CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHIVI/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 tii |5a ^ m Ir 1*0 |2£ |25 2.0 ■MUi. Photographic Sciences Corporation 33 WIST MAIN STRUT WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716)S72-4S03 iV ^^ SJ i- ^^ ^.>- >>- \ Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notas techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. D D n n D Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur I I Covers damaged/ Couverture endommag^e Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurde et/ou pelliculie I I Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque |~n Coloured maps/ Cartes g6ographiques en couleur □ Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relii avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ Lareliure serr6e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intirieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte. mais. lorsque cela itait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 filmdes. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl^mentaires: L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6i(6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-Atre uniques du point de vi?e bibliographique. qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mithode normale de filmage sont indiquis ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes Pages restored and/oi Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes Pages discoloured, stained or f oxei Pages d6color6es, tacheties ou piqu6es I I Pages damaged/ I ! Pages restored and/or laminated/ I I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ □ Pages detached/ Pages d^tach^es r~|< Showthrough/ UlI Transparence I I Quality of print varies/ D Quality in6gale de I'impression Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel suppl^mentaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc.. have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata. une pelure. etc.. ont 6x6 filmdes A nouveau de fapon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. Th to Th po of fill Or be th« sio oti fin sio or Th shj Tir wh Me dif ent bet rig] rec me This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X 1/ f 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X B ^tails 8 du todifier r une Image Th« copy filmed her* ha« ba«n reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Anglican Church of Csnada Synod Archives The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in Iceeping with the filming contract specifications. L'exempiaire filmA fut reproduit grice A la gAnArositA de: Anglican Church of Canada Synod Archival Les images suivantes ont 6tt rei ^oduites avec le plus grand soin. compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetA de l'exempiaire film*, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. )S Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprim6e sont filmte en ccmmen^ant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la derniire page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont fiimis en commen^ant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derniire page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — ^> (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol y (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre film^s d des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cliche, 11 est film6 A partir de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche A droite. et de haut en bas, en prer«*'it le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Ler ifejramm&t suivants illustrem la m6thode. errata I to t i pelure, on d I] 1 2 3 32X t i 9 • 4 ■ 5 6 L i> soc Frontispiece. Page 134. LIVES OF MISSIONARIES. ■•o*- NORTH AMERICA. JOHN ELIOT. BIPHOP CHASE. BISHOP SEABURY. BISHOP STEWART. REV. J. G. MOUNTAIN. PUfiLISHEO VNDEB THE DIBECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENEBAIi LITEBATUBE AND EDVCATZOIT APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOB PBOMOTUTQ CHBISTIAN KNOWLEDOB. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE ; BOLD AT THE DEPOSITOBIES : 77, OBBAT QUEEK STBEET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS; 4i BOYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY; AND BY ALL BOOKSELLEBB. mtm ^-^ - PBINTED For the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge AT THE CLABENDON PBESS^ OXFORD. '^ CONTENTS FAOI 1. John Eltot ..••••• * - • 63 2. Bishop Sbabubt .#•••• 97 3. Bmhop Chas* •'i 4. Bishop Stbwabt, of Quebio , • • • 6. RbV. J. G. MOUMTAIH . . • • • 206 C\ M Th dial but Chi son cusi intc tok< beei the witl prii the T forn spre forei visit Fefis warn plaii THE LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. The records of the discovery and colonization of distant lands are full of interest to every reader, but can seldom be studied by the thoughtful Christian without awakening in him feelings of sorrow and shame. The strange manners and customs of the aboriginal inhabitants, while* they interest us by their novelty, are too generally tokens of the unhappy condition of those who have been estranged from the knowledge and service of the true God ; while the dealings of the white man with the savage have been too little actuated by the principles becoming the name and profession of the servants of Christ. The history of the colonizations of North America forms no exce;)tion to the general rule: — thinly spread in scattered tribes over vast prairies and forests, the natives were, when the Eiuropeans first visited their shores, strangers to all the arts and refinements of civilization. With no settled abode, wandering from forest to forest, or from plain to plain, as game was scanty or abundant, they derived JOHN ELIOT. their wholo subsistonco from the chase, which was almost their only peaceful occupation, while they were perpetually engaged in hostile encounters with neighbouring tribes, carrying on their warfare in the most barbarous fashion, glorying in acts which should have been their shame. Not destitute of a certain dignity of demeanour and a generous though rude hospitality, they were resentful, trea- cherous, and cruel to the last degree. Their religion was mixed up with the grossest supersti- tion; they had Uio firmest reliance on charms or spells, and with a view of propitiating the powers of evil worshipped them scarcely less scrupulously, than they adored the Great Spirit, the Creator of the universe and the Author of all good; and their social intercourse was stained by those vices which almost invariably accompany a state of barbarism. History does not present to us the early European settlers in a much more favourable light, although the original charters granted to adventurers were generally couched in terms expressive of benevo- lent care for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the native races; and although many of the leaders in such settlements had lofty notions of CShristian philanthropy, the colonists too soon fell back from their higher aims, and whether under the influence of cupidity or of fear, learnt to rival the red men in cruelty, if they could not equal them in cunning, and to regard them as beasts of the field, to be crushed and exterminated, rather AHEBIOAN COLONIZATION. — PILGRIM FATHERS. 1 mevo- elfare the 1)118 of Dn fell Tmder j rival- equal easts of rather > iv than as human heings to bo instructed and re« claimed. In the melancholy spectacle which is thus pre- sented to the reader, it is consoling to meet with men who could rise superior to the prejudices of their generation — men of clear judgment, and earnest piety, who could recognize, and with their utmost energies endeavour to perform, the much- neglected duty of bringing to bear upon the natives among whom they dwelt the purifying and sancti- fying influence of civilization and religion. Such a man was John Eliot, the subject of this memoir — the apostle of the Indians in New Eng- land. The colony of New England had been founded by Englishmen in the reign of Charles I., commonly known under the name of the Pilgrim Fathers. Dissatisfied with the form of religion imposed by the Church of England, and not allowed in those days to worship God in freedom, they left their native soil to seek in a distant land the liberty of conscience denied them in their own. They were a grave and stem community, endeavouring to frame all their laws and customs in the letter of Scripture, especially of the Old Testament; too much occupied, in general, in building up their own polity to bestow much thought for the souls of the wild tribes who surrounded them. It must however be acknowledged, that, for some years at least, the dealings of the New Englanders with the Indian tribes were marked by fairness and JOHN lUOT. poacoablo bonovolonco. Thoy professed to purchase the hinds on which they settled, to be careful to offer no injury to the natives, and to be anxious to propagate the Gospel among them ; and though but little was done in this last direction, probably owing in a groat measure to the full occupation of the settlers in providing for their own necessities, there is no doubt that at first, and for some years after their first establishment, the colonist'' took some pains to carry out the principles which they had laid down for themselves in respect of the two other points above mentioned. It was, then, no new notion that filled the mind of John Eliot when he felt himself " pressed in the Spirit " to preach the Gospel to the Indians of New England. Others had to a greater or less extent preceded him in the work ; but it is no disparage- ment of the labours of any of his predecessors to say, that he laboured in that work "more abun- dantly thfl^n they all ;" nor shall we err in adding to this remark the further words of the great Apostle, that it was not he who did the work, but the grace of God which was with him. Of the early life of John Eliot but little is re- corded. He was bom in 1604 in England, at what place is not known, but probably in Essex or some neighbouring county. His parents, however, must have been careful and religious people, for in his later age he remembered with thankfulness the training which he had received in his youth. "I do •ee," he said, " that it was a great favour of God a 8] d nl lABLT EDUCATION. — EMIQBATION. ' O unto mo, to soason my first times with tho foar of God, the Word, and proyor." This good training and those early principles, instrmncnts which the Holy Spirit employs to bring forth His fruit in youthful minds, soon settled into habits of earnest piety and dedication of himself to God. Among the means to which in later days he looked back as mainly contributing to this end, were the Christian teaching and example which ho enjoyed in tho family of Thomas Hooker, a clergyman, who being unwilling to conform to some of the rules of the Church of England, resigned the office of Lecturer which he held in the town of Chelmsford, and established a school at Little Baddow, a village about four miles distant therefrom. After leaving the University of Cambridge, Eliot became an as- sistant to Hooker in his. school, and continued in that employment till his departure for New Eng- land in 1631, to which country his master followed him two years afterwards. Eliot's early education and youthful preposses- sions had placed his lot among men who were not satisfied with a full conformity to the Church of England — men who were at that time treated with a severity which tended rather to •srush their spirit than to win them over to the more excellent 'way. Eliot had probably received Orders in the Church, but beyond the assistance which he ren- dered in the school at Little Baddow, we know of no public exercise of his duties as a clergyman in England. He sought refuge with so many others 6 JOHN EUOT. of his brethren, from the ill-judged policy of those who then bore rule in the Church, and found it on the shores of North America. Yet we hear in him of no such rancorous hostility to the Church as was shown by many of those who like himself had with- drawn from her communion. He preached Christ both to the settler and to the Indian native, not in a spirit of strife, but of the purest good-will, and the means which he took for carrying out his plans were marked not only by Christian love and self- denial, but also to a very high degree by wisdom and good sense. Soon after his arrival in New England he was called to supply the place of minister to a congre- gation at Boston, during the absence in England of their usual pastor Mr. Wilson. On Wilson's return, many wished Eliot to become his colleague, but he thought himself bound to imdertake the duty of ministering to a number of former friends and neighbours, who had emigrated in the year follow- ing his own departure from England, and had settled themselves at a place about two miles from Boston, to which they gave the name of Boxbury. Eoxbury is now a large and flourishing town, though so near to the great city of Boston as to be in effect one of its suburbs ; but all who love the memory of the early days of New England remem- ber with pleasure that it was at Boxbury that John Eliot fixed his abode, and for nearly sixty years exercised his ministry, and that thence, as from head-quarters, he went forth from time to time to ' fii WIFE AND CHILDREN. oommenco and carry on his great work among the native Indians of the surrounding district. In 1632 he married a lady to whom he had be- come attached in his native coimtry, and who had quitted her homo like the rest in the year following his own departure. Mrs. Eliot was a woman of great piety and good sense. We are informed that she obtained a good knowledge of medicine, and ministered with much success in that way to the bodily ailments of the poor. She died about three or four years before her husband, having borne him one daughter and five sons, all of whom their father devoted to the service of God, in the work of the ministry of the Gospel. Two of tbem, however, died young ; of the remaining three, two attained a good reputation as preachers, and both, but espe- cially the eldest, John, laboured among the Indians. The youngest, Benjamin, became, in 1674, an assist- ant to his father in his declining years. But he also was not permitted to fulfil his father's wishes in this world, for he died before him, at Koxbury. Being asked how he could bear the loss of so many excellent children, Eliot's reply was, " My desire was that they should have served God on earth ; but if God will choose to have them rather serve Him in Heaven, I have nothing to object against it ; but His will be done." Mrs. Eliot's practical ability and prudence were of great use to her husband and family. Like many other men who have set on foot great schemes and organized them with eminent skill, he was careless and self-negligent in his 8 JOHN ELIOT. private pecuniary affairs. On one occasion, we are told, when several cattle of his own were staliding near his door, his wife asked him whose they were. But the good man's mind was running upon Indian alphabets and Indian vocabularies, or, more likely, on still higher subjects ; he knew not his cattle by sight, and was forced to acknowledge his ignorance. Another time the treasurer of the parish had paid him his salary, which he expressly requested might be raised not by rate but by voluntary contribution. Knowing Eliot's disposition, the man tied up the money in a handkerchief, which he took care to twist into as many knots as he could contrive to make. On his way home, Eliot called on a poor woman. Finding that she stood in need of relief, he began to untie his handkerchief, but, baffled by the knots, he at last handed the whole over to her, saying, " Here, my dear, take it ; I believe the Lord designs it aU for you." We have already seen that he preferred that his stipend should be furnished by contribution rather than by rate. A few years before his decease, being by the death of his youngest son left without an assistant in his duties, his failing strength appeared to require the appointment either of a coadjutor or ^a successor. He therefore at once proposed to his people to resign his salary, and that a new pastor should be appointed in his own stead. " I do here," he said, " give back my salary to the Lord Jesus Ohrist, and now, brethren, you may fix that upon any man that God shall make a pastor for you." SPIRIT OP PRATER. 9 m. »» But his people valued him too highly to accept this proposal, and continued the payment of his stipend after he had all but ceased to perform the duties of his office. These anecdotes will serve to show the unselfish and simple character of the man. He was no less remarkable for two other points of Christian character — a spirit of prayer, and a spirit of love and peace. When he visited the house of any family with which he was intimate, and still more when he entered the society of any of his brethren in the ministry, he was unwilling to take his leave in either case without a prayer offered. " Let us pray," he would say, " before we part." And in his dying moments the words which he was last heard to utter, were, " Pray, pray, pray !'* He used also to set apart whole days for prayer with fasting, especially when there was any special difl&cidty to be overcome or enterprise undertaken ; and on the other hand, when any piece of news of special im-* portance was brought to him, his usual remark to those about him was, " Brethren, let us turn all this into prayer ;" thus carrying into practice the com- mand of our Lord, " Pray always,'* by keeping his own mind and exhorting others to keep their minds in a state fit for prayer. Nor was he wanting in that other great Christian grace of charity; for not only was he zealous and self-denying in the work of relieving the bodily wants of the poor, as well as in fulfilling the spiritual work of his ministry, but he was eminently a healer of divisions among men, and a restorer of peace. One of his 10 JOHN ELIOT. favourite sayings for those of his brethren in the ministry who complained of the obstinacy and fro- wardness of any among their flocks, was, " Brother, learn the meaning of those three little words, * Bear, forbear, forgive.' " He once greatly displeased one of his hearers by a remark made in a sermon. The man endeavoured to revenge himself upon Eliot by abusive language and spiteful letters. Soon after- wards he happened to wound himself severely, and stood in need of medical assistance. Eliot imme- diately sent his wife to attend him, and under her care and skill, by God's blessing, he recovered. As soon as his health was restored, he came to thank her for her services. Eliot received him with kind- ness ; and by these *' coals of fire," applied in this wise and Christian manner, not only gained a friend for himself, but may be said also to have set an ex- ample of that charity which, as the Apostle says, helps to save a soul from death, and to cover a mul- titude of sins. The communities of New Englanders were not more exempt from quarrels than other Christian societies ; but Eliot, in the quaint language of his biographer. Cotton Mather, was ** ready to ring a loud Curfew-bell wherever he saw the fire of animosity." Once it happened that a bundle of papers^ containing the history of some wrangle, was laid before a meeting of ministers, with a view to their judgment on the case. As soon as Eliot came into the room, he astonished the assembly by gather- ing the papers and throwing them in a heap into the fire. " Wonder not, brethren," he said quietly, VALUE OF EDUCATION. 11 "at what I have done; I did it on my knees this morning, before I came among you." It was in a like spirit of love that when ho cauie into a family where there were children, he would call them all round him, and laying his hands upon them, one by one, implore for each a blessing from Heaven. It is not surprising that one who devoted himself with so much zeal to the conversion of the heathen should be zealous also in the cause of Christian education amongst his own people. He was a warm advocate for Infant Baptism as the divine right of children, in opposition to the doctrine which had grown up since the Reformation, and been imported into New England from the mother-country. Nor did he spare ' his opponents in the controversy ; but without at all infringing on the charities of Christian inter- course, he upheld with no feeble pen and no waver- ing loyalty the ancient and catholic practice in this respect. But in striving to fvl&i the first part of our Lord's parting injunction, " Baptize all nations," he did not neglect its second portion, " Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you." He was a strenuous advocate for the practice of public catechizing. His early work at Little Baddow was of service to him in this respect, and he carried it out net only in his own practice, but he also put together catechisms for the use of children and young persons. And not only in this special work, but in the establishment of grammar-schools he was zealously active ; and Cotton Mather tells us, that Roxbury sent out from its school, founded by Eliot, 12 JOHN ELIOT. more scbolars in proportion to its size than any community in New England. In preaching, Eliot showed in a remarkable degree both love and zeal. His sermons were full of warm affection for his people, and anxiety for the sal- vation of souls — that quality which is commonly known by the very fitting and descriptive name of " unction ;" for as it proceeds from the Anointing Spirit, so it also represents the true nature of the Spirit's work. But he fulfilled also with no less care that other work of the same blessed Spirit, so neccssoiy yet so difficult to fulfil without injury to the first, namely, that of reproving the world of sin. The truth was, that the power of the Spirit pene- trated his heart, and therefore, whether he were rebuking the ungodly, or exhorting and entreating sinners, or labouring to strengthen those who might be said to " stand " in the truth of the Gospel, he felt that it was by the power of God and not of man that he was enabled to speak. His own remark will best describe his manner of preaching. " It is a sad thing," he would say, " when a sermon shall have that one thing, the Spirit of God wanting in it." Not that he despised study and reading as prepa- rations for preaching. " The oil of the sanctuary,"* to use his biblical metaphor, " must be beaten oil. The Lord help us by good study to beat out our oil, that tl:ere may be a clear light given in the house of God." Worn out by nearly sixty years of constant labour, ♦ Exod. xivii. 20 ; Lev. xxiv. 2. SI] he orl till DYING W0BD8. — OHABACTEB. 18 of labour heavier and more continued than falls to the lot of most men, his powers, as he drew towards the * end of life, became gradually weaker. Nevertheless, he did what he could to the last. When he could no longer preach, he instructed children at home. When he was asked by friends about his health, his answer was, " I have lost everything — my under- standing leaves me, my memory fails me, my utter- ance fails, but I thank God, my charity holds out still : I ilnd that rather grows than fails." Among his last words were ** We!3ome joy !" and so with joy, in the year 1690, at the age of eighty-six, this faith- ful servant of Jesus Christ entered into his rest, full of years and of honour. In recording the habits of so pious a Christian as Eliot, we ought not to omit his care about the observance of the Lord's day, and the just opinion which he held respecting its nature. Not only was he most anxious to introduce its observance among the Indians, knowing, as he well knew, how essential to spiritual life its due observance is, but he taught and upheld it earnestly among his own people. He regarded it as a rest which not only furnishes vigour for active employment, but which prefigures the rest which, after the strife of the world is over, the people of God shall enjoy in Heaven for evermore. Mention has already been made of Eliot's careless simplicity in money matters : we may add here that he was a determined enemy to tobacco, *and to wigs, or long hair. Simple and self-denying himself, he thought these luxuries or supposed ornaments need- 14 JOHN ELIOT. less, and, as such, unlawful. Tt was the same temper and humility of soul that caused him to disclaim, almost with indignation, the title with ' which men desired to inyest him during his life- time, of " Evangelist " to the Indians. " I beseech you," he said " that this word may be obliterated." The grounds on which that title seemed to have been well earned, though rejected by himself, we will now consider. Of the Indian tribes scattered, according to their own wild mode of life, over the country which re- ceived from the settlers the name of New England, the most powerful, at the time of the European im- migration, were the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the Paukunnawkuts or Wampanoags, and the Mohegans. The Massachusetts, who have given their name to one of its provinces, had almost disappeared from the country by the time that the pilgrims had begun to plant themselves there. The Pequods were all well-nigh exterminated in the war of 1637. These tribes, together with many others, who had dwelt or were then dwelling in their neighbourhood, spoke, with varieties of dialect, a common language, to which the French gave the name of Algonquin. In some form or other the Algonquin race and language extended over nearly half the northern continent of America, and the language is still the mother-language, widely di- versified by dialects, of the larger portion of the tribes who survive in that region. eni OOMMBNCEMENT OF LAB0UB8. 15 At what moment the mind of Eliot became moyed to seek the spiritual welfare of the Indians, it is not possible nor is it of moment to ascertain. One cause which appears to have had influence over him was the affinity which, as he persuaded himself, ex- isted between them and the dispersed tribes of Israel, that phantom which has attracted the minds and stimulated the researches of so many inquirers both ancient and modem, and which, to men of the sect to which Eliot had attached himself, possessed peculiar attractions. The commonwealth of Israel was their model of state government ; and to trace a relic of Israel, however defaced, would be an object not only of antiquarian interest, but almost of religious duty; still more weighty would be the obligation to make an effort to rest.yre and reinstate that marred relic in a position approaching, if not far surpassing, that to which by its ancestry it stood entitled. >, However this may be, his earnest and benevolent heart must have yearned with sympathy for the spiritual wants of the Indians. He must in course of time have become witness to the evils arising from their intercourse with Europeans ; and, more- over, he knew and acknowledged from the first the expressed desires of the foundation-charter of the colony — to keep in view the conversion, if possible, of the natives to the Christian faith. It was in 1646, fifteen years after his arrival in America, that Eliot, at the age of forty-two, formally entered on his great work of preaching to the natives 16 JOHN ELIUT. the glad tidings of salvation through Christ Josus. He delayed making this beginning until he had ac- quired a familiar knowledge of their language. This was a work full of no common difficulties — diffi- culties which have been encountered and overcome bj many since Eliot's time, but which, in the case of the American languages, were such as few men in his time had learned to encounter in a systematic way. Wo are informed that when Xavier began to travel on his missionary journeys in Southern India, he was wholly ignorant of tho language of the people whom he came to convert ; but that the gift of tongues being imparted to him by God, he became enabled to speak and preach in the native tongue of the inhabitants without having previously learned it. Whatever amount of credence we may give to this statement, it is certain that no such sudden gift was vouchsafed to Eliot in his inter- course with the Indians /of North America. He possessed, indeed, a gift of tongues, but one which required to be matured and directed by study and labour ; and his labour was abundantly blessed by that Father of lights from whom that good gift proceeded, and to whose glory he dedicated its use. The difficulties attending the study of the Indian languages were strongly felt by the early colonists. " The languages themselves," quaintly remarks the historian of New England, " must have been grow- ing since Babel," so lengthy were their words, and so unlike any of European origin. Yet the Indians, though in general a silent race, are capable at times INDIAN LANGUAGES. 17 is - i- ay of in tic to lift, the gift he itive )iiBly may Bucli nter- He hicli and dby gift use. dian inists. the row- and ians, I times of most picturesque and deeply pathetic eloquence, full of poetical thought, and remarkable for fitness of expression. Whence, then, the difficulties attend- ing the study of their languages ? Partly from the want of community in subjects and modes of thought betwe^'n them and Europeans, so that for a vast num- ber of ideas of the most frequent occuri'ence among Europeans, there is, or at least was, an utter absence of any corresponding forms of speech ; partly from the internal structure of the languages themselves, and partly also from the absence of written characters. When the Indian wished to record an event, he drew a picture of it, but alphabetical writing was to him a mystery — a piece of medicine* — a thing of occult power — to bcwreverenced perhaps or feared, as an instrument in the white man's hand, but not understood. Eliot's first works, therefore, were to reduce the spoken language to writing, and to construct an alphabet, a grammar, and a vocabidary. In any case this must be a difficult task, but especially so when the purpose intended is to ex- press ideas wholly new, in terms for which the language has no direct equivalents. The Indian languages are at once rich and poor. Bich in words, they are poor in the machinery by which language is simplified and made capable of use. Most of them have no verb " to be," no means for denoting plural number by an ending, and no independent numerals. The word of number varies according to * "Medicine" is the Indian term for whatever is not understood. 18 JOHN ILIOT. the object donotcd. Again, they are deficient in what we call common nomis or general terms. They can- not speak of a tree apart from the notion of its being one of a particular sort, and this even in the cases of different sorts of trees of the same class, as oaks ; the black oak, the red oak, &c., are each known by a separate name. They do not use the terms father, brother, &c., singly, but in connection with the words which denote those to whom they are related, as my father, your brother, and the like. Lastly, the verb undergoes so many changes in order to express time, manner, frequency, affirma- tion or negation, as well as to include in itself both the doer of the action and the object to which it is directed, that these changes are said, in the Chip- pewa language, to amount to five thousand, or even more. The Indian does not say he hunts, but he must tell us the kind of game he pursues, and the manner in which he pursues it. In short the same mcapacity to express general notions which exists among the nouns extends also to the verbs. Hence arises the necessity for the Indian to string words together like shells on his own wampum-belts, and hence that endless prolixity of syllables which per- plexed so sorely the good historian of New England. To kneel was an action new to the Indian, and to express it, Eliot was obliged to use a word of eleven syllables, or more properly, a string of words accu- mulated rather than combined. His manner of acquiring the language he thus describes: — "I found out," he says, "by God's wise providence, a hat an- ing B of ^7 rms dth are ike. } in uia- [)oth it is hip- 3ven t he the uuue xists ence ords , and per- land. id to [even iccu- jr of — «I ice, a H ' TBANSLATIONS. — FIRST LESSON. 19 c r* 4l . ■/ { pregnant-witted man, who pretty well understood our language : him I made my interpreter. By his help I translated the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and many texts of Scripture ; also I com- piled both exhoi*tations and prayers by his help. I diligently marked the difference of their grammar from ours ; when I found the way of them, I would pursue a word, a noun, a verb through all variations I could think of." Having by these means acquired a knowledge of the language sufficient to preach in it, he set forth on the 28th of October, 1646, in company with three other persons, to preach his first sermon. The place appointed was some four or five miles from Roxbury, and he was met there by Waban, a " wise and grave Indian," who led him to a wigwam in which a large number of Indians were collected, who had come from all parts to hear the new doctrines. After prayer he spoke in the Indian language for about a quarter of an hour, explaining the principal truths of the Gospel, and then asked those who were present whether they understood his meaning. He then encouraged them to ask questions, and also questioned them on what they had heard. The sub- ject of this first sermon was, " The breath of God moving over the dry bones " (Ezek. xxxvii. 9, 10). Many of those who were present were much moved by what they heard, especially Waban, whose name, it was remarked, meant breath, or wind, and who thence- forward began to take an active part in the work of converting his countrymen. Among the questions 20 JOHN ELIOT. propounded by the Indians the following are men- tioned : — " How can I come to know Jesus Christ ?" " Were Englishmen ever so ignorant of Jesus Christ as Indians V" " Can He understand prayers in the Indian language ?'* " How came the world to be full of people if all were drowned in the flood ?" What answers he retmned to these questions Eliot has not told us, but he says he conversed with the Indians for about three hours, and considered that they were very attentive to the instructions which he gave them. On November 11, in the same year, Eliot again met the Indians by appointment, who had assembled in larger numbers than before. He first addressed the children, and then the adults, who when the sermon was ended proceeded, after the former manner, to ask questions. One old man, with eyes full of tears, asked, "Whether it were not too late for him to repent and seek after God ?" Another asked, " How it came to pass, if all men sprang from one Father, that the Indians should diff'er so much from the English in their knowledge of Him ?" Again, " How might Indians come to know God ?" In answering these and similar questions much time was occupied. Some of the hearers, and one in particular, shed many tears, and showed deep interest in the matter, and Eliot and his friends were convinced that the work of God was shown in the results of the day's employ- ment. The third of these meetings, held on the 26th of the same month, was attended less numerously than the first two. This was owing to the exertions HINDRANCES. — SUCCESSES. 21 ons of tlie powows, or medicine- men, who perceived their craft to bo in danger, and warned their countrymen to keep away. The powoio influence to diminish the number of Eliot's hearers was, on this occasion, exerted with some success ; but at the same time with the appearance of the " adversaries " a great and effectual " door was opened " for the success of the Gospel. Waban took up the cause in a moment, and learned to repeat to his countrymen the lessons which he had heard delivered by the white preacher. Another Indian, Wampas, brought his son and some other children, and besought they might be instructed in the Christian faith, " because," said he, " they would grow rude and wicked at home, and would never come to know God, as they would do if they were constantly with the English." This example was not lost, for at the fourth meeting, on December 9, all the Indians who were present offered their children to be instructed. Thus far all was well ; but Eliot saw from the first that little lasting good would be done to the Indians, unless they could be persuaded to leave off in some degree their roving habits, and conform to civilized ways of life. He therefore applied to the general court of the colony to grant land for the purpose of building a town, in which they might settle, and whilst they learned some of the arts of civilization, might be induced to bring up their children, or allow them to be brought up, in a Christian manner. It is evident that in this measure lies, if not tho 22 JOHN ELIOT. whole, yet the most difficult pai-t of the question of reclaiming all savages, but American Indians above all others, perhaps, in the world. Bom and brought up in the wildest freedom, subject to no restraint even in childhood, for Indian parents never restrain their children, accustomed from youth to win their food, not by the plodding labour of the plough or the spade, but in the passionate excitement of a hunter's life, the restraints of civilization have most commonly proved to the Indians instruments of decay. They droop and pine away under an influence which, however well meant, benumbs their limbs and enfeebles their bodily constitution; or, as is too often the case, without losing their native defects of character, they engraft upon them those vices which are the reproach and scandal of men professing to be Christians, and which have everywhere stood so sorely in the way to hinder the progress of the Gospel. To preserve them from this contact has therefore been the aim of nearly all who have sought in earnest to make them at once Christians and mem- bers of civil society. In this direction have the Moravians laboured, and so too did the Jesuit founders of the missions in Paraguay, known by the name of Beductions. For more than a hundred years they kept their nurslings separate from the Spanish lords of the country, in a state, if we may believe the historian, of all but primitive innocence, free from crime, but devoid also of heroic virtue. They sang, they wept, they danced, they t OOMPAMBON WITH JKSUIT SY8TEM. 28 thronged the church processions, they lived in an atmosphere of religious fervour and a scene of religious pageant, delighting like children in the shows and splendid ceremonials which their tropical climate encouraged and embellished. But all that was done was done under the careful, nay, jealous superintendence of the good Jesuit fathers. No alloy . of external temptation was permitted, so far as they could help, to intrude upon the innocent holiday of this vast nursery. Their life was passed in a garden of delight, with few trials to encounter and few victories to win. To a certain extent, the Jesuits were right. It was better for their disciples to be free from the temptations which experience had taught them to be inseparable from contact with Europeans, than to be touched by them and perish. The Jesuit principle was to guide in leading strings, not to teach self-reliance ; to keep them as children, innocent and imbecile, helpless to encounter temptation, and dependent for support not so much on the power of the Spirit within them, as on the rules of spiritual life taught them, and watched over by their Christian instructors. For ever babes in Chribt, they never learned thoroughly to put away childish things. And so when the crash came, and their guices and instructors were taken away from them, the whole machine, as it were, collapsed ; and of the flourishing missions of Paraguay, once numbering more than one hundred thousand persons, only feeble remnants, compara- tively speaking, are known now to survive. Safe 24 JOHN ELIOT. within the precincts of their happy home, the converts had not learned to walk without the leading strings of spiritual direction ; and thus after more than a hundred years of trial, the great and noble experiment of Jesuit civilization, after all its successes and its numberless good points, came to the end which could scarcely have been avoided, and which, it is not too much to say, was scarcely to be regretted. For when our blessed Lord gave commandment to His disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature, He did not mean that men and women were to become Christian children for life, unable to walk in their Christian course through the world without leaning continually on the crutch of human interference ; neither did He desire to take His people out of the world, but that they might be kept from the evil one. The Christian's warfare must be carried on in the world, against the world and its temptations ; it is on that battle-field that his victory must be won ; and therefore it is that the Jesuit missions as per- manent institutions failed to accomplish the great end of the Gospel. And hence also all methods of Christian civilization based on the principle of perpetual direction, must come short of the full scope of the Gospel. The full-grown Christian must rely for direction on the means which have been provided for him by God, in His Word, His Church, His Sacraments, and the teaching and discipline of the Christian ministry — above all, and throughout all, in the power of the Holy Spirit sought in prayer. JESUIT SYSTEM. 