USA > Virginia > Colonial churches; a series of sketches of churches in the original colony of Virginia, with pictures of each church > Part 3
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30
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effort that the parish might be always supplied with a minister, but every church and chapel was provided with a salaried clerk, who read the services regularly, and the lack of a minister did not prevent the people from attending the services of the Church. No vestryman could hold the office of clerk. Wherever a sufficient number of citizens settled in any portion of the Colony, a chapel was immediately pro- vided by the vestry and a clerk appointed.
The taxes for maintaining the Church establishment were called tithes. These tithes went for the minister's salary, the salary of the clerk and the maintenance and building of churches and chapels and for the support of the poor. Every male inhabitant over sixteen was tithable, and the tithe varied from thirty to sixty pounds of tobacco per poll, according to the immediate needs of the parish.
The Church was the People, and the People the Church; but the attitude of the people towards dissenters was expressed not by the Church as an ecclesiastical establishment, but by the representatives of the people in their legislative and executive capacity. So far from being a persecuting Church, the Church as a Church did not attempt to control these matters, which were everywhere deemed a part of the civil order. The expulsion of the Puritan preachers and the breaking up of the Puritan congregations in Nansemond and Norfolk counties, a few months before the execution of Charles I., were acts not of the Church, but of the Governor's Council, and the charge against the Puritans was disloyalty to the Government and to the King. The famous and oft-quoted statute against the Quakers, expelling them from the Colony and providing that if they returned the second time, they should be proceeded against as felons, takes on a very different color when the statute is given in full, and not in the garbled form in which it appears in the partisan histories of the sects. The statute closes with these words: "Provided, always, and be it further enacted, that if any of the said persons, Quakers or other separatists, shall, after such conviction, give security that he, she or they shall for the time to come forbear to meet in any such unlawful assemblies as aforesaid, that then and from thenceforth such person or persons shall be discharged from all the penalties aforesaid, anything in this act to the contrary notwithstanding." (Hen., Vol. 2, p. 183.) The statute was directed against organized opposition to the laws and institutions of the Colony, and no attempt is made to deprive the individual of his liberty of thought and utterance, so long as he with others did not attempt to overthrow the civil law.
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The fact that there was no Episcopal authority within the Colony, and that the make-shift of a commissary was never accepted either by the clergy or the people, forced the vestries to assume functions prop- erly belonging to ecclesiastical courts. In the event of the bad be- havior of any of the clergy, he was summoned before the vestry and tried; and if the charges were proven, he was expelled, or if by any chance he had been inducted into the living, he was prosecuted before the authorities at the seat of government. That the vestry, as the representatives of the people, did demand a high standard of life and character on the part of the clergy is evidenced by the fact that in some cases, even though it brought open reproach upon the Church, they turned the offending minister out of his office. The fidelity of the vestries in this matter was one day to furnish to the enemies of the Church material for a bitter arraignment of the Church itself.
The Church, in its parish .organization, reflected the life and social standards of the Virginians. Birth and position were among the ac- knowledged requisites for membership in the House of Burgesses, and the like requirements were considered essential in the choice of a vestry- man. The government of the Colony and the government of the Church in Virginia were both alike democratic, but it was the democracy of Athens, not of Rome. The landed gentry both in the Assembly and in the vestry were the representatives of the people, and till the middle of the eighteenth century no one questioned the established order. One class in this social order was gradually crystallizing in its hatred of the aristocratic form of government. This was the class of overseers. This class was, in fact, the only element in the Colony which had ever been subjected to persecution, though the persecutors were apparently ob- livious of the fact of any injustice on their part. The "overseer legis- lation" in the Colony was all of a kind to breed a deep and abiding hatred of the established order in the hearts of those affected by it. It was provided by law that the overseer should live in a house adjacent to the negro quarters; he could own only one horse, and he was not allowed to attend muster, which was the great event of the year in country life. These overseers were, in the very nature of things, the most skillful farmers, and accustomed to exercise authority, and yet, by a curious twist of legislation, they were practically pariahs.
