USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 18
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* Humphrey, pp. 117, 118.
t See this Act in Dalcho, Appendix, 437. # Dalcho, 296.
169
ORANGE QUARTER.
1710-1720.]
ever ; it defines the privileges and responsibilities of its rec- tor; provides for his maintenance out of the public treasury, and enjoins the use of Dr. Darell's translation of the Book of Common Prayer-in the administration of the rites and in the public services of the church-so long as the English language shall be unintelligible to the inhabitants. The Act declares, however, that " no payment for the support of a minister shall commence before the arrival in the province of a minister sent by the Right Reverend Father in God, Henry, Lord Bishop of London, or his successor," &c.
. The reservation clause in the Act precluded the Huguenot minister, M. Robert, from the benefit of its provisions. It is evident, indeed, from the spirit and phraseology of the law, that its operation was necessarily suspended until a minister, episcopally ordained, had been commissioned by the Bishop of London to assume the duties of the cure; and that so long as the congregation remained under the pastorship of a French Protestant minister, the rectorship would be in abeyance, and the church would remain under its original and ancient con- stitution. It undoubtedly did retain its name and character as a Reformed church, until the arrival of M. Pouderous in 1720. Philip de Richebourg was pastor of the French church on the Santee until his death. As he was never episcopally ordained, he could not be fixed there by the Bishop of London, and was never rector of the parish.
The church in ORANGE QUARTER was still under the pastoral care of Rev. M. De la Pierre. His life extended into the next decade. And although his necessitous circumstances drew from the Assembly, Oct. 11, 1711, a gratuity of £20 currency " for his present relief and support," and April, 1712, they added £50 to his salary, and an Act was passed June 7, 1712, increasing it to £100 per annum,-although this is true, there is evi- dence that they still met in their own church, which, says Dr. Humphrey, " is a pretty good church, built about the time St. Thomas's was (1708). The major part of them usually met in a church of their own, where they generally made a pretty full congregation, when they had a French minister among them." This was published in 1730.
In St. John's parish, on the WESTERN BRANCH OF COOPER RIVER, the French minister Trouillard continued to offer Mr. Maule, the Episcopal missionary, the use of his church, the English church not being begun till 1710, though the offer of £333 currency had been extended to all the parishes for church building since 1706. The outside was not finished
170
CHURCH ON EDISTO ISLAND.
[1710-1720.
till 1711, when Mr. Maule began to use it, and to continue those labors of proselyting, in which the church dignitaries at home, and the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and the governor and council in Carolina, were so assiduously en- gaged. Mr. Trouillard died in 1712. No other pastor succeeded him. No further traces of the Huguenot church can be found. It seems to have been dissolved and absorbed in the parish church of the faith established by the civil and proprietary government.
Some time during this period, 1710-1720, if not earlier, we may probably place the commencement of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF EDISTO ISLAND. This island was permanently settled in the beginning of the century, principally by emi- grants from Scotland and Wales. All the grants are dated in either the last years of the seventeenth or the first of the eighteenth century. The Presbyterian denomination has always been the most numerous here. The date of their church organization cannot be perfectly ascertained. Its records, if any existed, were destroyed during the conflicts of the Revolution ; nor indeed are there any known to be extant for a period long subsequent to this. In 1705, Henry Bower obtained a grant of three hundred acres from the lords proprietors. This land he conveyed in 1717 to certain persons named, in trust, for the benefit of a Presbyterian minister on Edisto Island .* All that this can prove is that there were Presbyterians resident there, and that the per- manent residence of a Presbyterian minister among them was a matter of solicitude. Whether Edisto was one of the five churches of British Presbyterians existing in the province June 1st, 1710, we cannot decide.
The churches which Archibald Stobo is said, by . Dr. Ramsay, to have founded on the Presbyterian plan, are those of WILTON, PON PON, JAMES ISLAND, and CAINHOY. He arrived in Charleston in 1700, and lived, says Dr. Ramsay, nearly half a century afterwards. Whether these, with the church in Charleston, now called the Circular Church, are the "five churches of British Presbyterians," the latter writer speaks of in 1710 (see page 163), we know not; but tradition makes Mr. Stobo to have removed from Charleston to Wilton, in 1704; and to have established that church. We do not know that this tradition rests on any certain foundation.