25 and imparted by the Giver of all good gifts ; on these he must lean for support, and not on the care, however watchful, however kind, however com- fortable, of any merely human directors. Their care and vigilance, and the seclusion which the Jesuit scheme promoted and insured, was doubtless most valuable in the outset to savages entering, as it were, into the childhood of the Christian life ; but as the child must be educated with the express view and the avowed purpose of enabling him to walk alone in manhood, so too the aim and object of aU Christian civilizers ought to be, to enable their pupils to enter into contact with the world at large, to meet its temptations, and to contend with them on the same terms as other Christian men and women of all times and all countries. It may require many years to accomplish this object, so far as human means can accomplish it; it may not be done in a single nor in more than a single generation ; but unless this result be at some time attained, pji'^ Christian childhood, however blameless, however lovely, give way in time to Christian manhood, the plan must be considered to have failed. Like the Jesuit missions of Paraguay, it is even better to put an end to it altogether than to continue a work founded on an unsound basis, which only aims at perpetuating imperfection, and which, like theirs, will fall to pieces as soon as ever the hands are removed which controlled and guided its operations. As, however, there can be no doubt of the benevo- 'J6 JOHN ELIOT. lence of intention on the part botli of the Jesuit fathers in the south, and also of the Indian Apostle, as men called Eliot, in the north ; as we recognize the identity of the principle from which each of them started, viz., separation from Europeans, so, too, there can be little doubt of its wisdom in the outset, nor yet up to a certain point, to speak humanly, of its success. It was plainly useless for him or for any missionary in those days, probably in any days, to fling the seed of the Gospel broad- cast, as it were, upon the soil, and then leave it to take its chance for a crop. Xavier, in Travancore, thought it his duty to baptize all children who were brought to him, believing that God would take care of their subsequent welfare. In Mexico the Spanish missionaries baptized thousands, nay, millions, of natives in the course of a few years ; but Eliot reasoned justly, that to preach the Gospel to heathens, and even to admit them after probation to Baptism, and then to let them loose upon their former habits and wild modes of life, was nothing but a scattering of the seed for the birds of the air to carry away. Our Saviour left commands both to baptize and to teach : if you bring men or children to Christ, you must put them in the way of abiding with Him ; and for this purpose no method seemed to Eliot so hopeful with the Indians as the one of inducing them to leave off savage habits, and assume those of civilized and settled life. And it must be confessed that in his hands the plan seemed to prosper ; God's blessing rested on it, and for many CIVILIZATION OF INDIANS. 27 years his Indian converts appeared to be settling down into civilization, under the influence of Christian teaching and Christian example. A site having been obtained for a town, and the Indians being persuaded to gather themselves to it, under Eliot's direction they suirounded it with a stone wall and a ditch. The town received the name of Nonanetum, and the inhabitants under his guidance began to employ themselves in agriculture, and in simple mechanical arts. In hay-time, and in harvest, they assisted the English in the fields, but they were not very efficient as labourers. The most signal mark of impro vement was in the change brought about in the condition and employments of the women. Polygamy was discontinued ; and in- stead of the hard labour of the field or the home- stead, which is the usual lot of the Indian women, they were taught to spin, and were employed in selling fruits and fish according to the seasons. The government of the colony viewed the work with approbation, and allowed courts to be established to adjudicate among the Indians exclusively. Laws were also enacted forbidding the acquisition of land from them except by purchase, for allotting lands to Indian communities desirous of living in civil society, for making compensation to them in case of damage done to their crops by the colonists or by their cattle, and imposing a penalty of forty shillings on the sale of every pint of spirituous liquor sold to any of them. A second lecture was soon established at a place 28 JOHN ELIOT. about four milca from Roxbury, called Neponsitt, and a third at Concord. At this last place the movemout took rise from the Indians themselves, who, seeing the good effects of what was going on at Nonanetum, obtained the assistance of one of their own people from that place in framing for themselves a system of government under the direc- tion of an Englishman, who acted among them as a magistrate. But Eliot's labours were not confined to these settlements ; he also availed himself of every opportunity of preaching to the Indians wherever he could find them collected together. NEvery year a great meeting of them for fishing used to take place at a station on the river Merrimac, called Pantucket. These meetings he did not fail to attend, and not without good fruit. He suc- ceeded in persuading the Indians to observe the Lord's day, and to join with him in prayer. Some of the Sachems, or chiefs, began to be favom-ably disposed towards the Gospel ; in particular one called Papassaconnoway, who expressed his inten- tion not only of praying to God in future, but also of endeavouring to persuade his sons to do the same. In the letter to Mr. Winslow, the agent in England for Massachusetts, in which Eliot describes these proceedings, he relates also other instances of the success of the Gospel, and, in particular, the case of a woman, who, on her death-bed, called her children round her, and charged them to resist all temptations to leave the Christian community which had been gathered, but to remain there all their J r* HARDSHIPS. — OPPOSITION. '2\) r» days. Ho also tells Mr. Winslow that the sons of Papassacop noway had followed their father's advice, and that tl eir resolution had every appearance of becoming permanent. In this and in other letters he describes, also, some of the difficulties and hard- ships which were to bo encountered in the course of his work. " There is not so much as meat, drink, or lodging," he says, " for them that go to preach among them, but we must carry all things with us, and somewhat to give unto them." And again he says, " I have not been dry night nor day, from the third day of the week imto the sixth, but so travelled, and at night pull off my boots, wring my stockings, and on with them again, and so continue. But God steps in and helps. I have considered the word of God in 2 Tim. ii. 3 : * Endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ.' " Sometimes also he was in danger of his life from the Sachems who were opposed to his preaching. Oue of them, named Cutshamoquin, after a lecture, told him plainly that the Sachems were, in general, opposed to his plan of town-building. In conference with him afterwards, he told Eliot that the reason of the opposition was, that the praying Indians, as they now began to be called, did not pay tribute to him as heretofore. Eliot replied, " that he had taught the true doctrine as expressed in the words * Give to Caesar, &c.' " But he confesses that he bad great difficulty in persuading his converts to practise the doctrine, which he taught so fully, as he himself wished. 80 JOHN ELIOT. It was not long boforo the news of EHot'a labours reached the ears of others, who, like himself, felt deep interest in the work of preaching Christ to the Indians. Accounts were published under the quaint titles of " The Day-breaking, if not the Sun-rising of the Gospel with the Indians in New England," and " The Clear Sunshine of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians." The second of these pamphlets, written by Thomas Shepard, minister of the Gospel at Cambridge, N. E., was dedicated to the English Houses of Paxliament, and the question having been taken up warmly there, an Act was passed, consti- tuting in England a corporation of sixteen persons to promote the work. Public collections were authorized by the Act; and letters, published by the Universities of Oxford and Cambrid^"^ recom- mended the cause to the favour of the nation at large. This was not the first attempt that had been made at home to carry out a similar object : in 1641 a petition was presented to the Long Parlia- ment in the first year of its session, by William Castell, "parson of Courtenhall, Northampton- shire," setting forth the duty incumbent on Christians to press forward the work of spreading the Gospel — the little done, hitherto, in that direc- tion by Europeans, and the hindrance to it caused by the cruelties of the Spaniards. The petition was signed by upwards of seventy English clergy- men, including among them Sanderson, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, most of them from London, or Castell's own diocese of Peterborough, and also by his of Scril ancc desii esta] is t( gethJ HXLP FROM ENGLAND. 81 ?arlia- rilliam npton- mt on reading direc- caused )etition clergy- erwards don, or also by six Scottish Presbyterian ministers ; but no result from the movement followed at that time. The next attempt, however, to interest the Parliament in its favour, came at a time of greater leisure, and met with miore success. Perhaps, also, it came from a more congenial source. It gave rise to the institution in New England of a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which was set on foot in 1649. The collections made were sufficient to purchase lands in England to the amount of 500/. or 600/. a year, which were vested in the corporation above mentioned. From these funds an income was provided for Eliot, to maintain him during his laborious and hitherto unpaid exertions. With some dliHculty and some apologies, but with much thankfulness, he consented to receive this provision for his own needs and the needs of his family, not for the lucre's sake, but for the ability which it gave him to carry on his labours in the field which he had begun to sow, and which was now beginning to bear fruit. Two points pressed themselves strongly upon his mind as of essential importance — the education of the young Indians, and the translation of the Scriptures into the native languages. In further- ance of the first of these objects, he was very desirous to collect the natives into towns and establish them in settled and civilized modes of life. "The present work of the Lord,' he writes, " that is to be done among them, is to gather them to- gether from their scattered kind of life, first into 82 JOHN ELIOT. 3 civil society, then to ecclesiastical." With this view ho endeavoured to obtain labourers and mecha- nics from England ; but espedially such as were, to use his own words, " godly, well-conditioned, honest, meek, and well-spirited." His exertions among the Indians, in this direc- tion, were blessed with much success. Under his directions, they mowed grass and made hay, felled trees, and squared timber for a house to receive himself and the friends who accompanied him in his visits, and a bridge was built across a river which separated their planting-ground from their place of abode. In these works he received much encouragement and assistance from some of the Sachems, and throughout he was supported by that practice of prayer for which he was through life so remarkable and so consistent. All his schemes, even the most purely secular, all his troubles and difBculties, were, like Hezekiah's letter, spread before the Lord in prayer ; and in these conferences with his God he sought and found guidance and oftentimes success. But there were not wanting hindrances in religious matters, arising out of the behaviour of some of the colonists. One Gorton, a teacher of Antinomian doctrine, perplexed the minds of the poor Indians by preaching against many points which Eliot was rightly desirous to enforce, such as the reality of the Being and sufferings of the Saviour, of future punishment and future reward, the necessity of Infant Baptism, and of ministers to preach the Gospel. But Gorton TOWN OF PEAYING INDIANS, 33 fioon brought himself into trouble with the autho- rities in civil matters, was fined and expelled from the colony. By degrees Eliot instructed two of the Indians sufficiently to enable them to become teachers of their countrymen, and for their use he compiled a catechism, and required all children placed under their care to transcribe portions of the Bible which he himself had translated. He also made progress towards the town in which he wished to concentrate his people, and ere long he was able to speak of it as complete. Its name was Natich, or " place of hills," and it consisted, so he says, of three fair streets, two on one side of Charles ri\er, and one on the other. Of the houses built by the Indians, one was intended to be used as a school and a place of worship, and its upper apartments were devoted partly to Eliot's own use, and partly used as a storehouse for the skins and other articles of Indian merchandise. There was also in the centre a circular fort defended by a wooden stockade. The town being thus complete, Eliot was desirous that it might become the pattern for other establish- ments of a similar kind for the natives throughout the country. He therefore wished to give it a municipal constitution, and decided that the best possible form would be the one recommended by Jethro to Moses. With the yiew of carrying out his scheme, he collected the Indians together on the 10th of June, 1651, and expounded to them S4 JOHN ELIOT. the 18th chapter of Exodus. At his suggestion, and in imitation of Jethro's plan, they chose rulers of tens, fifties, and hundreds, to whom they promised to render obedience. At the same time he per- suaded them to enter into a solemn bond or cove- nant to serve God during the remainder of their lives, and to preface this engagement by a solemn fast and prayer. On the 24:th of September, the Indians met to- gether, and some of the chiefs offered prayers and repeated addresses on Scripture texts which they had learned by heart. Cutshamoquin, however, was not suiTared to take the leading part in the pro- ceedings to which his station entitled him, as having been beguiled into the use of fire-water at the antinomian Gorton's plantatioii. The day having been passed in prayer and preaching, as evening approached the whole assembly repeated after Eliot a declaration of allegiance to God, acknow- ledging themselves to be His children, gone astray in time past, but in the way of recovery by their great Father's mercy, devoting themselves and their children through the grace of Christ to be His people, promising to obey Him in all things, and imploring the grace of the Holy Spirit to guide and assist them in the work which they had undertaken. The town of Natick and its community of pray- ing Indians being thus fairly started, the governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Endicott, in company with some friends, paid a visit of inspection to the new settlement. On this occasion one of the natives ■VISIT FROM GOTERNOR. 86 Tgestion, se rulers promised he per- or cove- beir lives, Lenm fast ls met to- •ayers and rhich they wever, was n the pro- t, as having iter at the |day having as evening eated after ,d, acknow- rone astray 3ry by their is and their to be His things, and guide and [undertaken. [ty of pray- te governor ipany with to the new the natives offered up prayer and preached to his brethren on the parables of the Hid Treasure, and the Pearl of Price. He was followed by Eliot himself ; and then the schoolmaster, a young Indian who had been his pupil, gave out, precentor-fashion, a metrical psalm in their own language, which was sung by the whole assemby. The governor returned much pleased, hardly able, as ho said, to refrain from tears, to see the diligent attention of the Indians to the Word of God. By October, 1652, Eliot thought that he might consider the question of admitting his converts to the Holy Communion. He therefore invited some of his friends to meet him on the 18th of that month, in order to question the Indians as to their knowledge of Christian truth, and to hear their oral confessions as to their state of feeling and of belief. But the time taken in the preliminary pro- ceedings was too long ; there were no lodgings to be obtained for the Englishmen ; Natick was far away from their own homes ; and, more than all, the two men, May hew and Leverick, who besides Eliot alone were competently acquainted with the language, were unavoHably absent. The English ministers therefore decided that it was better not to proceed further for the present. Eliot, though much dis- appointed at the result, was not disheartened, but thought he saw the hand of God in causing this delay in the fulfilment of his wishes. It must be allowed that the New England ministers, how reasonably soever and justly they may have acted, 86 JOHN ELIOT. were slow to acknowledge the reality of Indian conversion. It was not until the year 1660 that the Indians at Natick were admitted to the Sacra- ment of the Lord's Supper. In his scheme also for the municipal government of the Indians, Eliot met with some opposition. A letter which he wrote to a friend in England was published under the title of the Christian Common- wealth. Its tendency was supposed to be opposed to the English constitution, now first restored to its former form in 1660. Anxious to secure the favour of the restored sovereign, the colonial government called Eliot to account for his pamphlet, but he succeeded in clearing himself before them by pro- fessing himself a firm supporter of tiie established form of government, to which he rendered a willing obedience for conscience' sake. Though disappointed of the full measure of success for which he had looked, Eliot did not relax his exertions. He procured from the colonial government allotments of land for new settlements of praying Indians, and a special magistrate was appointed in 1656, Major D. Gookin, an emigrant from the county of Kent, a man of wisdom and gentle disposition. His labours were of much service for the establishment of the towns, but the praying Indians were not unmolested, either by their countrymen or by the ill-disposed among the settlers. Eliot was therefore compelled to obtain a public act of approval of his design, by which not only was any aggression on the rights of DIFFICULTIES FROM ENGLAND. 37 the Indians forbidden to the colonists, but tho Indians themselves were forbidden to alienate to them any of the lands which they had acquired by colonial grant. The encouragement which Eliot received from the Society for Propagating the Gospel in New England was checked by the difGiculties into which the society was thrown after the Bestoration. It was found by the lawyers that, in consequence of the change in the government, the Society had be- come dead in point of law ; and moreover, some of those whose lands had been purchased by way of investment took advantage of the confusion in national affairs to reclaim the estates which had been sold to the Corporation. The question having been tried, the Court of Chancery decided that the property thus claimed should be retained by the Corporation, which was itself freshly constituted imder a charter from King Charles II., dated February 7, 1661. Of this revived Corporation the first president was Eobert Boyle, a man whose name is justly esteemed by all true Christians and men of true benevolence, as well as by men of learning and of nattiral science. Eliot owed much to the Corpo- ration and its president, nor was he backward in acknowledging the debt. It was mainly by their assistance that he himself was enabled to carry on his own labours, both in active ministration to the Indians and in translating the Bible and other books into their language, and also that his fellow- labourers in the first of these works were maintained. d8 JOHN BLIOT. He had already in 1653 printed and published a catechism for Indian use. In 1661, the first year of the revived Corporation, he was enabled to com- plete the printing of an edition of the New Testa- ment in fifteen hundred copies, which was dedicated to King Charles II. Twenty copies were sent to England, to be distributed among friends and ofiB- cial persons. The title ox the work in Indian ran thus: "Wusku Wuttestamentum, Nut-Lordumun Jesus Christ Nuppoquohwur '^'laeneumun." Having brought out the New Testament, Eliot lost no time in proceeding with the Old ; and in 1663 he had the satisfaction of producing the whole Bible in an Indian dress.^ His MS. of this work was written, we are told, with a single pen ! Translations of other works speedily followed, of which the prin- cipal, if not all, were the -following : — In 1663, the Psalter in metre, translated from the New England version, itself translated from the Hebrew by Eliot, in conjunction with three other divines. Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted" in 1664; " Practice of Piety " in 1665, reprinted in 1667 and 1687 ; an Indian Grammar in 1666, dedicated to the Corporation for Propagating the Gospel ; vari- ous elementary treatises in 1672 ; reprints or edi- tions of the New Testament in 1680, and of the Old Testament in 1685, to the number of two thousand copies ; and in 1688, two years before his death, Shepard's " Sincere Convert," and ** Sound Believer." In these translations a difficulty arose, which has arisen also in our own days, especially in China, INDIAN TRANSLATIONS. 89 respecting the fit equivalents for the words, Lord, Jesus, Christ, and the like ; whether they should he expressed hy their nearest representatives in Indian, or simply in English, or approximate English words. The question is one of considerahle importance, as involving the one of fitting representation of the objects of worship to the mind of the natives. Shall we speak of God as the Great Spirit, or in the form to which we are ourselves accustomed, and which though new to the natives, is unalloyed by any of their previous notions of Deity ? Eliot, as the title quoted above will show, chose the latter course, as being the best and safest ; and in all probability he was right in so doing. The Indians, as we have already seen, manifested an aptitude and a desire to sing, and requested to be allowed to sing the Psalms in the metrical form into which Eliot had rendered them, to tunes bor- rowed from those which were in use in England. In this exercise of devotion they joined with great zeal, and were soon able to sing their Indian Psalms to the old English tunes, of which some, at least, probably are familiar to ourselves. These books were all of them printed at Harvard College. This college, or university, took its rise from that zeal in the cause of education by which the colony of Massachusetts has been distinguished even from its earliest days. In 1633, ten years after the landing of the " Pilgrims " a sum of £400 was voted by the court of the colony for the erec- tion of a college. The site of this was to be at 40 JOHN ELIOT. New Town, about three miles from Boston ; but in gi^ateful meiiiory of the English University in which so many of the New England ministers had received their education, the village of New Town received the name of Cambridge. At first the college was no more than a public school, and its first master appears to have gained an ill name for severity towards his scholars which led ultimately to his dismissal. But the most powerful impulse to its success was derived from the liberality of John Harvard, an English clergyman who had emigrated to New England, and died of consumption in 1638. He bequeathed to it half his property and all his books. Other offerings soon followed, and by 1640 the college had become ripe for a charter and a president. It has since prospered and enlarged itself; but the successful university has ever borne the name of Harvard in grateful memory of its first and most timely benefactor. In pursuance of his plan for educating the chil- dren of the natives, Eliot caused many of them to be instructed not only in reading and writing, but in some cases also in Greek and Latin; and a separate building to contain twenty students was attached to Harvard College, with the view of carrying their education to the still further point of university study. Among the list of Harvard graduates given by Cotton Mather, we find, in 1665, the name of Caleb Cheeschaumuk, Indus ; and in the same history are recorded epitaphs in Latin and Greek, on the Rev. T. Thacher, who died in 1678, HABYABD OOLLEQE. 41 said to have boon composed by Eloazar, an Indian youth who had attained the coUogiato rank of Senior Sophista^ i. e. had passed his Little-go. A perusal of these epitaphs, or rather elegies, as they are given by the worthy historian, will convince the reader either of the wonderful aptitude of the young Indian for classical study, or, which is perhaps the more probable view of the case, of the care taken by his tutor in revising his pupil's exercise. Be this as it may, the name of no Indian Eleazar appears on the list of subsequent graduates. Like most of his fellow-students of Indian parentage, he probably either died before taking his degree, or found the restraint of college life intolerable, and left it with- out proceeding to that point. The collegiate ex- periment proved a failure, and tho building was converted to the use of English students and of the college printing-press. But notwithstanding the discouragement which this failure seems to inflict on all endeavours to educate savage-born youths within the walls of a college, it is plain that if not for the work of con- version of heathen nations, yet certainly for that of maintaining among them the spiritual fabric of Christ's Church, the services of a native ministry are indispensable. The attack on heathenism must of course begin from without. It was to His Apostles that our Lord gave the command to go forth first and make disciples of all nations ; but when the Gospel has once been preached, and the Church of Christ constituted, the ranks of its 42 JOHN ELIOT. teachers must gradually be filled by natives of the countries in which it has been planted. So reasoned Eliot, and with this view ho took great pains to procure and establish a native ministry among his Indian converts ; among other reasons, because, as ho said, he did not find "learned English young mon incline or endeavour to fit themselves for that service by learning the Indian language. . . . The difficulty in the practice of such a calling cannot be grappled with, unless the person be very much mortified, self-denying, and of a T>ublic spirit, seek- ing greatly God's glory ; and these are rare quali- fications in young men. It is but one of a hundred that is so endowed." So found and so said Eliot ; and there is no doubt that the difficulty is one of equal extent in the present day. It is not so much money as men that are wanted to go forth to foreign lands and preach the Gospel and plant the Church there. The fields are indeed white for the harvest , we have much need to pray the Lord of the harvest to provide labourers to be sent forth to gather it in. Though he met with so little success in his col- legiate plans, Eliot did not relinquish his endea- vours to procure teachers for his converts from their own people. The example which he set was fol- lowed up in other parts of the new colonies. We read of John Hiacoomes, both father and son, and of John Tockinosh, all of them baptized Indians, and preachers to their countrymen in the island of Martha's Vineyard, who had been solemnly ap- pointed to ihat office by Eliot and Cotton; and, NATIVE TEACHERS. 48 in tho year 1G87 Eliot himself tells us of twenty- four Indian preachers in various parts, besides four English ministers who preached in the Indian language. Besides the converts in other parts, as Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, who amounted ':o nearly fifteen hundred, there were in the year 1674, writes Major Daniel Gookin, in Massachusetts, within forty miles of Boston, seveiu principal towns of praying Indians besides smaller settlements. The names of the "seven churches" were as follows : — 1. Natich, (" place of hillfl,") with a population of one hundred and forty-five, of whom forty or fifty were communicants. 2. Pakemitt or Punkapog^ ("spring rising from red earth,") with a population of sixty, removed hither from Neponsitt. 3. Haaaanamesittf (" place of small stones,") thirty baptized persons, sixteen communicants. 4. Okommakamesitt, with fifty souls. 5. Wameaitt or Pantucket^ a great fishing rendez- vous, with seventy-five residents. 6. Nashobah, with fifty souls, a place of great fertility, with apple-orchards, whose cider contri- buted largely to the imported Indian vice of drunkenness. 7. Magumkaquogf ("place of green trees,") with fifty-five souls. To each of these towns were assigned, by the court 44 JOHN EUOT. of tho colony, lands varjring in extent from two thousand five hundred to six thousand acres. Other towns also were partially organized with popula- tions amounting from forty-five to one hundred and fifty souls, but had no lauds regularly assigned to them. The total population amoimted to almost eleven hundred persons. The settled towns were organized with great regularity. Polygamy was discontinued, agriculture practised to a considerable extent, courts established of which Major Gookin was the chief magistrate, schools carried on in which the English language was taught, and reli- gious and other instruction given, and public worship celebrated. On tho Lord's day, on fast- days, which the converts observed with great readi- ness and punctuality, and lecture-days, they as- sembled at the sound of a drum. The services were carried on, some by English and some by Indian teachers, and consisted of prayer, singing, reading of Scripture, catechizing, and preaching. During the services the men and women, in accord- ance with their native custom, sat apart, and their behaviour is described as reverent, attentive, 'and devout. " I have no doubt," says the good Major, "that divers of them do fear God, and are true believers." The speech made by an old Indian named Wannalanset, the son of Papassaconnoway, mentioned before, on the occasion of a visit paid by Eliot, accompanied by Major Gookin, to Pantucket, on May 5, 1674, is worth recording. " I have all my days," he said, " used to pass in an old canoe," KING PHILIP 8 WAB. 45 » (tho reader will bear in mind that Pontucket was a fishing station,) "and now you exhort me to leave my old canoe anu embark in a new canoe, to which I have hitherto been unwilling ; but now I yield myself to your advice and enter into a new canoe, and do engage myself to pray to God here- after." But at this very moment a cloud was rising, the forerunner of a storm by which much of the good begun and thus for carried out among the Indians was broken up and destroyed. This was the contest carried on during 1675 and 1676 between the English and some of the native tribes, known by the name of King Philip's war. Philip, chief of the Paukunuawkuts, or Wampanoags, was son to Mas- sasoit, who had received with friendly kindness the pilgrims on their entrance upon the soil of New England. The treaty of alliance which was then made lasted imbroken for more than fifty years, but the gradual encroachments of the colonists seemed to be driving the Indians into the sea, who fearing in time entire exclusion &om their ancient posses- sions, began, as the settlers believed, to contrive plans for destroying them and recovering their lost territory. The plot, if plot it were, was reported to the English by on Indian named Sausoman, formerly an alleged convert, but now a renegade. Sausaman was murdered by his countrymen ; and an inquiry having benn made into the maimer of his death, the Indians became alarmed, and probably without much concert or previous arrangement, 4i6 JOHN RLIOT. burst suddenly into warfare. The strife was con- ducted by them after their own fashion. Seldom venturing to encounter their enemies in the field, they lay in wait for them in ambuscades, and shot them down from behiT^d trees or rocks: they attacked single houses and burned them with their inmates, and hovered in the neighbourhood of towns and villages to destroy all unguarded and unsus- pecting stragglers. They put in practice every art of savage cunning and savage ferocity. The reprisals on the other side were marked by a full measure of Indian ferocity, and by more than Indian perseverance. Much blood was shed, much pro- perty ruined, many settlements destroyed, but in the end the weapons and tenacity of purpose of the white man were more than a match for the subtle but scattered hostility of the Indians. Philip was slain, probably by a treacherous countryman, and his son being captured was sold into slavery by the conquerors, who in the course of the struggle learned to use with success the arts of warfare which were customary with the Indians. In the northern parts of the colony the conflict was sup- ported by the French settlers of Acadia, and lasted for a longer time, but in the southern parts of New England, when the flame had died out, it was found, that not the power only but almost the existence of the native tribes of that region had become ex- tinct. But the war was, in its consequences, very injurious to the praying settlements. . Many of the converts took the side of the English, and fought KING PHIUP B WAB. — FBESH LABOUBS. 47 fare I the 3ry he with them against their countrymen, but this was not the case with all, perhaps not the majority of them. This defection subjected Eliot, wholly blameless as he was in the matter, to much spite and obloquy. The converts came to be regarded by the settlers with unreasoning and undiscriminating dislike, the work itself to be an object of suspicion, and even Eliot himself was in some danger from their ill-humour. Besides these discouragements, when the war was concluded he found many of his settlements destroyed, so that their whole number was reduced to four, and many of the former inha- bitants were either already slain, or had exchanged their short-lived civilization for the life or the death of their countrymen. Nevertheless his faith in God and his loyalty to his work were not cast down ; and at the age of seventy-two he set forth again upon his mission, and in 1680, reported con- siderable success to have been granted to him. " Our praying Indians on the islands, and on the mainland," he says, " amount to some thousands." These numbers seem hardly consistent with the devastation caused by the war of 1675-6, but even after making large allowance the general result can scarcely be discredited. Many were crying out for Bibles ; and with the desire to supply this want Eliot began and completed his reprints of both the Old and New Testament. In 1686 he mentions six churches of baptized Indians in New England, and eighteen assemblies of catechumens professing the Name of Christ, twenty-four Indian preachers 48 JOHN ELIOT. and four English ministers. "The children," he says, " have, many of them, learned the Catechism of William Perkins, and that of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster." In his last letter to Boyle, after requesting the assistance of the Corporation in reprinting the two treatises by Shepard, mentioned before, he speaks, on the whole, hopefully, but with some anxious doubts concerning his people. His failing strength permitted him to do but little in the way of active ministration ; but he endeavoured to be of some use to mankind by instructing at his own house some of the poor negroes who had been imported as slaves into the colony. But the lamp was burning every day more and more dimly j his term of service was nearly complete ; and before the close of 1690, at the ripe age of 86, Eliot ex- changed his useful and laborious life on earth for the life of eternal happiness and untroubled rest. If \\ je required to single out the special points of character which seem, under God's providence, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, to have enabled Eliot to labour with so much success in the field of the Gospel harvest, we should probably fix on his perseverance, his cheerfulness, and his strong common sense. These qualities, assisted and con- firmed by his habit of prayer, became, under Provi- dence, the chief means for enabling him to cany through his laborious enterprises, undismayed by diiMciilties, unretarded by partial failures, and un- flinching, yet cheerful under opposition. His sound common sense guided him to the true way of FEBSONAL CHARAOTEB. 49 )oiiits lence, have in the ^lyfix ^trong con- ^rovi- jcarry jd by un- bound ly of grappling with the wayward elements of a savage character, while, with unwearied perseverance, he encountered the toils and difficulties incident to the study and use of a new and uncouth language. By his perfect simplicity he was, by God's blessing, set free £rom temptations either to personal vanity, to spiritual pride, or worldly gain, and His cheerful, loyal spirit saved him from the despair hich has sometimes in similar trials darkly bese; ! „iids of a more gloomy cast than his. Without underrating his difficulties we ever find him looking with sanguine hope on the bright side of things, the bright side of the Gospel message, the bright side of hmuan character, and to this we may in a great measure, humanly speaking, attribute his success. His work was a labour of love, not crushed by repulse, nor chilled by want of sympathy from others. The grace of God, sought and obtained by prayer, was his daily food, and in that divine resource he found refuge in failure, counsel and encouragement in progress, and self-renunciation and abasement in success. The Church of England has much cause to regret the policy of those rulers whose punctilious severity contributed to shut out Eliot, and many others like him, from her com- munion. Betaining most of her doctrines, he was predisposed, perhaps on insufficient grounds, to reject soijie of her most valuable ordinances. But though firm in his adhesion to that form of church- government which was the cherished inheritance of New England Puritans, he adhered to it without 60 JOHN ELIOT. fanaticism and without party-spirit. With un- sparing and self-denying energy he devoted his life to his work of carrying Gospel truth, in his own gentle but earnest manner, both to his own people, and to the nations walking in outer darkness. It may be doubted whether the work which he began would not have been more lasting in its effects if its scheme of church-government had been founded on that episcopal principle which primitive practice has, if not exclusively, yet beyond doubt preferen- tially, sanctioned, and whose absence seems at least to cast doubt on the permanence of any Christian community in an organized form. However this may be, there can be no doubt, so far as human judgment can decide, that in fulfilling his charge his own soul has been delivered. It would be well for all who desire to preach the Gospel with power, to study deeply the life and character of John EUot. He was not without followers and fellow-labourers in tfie work which it was his lot to open. Besides his own sons, out of a large number of names we may select that of Eoger Williams, the pious, but extravagant, founder of the state of Bhode Island, whom no one, not even Eliot himseK, surpassed in power of dealing with the natives, and in influence oVer them. In addition, we must not pass over the Mayhew fmiily, who, to the number of five, in direct succession, laboured from 1641 to 1806 in the island of Martha's Vineyard, and whose labours, like those of many others, were blessed with a large measure of success. FOLLOWEBS AND BBSULTS. 61 Shall we ask what has been the fruit of these self-denying labours ? how fax has it been lasting ? what present efiCeet have they had on the condition of the Indian nations in general? No doubt numberless victories have been gained, and number" less cases are recorded of genuine conversion of natives to the faith of Christ. There are many Indians now living, and have been many more, who have renounced savage life, and are employed either in the arts of civilized society, or are devoting themselves to the service of preaching Christ to their countrymen. Much good has been achieved, and under God's blessing much more may be done, if the one great hindrance to the growth of the Gospel can be checked, namely, the destructive and demoralizing influence of the white man. It is the fire-water which fills the poison-bowl of the red Indian. He knows it and condemns its use, but is morally too weak to resist its seductive temptation. It is frightful to look back on the amount of mischief which this pernicious intercourse has brought about, and is still bringing about among his race. All honour to those who, like Eliot, have endeavoured to check its march of destruction. Bather let us say. Praise be to God who has raised up from time to time men who, like him, have laboured to rescue a few brands from the fire. But let the present system be allowed to proceed a few years longer, and the Indian nations will have been swept away from the continent. The tribes, whose language Eliot took so much pains to acquire, are 62 JOHN ELIOT. now extinct. Their language exists only in his grammars and translated scriptures; and in the district which in his time was inhahited by some thgusands, the Indian population has long ceased to exist. And what has l)ecome of them ? Not living side by side with the settlers who dispossessed them, nor amalgamated with them by friendly intercourse, but crushed and annihilated, or elbowed out, for a time, into more distant regions, to be again removed when the necessities of commerce shall demand more territory. Not that no efforts have been made by governments to mitigate the evil, and arrest the gradual destruction ; but, on the whole, it must be allowed, that the progress of the Anglo- Saxon colonist has been marked in North America, not, indeed, by the wholesale cruelty of the Spaniard, but by not less certain, though slower steps of systematic corruption and systematic extermination. Deeply has he made the Indian nations drink of his cup of trembling. Are the dregs of that cup reserved for himaelf to wring out? Let us hope and pray that this downward progress may yet be stayed, and that before it be too late, the sad remnants of the Indian race may yet be brought within reach of the healing power of the Gospel, and of Christian civilization. 