USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 67
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TAfterward called (1) St. Joseph's, and (2) St. Louis. ยง Chapter XXXIII.
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building for this school in three-quarters of a century, 1928; St. Pius, St. Sebastian's, and St. Thomas, all in Providence, and Presentation of Mary, Marieville, 1929; Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Natick, 1930. The building for St. Pius combines school, church and convent for the Sisters of St. Dominic, who teach in the school, all constructed in such manner that the build- ing may be remodelled as a school by installing partitions, to meet the need for increase in accommodations after a separate church edifice has been constructed. For St. Sebastian's School Father James A. Craig purchased and remodelled the Slater Avenue schoolhouse, which had been abandoned by the school committee of Providence with the construction of a larger type of public school building.
The foundation for elementary education had been securely laid by Bishop Hickey's predecessors ; his own particular contributions to elementary education in the diocese of Provi- dence were (I) emphatic insistence on architectural design conforming to the most approved standards of schoolhouse construction, and (2) maintenance of excellent quality of instruc- tion. In the parish of St. John in Clinton, Massachusetts, from which Pope Benedict had called him to undertake a greater responsibility in Rhode Island, as Father Hickey he had built a schoolhouse and had maintained in it schools that, schoolhouse and schools, were models for excellence. To assure good instruction Bishop Hickey created the office of Dio- cesan Superintendent of Catholic Schools, held first by Reverend Cornelius J. Holland and later by Reverend Thomas V. Cassidy, the latter especially trained in anticipation of the serv- ice to which he was appointed. This diocesan supervision supplemented that consistently maintained by the religious orders whose members taught in the Catholic schools. For many years Sister Mary Bartholomew of the Order of Mercy had served as visiting teacher and supervisor in the many schools taught by the Sisters of Mercy.
Bishop Hickey's zeal for the education of youth led him also to anticipate an increasing interest in schools beyond the elementary grades, which has followed the World War and which has perplexed and almost bewildered public school administrative agencies for more than ten years, as they have attempted to persuade the people to build new high schools to accommodate youth who no longer are content with common school education. Catholic youth felt the same urge for more schooling that was common in America, and Bishop Hickey wished not only to provide Catholic high schools for ambitious boys and girls, but also to encourage them to go to high school by providing convenient facilities. There were Catholic high schools in Rhode Island, including La Salle Academy, Providence, conducted by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, for boys; St. Xavier's Academy, Providence, conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, for girls; Sacred Heart Academy, Providence, a boarding and fin- ishing school for young ladies, conducted by the Madames of the Sacred Heart; St. Mary's Seminary, at Bayview, in East Providence, a boarding school for girls, conducted by the Sis- ters of Mercy ; and other smaller high schools in Newport, Pawtucket, Providence and Woon- socket. Not less than $1,000,000 would be needed to carry the magnificent project planned by Bishop Hickey into effect. The Bishop was resourceful; indeed, the magnitude of the task rather intrigued than deterred one who had chosen for his motto "Dominus Regit Me." Bishop Hickey proposed a drive to obtain cash and pledges, the latter to be redeemed within three years, to the amount of $1,000,000, and rallied to his support a band of clergy and lay- men from all parts of the diocese, who went out under the name of Crusaders to arouse the interest of Catholic people in every parish. The appeal was modelled on the plan of war-time drives, in which, as Father Hickey, the Bishop had been a prominent four-minuteman. The result was never in doubt after returns for the first day reached drive headquarters; within the ten days allotted the million dollar high school drive had "gone over the top." Then came the fruition: In Woonsocket a monumental pile crowning a towering hill houses the new Mount Saint Charles Academy, which was opened in 1924. A new and larger La Salle Academy, in Providence, was completed and occupied in 1925. It affords ample accommo-
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dations for a thousand students comfortably, with a large assembly hall, a gymnasium, a library and laboratories ; a residence for the Christian Brothers serving as teachers, a series of athletic fields and an estate ample for expansion. St. Xavier's Academy was enlarged, the combined buildings closing three sides of a city block and fronting a partly enclosed quad- rangle, and including new classrooms and a fine auditorium. A large estate in Newport was purchased, and there the Christian Brothers opened a new De La Salle Academy for boys ; similarly in Pawtucket, St. Raphael's Academy was opened. These with Elmhurst Academy in Providence and the boarding academy for boys at Portsmouth Priory, at the north end of the Island of Rhode Island; two parish high schools in Central Falls, one in Newport. two in Pawtucket, and one in Providence, bring the total of Catholic high schools or academies in Rhode Island to fifteen, with an enrollment in 1930 of over 2300 pupils. Other educational projects promoted by Bishop Hickey included the construction of an industrial school build- ing at the House of the Good Shepherd in Providence. The first diocesan teachers' institute was conducted in the summer of 1920, with members of the religious orders teaching in the Catholic schools of the diocese attending ; out of the summer institute has grown the Catholic Teachers' College, incorporated by the General Assembly in 1929, a special project planned by Reverend Thomas V. Cassidy, Diocesan Superintendent of Catholic Schools, for the train- ing principally of Catholic teachers in service. For the time being the Teachers' College is conducted in the classrooms and halls of St. Xavier's Academy. Providence College also has conducted a summer school for Catholic teachers since 1925, offering college credit and recog- nition in college degrees ; and the summer school has been supplemented since 1926 by exten- sion courses for teachers conducted on Saturdays. The summer school and extension courses have brought to the college teaching nuns from all sections of New England ; the combined enrollment totals 350.
