USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island Episcopalians 1635-1953 > Part 3
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changes in the rectorship, communicants numbered 72 and Sunday School pupils 174.
Christ Church, Lonsdale, was likewise planted and watered by another Evangelical, the Reverend James W. Cooke, who reported this to Con- vention in 1835: "I commenced my labors here about the first of October. For several months previous, with the exception of a few weeks, the Reverend Mr. Taft of Pawtucket had officiated once a Sunday, besides attending to the duties of his own parish; and to him, under God, the church is much indebted. . .. A year since, the people almost universally, were unacquainted with the services of the Church, and deep-rooted prejudices were entertained against them. ... Many of these prejudices have subsided. ... On commencing my labors, I reorganized the Sunday School which had been given up. It now numbers 95 scholars and 14 teachers. At first, but one pious individual could be found to engage as a teacher. There are now ten, most of whom have become pious since the commencement of the year. ... In a spiritual point of view the parish has been much blessed. The first instance of seriousness occurred in the Sunday School. About the close of last year I observed one of the scholars weeping. ... On inquiring the cause, she told me it was in view of her sins. ... The individual just alluded to, after the lapse of many weeks, was at last brought to realize a Saviour's love and continues to give bright evidence of a growing Christian. Soon a member of the congregation was brought to feel the power of God; and then another, and another, until at last we have a little band whom we trust will be numbered among the redeemed of the Lord.
"Until within a few weeks, the services have been held in the School House of the village. By the liberality of the Lonsdale Company a con- venient room has been prepared in one of the factory buildings, furnished with a plain desk and altar, and sufficiently large to accommodate com- fortably four hundred persons. Since the occupation of this room, the congregation has rapidly increased. And an offer has also been made by the same company to contribute one third of the cost of a suitable church edifice. We trust that another third can be raised in the parish; and to the friends of the Church, generally, we shall look with confidence to lend us a helping hand."
Suffice to say, Christ Church obtained its building, and by 1842 had 79 communicants and 196 Sunday School pupils. For a century this parish has been the big mill village parish of the Diocese, although it is steadily assuming more and more of a suburban character. In 1950 it had 717 communicants and 180 Church School pupils, this last figure being only a third of numbers reported in 1900.
Although St. James', Woonsocket, and Christ Church, Lonsdale, have now become large parishes, Emmanuel Church, Manville, has waxed and waned in a much smaller compass. In 1834 Mr. Mann, the Quaker mill owner, after whom the village was named, weary of itinerant evangelists, asked Bishop Griswold to establish a "sober" variety of religion in his town. The Bishop complied by sending the Reverend Ephraim Munroe.
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The beginnings were smaller than in the other Blackstone Valley towns, except in the Sunday School. Supported generously by the local mills and two leading families of the village, Emmanuel Church became in seventy- five years a relatively important parish. Today neither the mills nor the leading families are in evidence, while the population of the town has become ninety percent French-Canadian and Ukrainian. One of the three Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of the State is located in the village and the only Russian Orthodox Church in Rhode Island is on neighboring Cumberland Hill. The fifty odd communicants of the present day about equal those of a century ago, while Sunday School children now number only a handful instead of the 100 of yore. By electing a neighboring rector as its own, Emmanuel Church remains still, technically, an inde- pendent parish. Some turn of circumstance, a large legacy due in another generation, some shift of population, may yet bring back better days. The parish has a beautiful colonial church and an excellent rectory.
St. John's, Providence, and St. Paul's, Pawtucket, were, however, not the only centers of missionary enterprise in the Griswold period. New parishes proliferated from all of the original colonial churches.
Thus, in 1828, John Bristed, a scholar and author, began services as a lay reader from Bristol in Cole's Hall, Warren. The next year St. Mark's, Warren, was formally admitted to Convention. After Bristed succeeded the Bishop as rector in Bristol, the Reverend George Hathaway began a long and fruitful ministry in Warren. The fine colonial church of the present day was erected without overmuch debt or difficulty. St. Mark's became erelong one of the important parishes of Rhode Island in num- bers, affluence and energy in Christian education. In 1835, six years after its beginning, it had 112 communicants, a large number for those days, and, in 1842, 152, with 150 in the Sunday School. The progressive indus- trialization of the State, with its influx of British immigrants, was being reflected in church growth even in this old seaside town. Today Warren is largely Roman Catholic, but St. Mark's still has 300 communicants and a considerable endowment.