68 A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND LABOUBS OF BISHOP SEABUEY OF CONNECTICUT ; OBIOINALLY ONE OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARIES EMPLOYED BT THE SOOIETT FOB THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL. The early operations of the Gospel Propagation Society in America were chiefly directed to the supply of the ministration of religion to the men of our own race and language, called by the Christian name, but unprovided with the means of grace. The Society did not indeed lose sight of the heathen native population on whose territory the white man had encroached. From time to time its missionaries laboured as they found opportunity among the Indian tribes, and not without good effect ; but they did not succeed in producing a lasting impression on this race of hunters and wanderers. In propor- tion as the colonists multiplied, the Indian popula- tion decreased and withered away; and the tribes which survived the advance of the white man re- treated ever farther and farther into the forest wilder- nesses of the West. The agents of the Society in these districts are therefore to be regarded rather as colonial than as foreign missionaries; and the 54 BISHOP 8EABUBT. details of their work must lack the variety and the picturesque character which often belong to the history of missionary efibrts in pagan or Mahometan countries. Tet the Church in America is so closely linked in brotherhood with our own, that we cannot but feel interested in the labours of the men who were permitted by God to lay the foundations of its fabric — who, toiling in much porerty and weari- ness, often in much discouragement, still looked for a day when their Zion should arise from the dust. Diuing the period which includes the lives of Bishop Seabury and his father, ^e traco the progress of the work from its earlier stages, and behold also the incipient fulfilment of the hope which had cheered two generations of missionaries. It was a remarkable feature of the Society's American Missions, that a large number of the most devoted and successful labourers in the Church's work were converts from Nonconformity. Samuel Seabiuy the elder, the father of the subject of this memoir, was originally the minister of an Inde- pendent congregation. His parents were numbered among the Puritan colonists of Connecticut, and the religious education which they bestowed on their son was deeply tinctured with hostility to the Church of England. In the mind of Samuel Seabury, however (we are at present speaking of the Bishop's fiEtther), this hostility was merely traditional, for he had had no opportunity of acquiring a correct knowledge of the doctrines and practices of the Church, by the study PtTBITAN AKOESTBT. 55 of her great writers, or b j personal acquaintance with any members of her communion. But while he was still a yery young man, a spirit of earnest inquiiy arose in the minds of some of his friends and fellow- students which led them back, step by step, into the bosom of the Church from which their fathers had seceded. Nor did the movement end with themselves; their associates and pupils became imbued with the same spirit, and were guided to the same haven. Amongst the first of the young men who embraced the principles of the English Church was Samuel Johnson, the minister of an Independent congrega- tion at Stratford, near Newhaven, in Connecticut. At the very outset of his career Johnson gave pro- mise of much future usefulness — a promise which his after-life amply redeemed. His wisdom, sound learning, and exemplary piety gave him great power to influence the minds of other men ; and he was spared to use that power in his Master's service during a long course of minis- terial laboiur. A few particulars relating to his early history and to the change in his religious opinions may be added here, for they show us the means by which Mr. Seabury and other valuable missionaries were enlisted in the service of the Society. Samuel Johnson was one of the first stu- dents admitted into the college (afterwards named Yale College) which the people of Connecticut had recently founded for the education of their future ministers and magistrates ; but when he began his studies learning was at a low ebb in New England. w BISHOP BEABURT. The noblest works of English genius and pietj had not found admission into the library of the college, and the course of reading prescribed by his instructors afforded but meagre nourishment to the mind of the young scholar. The intellect of Johnson, how- ever, early reached forth beyond the bounds within which his tutors would have confined it. While yet very young, he met with a copy of Bacon's Advance- ment of Learning — the only copy, it is said, at that time in the colony. He read it with eager atten- tion and curiosity, and was (to use his o^vn words) " like one who suddenly emerges out of the glimmer of twilight into the full sunshine of open day." A few years afterwards an English benefactor of Yale College sent over a valuable collection of books, in- cluding the writings of the greatest English divines, as well as the best works of science and classical literatiu'e. To Johnson, and a little band of asso- ciates like-minded with himself, the acquisition of these books was like the opening of springs of water in a dry land. They were soon deeply engaged in a course of study in which the theological works especially had a very large place. All, or nearly all, of these students had embraced the work of the ministry as the choice and occupation of their lives ; some were already settled as ministers of Independent congregations in the neighbouring towns and vil- lages. But the course of reading which they were pursuing gradually wrought a change in their re- ligious opinions. They began to doubt whether the principles of Nonconformity in which they had been SEARCH ArTEB TRUTH. 67 cclncatod were indeed according to truth, and with much prayer fur the Divine guidance they set them- selves to reconsider the whole subject. They explored every source of information whicn was within their reach, and read with patient deliberation whatever had been written by the best authors on the controversies which divided Churchmen and Non- conformists. In so far as temporal ease and comfort were concernctd, those young men would have been heartily rejoiced if the result of their inquiries had been other than it was. It was no light trial to them to resign the post which they had hitherto filled with credit and comfort, and to loosen the bonds of affection which united them to their kindred and their countrymen. But they had been led to the conviction that they could not with a good conscience remain in their present position ; and they felt that ease, and reputation, and friend- ship would be too dearly purchased if truth were fiurrendered in exchange for them. They publicly avowed their conviction that the Church of England was a true branch of the Church of Christ, and that it was their duty no longer to con- tinue in separation from her ; and having resigned their respective ofi&ces, Mr. Johnson and two of his friends immediately acted upon this declaration by proceeding to England to seek ordination &om the Bishop of London. They arrived in the Downs towards the close of the year 1722, and disembarked at Ramsgate, intending to journey to London by land. But the facilities for travel were not great in 58 BISHOP 8EABURT. those days, and when the voyagers arrived at Can- terbury, they were informed that they must wait three days before the coach would start for London. They were not, however, long suffered to feel as strangers in & strange land. Their first visit was to the cathedral, to join in the daily service celebrated there. Later in the day they presented themselves at the deanery, and begged the servant to carry in word that they were gentlemen from America, come over for Holy Orders, and who were desirous of paying their respects to the dean. The dean, who was no other than the excellent Dr. Stanhope, no sooner heard who the strangers were than he came out to receive them with a hearty welcome ; adding, much to their surprise, that their names, and their purpose in coming to England, were already known to him. The declaration they had made in Connecticut in favour of the Church of England had found its way into the English newspapers ; and some of the pre- bendaries, then his guests, were engaged in reading it with him at the moment of their arrival. Such a reception as this at once made the travellers feel at home, and the brotherly kindness with which they were greeted under the roof of the good dean was an earnest of the cordial welcome which they subse- quently received from Archbishop Wake, and other chief members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. They were ordained, and a mission in New Eng- land was assigned to each of them by the Society. Two lived long to fulfil its duties ; the third was Ea It M18SI0NABT WORK. 59 destined to rest, and not to labour. The small-pox (the scourge and dread of England and her Ameri- can colonies in those days) had already attacked one of the party soon after their arrival in London, though not fatally ; within a week of their ordina- tion it reappeared with greater malignity, and struck down another to the dust. He died on Easter-eye, to the great grief of his companions. It was some consolation to them that before they left England the place of their deceased brother was filled up by another of thoir fellow-students from Connecticut. In the summer of 1723 they returned to America, and were soon fully occupied in the work of their respective missions. The one which had been assigned to Johnson was peculiarly arduous. It contained about seventy families of Church people, all persons in humble circumstances, and scattered up and down amongst six different towns. He, however, thought little of toil so long as his heart was gladdened by some tokens that his labour was not in vain. These were by no means wanting to him. In the places which were the scenes of his ministrations, the few scattered fami- lies, meeting together in a small room on the Lord's day, increased by degrees to numerous congrega- tions, assembling in convenient churches, and pro- vided with pastors of their own. The Negroes and Indians in the neighbourhood were also the objects of his care, and were diligently instructed by him in catechetical lectures, which he instituted on purpose for their benefit. These were numerously attended, 60 BISHOP SEABUBT. especially by the Negroes, some of whom he had the joy of receiving to the Holy Communion. In the mean time, Mr. Seabm-y, and several other ministers who had been amongst the friends and companions of Johnson, resigned their posts, and sought ordination in the Church of England. Like their predecessors, they gave up a situation of com- par^tttive ease and comfort to labour assiduously among a poor scattered flock, who could contribute little if anything to the increase of the small stipend they received as missionaries of the Society. In the course of years, indeed, when an accurate knowledge of the teaching of the Church had be- come more widely diffused, many thoughtful and in- telligent men belonging to the wealthy and educated classes of the laity joined her communion. But it is not to be supposed that all this was effected without much opposition, and even persecution. In the present day, when all forms of Christian pro- fession are alike acknowledged by the legislature of the States, and the Church in America is free to enlarge her bounds to the utmost limit to which the piety of her children and the blessing of Divine Providence may extend her ministrations, it is not a grateful task to recall the virulent animosity with which she was assailed in the last century. Yet it is impossible to form a correct idea of the lives and labours of the Church missionaries in our New Eng- land colonies, without bearing in mind that, beside the hardships incident to a life of scantily-remu- nerated laboui, they were harassed by the enmity OHUBOHMEN PEBSEOUTED. 61 of former friends who now regarded them as apos- tates, by the aversion and contempt of the dominant party, and by fines and other penalties inflicted on their hearers and on themselves. " We are as the off-scouring of all things," writes Mr. Johnson ; and he declares that he was weary of his life at seeing the wrongs and oppression endured by the poor of his flock, who were cast into jail because they did not contribute to the support of the Independent preachers. In several places it was attempted to compel the people to attend the meeting-houses, by fining them if they stayed at home on the Lord's day, and inflicting a still heavier fine if they mot to- gether for public worship according to the Liturgy. It will always bo found, however, that honest and generous minds become the more attached to a good cause the more it is persecuted, and nowhere had the Church more devoted adherents than in the New England provinces. Mr. Seabury, senior, was appointed by the Society in 1730 to the mission of New London, in Connecticut, which included several villages at some distance from the town. He filled this post with good success for twelve years, and at the end of that time quitted New England, being removed by the Society to the more important station of Hempsted, in Long Island. While labouring here he began to train up a fellow-worker in his own household. Samuel Seabury, afterwards Bishop of Connecti- cut, was named after his father. He had been 62 BISHOP SEABUBT. educated at Yale College, Newhaven, and exHbited in early life a sincere piety and a brave and earnest spirit, which marked him for future usefulness in the Church. His fiEither soon began, therefore, to prepare him for the discharge of pastoral duties, by employing him to visit the various out-stations comprised in the mission of Hempsted, and to give instruction to the people imder his own direction. At one station, Huntington, a considerable num- ber of persons had conformed to the Church of England, and had built a church in which Mr. Seabury o£&ciated as often as his duties at Hemp- sted and elsewhere would permit. When his son was about eighteen years of age, the congre- gation at Huntington requested that he might be permitted to conduct divine service, and to read a sermon to them whenever Mr. Seabury could not be present himself on Sunday. Mr. Seabury con- sented, and the arrangement being made known to the Society, they appointed the young man cate- chist under his father, with a small salary of £10 per annum. Young Mr. Seabury discharged the duties of catechist for five years, gaining experience, and advancing in preparation for the labours which were to occupy his after-life. At the end of that time he was recommended by a long-tried missionary as well fitted, by character and ability, to undertake the charge of a mission. The Society immediately gave its sanction to his coming to England to be admitted to Holy Orders ; and appointed him to the MISSION STATIONS. 63 yacont station of Brunswick, in the colony of New Jersey, with a stipend of £50 a yeai*. He arrived at his post in May, 1754, and was received with a hearty welcome by his flock. There was much encouragement and promise in this field of labour, where the people formed a numerous congregation, and had built themselves a substantial stone church ; yet the young pastor was not sorry when, at the end of three or four years, the government of New York preferred him to the living of Jamaica, in Long Island. The income arising from his new parish was indeed extremely small, but Jamaica was within reach of his father, whose society he dearly prized. Yet had he known how dishearten- ing the spiritual aspect of his new charge would prove, he would have been very reluctant to leave the teachable attached people to whom he had ministered at New Brunswick. One of the stations comprised within the parish of Jamaica was Flush- ing, a place which in the preceding generation had been a chief seat of Quakerism. Among very many of the American Quakers of that day religion had almost degenerated into deism. It had done so at Flushing, where the majority of the inhabitants dis- avowed the necessity of any redemption. "How hard is their conversion!" exclaimed the young missionary, with mournful emphasis ; for he found himself set to proclaim the Gospel of the Grace of God amongst a people who denied that they stood in any need of His merciful provision for their salvation. He was enabled, however, to win the 64 BISHOP SBABUBT. attention of many of the young ; and by degrees^ several older persons also were brought to a truer sense of their real condition, and began to value the means of religious instruction which they had de- spised before. The number of his hearers increased greatly, and he records one occasion on whi^jh he was so happy as to admit ten adults to Baptism at the same time, all of them having made a satisfac- tory confession of their faith. He saw T/v'ith joy also that a spirit of earnestness and devotion ap- peared to be spreading and deepening among those who had already made a Christian profession. In 1764, the elder Mr. Seabury died, after nearly thirty-four years of missionary service. His loss was a great grief to his son. It loosened the tie which bound him to Long Island ; and when it was proposed to him, about two years afterwards, that he should remove to the mission of West Chester, on the mainland, he was not un- willing to do so. Prudence, indeed, seemed to urge the change, for he had now a family to provide for, and his necessary expenses at Jamaica far exceeded the income which the parish afforded him. The mission of West Chester extended over a considerable tract of country, much of which was still covered with forest. The farms of the settlers lay scattered amidst the woods, remote from one another, and many of them so far from the church that the people could rarely, if ever, meet their minister there. It was therefore necessary that he should visit them at their own houses to impart DISAFFECTION IN THE COLONIES. 65 religious instruction, as well as to baptize the young, and to bury the dead. When a funeral took place amongst these dwellers in the woods, much sym- pathy was in general called forth ; and the farmers and their families, from a distance of several miles, would assemble at the house of mourning to show their respect and good-will. Mr. Seabury took advantage of these occasions to preach to some of his flock who could never be brought tognther at other times, and delivered a sermon either before or after the interment. In the village of West Chester itself his Sunday congregation usually numbered about two hundred persons. About nine years passed away in the peaceful discharge of pastoral duty ; but the aspect of public affairs was becoming dark and menacing, and the most tranquil homes might not hope to escape participation in the troubles which were coming upon the country. The spirit of disaffection to the British government was already at work. The fatal Stamp Act, passed by Parliament in 1765, had kindled a blaze of in- dignation in the x\merican colonies ; and though that Act had been quickly repealed, the fire was by no means extinguished ; it smouldered still, ready on any provocation to burst into a flame. In proportion as the clergy and their congrega- tions preserved the old spirit of loyalty to the sovereign, they became objects of jealous suspicion to the majority of their countrymen, who desired to emancipate themselves from English rule. The steady increase in numbers of the Church people, BISHOP SEABUBT. especially in the New England States, yet farther embittered these feelings of ill-will, although, in jus- tice both to the ministers and laity of the Church, it must be added that there was nothing in their con- duct calculated to provoke enmity. Their adver- saries alleged as an offence against them, that they earnestly petitioned the authorities in England to appoint a Bishop for America. It was maintained that such an appointment would be an infringement of the liberties of the colonies ; the most violent pamphlets were published on the subject, and it ap- peared probable that in several of the States a Bishop would hardly at that time be permitted to land in safety. To the invectives of their opposers, Churchmen in general replied, that they desired not a Bishop invested with any authority in the govern- ment, but a spiritual guide and overseer to counsel and rule his own clergy and their flocks. From the first the members of the Church in America had never ceased to solicit this boon at the hands of the English government ; for the want of a Bishop was painfully felt in many ways, and above all, in that there was no means of obtaining Ordination without crossing and recrossing thrt : thousand miles of ocean. Mr. Beach, one of the most devoted clergy- men whose names adorn the annals of the American missions, writes, " the more the Church spreads in this country, the more we feel and groan under the want of a Bishop. And I am fully of opinion that if the great men, upon whose pleasure it depends to grant us such a blessing, did but know, as we do^ NEED OF A BISHOP 67 that the Church peopk here are the only fast friends to the connection of »hese colonies with England, they would, even upon political reasons, grant us the favour wo have so long wished and prayed for in vain." " Were there in this coimtry," he writes in another letter, " but one of the Episcopal Order to whom young men might apply for Ordination, many of our towns might be supplied with clergy- men which are now destitute. I cannot forbear," he adds, " expressing an earnest wish that this want might be remedied, since I so frequently hear numbers of pious Church people lamenting their unhappiness in being habitually deprived of the worship which their souls hunger and thirst after." Many young men who were well qualified and desirous to serve in the ministry of the Church were unable to come to England for Ordination. Parents naturally enough shrank from encouraging any such desire in their sons, because the voyage was not only costly, but exposed them to many hazards. Out of fifty-two candidates who had gone to England at various times to seek Ordination, ten had perished either by small-pox or the dan- gers of the seas. In April 1766, we find Mr. Seabury lamenting the loss of two excellent young men, who had been drowned within sight of their native land on their return from England ; the ship in which they were being wrecked near the entrance of Delaware Bay, and but four persons saved out of twenty-eight who were on board. Another victim was a son of the 6d BISHOP SEABUBT. venerable Mr. Jolinsoii, a young man of the highest promise, who had gone to England to be admitted into Holy Orders. A mission in New Jersey was assigned to him by the Society, but ere he could embark for America he was seized with a fatal attack of small-pox. This bereavement fell very heavily upon his father, and it was followed by other sorrows and losses ; but he preserved through all a spirit of patient submission. He took occasion from his own griefs to exhort his people more earnestly to prayer. In some writings published at this time he especially dwells upon it as the great means by which the soul obtains comfort and strength to endure trial ; and he points out to them more particularly the invaluable heJp which the Book of Common Prayer, rightly used, would afford them. Although age had wasted his bodily strength, and he was obliged to delegate some of his duties to an assistant, his mind retained its activity to the last. Forty-nine years had passed away since that December day when he stood with his two com> paiiions before the door of the good Dean of Can- terbury : as a missionary, as a writer, as president of the important college lately founded at New York, he had been eminently useful ; and now his race was well-nigh run. "He lived to see the morning of the Epiphany 1772, a bright and glo- rious day, and expressed to his family his conviction that his strength was about to fail, and that he was 'soon going home.' He called to remembrance at ; THE BS70LUTI0NABT WAR. 69 that moment his friend, the sainted Bishop Berkeley, and the tranquillity of his departure, and humbly expressed a wish that, if it were possible, his own im- pending change might be as tranquil. The wish was granted, and before the sun of that bright day had set, Johnson had drawn his last breath without a struggle." Seldom has any righteous man been more evi- dently " taken from the evil to come." In the year 1775 the war of the American Revolution began. It brought a flood of troubles upon the Church, which threatened utterly to overwhelm it. During the seven years which 'followed, the history of the clergy, in the States of New England and New York espe- cially, presents a painful picture of suffering, impri- sonment, and exile. From the first commencement of the disputes which eventually ended in war, they liad generally confined themselves in their sermons to the doctrines and duties inculcated by the Gospel, ^dthout touching on politics; and they had used Iheir influence to allay the fiery party heats which inflamed the minds of the people, and to cherish a Bpirit of loyalty. But this line of conduct gave great offence to the " Sons of Liberty," as the republicans called themselves. Acting upon the maxim " that whoever was not for them was against them," they flung many of the clergy into jail. Some were at- tacked in their own homes by armed mobs who carried them off to distant parts of the country; others fled, but being overtaken and brought back, were threatened with capital punishment, because 70 BIBHOP 8EABUBT. they had tried to escape from danger. The miseriei of this time of trouble and persecution proved fatal to the lives of some of the missionaries. Nearly all of them were reduced to great poverty, more distress- ing on account of the suffering which it brought upon theii* wives and children than because of the privation which it entailed upon themselves. A very greaf number of the lay members of the Church con- tinue d equally firm in their allegiance to the king, and were punished for it in the same way as their ministers. Those who had the means of flying from the country did so ; some escaping to England, others to the West Indies, Canada, or Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia alone received thirty thousand refugee loyalists, most of whom were from the States of New England and New York. In the Southern States, most of the laity, and several of the clergy, em- braced the cause of the republic ; and the great leader of the republicans, Greorge Washington, was a Churchman. Some who adhered to the king's government were visited vdih. the same pains and indignities as their brethren in the North. The dangers to which the kyalist clei^y were exposed became considerably greater after the American Congress had declared the States independent of Great Britain (July 1776). Up to this time such of them as were at liberty had continued to conduct Divine Service as usual, though they were assailed with clamour and reviling even in the house of God. But after the Declaration of Independence they were accounted guilty of treason against the republic if 8UFFEBINGS OF THK LOYALISTS. they used the prayers of the Liturgy for the king and royal family. Yet most of them considered that they were solemnly hound by their oath and duty not to omit those prayers. The only course which now seemed open to them was to close the churches. And from this time the celebration of Divine service according to the Liturgy ceased in almost all parts of the States, those places excepted where the presence of the royal forces insured the protection of the mi- nister and his congregation. In one mission, how- ever, in Connecticut, that of the venerable Mr. Beach, the churches remained opeu, and he continued to officiate as usual. When warned of his danger, he calmly replied, " I shall do my duty, and preach, and also pray for the king, until the rebels cut out my tongue." His great age (he was 77 years old), and his spotless character, made the most violent of his adversaries ashamed to treat him as a traitor, though he and his hearers were greatly harassed by fines and petty persecutions. But in spite of these troubles the numbers of his congregations increased, and he continued to minister to them almost to the last day of his life. '^ I dare not now give a narra- tive of my troubles," says the aged man, writing in the sixth year of the war to his friends in England. ** We have been the butt of general hatred ; but God has delivered us from entire destruction. At this age I cannot well hope for it, but I pray God I may have an opportunity to explain myself with safety : I must conclude now with Job^s entreaty: 'Have pity on me, O ye my friends I ' " Six months after i 72 BISHOP BEABUBT. this lottor wa8 writton, his labours and his lifo ended together. Ho was 82 years of age, ** a man of primi- tive faith, — a true soldier of the Cross." Mr. Seabury experienced his full share of the troubles occasioned by the Kevolution. He was more than once imprisoned, and in considerable danger from the violence of the insurgents, to whom he was particularly obnoxious. To his ardent loyalty the war of independence appeared nothing better than an unnatural rebellion, and he expressed his sentiments on that subject with the warmth and energy which characterized all his proceedings. From the com- mencement of the troubles he had striven both by word and writing to stem the rising tide of dis- content ; and he had so far succeeded, that few of the inhabitants of his mission joined the republi- cans. Amongst the pamphlets which issued from the press at this time, were certain letters purporting to be written by a ** Fanner." They attracted much attention, and being well calculated to enlist popular feeling on the side of the royal cause, the republicans were vehemently incensed against the author, who was generally supposed to be Mr. Seabury, though he neither acknowledged nor disowned them. One day his house was invaded by a party of armed men, who made him their prisoner and carried him ofif to Newhaven, where they kept him in confinement, while they sought in every direction for evidence against him. Happily for the " Farmer," however, there was no one then in America who could betray B80AFEB IMPRISOMMENT. 73 the Bocrct of his namo ; and Mr. Seabury's capture, having no plea on which thoy conld legally detain their prisoner, were obliged to set him at liberty. He returned home, but was not permiti^d to remain unmolested there. His family were alarmed almost daily by largo pai*ties of the republican militia from New England coming to the house. A considerable number of these unwelcome visitors were quartered upon i;hem, and consumed all the produce of the farm belonging to the mission ; and a school which Mr. Seabury had opened some time before, being necessarily broken up under present circumstances, his family were deprived of all means of support. To avoid being entirely separated from them and imprisoned at a distance, he was obliged to with- draw from his house, and lived in concealment, only venturing home now and then with the utmost secrecy. And here it must be observed, that the in- juries which he suflfered were inflicted by strangers ; the republicans of his own district and neighbour- hood took no part whatever in them. The royal army had now taken possession of Long Island, and Mr. Seabury contrived to escape thither ; but when the troops passed over into the country of West Chester, he returned with them, his perfect knowledge of the roads and rivers being of great service to the British general. His church had been turned into an hospital by the insurgents, and the pews and fittings burned ; but he was able to per- form some of the duties of his pastoral office in pri- vate, to the comfort of himself and his flock. In 74 BISHOP 8EABUBT. temporal matters the condition of the loyal inha- bitants was little if at all mended by the presence of the British forces. In this unhappy war the royal troops were not prevented from plmidering reck- lessly both friends and foes, and their misconduct alienated thousands of hearts from the king's cause. The loyalists of West Chester suflfered on all hands. As soon as the British troops left the district, the republican soldiers returned, and stripped the people of all their remaining property. They had already lost their horses, cattle, and grain ; they were now deprived of their furniture, clothes, and bedding, and turned out of their homes to find shelter where they could. Multitudes of these poor people fled in utter destitution to New York. Mr. Seabury had placed his family in safety there, and was so happy as to find the means of maintaining them decently ; but his heart ached daily at seeing the melancholy condition of his former parishioners who had lived in comfort and plenty, but were now in want of all things. "My mission," he writes at this time, *'is utterly ruined :" and there were many missions of which the same m^ght have been said. Almost every- where t5ie Church seemed to be trodden down and crushed. But the life remained ; and here and there in humble households young minds were being trained up in the ways of sober old-fashioned piety, and prepared to do good service to the Church's cause in future days. When nearly all the clergy in the Northern States had been imprisoned or driven away, pious laymen in several places endeavoured to 'i si t SERVICES u ' A LAYMAN. 75 keep alive the flame of dovotion in the hearts of their fellow-worshippers ; meeting with them on Sunday as regularly as the troubles of the time would permit, and offering with them the prayers of the Liturgy. Such a layman was John Usher, of Bristol, in Rhode Island. His father had laboured there as a mis- sionary for fifty-three years ; his brother James had, been one of the candidates who visited England to obtain Ordination, but in his homeward voyage had been taken prisoner by a French vessel of war, and imprisoned at Bayonne, where he died of small- pox. The aged father was taken to his rest in the same year in which the war broke out. A heavy bui-den of affliction fell upon the members of the Church in that place. Some fled; those who remained dared not meet openly for public worship. But John Usher watched with patient care over tlie afflicted little flock, contrived that they should meet together secretly, so as not to attract any observation, read prayers and sermons with them, and as much as in him lay supplied the place of a pastor during all the time that the war lasted. For many years before he had con- ducted a Church school, the endowments belong- ing to which were now lost, or contiBcated by the revolutionary government; but he still endea- voured as far as he could to promote the religious education of the young, and lived to see better days, when he could present to the first American Bishop a company of youthful candidates for Confirmation. In the autumn of the year 1782, the British 76 BISHOP BEABUBT. govemment gave up the attempt to reduce the re- volted colonies to obedience, and in the following March peace was proclaimed between Great Britain and the new republic, now styled the United States of America. It now became a more pressing ques- tion than ever whether the Church in America ehould have Bishops of her own. Her members were become the citizens of an independent State, and could no longer take that oath of allegiance to the sovereign of Great Britain, without which the Bishops of the English Church might not lawfully ordain any one. The source of supply from which American Churchmen had hitherto recruited the ranks of their clergy was thus closed, and unless some other means of obtaining Ordination could be found, the ministry of the Church would be anni- hilated. The clergy of Connecticut early decided upon the right course to be pursued. As soon as the peace made it possible, and before the British troops had yet evacuated the city of New York, they met there in convention, to elect a Bishop from among their own number. Their first choice fell upon the Eev. J. Leam- ing, an exemplary missionary clergyman, who had suffered much both in person and property during the war. The hardships of his imprisonment had rendered him a cripple for life, and on this account, and because he was already an old man, he declined to accept the honourable laborious of5ce to which his brethren desired to raise him. Their choice now fell upon Mr. Seaburyj and they addressed ELECTED BISHOP. 77 letters to the Englisli Bishops, praying them to con- secrate the brother whom they had elected. It was miderstood that political considerations alone had formerly prompted the English government to deny Bishops to the Church in America ; and now that the miion between the American States and tho sovereign of Great Britain had been dissolved, it was hoped that no obstacle would be interposed to the bestowal of the boon which they craved. Mr. Seabury embarked for England without delay, anxious to return as soon as might be possible to the discharge of his duties. But when he arrived in England he found great difficulties in the way. The English pj'elates could not consecrate a Bishop for any country which was independent of the British crown until they had obtained an Act of Parliament to empower them to do so. And tho relations between Great Britain and her late colo- nies were still so new and uncertain, that the king's ministers were unwilling to sanction any application to Parliament for such an Act. They were full of care lest any seeming interference on their part should stir up jealousy in A^^erica, and revive tho hostile feeling which had so lately been laid to sleep. There was much apparent reason for fear and caution, since the American Congress had already passed an Act which confiscated the property and banished the person of a most exemplary clergyman, Dr. Charles Inglis, rector of Trinity Church in New York, solely on account of his adherence to the British government. I' \ •I 78 BISHOP BEABUBT. Months of anxious waiting and hope still deferred ensued, more trying to Dr. Seabury than all the troubles and dangers to which he had been exposed during the war. For he was a man of ardent, energetic character, to whom delay and inaction were very heavy evils. The expense, also, of so long a continuance in England was inconvenient to a man who was far from rich. He was not, how- ever, destitute of such alleviations as could be derived from the sympathy of some highly-valued friends, who were deeply concerned for the welfare and advancement of the Church in America. Fore- most amongst these must be named Dr. George Berkeley, son of the noble Bishop Berkeley, who had, half a century before, cheerfully given up wealth, and ease, and the prospect of preferment at homo, in order to promote the best interests of the American colonies. Filial veneration, as well as Christian feeling, made his son a warm friend to the Church in America. In England, Dr. Seabury also found some of the most distinguished of the American clergy, his own and his father's friends — men eminent for long and faithful labour, and known also by their writings. Amongst them was Dr. Chandler, who had been forced to flee at the beginning of the war. One of the English friends of Chandler, to whom Dr. Seabury was now made known, was Charles Wesley, the younger brother of the famous foimder of the Methodist body, and his faithful coadjutor in whatever tended to promote living practical piety in union with the English DELAY AND DISAPPOINTMENT. 