USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island Episcopalians 1635-1953 > Part 8
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Like the Department of Christian Education, the Department of Christian Social Relations, under the leadership of the Rev. Gene Scaringi, rector of Christ Church, Providence, has enlarged its scope and borders. The chaplaincies in the numerous State Institutions, with the varied con- tacts, are under its direction, as well as many sorts of individual case work. Its latest hope is to establish in the Diocese a home for teen-age girls, something much needed, which the initial success of the Church Charities Fund brings nearer to realization.
Finally, we might mention the State-Wide Mission, organized at Bishop Bennett's suggestion, in which he took a large personal part, as did many diocesan clergymen, as well as nearly a score of bishops and priests from without the Diocese. This Mission culminated on October 8, 1950 in a great Sunday afternoon service at the Providence Arena in which an almost endless procession of choirs and 7,000 other people participated. This service was probably the largest non-Roman religious gathering ever assembled in Rhode Island. The preacher was the Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Reverend Henry Knox Sherrill.
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The relatively short episcopate of Bishop Bennett, which canonically must terminate in 1955, has thus been more than a holding action. New mission work in country and suburb, which in the last years of the pre- ceding episcopate, advanced only by the initiative of neighboring rec- tors, received vigorous central promotion and direction under the Reverend Anthony R. Parshley, Litt D., who gave up his twenty-year rectorship at St. Michael's, Bristol, to become Archdeacon of the Diocese. Relatively extensive borrowings for building purposes are being justified by results.
There have been numerous changes in seven years in the clergy per- sonnel of the parishes and missions. An off-hand count in 1951 made the changes for five years previous number sixty-four, an amount just about equal to the separate cures. This count excludes, of course, the curates in the Diocese, whose turnover has been even more rapid. The replace- ments, by and large, are not inferior to those who have gone. Rhode Island can still obtain good men from both without and within the Dio- cese. Nevertheless, the need for longer tenures in parish and mission is acute. Until the parishes cease demanding young or youngish rectors, the pressure to move on, while there is yet time, will continue.
IV
At the Diocesan Convention in May, 1952, Bishop Bennett asked for a Coadjutor Bishop. The Convention immediately gave the necessary legal consent, as did the General Convention of the Church held in Boston the following September. Soon thereafter twenty-four names of suitable persons were presented to the special Committee appointed to receive them. About half of these men were nominated from the floor at a special electoral Convention held on November 18. Four presbyters of the Diocese, the Reverend Messrs. Arthur Roebuck of St. Paul's, Pawtucket, and James R. MacColl of Trinity, Newport, the Reverend Doctors John B. Lyte of All Saints, Providence, and Anthony R. Parshley, Archdeacon of the Diocese, all received sizable votes. Doctor John S. Higgins, rector of St. Martin's, Providence, was, however, far in the lead with 36 clerical and 88 lay votes on the first ballot. Next to Dr. Higgins was Dr. Charles W. Lowry, rector of All Saints parish, Chevy Chase, Mary- land, a well-known theologian. On the next three ballots Dr. Higgins gained slowly and Dr. Lowry rapidly. On the fourth ballot Dr. Higgins had 44 clerical votes and 129 lay votes, and Dr. Lowry 36 clerical and 126 lay votes. Dr. Higgins was then declared duly elected. Upon the motion of Archdeacon Parshley, the vote was made unanimous. For the first time in its history the Diocese of Rhode Island had elected one of its own presbyters Bishop. Bishop Higgins, incidentally, is the fortieth clergyman born, since the Revolution, in the British Empire, to become a bishop of the Episcopal Church in America. There will always be an England, if the old country continues to supply one bishop in thirteen to the American Church!
