USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island Episcopalians 1635-1953 > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12
This pagan tendency of rural Rhode Island lingered on for many years. Thus a little more than thirty years ago our diocesan missionary, the Reverend George S. Pine, estimated that not more than five percent of the people in the town of Scituate attended church with any regularity. There was but one resident minister of any denomination in the town, the Baptist pastor in its northeast corner. One may add, however, that the town did have five church buildings. Nevertheless the idea still seems to linger among old-time rural Yankee folk of the male persuasion that "He-men" don't go to church. It is a place for women to conduct their social affairs and to air their squabbles and rivalries.
Bishop Clark's suggestion to the 1865 Convention regarding the Diocese in general, and of the missionary work in particular, was this: Raise an Episcopal endowment sufficient to release him from the care of a parish. He pointed out that Grace Church, Providence, had 500 com- municants and 500 Sunday School children. It was impossible to do justice, with the limited help that an assistant could give, to so large a parish. A growing Diocese, moreover, needed a full-time Bishop. Rhode Island was the eighth largest Diocese, in communicants, in the country, and the fourth in missionary giving. In only four or five dioceses were the bishops still expected to be parish rectors.
This suggestion of the Bishop met an instant response. In a couple of years an Episcopal endowment of $43,300 was gathered. The interest on this fund, with somewhat larger assessments than hitherto on the parishes, sufficed to pay the Bishop's salary and other "Convention ex- penses." Still later the endowment increased to a point where assessments on the parishes for Episcopal support, at least, were temporarily lessened.
-34 -
III
In 1880, when another fifteen years had rolled by, Bishop Clark was again able to report substantial progress to Convention. This, however, had been at a slightly lower rate than in his first decade. Thus, between 1855 and 1865, communicants had increased in ten years by fifty percent, whereas in the next fifteen years the growth in numbers was sixty percent, a drop from five to four percent per annum. The exact figures, so far as such statistics are exact, were 2,614 communicants in 1855, 3,721 in 1865, and 6,388 in 1880. The communicant increase was considerably greater than population growth in the same period.
Speaking of his anniversary celebration, the Bishop says: "On the 6th of December (1879), services appropriate to the twenty-fifth anni- versary of my consecration were held in Grace Church, Providence. Nearly all the clergy of the Diocese were present, and a large number of our leading citizens and ministers of various denominations. Everything was conducted with simplicity, and great propriety, and much to my gratification, the Episcopal fund was placed at such a point, by the liberal offerings of the churches of the Diocese, as will relieve us hereafter from all burdensome assessments. To my brethren of the clergy I am indebted for a most appropriate token of their personal kindness and regard. I most heartily rejoice in the fact that there continues to prevail such a spirit of fraternal unity throughout the Diocese, and that no minor differ- ences of opinion prevent us from working together with one heart and soul for the furtherance of the Gospel and the establishment and extension of the Church."
The golden era of Episcopal growth in America was from 1830 to 1860. This was also the time when Church of England immigration was proportionately at its highest. After 1860 Roman Catholics and Lutherans formed the great bulk of the newcomers, the latter settling mostly in the Middle West. Nevertheless the migration from old England continued to enlarge the Church in the New, for another half century.
An interesting side-light on industrial conditions in Rhode Island from 1840 to 1900 is revealed in a biographical sketch written by Stephen Dexter Knight, who in his lifetime rose from mill boy to millionaire. When this Yankee lad was eight years old, he was apprenticed by his mother to the mill in Pontiac, of which eventually his brother became owner. The boy's hours were fourteen a day for six days, and the pay forty-two cents a week, or exactly half a cent an hour.
As an illustration of employer attitude at the time, Stephen Knight tells the story of another mother apprenticing her boy. When she asked if the wage could not be made a little higher, the mill owner asked her if the family had enough to eat and to wear. On hearing a grudging, Yes, he immediately replied, "Well, you have what you need; I want all the rest."