79 Cliuicb. His interest was strongly excited in behalf of the American Bishop elect, whom he characterized as " a truly apostolic man •" express- ing also to Dr. Chandler his satisfaction and thank- fulness that the authority of the episcopate was about to be intrusted to hands so well worthy to exercise it. More than a year having now worn away, and the prospect of receiving consecration from the Eng- lish Bishops appearing no nearer than before, Dr. Seabury began to consider of some other channel through which admission to the episcopate could be conferred. He had earnestly desired to obtain Consecration through the Church in which he had received Ordination, and in union with which he and all his brother clergy had exercised ^heir ministerial office ; but the time was too precious to be consumed in waiting for a boon which might possibly never be bestowed. The clergy by whom he had been elected were anxiously looking for his retuin, invested with power to set in order the many things that were wanting. He himseK longed to begin the work which he foresaw w ould demand all the exertion of body and mind of which he might be capable during the remainder of his life. Dr. Berkeley had already remembered that there were Bishops in Scotland who might confer the benefit which the English prelates were at present forbidden to bestow. The Episcopal Church in Scotland had been depressed and persecuted almost to extermination. In consequence of their attach- il 80 BISnOP SEABURT. mcnt to the dethroned Stuarts, her clergy had been prohibited from exercising any paRtoral function on pain of imprisonment or transportation. Some there were, nevertheless, who had a itured to con- tinue in the regular perfori(ia.n')u o± their minis- terial duties. Their congregations met " in m^^r !, in fastnesses, in forests, in ruined sheds, in dark n^per rooms to which access could only be gained by ladders and trap-doors.*' In such places the prayers were offered and the Sacraments administered ; and Bishops, consecrated in regular succession, presided over this oppressed remnant. But all was done in the strictest secrecy, and even among English Churchmen few, comparatively, were aware of the continued existence of the Episcopal Churrih in Scotland. Dr. Berkeley had urged upon the Scottish Bishops that, whatever danger there might be of the English government awakening jealousy or suspicion in the newly-constituted republic, the depressed and obscure condition of their Church would enable them without offence to consecrate a Bishop for America. They could not be suspected of aiming at supremacy of any kind or over any people. Nor were they unwilling to allow this argument its full weight, or to render to their brethren in Connecticut a service which appeared essential to the we!^-being of the Church in that country. When Dr. Seabury soon afterwards visited Scotland, he formed a cordial and enduring friend- ship with Bishop Skinner, with whom Dr. Berkeley « CONSEOllATION OF, AT ABKIIDEEN. 81 had chiefly corresponded. The Bishop, speaking for himself and his brethren, hod caiiiestly desired information as to tho peraonal merits of the can- didate for the episcopate. In the zeal, ability, and single-heartedness of Dr. Seabmy they found a satisfactory answer to their inquiries ; and on tho i4th November, 1784, he was solemnly consecrated by them at Aberdeen. The object of his visit to Europe being thus at length attained. Bishop Seabmy gladly began to prepare for his return home. Tho captain of a vessel then lying in the London Docks was an intimate acquaintance of his, a good Churchman, and very desirous to have the honour of carrying over the first Bishop of the American Chm'ch. With him, therefore. Dr. Seabury set sail on the 1st of March, but the voyage was protracted by adverse weather to a weary length, and it was the latter end of June ere iie set foot on his native shores. Within a few weeks after his arrival all his clergy came together to welcome him, and take counsel with him., and "joyful indeed," says Bishop Seabury, ""was the meeting." From this time until his death, in the year 1796, the history of his life is a record of earnest persevering work, but not, in general, of the kind of work which attracts public observation, or offers any striking variety of incident. Much de- pended on his personal exertions ; the c- 'gregatioii?; had been broken and dispersed dudng ih.Q ^oyg- lutionary war, but they were still ihii><^ L^ Provoost, who had been elected to the Bib.. i' '>^ New York, were conse- crated by the two A^ **uishops in the chapel of Lambeth Palace.* The elevation of Dr. Provoost proved an occasion of some trial to Bishop Seabury. Like Dr. White, his republican sentiments recommended him to the Churchmen of the Southern States whose political opinions were in general of a similar character, but he did not possess the just and gentle spirit which characterized the Bishop of Pennsylvania. He was strongly prejudiced against Bishop Seabury, who differed from him on many points, both of religion and politics ; and whom for some time he refused to act with, or to own as being a Bishop equally * In 1790, Dr. Madison was consecrated in England Bishop of Virginia, and he joined White, Seahnry, and Provoost in consecrating Glaggett in Maryland, in 1792. THE AMERICAlf LITURGY. 86 with himself. But the Bishop of Connecticut, though strongly attached to his own views of truth and duty, liad Christian meekness enough to avoid giving any occasion of offence to his brother of New York; and the mild uibanity of Bishop TVhite had so much influence with all pai*tics, that the contrariety of opinions which divided them pro- duced no open discord. Bishop Provoost was not present at the General Convention of the Araericat Church in 1789, which decided on some very im- portant points affecting the future discipline and order of their communion, and also set foi*th the Liturgy as it should hereafter be used in their con- gregations. In this Convention was seen the value of the different gifts which distinguished the Bishops of Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Some amongst the assembled clergy proposed great alter- ations in tlnd Liturgy ; they would have had a new oflice of Morning and Evening Prayer, a new Litany, a new Communion Service. In changes so extensive there was much danger that some errors should be admitted, or that some things essential to purity of doctrine should be left out. Bishop White's natural kindness and gentleness of heart would perhaps have made him over-tolerant of innovations, so anxious was he to refrain from all oppositions that W' -^ ot absolutely necessary. But this very desire t( ire unanimity of action made him n most vaiuaoie coadjutor to Bishop Seabury. The bias of the latter would have led him to concede too little rather than too much to the desire for change. In j-r ^ \^ 1^. IT IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TAKGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I Hi 12.5 2.2 LLS. 111.25 1 1.4 ||||i.6 < — _ 4./ — > Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716)872-4503 .o preached. He then continued his journey to Stillwater, Fort Edward, Kingsbury, and Lake George, doing the work of an evangelist. The Rev. Mr. Wetmore, whose ordination as priest wo have had occasion to mention, had been Mr. Chase's forenmner in these labours, but his health being too feeble for such constant and exhausting toil, he had taken charge of a little parish at Schenectady. Here the young missionary made a halt, in order to advise with his clerical brother as to his future course. From Schenectady, Mr. Chase travelled on to Canajoharie, where a church had been built for the Indians by the venerable " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," — one of those admirable institutions of the Mother Church in England to which the Church in America owes so large a debt of gratitude for " nursing care and protection."* He preached to the red men in this rustic temple, and visited them in their wigwams, and then went on to Utica. This city, which charms the eye by the picturesque beauty of its position, and by the air of quiet comfort which surrounds it, was then a small hamlet, standing in the midst of a dense forest, with the stumps of trees scattered about the streets. A few Episcopalians were found there ; and before his departure, Mr. Chase organized a parish, still • Preface to the American Prayer-book. 102 BISHOP CHASE. I known as " Trinity Church." Having visited some other small places in the neighbourhood, the mis- sionary passecl on through Onondaga county to the village of Auburn. • Mr. Bostwick, from Massachusetts, the father of a large family, had just moved to the place, at whose cabin Mr. Chase put up,— holding service several times beneath this himible roof, and bap- tizing the childi'en of his host. Twenty-five years afterwards, when the missionary deacon had become a Bishop, he journeyed through Auburn again, (since grown up to be a city), and called upon his old friend, whom he found living in one of the principal streets. " You hardly know this place," said Mr. Bostwick ; " the little one has become a thousand.'* " Where was the cabin in which I baptized your dear family ?" inquired the Bishop. " I will show you," returned the good man, taking his hat and a great key ; " we must stop at the church as we go along." And there stood the temple of the Lord, where so lately the tall trees had occupied the ground ; a beautiful building, with organ and bell, and all the appropriate adornments of a church. "This is the tree which you planted," said Mr. Bostwick to the Bishop ; " may it bear much fruit acceptable to the heavenly Husbandman !" They then walked on, through crowded and bustling streets, and stopping until several stage-coaches had passed, the old settler placed his staff on the ground, and remarked : ** Here is the spot where my cabin V,,.'TI,*.-^\^ ST. JOHN& OUUBCE, OANANDAIGUA. 103 stood, and in which you baptized my children, and preached to us, and incorporated our parish." In the winter of 1798-9, Mr. Chase first visited the town of Canandaigua, then a small settlement, sur- rounded by forests and numerous bands of Indians. Here he was kindly entertained by Judge Moses Atwater and Mr. Sanbum, who assisted him in gathering a congregation together, for whose benefit he officiated in the court-house, which had been recently built. The organization of " St. John's Church " was the result of this effort. >» a From Canandaigua, Mr. Chase joiuneyed west- ward, through the woods, preaching at Bloomfield, and at a place on the banks of the Genesee river, now called Avon. The Hosmer family (which has always been firm and devoted in its attachment to the Episcopal Church) was there to welcome the missionary upon his arrival, and to aid and support him in his work. Beyond the Genesee river there was then no road to the west, except an Indian trail through the Tonewanta Plains ; and as Mr. Chase might now consider himself as having reached the western boundary of civilization, he turned his face about and began to retrace his steps. He made a second visit to the little congregations which he had planted at Canandaigua, Auburn, and Utica, and then went to Burlington, Otsego county, to pay his respects to good " Father Nash.'* This is one of those beautiful episodes in Bishop 104 BISHOP CHASE. Chasers history which must be given in his own simple words.* " The writer does not pretend to more sensibility than falls to the lot of most men, but there was something in this meeting between Mr. Kash and himself of a peculiar character, and calculated to call forth whatever of moral sensibility he possessed. It was a meeting of two persons deeply convinced of the primitive and apostolic foundation of the Church, to which, on account of its purity of doctrine and the Divine right of its minie>try, they had fled from a chaos of confusion of other sects. They were both * missionaries,' though the name was not yet understood or appreciated. The one had given up all his hopes of more comfortable living in the well-stored country at the east, and had come to Otsego county to preach the Gospel and build up the Church on apostolic ground, with no assurance of a salary but such ai^ he could glean from the cold soil of unrenewed nature, or pluck from the clusters of the few scions which he might engraft into the Vine, Christ Jesus. He lived not in a tent, as the patriarchs did, surrounded with servants to tend his flocks, and to milk his kine, and ' bring him butter in a lordly dish,' but in a cabin built of unhewn logs, with scarcely a pane of glass to let in light sufficient to read his Bible ; and even this cabin was not his own, nor was he permitted to liv6 in one for a long time together. " All this was witnessed by the other, who came * Bishop Chase's Reminiscences, vol. I pp. 33, 34. GOOD "FATUEB NABH." 105 i h to Bee him and helped him to carry his little articles of crockery, holding one handle of the basket and Mr. Nash the other, and as they walked the road, * talked of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God,' The writer cannot refrain from tears in bringing to mind the circmnstances attending this interesting scene. That man, who was afterwards most emphatically called * Father Nash/ being the fomider of the Church in Otsego county, — who baptized great numbers of both adults and children, and thus was the spiritual father of so many of the family of Christ, and who spent all his life and strength in toiling for their spiritual benefit,— was at this period so little regarded by the Ohm*ch at large, and even by his neighbours, that he had not the means to move his substance from one cabin to another but with his own hands, assisted only by his wife and small children, and a passing missionary. Well does the writer remember how the little one- roomed cabin looked as he entered it ; its rude door, himg on wooden hinges, creaking as they turned : how joyful that good man was that he had been mindful to fetch a few nails, which he had used in the other cabin just left, for his comfort in this, now the receptacle of all his substance. These he drove into the logs with great judgment, choosing the place most appropriate for his hat, his coat, and other garments of himself and family. All this while, his patient wife, directing her children to kindle the fire, prepared the food for— whom ? Shall it be said, a stranger ? No ; but for one who 106 BIBHOP OHASK. !4 by sympatliy felt himself more their brother than bj all the ties of nature, and who, by the example now set before him, learned a lesson of inexpressible use to him all the days of his subsequent life."* Strengthened and encouraged by this visit to Mr. Nash, our pioneer missionary again went forth about his ** Father's business," preaching and baptizing in many towns, and organising churches wherever a sufficient number of persons could be found to encourage the enterprize. Thus actively and suc- cessfully engaged, time passed rapidly away, and it was late in the autumn of 1799 when he reached Ponghkeepsie, where he was urged to take charge of a congregation, in connection with one at Fish- kill. He accepted the invitation, and on the 10th of November, of the same year, he was ordained Priest, in St. Paul's Church, New York, by the vene- rable Bishop Provoost. It may be thought strange that a clergyman who had proved himself so zealous and useful as a missionary, should be willing thus to confine his labours to two neighbouring towns ; but in order to save Mr. Chase from blame in this * "On entering the churchyard at Cooperstown," says Bishop De Lancey, in his charge on • Keligious Training,' *' I was struck by an elevated and plain monument, bearing the inscription of a name which still delights the ear of multi- tudes of mature and aged, once children of his pastoral care. Father Nash. One of his habits was, wh,en he visited a Church family, to catechise the children. Many baptized by his hands in infancy, and catechised by his faithful tongue as children, now adorn our Church in this diocese by the lustre of piety and faith." — Charge^ p. 23. BAILS FOB KKW OBLZANS. 107 matter^ it is proper to state, that having spent all of his little stipend, and of his private funds, in these extensive journeys, he was obliged, from sheer neces- sity, to abide fur a season in a fettled home. Mr. Chase soon removed his family to Pough- keepsie ; and, besides the care of tiie congregation there and at Fishkill, he was obliged to teach a school, to meet the necessary expenses of life. Thus he continued to labour for six years, when the same overruling Providence which had hitherto ordered his goings, seemed to point him to another field. In 1805, Bishop Moore, of New York, received a letter from the Protestants of New Orleans, request- ing that he would send them a clergyman ; and Mr. Chase was at once advised to go. Besides the ready obedience which he always yielded to every claim of duty, he was induced to accept the appointment on account of his wife's feeble health — she being threatened with consumption. But as all was un- certain before him, he determined first to visit New Orleans by himself, and survey the ground, before venturing to remove his family. Accordingly, in October, 1805, he sailed from New York in a small brig, and, after many perils, reached his destination in safety. His prompt appearance in answer to their summons seemed, to those interested in the Church, an omen for good ; and Mr. Chase, with his wonted zeal, began his work without delay. He was once more occupied in his proper vocation— planting the Church in regions where it was unknown before. 108 BISHOP CHASE. A parish was organized, undor the name of Christ Church, with tbo provision that, fur tho present, the clergyman settled there should be under the juris- diction of the Bishop of New York. Having thus laid the foundations well, Mr. Chase went to the North for his family, with whom he returned to New Orleans in tho autumn of 1806. He seems to have been greatly blessed in all his undertakings. His parish continued to flourish ; and a school, which he opened, was a source of much pecuniary profit. He remained in New Orleans nearly six yeai'S : at the end of that time, the health of his wife having im- proved, he felt it his duty to return to the North, for the purpose of educating his children. After a brief visit to his relatives in Vermont and Now Hampshire, ho placed his sons, George and Phi- lander, at an academy, and accepted for himself the rectorship of Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut. The six years devoted to this parish seem to have been very happy; and in his Reminiscences, the short paragraph devoted to this period is headed, ^^Daya of Sumhine." The congregation and the number of communicants greatly multiplied; and living in the midst of an enlightened community, and having every temporal want supplied, the rector's cup of earthly enjoyment seemed to overflow. "Of the time I spent in this lovely city," he writes, " I can never speak in ordinary terms. It is to my remembrance a 3 a dream of more than ter- restrial delight. Of its sweets I tasted for a while, and thought myself happy ; but God, who would BE80LVE8 TO VISIT OHIO. 109 train His servants more by tho reality of suffering than by ideal and transitory bliss, saw fit to direct my thoughts to other and more perilous duties.'* No selfish motive influenced Mr. Chase to leave his happy home. Tho truth is, his heart was sad- dened at tho thought of tho vast regions of tho West which were left without a shepherd's care. " Ho recollected his own labours in former times, till his heart yearned to bo again employed in similar holy undertakings : he was aware of the deplorable fact, that, with tho exception of the Rev. Mr. Scorle and two or three other missionaries, no duly ordained clergyman of the Church had sot foot upon the soil of Ohio. Ho therefore resolved to devote himself to that new and distant country, then just becoming a favourite resort of emigrants, and of course far more wild and inhospitable than at present. A lively impression existed in his mind, that wherever the sheep of Christ went, it was necessary that some shepherd should go with them. With this pure motive to lead him, his plan was formed and his determination fixed. Though the separation from his congregation at Hartford was, as he expressed himself, * like tearing up a tree in full bearing from its roots,' and though the time of his departure was consecrated by the tears of a numerous and affec- tionate people, btrength was given him to fulfil his holy purpose ; and on the second of March, 1817, he set off for the western country."* The journey, at that inclement season of the year, was both weari- * Caswall's American Cl.urch, pp. 31, 32. 110 BISHOP CHASE. liM some and dangerous. From Buffalo westward the roads were bad, and there was no public conveyance, and he was obliged to hire a sleigh and horses to carry him along the shore of Lake Erie, on the ice, which, in some places, was covered with water, and in momentary danger of breaking up. " The cracks in the ice," he remarks, in his own simple story, " became more and more visible, and continued to increase in width, as we drove rapidly along. No- thing, however, was said. The horses, having trotted without injury over the small cracks, became soon accustomed to leap over the wide ones ; but none were so wide as to let in the runners lengthwise, and we blessed God silently, though heartily, for every successful leap."* Thus braving mcy perils, the zealous missionary pushed on ; and when the driver of the sleigh, hav- ing fulfilled his contract to the letter, stopped short on the dreary shore of the lake, as soon as he reached the Ohio line, Mr. Chase paid him his price, and trudged on afoot. On Sunday, March 16th, 1817, he preached his first sermon in Ohio, at a few log-houses by Con- neaut Creek, now a thriving village called Salem. Mr. Chase was not the man to waste any time in inaction, and the very next day after the service at Conjieaut Creek, he hired a person* to take him to Ashtabula. It must be remembered that all of these western ♦ Keaiinisccnces, vol. i. p. 126. vard the ivejrance, iorses to I the ice, iter, and e cracks e story, inued to ?. No- J trotted ae soon it none ise, and r every sionary h, hav- i short cached )e, and ed his r Con- em. me in ice at lim to istern To face "page no. ASHTABULA, ETO. — JUDGE SOLOMON 0BI8W0LD. Ill towns which we shall have occasion to speak of were then in their infancy ; many of them consisting only of a few log huts. The missionary spent a week at Ashtabula, preaching every day, and ex- citing an interest in the Church by visiting the people in their homes. He then journeyed on to the township of Rome, and so from place to place, — sometimes on a borrowed or hired horse, — some- times being invited to ride for a few miles in a farmer's waggon, — and many times trudging on,- wearily, afoot. Our space is too limited to allow us to follow him through all his wanderings, while thus looking after the scattered sheep in the vast wilder- ness; but we must briefly say, that the devoted missionary preached wherever he could collect a few persons to hear him, and organized parishes ai all points where there seemed a reasonable promise of permanency. He was welcomed most warmly by the Episcopalians whom he found, and as one in- stance *mong many, we give the following in his own words : " Judge Solomon Griswold, cousin to the presiding Bishop, received the writer, weary and waysore. This worthy man was from West Windsor, in Con- necticut, and with a few families, chiefly from Sims- bury, had come into the north part of Ohio when an entire wilderness. Both himself and family had suffered exceedingly, but now began to live with some comfort in temporal things. Yet as to the important concerns of the eternal world, there was only enough left on their minds to make them feel 112 BISHOP CHASE. their wants. * 1 am overjoyed,' said he, * to see a Church clergyman, one who is duly authorized to administer the Sacraments. I have read prayera here in the woods for several years. The scattered flock of Christ have been thus kept mindful that there is a fold ; you, I trust, have come to gather them in, and to feed them with heavenly food. I bless God that I see you among us. I began to think our Church would never visit the frontiers.* Such joy there was that a * Church minister ' had come, that a considerable congregation was gathered that night, Divine service performed, and a sermon preached."* So much interest was manifested, that Mr. Chase tarried there some days, preaching, baptizing, cate- chising, and administering the Lord's Supper. Travelling through the whole length of the State, he reached Cincinnati early in May. He was kindly received by Dr. Drake, who made arrangements for him to officiate in " the brick meeting-house with two steeples," where a large and attentive congrega- tion assembled. Those interested in the organiza- tion of a parish were invited to meet the clergyman at Dr. Drake's, immediately after the close of the service. A goodly number of the most substantial inhabitants of Cincinnati came together for this purpose, and the parish of Christ Church was formed. Among those who took an active part on this oc- casion was one who had earned many laurels upoxi * Reminiscences, vol. i. pp. 129, 130. SETTLES AT WOBTHINGTON. 113 the battle-field, and who was eventually called to the highest office in the gift of his countrymen. I refer to William Henry Harrison,* afterwards President of the United States. In these early missionary labours in Ohio, we find Mr. Chase living over again the season of use- fulness which ho had spent in western New York. By reading the record of these untiring eflforts, as left by his own hand, and then taking up the Journals of the Ohio Conventions of this day, we shall find thriving congregations in nearly all the towns where this devoted servant of God once sowed the seed. Having bought a farm near Worthington for the future home of his family, he wrote to Mrs. Chase to join him at Cleveland. After many perils, the mother and children arrived safely. She gives this unaffected account of their condition and future plans in a letter to a friend, written soon after : Worthington, the place of our present residence. (( * " He was a Christian patriot. The day on which he en- tered upon his high and holy trust he bought a Bible and a Prayer-book, — as if he would begin anew, in liis new station, the sacred offices by which his daily life had been consoled and consecrated. He daily read, not without prayer, the holy Word of God. He constantly repaired for public wor- ship to the house of prayer. He prostrated himself, on bended knee, in the assembly of the faithful. He had re- solved, even on the next Lord's day that followed the com- mencement of his fatal illness, to present himself, his soul and body, a living sacrifice before the altar of his crucified Redeemer." — Bishop Doane'e Sermon on the death of General Htirrisorit pp. 19, 20. lU BISHOP CHASE. is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Whet- stone. It is but thirteen years since the first family moved into the place, then an entire wilderness. Mr. Chase has purchased a small farm about three- fourths of a mile from the village, on which he is now building a house, intended hereafter for a farm- house, but which must shelter his family the coming winter from the winds and storms. This, together with the care of five parishes, and occasional paro- chial duty during the week, so completely fills up his time, that his £a.ce is seldom seen at home except at table. But his health is good, and I trust he may be doing some good to the Church of the ever- blessed Eedeemer." This heroic pioneer for the Church was the poor consumptive lady who, twelve years before, had sought the genial climate of the South for the re- covery of her health. Mr. Chase engaged with his whole soul in the great work which had brought him to the West. God's blessing everywhere attended his labours. One by one, other clergymen came to his aid. New parishes were organized. Less than a year had passed away since his crossing the borders of Ohio before we find him presiding at the first Convention of that diocese I This assembly met at Columbus, tTanuary 5th, 1818, and again, in June, at Wor- thington, when Mr. Chase was imanimously chosen Bishop of Ohio. . Previous to this last meeting of the Convention, CONSEGBATED BISHOP. 115 liis wife, who had long been struggling against the encroachments of disease, entered upon that rest which remaineth for tho people of Crod. She died on the fifth of May. The consecration was performed in St. James's Church, Philadelphia, on the 11th of February, 1819 ; the venerable Bishop White presiding on the occa- sion, and Bishop Hobart of New York, Bishop Croes of New Jersey, and Bishop Eemp of Maryland, unit- ing with him in the solemn act which was to elevate another devout and well-learned man to the highest dignity in the Church of God. It would be well for those who are studjang how they may best lead easy and luxurious lives, while acting the part of ministers of the Gospel, to picture to themselves good Bishop Chase, as he set off on horseback to pursue his way to his diocese in the western wilderness. Braving the cold, bleak winds of winter, and the drifting snow, and the slippery paths along the mountain-side, he journeyed onward, and on the 28th of February, officiated for the first time as Bishop, within the boundaries of his diocese, at Zanesville. Early in March, he reached his humble dwelling, near Worthington; and after a short respite, he began his arduous labours as a missionary Bishop. His diocesan work involved "vast distances of journeys on horseback, under the burning sun and pelting rain, through the mud and amid the beech-roots, over log-bridges, and through swollen streams." As we might well expect, after such exposure and fatigue, he reached the end of 116 BISHOP CHASE. his Circuit of " 1279 miles on horseback, with his constitution impaired, and his voice almost gone." Laborious and exhausting as these journeys were, the Bishop's heart was cheered by the reflection that he was engaged in his Master's work, and by many satisfactory evidences of comfort and consolation conveyed to his fellow-men. The following touch- ing account of a visit which he made to a solitary family in Ohio will illustrate what we mean. They were Irish Protestants, of the better class, who, for years, had been suffering the privations of all settlers in the wilderness. *' Ardently attached to the Church, they could not but think of her and her pleasant things, though they had but little prospect of seeing her prosperity. The Rev. Dr. Doddridge, the nearest, and for many years the only, Episcopal clergyman in the country, lived some twenty miles from them, on the Virginia side of the Ohio. Such were his avocations that he had never been among them. Here they were, iso- lated and alone, as sheep ha\ing no shepherd. Finley the elder, * the old man of whom I spake, was yet alive,' — yet only so alive as that they were ob- liged to raise him up to salute me as I approached his bed. As I took his hand, trembling with age and weakness, he burst into tears and sobbed aloud. The grateful effusions of heart at the sight of a minister of the blessed Jesus were made intelligible by the most affecting ejaculations to God, his Maker, Saviour, and Sanctifier. * I see my Spiritual Father,' said he, * my Bishop, the Shepherd of the Flock of THB PATBIAB0H8 HEABT MADE GLAD. 117 It Christ, of which I have always considered myself, and my little lambs about mc, the members ; but too unworthy, 1 feared, to be sought and found in this manner. G, Sir I do I live to see this happy day ? Yes, 'tis even so. Blessed Lord ! Holy Jesus ! Thou who once earnest in great humility to seek and to save that vhich was lost, receive the tribute of my grateful heart. Now let Thy servant depart in peace.' As iiihe venerable man thus spake, he bowed his gray hairs, and begged the prayers and benedictions of the Church. They were afforded ; and cold must that heart be which, under such circum- stances, would refuse to be fervent. The Visitation Ofl&ce was performed, in which the family, joined by the neighboui's hastily assembled, participated." The Bishop, after due instruction and examination, confirmed several members of the family, and then administered the Holy Communion. " In a cabin, with scarcely a pane of glass to let in the light of day, and on a floor of roughly-hewn planks, we knelt down together, and there the holy of&ces were per- formed. The patriarchal old man, having caused himself to be raised in his bed, gazed with unspeak- able pleasure on the scene before him. His tears only indicated what he felt. Giving him the Episco- pal blessing, I took my leave and departed."* The bishopric of Ohio, at the time of which we are writing, was, in many respects, an office of thankless drudgery and toil. In the infancy of the * Beminiscences, i. 153. 118 BISHOP CHASE. diocoso thcro was no provision made for the support of a Bishop. He must travel everywhere through- out the borders of the State, — but, at hia own ex- pense / How it carries one back to those early days, when the great Apostle of the Gentiles laboured as a tent-maker, to road such records of penury as this : — '* Betuming home from diocesan visitations," tho Bishop finds " but a poor prospect in regard to the coming winter. There was not a dollar left, after satisfying the hired man for the past, wherewithal to engage him for the future ; and as for making promises when there was no prospect of making pay- ment, such had ever been regarded in the writer's family as a sin. The hired man was then, from a principle of duty, discharged. The result was in- evitable ; the writer must do what the man would, if retained, have done — i, e., thresh the grain, haul and cut the wood, build the fires, and feed the stock : all this must be done, besides the care of the churches. The whole was deemed a part of the Christian war- fare, from which there was no discharge."* At the time, Bishop Chase seems to have felt this to have been a degradation ; but at a later period of life he looked back upon those days of trouble and anxiety as productive of future good. The Church is cer- tainly very much to blame, when her most faithful and successful ministers are thus left unprovided for ; but it is to be hoped that self-denying men will never be wanting to bear aloft the cross, at whatever sacrifice such service may be required, * Reminiscences, i. 174. SECOND MAURIAOE. 119 Bishop Chase's pecuniary trials did not diminish, in the least, his zeal in the work which he had undertaken to perform. There were then only six clergymen in the diocese, and many parishes with- out any regular services, and yet, in the years 1820- 21, he baptized fifty persons, confirmed one hundred and seventy-four, preached on nearly two hundred occasions, and travelled twelve hundred and seventy- nine miles on horseback. Did Wesley or Whitfield exhibit more imtiring energy than the first apostle of Ohio ? The loneliness of the Bishop's house was cheered by the presence of his second wife (Sophia May Ingraham), to whom he was united in holy wedlock in the summer of 1819. The energy and devotion of this excellent woman assisted not a little in the carrying out of those grand designs of which we shall have occasion, ere long, to speak. In the autumn of 1820, Bishop Chase accepted the presidency of a college in Cincinnati, and removed there, partly from the hope of thus being able to secure the means of support, of which he stood so much in need. While occupying this new position, he went to Worthington, to attend the Convention ; and there, his son Philander (then in deacon's orders, and officiating at Zanesville) accidentally mentioned to his father that his Episcopal addresses had been favourably noticed in an English periodical of high repute. This information at once suggested to the Bishop the idea of applying to his brethren of the Church in England for aid in building a college and 120 BISHOP CHASE. theological school. With his accustomed energy and promptness, ho determined to cross the Atlantic without delay, and make kno\vn the pressing nature of the Church's wants. In July he addrcKsed a letter to the Hishops of the American Church, an- nouncing his intention ; and, by the first of October, he was in New York city, ready to embark. And hero, at the very threshold of his enterprise, he met with difficulties which he was not prepared to expect. " It was the wish of Bishop Hobart, and many others, that all the clergy of the American Church should be educated at the same seminary, as a means of promoting unity of doctrine and senti- ment. But hardly had this scheme been adopted by the Church, and a General Theological Seminary organized, than the proposal to establish another institution of the same kind in Ohio seemed to break in upon it, and prepare the way for other enterprises of the same kind. Bishop Hobart, therefore, opposed it with all his energy ; and if we are obliged to think that his opposition was carried beyond due bounds, we ought rather to ascribe it to the ardour of his temperament than to any envious or selfish motive. When Bishop Chase arrived in England, he found that an article had appeared in the * British Critic,' putting the public on their guard against him, and he himself was very coldly received."* Bishop Chase certainly displayed wonderful Chris- tian forbearance ; for, in his " Reminiscences," he ♦ Church Review, vol. i. p. 405. ALONE IN LONDON. 121 (loog not onco mention tlio names of those who thus attempted to defeat his favourite dcssigii, and so fur from engaging in eontroversy, he does not give his own side all the advantage which it might be made to 2)resont. These good men have now gone to their reward. They have forgotten the misunderstandings of the past in the unalloyed happiness of those who are rejoicing in Paradise. it is easy for us in the present to discover eri'ors in judgment in those of bygone days. We should, at least, however, give them credit for having acted s'ucerely, and with honest intentions of doing all for the best. ! After a month's voyage. Bishop Chase reached Liverpool, and from thence travelled by coach to Manchester, where he paid a short visit to Mr. Wiggin, an old college friend, who had become a thriving man in England. Upon going to London, (which he hoped would prove the head-quarters for the successful accomplishment of what Lo had come so far to do), he felt himself to be indeed a stranger, separated by the wide ocean from all who know and loved him. " London !" he says in his simple diary, " a world within itself, and not a soul v«rithin its vast bosom with whom the writer had the least acquaintance ; and what was more, none had ever heard of him but through a hostile medium. As the coach turned down Piccadilly to High Holboru, the coachman, 122 BISHOP CHASE. \ ! while setting down some other passengers, asked the writer where he would stop ? Alas I he knew not what to answer, but simply said, ' Drive on.* The coach stopped at the ' Bell,' and the writer stopped. It was a place for coach-offices and stables. The house was tenanted by decent persons, and the writer asked to be allowed the privilege of a retired room. The house was not far from St. Paul's, and in the chapter-house of the cathedral lived the worthy sergeant, Mr. Sellon. The writer was the bearer of a letter to this gentleman from his son, the rector of St. Ann's Church, New York ; and before seating himself in his little bedroom, he went to the chapter-house. The sergeant was at home, and made many kind inquiries concerning his son." In presenting his cause in England, Bishop Chase had two strong grounds upon which he might rest his application for help : first, the general claim of spiritual relationship which the American Church sustained to the Mother Church in England, and also the fact that about one-third of the population of his diocese were supposed to consist of British emi- grants. The only difficulty seemed to be, to urge these natural claims upon the attention of those who could afford to assist him. Living in retired lodg- ings in London, a stranger to everybody, and coming in the face of a proclamation, which had been cir- culated, far and wide, by a brother Bishop, from America, urging the English public not to respond to his appeal, how could he possibly hope to suc- ceed ? A man of weaker faith would have yielded EKV. JOSIAH PRATT. 123 to despair. But Bishop Chase had always acted upon the encouraging and soul-inspiring motto, " Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide ;" and his trust in God's goodness received its full reward. He had brought letters from Mr. Clay, and other distinguished Americans, to Lord Kenyon, Lord Gambler, Mr. Baring, &c., which secured for him a kind reception and a patient hearing. Having re- mained for some time in complete obscurity. Pro- vidence raised up friends for him, who entered warmly into his cause, and who, both on account of their high station in society, and the confidence reposed in their judgment, were able to serve him effectually. Among the first to show an interest in his mission was the Eev. Josiah Pratt, who, for twenty-one years, filled the important post of Secretary to the Church Missionary Society. Lord Gambler took pains to introduce Bishop Chase to this worthy clergyman. His first interview with Mr. Pratt is thus graphi- cally described in the Bishop's " Reminiscences :" — " With what anxious steps he was the bearer of Lord Gambler's letter to this good man needs not be told. Giving in his name, ho was shown directly to the study of the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society. With books and papers ail around a well- lighted room, warmed by a cheerful fire, and fur- nished with a good-sized table, having a well-brushed cloth, occupied by some maps, a recent number of the ' Missionary Eegister,' and some manuscript papers — there he icas, as the writer suddenly, per- 124 BISHOP CHASE. haps unexpectedly, entered the room. Turning round and facing the door, he saw a man approach, of no ordinary size, and evidently no inhahitant of London, and against whom, as he has since remarked, he was very much prejudiced. A civil bow was in- terchanged, and the letter of Lord Gambier pre- sented. The very sight of a good man's writing will light up a smile in the face of a congenial spirit."