USA > South Carolina > Berkeley County > Goose Creek > St. James church, Goose Creek, S. C. : a sketch of the parish from 1706 to 1909 > Part 4
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But we trust that "the night is now far spent" and that the day is "once more at hand." God, who might have poured upon this Parish and this stricken land the full measure of Is- rael's woes, and who might have made them a forever desolation, "retaineth not his anger forever" and bath showed us grace. He has "left us a remnant to escape." He has still given us a nail in Ilis holy place. He has "lightened our eyes." He has "given us a reviving."
Perhaps a brighter day is dawning upon these homes of our forefathers. Perhaps some of us may live to look upon its noon- tide of prosperity. Oh! surely Hle who remembered Judah in her extremity, who gathered her outcasts and returned her captivity, who stirred up in her behalf the spirit of Cyrus to re- store her cities and to rebuild and beautify her temple-surely He hath remembered us also. Yes, we too may say, "Our God hath not forsaken us, but hath extended merey to us to give us a reviving. " Witness, thou venerable Temple of the Most High,
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who, but yesterday wast almost a desolation, but who hast now shaken thyself from the dust and put on again thy beautiful garments and liftest up thyself fair as ever, and callest thy chil- dren to thee!
Beloved! upon ourselves will it depend in no small measure whether Jehovah's smile shall continue to rest upon us, and our future path be as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day, or whether this dawn of promise shall be quickly overcast with clouds, and our rising hopes be erushed by disappointment and disaster. God is drawing near to us. Let us draw near unto Him. Let us not grieve His Holy Spirit, but let us return every one from his evil way; let us amend our doings; let us make His will our law; let us "seek first His kingdom and righteousness."
Oh! let us recognize and rise to our privileges. Let us re- member that we might this day have been, where millions still are, "sitting in the region of the shadow of death," "afar off, having no hope, and without God in the world."
Let us call to mind the price of our redemption,"not corrupt- ible things, as silver and gold, but the precious blood of Christ." And let us resolve by the grace of God to consecrate to His service ourselves, our faculties and powers. "Him that honoreth me I will honor, saith Jehovah."
Oh! then, let us seek His honor by "adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." Let us honor Him in our persons, by casting aside the degrading fear of man, and the more degrading shame of Ilis glorious Gospel, and acknowledg- ing Him, both in public and in private as our Creator, Benefac- tor and Redermer. Let us honor Ilim in our families by setting up in their nudst His altar; by burning upon it continually the incense of prayer and praise, and by bringing up our children in His nurture and admonition. Let us honor Him and His Temple, by coming hither not from custom, not from constraint, not from curiosity, but from gratitude and love, to seek before His Mercy Seat, peace and pardon, faith and grace, guidance and protection. Let us honor Him in the world by redeeming our time, by "'or- dering our conversation aright, " by extending our circle of active benevolence, by causing our "light to shine before men." Then will He "bow the heavens and come down." Then will He dwell among us. Then shall we be indeed "the sons and daughters of the Lord Ahnighty." Then shall we walk in "the glorious lib- erty of the children of God." Then will He "pour His spirit upon our seed, and His blessing upon our offspring." Then shall this house be filled with glory, and many be trained up here for their heavenly inheritance. Then, within these courts, "one · shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel."
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Then shall this old Parish bloom as of old and "bring forth her increase; and God, even our own God, shall give us His bles- sing."'
But, if it may not be; if it is not to be; if intelligence and cul- ture and refinement and purity and virtue are to go down before ignorance and barbarism and venality and vice, let us remember, if Christians, that we are citizens of a better country; of a king- dom which cannot be moved by all the forces of passion and wrong; of "a. city which hath foundations" indestructible, "whose builder and maker is God."
Beloved! this temple, like the earth which we inhabit, must pass away. "The things which are seen are temporal," and "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands." But, as I look upon these sepulehres around me, and upon these living, breathing forms before me, methinks I hear a voice from the excellent Glory, crying to all who are in Christ, "Ye are the tem- ple of the living God." And when all the stones of that temple shall set in their places, and when the topmost stone shall be brought forth amid shouting, crying, "Grace, grace unto it," then the King shall appear in His beauty. He shall enter in and ascend that throne, whose basis is Judgment and Righteous- ness; whose arms are not like these above me, the emblems of broken power and departed sovereignty, but of Omnipotence eter- nal and of unchanging love: and in the sunshine of His presence we shall find enduring rest and unbroken peace.