- 35 -
Knight tells these stories to bring out how much, by 1900, the lot of the workingman had improved. Before the turn of the century, it might be added, a shorter work week had brought a Saturday afternoon holiday. As a result, cricket clubs sprang up in many a mill village. The present writer once heard this story from an old-timer, who led a cricket team from the mill village of Ashton to what was then the mill village of Wanskuck, now a part of the city of Providence. Being a fleet runner, this man stole seventeen runs of a total of thirty-three on "byes", while the ball, which had passed the wicket-keeper, was being fielded by the backstop. The wicket being quite rough, the Wanskuck team was unable to reach the score of 33, in spite of its reputed superiority. As a result, local feeling grew so high that, when the Ashton players got into their hay wagon to cover the six miles home, they were stoned out of the village.
Industrial growth in the mill towns and villages and in Providence, steadily enlarged the population of the city. As a result, three new Providence parishes were founded in this 1865-1880 period. One was St. James' Church (1869), first located on Harris Avenue and later on Broadway. For many years St. James' was an important parish. By 1930, however, it had been engulfed by the Italian tide.
St. Gabriel's, later called St. Paul's (1871), was located on Smith Street, not far from the site of the present St. Paul's Mission. It, too, waxed and waned and disappeared. More fortunate in its latter end was the now important parish of the Epiphany, which began as a small mis- sion in a growing area on Elmwood Avenue in 1873.
In this fifteen year period several new parishes appeared in the towns. Such was St. Mary's, East Providence (1871), founded just across the Seekonk River from Providence. In spite of its now none too good location, it is still a thriving parish of 400 communicants, with a large Church School.
Another new town parish was Trinity, Bristol, created by a split in old St. Michael's. Trinity soon became a sizable congregation with a church, parish house and rectory located only two blocks from the older parish. In the long rectorship of the Reverend William Trotter it became Anglo- Catholic and a center of fine music. Father Trotter was an excellent organist and played all difficult choir selections himself. Thus, when it came time to sing the Nicene Creed, he would step down from the altar, be divested of his chasuble, and the Credo would thunder on. When this was over, he was still properly arrayed to go into the pulpit and preach.
Two other town parishes of this period were St. Luke's, East Provi- dence, which disappeared after several years, and St. Peter's, Narragansett Pier, which first appears on the horizon in 1880. St. Peter's, originally a summer parish for wealthy Episcopalians, gradually developed a small year-round constituency. Its present beautiful and over-large church was built in the flood of the fashionable Episcopal tide at the Pier.
- 36 -
The earliest of the new mill village parishes was St. Bartholomew's, Cranston (1866). For many years previous to this, however, Episcopal services had been held in the village, sometimes in competition with other denominations. On one occasion, the Episcopal missionary, coming in for afternoon service, discovered that the church building was, on that day, occupied by another group. Nothing daunted, he led his flock into a neighboring field and read Evening Prayer, the congregation kneeling and responding as they had learned to do in the old country. After 1866 the colonial church building, with its boxed-in pews, was entrusted to the Diocese of Rhode Island.
All Saints, Pontiac, was another parish, catering originally to English mill folk, though now it can be described as suburban. Its good church building and parish house were erected by the local B. B. and R. Knight Corporation, now passed out of existence. Certain members of the Knight family have endowed the parish to the extent of some fifty thousand dollars. An early rector was the Reverend Edward S. Rousmaniere, later well-known as the rector of Grace Church, Providence and the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Boston, who married into the Knight family.
Other mill village parishes of this 1865-1880 period were St. John's, Ashton (1868), and St. George's, Central Falls (1874). The latter parish, in fifty years, was to accumulate some 1200 communicants, and, in com- municant strength, to become the third largest parish in the Diocese. St. John's, Ashton, was originally a mission of Christ Church, Lonsdale, three miles away. The Ashton mill belonged to the same Lonsdale Company which had built a wooden edifice and, later, one of stone for flourishing Christ Church. In Ashton also the church building, the parish house and the sightly rectory were all erected at the expense of the Company, which also gave generously for over sixty years to the support of the congre- gation. During the depression period all these buildings were deeded over, and Company assistance ceased. St. John's continues to struggle along as an independent parish, latterly in conjunction with the still smaller parish at Manville, three miles away.
This 1865-1880 period in the Clark episcopate thus comes to an end with a sixty percent increase in communicants, and with the addition of ten new parishes, three in Providence, three in the towns and four in the mill villages. Yankee money and British manpower were building up the Church.
