A LONG EPISCOPATE
The consecration of Dr. Quintard to the Episcopate of Tennessee was of
peculiar significance in the history of the Church in the United States.
The consecration took place at the first meeting of the General
Convention after the close of the war. At that convention all doubts as
to the mutual relations of the Northern and Southern Dioceses were
dispelled. The latter had never been dropped from the roll of the
General Convention, notwithstanding the fact that pending the war they
had been forced by the exigencies of the case, to withdraw from the
Northern Dioceses and organize the "Protestant Episcopal Church in the
Confederate States of America." They were still regarded as constituent
members of the American National Church. Each day of the convention
meeting in 1862, the Southern Dioceses had been called in their proper
turn, beginning with Alabama; and though absent, their right to be
present was never questioned. Still the question must have arisen in the
minds of many of the Southern Churchmen as to how far this feeling might
extend among the Church people of the North.
With the General Convention meeting in Philadelphia in October came the
opportunity for the Church and the Church people of the North to express
clearly their feelings towards their Southern brethren; and this they
did, first, by the cordial welcome extended to the two southern Bishops
present, and to the clerical and lay deputies in attendance from three
Southern Dioceses; secondly, by the ratification of the consecration of
the Rt. Rev. Dr. Wilmer to the Episcopate of Alabama, which had taken
place in 1862, at the hands of Southern Bishops acting wholly
independently of the Church in the North; and thirdly, by the almost
unanimous vote upon the report made to the House of Deputies on the
Consecration of the Bishop-elect of Tennessee, wholly ignoring the
especially conspicuous official position he had held in the Confederate
army and the prominent part he had taken in the affairs of the Church in
the Confederate States. His consecration, therefore, furnished a very
significant act by which to crown the work of reunion of the Northern
and Southern Dioceses.
The service of Consecration was, in dignity of ritual, quite in advance
of the times. Dr. Quintard prepared himself therefor, by a vigil held in
the Church of St. James-the-Less. The Consecrator was the Rt. Rev. Dr.
Hopkins, Bishop of Vermont and Presiding Bishop of the Church in the
United States. Five other Bishops of Northern Dioceses united in the act
of Consecration, as did also the Rt. Rev. Francis Fulford, D.D., Bishop
of Montreal and Metropolitan of Canada, whose presence "contributed to a
growing sense of the unity of the Church throughout the whole American
continent."
In the history of the Diocese of Tennessee, the consecration of a second
Bishop marked, of course, a distinct and important epoch. That Diocese
had met with other losses than that of her ante-bellum Bishop. The war
had swept away, to a large extent, the results of his work and that of
his clergy. All the horrors of war had been visited upon the State and
Diocese. Churches had been mutilated and destroyed and congregations had
been scattered. The effects of the war were very deeply impressed upon
the mind of the new and young Bishop in the first series of visitations
made by him in his Diocese,--a sad and laborious journey beginning in
November, 1865. The evidences of devastation were fresh and visible on
every side. In some places, where before there were promising parishes
and missions, there was no fit building left standing in which services
could be held. Only three churches in the whole Diocese were uninjured
and very few were fit for occupation. Many were in ruins. The returns
from two of the parishes showed similarly severe inroads upon
congregations. In one of these there remained 65 out of 147 communicants
reported before the war. In the other, ten only remained out of 65
previously reported.
The Bishop never faltered as he confronted conditions which foretold the
anxious care, the exhausting labors, the weary journeys, the
disappointments, the fears and the griefs the coming years were to
bring. It was with the utmost cheerfulness that he took up the burdens
of the Episcopate, and in gathering up the _disjecta membra_ of the
Church in Tennessee and in strengthening the things that remained,
Bishop Quintard was a marvel. In labors, in journeyings and in "the care
of all the churches," he was truly an Apostle,--not a step behind any of
the heroes of the American Missionary Episcopate. His jurisdiction,
though nominally a Diocese, was virtually a Missionary District in all
respects save that it never received its due proportion of the Church's
funds devoted to Missionary enterprises.
With far-sighted statesmanship, Dr. Quintard perceived in 1865, that the
Church's effectiveness could be enhanced by the Division of the Diocese
of Tennessee and the establishment of the See Episcopate in the three
chief cities,--Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville. And from that time on,
a division of the Diocese that would increase the efficiency of the work
of the Church therein, was kept constantly before the minds of the
people. But strange to say, the very arguments used in support of the
plea for the relief needed, were made the excuse for not granting it.