* Mr. Pratt, having examined the papers which the Bishop laid before him, and conversed at large upon the subject of his enterprise, declared, mthout hesi- tation, that his objections were fully removed, and that he should enter into the Ohio cause with all his heart. The biographer of Mr. Pratt, in his very interesting Memoirs, remarks, in reference to these events, that "Bishop Chase continued in town a month after his introduction to Mr. Pratt, during which time they had repeated interviews for matur- ing the Bishop's plans. Both were opposed to doing anything which might provoke an open controversy with the Bishop's opponents. Mr. Pratt occupied all the intervals he could snatch from his pressing engagements to draw up an appeal, for extensive circulation, to bring the wants of Ohio fully and prominently before the public. This appeal was speedily printed, and circulated through the country ; and, on the 8th of January, 1824, Bishop Chase left London, on an extensive tour, to plead his cause in person. About a month after this, all opposition * Ec'miiii&ccnces, i. 245. ASTONISHING SUCCESS. 125 to his plans was withdrawn upon certain terms of accommodation being proposed by the opposing party, and agreed upon by the Bishop, thi'ough the intervention of Mr. Pratt."* After the first difficulties were overcome, Bishop Chase's success in England was even greater than his own sanguine disposition could have looked for. All classes vied with each other in showing him kindness, and in aiding his cause. Bishops of the Church, and the highest of the nobility, became his heralds, and by their own liberal contributions, and by appeals to others, added daily to the Ohio fund. A large part of the Bishop's Eeminiscences consists of a series of most interesting letters written from England to his wife, giving a minute account of all these things. He recognizes the hand of God in every instance of success, and has frequent occasion to realize the truth of the motto of his whole life, " Jehovah Jireh." If coldness and suspicion shall ever spring up (which God forbid I) between the Church in England and the Church iu America, let those on the western side of the great waters remember the kindness of their English brethren to Bishop Chase, and do all in their power to restore confidence and peace. Having spent about eight months in England, the Bishop set sail from Liverpool in the same ship which had brought him over, and after a voyage of forty-three days, he landed at New York, August • Memoir of the Rev. Josiah Pratt, p. 237. 126 BIBHOP CHASE. 29tli, 1824. " It was now Sunday night ; the church bells were ringing for evening service ; and never did the writer join with more fervency in the prayers and praises of the liturgy, or feel their adaptation and holy efficacy more deeply." The amount of money collected by the Bishop in England was twenty thousand dollars (£4000). He gave his own farm to the theological seminary which he proposed to build ; and in order that there might be no pos- sible suspicion of misapplication of the funds which liad been contributed by friends abroad, he agreed that no money should be drawn until English donors had received the voucher of Henry Clay, or, in case of his death, of the Governor of Ohio, that the con- ditions of the gii't had been complied with. " The seminary was commenced by the reception of students in. the Bishop's own house at Worthington. He ap- pointed his teachers, and paid them from his own funds, and such as he collected from the students themselves. His wife was his secretary, his house- keeper, his adviser, and treasurer in all this. Such a commencement of a great institution of religion and learning, on so economical a plan, was never elsewhere witnessed."* Early in November, 1824, the Convention of the diocese of Ohio assembled at Chillicothe, when pre- liminary steps were taken with reference to the esta- blishment of the Theological School, for which funds had been collected. The Bishop strongly urged the * Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia of American Literature, vol. i. p. 649. I THE BISHOPS CALIN. 127 ' propriety of c} loosing a location remote from the temptations and vices of large towns, and the wisdom of his suggestions was generally approved. Eight thousand acres of land were accordingly purchased in Knox county, and operations vigorously commenced. The Bishop did not wait for the trees to be cut down, and the ground cleared, before he gave his personal oversight to the work, but built a cabin, and took up his abode there from the beginning. " The whole surface of the hill was then a wind- folly being a great part of it covered with fallen and upturned trees, between and over which had come up a second growth of thick trees and bushes. It was on such a place as this (proverbially impervious even to the hunters after wolves, which made it their covert) that the writer pitched his tent, if such it might be called. " On the south end, or promontory of this hill (near to which, below, ran the road used by the first settlers), grew some tall oak-trees, which evidently had escaped the hurricanes in days of yore. Under the shelter of these, some boards in a light waggon were taken nearly to the top of the hill ; there they were dropped, and it was with these the writer's house was built, after the brush was with great dif- ficulty cleared away. Two crotched sticks were driven into the ground, and on them a transverse pole was placed, and on this pole were placed the boards, inclining to the ground each way. The ends, or gaules, to this room or roof-shelter were but slightly closed by some clapboards cleft on the spot 128 BISHOP CHASE. from a fallen oak-tree. The beds lo sleep on were thrown on bundles of straw, kept up from the damp ground by a kind of temporary platform, resting on stakes driven deeply into the earth. " This was the first habitation on Gambier Hill, and it stood very nearly on the site where now rises the noble edifice of Kenyon College."* This first settlement of the college domain took place in June, 1826. And now began one of the mos« "active and laborious periods of the good man*s life. Besides visiting the parishes throughout the diocese as Bishop, he officiated in the churches in the neighbouring counties as an ordinary missionary ; and at the same time superintended the education of the young men who had already flocked to his school, and, what was more vexatious than all, he was ob- lig jd to direct the unskilful workmen, and act con- stantly as a vigilant overseer. He began by insisting that no ardent spirits should be used on the groimd ; a step in the tempe- rance movement which few, at that day, had ventured to take. The workmen murmured, and finally com- , bined together to demand the usual indulgence, but the Bishop remained firm and decided, and by kind words persuaded them to go on with the work with- out it. t A man of Bishop Chase's temperament could not but be happy in the midst of his new and varied employments. Vexatious and incessant as his trials • Reminiscences, i. 484. MORE MONET RAISED. 129 and labours were, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was doing a work for the Church which would be the means of good, long after he had gone to his reward. Sitting in his little cabin on Gambier Hill, he could see, in imagination, the forest cleared away, and stately buildings crowning the eminence which overlooked the neighbouring landscape, and throngs of students gathering there to be trained up for use- fulness in the world. All this would hereafter be realized ; but much severe drudgery must first be done. New difficulties were arising every day, which called for yet stronger faith and more untiring efforts. Exposure to the night air in his rude habitation brought on an inter- mittent fever. Then the funds contributed in England were nearly all expended for the purchase of land, and for the improvements thus far made. The Bishop had hardly recovered from his sick- ness before he set off for the East, to attend the General Convention at Philadelphia, and to solicit subscriptions for the seminary. Dr. Boyd and Dr. Bedell, and many others, united in recommending his application to the generous consideration of Churchmen, and the result was an additional twenty-five thousand dollars (£5000) to the funds before obtained. Ten thousand dollars of this sum were pledged for the endowment of a Professorship of Divinity. We have now brought down the narrative to the 130 BISHOP CHASE. yoar 1828, wlien we are able to present a graphic description of the state of affairs at Eenyon College, from the pen of an eye-witness. During his stay in England, Bishop Chase had often ex- pressed a wish that young men of enterprise and devotion should follow him to Ohio, and there give themselves up to the work of the ministry. One, at least, was influenced by this desire, and in the autumn of the year just named, Mr. Henry Caswall, a young Englishman, who is now a parish clergy- man of high standing in his own land, might be seen, in a rough vehicle, making his way through the woods of Ohio towards the village of Gambier. We shall do the reader a kindness by allowing him to tell his own story : *^ On attaining the summit of the hill on which Gambier is situated, I cast my eyes around and per- ceived four small houses, constructed of planks, two or three log-houses, and the unfinished walls of a large stone building in the distance. I requested to be driven to the Bishop's residence, and, to my con- sternation, I was deposited at the door of a small and rough log-cabin, which could boast of but one little window, composed of four squares of the most common glass. ' Is this the Bishop's palace ?' I in- voluntarily exclaimed ; * can this,* I thought, * be the residence of the apostolic man, whose praise is in all the churches, and who is venerated by so many excellent persons in my native country ?' It was even so ; and, on knocking for admittance, the door was opened by a dignified female, who soon oaswall's visit to gambieb 131 proved to be the Bishop's lady herself. In reply to my inquiries, she informed me that the Bishop had gone to his mill for some flour, but that ho would soon return. I had waited but a few minutes when I heard a powerful voice engaged in conversation outside, and immediately afterwards the Bishop entered with one of his head workmen. The good prelate, then fifty-three years of age, was of more than ordinary size,* and his black cassock bore evident tokens of his recent visi! to the mill. He was proceeding in his conversation with the fore- man, when, on hearing my name mentioned, he turned to me and very com*teously made inquiries respecting my journey and several of his friends in England. He then invited me to partake of his frugal meal, after which he desired me to accom- pany him to the College. On arriving at the un- finished edifice, I was amazed at the solidity of the structure. The walls were four feet thick at the foundation; but on the second story, upon which the builders were now engaged, the thickness was reduced to three feet. " From the College we descended to a piece of ground, but partially cleared of trees. * This,' said * " Bishop Chase's countenance expressed singular deter- laination, combined with beuevolonce. He was tall and well- proportioned, and arrayed in the flowing vestments of his office, with the dark velvet cap, which he wore continually after a severe illness brought on by exposure, and which he describes with his wonted quaintness as * a thick covering to his head, in the shape of a night-cap,'— his form seemed to fill up as amply to the eye as his cai'eer and words to tite mind, — the full ideal of a bishop." — Duyckinck's Cydopadia, voL i. p. 650. 132 BISHOP CHASE. the Bishop, * is Sutton Square, so named from his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.* A little further on ho informed me that I was in Bexley Square ; and still further to the right was a thick portion of forest which ho declared was Burgess Street, called after the name of the venerable Bishop of Salisbury. In another part of the surrounding woods, he showed me the unoccupied site of a church to be denominated Bosse Chapel, from the Countess Dowager of Rosse. Near the site selected for the church, the Bishop pointed out the grave of an old man, the first person who had died at Gambier. lie had caused a railing to be erected round the grave, and with his own hands had trained a wild grape-vine to overshadow it. Near this grave he showed me a spot in which, he said, he hoped in a few years to lay his own weary body. He only prayed to be allowed sufficient time to see his town erected, and his College flourishing and complete."* While the substantial walls of Kenyon College were thus gradually rising towards completion, the Bishop found it extremely difficult to supply the timber necessary for joist and studding, and it oc- curred to his suggestive mind that a saw-mill might, without much difficulty, be built on a small creek not far distant. The chief obstacle was the digging of the long mill-race. But Bishop Chase never allowed trifles to stop his plans. One who heard from h's own lips an account of the surprising man- * Caswell's American Church, p. 23. " GOD 18 HIS FRIEND." 133 ncr in which ho was roliovod in this dilemma, thus relates the story : " When the plan for building the mill was decided upon, and men and money were both lacking, who could fail to cry out against the foolish and friend- less Bishop ? Only one single furrow was drawn with the plough, marking out the lino of the pro- posed mill-mce, when, that same night, the rains descended, and t!ie waters rose, till, finding their way through the furrow, the stream strengthened into a torrent, and the waters themselves dug the mill-race before the morning, and that so thoroughly, that only a little labour was required in the finishing. And after detailing this * providential aid,* how admirable was the humour wj^'h which the Bishop used to tell of the discussion that took place about that time in a stage-coach, when everybody was abusing him, and his College, and his mill, and everything about him, winding up with the declara- tion that * the Bishop hadn't a friend left ;' at which word the coachman, whose feelings had all the while been rising internally up to the talkingpoint, broke out with the assertion that * the Bishop had a friend ;' and, when repeatedly pressed to name him, continued, * Why, God is his friend ; for if He hadn't been his friend. He wouldn't have dug out his mill- race for him I* ** No one who has not actually passed through the long and unbroken series of discouragements and difficulties, necessarily connected with tho carrying out of such a vast undertaking as Bishop 134 BISHOP CHASE. Ghaso was engaged in, can possibly tuidorstond the weight of core and toil which he was obliged to sustain. It was well for him and for the Church that his excellent and devoted wife was indeed " a help-meet for him " during all these years of trouble. Ho thus beautifully refers to the aid which she had rendered to the good cause, in a communication to his English friends : " This family amounts to nearly one hundred per- sons. My wife is the main-spring of this immense domestic machine, so that if it be asked in future ages, * How could this College in the woods, and in the want of so many ordinary means and facilities, ever have succeeded ?' let it be replied, ' There was an humble female, who, though surroimded by her own little children, stood at the helm, as mother in the Israel of God, — advising the doubtful, — en- couraging the timid, — smiling on the obedient, — frowning on the refractory, — soothing the sorrow- ful, — comibrting the aiflicted, — and administering to the sick ; and in an uncommon degree causing all to look to her for example, especially in depriva- tions and sufferings ; — and all this with such un- ostentatious deportment and unperceived effort as to appear (except to those who caioitlly observed her) no more than any other.' "* During the Bishop's many absences from home, his good wife acted as his sole agent in business matters, and he never had reason to regret the im- * Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 44. DIFFEUENCE8 ABOUT THE COLLEGE. 135 , pllcit confidcnco thus reposed in her sound judg- ment. But wo are now approaching troublous times. Insinuations began to be sKly circulated that tho College funds were badly managed, although those who ventured to make such statements might have known, if they chose to inquire, that the Bishop was obliged to render a strict account to the Trustees for every dollar which passed through his hands. These reports which, at fii'st, were circulated in distant places, at length reached the diocese of Ohio. Misunderstandings and dissensions arose there. The Professors of the Theological Seminary were arrayed against the Bishop. The main ground of difference was this : Bishop Chase contended that tho College had no being but as a Theological Seminary ; and that it was, in fact, merely a pre- paratory branch of it ; and that, as a matter of course, it was under the government of the Bishop of the Diocese. The Professors and their sup- porters complained that the patriarchal authority thus assumed by the Bishop was too undefinable and too absolute in its nature, and, therefore, they re- belled. Whatever may be thought, at this day, of the claim set up by the Bishop, or of the position assumed by the Professors, thus much is certain, that in 1839, " Bishop Mcllvaine was driven by the experience of the evil consequences which resulted from the opposite principle to adopt the views of his predecessor. Full justice was thus done to the 136 BISHOP CHASE. wisdom and correctness of the opinions of Bishop Chase in this particular."* The Diocesan Convention which met at Grambier, on the 7th of September, 1831, proved to be an exciting one. After the opening services had been duly celebrated in a temporary wooden building near the College, the Bishop delivered his annual address, to which the delegates, and other persons present, listened with breathless attention. He gave an account of his labours during the year past ; and then, taking up the exciting subject, which had so long been festering in the breasts of many who heard him, he proved from the original constitution of the Seminary, and from other docmnents, the Episcopal character of the institution, and stated, that any attempt on the part of the Professors to make rules for the government of the Bishop as President would be contrary to the constitution. The Bishop was suffering excruciating pain from a recent accident, and as soon as his address was finished, he called upon the Eev. Mr. Johnston of Cincinnati to take the chair, and retired to his house. The Convention now took into consideration the unpleasant subject just referred to, and after long de- liberation drew up a Eeport, which was sent to the Bishop. Conscientiously believing that the course of action which they took violated the expressed wish of those who had contributed funds for build" * Caswall's American Church, p. 95. HIS RESIGNATION. 137 ing the College, he could not, consistently with what he thought right, consent to the adoption of this Heport. At the opening of the afternoon's session of the second day, the chairman read to the Convention the following characteristic letter, addressed to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Ohio : " Brethren : We have heard this day, in a sermon preached by the Rev. Ethan Allen, from God's Word, (which I desire him to publish), that we must live in peace, or we cannot be Christians ; and that to secure peace, especially that of God's Church, great sacri- fices must sometimes be made. Influenced by these principles, I am willing, in order to secure the peace of God's Church, and that of our hved Seminary, in addition to the sacrifices which, by the grace of God, have been already made, to resign : and I do hereby resign the Episcopate of this diocese, and with it what I consider constitutionally identified, the Pre- sidency of the Theological Seminary of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Ohio. *' The Convention will make this known to the trustees, whom I can now no longer meet in my offi- cial capacity. Philander Chase." The reading of this letter produced great surprise and perplexity. A committee was appointed to confer with the Bishop, in order, if possible, to induce him to withdraw his resignation. The result of the conference was, that both parties remained as 188 BISHOP CHASE. before — neither conceiving themselves to be in the wrong. On the third day, the Convention, finding that nothing could be done towards a settlement of the difficulties in any other way, passed a resolution, accepting Bishop Chase's resignation, and electing the Rev. Charles P. Mcllvaine, of the diocese of New York, his successor. Looking back now, coolly and without prejudice, upon the proceedings of that exciting Convention, we cannot honestly take sides with Bishop Chase's enemies, and say that he was a tyrant ; neither can we adopt the opinion of his friends, and insist that he was thwarted in his purposes by a band of un- principled conspirators. The Bishop's burning zeal for the advancement of the College made him some- what impatient, when others seemed unwilling to show the same degree of self-sacrifice with himself. His hurried and vehement manner of expressing his opinions carried with it, oftentimes, an apparent want of deference for the feelings of those who dif- fered from him. " We fear that the Bishop was too hasty in sending in his resignation ; and so it seemed at the time to persons residing at a distance, and not involved in the dispute. To many the news of his resignation brought the first knowledge of the dif&culty. Forbearance, and firmness, and per- severance on the part of the Bishop, might in time have brought about a reconciliation, and secured the peace of the diocese and the prosperity of the Semi- nary."* ♦ Church Review, vol. i. p. 409. THB ** VALLEY OP PEACE.'* 139 the on. t How often God brings good out of evil ! These very difficulties in Ohio were the means of driving Bishop Chase to another field, where we shall here- after find him most actively and successfully em- ployed. At the age of fifty-six, and with a heavy heart, he prepared, at once, to bid farewell to scenes which had become so endeared to him. As he passed through tb' village, for the last time, which his own surprising' k :gies had created, the builders, me- chanics, ami labourers ranged themselves in file, to bid him good-bye and to crave his blessing. With eyes filled with tears, he gazed wistfully upon the College and the rising walls of the church, and then hastened on to the wilderness, where he took refuge in a log-cabin on a farm belonging to his niece. This place he designates, with mournful significance, as the " Valley of Peace.'* Bishop Chase and his family endured the rigours of a long, cold winter, in that comfortless hovel in the wilderness. The roof was so unfinished, that the children, while lying in their rude beds, could count the stars through the openings between the rafters. But, in spite of these inconveniences, they made the best of their circumstances, and on every Sunday quite a congregation of settlers assembled for worship at the Bishop's cabin. On Easter-day, 1832, he administered the Lord's Supper for the last time in Ohio. During Easter- week an old friend of the family arrived, quite un- uo BISHOP CHASE. expectedly, on his way to take up lands in Michigan, and it did not require much persuasion to induce the Bishop to accompany him. The journey through the woods was made on horseback, and Bishop Chase was so pleased with the country, that he bought a farm near White Pigeon, on the St. Joseph river. He preached his first sermon in Michigan on the first Sunday after Easter, not far &om the place now known as Toledo. During the course of the summer, he removed his family to their new home, where they lived over again their earliest days at Kenyon College, by occupying just such an uncomfortable shelter as they had done on Gambier HiU. Meanwhile, with his usual energy and spirit. Bishop Chase carried on the work of improvement, erecting substantial buildings, cutting down the timber, and preparing the soil for cultivation. But amidst these worldly pursuits he was not unmind- ful of higher duties. He soon arranged a regidar course for his labours as an ambassador of Christ, and performed them as systematically and earnestly on Sundays as if he had not been compelled to work with his hands during the week. "The whole region of St. Joseph," he says, " embracing ono hundred miles square and more, never till now had an Episcopal minister to officiate in it. All was waste in regard to the primitive Protestant Church. What would be the fruits of his labours in this region the writer never stopped to inquire : suffi- cient it was for him that he had the Word of God "a protracted meeting. »» 141 before his eyes. * In the moming sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.' " An ecclesiastical map of Michigan, at this day, would show that these early labours of Bishop Chase, in that diocese, have not been in vain. During the period of which we are now speaking, occurred that amusing and oft-told incident of the Bishop's attendance at " a protracted meeting" While living upon his farm at Gilead, he held occasional services at a central station, where people both from Michigan and Indiana could attend. When the ap- pointed Sunday came for the Bishop to officiate " in the gi'ove, at Mr. Anderson's," he was told that a large concourse of all denominations had gathered there, and were holding "a protracted meeting." Not at all disconcerted, the Bishop, with his family, drove to the spot, when a Presbyterian came up and apologized for having thus taken possession of the ground on the day appointed for the Episcopal ser- vice. The Bishop desired him to ask the various preachers who were present to come to him for a moment, which they accordingly did. He then ex- plained to them that he had an appointment to preach there that day, and would be glad if they would unite with him in the worship of Almighty God. They looked amazed, and answered that they would certainly attend and hear^ but that they could not join in the service, as they were not provided with books. The Bishop removed this difficulty at 142 BISHOP CHASE. once, by desiring his son to bring him the Prayer- books from his waggon. The preachers then ob- jected, that they did not know how to find the places, and the Bishop as readily promised to show them. A way was accordingly opened for him through the crowd to a table, which served as a pulpit; the Prayer-books were distributed, and then Bishop Chase began : " Brethren of the human family — Christians of all denominations, — I hold in my right hand a Holy Bible, and in my left hand a Prayer-hook ; the one teaches us what to believe, the other, how to pray." He then went on, in few words, to explain the nature of the service, and having told them the page, he read the opening sentences, and so on to the end. The response from the great congregation was " as the voice of many waters." A sermon was then delivered, to which all listened with devout attention, and went away gratified and instructed. There was a majesty of manner about Bishop Chase which enabled him to do what it would be improper and unsafe for ordinaiy men to attempt. Sometimes, when he happened to be on board of a large steamboat, crowded with passengers, who rushed greedily to the table at the first soiind of the;^ell, to struggle for their places, in the greatest confusion, the good man would . take his station at the head, and awing them all into silence by a look, he would reverently ask a blessing. On a certain occasion he was present in the chancel in some i ELECTED BISHOP OF ILLINOIS. 143 western church, when scve'" ' thoughtless persons who had stayed as long m-s tt ^ wished rose u^ '^ go out. Bishop Chase turned to them and said, with a look and an emphasis which made them take their seats and keep them too : ** If you thus inter- rupt public worship by going out, I will not give you the greater benediction I" They had no idea what this was ; but they learned, at least, that it was a sin and a shame to be disturb- ing a congregation as they had been wont to do. While Bishop Chase was attending to his farm at Gilead, and preaching throughout the wide and neg- lected regions of Michigan, he had little idea what new field of labour the Great Head of the Church designed that he should cultivate. Three years after his removal to the St. Joseph country, he was chosen Bishop of Illinois by the primary Convention of that diocese, which met at Peoria, March 9th, 1835. This call was so unsought and so unlooked for, that the Bishop could only regard it a as sum- mons from Him who presides over the affairs of His Church to enter upon the discharge of new duties and to prepare to undergo fresh trials. At his time of life, and with his past experience of the vicis- situdes and hardships of the early settlers of a State not yet reclaimed from the forest, he might, with some reason, have declined the appointment. But, with the courage and resolution of a hero, the Bishop accepted the call, and within a month's time he had reached Illinois and started on a tour through tbo 144 BISHOP CHASE. State. "Ho found little tliere to gratify either ambition or the love of ease. His diocese extended over an area of 55,000 square miles ; but in this whole region then there had been but one Episcopal church erected, and the whole number of the clergy was only six — four Priests and two Deacons. But it was a field of immense importance for the future. Equal in extent to England and Wales together, and exceeding in fertility any portion of the globe of equal area, he could not but look forward to the time when it would be filled with millions of im- mortal souls, whose everlasting weal or woe might depend upon the results of his labours."* All things had thus far gone on smoothly, but there was great cause to fear serious difficulties ahead. The laws of the Church in America had made no provision for the resignation of a Bishop, or for his transfer to another diocese. Bishop Chase, therefore, occupied this awkward position ; he had resigned the diocese of Ohio, and had gone to that of Illinois. The General Convention was to meet in the autumn of 1835, when this delicate matter must come up. Churchmen, everywhere, had sad mis- givings as to the issue. But a good God rules. The Saviour has promised to be always with His Church. He who once stilled the waves upon the troubled bosom of Gennesaret, now said again, " Peace, he still!'* The questions to which I have referred were brought before the Convention ; and finally, * Church Beview, vol. 1. p. 410. A SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND. 145 all difficulties being removed, the new diocese of Illinois was admitted into imion with the General Convention of the Church in the United States, and Bishop Chase's appointment to the Episcopate in that State was confirmed. And now began his labours in reality. With him it was a work of faith, and a labour of love. He was, indeed, the duly ap- pointed Bishop of Illinois, but there was no salary attached to his office, — no home to receive him, — no parish able to oflfer him a support. With all these difficulties staring him in the face, the resolute old man went forward in the path where duty called him to go. His diocese must first be supplied with clergymen. Where could he find them ? The only reliable hope was to establish a Theological School, as he had done in Ohio, and train them up for him- self. But from whence could funds be obtained for the endowment of such an institution ? The eye of hope was as naturally raised to England for Illinois as it had been, twelve years before, for Ohio ; and though the prospect of success had a shade over it, yet the old motto triumphed, "Jehovah Jireh," " God will provide." His treasury is never ex- hausted, and will pour forth of its abundance to all who obey His will. Once more Bishop Chase crossed the ocean, and told his moving story to his brethren of the Church in England. " The particular ground of his present appeal was, that a vast tide of population was con- tinually pouring westward into the valley of the Mississippi, for which there was no spiritual provi* L 146 BISHOP 0HA8B. sion ; and that in one year alono 100,000 persons bad settled in the State of Illiuois, the chief part of whom were from Great Britain and Ireland. He proposed to form a Theological Seminary, from whence a native clergy might go forth to minister to the spiritual wants of that vast population."*, Those of Bishop Chase's friends who still sur- vived welcomed him back to England ; and upon his return to America, eight months afterwards, he carried with him about ten thousand dollars (£2,000), which had been generously contributed towards the carrying out of his noble design. A situation for the new college was at length chosen, in Peoria county, near the centre of the State, on public lands which had not come into market. The only resource for the Bishop was to build a cabin on this unoccupied tei itory, and wait till he could have an opportunity £0 purchase. This did not occur until December, ".838, when twenty-eight hundred acres of rich and fertile land were secured to the Church in Illinois. All thir^ time Bishop Chase had been improving his dwelling, (which he called "Robin's Nest"), cultivating the land, and discharging his ofScial duties. The corner-stone of Jubilee College was laid, with appropriate cere- monies, on the 4th of April, 1839. It was a happy day for the Bishop. " Oh, that you could have been with me," he writes to his wife, from his full heart, " you who have shared my woes, to share also my joys 1" • Memoir of the Bev. Josiah Pratt, p. 385L OHABTKR GRANTED TO JUBILEE COLLEGE. 147 In the autumn of 1839, Bishop Chase macle a tour through the Atlantic and Southern States, to collect additional funds for the erection >f college huild- ings, and the endowment of professorships. He was absent from home more than eight months, engaged in this arduous undertaking. What added to his dif- ficulties was the fact that the whole country was then suffering from great commercial embnrrass- ments ; but notwithstanding this, his appeals were everywhere most kindly and liberally responded to, and he succeeded in his undertaking beyond the expectations of all. He now and then received affectionate letters from his friends in England, en- closing contributions to aid in his nol^le work. In 1846, the Legislature of Illinois granted a charter to Jubilee College, which secured, most effectually, all funds contributed for its benefit to the Episcopal Church. The Bishop states in his Conventional Address, the same year, that his " beloved friends in England have promised the donation of a sufi&cient sum to purchase a printing-press and apparatus, so essential to the good of a religious and literary institution." This pledge was afterwards made good, and the press sent forth many contributions from the Bishop's prolific pen ; and among others, a maga- zine, called " The Motto, of Jubilee College," which was continued until his death. It will be remembered that when Bishop Chase took charge of the diocese in Illinois, in 1885, there were six Episcopal clergymen living in the State, 148 BISHOP CHASE. and only ono house of worship completed. The Journal for 1846 (eleven years after) repoiiis nineteen clergymen and thirty parishes. But, after all, the great work which the Bishop had accomplished was the establishment of Jubilee College. To build this up, and render it a flourishing institution, must bo the result of long years of patient and persevering effort. The first Commencement took place July 7th, 1847. Bishop Chase thus describes this inte- resting occasion : " Five students, after a duo course of study, by strict examination, were found worthy of a bachelor's degree in the arts and sciences. Never was there a finer day, or a more joyful occa- sion. Between seven and eight hundi'cd persons assembled on the College hill, where so lately roamed the untutored native, and to which the wild deer, from habit, paid frequent visits, in great numbers. The College chapel was filled with de- vout worshippers, and when the Divine services were over, all retired to the Green Arbour, two or three hundred yards off, under the deep shades of spread- ing trees, looking down on verdant lawns surround- ing the chapel. Here the orations of the first class of students were delivered to a delighted and en- lightened audience. Here the degrees were con- ferred, and here ascended the Christian prayer for a blessing from on high on the glorious work thus prosperously commenced."* At this point Bishop Chase'-s valuable Eeminis- cences close ; and in following the history through * Beminiscences, ii. p, 557. SERGEANT 8ELL0N 8 ORANDDAUQHTEB. 149 the closing years of his life, wo must thread our way, as best wo can, by the help of such transient publications as we have been able to collect. Besides all those trials which the good man en- dured for the Church's sake, ho had his privuto griefs, concerning which wo have been too mucli absorbed with the main current of the narrative to speak. One of tho saddest of theso afflictions was the death of his son Philander, the young clergyman who suggested to his father tho idea of going to England for help. He expired at Charleston, South Carolina, (whither ho had gone in search of health), March 1st, 1824.* In the Bishop's report to the Convention of 1847, there is one little item which carries back our thoughts again to the shores of England The readers of this memoir will remember the kiiidness shown to Bishop Chase, when he first reached London, a perfect stranger, by Sergeatit Sellon, of St. Paul's Cathedral. While journeying about his diocese, in 1847, the Bishop f )11 in with " an amiablo Christian lady," the granddaughter of Mr. Sellon, who, through the assistance of her English kindred, was aiding in building up the Church in " the lovely village of Pittsfield." The presence of a faithful missionary was all that was needed to fill the hearts of many children of Zion with thankfulness and joy. "In the instance before us," remarks the Bishop, " we see what may be effected by the un- * Bishop Chase has two sons now in the ministry — the Bev. Dudley Chase, and Kev. P. Chase, Jun. 150 BISHOP CHASE. tiring zeal of a virtuous and enlightened mind, ac- companied with a meek and quiet spirit, in the gloomiest moments seeking the aid and direction of the Holy Spirit, through faith in the mercies of the Redeemer. May all such, though torn from the bosom of their mother-country, and thrown by a providential hand among discordant sects in a foreign land, never despair. If they remain faith- ful, and pray fervently to the God of their fathers, they will not be neglected. Their Redeemer will visit them as He did the children of Israel in their affliction, and cause the walls of Zion to be built." The Bishop also reports that, since taking charge of the diocese, he had ordained fifteen, baptized two hundred and twenty-two, and confirmed four hundred and ninety-five. Surely the promise is in course of fulfilment — "the little one" is indeed becoming " a thoiisand I" We have now followed the fortunes of Bishop Chase to his seventy-third year. Battered and bruised with long and fatiguing joiuneys, his ribs and limbs having several times been broken by dangerous accidents, he is unable to move about with activity on foot, or to mount his horse for visit- ations to distant regions. And yet he by no means spared himself from exertion, but according to his ability, laboured faithfully for his Master's cause. Among the records of 1848, he says, " Nearly every Sunday hath the Bishop attended the College chapel, being taken thither, on account of his infirmities, by INCIDENT IN ILLINOIS. 151 Hs affectionate sons. Except in one or two instances, he hath preached, being bolstered up in the pulpit, once and sometimes twice every Sunday."* He then gives a long list of appointments which he hopes to fulfil during the mild weather of spring and summer. When the day came for leaving home, God gave him strength, and the apostolic man went forth with his pastoral staff. To show the readiness with which he conformed to times and circumstances, and the happy faculty which he possessed for com- mending the Church to the mixed and discordant masses of people whom he met with m his travels through Illinois, we insert the following narrative, as related by himself: " In passing from one place to another, of con- siderable distance, it was the Bishop's intention to reach his place of destination by sunset; but the roads at that season of the year were made heavy by recent rains, and the sun went down faster in the west, and his horses were more fatigued than he ex- pected. Coming suddenly on grounds that were cultivated, and entering into a new forming village of about five-and-twenty houses scattered on lots disjoined from each other, he drove up to what ap- peared to be a house of entertainment for strangers. On entering, he found the room large and commo- dious, and accosted the landlord thus : ' Sir, it was my intention to reach the next village, which I am told is the county- seat, but my horses are fatigued, and I have but an hour's sun to finish my journey ; ♦ The Motto, for March, 1848, p. 47. 