IV
When Bishop Clark was nearly eighty-two, he addressed his Con- vention in June of 1894 for the fortieth time. He had just passed through an active year, confirming 839 persons in Rhode Island and thirteen in Massachusetts, then bereft by the death of its Bishop, Phillips Brooks.
- 37 -
One of the year's acts had been to preach a Phillips Brooks memorial sermon, in the chapel of the Episcopal Theological School. Another act had been to assist in the consecration of Brooks' successor in the Massa- chusetts Episcopate, William Lawrence. . . . Bishop Clark describes this service in memorable words:
"It was an occasion of peculiar interest and solemnity ... Two years had not elapsed since we saw the majestic form of Phillips Brooks stand- ing before the chancel rail and heard the earnest tones of his voice as he pledged himself to the faithful discharge of the high duties of the office, to which he declared himself persuaded he had been called. . .. The tones of the solemn office for the dead had hardly passed away, when we were summoned to induct another into the place which he filled so nobly, but alas! so briefly. If he could have spoken to us audibly, it seemed as if he might have said: Do not mourn for me. 'Men must die, but God's work never dies. Turn to the future. It is full of hope. Tell my young brother . What a noble work he has before him and what marvellous encour- agements for the discharge of that work . .. The Diocese of Massa- chusetts is to be congratulated on the selection of one to guide its counsels, who is a native of the State, a graduate of its leading university, and who had presided so nobly over the interests of its Theological School,-the child of an honorable ancestry, a true gentleman and a scholar, an earnest Christian, and too generous and broad in his spirit ever to allow him to lord it arbitrarily over God's Kingdom. ... Rhode Island owes him a debt for furnishing us from the institution over which he presided, so many of our best and most useful clergy, and I wish that this might be remembered and responded to, by liberal benefactions to the Cambridge Theological School.'
In this period of 1880 to 1895, eleven new parishes had been admitted to union with Convention. They were: St. John's, Newport in 1882, St. Mark's, Riverside, in 1883, and Trinity Chapel, Pawtuxet, in 1885. In 1888 were added the Church of the Good Shepherd in Pawtucket and the Church of the Ascension in Auburn. St. Andrew's, Phenix (now Harris), came in 1889, and St. Ansgarius Church for Swedes in Providence in 1891. Its church building was the gift of Harold Brown of Newport. In 1893 St. Andrew's, Providence, a mission recently established among the new houses arising in the erstwhile pastures of Mount Pleasant, was likewise admitted to union with Convention. In 1894, St. Thomas', Providence, a much older mission, attained like status. In 1894 the Church of the Transfiguration in Edgewood, now a leading parish in the Diocese, was received, and in 1895 the relatively new Church of the Advent on the Providence edge of Pawtucket. In addition, in these 1880-1895 years, sixteen new missions, not in union with Convention, came into being. Eight of these were subsequently abandoned, but the other eight still persist as small missions or parishes. The one notable exception here is St. Mary's, Warwick Neck, in 1894 a summer chapel, today a parish of 300 communicants.
Soon after the 1894 Convention the aged bishop was stricken, by what he called "a violent and painful disease". For some months he was
-38-
incapacitated, the Standing Committee taking charge of the Diocese and bringing in other bishops to perform episcopal functions. By the Conven- tion of 1896, forty-one and a half years after his consecration, he was once more on his feet, but now almost eighty-four and greatly reduced in strength and vigor. In his 1896 address he thanked Archdeacon W. P. Tucker for all the help he had rendered him and the Convention for refusing to take any part of his salary for that of a Bishop Coadjutor. Pathetically he added: "It is evident that the Diocese does not desire to elect a Bishop Coadjutor, and if I can, with God's help, struggle on alone, until the end comes, I shall be most grateful. At my advanced age, the close of life must be very near, and I am most anxious during the brief period of time that remains to me upon earth, to make some repara- tion for the neglect and errors of the past. In a ministry that has extended over a period of not less than three score years, I have had opportunities of usefulness which have been poorly improved; and I fear that in seeking my own glory, I have sent many away empty, to whom I might have spoken words that would have made them wise unto salvation."
