A history and record of the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of West Virginia, Part 36

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The Requiring of Lay Delegates to be Communicants.

We have already spoken of the measures adopted for the purification of the Church from evil-livers, among both clergy and laity, by the passage of wholesome canons. At three suc- cessive periods was this done, opposition being made each time, and six Conventions 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 requir- ing that they be in full communion with the Church, and not merely baptized members or professed friends, whether bap- tized or not. No law, either of the General or State Conven- tions, forbade an infidel or the most immoral man from being the deputy from a parish in the Diocesan Convention, al- though questions might come before them touching the Creed

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and Articles and worship of the Church, or the trial of bishops, clergy and laymen. 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 con- sequence resulted, that, although there was a great improve ment in the general character of the Church and the respec- tability 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 legis- lative hall. It was proposed to close it; but strenuous oppo- sition was made by some, as to a measure assailing individual and congregational rights. It was discussed for three suc- cessive years, and though a considerable majority was always ready to pass the proposed canon, that majority vielded so far to the minority as to allow of delay and further consid- eration, which only resulted in the final passage of it by in- creased 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 delegate, a very humble and good man, who had never spoken before in Convention, rose and expressed his entire dissent from his minister, 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

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legislation, or to blush for the scandal cast upon us by un- worthy members.

Policy of the Bishops and Clergy of Virginia in Regard to Tracta- rianism.

At an early period Bishop Moore called the attention of the clergy and laity of Virginia to this heretical and Romish movement, 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 Convention in Norfolk, with a few exceptions, agreed with him in the propriety of warning against the giv- ing of any encouragement to the circulation of the insidious tracts. At the meeting in Alexandria, the following year, when they had been circulated through the land, having al- ready 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 pre- served from the ill effects of the erroneous and strange doc- trines taught by that school.

The Use of the Liturgy and Vestments of 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 im- perfectly 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 men- tioned 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 Hun- dredth. So unaccustomed were the people to join in the Ser- vice, that when I took charge of the congregation in Alexan-

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dria 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 diminishing and Prayer Books were very scarce, but even clerks were hard to be got- ten, I presume that the Services were very irregularly per- formed. 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 Ser- vice, used them in the pulpit before sermon, after the manner of other denominations. 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, com- bining 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 Morn- ing 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 anything like discipline, the practice may have been very various, according to the consciences, tastes and convenience 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 Morn- ing 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 de-

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claration 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 de- sign of which rested the 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 opin- ion, and that his practice was otherwise, nor do I purpose to discuss the question or take sides, but only to state the au- thority 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 Service, and, as I shall show here- after, it was this fact which had much to do with his proposi- tion 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 per- form what was used in a more animated manner, and to in- troduce 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 Min- ister 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 service 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

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that it was best to leave it to the discretion of each Minister, and, though in his own parish he always used it, never re- quired 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 interrup- tion 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, con- sidered 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 undivid- ed. Various attempts were made to abolish the canon cr 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 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 attempted 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 dis- posed, 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 cleri- cal vestments is most improbable, from the structure of the churches and the location of their vestry-rooms. The vestry- rooms formed no part of the old churches, but were separate places in the yard or neighbourhood, sometimes a mile or two off. They were designed for civil, as well as religious pur- poses, and were located for the convenience of the vestrymen, who levied taxes and attended to all the secular, as well as

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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 minis- ters would have gone backward and forward between the pul- pits and the former vestry-rooms in the churchyards, to change their garments. The clergy of Virginia, from the first efforts at resuscitating 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 sometimes 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 surplices 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 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 exam- ple.

Glebes and Salaries Withdrawn.