"It is impossible for the Church to grow in such a large territory under
the supervision of a single bishop, let him work never so hard nor so
wisely," constantly pleaded the Diocese of Tennessee. "The Church is not
growing fast enough in the Diocese of Tennessee to warrant a division of
that Diocese and an increase of Episcopal supervision therein," was the
invariable reply. And so it was not until five years before the Bishop's
death,--not until after he had worn himself out by his efforts to
perform single-handed the work of three Bishops in his diocese,--not
until after repeated illness had warned him that he must have
relief,--that a Coadjutor was elected and consecrated for him.
The wide-spread popularity of Dr. Quintard, his personal magnetism and
the large-hearted charity he had manifested in time of war, were not
without their effect for a time upon the work he had undertaken.
Wherever he appeared there flocked to meet him his old friends of the
camp and battle-field. They felt that the religion he preached, having
stood the test of adversity in war-time, was a good religion for times
of peace,--a good religion to rule the every-day business of life. They
readily yielded in large numbers to his persistent appeals to them to
confess Christ before men. In his record of official acts published in
the Diocesan Journal from year to year, he noted such gratifying
incidents as the baptism and confirmation at his hands of some of the
officers and men with whom his acquaintance had begun on the
battle-field or in camp. In the few months that elapsed between his
consecration and the meeting of his first Diocesan Convention, 314
persons were confirmed by him in Tennessee, and that number was a good
yearly average of his confirmations for nearly thirty-three years; and
his 470 confirmations, 152 sermons and 112 addresses, reported to the
convention in 1867, for the first full year of his Episcopate, were a
sample of the pace he set for himself at the beginning of his
Episcopate.
But as before the war, Bishop Otey in an Episcopate of little less than
twenty-nine years, discovered that there was a remarkable tendency among
churchmen to move away from Tennessee, so it was after the war, as
Bishop Quintard was to find. Bishop Otey confirmed more than 6,000
persons in Tennessee, yet the Diocese never numbered more than 3,500
communicants before the war arrested its development. Many of those whom
the ante-bellum bishop confirmed took their way, like the Star of
Empire, westward, and began to colonize the Dioceses of Missouri, Texas
and California. Bishop Quintard, by actual count, confirmed more than
12,000 persons, and yet his Diocese was never, to the day of his death,
able to count 6,000 communicants.
Despite the difficulties of the field in which it was given him to labor
for the upbuilding of the Church, the Bishop was in the forefront of
every movement which went on in the Church in the latter part of the
nineteenth century. He was a pioneer in the adoption of the Cathedral
system in the American Church. He was among the first to utilize the
work of the Sisterhoods in the administration of Diocesan charitable
institutions. With his refined and cultivated tastes, it was natural
that he should give attention to the improvement of ecclesiastical
architecture in his Diocese. And he was a leader in the work of the
Church for the negro. In 1883, a conference of bishops, presbyters and
laymen was held in Sewanee, to consider the relations of the Church to
the colored people of the South. A canon was proposed for the
organization of work among colored people, which, when it came before
the General Convention, was known as "the Sewanee Canon." It was never
adopted by the General Convention but the work among the negroes in
Tennessee was organized in accordance with its suggestions.
In the list of the American Episcopate, Bishop Quintard's name is the
seventy-fifth. It is an unusual name, especially conspicuous by
beginning with an unusual letter. These may seem trivial circumstances
to receive mention here, but the fact is that they seem significant of
the striking position which the Bishop held among his brethren, of the
peculiarities of his personality, and of the attention he attracted to
himself throughout the country. He was, as has been seen, a link between
the ante-bellum and the post-bellum Bishop. He was likewise a link
between the clergymen of the old school and those of the new. It is
curious to those who knew him later than 1870, to see him represented in
the portraits taken soon after his elevation to the Episcopate, wearing
the "bands,"--the surviving fragment of the broad collars worn in
Milton's time. He probably gave them up about the time of his first
visit to England in 1867. He must have been among the first in America
to wear his college hood when officiating. For it is related that after
he had officiated on one occasion in a Church in Connecticut, a lady was
heard to exclaim in great indignation, "The idea of that Southern Bishop
coming to this church and wearing a Rebel flag on his back!"
