History of the American Episcopal church

Front matter

Pass Jja y Book JJ3

By S. D. McCONNELL, D.D.

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Seventh Edition, Enlarged. 8vo, Cloth . . $2.00

Part First. The English Church In The Colonies

I. THE STAGE 5

The Indians; ownership of the soil; occasion of the immigration ; the Spanish Peace; the Act of Uniformity ; its effect to destroy the national quality of the Church.

II. THE VIRGINIANS 14

Raleigh's Colony; Gorges' Colony; the Virginia Company; the first Church; English interest in Colonial ventures; Indian Missions; Pocahontas; first representative Assembly ; laws concerning Religion ; spirit of the laws ; relaxation of manners.

III. THE PURITANS 26

Religious parties in England ; not unequal division ; the Churchmen's theory; the "Pilgrims"; the Salem Colony; Puritan theory and practice; the Puritan temper; the Puritan laws; planting the Church; John Morton; the Brown brothers; the Rev. William Blaxton; Churchmen in Massachusetts; withdrawal of the Charter ; the Church and the Government ; parish organized in Boston; Governor Andros; the Old South; King's Chapel; the quarrel ended.

IV. THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 48

Lord Baltimore; the Maryland Colony; Romanists and religious liberty ; persecution by them impossible ; slow growth of the colony; "bad Catholics"; revocation of the Charter; unworthy Clergy; the situation in 1770.

V. THE DUTCH 59

Seeking the East Indies; ecclesiastical position of the Dutch ; the Dutch as settlers ; religious toleration ; coming of the English ; Church establishment; plan for the Episcopate ; Trinity Church.

X CONTENTS.

VI. THE SOUTH RIVER 69

The Swedes ; their absorption by the English ; George Fox; Quakerism; extravagance and repression; persecution; Quakers in New Jersey; William Penn; Penn's Colony; Quakers coming to the Church; George Keith; first Pennsylvania Church; increase and spread.

VII. THE CAROLINAS 82

Indians and "Welsh; the "noble" Colony; religious condition ; Church establishment.

VIII. A GENERAL SURVEY 86

The year 1700; Services; use of the Prayer Book; social status of the Clergy; Clerical manners; effect of Puritanism upon the Ministerial office ; conflict with the Vestries; effect of government support; the Church in New England; in the Middle Colonies.

IX. THE ''VENERABLE SOCIETY" 96

Dr. Bray ; his report upon the Church in the Colonies ; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; instructions to Missionaries; Keith and Talbot; conciliating Dissenters; building churches; work of the Missionaries.

X. THE COMMISSARIES: MARYLAND . . . .105 Dr. Bray; the Maryland establishment; attempt to reform manners; the Clergy vs. the people; hostile legislation ; growth of other churches.

XL THE COMMISSARIES: VIRGINIA 112

William and Mary College ; opposition to the College ; the College and the Church; decline of discipline; attempt at reform ; devoted men in the Church ; growing spirit of Americanism; the " Parsons' Cause " ; Patrick Henry ; the results.

XII. THE NEW ENGLAND CONVERTS . . . .127 President Cutler; the question of Orders; the attraction of the Church ; President and Professors of Yale enter the Church; Puritan opposition; accessions; Dean Berkeley.

XIII. THE "GREAT AWAKENING" 136

Jonathan Edwards; the "Revival" at Northampton; Edwards's theory of "conversion"; "bodily exercises"; spread of the movement; the "jerks"; meets Whitefield ; attitude of Churchmen ; the reaction ; effect upon American religion; the Church's position; how affected by the movement.

CONTENTS, xi

XIV. THE GERMANS 147

First German immigration; the "Pennsylvania Dutch"; religious character and condition; the Moravians ; their influence on Whitefield; intractable material for the Church.

XV. THE SCOTCH-IRISH 153

England and Scotland at the Reformation ; Calvinism and Presbyterianisin ; Presbytery and Episcopacy ; Episcopal rigor ; emigration to Ireland; emigration to the United States ; hostility to the Church ; a cordon around her; influence upon the Church.

XVI. THE METHODISTS 160

The first American sect ; its origin ; Methodists the first "Ritualists"; the Wesleys in Georgia; Wesley as a parish priest; Wesley and the Moravians; Wesley's " conversion "; desperate state of Religion in England ; the Methodist purpose; Whitefield the preacher and Wesley the organizer; Methodism comes to America; still within the Church ; the Methodist " Bishops "; the loss by separation.