It has been made a matter of great complaint against the Legislature of Virginia, that it should not only have with-

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drawn the stipend 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 express 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 Epis- copal Church, or to its growth in any way, than the contin- uance 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 minis- ters 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 con- gregations, by relaxing the efforts of the people to support the ministry and making them to rely on the uncertain prof- its of their contested or pillaged lands. The prejudices ex- cited against the Church by the long contest for them were almost overwhelming to her hopes, and a successful termi- nation of that contest might have been utterly fatal to them for a long period of time. Not merely have the pious mem- bers of the Church taken this view of the subject, since the revival of it under other auspices, but many of those who pre- ferred the Church at that day, for other reasons than her evangelical doctrine and worship. saw that it was best that she be thrown upon her own resources. I had a conversa- tion many years since with Mr. Madison, soon after he ceas- ed to be President of the United States, in which I became assured of this. He himself took an active part in promot- ing the act for the putting down the establishment of the

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Episcopal Church, while his relative was Bishop of it and all his family connection attached to it. He mentioned an anecdote illustrative of the preference of many for it who still advocated the repeal of all its peculiar privileges. I give his own words. At a time when lobby members were sent by some of the other denominations to urge the repeal of all laws favoring the Episcopal Church, one, an elder of a Church, came from near Hampton, who pursued his work with great fearlessness and prudence. An old fashioned Epis- copal gentleman, of the true Federal politics, with a three- cornered hat, powdered hair, long queue, and white top- boots, perceived him approaching very cautiously one day, as if afraid though desirous to speak. Whereupon he en- couraged the elder to come forward, saying that he was al- ready with him, that he was clear for giving all a fair chance, that there were many roads to heaven, and he was in favour of letting every man take his own way; but he was sure of one thing, that no gentleman would choose any but the Epis- copal. Although I am far from assenting to the conclusion that no gentleman are to be found in other denominations, or that there were none in Virginia at that time who had be- come alienated from the Episcopal and attached to other churches, yet it cannot be denied that the more educated and refined were generally averse to any but the Episcopal Church. while many, of whom the above-mentioned was a fair representative, were in favour of equal privileges to all .* It may be well here to state, what will more fully appear when we come to speak of the old glebes and churches in a subsequent number, that the character of the laymen of Virginia for morals and religion was in general greatly in advance of that of the clergy. The latter, for the most part,

* Mr. Madison's mother was a pions member of the Episcopal Church. She lived with him, but was of such feeble health that she could not attend public worship for many of her latter years. On this nceount, as doubtles from a general principle of hospitality, Mr. Madison, who was very regular in his attendance at worship, which, during his day, was held at the court-house in Orange county, there being no church for some time, always invited our miniters to his house, where they ad- ministered the Lord's Supper to his venerable mother.

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were the refuse or more indifferent of the English, Irish, and Scottish Episcopal Churches, who could not find promotion and employment at home. The former were natives of the soil and descendants of respectable ancestors who migrated at an early period. For high and honourable character and a due appreciation of what was required in ministers of the Gospel there were numerous influential laymen who would favourably compare with those of any part of the land. Some of the vestries, as their records painfully show, did what they could to displace unworthy ministers, though they of- ten failed, through defect of law. In order to avoid the dan- ger of having evil ministers fastened upon them, as well as from the scarcity of ministers, they made much use of lay-readers as substitutes. In some instances, as will be seen, such readers were very successful in strengthening the things which remained after the Church was deprived of her possessions and privileges and the clergy had abandoned their charges. The reading of the Service and sermons in private families, which contributed so much to the preserva- tion of an attachment to the Church in the same, was doubt- less promoted by the practice of lay-reading. Those whom Providence raised up to resuscitate the fallen Church of Virginia can testify to the fact that the families who descend- ed from the above-mentioned have been their most effect- ive supports. Existing in greater or less numbers through- out the State, they have been the first to originate meas- ures for the revival of the Church, and the most active and liberal ever since in the support of her ministers. More intelligent and devoted Churchmen, more hospitable and warm-hearted friends of the clergy, can nowhere be found. And when in the providence of God they are called on to leave their ancient homes and form new settlements in the distant South and West, none are more active and reliable in transplanting the Church of their Fathers.

Some Reflections Growing Out of the Foregoing Pages.