St. Michael's, Bristol, as well as Trinity, Newport, imparted their aid and blessing to a new parish in North Portsmouth, St. Paul's, formally organized in 1834. St. Paul's, with the somewhat later St. Mary's and the chapel of the Holy Cross in South Portsmouth, represents the only suc- cessful and permanent settlement of the Church in old rural Rhode Island. St. Mary's, because of its proximity to Newport, has since then become much the larger parish of the two.
Trinity, Newport, also aided in other extensions of the work in its vicinity. Thus Zion Church, Newport, now St. George's, was received by Convention in 1833. At this time Salmon Wheaton at Trinity reports transferring twenty families and thirty communicants to the new parish and losing nothing thereby in numbers. Newport was growing.
Another parish, likewise blessed by Trinity, was St. Matthew's, James- town, admitted to Convention in 1837. St. Matthew's was to remain small for many years. It had only four communicants in 1842 and only fourteen
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ten years later. Its later prosperity has been due to summer visitors, who furnished much of the income, and later still, to an influx of permanent residents following the suburban tide.
St. Paul's, Wickford, had likewise its outward extensions. Besides the transient missions at Tower Hill and Kingston, its influence and constitu- ency reached out into Wakefield, Westerly and East Greenwich. These now flourishing churches may be regarded as daughters of the old Narra- gansett parish. Their beginnings, however, were small. St. Luke's, East Greenwich, had 41 communicants in 1835, the year following its recep- tion into Convention, only 32 in 1842, but 60 ten years later. Industry by then had begun to hum along the banks of its little, swift-flowing river. The same was true in the Wakefield area where the first woolen mill in the State had been founded in near-by Peace Dale as early as 1807. The Church of the Ascension in Wakefield, organized in 1839, had only nine communicants in 1842, but, with the absorption of many members of the neighboring Tower Hill parish, these nine by 1852 had become forty-two. At this date St. Paul's, Wickford, had only fifty-six. This same proportion has lasted ever since. In 1950 Wakefield had 359 communi- cants and Wickford 430. Christ Church, Westerly, from its beginnings in 1834, has, however, been the largest parish in this area, now numbering over 1,000 communicants. Several of its rectors have gone to eminence elsewhere in the Church.
Such was the growth in parishes and church membership in the thirty-one years of Bishop Griswold. The four parishes of 1813 had become nineteen, seventeen of which are still flourishing. The 312 com- municants of 1813 had become, in 1842, 1,977, nearly a sevenfold growth. In 1835 there were only 780 Sunday School scholars. Seven years later the number was 2,428. Such a rapid growth in Sunday School population never occurred again.
The thirty years of Bishop Griswold were the era of the old-time Evangelicalism. As we have seen in sundry quotations from the annual reports of various rectors, conversion and rest in the Lord, preceded by feelings of guilt and fear, were the staple of religious experience. Respect- ability and mere morality were not enough. Fervor and conscious con- version were the marks of the redeemed in Zion.
The other type of churchmanship, that of the old-time "high and dry", was never prominent in Rhode Island, though dominant in most other dioceses. This variety of Churchman laid emphasis on Apostolic Succes- sion, Nicene Orthodoxy, and the Prayer Book only. No extemporaneous prayers, little ritual, no religious cooperation with Protestants, and bitter antagonism to Rome were characteristic features, and many Catholic practices of the present would have seemed to him like the abominations of the Book of Revelation. He was careful to celebrate Saints Days by reading Morning Prayer. The Evangelicals marked them with Bible lectures in the evening, when people would come.
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Though the most flourishing period of Rhode Island Diocesan history is the period of Bishop Griswold and the old Evangelical theology, now past and gone, it must not be thought that the Bishop attempted to impose his type of Churchmanship on either Rhode Island or the Eastern Diocese. If he once rebuked a clergyman for putting a cross, candles and flowers on the "Lord's Table", it was for disregarding settled custom. The Bishop did not inflict himself on his clergy and expected a like forbearance toward congregations on their part.