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THE CONSECRATION OF BISHOP HIGGINS (left to right) Bishops Donegan, Lawrence, Sherrill, Keeler
John Seville Higgins was born in London on April 14, 1904, where he obtained his secondary education. At the age of nineteen he migrated to the New World, as did an older brother, Herbert Ralph, now rector of a large parish in Evanston, Illinois. At the age of twenty-four John Higgins graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1928, obtaining from it a M. A. a year later. In 1931 he received his B. D. from Seabury- Western Theological Seminary and, in 1947, the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
After brief service as missionary in Nevada and curate in Evanston, Illinois, Bishop Higgins married Florence Marion Laird and served from 1932 to 1938 as rector of the Church of the Advent in Chicago. From this period came his two children, a boy and a girl in their late teens.
For ten years from 1938 to 1948 he was the rector of the important downtown parish of Gethsemane in Minneapolis. Then began an equally successful ministry at St. Martin's parish in Providence.
Bishop Higgins, in his strenuous career, has found time to write no less than five little books, historical and devotional, as well as to partici- pate actively in a multitude of diocesan and General Church affairs. Thus for five years previous to his consecration he was a member of the National Council in New York. In all his multitudinous activities he has exemplified his abilities as counsellor, administrator, financier, pastor and preacher.
Bishop Higgins was consecrated in the Cathedral of St. John on February 4, 1953, in the presence of nine bishops of the Church, and various dignitaries from Church and State. The chief consecrator was the Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, the co-conse- crators being his present diocesan, the Rt. Rev. Granville Gaylord Ben- nett, and a previous diocesan, the Rt. Rev. Stephan E. Keeler of Minne- sota. The preacher was the Rt. Rev. Horace W. B. Donegan, bishop of New York, who preached a stirring sermon on the duties of a bishop in today's world. The new Coadjutor's immediate assignment was the charge of the missions and several diocesan institutions.
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CHAPTER VIII. Retrospect and Prospect
I
As we look back over the one hundred and sixty years of the Diocese of Rhode Island, we are struck by the fact that Church growth has far exceeded population increase. The 200 estimated communicants of 1810 had become over 2,000 in 1850, or about ten fold, while population had not doubled. These 2,000 communicants of 1850 grew in 1950 to be 31,265, or nearly sixteen times more, while people in the State multiplied only five and a half times, from 147,545 to 796,813. Immigration, as we have seen, played a considerable part, as did conversions from Protestant- ism and Paganism, in this increase. Until twenty-five years ago, when Church School registration began to sag, the Christian nurture of the Church's children doubtless played the most important part of all in making one person out of seventeen in Rhode Island a baptized member of the Episcopal Church. The national average is one in sixty.
CHURCH AND STATE POPULATION IN RHODE ISLAND
1830 - 1950
Date
State Population
Communicants
State Increase
Church Increase
1830
97,199
828
-
-
1850
147,545
2,064
51.8%
148%
1860
184,620
3,263
18.4%
58%
1870
217,352
4,705
24.5%
44.2%
1880
276,531
6,388
27.2%
35.7%
1890
345,506
9,353
24.9%
46.3%
1900
428,506
12,372
24.6%
32.3%
1910
542,610
13,844
26.6%
11.9%
1920
604,397
20,037
11.4%
44%
1930
687,497
23,177
11.3%
15.6%
1940
713,346
27,569
3.5%
19%
1950
796,813
31,265
18.3%
13%
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II
How does Rhode Island compare in all this growth with the other Dioceses in New England? Better than Connecticut, but less well than Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. -
A century ago Connecticut had more communicants than all the rest of New England. Today it has considerably less than one-half-69,000 out of 155,000. In brief, its communicants multiplied seven and a half times in a century, while Connecticut population increased four times.
STATISTICAL TABLE OF THE NEW ENGLAND DIOCESES
1850 - 1950
State
Proportion of Communicants
Diocese
Date
Parishes Clergy Communicants Church School Population
Connecticut
1850
110
99
9,360
3,903
1875
166
178
17,527
12,336
622,700
('80) 1 in 34
1900
190
210
30,868
16,580
908,420
1 in 29
1925
226
214
53,438
17,016
1,380,631
('20) 1 in 26.