* Rev. Donald McLeod, and Dr. Auld, in Ramsay, vol. ii., Appendix, 558.
171
EFFORTS OF EPISCOPALIANS.
1710-1720.]
There is no documentary evidence we have met with on which to found it, but it is not improbable.
During these ten years the Episcopalians, who had aroused themselves, after a period of thirty-two years, to the promo- tion of religion in the colony, continued to extend themselves, with the aid of the society before referred to, and with the substantial aid of the government, who taxed all parties, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Quakers alike, for the salaries, churches, glebes, schools, and school-houses of the favored church. In the parish of Goose Creek, Dr. Le Jeau, who seems to have been an active minister, died in 1717. In St. John's, on the western branch of Cooper river, Mr. Maule pursued his labors, where the French had before established the gospel. Books were distributed at the cost of the society, which are represented as having a good effect in removing prejudices. Particularly the Book of Common Prayer, with "Dr. Beveridge's sermon on the Excellency and Usefulness of the Common Prayer," was of great service. The evidence which this presents is more of a desire to promote Episcopacy than to win souls to Christ. For these books were circulated in Dissenting families, and "among the younger people of the French." In the fatal Indian war, in 1715, he was driven into garrison with the people, was in- cessantly engaged in his clerical offices, and contracted, through the confinement and fatigue incurred, a disease which terminated his life in 1717. Mr. Osborn was sent to St. Bartholomew's in 1713, but was driven in by the Indians in 1715 to Charlestown, and there died. Mr. Guy, assistant of Mr. Johnson of Charlestown, was sent by the society to St. Helena in 1713, but was also driven back to Charlestown by the rising of the Indians in 1715. " Anabaptist and Pres- byterian teachers" had been there before him ; but they were without public worship on his arrival. His labors were per- formed in private houses in different parts. Rev. William Tradewell Bull was appointed minister to St. Paul's in 1712, at the church which had been erected at the head of Stono river in 1708. His parsonage was burnt in the Indian war. Rev. Gilbert Jones was sent to Christ Church parish in 1713, and labored much for the instruction of the negroes as well as their masters. Mr. Taylor was appointed missionary to St. Andrew's in 1711 ; but disputes arising between him and the parish, he removed to North Carolina in 1717; and was suc- ceeded by Mr. Guy, who, on being driven from St. Helena, went as missionary to Narragansett, in New England, but
172
REVIVAL OF EPISCOPACY.
[1710-1720.
now returned on account of his health to Carolina. A church edifice was commenced, in 1719, in St. George, which was separated from St. Andrew's, and erected into a parish in 1717. And in the same year (1719), Rev. Peter Tustian was appointed missionary here, who found the country so divided by party broils, that after a brief ministry he removed to Maryland. Mr. Gideon Johnston, the first commissary of the Bishop of London, continued to officiate at St. Philip's, in Charleston, till April, 1716, when, on going down in a sloop to take leave of Governor Craven, then leaving for England in a British man-of-war, the sloop was capsized and he drowned. Alexander Gardon arrived in Charlestown in 1719, and was elected Rector of St. Philip's.
It is evident from these notices that Episcopacy had awaked from its slumber of more than thirty years over the infant colony of South Carolina, and was now in earnest, and with no small success, striving to spread the Established religion of England over this colony, the majority of whom were dis- senters from prelatical government. The emigrations of Huguenots, like those of the Independents of New England, were generally accompanied by ministers of the gospel. In the wild woods the church was erected almost as soon as their own dwellings. Episcopacy waited till the colony was increased in wealth and numbers; and then they came too much in the spirit of proselytism and of public dictation, as the national and favored church, and by parish lines put under their own clergy the entire population which did not recal- citrate at so manifest a tyranny. We cannot speak dis- paragingly of their clergy. But the Rev. Mr. Marston ad- vised the recall of their first missionary, Mr. Thomas, " that he may be maintained a few years at one of the universities, where he may better learn the principles and government of the Church of England, &c., and some other useful learning,"* and informed the bishop of Mr. Thomas's violent temper and conduct. Mr. Taylor, too, was unacceptable to the people. And the Bishop of London avowed to Dr. Doddridge that most of the men whom he had sent out to Virginia were bank- rupt in fortune and character. But it were invidious to make such comparisons. No church and no ministry is perfect.t
* Dalcho.
t Yet Bishop Burnet says : " During my whole life, I have lamented that I saw so little true zeal among our clergy. The Dissenters have a great deal among them ; but I must own that the main body of our clergy has always appeared to me dead and lifeless." "The Dissenters have a much larger
173
RISING OF THE INDIANS.