The desertions from the Episcopal Church in Virginia on

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the part of many who were awakened to a deeper sense of religion, the violent opposition made to it, the persevering and successful efforts for its downfall, the advantage taken by politicians for promoting their objects, the abandonment of their charges by far the greater part of the ministers so soon as their salaries were withdrawn and when only unprof- itable glebes remained to them, are events in history which must have resulted from some powerful cause or causes. The leading one must be found in the irreligious character and defective preaching of the clergy, operating more or less on the laity, for it will always be, in some degree, "like priest like people." The ignorance, superstition, and corrup- tion of the Romish clergy and people, invited that grand as- sault of the great enemy of God and man upon the Christian Church and religion in Europe, by the agency of Voltaire and his host of followers, which led to the French Revolu- tion with all its horrors. It is not wonderful that the same great foe and his active agents should have turned their at- ·tention to the Church and people of Virginia, in their then most irreligious state, and made an effective assault upon them. Infidelity became rife in Virginia, perhaps beyond any other portion of the land. The clergy, for the most part, were a laughing-stock or objects of disgust. Some that feared God and desired to save their souls felt bound to desert them. Persecution followed, and that only in- creased defection. Infidels rejoiced at the sight, and poli- ticians made their use of the unhappy state of things. The Church fell. There was no Episcopal head to direct and govern either clergy or people. No discipline could be ex- erted over either. It is not surprising, that many should think it was deserted of God as well as of man. Such a view has been taken of it by some ever since, and most dil- igently and successfully urged to our injury. Although our present condition ought to be sufficient proof that the Epis- copal church itself is not an offence unto God,-while at one time it came under his displeasure by reason of the unwor-

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thiness of many of its ministers and members,-yet it may be well to advert, not in a spirit of retaliation but in love of truth and justice, to some facts, showing that the Episco- pal Church is not the only one in our land which has had its unworthy ministers and members, and been of course so far an object of the Divine displeasure. The history of the whole Christian Church, as one of our opponents has said, is the "history of declensions and revivals." The Baptist Church in Virginia, which took the lead in dissent, and was the chief object of persecution by the magistrates and the most violent and persevering afterward in seeking the down- fall of the Establishment, was the first to betray signs of great declension in both ministers and people. The Rev. Robert Sample, in his History of the Baptists of Virginia, is faithful in acknowledging this. He informs us that at an early period Kentucky and the Western country took off many of their ministers in pursuit of gain. Some of these ministers had dishonored the profession. "With some few exceptions," he says, "the declension (among the people) was general throughout the State. The love of many waxed cold. Some of the watchmen fell, others stumbled, and many slumbered at their posts. Iniquity greatly abounded." At another time he says, "The great revival had now sub- sided, and the axe was laid at the root of the tree. Many barren and fruitless trees were already cut down. In many of the churches the number excluded surpassed the number received." Again, he speaks of the undue dwelling on some highly Calvinistic doctrines. "Truth is often injured by an un- suitable application of its parts. Strong meat should not be given but to men. To preach the deep, mysterious doctrines of grace upon all occasions, and before all sorts of people, is the sure way to preach them out of the parts." Again, he says, in the same connection, "Unguardedness respecting preachers, in various ways, but especially as to impostors, has injured the Baptists in many parts, but in none more than on the Eastern Shore, They have probably suffered more by impostors than any other people in Virginia." He

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then mentions several sad instances of shameful miscon- duct, adding others afterward. I am also compelled in hon- est truth to say, that at a later period, many others coming within my own knowledge and observation must be united to the above; but I am also rejoiced to declare, from the same knowledge, that the character of the ministry of that denomination for piety and ability, and no doubt that of the people with it, has been most manifestly improving for many years. I trust that with the acknowledged improvement of our own, there will be an increased disposition to forget all former animosities, to think and speak charitably of each other, and only strive which shall most promote the common cause of true religion.

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A history and record of the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of West Virginia, Part 36

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