1950
200
210
69,560
19,074
1,709,242
('40) 1 in 26
Maine
1850
9
11
674
572
583,169
1 in 900
1875
31
23
2,014
1,800
648,946
('80) 1 in 322
1900
52
36
4,164
1,962
694,466
1 in 167
1925
62
50
7,106
3,002
768,014
1 in 108
1950
67
66
9,109
2,530
847,226
1 in 93
Massachusetts
1850
63
63
5,142
3,853
994,514
1 in 190
1875
113
140
13,071
11,580
2,238,943
('80) 1 in 175
1900
217
. 260
39,508
23,665
2,805,346
1 in 72
1925
211
255
62,192
21,983
3,852,356
('20) 1 in 60
1950
200
258
80,257
23,381
3,238,108
1 in 40
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State
Diocese
Date
Parishes Clergy Communicants Church School Population
New Hampshire
1850
11
10
560
225
317,971
1 in 568
1875
21
25
1,706
1,141
346,991
('80) 1 in 203
1900
43
48
4,393
2,038
411,588
1 in 90
1925
49
50
6,484
2,517
443,083
('20) 1 in 68
1950
50
43
10,290
3,002
491,524
('40) 1 in 48
Rhode Island
1850
19
25
2,098
2,145
147,543
1 in 70
1875
43
41
5,574
5,472
276,531
('80) 1 in 54
1900
62
70
12,372
8,875
428,556
1 in 35
1925
79
91
22,343
8,376
604,397
('20) 1 in 27
1950
75
94
31,265
7,866
796,813
1 in 25
Vermont 12 .3
1850
31
23
1,758
817
314,120
1 in 173
1875
44
31
2,846
1,432
332,286
('80) 1 in 113
1900
65
46
4,981
2,083
343,641
1 in 69
1925
70
39
6,216
1,620
352,428
('20) 1 in 56
1950
56
4C
7,298
1,470
359,231
('40) 1 in 49
Western Masaschusetts 1901
1925
78
59
15,882
5,631
See Mass.
1950
69
72
18,542
5,979
1,078,523
1 in 52
Proportion of Communicants
In 1850, communicants in Connecticut were 1 in 34 of the population. They are now 1 in 26. In Rhode Island the proportion improved from 1 in 70 to 1 in 25. This is in a State which has the largest Roman popu- lation of any in the Union, namely 55 per cent. Again, Maine, in a cen- tury, increased its members from 1 in 900 to 1 in 93. New Hampshire has risen from 1 in 568 to 1 in 48. The Diocese of Massachusetts with over one-half of the communicants of New England as a whole, has climbed from 1 in 190 to 1 in 40. When it comes to the record of the decade of 1940 to 1950, however, all the dioceses of New England, except New Hampshire and Vermont, have lagged somewhat behind the growth of their respective States. In Vermont diocesan increase was double that of the State, in New Hampshire, three times. The causes of these variations the present writer will (D. V.) seek to uncover in another publication.
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III
What, in this century that we have been reviewing, has been the relative growth of the Church in the various areas into which Rhode Island can be divided? The following table gives some interesting figures.
STATISTICS BY AREAS DIOCESE OF RHODE ISLAND
1850 - 1950
COMMUNICANTS
CHURCH SCHOOL PUPILS
CONTRIBUTIONS
1850 1875 1900 1925 1950
1850 1875 1900 1925 1950
1925
1950
Providence
742 2423
4943 8002 9852
578 2133 3255 2566 1685
$257,542 $ 353,245
Blackstone
Valley
440 1208
2352 5583 7465
651 1456 2283 2572 1481
$111,616 $ 178,597
Northwest
Rhode Island
81 100
471
1232 2186
100 160 430 435 768
$ 26,531 $ 51,391
Southwest
Rhode Island
326
488
1266 3045 5566
300 604 982 1563 2083
$ 68,405 $ 189,725
Southeast Rhode Island
849 1355 2376 4481
6196
566 1130 1885 1316 1849
$118,604 $ 243,540
-
2438 5574 11408 22343 31265 2195 5472 8835 8452 7866 $592,698 $1016,498
The first fact which emerges is that, in all areas of the State, the Church has grown considerably. The lowest percentage is that of the southeast area, Bristol and Newport counties, where the increase has been a little more than seven times, from 849 communicants to 6,196. Its gain in Church School enrollment has been somewhat over three times, 566 to 1,849, all this gain having been made prior to 1900.
