History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 113

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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Immediately after the battle of Germantown, in 1777, the British troops entered Philadelphia, and Congress adjourned to Lancaster and York. The Rev. Mr. White went to the residence of his brother- in-law, Mr. Aquila Hall, of Harford County, Md., and while on his way thither, was informed of his appoint- ment by Congress as its chaplain, and he immediately proceeded to York to fulfill the duties of that office. The Rev. Mr. Duche, it may be stated, who won all hearts by his enthusiastic espousal of the cause of the colonists, and whose name is associated with the first prayer offered in Congress in 1775, changed his views, and believing the cause of the colonists to have become hopeless, he retired to England in 1777. The rectorship was subsequently declared vacant. The British left Philadelphia on June 18, 1778, for New York, and Congress re-entered the city in July following. Dr. White returned, resumed his ministry in the United Churches, and was elected rector by the vestry on Easter, 1779. He was chosen one of the chaplains of Congress each successive year until the removal of the seat of government to Washington, in 1801.

It would be foreign to a history of Philadelphia to enter into any very prolonged account of the general ecclesiastical questions which affected the condition of the members of the Church of England in the American colonics during the period prior to the

consecration of Bishop White. We shall here notice, as briefly as possible, some of the matters which af- fected the church in Philadelphia, or were settled in this city, and in the arrangement of which Bishop White took a prominent part. The Bishop of Lon- don had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the colonial churches. There was no bishop on this side of the Atlantic. The rite of confirmation could not be ad- ministered, and any one in this country who wished to be ordained to the ministry of the church had to make the long, perilous, and expensive voyage to England, to be admitted there to holy orders.

At the commencement of the Revolution many of the clergy who were in the colonies felt that by reason of their connection with the State church, and their allegiance to the crown, they were in con- science bound not to oppose the royal authority. From various canses many of them retired to Eng- land, and the churches where they had ministered were closed. After the close of the Revolutionary war all connection with the Church of England was of course at an end. The clergy left here were few in number, widely scattered, and bound together by no formal organization. Strong popular prejudices existed among many who were not Episcopalians against an Episcopal Church, as not consistent with a Republican form of government. These facts, and the added fact that at that period the Church of Eng- land was not enabled by law to extend the episcopate to any who would not swear allegiance to the British crown, as required by the English ordinal, enhaneed the difficulties which environed the Episcopalians in the colonies.

Several meetings of a general character had brought together a number of the clergy in the colonies at various periods. The first meeting of which anything is known was held in Philadelphia in 1760. Another was held May 20, 1761. The Rev. Dr. Smith and Rev. Messrs. Campbell, Craig, Reading, Sturgeon, Neill, Barton, Inglis, Thompson, Duché, Chandler, of New Jersey, and Keene, of Maryland, were present. The facilities for travel were poor, the distances which separated them great, and it is doubtful whether these meetings were continued. In 1783 a Convention was held in Connecticut, and Rev. Samuel Scabury was elected bishop, and requested to go to England, and, if possible, obtain consecration at the hands of the English bishops, and if not successful there, to apply to the non-juring bishops of the church in Scotland.

The Rev. William White called a meeting of his vestry in November, 1783, which led to further meas- ures, culminating in the meeting of a Convention of delegates from Pennsylvania churches, held at Christ Church, May 27, 1784. This was followed by a meet- ing held in New York, attended hy representatives of seven States, and by a meeting held in Christ Church, Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 1785, over which Dr. White presided, and which was also attended by rep- resentatives from seven States. At this meeting the

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title, Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, was formally adopted as the name of the ecclesiastical organization. This title had been first used in a "Declaration of Rights and Liberties," drawn up by the clergy in Maryland, at a meeting held to consider church affairs.

A correspondence was entered into with the Eng- lish Church respecting the consecration of American bishops. The question was a novel one, and there was considerable delay. The English bishops had to first secure authority from Parliament for such action, and they wished first to be assured as to what the doctrine and ritual of the American Church would be, for the American Convention had made a revision of the Prayer-Book. The Rev. Dr. William Smith, of Philadelphia, had, among others, taken a promi- nent part in the work of revising the Prayer-Book. At last all was made satisfactory to the English au- thorities, and they were willing to consecrate three of the American clergy who should have been chosen by the Conventions held in the States, as bishops. The results of this have proved to be widespread and far-reaching.

