirmation, instead of gathering them up hurriedly on the approach of a visitation,-on the reverent care of the departed, and the keeping of Christian Burials free from the prevalent folly and extravagance of the fashions of the day,-and other such matters belonging to pastoral work. But I fear this chapter is already too long.
CHAPTER XLV
BISHOP COXE AND CHRISTIAN UNITY
UCH account of Bishop Coxe's Episcopate as I can give here is concerned chiefly, of course, with his work in the Diocese, and does not attempt to be in any sense his biography. But even to understand that work, we must know something of what he was constantly doing for the Church and the world beyond all diocesan limits.
First of all are the hopes and the efforts which began with his early life, and ended only with his death, for the restoration of Christian Unity,-abroad and at home, on the Catholic and the Pro- testant side alike. It is hardly too much to say that this desire for Christian Union in unity was the passion of his life. See it first of all on every page of his Christian Ballads, and his earlier and less widely known verses in Halloween, written when he was from twelve to twenty years old, many of them, strange to say, in a summer spent in Western New York, and almost under the shadow of the old church and rectory which enshrined Bishop Hobart's name and mem- ory.
" O ye baptized, and cross'd beside, Ye soldiers of the Crucified, That stand in phalanx deep and broad, The one Church Catholic of God ! Know ye full well, that every day With you, the old Apostles pray ; With you, as if on earth they stood, The Prophets' goodly brotherhood Are praising God ; and with them bright The Martyrs' noble host in light."* And again, of the Easter Feast when " All the earth is gay and bright Risen with the Lord to light ;" * " A thousand vintages today The dear Redeemer's blood display, From Samos' isle of ruddy vines,
* Halloween (Ed. 1845), P. 36.
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To where the Finland chalice shines ; And where the Hindu hand hath crush'd The grape that in the jungle blush'd ; Or where the Huron's cluster wild Is on the Altar, undefiled. And grain that hath to harvest grown, Upon a thousand mountains sown,
From green Arkansas, to Cathay, Is bless'd for Jesu's flesh today. And every altar, Greek and Goth, Is cover'd with its snowy cloth ;
And kneeling Christians, everywhere,
Are fed with sacramental fare. In farthest Ind I see them bow, The naked shape, the swarthy brow,
Where Gunga's wave, so dark before,
Hath borne the northern bishop's prore ;
Aye there, 'neath vault and swelling dome,
And oh, in my green forest home,
All-all are kneeling !- and on high,
There's one communion in the sky ;
For there all angels, and the dead, Are one, in Him that suffered !"*
From the Ballads I might quote pages, did space permit, showing how this boyhood's vision of the Catholic Church became brighter and clearer as years went on. He has told us in the Preface to the illustrated edition of 1865 how the Romanist Comte de Montalambert unconsciously quoted from them in his philippic contrasting sharply the Christian patriotism of England and of France. When his heart outpours in " S. Sacrament " as he beholds the Hurons gathering
" as at council fires, Or leagued with peaceful men " and " listening in their multitudes "
* Id. p. 58, 60. " All Saints," he says in the Notes to Halloween, "the festi- val in which the Church commemorates her Saints and Martyrs, and all the dead in Christ, as part of her Holy Communion, expecting with her the Resurrection of the Body, and the final award of the Life Everlasting-this Festival is the counterpart of Easter-telling of death, as Easter does of Resurrection; and as God has given to the latter the reviving blossom and the sweet spring-time ; so He has set the former in the Autumn, and strewed the sere-leaves in our path to church, as its becoming symbol. And thus the true Catholic always finds himself living in harmony with Nature; for the Author of Nature is the Author of his Holy Religion. He has a joy which the world knows not, in beholding all the works of God. They have a place in that system of the universe, of which the Catholic Church is a part." (p. 64.)
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To one, that midst them stood, And reared the cross-as painters draw John Baptist in the wood. With laud and anthem rung the grove ; And here, where howl'd their yell, I've heard their Christian litanies And high TE DEUM swell "- he has to caution us in a note that " it is not intended here to express any high estimate of the French Missions among the savages," but the caution, I fear, comes too late for most readers .* So in " Antioch "-
" I wear the name of Christ my God, So name me not from man ! And my broad country Catholic, It hath nor tribe nor clan ; And one and endless is the line Through all the world that went, Commissioned from that Holy Hill Of CHRIST's sublime ascent." * *
I hear my Saviour's earnest prayer, That one we all may be, And - oh, how can I go with them That tear Him bodily? I see the heralds of His Cross Whom JESUS sent of yore ; And can I spurn anointed hands? I love my Saviour more." t And in the " Lament for the Lenten Season " :- " Oh plead, as once the Saviour did, That we may all be One, That so the blinded world may know The Father sent the Son. * * Oh keep thy fast for Christendom ! For Christ's dear Body mourn ; And weave again the seamless robe That faithless friends have torn."#
Christian Ballads (ed. 1865), pp. 28, 224. In the earlier "revised " edition of 1847 (p. 167), the Notes are quite different.
+ Ed. 1865, p. 34-5.
