USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 5
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serve special notice. Benjamin Allen's labours in the Valley of Virginia, Charles Page's in the counties of Amherst, Nelson, &c., Mr. Cobb's in Bedford and the counties round about, William Lee's in Amelia, Goochland, Powhatan, and others, Mr. Grammer's in Dinwiddie, Brunswick, Greenville, Surry, and Prince George, and J. P. McGuire's between the Rappahannock and James Rivers, were such as few professedly itinerant preachers ever surpass. Without such self-denying labours, the Church could never have been revived in these places. The faithful and zealous men, whom I have enumerated above, were accompanied and have been fol- lowed by other faithful ones, too numerous to mention.
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
It is time that I should now advert to the origin and progress of one great instrument of the Church's prosperity in Virginia,-the Theological Seminary at Alexandria. As Bishop Moore was about leaving New York for Virginia, in the summer of 1814, Dr. Au- gustine Smith, a native of Virginia, who had been for some years Professor in a Medical School in New York and who was then about to take charge of William and Mary College, met him in the street and proposed that the Church in Virginia should establish a Theological Professorship in Williamsburg, and thus make the Col- lege, what its royal patrons designed, a School of the Prophets. Bishop Moore encouraged the proposal, and a deputation of one of the Professors was sent to the Convention of 1815 for the purpose of promoting the plan. The Convention approved it, and the Rev. Dr. Keith became the minister of the Episcopal congregation in Williamsburg, and was prepared to instruct any candidates for the ministry who might be sent there. During a stay of two years only one presented himself. On various accounts Williamsburg was found to be an unsuitable place. The Convention of Virginia had appointed Col. Edward Colston and myself a Committee to correspond with the Bishop of Maryland and some leading laymen in North Carolina, proposing a union with Virginia in the establish- ment and management of the Seminary at Williamsburg. From North Carolina we received no answer. From the Bishop of Mary- land* we received a prompt and decided refusal, accompanied with such severe strictures on the religion and morals of Virginia that we did not present it to the Convention, but only reported our
* Bishop Kemp.
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failure. Williamsburg especially was objected to on account of its infidelity as altogether unfit to be the seat of such an institution. Those of us who were engaged in the resuscitation of the Church were also said to be extravagant in some of our notions, as is apt to be the case with those who in flying from one extreme rush into the other. There was much in the letter but too true of the laity and clergy, both of Maryland and Virginia, in that and past days. Having failed in our experiment at Williamsburg, we determined to make trial of it in Alexandria, by the help of our Education Society -Dr. Keith, Dr. Wilmer, and Mr. Norris, being the Professors. The General Theological Seminary was now getting under way, and its friends were afraid of some interference with its prosperity. The ground was taken that this was the institution of the Church, and its claims paramount to all others. Most threatening letters were addressed to Bishop Moore, calling upon him as a Bishop of the General Church, bound to guard its unity, to interpose and prevent the establishment of the Seminary at Alexandria. Hap- pily for us, Mr. Kohn had bequeathed a large fund for the General Seminary in New York, where it was located when the will was written ; but, meanwhile, it had been removed to New Haven, and it was contended that it could not inherit a legacy which was given to an institution in New York. Bishop Hobart now took the field in favour of Diocesan Seminaries and wrote a pamphlet on the subject, claiming the legacy for one to be established in New York, under Diocesan rule. A General Convention was called to settle the question, and it was compromised by restoring the General Seminary to New York, on certain terms, which, as it was foreseen and predicted, made it and has continued it, virtually, a New York Seminary. But we heard no more after that of the schismatical character of the Virginia Seminary, nor have we since that time heard any other objections of the kind to those established in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Connecticut. Our Seminary continued for several years in the town of Alexandria, until we raised sufficient funds to purchase its present site and erect some of its buildings. We are indebted to the zeal of Mr. John Nelson, of Mecklenburg, for the first moneys collected for that purpose. He visited a con- siderable part of the State, and raised a handsome contribution to it. In the year 1828 I took my turn, and visited a still larger portion of the State, realizing a greater amount. Other calls have at successive periods been made, and always with success. An attempt to raise an Episcopal fund for a time interfered with
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and postponed this, but it was soon evident that this was the favourite with the people, and the other was relinquished.