The thirteen English colonies in struggling success- fully for freedom from unjust and tyrannical govern- ment by the crown, fought and won a battle, the fruits of which are now enjoyed by the English-speaking colonists all over the globe, for the present extensive English colonies are far more kindly governed than were the original thirteen colonies before the Revolu- tionary war. In the same way the English church- men in the American States, who finally succeeded in persuading the Church of England to provide law- fully consecrated bishops of the Anglican succession for the United States, started and quickened a move- ment which has outrun these bounds. The establish- ment of colonial episcopates by the Church of Eng- land during the past century has been a marvel. They are numerous, effective, and exist now wherever English rule is established. In 1883 the number of English colonial bishops was more than twice the number of the bishops in England.

In all this work of organizing the American Church and securing for it the episcopate from the English Church, William White was prominent. He was ac- cepted as a wise and judicious leader by the American clergy and laity, and he had given much careful con- sideration to the questions at issue. In 1783 he had published a pamphlet entitled, "The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered," and given the out- line of a plan for organization, which contained the fundamental principles afterward adopted by the American Church, and from which it has never es- sentially deviated. "The essential unity of the whole American Church as a national church, its independ- ence of any foreign jurisdiction, the entire separation of the spiritual and temporal authority, the partici- pation of the laity in the legislation and government of the church, and the election of ministers of every

grade, the equality of all parishes, and a threefold organization (diocesan, provincial, and general) were fundamental principles of his plan."

All difficulties, as we have said, having been re- moved at the second session of the third annual Con- vention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania, held in Christ Church on Sept. 14, 1786, the Rev. William White, D.D., was unani- mously chosen to be bishop. This Convention was composed of the following persons, viz. : Rev. Wil- liam White, D.D., president; Rev. Samuel Magaw, D.D., Rev. Joseph Pilmore, Rev. Robert Blackwell : Laity, Hon. Francis Hopkinson, Esq., Dr. Gerardus Clarkson, Mr. Andrew Doz, Mr. John Swanwick, Mr. John B. Gilpin, Mr. Jacob Duffield, Mr. Jacob Ash- ton, from Trinity Church, Oxford ; Mr. John Swift, St. James', Bristol ; Mr. Isaac Bullock, St. John's, Concord; Mr. Benjamin Marshall, St. Martin's, Marcus Hook; Mr. James Witby, St. Paul's, Chester ; Richard Willing, Esq., St. David's, Radnor; and Robert Ralston, Esq., St. Peter's, Chester County.

The following resolutions were adopted :

"On motion agreed, That it is most honorable for the church in gen- eral, and perfectly agreeable to the minds of all members present, thal a ressonable sum he fixed upon to defray the necessary expenses of the voyage of the bishop-elect to and from England.

" Resolved, That the sum be two hundred guineas, or three hundred and fifty pounds, currency.

" Resolved, That the said sum he apportioned among the churches sev- erally, to be raised by them, according to the salaries which they pay respectively to their officiating minister or ministers, or the sums which they may be supposed able with convenience to pay."

On October 29th Dr. White preached a Thanks- giving sermon in Christ Church, and on the following day he went to New York, and on Nov. 2, 1786, he sailed from that port, and eighteen days after landed at Falmouth, making the quickest voyage across the Atlantic then recorded. He was accompanied by the Rev. Samuel Provoost, D.D., who had been elected Bishop of New York.

He and Dr. Provoost were consecrated bishops on Sunday, Feb. 4, 1787, in the chapel of the Archi- episcopal Palace, at Lambeth, in the city of London. The consecrating bishop was Dr. John Moore, Arch- bishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Bishop of Peter- borough united in the imposition of hands.1

Bishop White returned to Philadelphia in May, 1787, and on May 28th of that year he held his first ordination service in Christ Church, admitting Joseph Clarkson to the diaconate. Until his death, on July 17, 1836, the bishop held the rectorship of the United Churches, and, almost to the closc of his life, the

1 The Rev. James Madison, D.D., was consecrated Bishop of Virginia, in the same place, on Sept. 19, 1790. There had been a verbal un- derstanding between Bishop White and the Archbishop of Canterbury, that no consecration of bishops should be held in the United States, until there were three bishops having the English succession, to unite in the consecration. The consecration of Bishop Madison completed the canonical number, and from that time all the bishops of the American Church wore duly consecrated in this country.