The very church building itself, with the best pews reserved for the magistrates and their families, and with the private galleries erected at their own cost by the rich men of the parish, gave an added em-
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phasis to the aristocratic nature of State and Church. When the Bap- tists commenced their efforts they found plenty of inflammable mate- rial, especially among the large class of overseers; and in the days of agitation and unrest that preceded the tremendous social upheaval of the Revolution, the discontented found a golden opportunity. The Church of England in Virginia became the target for abuse on the lips of those who were proclaiming their hatred of all things English. The first Baptist Association, which was professedly, in its inception, in 1770, a political organization, was sworn to the destruction of the Church.
Suddenly the Church found herself attacked by a host of men, who maligned her clergy, ridiculed her institutions and fought her with weapons new even to that kind of warfare. The Church was taken by surprise. She had no weapons with which to fight vulgar abuse, nor would she be embroiled in what she conceived to be a social rather than a religious quarrel. Sometimes the agitator, when he became in- sufferable, fell into the hands of the constable, and straightway the Church was painted as a bloody persecutor. In none of these so-called persecutions does the Church appear as the prosecutor. The charge brought against the victims was "breach of the peace," and the arrest was made by the sheriff or magistrate. The offender was set at lib- erty when he furnished a peace bond. The persecuted martyrs of Vir- ginia were offenders against civil law, and were victims not of the Church's hate, but of the justice of a magistrate's court before which they were tried for intemperate speech and creating a disturbance. At the very time when these supposed persecutions were going on, the law of the land gave them the right to apply in court for licensed houses for the worship of God according to their own conscience. The offend- ers, failing to comply with the law, were, like other offenders against the law, punished by the courts.
The forces that led to the final overthrow of the Church were in part religious and political, but still more, perhaps, were they social and economic. To destroy the Establishment meant to dethrone the twelve lords of the parish, to humiliate the aristocrats, and last, but not least, to do away with parish dues. By depriving the vestry of its powers and the Church of its property, and then by raising hue and cry against clergy and Church as English in name and sympathy, the Church was first despoiled and then overthrown.
When the Revolution was over, the new State presented a strange
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condition of affairs. A large element of the population that had for- merly taken but little interest in public affairs had, during the long years of turmoil, come into prominence. The Baptists, especially, were organized as a political party. The spirit of the age was against con- servatism and aristocracy. The traditions of the Church in Virginia forbade her to enter the political arena The legislature was flooded with petitions from the enemies of the Church, demanding her destruc- tion. The Church had but one reply, and that was to beg that the questions at issue be submitted to the people of the State to decide. This request was denied her. The new religio-political parties were well organized and very active, and the public men of Virginia found a strong instrument ready for use. Political power was still in the hands of the aristocracy, but a new party, zealous with religious en- thusiasm, was clamoring for recognition. The men who had put forth the Bill of Rights found that keen instrument turned upon its authors. They did not flinch from the ordeal. The committee appointed to re- vise the laws of the Commonwealth reported an act establishing Re- ligious Freedom. That committee was composed of five men-Jeffer- son, Pendleton, Wythe, Mason and Lee. All except Jefferson were ac- tive members of the vestries of the Established Church, and Jefferson's name also was in the list of the vestrymen of St. Anne's Parish, though there is no record that he exercised the function of his office. When the Church was dis-established, the deed was wrought by the sons of the Church. There was no compulsion resting on them to do this thing, for the question had not been submitted to the people at large. These men deemed it a political necessity and a necessary corollary of the Bill of Rights, and they, without a dissenting voice, signed the war- rant for the dissolution of the Church of their affections. Such was the spirit of the laymen who, from the beginning, had guided the councils and controlled the destiny of the Church in Virginia.