"The Spirit and the Bride say come, and let him that heareth say come, and whosoever will, let him come, " and claim through Jesus joys which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man."'
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HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF THE COLONIAL CHURCH.
SERMON OF THE REV. DR. ROBERT WILSON, APRIL 12, 1896, ON THE OCCASION OF THE UNVEILING OF THE TABLET TO THE COLONIAL RECTORS OF THAT ANCIENT PARISH-INTERESTING RESEARCHES AND INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY AFFILIATIONS OF THE CHURCH OF GENEVA AND THE THEN "ESTABLISHED CHURCH" IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
Following is the excellent historical discourse delivered Sunday, April 12, 1896, by the Rev, Robert Wilson, before the congrega- tion of St. James, Goose Creek, and the members of the Huguenot Society, who attended the services at that ancient sanctuary. The text was from Proverbs x. 7th: "The Memory of the Just is Blessed."
We have come together to-day, my friends, within the walls of this historie sanctuary to commemorate the lives and labors of those sainted men who were the pioneers of the Church of God in this Commonwealth. And I call them saints advisedly, with neither sentiment nor conventionalism, upon the open record of their works and conversation, for the saints of God are not people who are supposed to have lived impossible lives or wrought im- probable miracles, but the plain God-fearing baptized men and women who do their best by God's help to live Christian lives and do their duty faithfully in that state of life into which it has pleased God to call them. And surely we do well to remember during this blessed Fastertide these makers of the Common- wealth and founders of the Church in our Southern land whose humble and obscure, but diligent efforts have left in the character of the people an impress more enduring than these substantial walls, which have survived the ravages of time, the devastation of wars, and the shock of the earthquake and the storm. For "the memory of the just is blessed," and the law of the germ is eternal. The seed which has been lain in the dark damp carth through all the deadness of the winter's cold, with the mystery of potential life enclosed in its perishing husk, will surely burst into leaf and bloom and fruitage when the sunshine of the spring time smiles upon it, and the gentle rain drops kiss it into life. The bodies which mingle restfully with their kindred dust while aging the earth tells of the passing centuries of its existence have also somewhere hidden like the seed life from our feeble knowledge a germ of future being which in God's own time shall renew them, each in its own identity, to the possibilities of those revived activities which shall ripen through eternity toward a never to be
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attained maturity. And so the life of a good man, lived for others, and instinct with the truth of God, when fixed like the grafted bud upon lives less pure and less true, will bury itself in the coarser nature with its compelling life germ, and by the inevitable law of heredity will live again and again in always developing influ- ence for good to the remotest generations of posterity.
.To follow these beneficent influences through the history of this venerable Parish and the biographies of the men who exercised them is the task which has been assigned to me to-day and to which I invite your attention, but it is impossible to do so under- standingly without a brief, comprehensive view of the history of the times and the causes which sent civilization and religion into this wilderness. At the opening of the Eighteenth Century there were already many white settlers, owning considerable numbers of negro slaves, engaged in reclaiming the rich swamps and clear- ing for agriculture the fertile highlands on the banks of the Santee, the Wando and the Cooper. Among them were some men of comparative wealth, but the large majority were poor and igno- rant, with no religious privileges and apparently little desire for them. From the private letters and official reports of the earliest Missionaries we learn that immorality, drunkenness and profanity were prevailing vices among this population. The bitterness of the recent civil war in England had crossed the ocean with these emigrants and produced among them political acrimony and re- ligious dissension, which no community of hardship and peril had been able to eradicate. With one portion loyalty to the Church of England went hand in hand with loyalty to the Crown, both of which were represented by the Proprietary Government, while with the other part the spirit of Republicanism and the various forms of dissent which the period of Puritan ascendancy had fostered caused a deep-set hostility to Church and State alike, but, more strongly to the Church:
There was another and most important element, however, which took no part in the bickerings, being distinct in nationality and religious belief, but which soon won for itself the opposition of the dissenting faction by its passive sympathy with the Church and eventually became a strong and important factor in its es- tablishment. These were the Huguenot settlers on the Santee and the eastern branch of the Cooper, and in the Orange Quarter of St. Thomas' Parish, most of whom had been kindly received in England when driven by persecution from France, and sent to Carolina at the expense of the Crown.