In the city of Providence, Episcopalians have multiplied over thirteen times, this increase likewise occurring most largely before 1900. Since 1900, while communicants have doubled, Church Schools have halved their enrollment, a situation somewhat improved by 1953. The same is roughly true of the chiefly urban Blackstone Valley. There Church Schools have gained only 220 per cent, 651 to 1,481, with the School enrollment dropping by over a third, 2,572 to 1,481, from 1900 to 1950. Proportionately, therefore, the Blackstone Valley has done better than the big city. Absolute gains all along the line have been only in the western areas. Northwest Rhode Island, by which is meant the towns of
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North Providence, Johnstown, Coventry, Smithfield, Gloucester, Burrill- ville, Foster and Scituate, has had the largest percentage of growth both in communicants and in Church School. The first rose 26 times, from 81 to 2,186, and the second more than seven times, from 100 to 768. In the last fifty years the gain has been about five times in communicants, 471 to 2,186, and less than double in the Church School, 430 to 768.
A similar situation exists in the southwestern portion of the State from Cranston to Westerly. In a century, communicants have increased some seventeen times, from 849 to 6,196; in the last fifty years the growth has been about 50 per cent, from 4,481 to 6,196. Church School enroll- ment gained over three times in the century, and about forty per cent in the last fifty years.
What are the prospects of Church growth in these various areas? If one may hazard a forecast, it would be that, in the Providence and Blackstone areas, the Church will about hold its own, although missionary opportunities among non-Anglo-Saxons are not inconsiderable. However, even if grasped, these may only replace the losses to suburb and country. On the other hand, the western portion of the State is bound to see a considerable strengthening of the Church. East Providence, Barrington and Portsmouth should continue largely to gain, while Newport, Bristol and Warren will probably do little more than hold their ancient own. Yet Rhode Island, as a whole, is still a good missionary field, easier to cultivate than most of our domestic jurisdictions.
As one thumbs through the financial sections of the Journals of the New England dioceses, one is struck by the large amount of invested funds therein noted. The benefactors of the past support a considerable portion of the work of the present. Thus the total endowments of the Diocese of Rhode Island would be approximately $4,300,000, much less, however, than the nearly $6,000,000 of Western Massachusetts, a smaller diocese numerically.
In spite of being a poor relation of Western Massachusetts, Massa- chusetts and Connecticut, the Diocese of Rhode Island has had many wealthy benefactors, whose gifts, while they lived, and whose legacies have strengthened its work immeasurably. To their gifts we must add those of various corporations which have built and sustained, in whole or in part, a number of churches, parish houses and rectories, particularly in the industrial areas of the Blackstone and Pawtuxet Valleys.
Of these many benefactors, the first place in largeness and continuity of giving goes to the "Browns of Providence Plantations", originally Baptists or Quakers. Of the four brothers, Nicholas, John, Joseph and Moses, who carried on a large mercantile and iron-mongering business before and after the Revolution, only Nicholas continued, with new part- ners, to maintain and expand the old mercantile and shipping enterprises. His ships traded with Europe, Asia, and Africa. By 1836 the families of Moses and Joseph had died out, though John's blood is in the veins of the Herreshoffs and Cheseboroughs. The descendants of Nicholas Brown,
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thus, were to maintain the family tradition, acquiring also in time the textile interests of Moses Brown, who had been the partner and backer of Samuel Slater, the textile pioneer. Nicholas' daughter, Hope, married Thomas P. Ives, whose descendants, together with those of Nicholas Brown, Jr., have carried on largely, in their successive generations, in both public business and private philanthropy.