XVII. THE EPISCOPATE 173

Two theories of the Church; disadvantage of the Church's theory in the Colonies ; Ordination and Discipline ; early efforts for the Episcopate ; the need of it patent; great opportunities lost; the " S. P. G.'s" plan; the Pennsylvania plan; reasons of the failure; current conception of the Episcopal office ; Colonial opposition; early thought of separation ; legal status of the Colonies ; opposition not unreasonable; John Adams's opinion; not possible till after the Revolution ; idea of an " Independent Episcopal Church"; Dr. White's plan; the popular judgment.

XVIII. A SURVEY 190

Spread of the Church in Connecticut ; in New York ; in New Jersey and Pennsylvania ; in the South ; Indian Missions; sources of gain; lack of Clergy; state of Religion ; influence of Franklin ; coarseness of the age ; social distinctions; Services; Architecture; Confirmation ; Clerical support.

XIX. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . . . .202

The inevitable conflict; equal division of parties; exodus of Tories; lay Churchmen's position ; position of the Clergy; "patriot" Clergy; "loyalist" Clergy; sufferings of the Clergy; desolation of the Church.

xil CONTENTS.

Part Second. The Protestant Episcopal Church In The United States

I. GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS . . . .215 The confusion ; treatment of the Tories ; popular opinion about the Church ; three motives in reorganization ; the Southern attempt; the Church named; organization in Maryland and Virginia; relation of Church and State settled.

II. THE NEW ENGLAND PLAN 223

New England Churchmanship ; distrust of loose views ; first Connecticut Convention ; political obstacles ; choosing a Bishop; the programme; the sentiment in England; English Bishops' reluctance ; the Scotch and New England Churches; the Nonjurors; the first Bishop.

III. THE FEDERAL IDEA 238

Colonial school of statesmanship; Rev. Dr. White; the Conference at New Brunswick ; fundamental principles ; Constitutional Convention; two proposed policies; State and Church Constitutions; laymen in Church Councils; revising the Prayer Book; the " Proposed Book"; Fourth of July Service; anti-dogmatic spirit; Unitarianism ; the Episcopate; Address to the English Bishops; the Bishops' reply ; Bishops chosen.

IV. THE TWO EPISCOPACIES 254

Two Episcopal Churches; obstacles to union; plans to perpetuate the separation ; striving for union; Dr. Parker's scheme ; Convention of 1789 ; Bishop White and the English succession; adjusting difficulties; Bishop Seabury's Toryism; adopting a Liturgy: modifying the Constitution; consolidation.

V. STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT 264

The experiment revolutionary ; government by Convention; relation of the three orders; powers of a Bishop; right of Visitation ; encroachment of Standing Committee ; powers of the House of Bishops increased ; discipline of the Laity; control of the Liturgy; Uniformity; Hymns; power of General Convention ; State autonomy ; its gradual abandonment; The Thirty-nine Articles; their origin; their obligation.

CONTENTS. Xili

VI. FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW 277

Old men and new times; a dark epoch; French infidelity; position of the Church; Confirmation; slack administration; troubles in New York; election of Hobart; the question of wigs; condition in the South; low estate in Virginia; Meade ordained; situation in New England; Bishop Seabury's manner ; Dr. Coke's proposition ; Methodists gone beyond recall; dawning of better days ; new men at work ; representative men; beginning of Sunday-schools ; state of the Church in 1820.

VII. WAITING FOR VOLUNTEERS 297

The national Church passive; pioneer Churchmen ; religion in the backwoods; first thought of Missions; two streams of emigration; Bishop Chase; in New Orleans; pioneer missionary in Ohio; the frontier Bishop; Kenyon College; the Church in Kentucky; Bishop Otey; the Church in Tennessee ; new departure in 1835.

VIII. NEW SPIRITUAL FORCES 311

Meagre spiritual life ; the Evangelicals ; their differentiate ; conscious experiences ; Simeon's Confessions; their conception of the Church; Low Churchmen ; their achievements ; cause of their decline ; Thomas Scott ; their leaders in America; High Church revival; the two parties; division of labor; advance of Churchmanship ; following the emigration; two Ideals.

IX. THE CATHOLIC RENAISSANCE 324

Emergence of Church Idea; trial of Bishops; agencies at work ; increasing activity; change of manners; corporate religion; the "Oxford Movement"; the "Tractarians"; the Via Media; Newman's purpose; the Via Media in America; American Churchmen ; Anglo-Catholics; a time of strife; perverts and converts; good and evil of the Movement.

