Ecclesiastical reminiscences of the United States ..

Front matter

LIBEARY

OF THE

Theological Seminary,

Contents

Chap. Page

I. — Passage, and First Impressions. — New York 1

II. — Long Island Sound, — Newport 7

Preface

The following sheets are intended to follow up the design of several recent works on the same subject ; the success of which, while it affords evidence of a growing interest amongst British Christians in whatever relates to the cause of catholicity in America, appears fully to warrant another contribution to the same subject.

The author has made no effort to shape and adapt his narrative to any established model in the same department of authorship ; nor is he prepared with any apology for the prominence which is given to himself — unavoidably in a journal embracing travels and scenes in public and domestic life, in the latter of which, it will be observed, he only appears as a " Spectator."

That he has spoken favourably of the Americans as a people, arises from his long and intimate acquaintance with them ; during which he has associated with almost every class in that community. He cannot lend himself to a falsehood to make his book sell ; though it has to be proved whether defa-

PREFACE.

mation or grotesque caricature, applied to the people of a country, whose glory and greatness are our own, furnish the only staple commodities in this department of authorship. The Americans, as a race of people, inherit most of the good, and are free from many of the bad qualities which distinguish the nation whence they have sprung ; nor has the free intermixture of continental blood effected any deterioration in their mental or physical qualities. The defects of character (arising solely from education) which distinguish a portion of them before the world, and the exhibitions of popular license which the country occasionally presents, originate in a combination of religious and political influences, in which the former has decidedly the largest share ; as in the following pages is attempted to be shown. The picture they present is drawn, however, with far less depth of shade than many which others, belonging to a different religious communion from the author, have given before him. It is, indeed, unnecessary to go any further than to the testimony of the public teachers, and the printed organs attached to the more respectable protestant sects in America, in confirmation of its accuracy of colouring ; as well as of the utter inefficiency of any existing institution, formed by the " union" of sectarian influence and action, to grapple with the augmenting evils — social and political — now threatening that land. It is in this view that the Church Catholic, growing up so strong amidst surrounding strife and disunion,

PREFACE. xi possesses an increased interest to the Christian philanthropist of the mother-country, to whom every stage of its progress, and particulars — perhaps, in themselves unimportant as matters of record — cannot fail of possessing some degree of interest. This consideration (added to the other, that persons and scenes are brought forward in these pages as yet but little known to a large class of English readers) has weighed with the author in yielding to those impulses which an interesting ecclesiastical relationship, in a land where he was politically an alien, naturally produced, whilst as he penned these chapters, the memory recalled seasons of Christian intercourse never to be forgotten, and hallowed by many tender and sacred associations. It was in this relationship that the author first understood, in its full meaning, the reality of that catholic bond of union which — as intended by its Divine originator — breaks down and utterly annihilates the lines of national prejudice. Viewed, therefore, in this light —as a familiar narrative of a religious and social connexion with that branch of the one family of the faithful which has spread out into a great American country from the larger growth in this, and which already numbers two millions of members, under twenty-eight bishops and thirteen hundred inferior clergy — no apology is necessary for any minuteness of detail which may contribute to familiarize the reader with every part of the picture here sketched. To catholic readers, nothing relating

Xll PREFACE.

to their fellow-catholics of the United States can be altogether uninteresting ; and it is for catholic readers that this book is written.

These pages are also intended to demonstrate — if further historical demonstration be necessary — the Divine character of that glorious institution of episcopacy, which is the inseparable note and mark of the Church Universal in all its true branches, whereever their blessed shade is afforded to the members of the human family. This, the wonderful success attending the early, and, more especially, the later efforts of those who have been labouring under the banner of Apostolic Order in the Western Continent ; and the remarkable manner in which the ark which they guide (under the pilotage of her Divine Captain) has been saved from those fearful storms which have shattered, or greatly impaired, every other vessel around her, sufficiently prove to the eye of faith.

May we not also hope that amongst all classes and creeds belonging to the two nations of a common ancestry, whose interests and (it is to be earnestly desired) whose destiny is the same, the age of petty rivalry, for its own sake, is passing away 7 " The rankling ill-will, and mutual backbitings," that Regina justly " deplores, even more than the prospect of open hostilities," is now almost confined to the lowest class of writers and politicians in either country. The vulgar brawlers of an electioneering party in the lower house of Congress are no more the exponents of the substantial class of citizens in

PREFACE. Xiil

one country, than are the ultra-radical faction in the House of Commons representatives of the intelligence and virtue of the middle and higher ranks in Britain. Let this be mutually understood, and nothing will be wanting to complete a good understanding between the intelligent classes of the two countries.