But this act was fraught with consequences undreamed of by its au- thors. The enemies of the Church deemed that they had won a great victory, and they never rested till the Church was despoiled of its pos- sessions. For the first time in history there was a persecuting Church in Virginia. The campaign of hostility and invective was unrelenting and ruthless. The Church, for nearly twenty years, was despaired of even by those who loved her. The spirit of her despoilers did not win the allegiance of Churchmen to the only organized religious life in the State. A period of religious depression followed the overthrow of the
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Church. Many of the gentry of Virginia were without a Church; and love of State became the only religion with many of this class. Bishop Meade's description of the low ebb of religious life among the upper classes in Virginia at the beginning of his ministry is doubtless a faithful picture. The cause of this condition is likewise apparent. That the character of the men still remained high in spite of religious apathy, or even hostility, is due to that social code, in obedience to which the Virginian gave a fuller and richer meaning to the name of gentleman. They were for a quarter of a century irreligious in their lack of recognition of the duty of accepting organized and systematized Christianity, but some of what we now call the Christian graces were beautifully exemplified in their daily intercourse with fellows.
During the long years of war the clergy became scattered. There was no possibility of obtaining ministers except from England, and it was no time for an Englishman to begin his labors in Virginia; and there was no security for his support, even if he were brave enough to make the venture. On the other hand, the ministers of the denomina- tions multiplied indefinitely. It was not until the effects of the Revo- lution began to die out that the old aristocratic order of society began to assert itself again. The hatred of all things English was the lever used to overthrow the Church and to keep her in the dust. The feeling against the mother country was not allowed to die out, as it was too valuable a political asset to let slip. So strong and so lasting was the feeling that Benjamin Watkins Leigh, in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-'30, exclaimed: "I know it is the fashion to decry everything that is English, or supposed to be so. I know that, in the opinion of many, it is enough to condemn any proposition in morals or in politics, to denounce it as English doctrine." This statement of Senator Leigh is a luminous commentary on the history of the Church in Virginia.
History presents no more striking example of a Church of the people than is found in the Church of Colonial Virginia. The people not only maintained the Church as established, but extended it to meet the needs of a growing population. They voluntarily assumed the care and support of all the poor in the community. They not only clothed, but educated the orphan and the waif. They demanded of their clergy that they lead exemplary lives, and expelled them from office when they fell short of this ideal. They held loyalty to God and to His Church not an accident, but an essential of good citizenship. They
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appointed from among themselves clerks to read the services and ser- mons in the absence of an ordained minister, and the Church was their home. The Colonial Church of Virginia produced the largest breed of men yet seen upon this continent. This Church was overthrown in a social cataclysm, but even in the hour of her dissolution she was true to her traditions. She had preached good citizenship and obedi- ence to law; and when her enemies despoiled her of her property and made her splendid lineage the ground of an accusation of shame, she raised no voice in protest. Her property was taken away by law, and she submitted to that law, never claiming the halo of martyr nor call- ing legislation persecution. Even to the end she persistently refused to become embroiled in the bitter strife of words. Her story has never been told, and her children to-day know her only from the partisan and libelous screeds of her destroyers. The Church, in her actual adminis- trative life, was aristocratic, but so was the life of the people whom she served. It was the aristocracy of birth, it is true; but it was also the aristocracy of worth, and its creed of noblesse oblige kept her' si- lent even when men maligned her and robbed her under forms of law.
A Preliminary View of American Church History.
BY THE REV. CORBIN BRAXTON BRYAN, D. D., OF PETERSBURG, VA.
T HE importance of the settlement at Jamestown lies in the fact that then, at last, the English race began to come into perma- nent possession of their portion in the New World, and to shape the destiny of this continent. They were belated in so doing, but when they came they brought with them princi- ples, civil and religious, which in the circumstances, they could hardly. have brought sooner; and to which, under God, they owe the supremacy they have achieved.
As introductory to these historical papers, a brief review of the conditions under which Virginia was settled seems appropriate.
When in 1493 tl e Portugese had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and begun to explore the East Indies, and the Spaniard was taking possession of the Western World, Pope Alexander VI. (Rodrigo Bor- gia) was appealed to by the Kings of Spain and Portugal to adjust their claim in their new discoveries. This he did by dividing the privileges of discovering and colonizing the unknown parts of the world between these two great powers, the line of division being an imaginary line which was supposed to be drawn from pole to pole one hundred degrees west of the Azores. No account was taken of any interest which the rest of the world might have or might come to have in discovery and colonization; all was turned over bodily by the Pope to Portugal and Spain. We smile at such a performance now; but it meant a great deal when it was done.