X. A PLACE WHERE TWO WAYS MEET . . .342

Falling behind the population; a Church or a Sect; the Memorial; emancipation of the Episcopate; loosening of Rubrics; revival of the Diaconate; Church Unity; divers opinions; a true bill found; a fatal choice; spirit of General Convention ; progress in a narrow path ; the Church in California ; the Church in Oregon ; muttering of coming war.

XIV CONTENTS.

XL IN WAR TIME 360

Division of Churches upon the question of Slavery ; political division furthered thereby; Episcopal Church not divided ; general sentiment in the Church ; the Church faulted ; mutual understanding ; Southern Bishops oppose secession ; Southern idea of the Church and the States ; Secession ; the Church and the Union ; the Church in the Confederacy ; conflict with Federal authorities ; General Butler as a Canonist ; fall of the Confederate Church,

XII. THE REUNITED CHURCH 374

Moving toward union ; obstacles in the way ; Arkansas; Bishop Wilmer ; Bishop Polk ; General Convention of 1865; reunion imperilled; Mr. Horace Binney's resolution ; Dr. Kerfoot's plea ; reunion ; disbandment of the Confederate Church ; religious effects of the war ; new forces and new problems ; task of the present generation.

XIII. DOCTRINE AND CEREMONIAL 382

The worth of ritual ; the Church idea ; civic ritual ; the ritualists' contention ; Bishop Hopkins's book; the Bishops' Declaration ; the Ritual Commission ; things forbidden ; Dr. De Koven's challenge ; the Church's comprehensiveness ; the end of controversy.

XIV. PEACE WITH HONOR 395

Evangelical perplexity ; Bishops' declaration on regeneration ; the idea of secession; "Reformed Episcopalians."

XV. PRAYER-BOOK REVISION 402

" The Prayer-Book as it is ; " separation of offices; the science of liturgies ; revision begun ; the Book Annexed.

XVI. THE CHURCH SEEKING FELLOWSHIP . . .410

Looking to the East ; Italian reform ; Mexico ; contradictory reports from Mexico ; Mexican commission appointed ; consecration of Bishop Riley ; the Church unity movement ; the Quadrilateral.

XVII. THE NET RESULT 428

Introduction

For many years I had it in my mind to attempt a History of American Christianity. It has been frequently noticed that the Christianity of America possesses characteristics of its own. It is not only different in many regards from that which subsisted in Europe at the time of the settlement of the colonies ; but it is different from that which subsists in any other portion of Christendom now. Christianity here wears a garment of American weaving and American adornment. The religious history of the country is quite as striking as its political ; it has had as many and as marked epochs ; the influences which have shaped it have to be sought for in more numerous and more diverse sources ; and those influences are more actively at work now than are those which produce political changes.

With this fact in view I thought to trace the stream of religious life in the United States to its many and various sources, to estimate the relative size and importance of the affluents which have colored it, and maybe to forecast its future course.

I found the project to be so difficult that I abandoned it. Contemporary history is the least valuable of all

XVI INTRODUCTION.

kinds. The relative importance of events and persons cannot be fairly estimated till time has tested them and shown which is great and which is small. The coherence of the facts in the religious history of our land cannot yet be seen. The facts themselves are abundant to embarrassment ; but they cannot yet be strung upon any single thread which I have been able to discover. In the political history of the country the unifying fact is the gradual coalescence of a number of independent and rival political organizations into one great whole, bound together by their common interest in a constitutionally regulated liberty.

But alas ! the ecclesiastical history of the . United States has lagged a whole century behind its political. Free and independent churches are coincident in date with free and independent colonies. In the State the movement toward unity set in a hundred years ago ; in the Church it is only beginning to show itself. The Church has been content for most of this time with Mexican anarchy. It had been excused or justified by precisely the same arguments which were used in the colonies against the adoption of the federal Constitution: "Liberty is best secured hj allowing each to work in its own way ; the danger of attack from without is so remote and unlikely that it need not be considered ; the original charters of each are inalienable ; the weak ones will be swallowed up by the strong; mutual jealousies and ancient grudges are too strong and deep-rooted to be overcome ; no principle of federa-

INTRODUCTION. xvil

tion can be proposed which can ever be adopted ; the different colonies can best dwell together as brethren by not coming into too close relations."

While this condition of things remains there cannot be written a history of the American Church. That will not be possible until there shall be an American Church. That time will surely come, — - when, no man may say.