Regina is also correct in affirming — what the author's own experience has satisfactorily proved to him — that even amongst the demagogue political capitalists, the arrogance and conceit which is erroneously charged upon the whole nation is, in fact, only a " defensive" weapon, resulting from the contempt which it was fashionable for English writers and public speakers to express for America and her institutions long after the war which made her independent of the mother country. Nothing can be truer than the assertion of this sagacious writer : — " Their bragging and blustering is superficial ; in their heart of hearts every Yankee loves and reveres old England. They yearn towards their fatherland, which they still, in unguarded moments, call ' home,' with an affection which needs but little encouragement to become decided enthusiasm ! The sovereign of these realms is still by them emphatically styled ' the queen,' as if no other female in the world wore the crown."

Need anything more be added to show the unnatural, and it may be added, the unnecessary alternative of a war with such a country ?

XIV PREFACE.

The people of the United States — the author's experience and intimate knowledge of them enable him to affirm it— those who form the mind of the nation, and who, it is hoped, will yet recover their legitimate control over the action of the country — are ready and desirous to join issue with us in securing a lasting alliance, and in all the schemes for more enlarged benevolence to which such alliance must naturally lead. Despite their "defensive" egotism, the Americans are fully alive to the fact of British superiority, both in physical power and the higher achievements of art and learning ; claiming only equality of mental and intellectual greatness, the natural ingenuity and skill which has descended to them, and which they have undoubtedly improved, and the commercial enterprize which distinguishes both nations alike, above all others on the globe. Amongst the members of the episcopal communion this sentiment is universal ; extending to a profound deference to England on all points relative to dogmatic theology and Church polity. England, as the land of the mother church, whose " long continuance of nursing care" gave their own a firm footing in the northern continent of the New World, is regarded with feelings of reverence and love by every Churchman : it therefore remains with the English nation, and especially the members of our national Church, to reciprocate a feeling based on such high and catholic grounds, in the spirit of the noble sentiment which forms (appropriately) the

PREFACE.

motto to this volume, and in the assurance — a wellfounded one, as the author's observation fully convinces him that " the surest fledge of perpetual peace between the two countries is to be found in their community of faith and the closeness of their ecclesiastical intercourse."

Queen Square, Westminster.

Feast of St. Matthew, 1845.

ECCLESIASTICAL

REMINISCENCES

Chapter I. Passage, And First Impressions.— New York

I sailed from Bristol on the 25th of April, 1831, in the ship " Copia," a Newburyport merchantman, on its homeward course from Java. The vessel was making- its first voyage ; and being found, from its peculiar form, and the faulty construction of its deck, unfit for distant voyages, was condemned on its return to America, for foreign trade, and afterwards employed by its owners as a coaster. Owing to this circumstance the passage was long and dangerous, attended by great discomfort to the passengers (four in number with myself) who were driven from the cabin by the leaking of the deck in that part of the vessel, to the larger berths of the almost empty steerage. The constant leaking in the ship's bottom also obliged every passenger to assist frequently at the pumps, and kept the more timid on board in a constant state of apprehension for worse consequences.

These were serious drawbacks from the comfort of the passage, and made me repeatedly regret having given the merchantman the preference to a Liverpool packet, which I had been led to do as a saving of one half the expense.

Z ECCLESIASTICAL REMINISCENCES.

The Newburyport captain asked twenty pounds for the passage, and the charge by the regular packets was then thirty-five guineas ; the journey from Bath (where I took leave of my relatives) to Liverpool, making the whole expense by the latter more than double. Our captain did all in his power to lighten our difficulties. He was a man of some intelligence, and strictly moral in his deportment ; indeed, the whole crew afforded a better example of steady conduct than I have since observed on the Atlantic in five succeeding passages. Not an oath was heard between the two ports, nor any exhibition of drunkenness or insubordination. It was the captain's custom to call the sailors together for prayers twice every Sunday, and every evening that the weather permitted ; and their exemplary behaviour was doubtless the effect of this custom, and his own excellent example.

The other cabin passengers were an elderly gentleman from Somerset, on his way to Toronto in Canada, accompanied by his son, an interesting youth in his fifteenth year, and a medical relative, bound to the same place. On the 10th of June we reached New York.

The first appearance of this city as approached from the sea, after passing the Narrows, is unquestionably, one of the most picturesque that can be imagined. This arises more from its situation in the most beautiful bay in the world, than from any prominence of architectural elegance in the city itself ; indeed, when the ship neared the wooden and poorly constructed wharfs, and I saw nothing but staring red unsubstantial looking warehouses overlooking them, I experienced a sensation, which I am persuaded every Englishman partakes on his first arrival at this port, of positive disappointment. Nor do I wonder at the admiration expressed by an American traveller* on landing at Liverpool at " the perfection, the beauty, and the magnificence * The Rev. Calvin Colton. " Four Years in Great Britain," pp, 21.