With the work of Portugal we have nothing to do; that lay eastward. But after more than one hundred years of amazing activity, Spain had possessed herself of the West Indies, Mexico, the richest parts of South America, and had reached across the Pacific and laid her hands upon the Philippines. She had established herself in Florida, had traversed the land from Florida to South Carolina and across to the Mississippi, and claimed it all, along with what we now call Vir-
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THE RESTORED CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN.
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ginia, as a part of her West Indian territory. Out of these vast re- sources she had reaped incalculable treasure.
England as yet had not a single colony. But England had not been idle. She, too, had made great gains. During the ninety-four years between the death of Henry VII. and the accession of James I., Lon- don had become the greatest mart of trade and commerce in the civil- ized world. The ships of English merchants were on every sea; and in exploration, and in all naval matters, from being comparatively in- significant, England had come to the very front. This was equally true in social advancement, and especially in literature. But most important of all, the Reformation of the English Church had been accomplished. During the reign of Elizabeth, and in the midst of her great struggle to maintain the independence of England, the Church of England had become gradually and permanently Protestant; and for forty years previous to the settlement of Jamestown, England stood as the leader and champion of the Reformation.
For two generations the power of Spain, armed with the exhaustless wealth of the Indies, and directed by the fanatical minds of the Em- peror Charles V. and his son Philip II., bent upon the aggrandizement of the Kingdom of Spain and of the Church of Rome, had threatened the civil and religious liberty of every Protestant power in Europe. During that period, any settlement of Englishmen in America had proved impossible. It was all England could do to maintain her in- dependence at home, and assist others struggling in the same cause. This she did throughout the long reign of Elizabeth, giving assist- ance and a refuge for the French Huguenots, and fighting the battles of the Dutch against Spain in the Netherlands. At last, in the over- throw of the Armada in 1588, the liberty of England was assured; and upon the accession of James I. peace was established between Spain and England, and a better opportunity was thereby afforded for the settlement of an English colony in America. But though peace had been declared, war was in the hearts of both nations, and many of the English who, under Elizabeth had been fighting Spain tor years, went over to the Netherlands, and continued the fight there in behalf of the- Dutch.
In the meantime, the great question of religion, on which all the rest hinged, had been determined, and so a colony could be estab- lished homogeneous in faith as Protestants; and no sooner was the peace declared than the minds of the English turned again to Virginia.
Under the difficulties which existed during the former reign, the
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task of colonization had proved too great for even the heroic enter- prise and the princely fortune of Sir Walter Raleigh, aided by his chivalrous and pious brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and by that ter- rific fighter, Sir Richard Grenville. It was now to be attempted by many English men of wealth and power operating in two stock com- panies. The plan was taken in hand by Sir John Popham, the Lord Chief Justice of England. The charter granted for the settlement of Virginia was granted by James I. on April 10, 1606; and as was natural, those patriots and Churchmen who were sustaining the move- ment looked for their leaders among those who had distinguished themselves in the English struggle in the days of Elizabeth, or who had been or were still assisting the Dutch in their long battle for liberty and the Protestant faith.
The first name on the list of those to whom the Letters Patent were granted is that of Sir Thomas Gates, who had fought with Drake against Spain on the sea, and was still later keeping the fight up in the Netherlands. When he himself sailed for Virginia in 1609 he took with him his old company of veterans in the Spanish wars, with Captain George Yeardly, afterwards Governor of Virginia, in com- mand. These were they of whom Hakluyt wrote, "If gentle polish- ishing will not serve" to bring the Indians in Virginia into civil courses, "our old soldiers, trained up in the Netherlands, will be hammers and rough masons enough to square and prepare them to our preachers' hands." Next to Gates on the Letters Patent stands Sir George Somers, a most devout and knightly Christian, who had distinguished himself as a commander in victorious voyages in the West Indies in Elizabeth's days, and who, later, left his seat in the House of Parliament to go to Virginia. The Reverend Richard Hak- luyt stands next. He was Prebendary of Westminster, and more learn- ed in the history of English voyages than any man of his times. His great book on the subject is still an inspiration. And having recorded the heroic exploits of the English nation on the seas, he now sustain- ed with all his influence this, their latest effort to gain a foothold in America, and lived to see it succeed. Edward Maria Wingfield, another veteran of the Spanish wars, is named next, and went to Virginia himself in the first ships.