In morals and religion these French refugees were in marked contrast to the English settlers, and they gratefully recognized the tolerance and even fellowship which they had received from the Church and its clergy. The negro slaves were almost to a man heathens, who had received no religions teaching, while the Indians were also pagans, though some of them were nominally
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Roman Catholics as a result of Spanish influence. These savages were a constant menace to the colonists, though fortunately for the latter they were already a mere remnant, the Yemassees about Goose Creek numbering only about two hundred, while the Wan- does and Westoes had been reduced to a few families. The white families settled at Goose Creek were almost exclusively Church of England people.
Such was the population which received occasional ministra- tions from the Rev. William Corbin, A. M., who came to the Province in 1700 and remained until 1703. He was a clergyman of some distinction in England, but be bad no authoritative con- nection with this Parish, nor have we any record of effective work done by him. Of his character and zeal we know nothing, but his opportunities must have been very few and slight, since he was not an accredited missionary, and there was neither church edifice nor organization to assist his efforts.
In June, 1702, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, of the Church of England, commissioned the Rev. Samuel Thomas, of Ballydon, near Sudbury, as Missionary to the Yemassee Indians in South Carolina. Through the kind- ness of a decendant of this gentleman I have been able to consult copies of the Minutes of the Society in reference to Mr. Thomas' appointment, and personal letters of his own, which together give an exhaustive account of his work in all its details. His testi- monials, signed by four clergymen, bear witness to his high per- sonal character, exemplary piety and ripe learning. lle was about thirty years of age and was married. It makes strange reading for us now; his piteous complaints of a leaky ship, un- armed and insufficiently manned, causing daily fear of being cast away or captured by the French, his ill-treatment by the captain and his Godless crew, who cursed him and refused him the berth he had paid for; his voyage of more than twelve weary weeks in sickness and poverty, and his landing at Charles Town on Christ- mas Day, 1702-3. He was kindly received and cared for by the Governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who took him home to his house. But the Yemassees were restless and sore from a recent unsuccessful war against the Spaniards, and the Governor re- fused to let him go among them. In his defence before the Society, when charged with not going to his work, he states that these Indians spoke barbarous tongue, which was incapable of expressing and conveying the truths of Christianity. "Our Father, who art in Heaven, " must be to them "Our Father at the top." "Thy kingdom come," ""Thy great village come."
The Society accepted his excuse, and he became Governor Johnson's Chaplain, finding ample scope for his ministry in the conversion of heathen negroes and scattered Indians and in ardu- ous duties among the settlers at three stations, fifteen miles apart, the charge of the Cooper River Colonists having been assigned
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him by the Governor. His residence was Goose Creek, which he speaks of as "the best settled creek in Carolina, the people well- affected to the Church of England. He baptized seven children and recommends the appointment of a minister, "his soul being greatly moved to see the best and most numerous congregation in Caro- lina as sheep having no shepherd." This was in 1704. In his eure there were over a thousand negro slaves, many of whom he taught to read and baptized. He enumerates one hundred and twenty families, including many people of note, five families of French Protestants, who were Calvinists, three Presbyterians and two Anabaptists. There were then thirty communicants, one being a Christian negro. He says they had built a small church, but it could not hold the numbers who came to his services. He tells us that the Dissenters were very bitter and anxious to build up their party at the sacrifice of all others. Ile was sorely troubled by the opposition of the Rev. Mr. Marston, Minister at Charles Town, who strove to injure him with the honorable Society.
He accuses this gentleman of being an ardent Jacobite and possi- ble Papist, and states that he openly avowed his hostility to King William. He went to England in 1705, established his justifica- tion with the Society, and was paid all his arrears, and returned to Carolina with his family in 1706, during which year he died.