I have undertaken therefore the more modest task to set out the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Its life is continuous from the beginning. It was first on the ground. It is of interest to all Churchmen, and, for reasons which I hope to make evident, ought to be to all Americans. I shall speak of it habitually as " the Church " — not as arrogating for it an exclusive right to that title, but because its legal name is uncouth and clumsy. I shall try to tell the story of what it has accomplished, and to speak candidly of its excellences and its faults. A history should above all things else be true. Glozing of faults and apologizing for wrong deeds is not the part of an honest friend or of an honest man. The Church can afford to have the truth told even about herself. He who finds it in his way to do this may not be accused of uncovering his mother's nakedness.

But in the telling of the story large space will be occupied in examining the religious character and habits of those among and upon whom the Church has wrought. She has done great things for them, whereof xviii INTRODUCTION.

they are not ashamed to say they are glad, but they have also done much for her. The Episcopal Church has been far more profoundly modified by her environment here than her members realize. Some of her most cherished possessions have come to her from without. In many cases she has never known, or has long since forgotten, the name of the giver, but still holds and values the gift. It will be our task to notice the reciprocal influence of this Church upon the communities where she has lived, and of those peoples upon her. We will see that she has thriven among Puritans and Quakers, Baptists and Presbyterians, Dutch, Germans, and Irish ; has taught them all something, and learned something from them all.

Part I. The Church Of England In The Colonies

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

PART I.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN THE COLONIES.

Chapter I. The Stage

We will take for the starting-point the year 1600. We will notice in their order the Stage, the Actors, and the Drama.

The stage upon which the action begins is the Atlantic seaboard, from the Kennebec on the north to the Savannah on the south, and extending backward roughly to the Mississippi. To the north and northwest the French are in possession. Seventy years before this time Cartier had sailed up the St. Lawrence, and anchored his shallop off the Heights of Abraham. Champlain and his little band of hardy adventurers are " seeking the skins of beasts and the souls of men " on the banks of the great lakes. That picturesque movement of French exploration and Jesuit missionary zeal had already set in which carried Marquette to the Illinois, Hennepin to the Falls of St. Anthony, and La Salle to the Brazos. Unfortunate Acadie was in its infancy.

Le Caron, the Franciscan monk, and the Jesuits Jogues, Brebceuf, and Gamier were getting ready for that career which was to end in martyrdom among the Hurons and Iroquois.

On the south and southwest the Spaniards held the soil. Forts and churches were on the St, John's and the Gulf, and a bishop with his priests on the Rio Grande.

But from Maine to Georgia no white man dwelt. It was a virgin field upon which to work out the problems in religion, politics, and social life, which were perplexing England. The country was not without inhabitants. It was held by the only race of savages who have ever been able to make a stand against

The Indians. . „..,.. °

the advancing army ot civilization. Inese

withstood it, fought it off, broke themselves against it, dammed it back in one locality, only to find it flowing in behind them in another, until they perished in their tracks, or became encysted within set limits among the new people. How many Indians there were three centuries ago, it is not possible now to know. The consensus of scientific guesswork sets the number at about one million, within the present territory of the United States. They were divided roughly into three great groups or clusters.

(1) The Algonkins, who have left their crabbed polys}dlables in the names of New England lakes and rivers. (2) A subdivision of the same great family, of a more euphonious speech and a fiercer savagery, whose seat was between the Hudson and the Susquehanna, and stretching westward indefinitely to and beyond the Mississippi. (3) The Appalachians, dwelling south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. In their manners they ranged from absolute savagery in the north to semi-barbarism in the south. 1 The conversion of these people to Christianity was the first, or, at any rate, the first-named motive for the coming of all the colonies. We shall have to notice again and again the efforts made to carry out this purpose. We will find it to be a record of failures. We will discover also a strange uniformity of feature in the successive failures. In every case the intelligence, apparent selfrestraint, dignity, and gravity of the Indian led the missionaries to forecast great successes. The first essay always seemed to justify great hopes. The Indian listened, argued, seemed to be concerned, gave his children to be taught, and led the missionary to report the probable conversion of his whole tribe. But always, just when the project seemed most hopeful, an indiscriminate massacre of missionaries and converts together swept the enterprise out of existence. The experience of all was the same. 2 Jesuit, Churchman, Puritan, Moravian, and Presbyterian missions all had the same issue. Their light was put out in blood on the Mohawk, the James, the Connecticut, and the Wabash. The " great massacre " is the last chapter in the history of the Indian mission in early days. They were irreclaimable as panthers. With intellectual endowment far beyond that of any other savage race, they were marked by the two qualities of treachery and cruelty to an indescribable degree. To love his enemy and to speak the truth seems to have been to the Indian con-