152 BISHOP CHASE. il will you allow me the privilege of stopping with you for the night?* *Most certainly,' was the reply. * But,' rejoined the Bishop, * there is one condition I wish to make with you. If I stop, I must be per- mitted to preach a sermon to you and your neigh- bours, in this room, at early candle-lighting.' * You are a preacher of the Gospel, then ?' * Yes.' * Well, 1 thought so when you drove up to my door. Pray, of what denomination ?' * I choose not to answer that question.' * Why ? Are you ashamed of it ?' * Not so, my friend,' rejoined the Bishop. * You are all of different denominations, when first gather- ing together to enjoy the fruits of this fertile soil. This difference is the parent of various prejudices, which prevent many from coming together and hear- ing the truth.' * That's the fact,' replied the landlord, * and I am sorry for't ; we have nearly as many sorts of opinions here, in this two-year old village, as there are houses within sight : so, here, my son, put the bridle on the mare, and ome to me.' " * Now, sir,' turning to the Bishop, he said, * pray, do tell me something of what denomination you are, and who is going to preach, for every one will ask this question.' The reply was, * I am of that de- nomination which translated the Bible.' " By this time John had appeared at the door, ready for orders, and had heard what was said. * Well, my boy, go and tell them.' " John set off at full speed, and was heard to cry through the village, * There will be meeting at my father's hall, this evening, at early candle-light. T P I n a t: 8KED BY THE WAY-SIDE. 153 \n The man that translated the Bible is going to preach I' This was John's version of the message. It proved very well, though a small unintentional mistake, for the house was crowded with auditors and worshippers, who did just as the Bishop told them, — sitting down and rising up, in prayer and praise, in confession and in the use of the Lord's Prayer. In the sermon mention was made of the Bible ; how it was inspired of God ; how it guided the faith, and converted the souls of millions from sin to holiness of life for several hundred years; how the Church of Rome forbade its use, even in the original language ; and lastly, how it was trans- lated by learned men of the Church of England ; one of the first being the Eev. John Wickliffe, of Lutterworth, who lived a century before Luther, the Grerman Reformer. The sermon closed by exhort- ations to read the Holy Bible, thus providentially put before them in the English language, and to study its holy doctrines, comparing scripture with scripture, with devout prayer for the direction of the Holy Spirit in finding the true Saviour therein revealed, — who would, when found, receive them into His Church, as Noah was received into the ark, that they might pass the waves of this troublesome world to the land of everlasting rest."* The congregation was very attentive, and after- wards showed the Bishop much civility and kind- ness. When the revilers of the Church represent her as too dignified and aristocratic to explore the ♦ The Motto, for December, 1849, p. 227. 154 BISHOP CHASE. wilderness, and preach to the dwellers in hovels, let them call to mind the history of Bishop Chase, and of multitudes of like spirit with him, who have proved themselves, by abundant labours, to be, in deed and in truth, good and faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ. From Bishop Chase's Conventional Address, in June, 1850, we find that, in spite of his age and infirmities, he had been able to perform a large amount of official duty. Sometimes in his own con- veyance, sometimes in the carriage of a friend, but more frequently in stage-coaches or boats, he jour- neyed about over his large diocese. One night we see him on the river's bank, waiting for the arrival of a steamer, and improving these weary hours by preach- ing to his fellow-travellers, as they sat upon their luggage* " The weather was cold," he says, " yet all were silent as the grave, and as far as I could discern by the help of a bright moon and unclouded heavens, never had I a more attentive audience."* Again we find the aged Bishop laying his hands in the holy rite of Confirmation upon a goodly number of Swedes and Norwegians, — thus remind- ing them, that although far removed from their native land, they had not gone beyond the reach and the fostering care of the Apostolic Church of Christ. Again, before light, in the month of September, the same untiring servant of the Lord Jesus lands upon a wharf-boat, and sits till day- ♦ The Motto, July, 1850, p. 279. THE IMPUDENT BAR-KEEPER. 155 rels, lase, lave » in )SU8 m asd urge 5on- but pur- dawn, conversing with the Jew who kept it, of the claims of our Saviour to be the tn^e Messiah.* The next scene, which occurred on a steamboat, we give in the Bishop's words : " We had succeeded not only in the custom of asking a blessing at our meals, but in having prayers at night on board the steamer. While we were engaged in this latter duty, and singing a hymn, and reading the holy Scriptures, there arose some disturbance at the for- ward part of Iho cabin, among the card-players and whiskey-drinkers. The complaint was that the lamp, having a glass shade, was taken from them, brought aft and placed upon the table where even- ing worship was wont to be performed. The bar- keeper was the loudest among the malcontents, and summoning his whole force of impudent eflfrontery, came sud snatched away the lamp and carried it off in triumph. Being left in darkness, we should have been much at a loss, had not the prayers and collects of the Church been well stored in the memory, and said full as well as if there were no darkness sur- rounding us. The whole was concluded with a blessing. The captain of the boat having been informed of the conduct of the bar-keeper, ordered him to be put on shore, which was done at the next landing-place. The ladies (always compassionate) interceded ; but nothing would avail till the reputa- tion of the boat was restored by a public example of an offender against the morals and religion of our Christian country. A petition, however, was signed * Journal of Illinois Convention for 1851, p. 10. 156 BISHOP CHASE. by us all that, on the return of the steamer, the bar- keeper, after making a proper apology, should be restored to his place." Upon the death of Bishop Griswold in 1843. Bishop Chase succeeded to the office of Presiding Bishop. In this capacity he was present at the General Convention, in Philadelphia, 1847, and in Cincinnati, 1850. This was the last occasion on which he was ever to meet the assembled repre- sentatives of the American Church. It devolved upon him to read the Pastoral Address. It was near midnight, and in the midst of a passing thunder- storm. The venerable Bishop sat, as he had been obliged to do for some time past while preaching ; but his voice and emphasis were strong, and his words of solemn import. The Convention was dismissed with his blessing, and thence, in a few days, he went back to his patriarchal home to close his labours. " There he was surrounded by what he loved ; flocks and herds, rich pastures and fruitful fields, children and grandchildren, and youthful scholars and future ministers of the Gospel and Church of } 's Lord. Some trials followed him even there — a conflagration and a disputed title ; but the sym- pathy of his many friends relieved him from all injiu-y. In the last year of his life, he had the satis- faction of welcoming, as his assistant and successor, one whose principles, character, and spirit, justified and received his cordial confidence. The diocese in which he had found but one church building, LAST ADDBESS. 157 I now numbered thirty clergymen and forty-nine con- gregations. He gave over the pastoral staff to yoimger hands. He delighted to preach as often as his infirmities allowed, and to instruct the lambs of the flock. He made his will, bequeathiug to Jubilee College all his own personal claims against its now valuable estate."* The Rev. Henry J. Whitehouse, D.D., of the dio- cese of New York, was the Assistant Bishop, whose election is referred to above. At the Illinois Con- vention, which met in June, 1852, the venerable Prelate sent in his last official address, which was read by Bishop Whitehouse. It is marked by all his pleasant peculiarities of style, and it must always be regarded with interest, as having been the fare- well communication from Bishop Chase. In a closing number of the "Motto," Bishop Chase thus addresses one to whom he subscribes himself as her " aged and grateful friend." We quote the glowing words as evidence how calmly he looked forward to his departure from earth. " My mind," he says, " is cheerful, especially in recount- ing the mercies which the good God hath shown me in the pilgrimage of my life — long, shall I call it ? Nay, I cannot do this. Short, indeed, has it been, though the events as they recur to me make together a train of alternate labour and sorrow al- most interminable. Were it not for the hope, the blessed hope of a Christian — that brilliant flame * Church Review, vol. vi. p. 36 [1853]. 158 BISHOP OHASB. lighted in tlie soul by the Spirit of God, through faith in Him who died that we might live — the evening of my days would be cheerless indeed. As it is, I have reason to rejoice with joy unspeakable. While it is all darkness in the grave, which I am so fast approaching, how bright the sun shines on the mountains of the Heavenly Canaan I" Bishop Chase had led an active life, and one in which his mind was constantly occupied and harassed by the duties of his high calling ; but he never lost sight of nor neglected the interest of his own soul. Day by day, in dependence on God's grace, he was' engaged in the work of his salvation. "When riding with him, some months before his departure, around the ruins of the *Eobin's Nest,' (remarks Bishop Whitehouse, in his address to the Illinois Convention, in 1853), he pointed out to me the* walnut planks which he kept in readiness for his co£&n. I expressed, as I felt, the hope * that they might lie long to season.' * They are ready now, as I am,' was the spirit of the reply." On the 14th of September, 1852, while riding with his wife near his house, the Bishop was thrown from his open carriage and fell with violence to the ground. As soon as he recovered his consciousness, he said to those who bore him homewards : " You may now order my coffin, — I am glad of it I" How striking the sublime simplicity of these few words ! The Bishop had recovered from the effects of so many dangerous accidents before, that less anxiety was felt on his account than might otherwise have HIS DEATH. 159 I been the case. He, however, expressed no hope of recovery himself, and often gave utterance to his faith in the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ, and his joyful anticipations of coming bliss. His family and friends were quite imconscious of his imminent dan- ger, when he sank into a state of deep sleep, from which he never revived. The venerable patriarch entered into rest on the 20th of September, mthout a struggle, and almost without a sigh, aged seventy- seven. His body, according to his wish, was carried to the grave by six Englishmen (the brothers Mayo from Wiltshire), and was laid in " God's acre," at Jubilee. My readers will unite most heartily in the hope which his successor in the Bishopric of Ulinois has thus happily ex- pressed : — " The time, I trust, will soon come when a monu- ment may be reared to him, such as he would like best ; not the marble block to cover where his re- mains now repose, but a consecrated chapel, — built for the religious claims of his college, where we, or our survivors, may reverently bear them, and the epitaph of his name be a living presence." And now, what need we add more ? The character of Bishop Chase has been faithfully set forth in his eventful life. The founder of two colleges will not bo soon forgotten. Bishop Chase was, emphatically, a man of deeds. His opinions were not only correct, but he carried them out into action. He was a thoroughly sincere and honq^t man. 160 BISHOP CHASE. IIo was full of energy and zeal. He was blameless and upright, and self-denying in the extreme. With- out making any pretension to profound theological learning, he entertained sound and settled views upon all important points of the Christian faith, and his preaching was always vigorous and practical in its character. His conversational powers were remarkable. Wherever he was, the company gathered around him. " The stream flowed with little interruption ; and riches floated along its current. There was an originality in his mode of presenting any topic, — a readiness of striking illustration, — a shrewdness of remark, — a facility of narrative, even a poetical beauty of description, — a copiouRness of actual ex- perience, — a playful humour, — and, poured over all like sunshine, the joy of a heart reposing on God, full of his past services and seeking His glory. He was not one with whom the line between religious discourse and other conversation needed to be drawn ; as a Christian he began, continued, and ended, — ^but as a cheerful, large-hearted Christian." x'he Church can boast of Bishops who have been more learned ; but, in the long lapse of ages, she can point to few in her bright catalogue of worthies who have been more truly good, devoted, and useful, than Bishop Chase. IGl BISHOP STEWART OF QUEBEC ♦ At the close of the last century it pleased God to raise up in the Church of England two men eminently endowed with a missionaiy spirit — Henry Martyn and Charles James Stewart. Each was widely different from the other in worldly rank and in intellectual power, but they were alike in entire self-devotion to the propagation of the Gospel of Christ, and iii fidelity to that form of truth which they had been taught in our two universities ; and they went forth — the one to the East, the other to the West, and became the burning and shining lights of the lands in which they laboured. Their names, little known in their lifetime, will be * The materials for this biography have been derived chiefly from the Mnnals of the Diocese of Quebec,' published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge— a T:ork which must be the text-hook of any one who undertakes to coQimimicate information on the Church in Lower Canada. The Annual Reports of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, a volume entitled • The Stewart Missions,' and the * Montreal Church Chronicle, l'8u2,' have also been con^ suited. 162 BISHOP 8TEWABT. ranked hereafter by Christians in the farthest parts of the earth, as among those which *'all generations shall call blessed." We have no sympathy with those who would restrict the title of missionary exclusively to such as minister only among men of a different com- plexion and barbarous tongue. The life of Bishop Stewart will suffice, we think, to show that even among those who would perhaps call themselves Christians, there may bo as purely a missionary work to do as among professed unbelievers. The Hon. Charles James Stewart, the fifth son of the seventh Earl of Galloway, was bom on the 13th of April, 1775. His early education was carried on at home, under the care of a private tutor, and at the usual age he proceeded to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The only anecdote which is recorded of him in his younger days, though trifling in itself, is eminently characteristic of the benevolent and earnest spirit which guided him in after-life. The condition of negro slaves in the West Indies, to which public attention had been previously drawn by the writings of Granville Sharpe, Bishop Porteus, and Clarkson, was fully brought before the British Parliament by Wilberforce, in 1789. The hostile feelings of the friends and adversaries of the slave trade, were kept at a high pitch of excitement, by the annual renewal in Parliament of the motion for its abolition. Men in every rank of society took their side. Mr. Stewart, at AT OXFORD. 163 tliat timo an undergraduato at Oxford, was not slow to feel the cruel injustice of the traffic, and to bear his humble testimony against it. In conjunction with a sympathizing friend, he deter- mined to forego altogether the use of sugar, the product of slave labour, and stedfustly kept to his resolution, in spite of the ridicule which it en- tailed on him at the time. The under-graduates of succeeding generations are taught to form a better estimate of the character of Stewart : a tablet, which has been placed in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, now serves to commemorate the name and the devoted labours of the despised student. At the age of twenty years, Stewart was elected to a fellowship in the aristocratic college of All Souls; and in 1799, after taking the degree of Master of Arts, he was presented by his cousin, the Earl of Aboyne, to the united rectories of Orton Longueville and Botolph Bridge, not far from Peterborough. He continued to hold this preferment (now valued at 3222. per annum) for eight years, till he went to Canada. Although Canada had been subject to the Crown of England for nearly half a century, and al- though the splendid achievement by which Wolfe conquered it from the French had invested its name with a certain degree of popular notoriety, yet the country was neglected and disparaged, to a degree which seems marvellous to a generation which has witnessed the more recent development of its resources. The population of England had 164 BISHOP STEWAUT. not, in 1807, reacher' that excess which renders emigration a familiar thought : the protracted war with France increased the dangers of the passage of tlie Atlantic ; and, perhaps, Englishmen in that age considered America as a continent which the separation of the United States from our own country rendered it impossible for us to contem- plate with any feeling of satisfaction. The noble province of Canada, in which three millions of thriving inhabitants are now found to be a popu- lation too scanty to reclaim its fertile soil, or to search out its hidden mineral treasures, was left to be occupied by a tithe of that number at the close of the last century. A little English legis- lation, and a few English troops to garrison its two small towns, and its forts, were nearly the only signs of attention it received from England. The population of Canada when it became subject to England consisted of French Roman Catholics, with a few perishing Indian tribes. Disbanded soldiers, and camp followers, the very refuse of the army, were the first specimens of English settlers. Happily for Canada the next addition to her population was of a more honour- able description. Loyalists driven from the American Republic came in large numbers to Canada, and found a home for their industry, their laws, and their religion. Compelled to acknow- ledge that religion is a real and strong bond of union among Christians, British statesmen gave, or rather suffered to be given, to the exiled CANADA IN 1808. 166 Church that boon of episcopacy which for a hundred years she sought for and was denied. Our first colonial bishopric, Nova Scotia, was created in 1787 ; and in 1793 Canada, or as it was then called the province of Quebec, was created a separate see. The first bishop of Quebec, Dr. Jacob Mountain, on arriving, found in his epis- copal city neither church, nor parsonage, nor bishop's residence : four chaplains maintained by the government, and five missionaries sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, con- stituted the whole clergy of his diocese— a diocese in which his first visitation extended over a line of country reaching more than 1200 miles in length, from Gaspe to Lake Erie. It was a matter of very great difficulty, in those days, to procure respectable clergymen who were willing to go abroad. The Government offered salaries, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel held out additional inducements, but with very little effect. The missionary spirit was at its lowest ebb in the English Church. In the year 1808 the Society had not been able to increase the number of its missionaries in Canada beyond nine. An ordinary person, in Mr. Stewart's position, would have been unlikely to conceive the design of proceeding thither as an evangelist. Such a course was contrary to all the settled ways of the world, for a man of noble birth and connections, possessing independent property, just entered on 166 BISHOP STEWABT. tlie prime of life, whose lot had been apparently peculiarly exempt from any endurance of hard- ships ; firat in the bosom of an aristocratic home, next in the refinement of an university, lastly in the retirement of a small rural parish, from whence he could look abroad and thank God for his seclusion from the distant evils of his day, which a contemporary thus depicts: — "There was the storm of the French Revolution still raging — an open renunciation of Christianity just made in a great nation — Europe rent asunder with war which seemed farther than ever from a close ; the Church feeble and full of apprehension ; the ministers of the state and the legislature over- whelmed with schemes of defence abroad and regulation at home ; the minds of thoughtful men portending calamities ; untold difficulties thicken- ing around."* When we think of Mr. Stewart, in his quiet rectory in Huntingdon, nursing with prayer and meditation the strong resolution which impelled him to quit such a position, and to embrace the trials and crosses of such a future, we cannot but regard him as one under the influence of a Spirit which judges not as men judge, but casts down human imaginations and high things, and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Surely in those years of his secluded parochial life, of which we have no record, we cannot doubt that * Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta, in Introduction to Wilber- force's Practical View, LETTEB TO HIS SISTEB. 167 the Spirit which moveth "where it listeth" un- seen of man, by outward dispensations and by inward calls, was drawing his heart insensibly away, and was gradually making plain before his eyes the Divine summons : " Depart, for I will send thee far hence." It is thus that he himself refers to this period in a letter written to his sister many years afterwards : — " Providence originally led me to this country [Canada], and has continued me in it in a manner which has always satisfied me that I have been following my duty ; and I am persuaded that if I am faithful. Providence will continue to be my guide. You well know that those wh^* really tiiist in God see His guiding, protectir^, and preserving hand without their being eii*^^liusiasts. Devotion to His service made me a Tuissionar . Some persons will tell me that I could do much good in England, and Ireland, and so forth. True. But I undertook to make exertions and sacrifices, for the cause of the Gospel and of souls, which were not necessary except in a missionary, and which few ministers will or can make : which is plainly the caee from the diffi- culty of getting missionaries, and for whom our Church is calling. I well know that it was worldly motives which deterred me from offering myself sooner than I did ; but, thank God I through His providence and grace signally calling me, a weak creature, pious motives prevailed. 168 BISHOP STEWART. At present I must persevere in them ; and it is probable if I do not relax in piety, I shall con- tinue to persevere in a missionary way.'* I ! It was in the thirty- second year of his age that Mr. Stewart offered his services as a missionary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and was appointed to the mission of St. Armand. He sailed from Plymouth on the 7 th of August, 1807. His life during the ensuing thirty years may be considered in three distinct portions: first, while he was a resident missionary at St. Armand and at Hatfield ; next, while he held the office of travelling missionary ; and lastly, during his episcopate. St. Armand, a seigniory eighteen miles long and four broad, situate seventy miles southeast from Montreal, and on the frontiers of Canada and the United States, had been occupied as a mission-station since the year 1804, by the Rev. C. C. Cotton, B. A., of Oriel College, Oxford, who resided at Philipsburg. He mentions that the people had not even a room set apart for Divine service ; that they refused to contribute anything towards maintaining a clergyman; that they preferred being married by a magistrate; and that the whole number of communicants w:;S six at Christmas. Such was the mission on which Mr. Stewart entered with a promise of a salary from England of 150Z. per annum. On the 27th September he arrived at Quebec ; ARRIVAL AT HIS MISSION. 1G9 and after a few days* stay, both there and at Montreal, he set out for his mission at St. Armand, which he reached on the 21st October. This was on Saturday, when, putting up at the only tavern in Frelighsburg, he asked the landlord if he could let him the only good-sized room in his house; and being answered in the affirmative, he directed him to prepare it the next day for a congregation, and to give as general a notice as possible that ho, a clergyman of the Church of England, would then and there perform Divine service, and preach the Gospel. Upon this, the honest-hearted land- lord endeavoured to dissuade him from his pur- pose; informing him that not very long before a preacher had come to settle there, but that after remainirr; some time, he had found the people so wicked and abandoned, that he had left in despair. " Then," answered the warm- hearted missionary, " this is the very place of duty for me — here I am needkd, and by God's grace, here I will remain, and trust to Him in whose hand are the hearts of all people for success." For a few Simdays, therefore, and until he could find a suitable place for public worship, he officiated in the inn; but ultimately a small school-house (described as about a mile down the river, at Lagrange's mills) was fixed on for the purpose, where he first performed Divine service on the 29th November. He found numerous Methodists and Anabaptists in the mission, but 170 BISHOr STEWART. they were not factious ; and the Church service was " wonderfully well attended." The people undcitook to build a church, for which a very conv J lient site of two acres was given by the executors of Mr. A. Freligh. Mr. Stewart con- cb dee his first letter to the Society (April 22, 1808,) ^)y expressing his feeling that " with faith in 01 Hi at and gratitude to God under the con- tinuance of His blessing, the mission may be considered a flourishing one."* Mr. Stewart at first took lodgings for himself and his man-servant in the house of a Mr. Houck : but soon bought a small one-story house in the south extremity of the village. It still (1861) stands on a beautiful declivity facing the church. The following extracts from a letter written to his mother, the Countess of Galloway, supply some interesting notices of the countiy and people, as well as of his own views and feelings :— « ■* " St. Armand, May 20, 1808. " Of the country, however, I shall say, that it scarcely furnishes the necessaries of life, and that anything out of it is not easily got, communica- tion in it, and all around it, being very difficult. The people are worse in appearance, or rather manner, than in reality or principle. They are very free and rude, but less profligate than in our country. They have all sorts of notions and sects ♦ MS. Journal, S. P. G., vol. 29, p. 360. LETTEB TO HIS MOTHER. 171 in religion, rather than being less religious, or more unchristian than our people: far from it, I find sincere Christians of all denominations; and no wonder they are divided, where they have no teachers except Methodists and Baptists, and they very ignorant. Many are willing to be instructed by me, and more have been out of tho way of, and inattentive to, true religion, than adverse to it. In short, they suit my object — of being useful to them and the Church of Christ — fully equal to my expectations, and beyond those of almost everybody, far and near. But my success and happiness are summed up in the assurance that God has blessed me in all my j)lans to a great and most evident degree. They have been devoted as well as subject to Him from the beginning, and therefore He has supported and made me happy in them, so as ever to add to my love and gratitude to Him. I have sin- cerely sought His glory, and my reward and happiness in His kingdom ; and in proportion as we are devoted to these inseparable objects, we shall be happy here and hereafter. In pro- portion as our heart, and of course our actions, are set upon the good of our ov/n souls, and of those which we can influence, we shall be made happy by God, and we shall be comforted by communion with all saints. For this is the spirit of Christ*^ religion, anO h one and the same to all His Uteinbers ; mid tho opirit of religion, that is, of Godj 01 iy pToliteth, for all forms are merely 172 BISHOP STEWART. auxiliaries to that. Thank God! the opportuni- ties and rewards I have had in these respects, make it a duty and a comfort to you, as well as myself, I trust, to mention them to you. I never was so much engaged in the exercises of religion as I have been since I came to St. Armand, and I never was happier. . . , Again, money is so very scarce here, that I exercise charity to great advantage in some respects ; and it is a duty incumbent on all but the poorest, and very de- lightful to every religious person. How grateful ought we to be to God for granting us super- fluities, and enabling us to exercise our love of Him in serving His poor creatures, and our fellow- creatures ! What an encouragement and future reward have we in Christ's promise that any kindness done for His sake, to any of His disci- ples, will be accepted by Him as if done unto Himself! Such charity, or mercy, may justly hope for greater mercy in the day of judgment. I have persuaded the people lieie to build a church, and it will be fit for Divine service to be performed in it before next winter: I have assisted the subscription in several ways. So you see I am very busy, but it is for the sake of God and of Heaven ; and there, and with Him, are my chief treasure and happiness. And so does He bless me, that His Gospel (Mark x. 29, 30) is in a manner realized to me; and I could sometimes almost say with Jesus, that every faithful Chris- tian 'is my brother, and sister, and mother.* I I BSSIDENGB AT FBELIOHSBUBG. 173 Yet is my affection for you and my deaiest rela- tions increased." FBELIOHSBUBG CHURCH. Od January 29tb, 1809, Mr. Stewart opened Trinity Church at Frelighsburg, in the eastern part of the seignioiy of St. Armand, when there was a congregation of a thousand persons. And in the following August, when the Bishop of Quebec visited the parish, there were sixty candi- dates for confirmation. In July, 1811, Divine service was performed for the first time, in an- other new church dedicated to St. Paul, erected 174 BISHOP BTEWABT. at an expense of .00/., near Philipsburg, in the western pai*t of the seigniory. Two-fifths of the cost of the tw*; churches were contributed by Mr. Stev/art himself. He numbered at this time thirty-four comn.unicants in the eastern, and twenty-five in the western part of St. Armand. The churches were twelve miles apart, and ho travelled between them on horseback, for there was no road. Such were, at this time, the outward results of his labours as repjited by himself. A more graphic description is supplied by the late Bishop Henshaw, oi Khode Island, who visited St. Ar- mand in this year, and who subsequently wrote a short tract entitled "Reminiscences of Bishop Stewart," from which the following narrative is abridged : — ** It was late in December, 1811, when I was a youth of nineteen, recently graduated at one of our northern universities, that, in compliance with the urgent invitation of Mr. Stewart, I went to aid him, by performing such missionary ser- vices on the frontier of Yermont, as a candidate for orders licensed by the bishop might lawfully be engaged in. On arriving at his residence I found no splendid or showy mansion ; but a low, unpretending, one-story frame-house was +he chosen abode of this member of one of the nc fami- lies of Great Britain. It was placed ou cL. brow of a lofty hill, at the foot of which lay the village HIS PAB80NAGS. 176 of St. Armand, whose principal ornamer^s were the school-house, whore the children of tho vil- lagers and the farmers of the neighbor .i oun- try might be instructed in the wisdi \. hich ■would be useful to them on earth; and the church, whose simple spire pointed to the hea- vens ; both monuments of the benevolent zeal of the missionary. The view from the parsonage was extensive, though bounded on every side by the wide-spread forests of a new country, and was well adapted to the taste of one who had a heart capable of being incited to devotion and com- munion with the Deity, by the contemplation of His works. The arrangements of the interior of this peaceful mansion were in perfect keeping with the plainness of its exterior. Everything indicated the presence of a mind dead to the pomps and vanities of the world ; the pervading influence of a spirit so filled with the love of Christ, that it could cheerfully sacrifice luxuries, and even be indifferent to comfoi-ts, if, by so doing, it might better enjoy the sweet luxury of doing good. The outer door opened into an apaiiment which served the double purpose of parlour and dining-room. The only furniture was a plain deal table, and a few wooden or rush- bottom chairs, together with a large chest, which served as a depository of Bibles, Prayer-books, and tracts for distribution, and which, when the number of guests was greater than that of the chairs, was drawn out and used as a bench, on ^, IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ^ ,>V 1.0 1.1 Uit23. |2.5 m h; til H2.0 — ™— U4 (?^ ^ V] ■^# ^'^* o / /A Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. USSO (716)872-4S03 \ SJ \\ [v 176 BIBHOP 8T£«V^ABT. jue side of the table. The meals spread on this board were frugal, but abundant ; and were always rendered pleasant by the amiable cheerfulness of the host who, having no inmates in his bachelor establishment but a servant-man and maid, was obliged to depend on his own unaided resources for the entertainment of his guests. BISHOP RBWABT's PAB80NA0B. *' On the left of the room already described was the study, which, though of smaller size, was furnished with the same strict simplicity. I Fore, also, was a plain table and desk, with two chairs ; while around the sides of the room, on common shelves, were arranged the theological books, and the few volumes in general literature, which con- PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 177 biB iys i of ilor was rces ed was -0^ was Ilore, chairs ; ommon ks, and Lch con- stituted the scanty library. In this small and retired room he searched for the treasures of Divine wisdom in the sacred Scriptures, perused tho works of the wise and good, who had been burning and shining lights in the Church of former days, and, above all, held higli communion wirti tho Great Teacher, and sought for that ' unction from the Holy One ' which would qualify him for the successful prosecution of his arduous work. *' From this sacred retreat he came forth to bid mo welcome on my arrival. He was a man of about tho age of forty, as I suppose, and yet appaitjutly much farther advanced in the vale of years ; his frame robust, but prone and slightly bent, with small, but keen grey eyes, a Koman nose, more pointed and hooked than ordinaiy a mouth partially opened, with irregular ana projecting teeth, never fully covered by the lips, hair of a bluish cast (of which I never saw the like, except in a lady in the same family, with whom 1 afterwards became acquainted), in thick, bushy locks, profusely covering the shoulders, and lightly sprinkled with powder, giving it the ap- pearance of a large grey wig. His limbs were badly formed, his carriage extremely awkward, the expression of his countenance void of intelli- gence, and the tout ensemble most ungainly and forbidding.* But the unpleasant feelings con- ♦ The editor of an English reprint of Bishop Henshaw'B Memoir (Wriglit and Co., Bristol), subjoins the following N 178 BISHOP STEWABT. nected with the disappointment of a first view, were soon removed by the benevolence of his manners, and the kindness and friendliness of his communications. ** In answer to an inquiry with respect to the success of his labours, he replied, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following terms : — When I came to this seigniory, six years ago, there was no place of worship, and no lainister of religion, throughout this whole region of country. The entire population, with few exceptions, was of the most worthless character. Freed from the re- straints of morality and religion, many of them gloried in their shame, and looked with suspicion and dread upon every attempt that was made to introduce among them the light and influences of the Gospel of Christ. On my first arrival here, so strong and general was the opposition to my settlement, that I was almost c the point of abandoning the field in despair, n I met with a Presbyterian lady, an emigrant from the United States, who rejoiced at seeing a messenger of salvation, and for the love of Christ bade me welcome to her habitation. On the first occasion of my officiating as a missionary, in the only school-house then erected in the neighbourhood, note on this passage : — •* The bishop was not handsome ; but when that is said, all the reality is said; his person was neither •forbidding' nor 'ungainly.' But what must have been the manners and character of the man who, in a few minutes, could turn such a prejudiced view into admiration!" lew, : his f his ) the [y as len I ) was igion, The of the le re- them picion ide to ices of ere, so to my >iiit of it with United ger of de me ccasion e only arhood, }me; but rson was ust have in a few liration!" WAY OP MEETING OPPONENTS. 179 but a few were present, and thoy in consequence of earnest solicitation ; and of this small number, one of the oldest, a believer in the Universal Salvation, made a rude and violent assault upon my labours, and the doctrine which I advanced. This beginning, trying as it was, not only to • flesh and blood,' but to faith also, only served as a stimulus to more zealous exertions — exertions in dependence on the blessing of Uim who hath promised ' My Word shall not return unto Mo void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I have sent it.' — Isaiah Iv. 11. In the strength of the Lord God I went forth, and in His strength I conquered. By diligent visiting of the scattered families in the settlement, and by those acts of kindness and charity to the poor which my for- tune enabled me to perform, I giadually found access to the hearts of the people, without weari- ness or suspicion ; ' in season and out of season,* in the assemblies on the Sabbath, and in social meetings during the week, from house to house, * I ceased , not to preach repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.' The blessing of the Holy Spirit accompanied my hum- ble labours. A general reformation took place in public morals, and now, two churches, one hero and another at Missisquoi Bay, are filled with devoted worshippers. When I look upon the change, my heart is filled with joy, and I exclaim with admiration and gratitude, *What hath Gud wrought!*" J , 180 BISHOP STEWART. In 1812, and for some time afterwards, Eng- land was at war with the United States, and the settlers on the Canadian frontier wore kept in con- tinual agitation by the apprehension of attacks from their republican neighbours. Many fa- milies quitted the province. Mr. Stewart's parish- ioners were called out to meet the invaders ; and casualties occurred which he turned to good account in his ministrations. At the conclusion of hostilities a day of general thanksgiving was appointed, and was celebrated throughout Canada in .1814. In 1815, Mr. Stewart went to England, chiefly to see his mother ; but he took the opportunity of setting on foot a subscription for the erection of churches in the poorer settlements of Canada. The sum of 2000Z. was raised; and tw^enty-four churches were partially erected by this aid. Before quitting Canada, Mr. Stewart procured the ordination of his schoolmaster, Mr. James Reid ; and was well satisfied to leave the mission of St. Armand in his charge. The number of communicants had now reached fifty-four in each of the two churches. As Mr. Stewart did not again return for any permanent service to his first mission, this seems the fittest place to insert Mr. Eeid's reminiscences of his distinguished predecessor. "He was," says Mr. Eeid, "clothed with humility as with a garment." This humility was manifested not only in his intercourse with I people of all classes, but ^Iso in his plain and self- CHABAOTEB AS A MISSIONARY. 