In 1842 Bishop Griswold came to his last Convention in Rhode Island. By that time a diocesan Board of Education was in existence. For its support eight of the nineteen parishes were assessed a total of $375. Also in active existence at this time was "Convocation", a voluntary associ- ation of some of the clergy for the promotion of diocesan missions. Each clerical member undertook to raise in his parish for such purposes a sum equal to one tenth of his salary. In 1842, it was reported that the sums expended in the previous year amounted to $1,604.96. This amount was used to supplement the local salaries in the parishes of East Greenwich, Wickford. Wakefield, Portsmouth, Jamestown, and St. Stephen's, Provi- dence, which had recently called Henry Waterman from Woonsocket. "Our hope is", we read, "that we shall, ere long, be relieved from any share in her (St. Stephen's) support, and be receiving back, by yearly and full installments, whatever may have been as yet appropriated." The faith and hope of the Missionary Convocation was fulfilled in the long ministry of Henry Waterman.
IV
What sort of a man was Bishop Griswold, who did so much to expand and deepen the life of the Church in New England?
Physically, he was six feet two, and of a rugged constitution, fortified, undoubtedly, by many years of work on a farm. This physical endowment enabled him to fight off several serious illnesses brought on, possibly by overwork and undue exposure to the weather. Thus, on occasion, when he arrived for a confirmation appointment in his horse and buggy, all wet from the rain, he would don his robes, without chang- ing clothes, so as to begin on time. Once, when he had a confirmation date on a Sunday afternoon in East Greenwich from Bristol, a storm blew up. Nothing daunted, he lay on the bottom of the boat, while his steers- man managed the dangerous passage across Narragansett Bay. When the Bishop arrived at the Church for his confirmation, he discovered that the congregation, in view of the storm, had not even bothered to assemble.
Although forthright and firm when occasion called for it, the Bishop was mild and somewhat shy in his manner. It was in his preaching and pastoral ministrations to his parish that he really poured out his heart.
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Nor was Bishop Griswold one of the pulpit orators who were so plentiful in the heyday of the Evangelical movement, from 1820 to 1870. Never- theless he was greatly effective in a quiet way. His son-in-law, Stephen H. Tyng, who studied under him for two years at Bristol, says, in his Autobiography, of the Bishop's preaching, that it was "quiet in manner, but it was earnest and peculiarly instructive. To me his whole style of ministry was perfectly new, and in the highest degree attractive and exemplary. No one whom I have ever seen has walked more truly and faithfully in the steps of his Heavenly Example." The cottage prayer meetings which the Bishop conducted here and there in his Bristol parish also made an indelible impression on this young theological student. He had been to many a prayer meeting while studying at Andover Academy, but had never dreamed that such a blessed source of grace could be found in the conservative Episcopal Church.
The intellectual gifts, which Griswold, in his youth, had hoped would lead to college teaching, were now channeled into the field of Biblical and theological study. Although the Bishop published no books, except a small volume of prayers and an Autobiography, he wrote sermons and Bible lectures by the thousand. His regular stint in Bristol, even after his election to the Eastern Diocese, was three sermons or lectures every week, written mostly after his large family had gone to bed. Yet his interest in the studies of his youth still remained, whenever an arduous day allowed it. Toward the end of his life the Bishop bought the only copy on sale in Boston of the astronomer Laplace's famous work on Celestial Mechanics.
The Bishop had many domestic sorrows, which he met with fortitude and faith. For ten of his twelve children died of tuberculosis, all but one after growing up. The wife of his youth died at forty-nine, after thirty-two years of wedlock. So it is not surprising that two years later, in 1829, he decided to leave Bristol and move to St. Peter's, Salem. Three years after his wife's death, he married again. The one child of this marriage, a boy, died of scarlet fever when only twelve.
Bishop Griswold passed away suddenly on February 13, 1843. He was knocking on the Boston door of his assistant bishop in Massachusetts, Manton Eastburn, when he collapsed and died. Thomas March Clark, whom he had ordained seven years before, and who, eleven years later, was to become bishop in Rhode Island, took charge of the funeral arrangements. Bishop Griswold, his second wife and their boy are buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's Church, Dedham. A brownstone tomb, on the right as you enter from the Route 1A highway, marks their final resting place.