In sympathy with the Oxford movement in the Church of England, he was a
leader in that movement as it affected the Church in America, and so was
called a "High Churchman," at a time when that term was of somewhat
different application from what it is now. And he was then called a
"Ritualist," and was regarded as an extremist though at the present day
he would be considered a very moderate ritualist.
He was always a welcome visitor in all parts of the country and people
not only delighted to hear him preach but especially enjoyed social
intercourse with him. His conversation was extremely entertaining,
partly because of the breadth of his experiences in times of war and in
times of peace;--as a traveller in England and as the hard-working
Bishop of a Southern Diocese, but also because his talk scintillated
with wit and quick repartee.
When some one in New York asked him why he had named a Church at
Sewanee, "St. Paul's-on-the-Mountain," he answered: "Sewanee is Cherokee
Indian for 'Mother Mountain,' and you know St. Paul preached on _Mars_
Hill." On another occasion a man was attempting to argue with him in
regard to what he chose to call "the use of forms" in the Church.
"Well," said the Bishop, "you know that when the earth was without form,
it was void; and that is the way with many Christians."
The Bishop enjoyed a reputation as a pulpit orator that became wider
than national. His voice was "as musical as the lute and resonant as a
bugle." The Southern newspapers between 1868 and 1875 praised his
eloquence and noted the fact that, in spite of his belonging to a school
of thought not altogether popular in the South at that time, people of
all shades of opinion thronged the churches to hear him preach. He was a
ready extemporaneous speaker, yet his sermons were for the most part
carefully prepared and written out and delivered from the manuscript.
Some of them became widely known through many repetitions, and not a few
became famous. One of these had a history the Bishop was as fond of
telling as he was of repeating the sermon.
It was known as the "Bishop's Samson Sermon," and was from the text, "I
will go out as at other times and shake myself." (Judges xvi, 20.) When
first delivered in one of the parishes of Tennessee, the Bishop was
informed by a disgusted hearer that it was "positively indecent," and
not fit to be preached before any congregation. Consequently the sermon
was "retired" until it was almost forgotten. Some time afterward,
however, it was by accident included among sermons provided for use on
one of the Bishop's series of visitations; and when discovered with his
homiletic ammunition, the Bishop read it over carefully but without
finding anything in it that could be characterized as indecent. So he
determined to "try it again." It made a deep and wholesome impression
upon the minds of those who then heard it.
He preached it one Sunday night in Christ Church, St. Louis, and after
the service a gentleman said to him, "Bishop, if you will preach that
sermon here tomorrow night, I will have this church full of men to hear
you." The sermon was accordingly preached the following night and the
gentleman kept his promise.
The sermon was preached at Trinity College, Port Hope, Canada; at West
Point, before a congregation of cadets; at Sewanee, Tennessee, before
successive classes of students of The University of the South;--it was
preached everywhere the Bishop went,--usually at some one's request who
had heard it before and who wanted the impression made on his mind at
the first hearing, renewed. Numberless were the letters received by the
Bishop telling him of hearing that sermon and of good resulting from it.
In his repeated visits to England, Bishop Quintard enjoyed a distinction
never before, and rarely since, accorded to any member of the American
Episcopate. The first of these visits was made in 1867 in order that he
might be present at, and participate in, the meeting of the first
Pan-Anglican or Lambeth Conference. He attended subsequent conferences
up to 1897, a few months before his death. At each of these visits he
was the recipient of an unusual amount of attention from English Bishops
and from the English people of every rank and he revolutionized the
opinions of the Englishmen of that day as to America and Americans. The
English newspapers were captivated by his powers in the pulpit. One of
the Liverpool daily papers said that "the Bishop of Tennessee speaks
English better than an Englishman and preaches with the fire and
clearness of Lacordaire."
One of the leading London papers devoted two editorial columns to a
description of him and said; "The Bishop of Tennessee is the first
American we ever heard whose speech did not bewray him." "His exterior
is impressive." "His voice strong and searching and his enunciation
deliberate." "His well-turned sentences are like solid carved mahogany."
"He is a type of the highest average of the American public man." "His
sermon was in every sense sufficient, strong, well-knit and balanced,
and adequately emotional, while never falling short of the full dignity
of the preacher's office and evident character. If the Church in America
has many such Bishops it is indeed a living, efflorescent, healing
branch of the great tree, which, according to Dr. Quintard, has never
withered a day in England since the epoch of the Apostles."