1 Parkman : Discovery of the Great West, p. 275. * Ibid., p. 26.

genitally impossible. In any case, this was true until they became reduced to helplessness two centuries and a half later, by being surrounded and disarmed. This fierce and hateful people roamed over the land in which a Christian church and nation was to grow. They had Ownership of no ownership in it, in the way we understand the soil. the term. The tribes lived far apart. Each had for its own hunting-grounds the territory from which it was not barred by its rivals. Each looked with jealousy upon all interlopers, but each was prompt to act as an interloper when occasion offered. Every good hunting-ground was claimed by many tribes. It was rare indeed that any tribe had an uncontested title to a tract of land, and where such a title did exist it rested, not on an actual occupancy and cultivation, but on the recent butchery of weaker rivals. 1 It is within the truth to say that the only title of any value either in law or morals which Indians have ever possessed is that given them by the people whom they fought for centuries, to the Reservations where the remnant of them now live. From whence will come settlers hardy enough to occupy this richly furnished, but savage and perilous stage? To answer this we must cross the ocean and see the colonists in their old homes.

Within ten years of 1600 two events occurred in England which set in motion the emigration to America.

They were : (1) The treaty of peace with the emigra- Spain. 2 (2) The revived enforcement of the

Acts of " Uniformity " and " Supremacy." The way they operated was as follows : —

1 Roosevelt: Winning of the West, vol. i. p. 88.

2 The Peace was concluded Aug. 18, 1604.

For three generations England had been at war by sea and by land. The need of the belligerent times had created a class of men whose trade was warfare. " Sea dogs," like Frobisher, Drake, Hawkins, and Hudson with their hardy crews, holding letters of marque from the Protestant Princes of Europe, or commissions from the Crown, had learned sailing and fighting as a craft. Soldiers of fortune like Raleigh, Smith, and Standish had carried their swords to market in every Protestant State in Europe. Each captain with his ship and crew, each swash-buckler with his band of musketeers at his heels, made his own bargain, or hired out his ship and guns to serve in any quarrel which his somewhat tough conscience would allow him to espouse. They were soldiers by profession and training, one might almost say by birth. They had swept around the British Isles chasing the Armada, and had fought against the Spaniard in the Low Countries, and against the Turk on the plains of Hungary. Now, the unwonted experience of a peace with their hereditary foe left them without employment. With their crews and their companies they were thrown upon the world to earn a livelihood. There was no place for them in England. The England of 1600 was not the mighty empire of industry and commerce that it is to-day. London was a town smaller in size and with less than half the wealth of Denver or Hartford. Bristol and Plymouth, the places next in importance, were such as Norwich, Conn., or Norfolk, Va., are to-day. There was but little commerce ; manufactures were of the rudest, and agriculture the most primitive. Wolves were still dangerous within a day's ride on horseback of London. Swamps and fens held the places where cities now stand. Wild cattle were still found in the north. The farmer lived in a wattled and clay-covered house. The country was too small and too poor to absorb and provide for the multitude of soldiers and sailors out of occupation through the unwonted peace. The sea-dog therefore became an explorer, and the soldier of fortune was ready to guard the peaceful colonist. The revival of the " Act of Uniformity " at the same juncture made England an uncomfortable place ActofUni- f° r nearly one-half of her population. The formity. j^ c ^ provided that every congregation of

Christian people, in its public worship, must use the Book of Common Prayer according to its rubrics. The Prayer-Book was distasteful to a large proportion of the people, for various reasons. A few opposed it on principle as being Romish. To their minds the Reformation in England had stopped midway to completion. They thought they saw in the authorities, civil and ecclesiastic, a disposition to bring in again the evils of papal times. They had for their ideal the church in Geneva and Frankfort as fashioned by Calvin and Farel. The Prayer-Book imposed upon them by law — a law enforced by fire, stocks, jail, and banishment — ■ seemed to them to be in its very words and structure a league with death and a covenant with hell. Their objection was not only an abstract one against the attempt to enforce uniformity in worship, but also against the Prayer-Book which was imposed. They believed its doctrine to be dangerous to souls. This class was not large, but was active, learned, and filled with a sullen determination. But there was a far larger class who were led by prejudice and by customary usage to the same stand. The Act seemed to them to be, as indeed it was, a taking away of the hereditary right of Englishmen. 1 Uniformity of worship had never been known in England. A variety of uses, as York, Sarum, Bangor, and Hereford, had prevailed unquestioned up to within less than half a century of this time. In the early part of Elizabeth's reign there had been little change in the manner of public worship, of the sort which would strike the eye of the common worshipper. But for nearly a generation great confusion had existed. In some parishes the service was not distinguishable from the Roman mass, and in others from a Presbyterian meeting. In one parish the Holy Table was set up against the east wall altarwise, and in another set out " like an oyster board " in the aisle. In one parish a celibate priest officiated in cope and chasuble, while in the next a married priest held forth in his coat, while his wife wore the embroidered vestments for a petticoat. This state of things became intolerable to the authorities of the Church. They essayed to cure it by violence, and failed. But they did more than fail. By the attempt they destroyed the Church Effect to of England as a National Church. For a break up the thousand years before that time the Church