CLERICAL ASSOCIATIONS.
Next in the order of time, and agreeably to a recommendation in one of the Conventions in Bishop Madison's time, comes the establishment of Clerical Associations. The first of these was in the Valley of Virginia, consisting of the ministers of Berkeley, Jefferson, and Frederick-Dr. Balmaine, the Rev. Benjamin Allen, Enoch Lowe, Mr. Brian, and myself,-Benjamin Smith, now Bishop Smith, coming among us soon after. We assembled quar- terly in each other's parishes; preaching for several days and nights ; having meetings among ourselves, and at private houses, for special prayer; taking up collections for missionaries to the western part of Virginia. The two first who went to Virginia beyond the Alleghanies-the Rev. Charles Page and William Lee -were sent out by our Society. These Associations were attended by much good and no evil, so far as I know and believe. I have ever encouraged them since entering the Episcopate, and Bishop Moore did the same before and after that time, as being most important auxiliaries to the Bishops, especially in large dioceses. I regard it as an evil omen, when ministers, favour- ably situated, are averse to such means of their own and their people's improvement, though I do not mean to say that there are not some good and pious men who regard them in a different light.
OUR CONVENTIONS COME NEXT.
For the first few years after our reorganization our Conventions were not only small as to numbers, but sad and gloomy in charac- ter, attracting no attention. A succession of the rainy seasons in May attended them for so many years that the two were closely associated in the public mind. For some years they were held in Richmond; but the proverbial and profuse hospitality of that place was not then generally afforded them. For the most part, both clerical and lay delegates were to be seen only at the taverns, and but few religious services were held. The Convention at Frede- ricksburg-the first after the system of rotation commenced-was kindly and hospitably entertained, and from that time onward they became not only delightful to the clergy and laity composing them,
F
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEAR ALEXANDRIA.
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but attractive to others. To understand aright the history of such large assemblies as our Conventions attract, and the reasons which justify our encouragement of them by making religious exercises so large a part of their doings, it must be stated that not only are the Virginians a people given to visiting, but that the Episcopalians are peculiarly so by reason of the fact that, for the most part, they have sprung from a comparatively few families, who, by mar- riages and intermarriages, though scattered all over the State, make up one great family of tenderly-attached relatives, who are always pleased at a good excuse, if the ability allows, to assemble together. The bond of Christian fellowship and of Church feeling also is very strong, even where the other is not, as well as where it is. Hospitality also is a strong principle with them, and it is easier here than in most places to throw open the doors and welcome all who will come in on such occasions. A more innocent mode-nay, a more religious mode-of gratifying the social feeling cannot be than that of meeting together at our Conventions; and an impera- tive duty rests on the ministers to afford the people the most fre- quent and edifying services in their power, so that they may take up the song of God's ancient people, when going by Divine com- mand to the great feasts of His own appointment :-
"Oh! 'twas a joyful sound to hear The tribes devoutly say, Up, Israel ! to the temple haste, And keep the festal day."
Sometimes they have been most edifying as well as joyful occa- sions. The presence of God has been felt. The word preached has been attended with great power. Many have remembered them as the means of their awakening, and many as the channels of more grace to their already converted souls. Long may they continue to be thus used. Even if some dioceses are so small, or the conveyances so convenient and rapid, that a few hours or at most a day can bring them all to the place of meeting, and a very short time may suffice for legislation and business, let it be remem- bered how very large are the dimensions of the Diocese of Virginia, how difficult and tedious the journey of many of its members to the Convention, and it will be felt and acknowledged that to meet on mere business for a few hours or a day would not be sufficient to induce and remunerate the attendance of either clergy or laity.
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THE REQUIRING OF LAY DELEGATES TO BE COMMUNICANTS.