1710-1720.]
The concurrent political events of this period were not numerous, though some were of great importance. Charles Craven, secretary of the province, and brother of the palatine, was made governor at a very critical period of its history, and entered upon his office in a spirit of kindness, and won the good-will of all parties. He exhibited the " greatest tender- ness towards dissenters," and promised them the uninter- rupted enjoyment of their liberties.
In the fall of 1711, there was a rising of the Indians in North Carolina, to which reference has already been made. They are recorded as running from house to house, spreading slaughter among the scattered families wherever they went. One hundred and thirty-seven settlers fell a sacrifice the first night. Their cruelty was accompanied with singular freaks of savage ingenuity. The General Assembly of South Caro- lina was immediately assembled, and Colonel Barnwell was sent forward through the wilderness with a force of six hun- dred whites and three hundred and sixty Indian allies, the legislature appointing a day of humiliation and prayer on their behalf. Colonel Barnwell crossed the Neuse river in January, attacked and routed the savage foe, killing in his first engagement three hundred Indians and taking one hun- dred prisoners, and compelled them to sue for peace. A second massacre was commenced, and South Carolina again sent an army, principally composed of friendly Indians, under Colonel Moore, who laid siege to their fort, killing two hun- dred of the enemy and capturing eight hundred, who were claimed as a reward by his Indian allies. This savage at- tempt to exterminate the whites was thus happily defeated.
The coronation of George I. occurred October 12th, 1714. Not long after this event another attempt was made by the Indians to exterminate the colonists and regain their ancient domain. Through the reign of Queen Anne the Ya- massees, a powerful tribe, whose residence lay between the Spanish settlements of Florida and Carolina, had stood aloof from the Spaniards and been devoted to the English colonists. They had taken up their residence on the Carolina side of the
share of knowledge among them than is among those who come to our churches." "The gentry are for the most part the worst instructed, and the least knowing of any of their rank I ever went amongst." "A gentleman here," in England, " is often both ill-taught and ill-bred; this makes him hasty and insolent. They grow soon to find it a modish thing, that looks like wit and spirit, to laugh at religion and virtue, and to become crude and un- polished infidels."-Life and Times, vol. vi., pp. 183, 186, 195, 198.
* Hewatt, 112; Wheeler, 37.
174
REVOLT OF THE YAMASSEES.
[1710-1720.
Savannah river, between it and Port Royal Island, which territory was for a long time after called "The Indian Land." Ere the Carolinians were aware, the Yamassees became alienated by real or imaginary injuries, and their chief war- riors were observed to make frequent visits to St. Augustine, and to return loaded with presents. The Spaniards could never lay aside their hostility to the Protestant faith. They were told, probably by some Jesuit priest, that the English were wicked heretics, doomed to hell, as the Yamassees also were if they permitted them to live.
Governor Craven, hearing of some dissatisfaction among the Indians, had already despatched Captain Nairn and Mr. John Cochran to Pocotaligo to know the cause of their dis- content. They saw the chief warriors, and offered immediate satisfaction for any wrong. The Indians pretended to be friendly, and treated their guests to a good supper. At night they lay down to sleep in the round-house with the king and chiefs in seeming tranquillity. But the next morning, at break of day [April 15, 1715], the round-house was beset, and the massacre begun. Captain Nairn, John Wright, and Thos. Ruffly were murdered; Mr. Cochran, his wife, and four chil- dren were seized as prisoners, and afterwards slain ; and above ninety other persons residing at Pocotaligo and on neighbor- ing plantations were put to death. The Indians divided themselves into two parties, one attacking Port Royal and the other St. Bartholomew's. The inhabitants of the former, three hundred in number, went on board a merchant vessel lying in the river, and escaped to Charlestown, among whom was Rev. Mr. Guy, the society's missionary. A few families only fell into the hands of the Indians, and were barbarously tortured. In St. Bartholomew's, one hundred Christians fell into the hands of the Indians ; the rest, with Mr. Osborn, the society's missionary, escaped to Charlestown. . The Indians came down as far as the Stono, burning houses and churches .*
It was evident that an arrangement had been entered into by the Indians from Florida to Cape Fear to exterminate the whites. On the north they came upon the French on the Santee, and murdered the family of a Mr. Hearne. They then advanced upon Goose Creek. The inhabitants fled before them, except that at one plantation a party of seventy white men and forty negroes threw up a breast-work, and resolved to defend themselves to the last. But perceiving the over-
* See account of the breaking out of the Yamassee War, Boston News of the 13th of June, 1715 .- Carroll's Collections, ii., p. 569.