NEW YORK.

of the masonry constituting the quays, docks and basins, contrasted with the wooden, feeble, and perishable docks and wharfs" of his own country.

It should be remembered, however, that New York, though pretty ancient, has not had the benefit of a municipal government long enough to compete in every particular with London or Liverpool ; though the changes I have myself witnessed during the past ten years afford a good earnest of what may be expected. Doubtless, within that same period the preference for stone to any less perishable material, which is showing itself in the public buildings and churches of America, will extend itself to the wharfs and quays of the Trans-atlantic seaports.

Our luggage was soon examined by the Custom House officers, who were as polite and accommodating as could be wished, and conveyed to a hotel near the steam-boat wharf, whence my Canada bound friends designed embarking for Albany the same day. Here we breakfasted with an excellent appetite; of which, indeed, the quantity and variety of the viands were a sufficient provocative. Leaving our hotel for a stroll through the principal streets of the city, we shortly entered Broadway, which may be called its backbone. Here I soon found my first impressions giving way before those of admiration and surprise as we pursued our way up this noble thoroughfare. About two-thirds of its length is lined with shops, many of which vie with the largest establishments in Fleet Street or Holborn, though inferior in size and outward splendour to the shops of the west end. The rest of Broadway consists of private residences ; several of which, as well as numerous houses in the north, or court end of the town, through which it passes, are elegant and sumptuous dwellings. The streets in this quarter are well built, and present an air of great neatness and cleanliness.

If, however, I should express my first impressions of the general aspect of the streets in the business part of New York for pedestrian purposes, (and my last too) it might look, and would be pronounced by Americans, New Yorkers especially, as ill-natured and exaggerated. I therefore, prefer presenting the life drawn picture given by the editor of the New York " Commercial Advertiser," a daily paper of high character, and the article written long since the period to which this chapter refers.

" There is a great difference between New York and London, in the regulation of side walks for pedestrians, The difference appears to be decidedly in favour of London, as people can manage to get along the pavements of that city. How much more noble and democratic is the practice in New York. Here, the side walks are put to their true uses. Wheel-wrights crowd upon them the damaged carts and waggons which they mean to repair at their leisure j vendors of oranges, pine-apples, cherries, stale fish and the like, spread out their stalls upon them ; the boys ' slosh* them with water, from the hydrants, private and public ; grocers pile up their empty barrels all over them, six deep and three high ; stable keepers hitch their horses along them to undergo the pleasing process of currying, and the ladies get by as well as they can. All this is delightful to the philanthropic mind, and reflects infinite credit upon the municipal government."

We passed some churches in the course of our perambulations. St. Paul's in Broadway, and St. John's in the square of that name, claimed at this time the first notice on the score of architectural merit ; but they are now eclipsed by the superior grandeur of Trinity, which has been five years in progress ; and will be, when completed, the most important ecclesiastical building in the United States.*

* See Appendix No. 1.

BROOKLYN. 5

As I had not at this time an introduction to a single person in this wide city, I only remained another day after seeing my fellow passengers off. We parted with mutual expressions of good will, and protestations of friendship, which the companionship of seven weeks on the ocean is well calculated to engender. I have rarely felt such keen regret, as on the occasion of this sudden and final separation from friends in a foreign land, where everything was new and strange. For the first tune was I fully conscious of my situation, and felt in a manner which the untravelled reader can but faintly conceive, the distance of home — the thousand leagues of ocean that separated me from England. Returning to the hotel, I found little appetite for the meal which was spread, nor could any object or occupation shake off the excessive weight of gloom which pressed on my spirits at the close of this, my first day in America.

I employed the next morning in a visit to Brooklyn. The view from the heights is the finest in the neighbourhood ; indeed, I have never seen anything, excepting Kattskill and London from Greenwich, which equals it. It takes in the entire Bay, covered with vessels of every size and nation ; promontories, batteries, and the city itself lying at your feet, completing a coup cPceil of surpassing beauty. Wordsworth's picture of the latter came in a moment to my recollection, as with the alteration of a single word, equally descriptive of the prospect spread out before me : —

" Earth has not anything to show more fair, Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty.

The city now doth like a garment wear, The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and churches lie Open unto the sea, and to the sky, All light and glittering in the smokeless air,

ECCLESIASTICAL REMINISCENCES.

Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill. Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep, The river glideth at his own sweet will, Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep, And all the mighty heart is lying still."

Chapter II. Long Island Sound. — Newport

The steam-boals which ply on the American waters have been so often described, that I will only record the important fact that the one which conveyed me from New York to Newport, belonged to the largest and most complete of the class. After tea the passengers formed in groups round the ladies' cabin, or promenaded the spacious deck. Having secured a berth I remained above till near midnight, when descending to the saloon I found the supper tables removed, and all excepting a whist party retired to their separate berths. I regretted afterwards that I had not addressed myself to my couch earlier, as the summons to the " passengers for Newport to get their baggage ready" broke on my ear when most inadequately recruited by scarce four hours rest. But Newport now stands out to view, and in a few moments more thirty or forty of us are landed at the wharf, and the huge boat ploughs her wray onward towards Providence. We have passed through Long Island Sound and ninety miles of the open Atlantic, and are about one-third of the distance up Nanagatisett Bay.

The hotel which received our party (all but myself being southern visitors to this favourite watering place) was one of the most comfortable I have put up at in the United States ; and the civility of the servants more marked, both at the inn, and in the families of Newport, than I found elsewhere in the northern States. Indeed4 Newport and its precincts may be considered the Paradise of Englishmen, which is accounted for by the English origin of nearly all its citizens, some of whose pedigree ascends to the best parent stock of the mother country. I soon found cordial welcomes, and warm-hearted friends : and received on this, my first arrival, impressions which subsequent visits only helped to establish. There is nothing wanting in the society of Newport, that would be expected in the most refined circle of a fashionable English watering place.

The church was one of the first objects which attracted my notice. It occupies a central position, and is graced with a well proportioned spire. Dr. Wheaton was at this time the rector. He had filled the incumbency twenty-three years. At a subsequent period of my residence in America I was admitted to a very near and advantageous friendship with this worthy man, who is now deceased. Zion Church (in which I afterwards received ordination) was not at this time completed. It is about the same size as Trinity, and occupies a fine open site in the west end of the town. The Rev. John West, the first rector of this parish, holds a high place among the New England clergy. He is a good Hebrew scholar, and well versed in oriental literature ; he has since been transferred to the larger parish of St. John's, Bangor, in Maine ; of which (newly formed) diocese he is the most eligible candidate for the office of bishop ; a post for which Bishop Griswold always designed him.

Newport possesses more interest to the churchman than any other spot in the United States — next to Jamestown in Virginia — as having been the place of residence and scene of the labours of Bishop Berkeley, an honored name in the early history of the Rhode Island Church. When Dean of Derry, in Ireland, he conceived the project of founding a university in America, and with this veiw, as well as of forwarding the general interests of the American Church, he

BISHOP BERKELEY. 9

obtained from Sir Robert Walpole, George the First's minister, a promised grant of twenty thousand pounds, and removed to Rhode Island in September, 1728. " Here," writes Bishop Wilberforce, " he awaited the payment of the £20,000 endowment of his college. But a secrect influence at home was thwarting his efforts. His friends, in vain, importuned the minister in his behalf, and equally fruitless were his own earnest representations. The promised grant was diverted to other objects. With the vigour of a healthy mind he was. labouring in his sacred calling amongst the inhabitants of Rhode Island, making provision for his future college, and serving God with thankfulness for the blessings he possessed. ' I live here,' he says, ' upon land that I have purchased, and in a farm house that I have built in this island. * * * Amongst my delays and disappointments, I thank God I have two domestic comforts, my wife and my little son ; he is a great joy to us, we are such fools as to think him the most perfect thing in its kind that we ever saw.' For three years he patiently awaited the means of accomplishing his purpose ; until Bishop Gibson extracted from Sir Robert Walpole a reply which brought him home. ' If,' said he, ' you put this question to me as a minister, I must assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a friend, whether Dr. Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of £20,000, 1 advise him by all means to return to Europe, and to give up his present expectations.' "*

Thus disappointed, Dr. Berkely returned, and the wretched minister who had deceived him, continued till his retirement from office deaf to all appeals on behalf of the Church in the colonies or any where else ! — The feeling of the English people at this time was also too " protestant," and

* Wilberforce's History of the American Church, pp. 155.

the clergy too thoroughly Erastian to feel much sympathy for the distant members of the Church who constantly sent home earnest appeals for a colonial episcopate. Lulled in the arms of worldly selfishness, no efforts of Berkeley, assisted by Bishops Butler, Sherlock and Gibson, proved effectual in rousing either to an effort for their American brethren. The thing was a " novelty, — •" an " innovation" on the " old" mode. They doubtless regarded the proposition for supplying North America with an independant episcopate as a " popish" scheme— for look ! in South America the Spanish Church had erected (under a patriarch and six archbishops) thirty-two sees all filled.*

Bishop Berkeley died in 1773. He had left an extensive library in Rhode Island, the remains of which still exist. A handsome tablet to his memory is placed in Trinity Church. I shall never forget that I preached my second sermon in his pulpit.