We have already spoken of the measures adopted for the purifi- cation of the Church from evil-livers, among both clergy and laity, by the passage of wholesome canons. At three successive periods was this done, opposition being made each time, and six Conven tions in all being in part occupied in the discussion and contest. We now refer to the method adopted, after a considerable time had elapsed, for the purification of our Conventions from unworthy lay delegates, by requiring that they be in full communion with the Church, and not merely baptized members or professed friends, whether baptized or not. No law, either of the General or State Conventions, forbade an infidel or the most immoral man from being the deputy from a parish in the Diocesan Convention, although ques- tions might come before them touching the Creed and Articles and worship of the Church, or the trial of bishops, clergy, and lay- men. The strange anomaly of persons legislating for others and not being themselves subject to such legislation was allowed in the Church, when it would have been resisted in any and every other society. The consequence resulted, that, although there was a great improvement in the general character of the Church and the respectability of the lay delegation to our Conventions, we were still distressed and mortified at the occasional appearance of one or more unworthy members, who were a scandal to the Church, the scandal being the greater because of the number of attendants. The frequenters of the race-ground and the card-table and the lovers of the intoxicating cup sometimes found their way through this unguarded door into the legislative hall. It was proposed to close it ; but strenuous opposition was made by some, as to a measure assailing individual and congregational rights. It was discussed for three successive years, and though a considerable majority was always ready to pass the proposed canon, that ma- jority yielded so far to the minority as to allow of delay and further consideration, which only resulted in the final passage of it by increased and overwhelming numbers. An incident occurred, during one of the discussions, showing how the consciences of even those who are not in full communion with the Church approve of wholesome legislation and discipline. A worthy clergyman, who was opposing the canon, referred to his own lay delegate as a proof of what excellent men might be sent to the Convention, who were nevertheless not communicants. When he was seated, the lay dele-
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gate, a very humble and good man, who had never spoken before in Convention, rose and expressed his entire dissent from his min- ister, and, as it was proposed to postpone the question until the next day, begged that there might be no delay, as he should sleep more quietly that night after having given his vote in favour of so necessary a regulation. He lived to appear in our body once more in full communion with the Church. We have never, since the adoption of this rule, had cause to repent of our legislation, or to blush for the scandal cast upon us by unworthy members.
POLICY OF THE BISHOPS AND CLERGY OF VIRGINIA IN REGARD TO TRACTARIANISM.
At an early period Bishop Moore called the attention of the clergy and laity of Virginia to this heretical and Romish move- ment, when it overhung our horizon only as a cloud no larger than a man's hand. But it was a black and portentous one. The Con- vention in Norfolk, with a few exceptions, agreed with him in the propriety of warning against the giving of any encouragement to the circulation of the insidious tracts. At the meeting in Alexan- dria, the following year, when they had been circulated through the land, having already done much evil in our Mother-Church, a call was made upon all to expose and condemn the false doctrines thereof. The Bishops and ministers did their duty in sounding the alarm, and the faithful Professors of our Seminary did theirs. The consequence is that the Church of Virginia has been preserved from the ill effects of the erroneous and strange doctrines taught by that school.
THE USE OF THE LITURGY AND VESTMENTS IN VIRGINIA.