By the time of the 1897 Convention it was evident that a Coadjutor Bishop must be elected. Since the Diocese was determined that no decrease in salary should come to the aged Diocesan, it was decided to save money by abolishing the office of Archdeacon. The $2,000 of assess- ments levied on the Diocese for this salary, plus $3,000 for additional assessments on the parishes, were to be used to support the Coadjutor. Accordingly, at the regular Convention in June of 1897, Dr. David Hummell Greer, for many years rector of Grace Church, Providence, and at that time rector of St. Bartholomew's, New York, was elected to the office. Dr. Greer, however, felt unable to accept. Some years later he was elected Coadjutor Bishop of New York.
So a special Convention was called a little later to elect someone else. Various men were nominated, including the later famous Bishop of the Philippines, Charles H. Brent. The election went to five ballots, with the earlier names gradually losing ground. Before the third ballot Dr. William N. McVickar, rector of the famed parish of Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, a great friend of Phillips Brooks, was nominated. By this time the men who desired a high Churchman (of the older sort) had united on Doctor Samuel Hart of Trinity College, Hartford, an able and prominent representative of "Connecticut Churchmanship". On the fifth ballot Doctor McVickar was elected by a small margin. The election, then, as usual, was made unanimous. Rhode Island had once more elected an Evangelical with liberal leanings.
V
With the consecration of Bishop McVickar on January 27, 1898, as Coadjutor, the active years of Bishop Clark came to an end. The whole diocesan burden was shifted to the massive shoulders of the new assistant, a giant in frame as well as in heart. Bishop Clark became more and more
- 39 -
confined to his home and bed, though he kept a keen interest in diocesan affairs and wrote constantly for the "Diocesan Record." When, by virtue of seniority, the Presiding Bishopric came to him on February 7, 1899, he served four years and seven months to a day. The not inconsiderable duties of the office were taken care of from his house. Outside offices were entrusted to others, such as the consecration of twenty-four new bishops.
The diocesan statistics of 1900, compared with those of 1855, will mark the measure of advance, externally at least, of the Church in Rhode Island during the episcopate of Thomas March Clark. In 1855 communi- cants reported were 2,543. In 1900 they had risen to 12,372, nearly five- fold. Church School pupils in 1855 were 2,231, in 1900, 8,875, a four-fold increase.
Total contributions in 1900 were reported to be approximately $250,000, of which $54,000 was for missionary and charitable purposes. The value of diocesan real estate was put at about a million and a quarter dollars, many times the small valuations of 1855. This could well be, for, apart from price rises, the number of churches and chapels had climbed from 27 to 68. In distinction from 1855, almost all Rhode Island was now within hearing of a church bell, be it Roman, Protestant, or Episcopal.
Three of the present diocesan institutions, St. Elizabeth's Home for the Infirm and Aged Women, St. Mary's Home for Girls, and St. Andrew's School for Boys, all arose in the later years of the Clark episcopate, and received from the Bishop hearty and financially productive support. Reorganization of the missionary work of the Diocese, the adoption of a new Convocation system, the furthering of new methods of Sunday School work, received their blessing and often their impetus from the vigorous Episcopal hand.
Bishop Clark was the first Bishop of Rhode Island to have a "social consciousness." His two predecessors, Griswold and Henshaw, both stout Evangelicals, felt it their duty to prepare men by conversion to Jesus Christ for life in the world to come. To make a better world here and now was not in their purview. Henshaw, to be sure, praised publicly such mill owners as took an interest in the religious and moral welfare of their employees, and regretted that their number was not larger. Child labor, low wages and long hours were not his public concern. Griswold abjured anything that seemed in the least to be "politics." Clark, however, lashed out against the vices of the rich, particularly those in Newport, and concerned himself with the poor man's particular vice -- drink. Thus, in line with the ideas of the day, he urged "coffee houses" and "reading rooms" as antidotes for the saloon, and several such flourished a while in downtown Providence under Church auspices. His Convention addresses contain, too, more than one reference to deep political corrup- tion in the State, though he was not active in urging or opposing legis- lation, as was, later, Bishop McVickar.