The Rev. Francis LeJau, D. D., was in Carolina at the time, and reported Mr. Thomas' death to the Society. This gentleman was the first clergyman accredited exclusively to the Goose Creek community, and with him began the organic life of the Parish. A Huguenot, and a native of Angers, in France, Dr. LeJan had taken orders in the Church of England and made his mark there, as is evidenced by his doctor's degree from Trinity College, Dublin, and the fact of his being a Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral. Thus we see that the affiliation of the refugees from persecution in France with the Church of England, a most interesting fact which will meet us again in the history of this Parish, had already taken definite shape in the mother country. Indeed, it could not well have been otherwise, for in spite of the essential difference in Church Polity which separated these two developments of the Reformation, that Church had received those faithful confessors for conscience sake in the spirit of Christian love. Men like Martin Buser had been honored with professorships in the great universities, and a congregation of Huguenots had been permitted for years to worship after their own forms and with their own ministers in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, where the "Hu- guenot Chapel" is still shown to visitors.
These things could never have been under the Government of Charles II, had there been any connection whatever between these non-conforming foreign Christians and and phase of English Dissent, which was entangled inextricably with politics and re- bellion. In no sense whatever could they be regarded as Dissen-
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ters, and so strongly did they realize this fact that the Carolina Colonists of this persuasion were subjected to political persecu- tion by the dissenting faction because of their active sympathy with the High Church element in the Colonial Proprietary Govern- ment. One of their representative men, Henry LeNoble, was a member of Governor Sir Nathaniel Johnson's Council, and signed the obnoxious Aet which required every member of the Commons Assembly to receive the Holy Communion in the Church of England. Another, James LeSerurier, was a member of the High Commissions Court, which had power to appoint and re- move ministers who leaned toward dissent. John Ashby, "of Carolina, " was another member of this Court, and his son and daughter married the daughter and son of Dr. LeJan and were the ancestors of many who are persent here to-day. It is a most significant fact that Dr. LeJan had fifty communicants among the French of the Orange Quarter and only twenty-four in Charles Town, where he officiated once a month during the vacaney of the Parish. Dr. LeJau had come over in October, 1706, as the Society's Missionary to Goose Creek. In November of that year the Parish was laid off by Act of Assembly and called St. James, and on Easter Monday, April 11, 1707, the parishioners met, pur- suant to the Church Act, and elected Robert Stevens and John Sanders, church wardens, and Ralph Izard, George Cantey, James Moor, Arthur Middleton, John Cantey, William Williams and David Deas, vestrymen. They elected Dr. LeJan, Rector, and, hav- ing omitted some legal formalities, met again in December and con- firmed their choice. Under his faithful and diligent ministra- tions his congregation grew rapidly in members, in religious life and in churchly zeal. He abolished the customary fee for bap- tism, which had deterred many poor persons from bringing their children to the font. Many Indians and negroes were instructed and baptized by him, and a curious proof of his conscientious obedience to law and Church principle is on record among the archives of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. We find him asking advice of the Bishop of London concerning the hypothetical baptism of three Apalachie Indian slaves, who wished to commune, but could not say with certainty whether they had been baptized or not. He was referred to the Rubric, by way of answer, and doubtless found authority there to use the hypothet- ical form.
It soon became necessary to build a larger church, and the present edifice was erected, of which more hereafter. Dr. LeJau repeatedly urged upon the Society the importance of providing for education among his people and elsewhere in the Province, and in 1710 Mr. Benjamin Dennis was sent out as schoolmaster, and a good school house was erected. Thus the good work of this faithful and godly man progressed until the breaking out of the Yemassee War, in 1715, drove most of the congregation to Charles
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Town for safety, a few only remaining on fortified planta- tions. The Rector returned with his people when the war was over, and died at his post, after a long illness, on September 15, 1717. ""The memory of the just is blessed." Of this faithful and fearless soldier of the Cross it may be truly said that "He died right knightly, with his armor on." He was buried, as every faithful priest would wish to be, at the foot of the altar, where all of you may read to-day the tribute of filial reverence and affection.