National J

Church. and the Nation had been one. From that

time forward the Church of England ceased to be the Church of the English-speaking people. The confusion

1 Anderson : History of the English Church in the Colonies, vol. i. p. 99.

which was attempted to be cured by the Act of Uniformity was a grave evil. No man could then see to what greater evils it might grow. The attempt to secure order by force commended itself to wise and good men. It is not necessary to accuse the Church's officers of conscious tyranny. They used what seemed to them the simplest and most efficacious method at hand. Time has shown their fearful blunder. They meant to act as statesmen ; they acted as doctrinaires. The confusion of the time was but the restless exuberance of the incoming spiritual life to «a half-dead Church. In time its excesses would have righted themselves. The attempt to secure uniformity in worship has only been successful, even within the Church, at those times when its life has been at the lowest. Every outburst of religious vigor has either strained the uniformity or broken a fragment from the Church. The Puritan, the Presbyterian, the Quaker, and the Methodist have each in their turn been lost to the Church which is their home, by making the house too strait for them. After two hundred and eighty years the assembled Bishops of the whole Pan-Anglican Communion have recorded their judgment that uniformity in discipline and worship is not only not to be compelled, but not to be expected. They declare with a unanimous voice, that with consensus upon the Creed, the Scriptures, the Sacraments administered in our Lord's own words, and the historical Episcopate, the people are to be left to the guidance of the Spirit which Christ has promised to His Church. The lesson has taken long to learn, and the teaching has been most costly. It cost the Church of England first the good-will, and then the presence, of those who carried away from her enough of devotion and vigor to found a new Nation and alien Churches.

Here, then, in 1600, were all the elements waiting from which to create a new world. A fertile continent waiting to be settled ; a righteous and virile people, ill at ease at home, for colonists ; adventurous captains with their ships and crews ready to transport them ; professional soldiers ready at hand to garrison the new colonies, and fight against their savage foes. The flood of immigration approached America like the coming in of the tide. Its first waves touched only the nearest shore, and receded. Many unrecorded bands of adventurers visited, and quickly left the coast, from Newfoundland to Georgia. The story of each is romantic, but not to the purpose here. 1

1 Bancroft : History of the U, S., vol. i. passim.

Chapter II. The Virginians

The first organized attempt to found a colony was made in 1585. Sir Walter Raleigh gathered a company Raleigh's °^ one hundred and fifty people, largely colony. composed of gentlemen of the sword, secured

them an outfit and the means of transportation, which they used to find a land at Roanoke which they named "Virginia," for the maiden queen. They were not the stuff from which successful colonists are made. They were not set together in families. Only two women were in the colony. Of one of these, the daughter of the Governor, was born Virginia Dare, the first white child in America. Improvidence, brawling, ignorance of husbaudry, and wanton quarrels with the natives, soon brought the ill-starred colony to want, destitution, and despair. Their governor, White, strove manfully to save them from the Indians and from themselves, but in vain. They sat down starving upon the shore, and when at their wits' end, hailed the sight of an English man-of-war on her way home from the West Indies. Her commander consented to bear away with him those who wished to go, and promised to send speedy succor to those who stayed. The chaplain of the ship landed and baptized the little baby girl, Virginia Dare, together with Manteo, the first convert from the Indians. These were the first-fruits, not only of the Church of England, but of Christianity, in the colonies. Eighty of the company chose to stay, while the rest sailed away to merry England. Those who stayed, including the two women, were never heard of again. Their promised relief never came, or came so many years later that no living member of the colony was found. Half a century afterward Indians with blue eyes and brown hair were seen along the Potomac, who were supposed to have in their veins all that was left of the blood of the Raleigh colony.