175
FLIGHT OF PRESBYTERIAN MINISTERS.
1710-1720.]
powering numbers of the Indians, they listened to proposals of peace. But the perfidious savages, as soon as admitted within their fort, put the 'garrison to death. They were finally arrested near Charleston, and, after a protracted and obstinate engagement, driven back into the wilderness.
It was a time of exceeding distress and danger, and it ap- pears that our Presbyterian ministers, with others, sought safety elsewhere. The following extract from a MS. letter of Cotton Mather to Mr. Rodhin, in Glasgow, dated 6ª, vim, 1715, says : "The miserable colonists of Carolina, as I am informed by their worthy Scottish ministers, refugees thence, now so- journing in my next neighborhood, were in a fair way to be a religious country under the influence of Presbyterian minis- ters." But " the people grew so wicked that ye salvages, who had been greatly injured and provoked by them, are broken in upon ym, and have destroyed multitudes of people with such barbarities as no myrmydons ever heard of. They have laid ye country in a manner all wast, but ye Capital Town by ye sea side, which is thought can hold out but a little while ; and thus a flourishing and opulent colony is covered with a fearful desolation. But it is feared lest ye salvages have en- tered into a very extensive combination, which may be ani- mated by the French Canadians, whereof some other colonies, which are on the worst accounts too much ripened for such things, may feel the most tremendous consequences." Who these "worthy Scottish ministers" were we do not know. Mr. Stobo, Mr. Livingston, and a Mr. Witherspoon, of James Island, are all whose names have reached us as laboring in the colony that could be thus described. Mr. Stobo had prob- ably already gathered a church at Wiltown ; and if so, this settlement was temporarily broken up and its inhabitants sought safety in flight.
Hearing of these disasters in Carolina, the Society for Propagating the Gospel wrote to their missionaries express- ing their sympathy, and informing them that they had agreed to give them a half-year's salary as a gratuity for their present relief. That this bounty might be enjoyed with all speed, Colonel Rhett was requested to pay all the missionaries and schoolmasters of the society the above-mentioned gratuity ; and in case the other clergy, not missionaries, should be in straits in consequence of this public calamity, he should also pay them a sum not exceeding thirty pounds sterling, which the society presented them towards their support, and au- thorized Colonel Rhett to draw on their treasurer for this
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176
LETTER OF COTTON MATHER.
[1710-1720.
amount. The money was paid as desired; and Rev. Messrs. La Pierre and Richebourg, two French ministers, received thirty pounds each. They were both just preparing to quit the country on account of their great want, but were pre- vented by so seasonable a relief through the society's bounty. (Humphrey, pp. 101, 102.)
This assistance rendered by the society was very proper, but it was very discriminating. The title of the society is " The Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts." It came to be regarded in all the colonies as a society for propagating Episcopacy in foreign parts. The feelings with which it was viewed may be seen in the same letter of Cotton Mather from which we have quoted, the original of which is in the Antiquarian Library at Worcester, Mass.
".We are somewhat, though not in the same degree, your fellow-sufferers, in regard of Emigrants from yr Church of England imposing themselves now and then upon us. We live in all amicable correspondence with ye con- gregation of that way in this populous Town, which doth consist very much of strangers coming in among us. We have had two or three instances in the country ; that in a Town of near two hundred Christian families, a little crew of litigious people had need govern. Previous [the words here oblit- erated] which knew as little of the Ch. of E. as they do of the religion of Mahomet or Confucius; yett will declare for ye Ch. of E., that so they may have the government appearing on their side. These, al- though they are few in number, and on all other considerations the most contemptible and scarce-regarded part of the Town, apply themselves to ye Society for Propagation; and ye Society, very little for their honour, send forth and support their missionaries, on those occasions, to maintain con- fusion in Towns of well-instructed Christians, while at ye same time whole plantations of the Southern Colonies, where are perfect paganism, are left wholly uncared for. To enable themselves ye better for the molestation of ye churches, the Society has sent their briefs over ye churches of ye Dis- senters in England, to raise money for you. While it is at ye same time ob- servable that in ye more southern Colonies their missionaries (Blades for their morals, too often, like those we have blessed withal,) unaccountably neglect the paganizing plantations, but choose to screw themselves in where a Pres- byterian church is gathered; and if a Presbyterian makes a sally to do good in any of the aforesaid plantations, they will presently follow him, to per- suade the people that all his ministrations are but nullities. No remon. strance will put a stop to these unaccountable proceedings, nor, perhaps, anything but the eighteenth chapter of ye Revelation."