- 40 -
Bishop Clark gradually became, as we have already indicated, a Broad Church Evangelical of the type of Phillips Brooks. The doctrine of Evolution, modern studies in the Bible, rewording and reworking, of the old theological ideas, particularly of the idea of Revelation, he accepted gladly and preached effectively. Bishop Henshaw believed that strong action by General Convention could eradicate both "rationalism" and "ritualism" from the Church. Bishop Clark accepted rationalism and though he disliked Anglo-Catholicism, was willing to tolerate it, believing it likely to fall by its own weight. His opinion of the Anglo-Catholic movement is recorded in his 1874 Convention address, his sentiments being endorsed by a formal vote of Convention. This was the time when General Convention was being memorialized to prohibit a wide variety of practices, some of them, such as processional choirs and crosses and altar lights, being in general use today. The result of the agitation was not legislation by Convention, but a Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops specifically condemning eucharistic adcration, auricular con- fession, and the invocation of saints. However, these last practices have become domesticated in numerous parishes and are even the norm in several dioceses. The comprehensiveness of the Episcopal Church has made room, not only for Broad Churchmen, but also for Anglo-Catholics.
"It may be well for us," says the Bishop in his 1874 address, "to learn a lesson from history. There is a species of conservatism which is as ruinous as the most reckless radicalism. A ship may go to the bottom from carrying too much ballast, as well as from having none at all." These words were in particular reference to Prayer Book revision and enrichment, which would be impracticable, "because of the fact that the Church is now disturbed by the introduction of forms and symbols in public worship which are foreign to the usages of our Communion, and are intended to revive a doctrine and a practice, which, since the Reformation, have been systematically abjured by the Anglican Church. The number of persons identified with this movement is small, but they are persistent, subtle, earnest, active. Some are attracted to this party by a romantic veneration for whatever pertains to antiquity, some by a love for whatever is ornate and dramatical in ceremonial, and some by a sincere conviction that the Protestant Reformation was an error, which struck at the very heart of true reverence and faith. The principles of the School of which I am speaking, are in brief, that the Christian ministry is, in the true and literal sense, a Priesthood; that, by the act of con- secration, the person of Christ is in some way identified with the bread and wine, as to justify us in the acts of adoration directed toward the Altar upon which these elements are placed; that private confession to a Priest, accompanied with his absolution, is a proper preliminary to the reception of the Holy Communion."
Bishop Clark goes on to say that the comprehensiveness which is one of the glories of the Anglican Communion does have its limits. If a man "does not believe in the Divinity as well as the humanity of Christ,-if he does not believe that the Scriptures contain the revelation of God and all the truth that is necessary to salvation,-if he does not believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ,-and in a future life, with its rewards and
-- 41 -
punishments,-there is certainly no place for him in the ministry of this Church. So far we are all agreed.'
Nevertheless Anglo-Catholicism means a Revolution in the traditional attitude of the Anglican Communion. "It cannot be denied that, in certain regions, doctrines are taught and practices are introduced which are not only new and strange, but also foreign to the genius and spirit of our branch of the Church; and sometimes these performances and attitudes border upon the ludicrous ... Certain forms and usages . . . become simply puerile when they are grafted upon the simple order of Protestant worship.'
The Bishop goes on to say that legislative and episcopal repression of these novel doctrines and practices seem futile. In England, where the use of incense in certain dioceses had been prohibited, the prohibition was circumvented by flooding the Church with incense before Mass. Where candles were forbidden, the Real Presence was accentuated by brighter lamps in the Sanctuary. The prohibition of any particular usage would not prevent the introduction of something else not specifically forbidden. Bishop Clark adds:
"It is within the province of the Bishops and the General Convention to clear the Church of reproach, by giving, in unmistakeable language, their testimony in regard to these matters. The true and effectual remedy, after all, is to be found in the excitement of a sound, healthy, manly, intelligent, Christian sentiment throughout the length and breadth of our Communion; a sentiment which will repudiate with scorn the re- introduction of medieval dogmas and puerile rites that have long been discarded by the best intelligence and most genuine piety of the most advanced Christian nations; a sentiment which will turn the mind away from the trifles and fopperies of dress and gesture and bowings, and fasten it upon the solemn eternal realities which pertain to religion, and direct the energies of men towards the accomplishment of those great, practical ends, for the furtherance of which Christ established His Kingdom on earth."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.