The Catholic school organization in Rhode Island in 1930 included: Two colleges- Providence College, liberal arts, for men, with summer school and extension courses for Catholic teachers ; Catholic Teachers' College, teacher training, for Catholic teachers. Fif- teen high schools-La Salle Academy, St. Xavier's Academy, St. Mary's Academy, Sacred Heart Academy at Elmhurst, all in Providence; Notre Dame High School and Sacred Heart High School, Central Falls ; St. Mary's Seminary, Bayview, in East Providence; De La Salle Academy and St. Joseph's High School, Newport; St. Raphael's Academy, St. John's High School, and Sacred Heart High School, Pawtucket; Portsmouth Priory, Portsmouth; Jesus- Mary Academy and Mount Saint Charles Academy, Woonsocket. Sixty-eight elementary schools, including parish schools, several of which included junior high school departments, schools in orphanages and asylums, and lower schools in academies, as follows: Albion-St. Ambrose; Arctic-St. James and St. John's; Bristol-St. Mary's; Central Falls-Holy Trinity, Notre Dame, Sacred Heart, St. Basil's, St. Joseph's, St. Matthew's ; Cranston-St. Paul's ; East Providence-Sacred Heart and St. Mary's Seminary; Manville-St. James ; Marieville -- Presentation of Mary; Nasonville-St. Teresa's; Natick-Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Joseph's ; Newport-St. Augustine's, St. Joseph's, St. Mary's, Mercy Home and School ; Pawtucket-Our Lady of Consolation, Sacred Heart, St. Cecelia's, St. Edward's, St. John's, St. Joseph's, St. Mary's ; Phenix-Notre Dame ; Providence-Assumption, Blessed Sacrament, Cleary, Elmhurst, Good Shepherd, Holy Ghost, Holy Name, Immaculate Con- ception, Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Aloysius Home, St. Ann's, St. Anthony's, St. Charles, St. Edward's, St. Mary's, St. Michael's, St. Patrick's, St. Pius, St. Raymond's, St. Sebastian's, St. Teresa's, St. Thomas, St. Vincent de Paul Home, Tyler ; Valley Falls-St. Patrick's ; Warren-St. John's; Westerly-Immaculate Conception; Woonsocket-Holy Trinity, Jesus- Mary, Mount Saint Charles, Precious Blood, St. Ann's, St. Charles, St. Francis Home, St. Joan of Arc, St. Louis, St. Stanislaus. Over 31,000 children and youth were attending regu- lar day school instruction in the Catholic schools in Rhode Island in 1930.
CHAPTER XXXV. RHODE ISLAND CHURCHES.