From what has been said in the foregoing pages as to the deplorable condition of the Church in Virginia, it may well be imagined that its liturgical services were often very imperfectly performed. In truth, the responsive parts were almost entirely confined to the clerk, who, in a loud voice, sung or drawled them out. As to the psalmody, it is believed that the Hundredth Psalm, to the tune of Old Hundred, was so generally used as the signal of the Service begun, that it was regarded as the law of the Church. A case has been mentioned to me by good authority, where a new minister, having varied from the established custom, gave out a different psalm; but the clerk, disregarding it, sung as usual the Hundredth. So unaccustomed were the people to join in the Ser-
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vice, that when I took charge of the congregation in Alexandria in 1811 I tried in vain to introduce the practice, until I fell on the expedient of making the children, who in large numbers came weekly to my house to be catechized, go over certain parts of the Service and the Psalms with me, and, after having thus trained them, on a certain Sabbath directed them to respond heartily and loudly in the midst of the grown ones. They did their part well, and complete success soon attended the plan. Throughout the State, when not only the friends of the Church were rapidly dimi- nishing and Prayer Books were very scarce, but even clerks were hard to be gotten, I presume that the Services were very irregu- larly performed. I knew of an instance where the clergyman did not even take a Prayer Book into the pulpit, but, committing to memory some of the principal prayers of the Morning Service, used them in the pulpit before sermon, after the manner of other deno- minations. I am unable to say whether it ever was, or had been for a long time, the habit of any or of many of the ministers to use what is called the full Service, combining what all acknowledge to have been originally the three distinct parts of the old English cathedral Service, and used separately at different portions of the day, namely, the Morning Service proper, the Litany, the Ante- Communion Service, and which, without law, were gradually blended into one, for the convenience of those who preferred one long to three short services. The probability is, that in a church without a head and any thing like discipline, the practice may have been very various, according to the consciences, tastes, and conve- nience of those who officiated. The practice of those who engaged in the resuscitation of the Church in Virginia, was to use the two former portions of the Liturgy-the Morning Service and Litany -and to omit the Ante-Communion Service, except on communion days. This was introduced among us by the brethren who came from Maryland, the Rev. Dr. Wilmer, Norris, and Lemmon, who doubtless believed that it was according to the design of those who arranged the American Prayer Book. They quoted as authority the declaration and practice of the Rev. Dr. Smith, who, as may be seen in the journals of our earliest General Convention, took a leading part in the changes of the Prayer Book. Dr. Smith, after leaving Philadelphia, settled in Chestertown, Md., where it was declared he never used the Ante-Communion Service. Dr. Wilmer was one of his successors, and said that it was also affirmed that Dr. Smith avowed himself to have been the author of one or more of the Rubrics, on the meaning and design of which rested the
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question of obligation to use the Ante-Communion Service every Sabbath, and that he had in view the permission to leave it optional with the minister. I am aware that Bishop White has expressed a different opinion, and that his practice was otherwise, nor do I pur- pose to discuss the question or take sides, but only to state the authority on which the Virginia custom was advocated. Neither do I mean to appropriate this custom exclusively to Virginia and a part of Maryland. In other parts of the land there were those who adopted it. I had it from the lips of Bishop Hobart himself, that a portion of the clergy of New York omitted that part of the Ser- vice, and, as I shall show hereafter, it was this fact which had much to do with his proposition to abridge the Service in other parts, in order the more easily to enforce the use of this favourite portion. The Bishop acknowledged to me that the Virginia clergy were not the only transgressors in this respect. This much I can say, that if they did err in the understanding of the rubric, they made amends for the abridgment of the Service by seeking to perform what was used in a more animated manner, and to intro- duce a warm and zealous response among the people, and also by more lengthened, animated, and evangelical discourses from the pulpit. Nor was there any attempt to enforce upon all the practice thus commenced. From the first, every minister has been allowed the free exercise of his conscience and judgment in regard to it. For a time, Bishop Moore, who had been accustomed to the fuller ser- vice in the city of New York, was disposed to urge the same upon the clergy of Virginia, but, after some observation and experience, became satisfied that it was best to leave it to the discretion of each minister, and, though in his own parish he always used it, never required the same in his visits to others.