The building which took the place of the first small, wooden church needs no description, for it stands to-day to speak for itself, restored by the diligence of the present vestry to practic- ally its original condition from the remains of a fund donated by one whose name will come to us directly among those whom we are assembled to commemorate. And the interest of most of us who are present to-day must be deepened by the solemn memorials on its walls and in its venerable graveyard. of those from whom we draw our descent. It was built upon a glebe of 100 acres donated by one of the parishioners, Captain Schene- kingh, upon which a substantial parsonage also stood. There being no Bishops in South Carolina for many years after its erce- tion the church could not be duly consecrated, but in 1719 it was solemnly dedicated to the worship of God and set apart from all worldly uses by an act of the vestry. A pew was set apart for Arthur Middleton in consideration of his liberal contributions, including four acres for the parsonage; another for like reasons to Benjamin Schenekingh, another to Benjamin Godin, a Huguenot, who gave sixteen acres for a churchyard, and several more to other zealous contributors. Dalcho tells us that it was the only church in the lower country outside of Charleston that was not profaned by the British, owing to the Royal Arms having been al- lowed to remain over the chancel. These Arms were destroyed by the earthquake of ISS6, and their exact restoration seemed impossible. But a few years before a lady, now deceased, the daughter of one of South Carolina's greatest scientists, whom the world delights to honor, (the late Professor John MeCrady) had painted a copy in oils for the use of a New England historical society. This was obtained, and from it the restoration was made as it now stands.
During the vacancy after Dr. LeJau's death the Parish was frequently supplied by the Rev. Thomas Hasell, whose wife was the sister of Mrs. LeJau, Jr., and who was for thirty-five years the Rector of St. Thomas and its sister Parish, St. Dennis, the latter having been organized as early as 1706 into a Church of England Parish, at the request of the French Huguenots of the Orange Quarter, who constituted its parishioners. At the same date one hundred Huguenot families on the lower, or "French Santec, " were organized at their own petition into the Parish of St. James,
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Santee, and were served by four successive Church of England clergy- men, who were Frenchmen, namely, the Rev. Philip de Richbourg, the Rev. Mr. Ponderous, the Rev. Stephen Coulet, who had been a Roman Catholic, and the Rev. Joseph Bugnion. In 1720 the Rev. Mr. Merry, a Missionary of the honorable Society, was invited to St. James, Goose Creek by the vestry, but his manners were not pleasing to them and they declined electing him. They applied for another Missionary, and, in the interval, invited the Rev. Thomas Morrit, in April, 1723, to supply the Parish.
In August of that year the Rev. Richard Ludlam arrived from England, commissioned by the Society in response to the vestry's request, and was soon afterwards duly elected Rector. Under the indefatigable labors of this clergyman the Parish grew and prospered, and a more active work was done, with the co-operation of the planters, in Christianizing the Indians and negroes. He seems to have taken a deep interest in education, and on his death, in October, 1728, bequeathed all his estate, real and personal, to the Society, in trust for the Parish, for the purpose of erecting and maintaining a school for the education of poor children. And the memory of this just man and faithful servant of Christ is blessed to this day by some who owe their education to the Ludlam bequest. The Society next commissioned a Rev. Mr. Thomas, in 1729, but he was drowned at Sheerness in attempting to embark for Charles Town.
In 1732 the Rev. Timothy Millechampe, A. M., arrived from England and entered upon the cure of the Parish. He appears to have labored acceptably to all, but was discouraged by the re- moval to Cape Fear of many of his parishioners, and was broken in health by arduous duties, chiefly in ministering at the distant chapel in Wassamasaw, where his labors seem to have left no mark. He visited England with high testimonials to his worth and diligence from the vestry of his Parish, returning the follow- ing year. The bequest of Mr. Ludlam had been valued at £2,000 currency, which amounted in 1742 to about £600 sterling, in- vested at 10 per cent. This fund being insufficient for carrying out the purpose of the testator, a liberal subscription was made by the parishioners to increase it, and it is of great interest to note among the well-known English names, which are still among us, those of a number of Huguenots, as Villepontoux, Dupre, Dupont, Taucherand, Lausac, Mazyek, Marion and Porcher. It may be noted here that some time before 1725 a Chapel of Rase had been built about seven miles below Strawberry, upon glebe land, donated by Mr. Dutarque. In 17446 the church wardens were Benjamin Mazyek and Giden Dupont, while Zack Ville- pontoux was a vestryman. The contributors to the additional fund were fifty-eight in number, and the sums pledged amounted to .£2,270 emreney annually for three years, a fact which shows the prosperous condition of the parishioners, including the Hague-
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