Newport was one of the ports in the possession of the British during a great part of the Revolutionary War ; at the termination of which, though the population had diminished, it was incorporated as a " city." The beauty of the waters of the Narragansett Bay on which the island stands, and which is overlooked at Newport, is well known. The citizens are hyperbolical in their terms of admiration of the fine bay before their town ; but its " superiority to the Bay of Naples, or any other in the world" asserted by a native writer must be decided by those who, unlike the author, have had the opportunity of making the comparison. Combining the advantages of a sufficient depth of water for the largest ships, free access from the ocean, and — notwith-

* In Queen Anne's reign the interests of the Church were better understood. That admirable and pious Queen favoured a plan for founding four bishopricks in America; two for the continent, and two for the islands; but her death put a stop to its accomplishment.

NEWPORT. 11

standing its size, large enough for whole fleets — of being well land locked by Cananicut Island, it is certainly superior as a harbour to any other on the Eastern coast of America.

Congress has wisely established a navy yard here ; and government workmen have long been engaged in building extensive forts for the defence of the harbour. The occupancy of Newport by an enemy would not now prove so easy a matter as in 1776 !

Chapter III. New Bedford

I left the hospitable roof of Captain , on one of the

warmest days in June, for a visit to New Bedford in the neighbouring state of Massachusetts. The first part of the road lay through the fertile island of Rhode, which forms, however, an inconsiderable portion of the state so called. Two miles brought us to the village of Middletown, like every part of this island, very English in its aspect. At Portsmouth, four miles further on, a stone bridge crosses the strait (about a thousand feet in width at this point) to the main land. The face of the country was now changed for a stony sandy soil, which appearance continued nearly till the coach reached New Bedford, where we found dinner prepared for us at a comfortable hotel in the principal street of the town, to which we did ample justice.

New Bedford deserves a fuller notice than the plan of my notes will allow, or than it has yet received from any English tourist. It is altogether one of the handsomest built, and in point both of its fine situation, and the superior character of its society, one of the most attractive towns in the United States.

Blizzard's Bay, which indents Massachusetts from the south for about thirty-five miles, is remarkable for receiving no river properly so called. New Bedford, situated near the mouth of a cove or estuary called Acushnet River, is the entrepot of this bay. The whale oil business has brought

NEW BEDFORD. 13

a great deal of wealth to this place, which is seen in the style of many of the private residences, which, from the position of the town on a bank declining to the water's edge, appear to great advantage from the river's surface, or the opposite bank, where another town of about a third of the size stands, called Fairhaven. The wealthy citizens of New Bedford manifest much taste in their dwellings, which are generally surrounded by spacious gardens, with conservatories, shrubberies, etc.

The morning after my arrival at New Bedford, being Sunday, I worshipped in the congregational meeting house* The " congregationalists" answer in their views of church government and doctrine to the ': independents"' amon* the dissenters in England ; who regard the independency of each congregation of Christians as the correct apostolic model ; and being Calvinists, differ only from the " particular baptists" in the matters of infant baptism and open communion. As Massachusetts, which formerly included New Hampshire and Maine, was first colonized by the puritans, who were the progenitors of the congregationalists, this denomination numbers, as might be expected, many of the most respectable families and individuals in that section of the country, and the ministers are proportionably well educated.

The Rev. James A. Roberts, the pastor of the congregation, who preached on this occasion, was a fluent speaker. I heard him again in the evening when, in the dpurse of an extempore discourse, he showed greater powers than the morning's sermon had brought to view. The style was characterised by vigour of thought, united to great liveliness of fancy, and a good share of elocution.

There was no church under episcopal control erected at the time of my first visit to New Bedford. The baptist, congregationalist, and unitarian, with the quakers, methodists, and a small company of Romanists, embracing all the church going portion of the town. Mr. Bent, a presbyter of the diocess, was, however, holding regular services in a hired chapel lately vacated by a baptist society, to a feeble number. Through the praiseworthy exertions of that gentleman the number of converts to apostolic order soon became pretty numerous ; and a fine gothic church of ample dimensions in the principal street is now regularly filled with a serious and devout body of worshippers.