181 denying mode of life. With an independent fortune which would have commanded many of the luxuries and elegancies of the world, he lavished nothing on selfish indulgence ; and what remained of his income, after providing for his own very moderate wants, he devoted to the great purposes of education, religion, and the relief of the poor. He never lioarded money ; but whenever a surplus remained at the end of the year, he looked out for some deserving object on which it could be usefully expended. As a missionary he considered himself a soldier of Christ, sworn to be ready at every call of duty. He did not, however, wait for special calls ; but was ever on the alert, seeking out cases of spiritual or bodily distress, and applying to them the suitable relief. It was a special rule with him, when he missed any of his congregation from church, to inquire at their own homes into the cause of absence, and thus to make an occa- sion for exercising some part of his functions by administering rebuke, counsel, or consolation. Acting consistently on the principle which has been pithily expressed by Dr. Chalmers, that " a house -going minister makes a church -going people," he never allowed distance nor the severity of the climate, nor the state of the roads, always bad in the spring and autumn, to deter him from visiting the sick or suffering members of his widely -scattered flock. He always kept a chest of medicines, but never, it 182 BISHOP STEWART. is said, prescribed. The effect of such a devoted and affectionate ministry was to win many to the Church; and Mr. Reid testifies that, in 1812, only five years after Mr. Stewart went to reside at St. Arraand, crowds of persons were to be seen each Sunday making their way from every town- ship and clearing within a considerable circuit to the mission church. "Many," says ^Ir. Reid, *' attribute their first religious impressions to him ; and many of the children whom he baptized were called by his name, in token of the lovo and veneration which were borne to him by their parents. To many, indeed, he acted as god- father ; of these he kept a lisi;, and made it his special duty to pray for them at stated times, especially on his days of solemn fasting and prayer." He was in the habit of devoting every Friday, when he was at home, or remaining stationary for a week or fortnight in one place, to the religious exercises which are enjoined by the Church. When he went on his circuits from time to time, he carried presents of religious and instructive books, adapted to the circumstances and capacity of his godchildren and others, and accompanied his gift with advice suitable to each case. Many of the Bibles, Prayer-books, and de- votional tracts so given are still treasured up as memorials of the good Bishop, who moreover compiled a volume of Family and Private Prayers, which was presented to every family of his two congregations at St. Armand. He was a zealous MR. REIDS ACCOUNT. 183 promoter of tho education of the poor, and main- tained one or two children at each of the schools within his mission. As a proof of his liberality in this matter, it may be mentioned that his account for tho board and education of poor children, during his absence in England from 1815 to 1817, amounted to lOOZ. Mr. Kcid goes on to say : — '* On July 9th, 1815, Mr. Stewart preached his last sermon and admi- nistered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper for the last time as missionary at St. Armand. The church was full to the door with people that loved and venerated him as an indefatigable minister of Christ, as the friend and helper of the poor, as the sympathizing comforter at the sick bed, as the liberal promoter of education, and of all benevolent plans for the happiness of his fellow-creatures. At his last Communion on that day there were present who took the Bread of Life from his hand, communicants besides his own from the west parish, from Dunham, and some from Franklin, Sheldon, and Berkshire, bor- dering towns of the State of Vermont. It was a solemn day, and many wept sore, sorrowing most of all lest they should see his face no more ; for he was to embark for England in a few days. And when he came back he went to the east of Lake Memphramagog, and opened a new mission in Hatley Village, named Charleston, after him." Mr. Stewart, after completing his business in England, and taking the degree of Doctor in 184 BISHOP STEWART. Divinity, returned to Canada in November, 1817. Finding his former mission of St. Armand in a highly satisfactory state under the Rev. J. Reid, he resigned the charge of it wholly to him, and transferred his own sei-vioes to a neglected district named Hatley. Here he continued for about a year. Bishop G. J. Mountain gives the following graphic account of a protracted visit which in his younger days he paid to Dr. Stewart at Hatley : — " My father [Bishop Jacob Mountain] was in England upon Church matters at the time, and I went into the Eastern Townships, at the desire of the late Duke of Richmond, then our Govemor-in- chief, who was new in the country, and wished to collect information about the state and prospects of the Church in the more recent settlements, and to forward her interests. Hatley was then a place inhabited chiefly by Americans from the other side of the lines, and there was scarcely an individual in the entire tract of surrounding coun- try with whom the Hon. Mr. Stewart could asso- ciate as a congenial companion in habits, manners, or attainments. I found him in occupation of a small garret in a wooden house, reached by a sort of ladder, or something between that and a stair- case : here he had one room, in which were his little open bed, his books, and his wiiting-table ; everything of the plainest possible kind. The farmer's family, who lived below, boarded him and his servant. Soon after my arrival, I was DESCRIBED BT BISHOP MOUNTAIN. 185 seized with an attack of illness, and ho imme- diately gave mo np his room, and made shift for himself in some other part of the honse ; how, I know not. And here, hnried in the woods, and looking out upon the dreary landscape of snow, some thousands of miles away from call his con- nections, many of whom were among the highest nobility of Britain, this simple and single- hearted man, very far from strong in "bodily health, was labouring to build up the Church of God, and advance the cause of Christ among a population who were yet to be moulded to any- thing approaching to order, uniformity, or settled habits of any kind in religion, ntter strangers to the Church of England, with, I believe, the exception of a single family, and not participants, in the great majority of instances, of either of the Sacraments of the Christian religion. They were, however, unattached for the most part to other systems, and in the habit of attending whatever simple preachers might come in their way. Mr. Stewart might as well be followed as another; and his zeal, his devotedness, his daily and hourly acts of kindness among them, referring to matters temporal as well as spiritual, with the obvious evidence, upon the very face of his history, of his having been prompted to come among them only for their good, and at immense worldly sacrifices on his part, could not fail to make the most favourable impression. There were prejudices against him in the first instance, and some of the I 18G BISHOP STEWART. i ! l! li people told him, after they had begun to love him, that wlien he first came among them they could not believe ho was a clergyman, because, as they expressed it, ho was so prompt. They re- ferred in this to a certain quickness, abruptness, and liveliness of manner which characterized him, and which singularly contrasted with the slow measured drawl, and demure austerity of deport- ment which adhered, from puritanical ancestors, to the ordinary teachers of religion who had been among them. One man, who was a great reli- gionist in his way, pronounced decisively that Mr. Stewart had no piety, because his boots shone so nicely; his English servant, without much solicitude on the part of his master, having probably brought out some good Day and Martin, with proper brushes, which produced an effect quite new in that locality. He won, however, rapidly upon all parties, and by slow degrees formed a Church congregation at Hatley, and others in the neighbourhood; the foundation of those which now exist in the missions of Hatley, Compton, and elsewhere. *' It was by no means an uncommon practice with the people, when he first went among them, to follow their rural labours on the Sunday ; and a story is told of him (I cannot say that I had it from himself), that once, on his way to church, he expostulated with a man whom he saw yoking his oxen for work, and the man having pleaded that he could not afford to lose a day's labour at ;■-■." A. ' '■■VV-i To face page ISi. LODGING AT HETLEY. 187 the season, Mr. Stewart asked him what the day's labour of himself and his oxen was worth , upon being told the amount of which, he cut short the argument for the moment by giving just the sum which had been named, and prevailed upon the man to come with him to church. It is added, that the individual became thenceforth a regular attendant upon the ministry of Mr. Stewart. " In this situation I had an opportunity of seeing how uniformly he preserved his cheerful- ness; how readily he accommodated himself to the habits of the country, and how completely he gave up his whole man to the work upon which he had entered ; for my illness, with the state in which it left me as a convalescent, detained me for five or six weeks under his roof." The style of his lodging is still more minutely doscribed by the Rev. C. Jackson, who afterwards succeeded to the mission of Hatley, and who has furnished the following particulars : — " During Dr. Stewart's residence at Hatley, he boarded with Mr. E. Bacon, who speaks of Dr. Stewart with great reverence as one of the best men he ever knew. The chamber which he occupied was an upper room of a house one and a half story high, and consequently, the roof on one side coming down to within two feet of the floor ; it was twelve feet by fourteen, with his bed in it ; and during a part of the time he occupied it, tho 188 BISHOP STEWABT. opposite chamber in the same house was used as a shoemaker's shop. Till a church was built, he preached twice every Sunday in a private house occupied by Mr. E. Wadleigh; and during the week he occasionally lectured to a few people in some private dwelling. He usually confined him- self to his duties for three days in each week, and the other three were spent in visiting and exhort- ing the people from house to house. Each return- ing Friday was devoted to fasting, meditation and prayer ; his dinner on this day was salt and potatoes ; and he never left his room on such occa- sions except when necessity required. After family prayers at night, he seldom retired to his bed till two o'clock in the morning, and never allowed himself more than four or five hours' sleep." In a letter written from Hatley, Dr. Stewart makes the following remarks on the much-debated question of clerical celibacy ; — ** My being single is a great advantage to me as a missionary on a large scale. This consideration, indeed, chiefly determines me to continue so. "Whatever inexperienced persons may think or say, it is a greater sacrifice than they are aware of; but I shall mention some of its advantages concerning the Church and my relations. With regard to the Church, I am always ready to go or to stay anywhere, for a long or a short time ; and no place, and every place, is my home. My personal expenses are small. I reckon that those JOUBNETS AS TISITINO MI8SI0NABT. 189 of myself and servant ccme now to about 250/. a year. This leaves me of my income 400?. a-year for public and private beneficial purposes." It was about this time that emigration from Great Britain to any considerable extent began. In the year 1819, we are informed that the number of emigrants to Canada **rose at once to 12,000 souls." Dr. Stewart observed that new settlements were being continually formed in various parts of the province; and, with the bishop's leave, he resigned his settled position at Hatley, and became, in 1819, visiting mission- ary *' for visiting in rotation those townships which are not yet prepared for an establishment." The Annual Eeport (1821) of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel contains (pp. 117 — 138) an account, presented by him, of a long journey of inspection which he performed in the first six months of 1820, travelling through a circuit of 1880 miles. It was his practice wherever he went "to perform Divine service twice on the Lord's dpy, and frequently in the course of the week, besides administering the Sacrament of Baptism in many retired places." Finding in most of the places which he visited that there was " a great want of unity among the people, who were divided into a variety of sects ; and that each sect was desirous of a minister and form of service agreeable to its own religious persuasion, and consequently indis- 190 BISHOP 8TEWABT. posed to unite in erecting a house of prayer i" he strove to induce the people *' to unite in one communion by contributing to the support of an ecclesiastical establishment, which affords certain provision for the regular performance of public worship, and the best secuiity for peace and pro- sperity in every community." He took every occasion that presented itself to " set forth the great importance and advantage of having a settled day — the Lord's day — set apart for public wor- ship, and also a settled form, or liturgy ; and he endeavoured particularly to enforce the benefit arising from the establishment of a regularly- ordained minister, and of a fixed place of wor- ship, which every society is bound if possible to provide and maintain." Dr. Stewart spent nearly the whole of the year 1821 in England; and returned to resume his missionary journeys in the spring of 1822. The report which he furnished to the Society of his proceedings during this year (see Annual Report, pp. 138 — 166) must be again referred to for details. In 1823 he was sent to England by the bishop, for the pui-pose of defending the claim of the Church (under the Act 31 Geo. III. xxxi.) to the Clergy Reserves, which had recently been made the subject of an attack by the Canadian House of Assembly. Returning in November, 1824, he continued his unwearied missionary labours, a full account of which is given by himself in the So- ciety's Report (published in 1826), pp. 112—129. OONSXORATBD BISHOP. 191 A great change took place in Dr. Stewart's ecclesiastical rank before that account was pub- lished. The venerable Bishop Jacob Mountain, after an episcoi^ale of thirty-two years, in the course of which he had seen the number of his clergy increase from nine to fifty-six, died on June 16th, 1825 ; and on the 1st January, 1826, Dr. Stewart was consecrated as his successor by Archbishop Sutton, and Bishops Howley, Van Mildert, and Blomfield, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace. Betuming to America, he preached, at the request of Bishop Hobart, in Trinity Church, New York, on Tiinity Sunday, May 21st, and on June 4th, he was installed in Quebec Cathedral. His first charge (which may be Ibund in the * Stewart Missions,' pp. 3 — 12), yields ample evi- dence of the zealous yet moderate spirit with which he entered on his high ofl&ce. The details of ten succeeding years of watchful, steady, and severe labours are recorded in the Annual Reports so often referred to; and their results must be sought in the character which the Canadian Church, under his influence, maintained. The long journeys of visitation which he iindertook were a tax upon his declining strength. Speak- ing of them, he says, ** in a general way sermons were delivered by myself or my chaplain wherever a confirmation was held or a church consecrated. On Sundays we both preached; and on other days when not pursuing our journey, one of us. And where we stopped for the night it was 192 BISHOP 8TEWABT. usually our practice to assemble the family, and sometimes a few of their neighbours ; and assist them in joining together in prayer and hearing the Word of God." A portion of a private letter written to Arch- deacon Mountain, in the course of one of his visitations, has been preserved. As presenting a picture of the bodily discomforts which were commonly undergone on such occasions, it is inserted here :— ** We came yesterday from Hallowell to Daven- port's (fourteen miles), afterwards crossed the bay (Quinte), two miles to the Mohawk Church — there examined several persons and confirmed twenty- one — buried one corpse nearly half a mile from the church — performed part of the evening ser- vice ; the Rev. Mr. Campbell and myself exhorted and conferred with some of the chiefs. We were now getting cold and hungry, but we had a good fire made in the stove, which rendered us com- fortable. It rained all day till nearly 5 p.m. Soon after it had become dark we got a good supply of bread, butter, and milk, and candles, which were very acceptable. About 11 p.m. the steam-boat passed — we called and hailed and showed a light, but stop they would not. We made up our minds to sleep as well as we could in the church till daylight. At three this morn- ing we were roused by the steam-boat coming back for us. When it had passed the captain was IKOIDENT IN THE BACKWOODS. 193 asleep, and the helmsman, having shortly been changed, did not know of iis, and would not stop ; which, however, I think he ought to have done for any person. I should observe that the boat was much later than usual, in consequence of a malefactor having been hung in the morning at Kingston. I awoke at Belleville with a head- ache, but it has left me (3 p.m.), and my cold is gradually diminishing." A touching and graphic incident is described by the Eev. Job Deacon, a faithful missionaiy, who accompanied Bishop Stewart in a visitation of Gaspe, the eastern extremity of Canada, in the year 1829 :— *' The Bishop of Quebec, finding that my health was greatly impaired, kindly invited me in the summer (I think it was in 1829) to accompany him, in the hope that I might derive benefit from the voyage, on a confirmation tour to the Bays of Gaspe and Chaleurs ; and subsequently on a visit to Lady Sarah and Sir Peregrine Maitland, who was then Lieutenant-Governor of Halifax, as well as to the Lord Bishop of Nova Scotia, whose visitation was to be held at a certain day. The confirmation tour made, the visit paid, and the visitation — which afibrded to us the highest grati- fication, over — the vessel at his lordship's disposal was despatched to Pictou, there to await our arrival, whilst we proceeded by land in one of 194 BISHOP STEWART. the best conveyances which could be procured at that time in Halifax, to join Lady Sarah and Sir Peregrine Maitland at the former place, they having left for it the day previous in their own carriage. There were five of us in the hired vehicle — the Bishop, myself, the Bishop's man, a servant of Sir Peregrine Maitland's, and the driver. We had not proceeded more than about fifteen miles from Halifax, on the way to Truro, when our carriage broke down — in the midst of the forest, and some two or three miles distant from any tnown habitation. His lordehip's man and the driver were despatched in quest of another conveyance ; and, whilst waiting their return, the Bishop sat down on a pine-log, under the shade of some spreading branches, to shelter himself from the rays of the sun. I followed his example, and, in doing so, expressed a wish that we were safely out of this solitary place, and at Quebec — being weary and weak from illness. His lordship mildly replied — ' Why, we may be as much in the way of our duty here, under the direction of God's providence, as if at Quebec ; and our Divine Master may find some work for us to do before we reach it. But men with families, like you, are generally anxious to return to the domestic circle; I have no such ties, and am therefore free from such anxieties.* " But shortly after uttering these words, the Bishop exclaimed — *Why, I perceive a smoke yonder I Come, let us see from whence it issues.' INCIDENT IN THE BACKWOODS. 195 I the )ke \ Accompaiiying his lordship, we in a short time arrived at a miserable-looking shanty — a sort of hut, formed of unhewn logs. " At the door of this wretohed-looking hovel, the Bishop asked — * Are there any inmates here ?* on which a female presented herself; and the squalid misery, the forlorn wretchedness, depicted in her person and countenance, I never saw sur- passed — perhaps never equalled. Nevertheless, the Bishop did not hesitate to enter, and I of course followed. Here were also two young girls, of a like squalid appearance with that of the woman. His lordship inquired if these two girls were her daughters, and what their respective ages were. *They are, sir, mine,* she replied, 'and the one is about fifteen, the other twelve years of age.* * Have you,* his lordship asked, * a husband ? and if so, where is he ?' * I have, sir,* was her reply, * and he is in Halifax.* He next asked, * Of what country are you, and how long have you been here ?' * I am a native of Ireland, sir, and have been here these three years.* * Of what religion are you ?* again asked the Bishop. * I am a member of the Church of England, sir,* she replied. * Can your daughters read ?* was the next question. * Yes, sir,* was the reply. Have you any books ?' * Yes, sir ; we have our Bible, Prayer-book, and some tracts, brought with us from Ireland.* His lordship then heard both daughters read in the New Testament, who acquitted themselves creditably, especially the 196 BISHOP STEWA&T. older. After this, the Bishop asked *if they could repeat the Catechi»m?' They replied *Yes;' and they did repeat it, and answered some questions other than those contained in the Catechism, which the Bishop put to them to ascertain how far they understood what they repeated, much to his satisfaction. Then, after a pause, the Bishop observed, * I am rejoiced to find your daughters so well instructed in the prin- ciples of the Church, and that they continue to read their Bible, and to retain the Catechism in their memories — understanding it as they appear to do — here, in this lonely wilderness. Why, one must have been but nine, the other twelve, years of age, when they left Ireland ! How, then, and by whom, were they thus instructed?' *They learned, sir,* said she, *to read at the parish school ; were instructed in the Catechism, and in the Scriptures, by our clergyman — the blessing of God rest upon him day and night ! They received from him those books and tracts which you see here (pointing to those which had been just used), and which were, I believe, supplied to him by a Society in England ; and they have thus far been preserved from evil in the Church of their forefathers, and will, I trust and pray, continue to be " Christ's faithful soldiers and servants," in His Church, until their lives' end. And oh! blessings, blessings temporal and eternal, descend on those who have supplied those books ! They have, indeed, been our comfort and solace here, in INCIDENT IN THE BACKWOODS. 197 I this dreary wilderness, under many severe trials ; and the absence of our beloved Church, if we had but decent clothing to appear in it, is not one of the least !' " * But,' said the Bishop, * these young persons must not be permitted to remain here in this wild solitude ; you must send them to Halifax.' * Ah ! sir,' the poor woman said, as she took a hasty and painful glance at them, 'they are not, as they once were, in a fit state to be sent there. Besides, even if they were, their father could not, I fear, do anything for them ; and, without any other acquaintance or friends there, how could they obtain situations ?' * Leave that to me, my good woman,' said the ever kind-hearted and charitable Bishop ; * I will see to it. I am the Bishop of Quebec, and am now on my way to Pictou, to join Lady Sarah and Sir Peregrine Maitland ; I may perhaps overtake them at Tiiiro. Here, take this,' presenting the woman with, I think, five pounds! 'and, as soon as you can prepare your daughters, send them to Government House at Halifax, with the compliments of the Bishop of Quebec. I will speak to Lady Sarah Maitland to take one of them, and to send the other to my niece at Quebec, who will take charge of her !' The poor creature threw herself on her knees to thank his lordship, but her heart was too full, she could not utter a syllable! Her eyes, however, and her manner spoke more feelingly and eloquently that which her tongue refused to 198 BISHOP 8TSWABT. express t The Bishop hastily quitted the hut in deep emotion ; and, as for myself, the scene has been so indelibly stamped on my memory, as to be scarcely ever efifaced ; and sure I am that those girls must have become useful and respectable Luembers of society, although I never subsequently heard of them." 1 The Bishop published on December 6th, 1827, a letter to the clergy of the diocese of Quebec, in relation to some existing differences of opinion among them respecting the Clergy Beserves and some other points. Whilst asserting the claim of the clergy to the small endowment which they possessed as the ministers of the established reli- gion of the country, the Bishop exhorted them to defend their rights in a meek and peaceful spirit, and above all to commit their cause in prayer to the providence of God, beseeching Him "that weak and ill-judging as we all are, we may neither do wrong to our neighbour nor_ receive it at his hands." In 1831 the Bishop was in England ; but in the following year he visited his diocese once more, and delivered at Montreal, Kingston, and York (Toronto), a Charge which was published shortly afterwards. He states therein that he had been disappointed in England by the reluctance of clergymen to go out to Canada, by the refusal of the Government to sanction any definite measure for the disposal of the Clergy Beserved Lands, I OIROULAB ON LOOAL 00NTBIDUTI0N8. 199 and by the withdrawal of tlio Paidiamentary grant from which the Canadian clergy were partly sup- ported. He mentions with thankfulness the wiU- ingness of the religious societies in, England to assist tho struggling Church of Canada, and ex- horts his own clergy to be patient, to keep them- selves free from anxiety, and to work on cheer- fully and in faith. After adverting to the pre- valence of the cholera as a Divine call to them to be diligent in performing their duty, he concludes with words worthy to be the parting advice of a Christian Bishop : — •* Let us all, every one here, do our duty to-day, not anxious for the morrow but always ready for eternity. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof ; but if we are doing our duty now, and prepared to give an account to God, not with grief but with joy, every day will be blessed to us ; and our last day on earth, be it far or near, will minister to us an entrance abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through whom alone we have any real grounds of consolation, and who is the sole Author of all peace and hope in this life, and of our salvation, and everlasting glory in the life to come." In Jan. 1834 Bishop Stewart took an important step towards rendering the Canadian clergy inde- pendent of support from the mother-country, by issuing a carefully- written Circular pointing out the obligations of every congregation to honour the Lord with their substance by giving a part of 200 BISHOP STEWART. it towards the support of the services of the sanctuary, and of those who perform them. He was occupied from June 12 th to the end of Octo- ber in a visi^tion, the details of which are to be found in his letter to the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel (Annual Report, 1834-5, pp. 148-156). He concludes this letter by saying : — ** I have to regret that the extent of the diocese* comprising the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada is so great that it is quite out of my power to watch over and attend to its interests sufficiently, or in the desirable way which might be accomplished by the appointment of a suffragan Bishop ; whose duty it should be to preside over the Church in the Lower Province. I hope that his Majesty's Government will, with the sanction of the head of- our Church and the chairman of our venerable Society, ere long make this appointment." His wish was fulfilled, and the anxieties of the last year of his life were materially diminished by the consecration of Archdeacon George Jeho- shaphat Mountain on February 14th, 1836, as coad- jutor-bishop, with the title of Bishop of Montreal, With a frame worn out by unsparing labour in the propagation of the Gospel, the Bishop returned in the autumn of 1836 to seek a grave in his native land. Upon landing at Liverpool, he pro- ceeded to the residence of his brother at Brighton., His appearance in that town is thus touchingly ABBIVAL AT BBIGHTON. 201 in Led Ibis Iro- lon.. 5iy described by tbe Rev. J. S. M. Anderson, at that time incumbent of St. George*s Chapel : — "One Sunday, whilst I was engaged in the administration of the Holy Communion in my church at Brighton, I observed a venerable man, with pallid face, and hair white as silver upon his brow, draw near to the Lord's Table. He was very feeble ; apparently deprived, in some degree, of the use of his limbs, and leaning for help upon the arm of a gentleman who was with him. This gentleman I recognized to be the Hon. Edward Stewart, at that time deputy-chainnan of the Board of Customs, with whom I had the pleasure of being acquainted. And, seeing the aged man, as he drew nearer, wear the dress usually assumed by none but clergymen of superior rank, I imme- diately conjectured that it must be Mr. Stewart's brother, the good Bishop of Quebec, whom I saw. I had long watched from a distance the course of his unwearied and faithful ministrations. I had heard that he had been compelled by infirm health to relinquish tbe duties of his diocese, and had returned to end his days in his native land. ** It was with feelings, therefore, of no ordinary interest that I administered to him the conse- crated elements ; and that interest was yet further increased when, at the conclusion of Divine ser- vice, Mr. Stewart came to me in the vestry, and told me that my conjecture was right, and that the Bishop wished me to come the next day and 202 BISHOP 8TBWABT. visit him. I need scarcely say that I readily obeyed the summons; and never shall I forget the spectacle of simple and earnest piety 'which I witnessed in the person of- that good man. He was lying upon his bed, and unable, from bodily weakness, to do more than lift up his head from the pillow, and stretch out his hand to press mine ^th affectionate and hearty greeting. The only other person present in the room was an English servant, who, he said, had been his faithful and kind companion for many years, and whose friendly services he acknowledged with the deepest gratitude. He asked me to read to him the Order for the Visitation of the Sick. I did so; the Bishop still lying upon his bed, and his servant kneeling by its side*. In all those parts of that solemn service in which the sick man is required to speak, he uttered, in the most touching tones, the words of truth and soberness. And when we came to repeat the appointed portion of the seventy-first psalm, although he had no book spread out before him, he repeated each alternate verse with an accuracy which quite astonished me, when I considered the great weakness which oppressed him. ** At the conclusion of the service he said, * Do not leave me yet, my dear sir. There is a prayer for a sick child, which I have often read ; pray read it, sir, now, in my behalf; you will, of course, make the necessary alteration in some of the words as you pass on ; but read it all ; and, weak IMM LAST DATS. 203 we the kok Late Led Lich and aged as I am, I desire to draw near, with the guileless spirit of a child, unto my God and Saviour.* When we rose from our knees, he begged me yet to prolong my visit, for he wished to speak to me of his dear Canada, and of some of the scenes which his friend and servant had witnessed with him. I listened with the most earnest attention to him as he spoke. It was evident that his end was not far off. * The silver cord * was even then loosening, and * the golden bowl* nigh unto breaking. But it was marvellous to see the power with which faith, and hope, and love, sustained him. And, though his memory was beginning to fail him, with respect to the things of to-day or yesterday, yet, when he looked back to the field of his labours in Canada, and to the work which the great Lord of the seed-time and the harvest had enabled him there to achieve, his perceptions were as vivid as ever, and his grateful acknowledgment of the reality of the Divine promises distinct and clear. ** I gazed upon him, and listened to him, with a reverence and gratitude which I must seek in vain for language to express. And when the time for our separation came, I turned away with a heart full of thankfulness, that I had been privileged to witness such an evidence of faith having its perfect work, and that the Church, of which I was an ordained minister, had been permitted, for so many years, to call such a man her missionary in the Western World.'* After an ineffectual attempt to return to the 204 BISHOP 8TEWABT. home of his fathers, Galloway House, Wigton- shire. Bishop Stewart took, up his lodging in the residence of his nephew, the Earl of Galloway, in Grosvenor Square, London. And there, accom- panied by two faithful servants whom he had brought with him from Canada, free from intrusion and affectionately tended, the Bishop spent his last days. His servant used to read to him daily some portion of the Holy Scriptures, and his noble relative introduced, from time to time, such familiar and esteemed friends as were likely to soothe or edify him by their company and conversation. Exhaustion and debility seem latterly to have aflFected his intellect'; but it must surely be regarded as a great mercy that on sacred subjects his mind never, but for one day of despondency, lost its power or balance. He never gave way to fretfulness or impatience ; and what he is chiefly remembered for, during his sickness, was the uniform kindness of his manner to all who approached him. Lady Galloway never left him without his invocation of the Divine blessing on herself and her children. But the powers of nature, growing daily weaker, were soon exh austed, and the good Bishop fell asleep in the Lord, on the 13th July, 1837. He was buried in the family vault at Kensal Green, near I ondon, by the side of his brother and sister. The impression which was left of him, twenty- five years after his death, on the memory of one who knew him very intimately, is thus recorded by the Eev. J. Reid : — " I am thankful to the BEVIEW OF HIS LABOUBS. 205 Giver of all Good that I had before me the example and counsel of a man so devoted, so heavenly- minded, so humble, so full of resignation to the will of God, and so purely zealous to promote His glory. His faith in God was deeply grounded in the heart. Often it was in his mouth that God governs the world. He advanced no claims on the admiration of people ; and yet all honoured and loved him, from natural instinct, and in his • presence felt themselves to be in the presence of a true friend, and a man of God." In tipper Canada, the province to which most of the emigrants * resorted, and became the chief object of his latest cares, he was greeted as the father of the church, and " the founder," says a contemporary, "of a large proportion of the buildings now dedicated to the service of Almighty God in the Canadas." Another speaks with ad- miration of " his fruitful and prosperous labours as a missionary. The churches of which he procured the erection, the congregations which he formed, the happy change which he was often the in- strument of effecting in the habits of the people, are the witnesses of his acceptance among them, and the monuments of his success." * At the end of his episcopate the population of Canada was estimated at more than a million. The emigrants from the United Kingdom to British North America in the thirteen years from 1825 to 1837 amounted to 863,129, and most of them probably settled in Canada. In the same period the Canadian clergy on the list of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel increased from 46 to 72. 206 MEMOIB OF THE EEVEEEND JACOB GEORGE MOUNTAIN. Jacob George Mountain was the third son of the Bev. J. H. Brooke Mountain, D.D., Bector of Blunham, Bedfordshire, grandson of the first, and nephew of the second Bishop of Quehec. ^ He was bom October 14, 1818. Educated at Eton, — ^where he won the New- castle medal, a high distinction in that great school, — he went from thence, in 1838, as a Post- master to Merton College, Oxford. He there obtained a second class in Classics. Shortly afterwards he returned to Eton, as a private tutor to Mr. Foljambe, of Osberton, and gave himself to his charge With all his deep earnestness ; but his heart was set upon the ministry. He was offered a mastership at Eton, a post of honour and great responsibility, scarcely ever offered to any but a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge ; but he still held firm to the purpose with which he had been inspired. Having been o];dained Beacon, he became assistant Curate of Clewer, a parish in the immediate neighbourhood of Eton; and to his GOBS TO NEWFOUNDLAND. 207 a [iU len Ibe I in 18 work there he gave all the time that could be I spared from the care of his pupil. Keenly alive to the pleasure of society, and much loved, he now I wholly withdrew himself from it, that he might be more entirely devoted to his Master's service. He anxiously waited till the time came when his pupil would leave school, to give himself up undividedly to the ministry of souls. His first intention, as soon as he was free to choose, was to find work in some neglected and thickly- peopled corner of England ; but no such opening occurring to him, his thoughts were turned to the Colonial Church. Natural desires would Lave led him to join his uncle, the Bishop of Quebec ; but his purpose was to seek the hardest work and most destitute spot that might be open to him. It happened that a very touching appeal of the Bishop of Newfoundland, speaking of the extremely destitute spiritual condition of some portions of the island, which appeared in the daily papers, came to his knowledge, and instantly determined his course. He sought out the Bishop of New- foundland, then in England, and offered to accom- pany him on his return. He sailed in April, 1847. His ability and learning as a scholar would have made him valuable for work at the Missionary College in St. John's, then much needing such help, and the Bishop pressed the charge upon him ; but his heart was true to its treasured desire for the direct cure of souls, and he yearned for some hard and secluded sphere among the poor. 208 BEV. J. O. MOUNTAIN. Accordingly, he was sent to Harbour Briton, in Fortune Bay, on the southern coast of Newfound- land. He was its first resident missionary, and there laboured, never leaving his post, for seven 3'ears; Harbour Briton being the centre of his own Mission, and the different settlements along about 350 miles of coast being included under his charge as Bural Dean of Fortune Bay. The coun- try, its inhabitants, and their way of life are thus described in a report which he wrote at the end of his seven years' ministry. ** The shore abounds in harbours of sufficient size for the craft which usually ply on the coast, but unsafe to the inexperienced mariner, from the frequent occurrence of sunken rocks at their en- trance. *' The sea-cliffs are for the most part bold and lofty, with deep water close at their base. Too precipitous to climb, and for the most part destitute of beach or sands, they offer little chance of escape to those who should be so unfortunate as to be driven on them in the storm, or, what is more frequent and perilous, to be gradually drawn in by the swell, during the prevalence of calm and fog. " This shore is inhabited by fishermen of the English and Irish race, who have either themselves come out to settle, or have been bom in the country : these last are called * Shumachs * or * the country-bom.' The present population was called into existence by the enterprise of wealthy merchants from Devonshire and Jersey, who built NATIVX POPULATION. 