Such were the men to whom the Letters Patent were committed. Captain Newport, the commander of the first fleet, and Lord De la Warr, the first Captain-General of Virginia, and Sir Thomas
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Dale, who succeeded him, were all veterans in Spanish wars; and so were many more who took prominent part in the colonization of Vir- ginia. And now in the establishment of this Protestant colony they saw their opportunity not only to enlarge the realm of their king, and the bounds of the Kingdom of God, but also, as Sir Thomas Dale ex- pressed it, "to put a bit in the mouth of their ancient enemy," the King of Spain, and to check the power of Rome; and with all their heart and might they set themselves to do it.
The Colony of Virginia is sometimes conceived of as a mere com- mercial and mercenary venture, in which "to get the pearl and gold" was the chief idea; and those who founded the colony are represented, as for the most part, mere adventurers, without principles either po- litical or religious. Doubtless "the pearl and gold" was the only idea with many "adventurers" who stayed at home, and adventured a sub- scription to the Company's stock, and also of many "planters" who adventured themselves into the wilds of the New World. But the conception and purpose of those who planted and maintained the Col- ony was of the broadest and most far-reaching character. There were already buccaneers, English, French and Dutch in plenty in the West Indies; and the fear that Virginia would be just one more nest of pirates haunted the Spanish mind. But the mature determination and pur- pose of those who received the King's Letters Patent for this Colony was the spread of the English dominion, carrying with it English liberty, and the English Church into the New World, and there to contest with Spain her claim of the Western Hemisphere. Their Let- ters Patent guaranteed to the colonists and to their heirs forever all the liberties, franchises and immunities of Englishmen, born and abid- ing in England. The third article of their Letters Patent reads: "We, greatly commending and graciously accepting of their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in dark- ness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God, and may in time bring the infidels and savages living in those parts to human civility and a settled and quiet government; do," etc.
In the Instructions given to the colonists, it is provided that the President, Council and Ministers shall "with all diligence, care and respect provide that the true Word and Service of God and Christian Faith be preached, planted and used, not only within every of the said
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several colonies and plantations, but also as much as they may amongst the savage people who doe or shall adjoin unto them, or border upon them, according to the doctrine, rights and religion now professed and established within our realm of England."
The establishment of such an English Colony of Protestants in America under the authority of the King, and with the support which they saw it have was what Spain regarded with far more concern than she did the buccaneers in the West Indies.
The preparations for planting the Colony were jealously watched by the Spanish Ambassador in London, and promptly reported to King Philip; and the Spanish Board of War declared, in protest, that "This country which they call Virginia is contained within the limits of the Crown of Castille," and that "according to this and other consid- erations which were of special importance, it was thought proper that with all necessary forces, this plan of the English should be prevented, and that it should not be permitted in any way that foreign nations should occupy this country, because it is, as has been said, a discovery and a part of the territory of the Crown of Castille, and because its contiguity increases the vigilance which it is necessary to bestow upon all the Indies and their commerce-and this all the more so if they should establish there the religion and the liberty of conscience which they profess, which of itself already is what most obliges us to defend it even beyond the reputation which is so grievously jeopardiz- ed, and that His Majesty (of Spain) should command a letter to be written to Don Pedro de Zuniga (the Spanish Ambassador in Lon- don), ordering him to ascertain with great dexterity and skill how far these plans of which he writes, may be founded in fact, and whether they make any progress, and who assists them, and by what means; and that when he is quite certain he should try to give the King of England to understand that we complain of his permitting subjects of his to disturb the seas, coasts and lands of his Majesty (of Spain), and of the rebels being favored by his agency, in their plans, the rebels of the Islands and of other nations (the Netherlands); and that he should continue to report always whatever he may hear, charging him to be very careful in this matter, because of the importance of pro- viding the necessary remedies, in case he should not have any by those means."
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