HE Rhode Island Charter of 1663 was the most remarkable document of the seven- teenth century, because (I) it established a republic, and (2) it proclaimed "full liberty in religious concernments." Politically it was the act of an imperialist, and therefore much more to be wondered at than the Declaration of Independ- ence, which was the work of the representatives of a people, or Magna Carta, which King John was constrained to yield consent to by a rebellious nobility. From the reli- gious point of view, the Rhode Island Charter synthesized the practical philosophy of Roger Williams and of John Clarke, as agents for Rhode Island, and of Charles II himself. Than his unfortunate father, Charles I, perhaps no monarch at the time appreciated more keenly than did the King of England the distress to which religious controversy could carry a nation, particularly if and when the civil power were exercised either to enforce or to suppress reli- gion. The King's promise to his subjects in the edict of toleration published at Breda, the faith of John Clarke, and the language used by Roger Williams in explaining the doctrine of soul liberty were embodied in the following words of the Charter: "No person within said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be anywise molested, punished, disquieted or called in ques- tion for any difference of opinion in matters of religion, who does not actively disturb the civil peace of our colony." Rhode Island, before 1663, had become a haven of refuge for those whose consciences could not abide orthodox Puritanism, and whom the Puritan theocracy would not suffer to abide peacefully in Massachusetts or Plymouth. The Pilgrim tendency to liberality was restricted by the dominating neighbor at the Bay, wherefore Plymouth warned Roger Williams away from Seekonk and joined in the exclusion and persecution of Friends. The Puritan commentators, to whom it was not given to understand soul liberty, saw in Rhode Island little except what they called irreligion and ungodliness, when they did not use more emphatic language. Irreligion and ungodliness, as the words were used by Puritans, might mean no more than heterodoxy in doctrine, neglect to attend and participate in the Puritan religious rites and exercises, and relaxation of the drastic suppression of human instincts that prevailed under Puritanism. Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were banished for heterodoxy, John Clarke and Obadiah Holmes were prosecuted by civil authority for not going to the Puritan church on Sunday, Mary Dyer was hanged, and a servant maid in Samuel Gorton's family was threatened with exile from Plymouth as an immoral person because she smiled in church. Rhode Island was neither irreligious nor ungodly, in spite of the failure in the earliest years to support a settled ministry or to build church edifices. Religious meetings were conducted in quiet groves, or in private houses. Samuel Gorton's stay at Plymouth was shortened because of objection of a neighbor to attendance of the neighbor's wife on evening prayers led by Gorton. The Joshua Verein incident in Providence-the rebuking of a citizen who sought to curtail his wife's liberty of conscience by forbidding her to attend religious services conducted by Roger Williams- confirms the falsity of the Puritan accusation of irre- ligion. Roger Williams and others were Christian missionaries, and Williams lived several years of his life among the Indians with the purpose of converting them to Christianity. Paradoxical in his inconsistency throughout his long life, amending his views so frequently that he abided not long with any sect, Roger Williams was thoroughly religious in his search for "truth." John Clarke, Anne Hutchinson, Samuel Gorton, Obadiah Holmes and Mary Dyer suffered persecution for religion's sake. None of them would use the power of the civil state to enforce his or her view upon another, though all were militant exponents of
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what they believed to be true. Because of so many and so wide differences of opinion in early Rhode Island, there was no cohesion of sufficient numbers in any instance to establish strong religious sects. Very much to the credit of Rhode Island and Rhode Islanders, there was no disposition on the part of any group to control the civil government for the accomplishment of its own sectarian purposes. Toleration had become precious to most because they had seen or experienced intolerance elsewhere. "Rara temporum felicitas ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet."