As to the vestments, the same liberty and the same variety has ever existed in the Church of Virginia, without interruption to its harmony. It is well known that the controversy in our Mother- Church concerning the use of the surplice was a long and bitter and most injurious one; was, indeed, considered by some of her ablest Bishops and clergy as that which was the main point which caused the final secession; that if the obligation to use it had been removed, the Church would, for at least a much longer period, have been undivided. Various attempts were made to abolish the canon or rubric enforcing it, but it was thought improper to humour the dissenters by so doing, and alleged that if this were done other demands would be made. At the revision of the Prayer Book by our American fathers, this and other changes, which had long been
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desired by many in England, and still are, were at once made, and the dress of the clergy left to their own good sense, it being only required that it should be decent. I believe it has never been at- tempted but once to renew the law enforcing clerical habits. Soon after I entered the House of Bishops some one in the other House proposed such a canon. A warm but short discussion ensued, which ended in the withdrawal of what found but little favour. During the discussion the subject was mentioned among the Bishops, who seemed all opposed to it, and one of whom, more disposed, perhaps, to such things than any other, cried out, "De minimis non curat lex." That the old clergy of Virginia should have been very uniform and particular in the use of the clerical vestments is most improbable, from the structure of the churches and the loca- tion of their vestry-rooms. The vestry-rooms formed no part of the old churches, but were separate places in the yard or neigh- bourhood, sometimes a mile or two off. They were designed for civil as well as religious purposes, and were located for the conve- nience of the vestrymen, who levied taxes and attended to all the secular as well as ecclesiastical business of the parish. The setting apart some portion of the old churches as robing or vestry-rooms is quite a modern thing, and it is not at all probable that the min- isters would have gone backward and forward between the pulpits and the former vestry-rooms in the churchyards, to change their garments .* The clergy of Virginia, from the first efforts at resus- citating the Church, have been charged by some with being too indifferent to clerical garments ; nor have they been very careful to repel the charge, thinking it better to err in this way than in the opposite. Bishop Hobart once taunted me with this, though at the same time he acknowledged that there were times and places when it would be folly to think of using the clerical garments, saying, that in his visitations, especially to Western New York, he some- times dispensed not only with the Episcopal robes but even with the black gown. The Bishops of Virginia have sometimes been condemned for not requiring the candidates to be dressed in sur- plices at the time of their admission to deacons' orders, although there is no canon or rubric looking to such a thing. They are at least as good Churchmen, in this respect, as the English Bishops. When in England, some years since, I witnessed the ordination of fifty deacons, by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, in Durham
* In the year 1723 the Bishop of London inquires of the clergy of Virginia con- cerning this. Some reply that the surplice is provided, and others that it is not.
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Cathedral, not one of whom was surpliced; some of them, as well as I remember, having on their college gowns, answering to our black gowns, and others only their common garments. There is, I think, less disposition to form and parade there than is sometimes seen in our own country. I only add that Bishop Moore, in his visitations, always took his seat in the chancel in his ordinary dress, except when about to perform some official act, and thus addressed the congregation after the sermon. I have seen no cause to depart from his example.
GLEBES AND SALARIES WITHDRAWN.
It has been made a matter of great complaint against the Legis- lature of Virginia, that it should not only have withdrawn the sti- pend of sixteen thousand-weight of tobacco from the clergy, but also have seized upon the glebes. I do not mean to enter upon the discussion of the legality of that act, or of the motives of those who petitioned for it. Doubtless there were many who sincerely thought that it was both legal and right, and that they were doing . God and religion a service by it. I hesitate not, however, to ex- press the opinion, in which I have been and am sustained by many of the best friends of the Church then and ever since, that nothing could have been more injurious to the cause of true religion in the Episcopal Church, or to its growth in any way, than the con- tinuance of either stipend or glebes. Many clergymen of the most unworthy character would have been continued among us, and such a revival as we have seen have never taken place. As it was, together with the glebes and salaries evil ministers disappeared and made room for a new and different kind. Even in cases where, from some peculiarity in the manner in which the glebes were first gotten and the tenure by which they were held, the law could not alienate them from the parish, they have been, I believe, without an exception, a drawback to the temporal and spiritual prosperity of the congregations, by relaxing the efforts of the people to support the ministry and making them to rely on the uncertain profits of their contested or pillaged lands. The preju- dices excited against the Church by the long contest for them were almost overwhelming to her hopes, and a successful termination of that contest might have been utterly fatal to them for a long pe- riod of time. Not merely have the pious members of the Church taken this view of the subject, since the revival of it under other auspices, but many of those who preferred the Church at that day,
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