The Ives family became Episcopalians somewhat earlier than the Browns. Hope Brown Ives, the great-grand-daughter of the original Hope Brown, married Henry Grinnell Russell. It was she who gave the Diocese the Bishop's house at 10 Brown Street, Providence, together with an endowment of $82,000, as it stands today. Her other great gifts were to endow the Mission and Pension Funds of the Diocese with sums now amounting to $140,000 and $50,000 respectively.
When John Carter Brown, the son of Nicholas, Jr., a Baptist and an old bachelor, married a young Episcopalian, he unwittingly did the Diocese of Rhode Island a great service. His two sons, John Nicholas and Harold, were baptized in old St. John's and grew up to be staunch and generous Churchmen, John Nicholas being low Church and Harold being high Church. They were fast friends, even if they were often on opposite sides in the proceedings of the Diocesan Convention. Both brothers died in their late thirties of pneumonia, within a short time of each other. In the Parish Hall of the Cathedral hangs a picture of a brown-bearded man, with the caption, "John Nicholas Brown, Bene- factor." Bishop McVickar, in his 1901 Address, pays the two brothers this tribute: "It is well nigh impossible to imagine a greater loss, from every point of view, than that of John Nicholas Brown, a foremost citizen of this Commonwealth and a leading member of this Church, so soon to be followed by that of his younger brother, Harold. John was perhaps better known to the Church at large, being not only a delegate to Convention from Emmanuel Church, Newport, as was also his brother, but a member of the Standing Committee of the Diocese, a deputy to General Convention, and a member of the Board of Managers of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, as well as of many other boards and committees, to whose duties he brought an eminently intelli- gent and devoted service of wise counsel and liberal support. To the many objects, religious, benevolent and educational, which sought his aid, he was ever a sympathetic and generous benefactor, one of his princely gifts being that, by which the Public Library of Providence has been able to erect its beautiful home, while his many and constant gifts of private charity can be known only by the multitude of grateful recipients.
"And only second to him in these splendid deeds stood his brother, Harold, whose unique celebration of his majority was the donation of a hundred thousand dollars to the cause of missions; to whose gracious gift the Swedes of Providence owe their beautiful Church (St. Ans- garius ); and whose continual thought and provision, even unto death, churches, institutions and individuals, alike have abundant cause for gratitude and praise. But above all special acts, the characters and lives
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of the men themselves are the irreparable loss. In the midst of the world they stood for something higher than its sordid and vain ambitions. Amid the many temptations besetting young men in their position they walked the path of simple obedience and loyalty to conscience and duty."
In memory of her two sons so early torn from life and usefulness, Mrs. John Carter Brown rebuilt the chancel of old St. John's, Providence. Mrs. John Nicholas Brown, as a memorial to her husband, built the beautiful Gothic stone edifice of Emmanuel Parish, Newport, where she worked devotedly and gave generously for over fifty years, ultimately endowing the parish with $200,000. Mrs. Harold Brown still remained, in 1952, a communicant of the same parish.
The present John Nicholas Brown, born shortly before his father's death, has nobly carried on the family tradition. His great gift, the largest to the Church in the Brown history, was the magnificent chapel of St. George's School, from which he graduated in 1918. A later interest was the founding and financing of St. Dunstan's School, to the building fund of which he recently gave $30,000. Mr. Brown has been almost continuously since 1925 a Deputy to General Convention and member of the Standing Committee, as well as of various other Boards. Appropri- ately, he married the daughter of a clergyman, Anne Kinsolving, of the famous Episcopal family which has given so many bishops and presbyters to the Church. His three children are being trained in the family Church tradition. As an Anglo-Catholic, Mr. Brown has exhibited the third variation in family and diocesan Churchmanship in two generations, in this following more his uncle than his father.