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venerable prelate preached regularly at one or other of the churches, when not elsewhere engaged. His last sermon was preached in St. Peter's Church, on Sunday morning, June 26, 1836.

His life was so prolonged, his official actions so nu- merous, not only in his own diocese, but in the great ecclesiastical body over which he was for so many years the presiding bishop, and which he saw grow from small and feeble beginnings to strength and greatness, that we cannot here fully review his char- acter or his works. Judged by the standard of the activities of the present age, he might perhaps be deemed somewhat wanting only in aggressiveness of effort and a'pronounced advocacy of the more dis- tinctive principles of his church. But he possessed, in an eminent degree, precisely the qualities and char- acteristics which were needed and most valuable for the times in which he lived, and for the necessities and circumstances of the church during the period of his active leadership. The purity of his character, his amiable manners and disposition, his tolerant charity and lack of arrogance, disarmed suspicion, conciliated all who knew him, and won friendship and respect alike for himself and for the church which he represented. He was endowed with provi- dential fitness for the work he so well accomplished. He was a cultivated scholar and an exact theologian. His published works, " Memoirs," "Lectures on the Catechism," "Pastoral Letters," "Calvinist and Ar- minian Controversy," etc., all give evidence of his piety and learning. He was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Bible Society, comprising mem- bers of the different Protestant churches, and was its president until his death. He was also one of the founders of the Society for the Institution and Support of First-day or Sunday-schools, and a valued member of other societies not connected with the church.

Among his personal peculiarities, Bishop Stevens, in his interesting memorial sermon, "Then and Now," delivered in Christ Church on the centennial of the bishop's ordination to the diaconate, says, " Bishop White never bowed at the name of Jesus in the Creed, and even wrote two articles in defense of his not doing it. . . . He never turned to the east to say the Creed or the Gloria Patri. He never preached in a surplice, but always, when not engaged in epis- copal duties, in the black gown. He never required the people to rise up as he entered the church, and at the close of the service to remain standing in their pews until he left the chancel. He never asked the congregation to stand up while he placed the alms- basins, with the offertory, on the Lord's Table, or notified the communicants to continue in their places, after the benediction, until the clergy had reverently ate and drank what remained of the consecrated bread and wine. . .. He magnified his office, not by arro- gant claims or by extolling unduly its sacred func- tions, but by a loving discharge of its duties, under

the eye of God, in the humility of a servant, and with the fidelity of an apostle."

Bishop White was the personal friend and acquaint- ance of many of the most eminent men in American history. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, John Adams, Lafayette, and a host of others, were in friendly relations with him; to some of them he bore pas- toral relations, and by all he was honored, trusted, and beloved. He was worthy of the eulogium pronounced of him by Bishop Ho- bart, in his sermon at the consecration of Bishop Onderdonk, THE PATRIOTS' PEW IN CHRIST CHURCH. who spoke of the ven- erable Bishop White as "one whose long-protracted and revered years, whose pure and heavenly character, whose meek and lowly and beneficent virtues excited naught but love ; one whose eminent patriarchal services have done so much for the church that he has for more than half a century cherished ; whose piety is as pure as it is lovely and engaging. . . . What a privilege to enjoy his confidence, his affection, and his counsel."

Bishop White died at his residence, on the north side of Walnut Street, five or six doors west of Third Street, on July 17, 1836, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. His remains were deposited in the family vault in the grounds adjoining Christ Church, by the side of those of his brother-in-law, Robert Morris, the great financier of our country during the Revolution- ary war. His income was derived mainly from his stipend as rector of the United Churches. As bishop he received nothing except the interest on the legacy of Andrew Doz, for the support of the episcopate, the principal of which was about four thousand dollars. His income from the rectorship was about twenty- three hundred dollars per annum. He had a respect- able but not large private estate. After his death the London papers commented upon the smallness of his salary as a bishop, which led the editor of the United States Gazette to say of him editorially, "Bishop White enjoyed a revenue beyond a monarch's com- mand ; his daily income was beyond human compu- tation. If he went forth, age paid him the tribute of affectionate respect, and children rose up and called him blessed."