When the Rhode Island Convention of 1843 came around, it immedi- ately elected the Reverend John Prentiss Kewley Henshaw, rector of St. Peter's, Baltimore, as the Bishop of the Diocese. Grace Church, Provi- dence, being conveniently vacant, it was arranged that the new bishop should be rector there. An additional stipend of $400 was voted for his episcopal labors, this sum to be raised by assessment on the parishes. The
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Convention also passed a series of resolution concerning its past Bishop, of which the following extracts are a part:
"Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, in His wise Providence, to take out of this world Alexander Viets Griswold, for thirty-two years the Bishop of the Eastern Diocese, the late and senior Bishop of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church of the United States-Therefore,
Resolved, That while it becomes us to bow, with profound submission, to the sovereign will of that Being with whom are the issues of life, it does not less become us to entertain a lively sense of the bereavement which we have sustained by the death of our venerated Diocesan, who, with such gentle wisdom and such godly simplicity, so long presided over the counsels of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Rhode Island.
Resolved, That the prosperity of the Church within the limits of the Eastern Diocese, may be ascribed mainly to the gracious influences which the life and character of our venerated Diocesan shed abroad upon clergy and laity, and, through them, upon society at large ;-- to the scruplous fidelity with which he performed all the duties of the Episcopal office ;--- to his extensive acquisitions in theological learning, consecrated as were those acquisitions to the highest service of God and man ;- to the extra- ordinary ability with which he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ- never erring, either through excess or defect, in his statements of scriptural truth -- never severing faith from good works --- never encour- aging a treacherous hope-never leaving true penitence to suffer, without comforting assurances of pardon, the agonies of a wounded spirit ;-- and, above all, to the daily beauty of his Christian life ;- to the quiet and unostentatious diligence, with which he did whatsoever his hand found to do; and to that earnest yet chastened piety which was the habitat of his soul.
Resolved, That we, the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Rhode Island, are not without special reasons for lamenting the departure from his life of our most excellent Diocesan, for here were passed most of the years allotted to his laborious and effective ministry; here his kind affec- tions flowed out upon familiar and constant friends; and here he is freshly remembered by thousands who loved to catch from his lips, now sealed forever, the accents of everlasting life."
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CHAPTER III. The Episcopate of John Prentiss Kewley Henshaw 1843 - 1852
The Right Reverend John Prentiss Kewley Henshaw
John Prentiss Henshaw was born on June 13, 1792, in Middletown Connecticut, not far from the birthplace of Bishop Griswold. He later added the third given name of Kewley in honor of the clergyman who converted him and baptized him into the Episcopal Church. Kewley was a former Roman Catholic, who later reverted to his old faith.
When John was still a young boy, his family moved to Middlebury, Vermont, where, at the then not unusual age of twelve, he entered the local college. Entrance requirements in those days were, mainly, some Latin, less Greek and Mathematics, and elementary English, these studies forming the staple also of the college course. After graduation young Henshaw entered business in Boston. There he found his religious awak- ening in the Episcopal Church and in the bosom of the Evangelical movement. Like Griswold's uncle, he succeeded in persuading his family to embrace his new religion.
After a short experience as lay reader and preacher in Vermont, Hen- shaw went to study theology at Bristol under Bishop Griswold and to conduct services when the Diocesan was absent on Episcopal visitations. He was active, as we have seen, in the Bristol religious revival in the summer of 1812. His wife was a Bristol girl. On June 13, 1813, on his twenty-first birthday, he was ordered deacon. Four years later he was called to the nearly defunct parish of St. Peter's, Baltimore, which, in the twenty-six years of his rectorship, became outstanding in the Church. He was a prominent candidate in several Episcopal elections, until on April 6, 1843, Rhode Island elected him Chief Pastor.
In his first Convention address in 1844, the new bishop continues the story in the following words: "Simultaneously with my election by your suffrages to the Bishopric of this Diocese, I was chosen by the Corpora- tion of Grace Church, Providence, to be their rector; and on Thursday, August tenth, was instituted into the rectorship of the parish by the Rt. Rev. T. C. Brownell, D.D., L.L.D., at the request of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Rhode Island. I preached the institution sermon, and administered the communion to the people of my new charge. The Bishops of the Dioceses of New York and Maryland, together with many of the clergy of this and other Dioceses, were present at these solemnities.