# Id. p. 55.
HUTCHINSON MEMORIAL CHAPEL Church Home, Buffalo Consecrated 1895
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And in " Ember Prayers " (1836) :-
" When for the Church I prayed, As this dear Lent began, My thoughts, I'm sore afraid, Within small limits ran. By Ember-week I learned How large that prayer might be,
And then, in soul, I burned That all might pray with me.
Plead for the victims all Of heresy and sect ; And bow thy knees like Paul, For all the LORD's elect !
Pray for the Church-I mean For Shem and Japhet pray ;
And Churches, long unseen, In isles, and far away ! * *
Now-even for heartless Rome Appealing to the LORD, Be every Church an home, And Love the battle-word ! The Saints' communion-one,
One Lord-one faith-one birth, Oh, pray to GOD the Son, For all His Church on earth." *
So in " Trinity, New Church " ; t " Chelsea " ; } " Wildmins- ter " ; § " Nashotah "; | " S. Silvan's Bell " ; T " Daily Service" :- " One-in Water sanctified, Though the claim be long forgot ; One-in Blood from JESU's side, Though proud Trent confess it not ; One-in Spirit, far and wide, With each ancient part and lot ; Mother, let me ever be One with CHRIST and one with Thee ! " * *
* Id. p. 59. + P. 117. # P. 14I. § P. 156. || P. 164.
T P. 171. The loveliest of all these poems, I think ; many years ago I could tell the Bishop of one four-year-old child who was never tired of hearing it, though it was, she said at the end, " an awful long story " ; and some older peo- ple can hardly read it now without tears, albeit unshed. * * P. 172. I hope my readers will look up all the passages I have not quoted, for themselves ; I cannot imagine any American Churchman not having Chris- tian Ballads within reach. I could easily believe what I was told more than once
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But to turn to more mature if not graver publications. In 1848-9, while yet a young Rector at Hartford, he wrote for Blackwood's Magazine several articles of much interest on the European conflicts and partial revolutions of 1848, and the contrasts they exhibited between English and Continental ideas of liberty and law, and the " conservatism" of the Anglican and Tridentine Churches. The next year he put forth in a letter to the English Churchman (Nov. 1I, 1850) what he thinks, and I believe rightly, was the first suggestion of the first Lambeth Conference, under the signature of " Presbyter Americanus," whose suggestions were followed in much of the action of that body .* In the following year, after the long sojourn in Eng- land of which he has told so charmingly in his " Impressions of Eng- land,"t he spent some months on the Continent, and met at Frei- burg the venerable Dr. John Baptist Von Hirscher, then Dean and Professor of Christian Ethics in the University of that city, and regarded in Germany as " the Fenelon of the nineteenth century," " the master and the guide of Catholic Germany," whom even Ultramon- tanes designated as "illustrious." He, the Bishop says, had been " for some time occupied with the practical work of contending with the prevailing infidelity of the Teutonic mind, and endeavouring to restore the German people to a loyal regard for their hereditary reli- gion."
" Who," he adds, " can withhold his sympathy from such an effort in a country where to be a Protestant is so generally another term for
in England, that they were more widely known and read there than even The Christian Year. " To those who love not the Church," says the Preface of 1847, " they will seem as idle words, but they tell of things which in the heart and life of the Catholic are dear realities; realities which are felt though they cannot be understood by the world ; for there is a charm in the religious charac- ter which they help to form, which attracts very many who are incapable of dis- covering the secret of what affects them." And he instances Walton, Hooker, Herbert, Evelyn, Wotton, Laud, Taylor, Strafford, Charles I., widely differing, yet evidently having " something in common which invests them with no ordi- nary glory," " the beauty of holiness which they drew from the breasts of the Church in which they lived and died."
* The letter is quoted in the Bishop's Address, Journ. 1868, p. 63.
t Originally written for the Church Journal, 1853; afterwards many times re-printed (my ed. of 1874 is the 6th) ; the most delightful book of travels I ever saw, except perhaps Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant. Yet to how many American Churchmen (and Churchwomen ) have I found it a book unknown !
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being an unbeliever? Such are the alternatives, that if one must choose between the company of Strauss and that of Hirscher, - though the examples are certainly extreme, and the supposition, thank God, quite gratuitous with us,-no enlightened Christian could hesi- tate to approve the example of Schlegel, and of even superior men, whose Romanism has been only a reaction against infidelity, and hence nothing but a tribute to Christianity itself. Such seems to have been the motive with which, in 1846, Hirscher published the first volume of his Erörterungen, or ' Discussions of the leading reli- gious questions of the day,' . a complete system of popular theology," which the Bishop thinks " a most interesting example of diluted Tridentinism, an ingenious attempt to give a Catholic and Scriptural character to the dogmatic requirements of modern Rome."