On Dec. 23, 1870, the remains of Bishop White were removed and reinterred within the chancel of Christ Church, the vestry of the parish resolving at the same period that a memorial window should be erected there to his memory. It was a solemn, grand, and stately ceremony. Many distinguished persons of the clergy and laity were present, and numerous representatives of churches, societies, and corpora- tions. The pall-bearers were the Rev. Drs. Morton,

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Page, Beasley, Buchanan, and Suddards, and the Rev. Mr. Dupuy. The procession entered the church, and after an appropriate service, a memorial discourse -"Then and Now"-was delivered by the Rt. Rev. William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D., bishop of the diocese. The following was read by a grandson of Bishop White, the Rev. W. W. Bronson :

" PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 23, 1870.

"TO THE RECTOR, CHURCH WARDENS, AND VESTRYMEN OF CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.

" Beloved Brethren,-By a vote of your body, passed Dec. 7, 1870, it was

" Resolved, That the remains of Bishop White-the family of the bishop co-operating-should be removed from the family vault and de- posited in the chancel of Christ Church. As the representatives of the families of our venerated ancestor we beg leave to tender you our grate- ful acknowledgments for the distinguished honor thus paid to the memory of the departed. We have discharged our portion of this grateful work. The sacred dust lies here before you; to you and to your official custody we now intrust it; assured that it will be rever- ently cherished and sacredly guarded until reanimated by Him who bas said, ' I am the Resurrection and the Life !'

"On behalf of the descendants of Bisbop White, " WILLIAM WHITE BRONSON."

The Rev. Edward A. Foggo, D.D., rector of Christ Church, on behalf of the parish, replied thus :

" MY REVEREND BROTHER,-I, the rector, for myself, the church war- dens, and vestrymen of Christ Church, and for our successors in office, receive this sacred tru-t at your hands, Here, beneath the chancel in which for so long a period Bishop White ministered, we will deposit his remains ; and here shall they rest, until the time come when the Great Bishop and Shepherd shall bid the dead arise, and gather into one fold all who have departed hence in the true faith of His Iloly Name."

When the remains were deposited in the vault, Bishop Stevens said,-

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

" I, William Bacon Stevens, bishop of the diocese of Pennsylvania, acting for and in behalf of the said diocese, and at the request of the rector, church wardens, and vestrymen of Christ Church, Philadelphia, do here solemnly commit to this, its final resting-place on earth, the sacred dust of William White, who was baptized as an infant in this font, served this church sixty-four years as a minister of Christ, and governed this diocese nearly half a century as its first bishop, and during most of the same period was the presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

" In thus reinterring, after a lapse of thirty-four years, all that re- mains of this venerable servant of God, let us offer np our thanksgiving and praise for his good example, for his exalted character, and for his signal services to the Church of God. We deposit beneath this chancel this wered dust, until the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be riusedl incorruptible and shall be changed.'"

In 1826, when Bishop White was about eighty years of age, he gave his consent to the election of an assist- ant bishop. A special Convention was held in the fall of that year, but the Convention was not able to agree upon any of the candidates voted for. The Rev. Bird Wilson, D.D., professor of Systematic Divinity in the General Theological Seminary in New York, but ca- nonically connected with the diocese of Pennsylvana, came within one vote of being elected. It was said that if he had consented to east his own ballot for himself, he would have been chosen, but this he was unwilling to do.

At the regular annual Convention, held in May, 1827, and which convened in the chamber of the House

of Representatives in the borough of Harrisburg, the Rev. Henry Ustick Onderdonk, D.D., was elected to be " assistant bishop of the diocese during the life of Bishop White, and to be the bishop of the diocese after his demise."