He uses the same language, and speaks very slightingly of the character of the missionaries in a letter to Mr. Walrood, dated 31 of 8th mo., 1716.
The most vigorous measures were now adopted by Gover- nor Craven ; and this was necessary, or all had been lost. The entire military force of the colony was not over twelve hundred men. The Indians could muster eight or ten thou-
1710-1720.]
THE SCHISM BILL DEFEATED. 177
sand warriors. By his exertions the Indians were driven from their haunts this side of the Savannah, and the colony was freed from this great and threatening danger.
The agents of the colony solicited assistance from the pro- prietors, but they .declared themselves unable to furnish it, and applied for the interposition of the king, offering to repay the expense he should incur. This request was acceded to, and munitions of war were sent. The proprietors granted the Yamassee lands, which extended from the head of Combahee to Fort Moore on the Savannah, and they were appropriated by the Assembly to all Protestant emigrants. A bounty was offered for the importation of white servants. The agent in England petitioned for some of the prisoners taken in the Scotch rebellion. Five hundred men from Ireland trans- ported themselves to Carolina to take the benefit of the acts of the legislature. But the proprietors afterwards ordered the Indian lands to be surveyed and partitioned off into large baronies. The Irish emigrants having spent what little money they had, were reduced to great straits, and either came to beggary and an untimely end, or made their way to the northern colonies, and many old settlers deserted the land they had occupied. At length the people, their patience being exhausted by the unwillingness or inability of the proprietors to aid them, and by their perverse adher- ence to the aristocratical and impracticable plan of the colony, displaced the governor appointed by them, and elected and proclaimed James Moore governor of South Carolina, in the name of his majesty the King of England.
This period, 1710-1720, was marked in the religious history of England with some important events. In the beginning of it High Church bigotry was greatly aroused, principally in connection with the violent railings of Dr. Sacheverell against Dissenters and Low Churchmen. He was impeached and tried, February 27th, 1710. He was found guilty by the British parliament, but protected by Queen Anne. In May, 1714, the Schism Bill, which prohibited any one from being an instructor or tutor of youth, unless he conformed to the liturgy of the Church of England, and obtained a license from the ecclesiastical authorities, passed both houses of Par- liament, and on June 25th, 1714, received the royal assent, and was to go into effect on the first of August ; but on that dreaded day Queen Anne was summoned to the tribunal of God; and bigotry was defeated by the accession to the Eng- lish throne of George I., of the house of Brunswick, a firm
12
178
INTRODUCTION OF ARMINIANISM.
[1710-1720.
friend of liberty of conscience, who visited with his displeasure all instances of special ecclesiastical tyranny which occurred .* Among the Dissenters were men of influence and worth, the most illustrious of whom were Dr. Isaac Watts and Matthew Henry, the one awakening and diffusing vital godli- ness by his heavenly muse, and the other furnishing food to piety and devotion in his celebrated commentary on the Scrip- tures, and, besides his indefatigable labors in his own pulpit, making annual excursions as an itinerant missionary through extensive districts of country, till his lamented death, June 22d, 1714.
Arianism first made its appearance in the Church of Eng- land. But in a few years after the publication of the writings of Clarke and Whiston, two Presbyterian ministers of that mongrel form which Presbyterianism had assumed in England, viz. : Joseph Hallet and James Pierce, of Exeter, in 1717 began to broach Arian errors. The thirteen elders of the city of Exeter called on Mr. Pierce to preach on the divinity of Christ. Not receiving any satisfaction by his discourse or otherwise, they debarred them from the pulpits of their churches.
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