TOLERATION-The genius of Rhode Island was and is toleration, and toleration is only another name for a liberal charity which reconciles illimitable faith with respect for the faith that abides in other men and women, if for no other reason than a recognition of the fallibility of the human understanding. Toleration did not mean that there was no religious contro- versy in Rhode Island ; the early settlers were far too contentious to permit that. The rela- tions betwixt the Friends of Rhode Island and such of their predecessors as Roger Williams afford an illustration and exemplification of the Rhode Island doctrine of toleration or soul liberty as it was understood in the seventeenth century. Roger Williams and the men of Rhode Island would do nothing to interfere with the soul liberty of Friends, although many, like Roger Williams, abhorred the doctrines preached by George Fox. So early as 1657 Rhode Island refused to exclude Friends, in spite of a peremptory demand from others of the New England colonies, and the firm stand taken at that time by the least numerous group of settlers illuminates one of the most glorious pages in the history of colony and state. Yet when George Fox visited Newport in 1672 to attend the Yearly Meeting of Friends, Roger Williams challenged him to debate, proposing fourteen points as issues, and traveled with utmost haste to Newport in a canoe. Fox had departed-"slily," as Williams alleged later- but the debate, with three Friends pitted against Roger Williams, continued three days at Newport and one at Providence. The parties confirmed their own faith and failed to con- vince the opposition; the elation of victory felt by each was indicated by the broadside of pamphlets that followed. Roger Williams published his "George Fox Digged Out of His Burrowes," and Fox and Burnyeat replied with "A New England Firebrand Quenched." The complete title of the Williams pamphlet is suggestive: "George Fox digged out of his Burrowes, or an offer of disputation on fourteen proposals made this last summer 1672 (so called) unto G. Fox then present on Rhode Island in New England, by R. W. As also how (G. Fox slily departing) the disputation went on, being managed three days at Newport on Rhode Island and one day at Providence, between John Stubs, John Burnet and William Edmundson on the one part, and R. W. on the other. In which many quotations out of G. Fox and Ed. Burrowes Book in folio are alleged ; with an appendix of some scores of G. F. his simple lame answers to his opposites in that book, quoted and replied to by R. W. of Providence in N. E." Men who were capable of such controversy and who, after the fashion of the times, did not mince words in emphasizing expression, could live nevertheless together in the same civil state without persecuting each other. That was toleration of the Rhode Island type in the seventeenth century. A fine exemplification of toleration of a later type, developed in Rhode Island from the first, occurred on an occasion when the Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island was one of the guests at a reception in honor of the Catholic Bishop of Providence. After dinner the two great churchmen paid eloquent tributes to each other. "If we never pray together," said Bishop McVickar of himself and Bishop Harkins, "God forbid that we should never pray for each other." At a thanksgiving service in 1928 at Rhode Island State College minister, priest and rabbi spoke for religion with farmer for agriculture, manufacturer for industry and others for varied state interests.
EARLY CHURCH SOCIETIES-Roger Williams was alone when he slipped away from Massachusetts in midwinter of 1635; when, in the spring of 1636, he began building and planting in Seekonk he was accompanied by others from Massachusetts, who had accepted
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his doctrines for the time being. The formal organization of a religious society, probably the first in Rhode Island, occurred in 1638, when Roger Williams, rejecting the validity of infant baptism and accepting the Baptist doctrine that baptism is a rite reserved for believers, was rebaptized by Ezekiel Holliman, and in turn rebaptized Holliman, William Arnold, William Carpenter, Robert Cole, John Green, William Harris, Thomas James, Thomas Olney, Richard Waterman, Stuckley Westcott and Francis Weston. The society continues as the First Bap- tist Church in Providence, and by American Baptists is recognized as the beginning of the Baptist Church in America, with Roger Williams as the first American Baptist. Roger Wil- liams withdrew from the society within a short time, variously reported as six months to four years, because of doubt as to the validity of his baptism by Holliman, who had not the regu- larity of authorization, besides dissent in doctrine. A second Baptist society was organized in Newport in 1644, the original membership including John Clarke and wife, Thomas Clark, Mark Luker, John Peckham, John Thorndon, William Vaughan, Samuel Weeden, William Weeden, and Nathan West and wife. Other Baptist societies established in Rhode Island before 1700 included one in Providence, which, led by Thomas Olney, separated from the First Church in 1653-1654; the Second Baptist Church of Newport, separated from the First in 1656; a third Baptist church in Newport, separated from the Second in 1671; and churches in Hopkinton, 1680, and Tiverton, 1685. The division and separation of Baptist societies in Providence and Newport in the seventeenth century occurred because of differ- ences in doctrine, some of which persist in the Baptist denomination in the twentieth century, with the distinctions of Six Principle, Seventh Day and Free Will Baptists. The first Seventh Day society was organized at Newport, and the Seventh Day society at Hopkinton was first of the Sabbatarian churches in the southwestern section of Rhode Island. The second Bap- tist society in Providence did not continue ; eventually its members returned to the First Bap- tist Church or joined other churches, probably.