209 and Too part lianoe te as more og. tlie lelves the ' or was Ithy built large fishing establishments or * stores/ as they are styled, in different parts of the coast, at convenient sites, and every spring engaged a number of men (from one to two hundred for each establishment), who came out for a term of eighteen months. These men were in all respects the servants or ' wages men ' of the merchant. They went oat to fish in small decked boats provided by him, and brought in all the fish they caught ; receiving in return a regular amount of wages, and living in the ^Eooms' or merchant's establishment. **In p ocess of time some of the men brought out their wives with them, and settled. They took to fishing on their own account, built houses and stages to split fish on, procured boats, nets, and other fishing gear ; and their connexion with the merchant consisted no longer in being engaged by him as servants, but in dealing with him as customers. They brought the fish they had caught and dried to him, and were supplied in return .with the necessaries of life, which in those days they generally procured in sufficiency, not to say abundance. A man of ordinary activity, keeping one or two servants, would catch five or six hundred quintals of fish in the course of the year, which, during the late war, were worth eighteen shillings per quintal, and frequently more. The price of provision and clothing corresponded, so that their gains were not so large in reality as in figure; still they had an abundance of all ths 210 RBY. J. 0. MOUNTAIN. necessaries of life. Many saved considerable snms of money, which others too frequently spent in drink, the prevailing snare and sin of the settle- ment. ** Thus a native population sprang up : yet the merchants still engaged an equally large number of men every year to come out, aa their labour was required for various purposes connected with the shipping of the fish ; and the demand for meii in the * Booms* increased with the population and the supply of fiah^ i, e., the cod, the well-known produce of these seas. " Thus arose the existence of the two-fold race ; that is to say, the * country-bom,* and the non- residents. The latter are chiefly from the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, and the island of Jersey. These for the most part return home for ' the winter, about twenty or thirty men being retained for the necessary labour of the * Booms,' or to go into the * Winter House,* to cut a suflB- cient supply of firewood for the consumption of the * Booms* during the remainder of the year. After a time, the fishery in these parts was ex- tended to the winler, which caused some change, and increased the hardships of the fisherman's life. Before this practice, they used, at the close of the summer voyage, to retire into some sheltered valley or hill-side among the woods, and construct a very simple and small log hut, with one main room about six feet by eight and six feet high, and two small sleeping compartments. Here, witt. i E fi 6 I 1 t: a FISHnfG PX7NT8 AND 8KIFF8. 211 lof ) for ing iUffi- of ear. ex- ge, life. tlie red ct aiu and itl, three or four barrels of flour, one or two barrels of pork and beef, and tea and molasses in propor- tion, the earnings of the summer, or rather the supply given by the merchant in advance for the forthcoming * voyage* (i.e., catch of fish), the family passed two or three months in the enjoy* ment of every bodily comfort, though sadly cut off from everything which might minister to their spiritual wants or moral improvement. The wind and. storm might howl without, and the snow-drift whirl in fury all around, and the deep ponds become almost solid blocks of ice; yet within, the little room was thoroughly warmed by a huge square-piled fire of wood, which some- times half filled the area of the floor ; and as the flame blazed up the wide open wooden chimney, it mattered little if it caught fire, for a cup of water extinguished the flame as soon as it was caught, and a little clay repaired the damage. " The man was fully occupied in preparing for the spring fishery. He had his saw-pit close at hand, where also he generally built a fishing-punt, a craft of somewhat peculiar frame, but usually an excellent sea-boat. It is about six feet keel, and six feet wide, with * standing rooms * to row in, and the midships and stem, where the fish is stowed when caught, covered with moveable boards, forming a sort of deck; one mast, a low, snug main-sail, jib and driver at the stem> though occasionally two masts, and foresail as well as mainsail. The latter is called a skifif, the former 212 BIV. J. O. MOUMTAIK. a * punt and driver/ to distinguish it from a pnnt without that appendage. They have other punts, called * shore punts/ merely for the purpose of hauling the nets and bringing wood, &o. ** These skiffs are not calculated for fishing away from home, and the men in most cases return from the fishing-ground every evening; though during the summer, in the height of the fishery, they occasionally pass the whole night out at sea, lying down in the skiff for a few hours* rest. The usual course is, to rise before dawn, and haul the herritig nets, which are generally near the mouth of the harbour. They then proceed with their little wooden box, containing biscuit and butter, and a kettle of water, to the fishing-ground, where the water is fror^. about thirty to eighty fathoms, i.e., two-and-a-half lines in depth. Arrived on the spot, they cast out a home-made anchor called a * killock,' composed of a long-shaped stone encircled with pliant strips of wood, bound tightly at one end; and thus they ride out for hours, often in very heavy seas. If they find no fish, they pull up their anchor, and tiy elsewhere. Frequently half the day is passed without taking a single fish, and then comes a sudden run of success, and they catch them as fast as the lines can be hauled, and in a few hours the boat, which holds about six quintals, may be half loaded. The average catch is about a quintal, rather less than more, but it is extremely variable ; and during fiome months in the year it is seldom that more I OPFOBTUjilTIEl OF THK MI88I0NABT. 213 'f I than twenty fish, about a quarter of a quintal, are caught. A man who had any other occupation might be more profitably employed ; but even if he had anything oIho to do (and the hard ground scarcely yieldn a duo return), the merchant looks with a jealous eye on a desertion of the main business. Ho is so far right that it is an un- deniable truth that all depends on the fishery, and that neither merchant nor fiuhorman could subsist if it were neglected. In the * Capelin scull ' fre- quently as much as two or three quintals are caught in the day. This period, so called from a small fish of that name making its appearance in such astonishing quantities that even the greedy cod and the greedier fiMherman are satiated with them, is of a very fluctuating and uncertain length. It generally lasts from three to six weeks in the months of May and June. At this sea&un the poor fellows are literally at work day and night. They do not come in till dark, the task of splitting and salting the fish then occupies several hours, and before dawn they are oif again to the fishing- ground. I have known men not take off their clothes for a week together, or get more than a snatch of an hour's broken sleep with their clothes and boots on for the whole time. Except at tiiis season, the men begin to come away from the fishing-ground a few hours before sunset; the splitting and salting are done shortly after dark and then follow supper and bed. "This is the opportunity of the Missionary; 214 BEY. J. O. MOUNTAIN. when on his visits he arrives at one of the smaller of these settlements^ where there is no school, and few families, he can occupy himself most profitably in teaching the children and women ; or if they are not ripe for even this pai-tial and occasional instruction, he has to wait patiently till the hour when the cod fishing has ceased, and his fishing of men can begin. " Then he has his time ; and, wearied as they are^ in most cases they willingly attend prayers, as soon as they have concluded their hasty meal ; and, in many cases, though not so generally, they will also attend prayers in the morning before setting off to fish, if the Missionary can be early ei^ough on his ground. This practice was first instituted in my mission by the laborious and faithful CoUey,* in spite of his weak and decline ing state of health. " There is still another class of fishermen to be taken into account; namely, those who, having gained a small capital, embark ouva larger scale. These keep a decked boat besides the skiffs ; and, as soon as the fishery fails on their own immediate shore, they go off with a crew of two or three servants to any part of the island where they hear of fish, and returning after an absence of a month or so, unload their cargoes of fish to be * made,' t. e., dried by the women and children, and again set sail on another trip. These boats are, for the most part, decked, of about thirty or forty tons* * Now the Bey. J. Coll^, Missionary at Hermitage C!ore. th ^6 LIFB AMONG THE FISHERMEN. 215 burden, and can be worked by two bands, tbongh they usually carry four when engaged in fishing. The risk incurred in this boat-fishing is even greater than that of fishing at home: they are seldom able to procure good tackling or sufficient gear, and are obliged to go long distances from home, where they are comparatively unacquainted with the shore. The very wildest part of the western coast is the spot where, of late years, the fish have congregated during the depth of winter in the greatest numbers. These poor fellows follow them thither, and at that inclement season are exposed to as much hardship as often falls to the lot of man to endure, while their less enterprising or poorer brethren are snugly ensconced in some mountain gorge or wood-clad glen, preparing at their leisure, by their own fire-sides, for the spring and summer fishery." What Mr. Mountain endured during those seven years' service along that bare i-ad rugged coast, while ministering to those Untaught fishermen, — sharing, during his constant journeyings, their manner of life, their homes, and their meals, able to move from spot to spot only as they moved, in boats, often at much hazard, and in great in- clemencies of weather, never wholly getting over the sea-sickness, with no single companion of his own kind, during those long, severe winters, — none can tell but they who have experienced what it is to be alone in bleak and desolate scenes, fyr from home and all companionship of mind, with 216 BEY. J. 0. MOUNTAIN. nothing for the heart to love, save only what the inward life can sustain, and with the special spiritual anxieties which a pastor's heart alone can know. He had many sore stiiiggles, causing him often to ask for the prayers of his friends in England. Occasionally the Bishop, coasting along in his Church ship, would put in at the settlement where he was. Those necessarily rare visits were the only change, and they were felt to be seasons of a very blessed communion, and objects of long and anxious anticipation, leaving a blessing behind them. It is touching to read in his letters, written at that period, the records of his inner life, — tokens of the unseen strength which was up- holding him. which he was then practically learn- ing, and exhibiting in his course. The following is a short sample : *' I hold," he thus writes, "that the soft and epicurean doctrine of the present day, of sparing the body, is utterly contrary to the Gospel, and productive of the most dangerous practical errors, the mother of heresies, the daughter of self-deceit and sloth, the handmaid to self-indulgence, the door to secret unbelief, and virtual denial of the Cross of Christ; and that there is, no ground M^hatever in Holy Scripture for believing that the trials and chastisements which are inflicted from above are quite sufficient, without adding our own ; else there could be no meaning in St. Paul's ' watchings and fastings,' in addition to his * hunger and thirst,' and * weariness and painfulness.' The former are manifestly . ' i ifcii wu i iagyggi- OHABAOTEB AND INFLX7ENCB. 217 •e ts t, IS Tolimtary, the latter involuntary ; or, again, what need of * self-revenge/ and * indignation against themselves,* for the Corinthians? And if those under the Law could and must express such hitter grief as David in the Psalms, if truly penitent, what ought a Christian's grief to he, who must, in gome sense, if Holy Scripture be true, have sinned against the Holy Ghost, and defiled the temple of God, * whose temple ye are T " And then he adds, correcting a possible misapprehension as to such mortifications : " not, of course, as having any merit in themselves, what has ? neither faith, nor works, nor fasting, nor feasting, nor weeping, nor rejoicing ; all must be done in, and for, and by Christ. Would that this were as easy to act upon as to write !" One who intimately knew him speaks thus generally of his character : — '* He has great ability and power of application, and a keen relish for classical studies and intellectual intercourse, es- pecially excelling in Latin composition and verse ; but, from the time of his determination to devote himself to the work of the ministry, all was made subservient to the study of divinity ; and he be- came an able theologian, especially w611-versed in the study of the Fathers, St. Augustine, St. Ber- nard, and others. In the composition of his ser- mons he took especial care, spending several hours in reading and prayer, to prepare himself for writing. He never allowed anything to interfere with his regular and frequent devotional readiiig 218 BEY. J. O. MOUNTAIN. and self-examination, and bis special l 'ight was in every opportunity of celebrating tbe Holy C!ommunion. His temper was naturally ardent, but so disciplined by tbe Cross, tbat be seemed all gentleness and love; and bis influence over all witb wbom be bad any intercourse was most remarkable: its secret lay in bis single-minded devotion and earnest reality. It was felt even under tbe most unlikely circumstances. Tbe cbaplain of a Government war steamer, in wbicb be was once passing from one part of bis mission into anotber, told me be never could forget bow not even tbe bustle and movements on sbip-board were allowed to intemipt bis studies, or tbat care of souls wbicb seemed bis one purpose of life. One day, wbcn tbey were togetber, some bad language reacbed tbem from some of tbe men. ** Do you not remonstrate witb tbem ?" said Mr. Mountain. " It would be of no use, wbile tbey are all togetber and excited." To wbicb be re- plied ; *' A word in season, bow good is it ?" And witb tbe cbaplain's consent be spoke to tbe men ; and tben, and frequently afterwards, wben be addressed tbem, tbey always received bim witb respect and marked attention, even tbose of tbem wbo, tbe cbaplain tbougbt, would scoff at any rebuke or advice. He added, ** tbat tbis puzzled bim at first, till it struck bim tbat it was Mr. Mountain's evident reality and earnestness, tbat procured for bim sucb ready respect and attention." A person wbo knew and loved Mr. Mountain ■^^ff'^i'iirmniiimimmii PLAN OF WOBK. 219 ' Lr. n well, says, ** that what always struck him as the most beautiful trait of character in his friend, was the keen humility which seemed instantly to reprove and melt the still faint, occasional risingri of what must once have been a lofty and fiery temperament, and to subdue which must have caused him long and painful struggled." The plan of work which Mr. Mountain pursued in his mission is thus described by himself. " When I was first appointed to this deanery (of Fortune Bay, extending from St. George's Bay to Point Ray), in the autumn of 1847, there were two deacons, both Missionaries of the S. F. G. : one at La Po^le, ninety miles distant from my own station at Harbour Briton ; and the other thirty miles nearer, at Burgeo, the largest settlement on the coast, numbering about 700 souls, all belong- ing to the Church of England. Besides these, there was one deacon-schoolmaster of the New- foundland School Society at St. George's Bay, the extreme point of the deanery; and another at Grole, twenty-four miles from Harbour Briton; and a third at Belleoram, about the same distance on the other side. " My own mission of Harbour Briton extended from Cape La Hume, to within twelve miles of Belleoram, a line of coast of about 150 miles, with forty settlements, at intervals of threo or four miles, consisting, for the most part, of four or five families each ; in some instances, of two or ihree ; in a few, of as many as eighteen or twenty. At- 220 , BEY. J. O. MOUNTAIN. Gaultois and Harbour Briton, besides the fisher- men's families, there was a merchant's establish- ment, each consisting of an agent and family, storekeepers, and other officers, and about 200 men. I found at once that it was quite impossible to visit these various settlements with any regularity, and at the same time keep up the services at my own station ; and it was the more important that the latter should not be intermitted, in order that the inhabitants of the neighbouring (settlements mig!* be induced to come up to Harbour Briton on Sundays; a practice in which they would hardly persevere if they were liable to disappoint- ment on their arrival. " It was to supply this deficiency that a subscrip- tion was set on foot by some kind and Chiistian friends in England to maintain a second Mission- ary ' who was accordingly appointed, and brought roui d by the Bishop in person, during my second year at Harbour Briton. With my hands thus strengthened, we entered on a regular plan of operations, by which one was always to be found at home, and the other engaged in a round of visits. This latter duty chiefly devolved on me, owing to the weak health of my colleague. A fortnight was generally sufficient to enable me to visit the settlements from Cape La Hume to Harbour Briton, and another fortnight completed the other half of the Mission ; and this occupied me during the greater part of the summer ; while, in the winter, I was confined more immediately to I .'■'^mt^'Mm- HIS VISITS AND THEIB BESULT. 221 }ion- ight lond ;hus L of and of e, A to to ;ed ed lie. to I Harbour Briton itself, or to shorter circuits in the neighbourhood. My usual course in visiting was to proceed to the nearest settlement, either by land or sea, according to the direction in which I was bound; and thence to the next, halting for one night at each place. On arriving, it was my custom to visit, if possible, each family, and to endeavour to instruct the children in their prayers and catechism, if they were not too rude and illiterate. In the evening, the old and young were assembled in the house where I lodged, usually the most commodious one in the place; when, after prayers and a sermon, the time was spent either in catechising the children, or in such discourse and directions as the people most needed or the occasion called for. " It is with a mixture of pain and pleasure that I look back upon iiiose visits — of pain, at the recol- lection of the utter ignorance' among the people in general of the ministerial office, of the nature of their own gifts and privileges, in a word, of the kingdom of Christ, either without or within them ; and of pleasure, at the change which God has wrought in these respects, not only, or chiefly, through my ministry, but through the labours of other faithful teachers and pioneers of the Gospel. When I first came among them, the people re- garded me in the same light as they had always been accustomed to regard the itinerant teachers who had occasionally visited or sojourned among them; that is to say, that I could ' read my book,' 222 BIY. J. O. MOUNTAIN. and was a fine 'scliolar/ and oould teaoh the children. Some had an indistinct idea, that, in some way or other, I was the proper person to perform baptisms and marriages, and other ordi- nances ; but, in general, there was a rooted idea that any one who could read was equally compe- tent. This amount of scholarship ipso facto quali- fied in their eyes any man for functions of the nature of which they had so very limited a com- prehension. Even up to the last year of my re- sidence, when I have remonstrated against their unlawful practice of lay-baptisms and marriages at the hand of any chance person, the ready answer has been, — ^ Why, Sir, the man was a Jine scholar ; he read the service as well as any parson !* ** It lay like a sad and heavy weight at heart, to go about from place to place, feeling that one was the commissioned merchant of a treasure beyond all price, ^hich no man oared for ; while, if I had been a trader in bales of goods and barrels of flour, all would have met me with an eager welcome. ** It must not be understood that there was a general unwillingness for instruction; for the ar- rival of a resident schoolmaster would have been hailed with delight; but there was everywhere an utter ignorance of the office and benefit of the ministry: and how could it be otherwise? In ^ome places, on my first arrival, I received from all as respectful a welcome as a priest of God could desire." ■■—\^" ■" ^^^^sri /"S-'T ■'"'^rStk'i .mi 1 , I 1 1 ! : To face page 233. VT*""^ MINIBTBATI0N8 AT PUSHTHBO*. 223 The following account of his method of instruc- tion, and of the effects produced by it in various settlements, is condensed from his own account, and given in his own words : — " At PusHTHRO*, I shall never forget the kindly eagerness with which I was received by one of the chief inhabit \nts, who in simple faith had ever opened his house to all who came in the Name of Christ, and felt himself honoured by their sojourn under his roof. He stood at his stage head when I landed, and received me with open heart and arms. The whole time of my stay his one thought seemed to be hov\r he might most promote my comfort, and minister to my wants. Nor was he unmindful of the better part ; his ear was open to hear what Christ might teach him by me. What his ear roceived, his heart pondered — a heart as tender and as true as any I have known in any rank of life, and in which I am glad to claim the place of a brother in affection, as well as of a minister in respect. This man was one of four brothers, each of them of the same sterling character as himself, and having great influence for good in their respective spheres. Two of them lived in the same settlement, composed of their own and two other families of the same worth. Here, too, I was from the first well re- ceived ; and I found so much simplicity, earnest- ness, and willingness to be instructed more perfectly in the way of God, that I was enabled, before a very long« period, to administer the Holy 224 BEY. J. G. MOUNTAIN. Communion to some of the more advanced among them. The number steadily increased, and before my departure every adult in the place had become a communicant, although even here they had pre- viously entertained a firm persuasion that that holy feast was not intended for * such as them/ and in other places it had not so much as been heard of. After a time, they began, at my insti- gation, to meet together on Sundays for Divine Service, the two brothers leading the rest of the congregation, and reading seimons supplied by me : the rest of the day was spent in catechising and instructing the children. Daily family prayer, private devotions in the morning as well as evening, became the rule in every family ; books were eagerly sought and read, the children and parer ts rapidly progressed. At each succeeding visit I had a class of children quite as intelligent as their equals in a good school at home. I look back on those hnppy homes and that band of children as my own ; friends with whom I have sojourned, as well as a flock whom I have taught. Those humble communions in their low-roofed house, with deal table, and benches for the rail, have as sweet a savour in my remembrance as many in the holy and consecrated shrines of dear and happy England. And these people were known by their fruits ; their nearest neighbours bore witness to their blameless life and conversation. It was from seeing their example that they were stirred up to emulate it. They heard no oaths or evil words /IMNMK' ,«*<** GOOD RESULTS. 225 among I before become lad pre- at that them/ BIS been ly insti- Divine t of the lied by schising prayer, svening, ks were parerts yisit I as their k back ildren filmed, Those house, ;vQ as in the [happy their less to was [ed up ords i from their lips on the fishing-ground ; they saw them patient under the 8r*me trials and disappoint- ments which daily provoked other men to wrath ; they saw them bearing one another's burdens, kindly aifectioned one to another; wives sub- mitting, husbaiids loving, children obeying; no sound of provocation or answering again, but the voice of joy in their dwellings ; all their works done in love; having salt in themselves, and having peace one with another. * I wish,' said a man of the neighbouring settlement, *tM could live as the'j do there,' * Well,' I said, * begin and try; you have the same means, the same grace will not be wanting.* They did try ; they, too, all became communicants, and, I trust, are striving to walk in the same way of life. This was more or less the case with four or five settlements on this shore ; and a feeling sprang up between pastor and people which could hardly have existed under ordinary circumstances. Sleeping under the same roof, and eating at the same board, seemed to unite us with the bands of a man and the cords of love, and to establish a feeling of communion and affinity. *' Beyond Pushthro' and Bonne Bay my visits were less frequent, and the fruits of means which at best were but very scanty and inadequate were of course less evident; and it need hardly be Stated that there were many discouragements, and too many tokens of indi£ference and dislike, barely concealed by the habitual self-possession of 226 BXY. J. G. MOITNTAIN. the people. Too often is the messenger of glad tidings regarded as an unwelcome intruder; his presence felt as a check and rebuke, his warnings and entreaties rather dreaded than desired, the precious gift he bears reckoned less than the trouble or cost of his passing yisit. ** The settlements a few miles beyond these were separated from the next by a long interval (fourteen miles), with the exception of one or two families in a wild and romantic creek ; then came three or four together, namely, N£W Habboub, Benoontre, Francois, Gape la Hume, in which there were a sufficient number of children and families to form one good-sized school and' congregation ; but, un- happily, they were as usual separated by two, three, and six miles of stormy sea, which is nearly the only mode of communication, that by land being so wild and precipitous that it would be out of the question for children to attempt it, and no very easy task for men. Here I frequently stayed for a week together, n^aking either Bencontre or Cape la Hume my head-quarters. There was much ground for encouragement and incentive to labour in every place; but the manners and ways of the people were strikingly different. In one place you will find them clean, tidy, thriving; houses neatly and substantially built, and a certain air of sobriety and self-respect about the people; the children a picture of delight, with their beautiful eyes, well-formed faces, soft flaxen hair. In another, close by, the very reverse of all this; i. **A MOTHBB IN ISSAKL.** 227 m,t ^is: houses, or rather hovels of studs, the creTioes gaping wide or filled with moss, the roof covered with rinds of trees and sod, the entrance obstructed by heaps of dirt, often nothing that deserved the name of a door, the aperture so low that one must stoop to enter, the interior without any furniture but a low table and a rough stool, scarcely raised three inches from the ground, the children, wretch- edly ragged and dirty, crouching round, or creep- ing into the smoky wood fire, an old sail and a few more studs forming the only partition between the kitchen and sleeping-room, if such terms can be applied to such miserable dens. ** I have seldom seen a more picturesque spot than Hencontbe, excepting a place of the same name in another part of Fortune Bay, which is even more beautiful. In the place of which I am now speaking, a deep bay of four or five miles runs in from the point of New Harbour, with magnificent headlands, and bold romantic caverns and rocks, with almost fathomless water close at their base. The main part of the little settlement is pleasantly situated on a sloping beach, on which the treasures of the deep, the countless swarms of cod, have been dried year after year,' since the father of the settlement, an old Jersey-, man, lately deceased, first established himself, and took possession of the place. . " "When I knew it first there were eight families, nearly all his children and gran'dchildren. His wife was a treasure to them as well as to him. ■^. ii 228 BKY. J. 0. MOUNTAIN. She was a woman of little or no education. When she was very young, her father was swallowed up in the ice, with all his crew, on a howling, wintry day, before the eyes of his shrieking wife and children, in a desolate creek where they lived alone. In those days there were no schools on the whole coast: she was reared by her widowed mother, without any opportunity of regular in- strc ction, yet she brought up her own children admirably ; their unusual deference and tenderness to her, when full-grown men, bore witness to her judicious training, and her practical good sense and piety pervaded the whole settlement. No- thing was done without her advice and counsel, and nothing seemed to prosper as well as when she was the doer of it. The only clergj'^man who had ever visited the place before my amval was Archdeacon Wix; and he, I believe, was here only once, and for a short time. A few passing visits from Methodist teachers were the only other advantages of this kind which they had ever enjoyed ; yet I have seldom witnessed a congrega- tion so orderly, and who joined in the service with so much devotion and earnestness. Of their own accord the *' maidens " used to range them- selves on one side of the house, and the men on the other, and only the Feast of the Lord was wanting to supply all our need. I never suc- ceeded in introducing it here. Though they were sorely tried and chastened, and I attended the mother of this Israel in her last moments, after OAULTOIS. 229 r tr !■ she bad seen more than one son and daughter cut off with fever, neither she herself nor her children ever received the bread of life at my bands. They hod a neat graveyard, but no school or a building for Divine service of any kind, though we had frequent projects and aspirations for both. The graveya til vas consecrated by the Bishop on the occasion « , /isit from him in the * Hawk,* never to be forgo :ten by any of us. . *'But I was not long left alone and single- handed in the work. My coadjutor, indeed, re- turned to England, after being with me between two and three years; but a faithful friend and fellow-labourer, who came out at the same time with me in the ' Hawk,' and had been placed at Grole as schoolmaster, was ordained deacon, and took a great part of this shore, t.e., from the Cape to Pushthro', as well as his own side of the Bay, under his immediate charge, while I still retained the chief superintendence and duty of occasional visiting. About the same time I received another gt'oat accession ; the same kind hand which organ- ized the fund for supplying me with an assistant Missionary sent out a schoolmaster, whom the Board of Education (of which I was chairman) employed. He was placed at Pushthro*, with a charge to visit and instruct the neighbouring settlements ; and well has he fulfilled his charge. These two have been true help-fellows to me. *• I must now turn to give some description of that part of the same Bay where Gaui^tois is 280 BEY. J. a. MOUNTAIN. 'i" situated, and of two or three settlements in its neighbourhood. "The English labourers, living in two large common rooms, and in most cases without domestic life, were imder great disadvantages ; and although the agent was ever most assiduous and attentive, and every preparation which the place allowed of was always made for Divine Service (generally in a large, clean sail loft), I could not but feel, that with the few visits I was able to make (still fewer when I was without a fellow-labourer), and the little consequent intercourse, there could be no very strong bond between pastor and people. " When I came for a Sunday, the a.m. service was well attended, the agent and clerks being most exemplary in this respect ; but in the after- noon the temptation to avail themselves of the only opportunity in the week of walking and paying visits was too strong for ^e greater part of my congregation, and they were encouraged in this laxity by my being obliged to divide my day (weather permitting) between them and one of the other settlements. Often I have set out, against my better judgment, to row four miles against a heavy wind and sea, rather than remain to see the empty sail loft, and the two or three * scattered ones,* like the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done, who appeared at the p.m. service. A stout boat and crew was always at my service, and a congregation of sixty or one hundred people waiting at Hermitage Cove ; and seldom / HABB0T7B BBITOV. 281 of liave I liad to put back, though once every thole- pin, and almott every oar, was broken by the straining tug against the rolling sea. Would that some of those men could know the thoughts of a Missionary towards them, and the deep feeling of regret and sadness that the coldness of his own countrymen caused, yet far more for their sakes than for his own I "At Harbour Briton, my place of residence, if the ignorance, in the first instance, was not so great, . neither was the improvement afterwards so mani- fest as in many other places. The greater part of the population being from England, there was, of course, a better understanding of the nature of the Church; and I found in the agent and storekeeper two stanch and well-a£fected members, who with their households were xmiformly consistent in serving the Lord, a comfort to their minister, and an example to all. This had its due effect on the clerks, and many others connected with the esta- blishment ; but I could never succeed in drawing the labouring men on the * Booms,' either to church, or to a night-school at my house. When I went among them, and warned and remonstrated with them, though some were inclined to listen, there was always one or more to scoff and jeer ; and the one sinner turned the tide, and made the rest ashamed of doing right. In proportion to my grief at this failure is my joy at hearing that my successor has overcome them, by actually esta- blishing the school in their own long room, an 282 BEY. J. O. MOUNTAIN. attempt which I should certainly have deemed impracticable, and I earnestly trust and pray that; it may he crowned with success. ** There was always much of interest in the two islands at the mouth of the Bay, Satona and Brunet. In the latter I succeeded in establishing a Government school soon after I came into the Mission ; and although the schoolmaster was not very efficient, yet the improvement in the children and people can hardly fail to be considerable, when the former are reclaimed from perfect wildness by the regular habits of school, and the latter have at least the services of the Church on Sundays, instead of every man doing that which is right in his own eyes, and following his own pleasure on that holy day. The school num^ bered nearly thirty scholars, a large nimiber in this country, where the settlements are so sadly scattered. Even in this one island there were /oMr diflferent spots inhabited, at the four quarters^ of the island, two of which only were near enough for the children to meet at school. *■ At Sayona the population was still larger, bul^ nearly a third were Boman Catholic ; and I could not persuade them to co-operate for the establish- ment of a school, although at one time I nearly succeeded in doing so. I left the frame of one erected and boarded in, but little hope, I fear, of its being completed. Many a sad and heavy day I have passed in this island; the people being more intractable and * resolute' than ordinary, -«3.*».««»a*^>««* iiilMHlHdll JOT S ihf. '-j8 ^^ though by no means without good ground to work upon : there was more than one instance here of men who had once been almost ready to turn and rend me, who were afterwards among the most attached and faithful of my flock. The settle- ments along the coast from Harbour Briton towards Belleoram were at each successive visit a source of renewed joy or grief, almost alter- nately. In one I found, as I trust and believe, the seed springing up in good soil, in due season to bring forth good fruit ; in another, it seemed indeed to have fallen on a rock, and the birds of the air to have carried it away, and this not always in proportion to the labour bestowed. " It was on one occasion a relief to walk from the larger settlement which I and others had frequently visited, and where there was a good school room, but, alas ! no schoolmaster for want of a house, to one where the few inhabitants, all of one family, had lately come from a distant part of the Bay, in another Mission, and who were almost unknown to me ; their clean dwellings and substantial stages (or fishing wharfs) bespoke their thrift and industry. Duly was I honoured, and kindly entertained, and counsel sought at my lips. Before retiring to rest, as I knew that nearly all. hands were only waiting for a fair wind to sail away in their boat for their fishery, I thought it, necessary to remind the father that I should require a crew the next morning to carry me on to the nearest harbour, and that he had better tell t—fc«^.*-tt> -.'■''•' 284 BKY. J. o. MouiniAiir. his boys of my wish over-night He replied very respectfully that he would not fiedl to provide a crew from his own sons in the morning, but that he never spoke to them on Sunday night about the next day's work, and they never thought of setting to work at anything without his word. This answer struck me the more as it is so very seldom that children are brought up in this country on any principle of obedience ; they are systematically indulged from infancy, and grow up in headstrong self-will. As soon as a boy is strong enough to work and become a fisherman, he assumes all the airs of a master, his mother and sisters wait upon him with eager assiduity, he is allowed to act on the evil principle of its being a gift whatsoever his parents may be profited by him (Mark vii. 11), and it is painful to see the consequent reversal of the natural order — the independence of the children, and the dependence of the parents. I have seen a youngster of fourteen, just in from fishing, look to his sister, his elder by at least ten years, and point in silence to a stool, which she promptly brought for him ; and fathers are not ashamed to urge, in excuse for sailing in their boats on Sunday, that they are not masters, — ^their sons wiU have it so. *' I was the more pleased and surprised by the evident order and discipline of this family; the manner of the young men was pleasing, and mingled respect with cheerful ease in a very unusual degree. When we came to the mouth of A OONTBABT. 235 I of the i I om ten ishe ot leir jir le le id the next harbour, we met a man coming out with a skiff loaded with yenison, which he had lately killed in the woods, and was goin^ to Harbour Briton to sell. I urged him to return with me only for a few hours, to avail himself of the oppor- tunity of prayers, which so seldom occurred. He replied carelessly that he could not wait, and my crew could scarcely repress their surprise and shame at his conduct. He was but too faithful a sample of those among whom he dwelt. Yet a few miles further, where the people enjoyed but the same scanty advantages (this was the extreme point of my personal Mission, that beyond it which I occasionally visited belonging to Belle- oram), my arrival was always a source of real and reciprocal pleasure. I found a class of children fairly instructed by one of the mothers, a true and humble Christian, the people always ready to a man in the evening for prayers, never weary of being instructed, and again at early dawn. I once here concluded prayers at ten at night, and began the next morning at four. •* A few miles further on occurred one of those peculiar contrasts which are sometimes seen in this country. ** In one place all spoke of thrift, intelligence, and comfort ; in the other, the wretchedness and filth are more easily conceived than described: yet the sources of comfort, the woods and sea, are equally open to all. They seemed, too, of quite different races — ^in one place the heads of &milieB 236 REV. J. G. IfOUNTAIK. were all the sons of one man, remarkably fine specimens of fishermen ; in the other, they were squalid, stunted, and ill-favoured. In neither of these places can I speak very highly of the spiritual improvement whilst I knew them. In the one place, the men, though a kind and warm- hearted race, all sought first *' after their own heart and their own eyes ;" but some among the women were much inclined to seek the better kingdom. Four of them on one occasion rowed to Harbour Briton to church (about twelve miles), without a man or boy to help them, and camo back the same evening through a pouring rain, and did not reach home until a late hour, and in such pitchy darkness that they could scarcely make out their own harbour. ** In the other place* extreme ignorance pre- cluded all hope of improvenient, without more permanent and regular instrc^^tion than I could give in passing visits. Each time I came the people sat round and repeated the Creed and Commandments after me, but there not being one among them who could read, all was forgotten, and on my return I had the same ground to go over again ; yet a little further on there was so ■much intelligence and willingness, that (although the people were evidently of the same stock as the last) even those who could not read rapidly learnt what was necessary for Confirmation ; and most of the children, in one family especially (bound to me in mutual affection), learnt to read fairly under 1 '■'^e most untain. obapel noble o, in a of the 3 work whose awing bearts or bis 3. m I- M '^U"