Following on the second part of this treatise, however, came one on " the condition of the Church," in which the author appears " foremost in a general and spontaneous movement throughout the Roman Communion," pursuing, as the Bishop says, "the gradual and judicious way " of the English Reformation, " in which step after step was taken, and by which the most thorough alterations were introduced with no break in the continuous life of the Church." He thinks the work an indication that "our relations to other parts of Christendom may soon become much nearer than they have been for centuries, and that prayer may hasten the time, and make it fruitful in blessings to mankind."*
The first work of the young Hartford Rector on coming home was to prepare a translation of Hirscher's work, which, with an introduc- tion by himself, was published at Oxford in 1852 under the title of "Sympathies of the Continent," and attracted at once wide attention in England and America. The book sets forth briefly and boldly the great practical needs of the Churches of Europe, such as Diocesan Synods, free and with the Laity; the better education of the Clergy in the Universities ; discipline under provisions of the Synod ; cate- chising by Pastors with preparatory instruction by teachers ; special pastoral care for children, maidens, young men, unbelievers ; " unions " of laymen for conference on Christian duties ; a vernacular Liturgy, Holy Communion in both kinds, reform of the Confessional, simpler ceremonial, revision of Scripture Lessons, question as to clerical cel-
* Introd. to " Sympathies of the Continent," Oxford, 1852, pp. 24-38.
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ibacy, abuse of masses for the dead, indulgences and saint-worship. In other words, it pleads for reforms which, as the Translator points out, constitute the very character and work of the English Reforma- tion, and especially as exhibited (in diocesan synods, for instance) in the American Church. He anticipates, therefore, its result in some such movements for reform as the Old Catholic churches on the Con- tinent have since brought about, movements to which the papal decree of 1854 on the Immaculate Conception at once gave new life and power.
In March, 1864, in Dr. Coxe's Church (Calvary) in New York, and under his leadership, was founded the " Christian Unity Society," whose objects were the promotion of goodwill and love in the main- tenance of Church principles ; aiding in circulating the Holy Scrip- tures ; publishing works on the English Reformation ; helping in " judicious reforms " among foreign Christians, and establishing American chapels abroad; and enlightening our own countrymen in regard to the character and work of foreign Churches, " to draw out their prayers and labours in their behalf." This organization included a similar movement in Philadelphia in consultation with the Bishop and leading clergy of that city, and among those taking part in it were Drs. Mahan, Howland, Cotton Smith (chairman of the first meeting), Geer, Montgomery, and John Henry Hopkins; Dr. Coxe being the Secretary for Foreign Correspondence. At the next meet- ing he reports letters of sympathy from the Church Union of Boston, from Denmark, from the Abbé Guettée, from Count Tasca (then the leader of the Catholic Reformers of Italy), and from "a learned divine " of Lima, Peru. At this meeting we find the names of Drs. Howe, Leeds, Clarkson and Huntington, and Mr. John H. Swift, who gave an interesting account of his personal intercourse with the lead- ers of Catholic Reform in Italy. The Rev. E. W. Syle, from the China Mission, told of similar experiences with Roman and Russian missionaries in that land. Three Moravians-two clergymen and one layman-were introduced and took part in the discussion.
Other meetings followed during the next year, in all of which Dr. Coxe seems to have taken a leading part. In June, 1864, he preached a sermon on Christian Unity before the Associate Alumni at the Com- mencement of the General Theological Seminary. In the following March, two months after his consecration, he gave by special request
ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE
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an Address before an assembly of various Protestant denominations called the "Christian Union Association," following a Dutch Reformed Minister (Dr. Vermilye) who maintained that all questions of Orders and Sacraments must be given up as unnecessary, and a Baptist whose idea of unity was for each (especially the Baptists) to " give up nothing" of the truth given to him. In reply the Bishop pointed out that while all who heard him were willing to acknowledge the Nicene Creed, any real unity was impossible except in One Body, whatever it might be called, whose Orders and Sacraments were beyond all question. His address made a deep impression on many of those present, but of course led to no united or corporate action. His leadership of the Christian Unity Society ceased with his entering on his Episcopal work, and after a year or two more that asso- ciation seems to have disbanded, and its place to have been taken for a time by the " American Church Union," an organization in which " Low Churchmen" had no part.
In the Church Journal of Nov. 17, 1869, we find the " Reply of an American Bishop (Monsignor Coxe, Bishop of Western New York, one of the most learned and eloquent representatives of the Anglican hierarchy in America) to the Pope's invitation to the coming ŒEcumenical Council," translated from Professor Nash's Italian version for the Florence Esaminatore. The Letter was widely published at home, and circulated in various languages in Europe, and the Bishop says in his Address of 1870 that the Greek version had been useful " throughout the East, not only in displaying the position and spirit of our own Occidental Church, but also in reminding our Eastern brethren that they have duties at this crisis which nothing can so well fit them to discharge as the renewed study of Scripture and Antiquity. Now is the time when the renovation of a Catho- lic and primitive spirit is all that is wanted to give the Church and the Gospel their legitimate power and free course throughout the world." The Bishop spent most of this year abroad, much of the time in Italy, and had good opportunity to see the effect of this celebrated letter, espe- cially among Italians who were seeking after a purer teaching and practical reforms. I cannot begin to give even an outline of it here ; those who have not read it must imagine what one like Bishop Coxe must have made of such an opportunity .*
* The Bishop gives the results of his year abroad quite fully in a series of
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