He was the son of Dr. John Onderdonk, an eminent physician of New York, and was born in New York City in March, 1789. He graduated from Columbia College, and studied medicine, completing his med- ical studies and receiving his degree in Scotland. He afterward studied theology, and became rector of St. John's Church, Canandaigua, and afterward, at the time of his election as assistant bishop, was rector of St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. He was con- secrated in Christ Church, Philadelphia, on Thurs- day, Oct. 25, 1827. Bishop White was consecrator, and Bishops Hobart, Kemp, Bowen, and Croes united in the service. The consecration sermon, at the spe- I cial request of Bishop White, was preached by Bishop Hobart, of New York. He entitled his sermon " The Christian Bishop, approving Himself unto God, in reference to the Present State of the Protestant Epis- copal Church in the United States of America." This sermon was simply a pious discourse, but party spirit ran high at the time, the church was excited over one of the forgotten controversies of the times, and unkind and injurious remarks were made about the sermon, which led Bishop White the following year, in his annual address, to say, "I hold myself bound to de- clare my abhorrence of the calumnies to which he became subject by his compliance with my request ;" and " this is not the suggestion of private friend- ship, however felt and cherished for a right reverend brother, but an act of justice to him, and an imperious duty on my part."

Assistant Bishop Onderdonk entered with great vigor and activity upon his duties. Even with the limited facilities and rude means of travel in those days, he visited nearly every portion of the State. He was a fine preacher, and his sermons, several volumes of which were published, were much admired. He was always facile with his pen, and it was said had written over one hundred sermons while a candidate for orders, as a preparation for his entrance upon the ministry. At Bishop White's death, July 17, 1836, he became Bishop of Pennsylvania.

On Sept. 6, 1844, at a special Convention called at his request, he tendered his resignation, which was accepted. In October he was deposed. The excessive use of spirituous stimulants, indulged in to counteract painful disease and endure the fatigues of laborious journeys, was the basis for the action taken in his case. His after-life was marked by such unfeigned humility and Christian consistency that on Oct. 21, 1856, he was by the House of Bishops canonically restored to his proper functions, and he officiated after this on some occasions, with the consent and approval of the Bishop of Pennsylvania. He died on Dec. 6, 1858, aged nearly seventy years.

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His remains were interred in the churchyard of the ' while in this city pursued some of his theological church of St. James the Less, Falls of Schuylkill, studies with Rev. Dr. S. H. Turner, under the direction of Bishop White. Dr. Turner then lived in a house on the west side of Second Street, about three doors north of Catharine Street, and the lessons were given at his house to young Mr. Potter and several other candidates for holy orders.

Philadelphia. The Rt. Rev. Dr. Bowman, assistant bishop of the diocese, officiated at his burial, and in his annual address before the Convention, in May following, Bishop Bowman thus tenderly alludes to the departed prelate : "In December last I was called to the melancholy duty of attending and assisting at the funeral of our late diocesan, the Rt. Rev. H. U. Onderdonk, D.D. The preliminary services were held in St. Peter's Church in this city ; the interment took place in the quiet and beautiful cemetery of St. James the Less. There, clothed in his robes of office, we committed to their last resting-place all that was mortal of him who had stood to us in so near and sacred a relation. Now that he is 'no more in the world,' I am sure that all will rejoice with me that he departed in full standing as a bishop in the church of God, and to remember him by those qualities which equally become the man, the Christian, and the bishop. Courteous and fair in the discharge of his perplexing duties, singularly cautious and re- strained in speaking of those who were opposed to him, indefatigable in his laborious office, eloquent in the pulpit, and irrefutable in his defenses of the church, we may well rejoice that such a man's sun went calmly down, and that his life and labors ended together. In this result no one, I know, rejoices more heartily than our own honored diocesan (Bishop Potter), to whose effective eloquence in the House of Bishops this happy result is largely due. The dead are in the hands of God, and 'tis well for us that we are not called to strike the balance of their virtues and their faults. While we labor to imitate the one ! and to avoid the other, let us consider that the utmost that any man can wish or hope for is to have in- scribed upon his tomb, ' A sinner saved by grace.'"

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 113

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992