That leaving money to the Church is not yet a lost art is evidenced by the recent $500,000 legacy of Mrs. Wilks, daughter of Hetty Green, to Trinity Church, Newport. A further legacy of $300,000 probably makes Trinity, as we have said, the most highly endowed parish of any Com- munion in New England. Since 1850, in fact, the records of the diocese, parishes and diocesan institutions teem with the names of Rhode Island philanthropists, large and little. There has been a healthy democracy in testamentary giving, even if there has been no equality in distribution by regions. Thus Newport and Bristol County parishes can claim over $1,500,000 in endowments, the Providence parishes about $1,000,000 while the Blackstone Valley Churches have no more than $425,000 (of which $325,000 belongs to St. Paul's, Pawtucket); the southwestern parishes have, perhaps, $300,000, and northwest Rhode Island not more than $30,000. Most of this last is the endowment of St. Peter's, Manton, coming from half a dozen legacies.
To the large funds and legacies already noted we may add the gifts, totalling over $65,000 of Daniel A. and Emily G. Pierce to Diocesan Missions, of George Gordon King to various church enterprises within and without Rhode Island, the total of some $48,000 willed to All Saints, Pontiac, by Sophie Knight Rousmaniere and Webster Knight, the $57,000 Richard P. Durkee fund willed to St. Peter's, Narragansett Pier, the
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$91,000 fund left to the Church of the Epiphany, Providence, and many others mentioned either in the diocesan Journals or resting in the obscurity of parochial ledgers.
A sizable amount of money for Church purposes has come from the wills of clergymen. Thus Trinity Church and St. John's, Newport, have had considerable sums left to them by their former rectors, Alexander G. Mercer and Charles F. Beattie. The Church of the Redeemer received a rectory and some $30,000 from the will of its long-time rector, Frederick J. Bassett. The largest clerical legacy of all, however, was from the estate of Levi B. Edwards, diocesan missionary and, later, rector of the Church of the Transfiguration in Edgewood in the city of Cranston. The "Edwards Fund" of over $200,000 was willed to the Diocese to provide a Home for aged couples. Since the amount left was obviously insufficient for such a purpose, the money has been used to purchase, fit out and maintain Bishop McVickar House at 66 Benefit Street, Providence, as a Home for retired clergymen of the Diocese and their widows. Thus the Rhode Island Diocese makes a substantial contribution, hardly paralleled elsewhere, to the comfort and support of its retired clergy. At this present time, five of the six apartments of the McVickar House are occupied by four retired clergymen and one widow. Two wives and two daughters also live in these rent-free, heat-and-light-free apartments.
IV THE CHURCH IN PROVIDENCE
In the year 1850 Providence, then a small city, had four Episcopal Churches, with a total of 742 communicants and 571 Church School children. The oldest and wealthiest of these was colonial St. John's on North Main Street. Nathan Bourne Crocker had been its rector for forty-two years. It had 250 communicants and 265 in Church School.
The largest parish, however, was St. John's daughter, Grace Church, located in a growing neighborhood two miles away to the south. Grace Church was prospering both from its environment and from the vigorous rectorship of Bishop Henshaw. 320 communicants, but only 135 children, formed its constituency. A mile to the south of St. John's was St. Stephen's on South Benefit Street. Henry Waterman had taken it over nine years before, when it was a weak mission. By the standards of that day it had, in 1850, become an important parish, with 126 communicants and 100 children in Church School. Last and smallest of the parishes was St. Andrew's, later to be moved from Hospital Street to Friendship, and later still to the present site on Westminster and Stewart Streets. There it acquired the name of All Saints' Memorial Church, a memorial to Bishop Henshaw. The Bishop's son, Daniel Henshaw, was to be its rector for half a century, and several other of the Bishop's descendants were to be vestrymen and wardens. In 1850 St. Andrew's had but 46 com- municants and 71 in Church School.
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