Members of the Society of Friends, sometimes called Quakers, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts and Plymouth, were persecuted by Puritans and Pilgrims, and many, as compulsory exiles or as seekers for relief from persecution and for freedom to wor- ship as they were persuaded, came to Rhode Island. The frenzy of persecution in Massachu- setts extended to hanging, and Mary Dyer of Rhode Island suffered the death penalty for returning to the Commonwealth after having been excluded once. Other Rhode Island Friends who visited Massachusetts were abused or maltreated while fanaticism continued. The Friends in Rhode Island increased steadily in numbers, because of fresh arrivals from England, exile from neighboring colonies, and the accession of Rhode Islanders, including William Coddington and Nicholas Easton of the original settlers at Portsmouth and Newport. Both of these were Governors of Rhode Island under the Charter, and other Governors before 1700 who were Friends included Walter Clarke and Henry Bull. The former, as Governor, by astute diplomacy avoided open conflict with Andros when the latter demanded surrender of the Charter, but saved the Charter. He it was who issued the call for resumption of gov- ernment under the Charter after the collapse of the Andros usurpation. Henry Bull became Governor when Walter Clarke, who had ventured much that savored of and approximated treason to the English government, declined reelection. The Friends became a powerful influ- ence in Rhode Island; the Rhode Island policy of neutrality or pacificism during King Philip's War has been attributed to them. Yet the Friends were not invariably pacificists. The New- port Wantons were glorious sea fighters, and Nathanael Greene was a Friend. The Yearly Meeting at Newport, the earliest organization of the Society of Friends in New England, began as early as 1659 probably, the exact date and year being indeterminable because of loss of early records. Subordinate to the Yearly Meeting were Quarterly Meetings by sections, and Monthly and Preparative Meetings, which were local. The details of the organization
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were completed with the development of groups sufficient in membership to warrant exten- sion ; the meeting of Friends embraced what in other denominations might be called a society or church.
Of the facts of Congregational, or Puritan, and Episcopal, or Church of England, preach- ing and teaching in Rhode Island, and, perhaps, the organization of societies, there is less doubt than exists as to the times at which beginnings were made. Congregational societies were established at Newport and Kingston earlier than 1695 in both instances, although in each the name of the first minister is recorded as of 1695. William Blackstone, ordained min- ister of the Church of England, settled by 1635 on Study Hill near what is now Lonsdale, visited Providence to preach and teach until he died in 1675. He also visited the house of Richard Smith at Wickford monthly. Episcopal services were conducted with some regu- larity at Newport as early certainly as 1698, the development leading to the establishment of Trinity Church. Besides the four denominations-Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal and Friend-thus organized in Rhode Island before 1700, other groups, whose identification with modern religious societies has not been demonstrated, met "for godly edifying themselves and one another in the holy Christian faith and worship, as they were persuaded." Among these were the followers of Samuel Gorton in Warwick. There were others also, who, like Roger Williams, found no abiding place in any sect or denomination, though professing Christianity or faith in God and praying sometimes alone and sometimes in company.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CHURCHES-There was much less of controversy in the religious life of Rhode Island in the eighteenth than in the seventeenth century, and a growth in the number of persons enrolled in organized church societies that might be expected in view of the steady growth in population. The increase in the number of churches does not warrant the assumption that the people of Rhode Island were more religious in the eighteenth than in the seventeenth century, however. Baptist societies were formed in Coventry, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Exeter, Hopkinton, North Kingstown, Scituate, Smithfield, South Kings- town, Westerly and Warwick in the first half of the century, and others at Cranston, Foster, North Providence and Warren before the Revolution. The thirty-eight Baptist churches in 1790 supported thirty-seven ministers, and enrolled 3500 members. The Friends, including by 1700 not less than half the population of the Island of Rhode Island, besides many who had established homes on the mainland, built meeting houses at Greenwich, in 1700; in the part of Smithfield which is now the town of Lincoln, in 1704; in Union Village, Woonsocket, in 1719; in Warwick, 1721; in Providence, in 1724-1725; and in Cranston, at Oaklawn, in 1730.
When, in January, 1746-1747, the eastern boundary line claimed by Rhode Island was confirmed by royal decree, Barrington, Bristol, Cumberland, Little Compton, Tiverton and Warren were restored to Rhode Island. With the acquisition of territory and population came several churches, including Congregational churches at Barrington, founded probably before 1660; at Bristol, after the Massachusetts fashion by order in town meeting, in 1680; at Little Compton, 1704. A Congregational society in Tiverton, in process of formation, was organized in August, 1746, after the town had been restored to Rhode Island. The Congrega- tional Church in Newport divided in 1728, the parts thereafter until the Revolution being known as, respectively, the First and Second churches. The first Congregational church in Providence was established in 1728, after labor of five years, on the initiative of Connecticut and Massachusetts societies. A second Congregational church in Providence, the Beneficent, was organized in 1743 by secession from the First Church. The two Congregational churches in Newport were closed during the Revolutionary War, as was the Congregational Church at Bristol. The Second Church in Newport was so weakened by loss of membership that after a vain effort at continuance, it joined with the First as the United Congregational Church in 1833.
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