He was a guest of the Bishop of London at Fulham Palace; was present at
his ordination examinations and took part with him in the ordination of
twenty-five priests and nineteen deacons in the famous Chapel Royal,
Whitehall; at the invitation of the Bishop of London, he preached the
first sermon at the special evening services in St. Paul's Cathedral; he
officiated at the service at the laying of the corner stone of the
church of St. Paul, Old Brentford,--the stone being laid by H. R. H.
Mary Adelaide, Princess of Teck; he laid the foundation stone of St.
Chad's Church, Haggeston, London; he was present with Bishops from the
far-away South Sea Islands, from Canada, and elsewhere, at the laying of
the foundation stone of Keble Memorial College, Oxford; he reopened the
restored parish church of Garstag; he assisted the Archbishop of York
and preached the sermon at the consecration of the Church of St.
Michael, Sheffield; he assisted the Archbishop of York at the parish
church, Sheffield, where a class, numbering six hundred, was confirmed;
he administered the Apostolic rite for the Bishops of London and
Winchester; and on the invitation of the Bishops of Oxford and Ely, took
part in their Lenten Missions in 1868.
A second visit was made in 1875-6. His reception by the Most Rev. the
Archbishops, the Rt. Rev. the Bishops, the clergy and the laity of the
English Church was all that could be asked. On two occasions he
administered the Apostolic rite of Confirmation for the Lord Bishop of
London and on two occasions held confirmations at the request of the
Archbishop of Canterbury. He assisted the Archbishop of York also at the
confirmation of more than 500 candidates presented in one class.
By the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, he participated in
the opening services of the Convocation of Canterbury and was the first
Bishop of the Church, not a member of the Convocation, to be admitted to
that service. The service was held in the Chapel of Henry VII in
Westminster Abbey.
He assisted at the opening service of Keble College, Oxford, the laying
of the foundation stone of which he had witnessed eight years before. He
united, with Bishops of the Anglican Communion from England and Africa,
in the consecration, in St Paul's Cathedral, of a Bishop for Asia,--the
Rt. Rev., Dr. Mylne, Bishop of Bombay.
He visited the continent also and Scotland; attended the Church Congress
at Stoke-upon-Trent; and assisted at the Consecration of the Cathedral
of Cumbrae, in the Diocese of Argyle and the Isles. Returning to England
he was again present at the opening of the Convocation of Canterbury.
The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by the University of
Cambridge on the occasion of this visit.
He was again in England in 1881 and attended, by invitation, the funeral
of Dean Stanley, (July 25th). On the invitation of the Queen's Domestic
Chaplain, the Hon. and Rev. Dr. Wellesley, he preached in the Chapel
Royal, Windsor, on Sunday, August 14th. No American had ever previously
been invited to preach in this chapel. He took for his text on that
occasion: "If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee,
then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace,
wherein thou trustedst they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the
swelling of Jordan?" (Jeremiah xii: 5.)
In these three visits, therefore, the Bishop performed every service
appertaining to the Episcopal office. Such experiences were absolutely
unique for an American Bishop at that time. It had often been asserted
that the Bishops and clergy of the Church in America were not permitted
to officiate in the Church of England. These visits of the Bishop not
only gave him an extended acquaintance among the Bishops and clergy and
prominent laity of the English Church, but changed the relations between
them and the American Church, so that the latter has since been held in
higher regard by the Church of England. How much this was influential in
leading up to the present amicable relations existing between England
and America, it is not necessary for us to inquire, though doubtless
such an influence might be taken into account in tracing up the history
of the present Anglo-American alliance.
In 1887 the Bishop was in England and was present by invitation of the
Dean of Westminster, in the Abbey at the Queen's Jubilee. He assisted at
an anniversary service of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, in the
Chapel Royal, Savoy. As a Chaplain of the Order, he attended a meeting
in the Chapter House, Clerkenwell Gate. The following year, as Chaplain
of the Order, he assisted at the Installation of H. R. H. the Prince of
Wales, (now Edward VII), as Grand Prior of the Order of St. John, in
succession to the Duke of Manchester, who for twenty-five years had held
the office.
He was also in attendance, in 1888, at the Lambeth Conference, was the
guest of the Archbishop at Lambeth Palace, and assisted at the
consecration of two Bishops. With the Lord Bishop of Peterborough, he
was presenter of one of them,--the Rev. Dr. Thicknesse, consecrated
Bishop Suffragan of Leicester, in the Diocese of Peterborough.