"My consecration to the Episcopate took place on the following day, August 11, in St. John's Church, Providence. Morning Prayer was read by the rector of said Church and the sermon preached by my former Dio- cesan, the Bishop of Maryland. In the absence of the Rt. Rev. Philander Chase, D.D., (presiding bishop) and at his request, the Rt. Rev. Dr. T. C. Brownell of Connecticut, acted as consecrator; Bishops B. T. Onderdonk of New York, J. H. Hopkins of Vermont, G. W. Doane of New Jersey, W. R. Whittingham of Maryland, and J. Johns of Virginia, uniting with him in the imposition of hands, and bearing their respective parts in the sacred services.
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"Never was so large a number of Bishops and Clergy of our Church assembled in Rhode Island. It was an occasion of the deepest interest, and of the highest mutual responsibility to us, my brethren. Let us pray that the union, thus auspiciously commenced, may, by God's blessing, be more closely cemented from day to day, and made productive of the richest fruit to the praise of the glory of his grace.
"On the Sunday following my consecration, August 13, I conducted service in Grace Church, and had the pleasure of listening to a discourse, in the morning, from my beloved brother, Bishop Johns of Virginia, and in the afternoon, from my former friend and pupil, the Rev. Dr. Coleman, of Philadelphia.'
After a few days retirement in Bristol, his wife's home, in preparation for a first visitation of the Diocese, Bishop Henshaw began his strenuous round as Rector and Bishop. After ten months of Episcopate he reported 213 confirmations in the Diocese and 53 outside. He had, by request, taken temporary charge of the Diocese of Maine. Further official acts were 255 sermons or addresses, six ordinations and two institutions of rectors and twenty-four celebrations of the Lord's Supper. At Easter time the wooden building at Grace Church was torn down to make room, on the same site, for the present Gothic stone Church. The congregation and rector-bishop joined in Easter services with St. Stephen's Parish, then located on Benefit Street.
An item of interest, in this connection, was the Bishop's visit, on March 24 to Emmanuel Church, Manville, where he ordained, in the morning, James H. Carpenter to the Dioconate, and in the evening, con- firmed fourteen candidates. On the Monday night he confirmed five persons in St. James' Mission, Woonsocket, "of whom, it may be men- tioned, as a very unusual circumstance, four were males". In those days St. James, now large, and Emmanuel, now small, were not far removed from each other in strength. Of the two parishes the Bishop had this to say:
"The Churches last named are beautifully located in Manville and Bernon, two of these manufacturing villages which, under the influence of worldly enterprise, are springing up amidst the picturesque scenery on the banks of our watercourses, to enrich and adorn the State. Many of the owners of these establishments have acted wisely in making the means of religious worship and instruction a necessary appendage to them. For, in addition to the direct spiritual benefit which may be hoped for in the conversion and salvation of souls, the conservative influence of the Church upon the civil character and moral habits of the operatives, will be of inappreciable benefit to the proprietors and the community at large. In none of our Churches are the services attended with more propriety and devotion, than in these of our manufacturing villages."
Again, "On Monday, June 3, I visited Crompton Mills, in the town of Warwick, and after Evening Prayer, conducted by the Rev. Silas A. Crane, I preached to a large and attentive congregation in the Baptist
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Meeting House, which was kindly loaned for the occasion. In this place there are several families attached to the Church, and among them a good number of communicants, who are exceedingly anxious that the services to which they have been accustomed, and still ardently love, should be introduced among them."
"On Tuesday, June 4, passing from Crompton through Phenix, Lippits- ville, Harrisville, Arkwright, and Jackson, a chain of beautiful factory villages, extending about four miles upon a branch of the Pawtuxet River, I performed Evening Service, and preached to a large and solemn con- gregation in the Baptist Meeting-house at Fiskeville. The most favorable period for the establishment of our Church, in that section of the Diocese, was permitted to pass unimproved; and yet I am persuaded, from in- formation derived during this brief visit, that it is now not too late." The next year, 1845, St. Philip's, Crompton, or West Warwick as it is now called, came into being. Several other temporary stations were opened, the present-day survivor being St. Andrew's, Harris, or Phenix, as it was originally designated. St. Philip's, in 1950, was an independent parish of 301 communicants, while St. Andrew's remained a small aided parish of 138.
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