and laity of the Diocese of Connecticut--not only those with whom
it has been my privilege to share in the events of these ever-to-
be-remembered days, but by many whose hearts are following us in
all these services--to place in your hands this Chalice and Paten,
and to read the explanatory address. By the happy foresight which
has characterized the preparations for the centenary celebration,
there is placed on the wall of this holy place a copy of that
Concordate in which the three Bishops of your Scottish Church and
the first Bishop of our American Church plighted their troth. It
was indeed a "great mystery"; it spoke concerning Christ and His
Church. As I sat in this chancel on Sunday last, by one of those
coincidences which I believe may occur for the eye of thankful
faith as well as for the eye of sentiment, the sunlight which
bathed your beautiful city with its warmth, so shone its colors
through that south chancel window that at the beginning of the
service they fell athwart the Concordate hanging on the opposite
wall. Then, beginning at that, as the service went on, and as the
sun circled its daily course, when the time came for the
Consecration-prayer, the light fell upon the sacred vessels of the
altar. So the sunlight took its way from the Concordate which the
exigencies and circumstances of that far-off time demanded, to the
symbols of that perpetual concordate which exists in the one body
of Christ--between the Head and the members, between the living
members of that Body, between the living members and the members
of that Body in Paradise. I could not but think that the brief
course of the sunlight here might stand for the dial of the
century gone. Exigencies and circumstances that are special,
require special concordates. Both Churches then had them, and they
framed that agreement. The century has led us around from those
exigencies and circumstances to a condition of prosperity, in
which the only thought need be of the supreme concordate in the
Communion of the most precious Body and Blood of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. May this Chalice and Paten, the symbols of
the renewed troth of the Churches, be the symbols of all
prosperity for both, as in the Master's work they enjoy "the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
Mr. Nichols then read the formal letter of presentation, as
follows:
DIOCESE OF CONNECTICUT. July, 1884.
_To the Bishop of Aberdeen, representing the Church of
Scotland:_
The Diocese of Connecticut has formally expressed, through its
official representatives, its appreciation of the courageous and
intelligent action of your predecessors one hundred years ago. But
it has seemed to a few of the clergy and laity, who are confident
that they represent herein the general feeling of our people, that
a further memorial may be fittingly presented; and we beg you to
accept, to keep, and to transmit to your successors, this Chalice
and Paten, as a token of our gratitude to you and to God for the
two great benefits which through you, in His providence, have come
to us. Those benefits are the Episcopate and the Eucharistic
Office--the former, to use the very words of your own Bishop
Kilgour, "free, valid, and purely ecclesiastical;" the latter
embodying features which are at once an expression and an earnest
of those "catholic and primitive principles," both doctrinal and
liturgical, for which the Church of Scotland has long been
distinguished, and to which she has pledged the Church in
Connecticut.
The gift which we offer, right reverend Sir, is great only in what
it thus symbolizes and the uses to which it is consecrated. In
these vessels the memorial before God will be presented, and from
them the sacrament of life and unity will be dispensed. May that
memorial be graciously received whensoever, by whomsoever, and for
whatsoever offered. May that sacrament of unity bind together in
one, us the children, with them the fathers who kept that which
was entrusted to them, committing it only to faithful men, and
who, having departed this life with the seal of faith, do now rest
in peace.
And may the Lord accept the sacrifices and intercessions of His
people everywhere, and speedily accomplish the number of His
elect, that we, the living, together with them, the departed, may
be made perfect in His glorious and everlasting kingdom.
Faithfully and affectionately yours, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and
in the unity of His Church,
JOHN TOWNSEND,
JOHN J. McCOOK,
WM. F. NICHOLS, _Committee._
E. E. BEARDSLEY, _Chairman of the Meeting._
The Bishop of Aberdeen, in reply, said:
Right reverend father in God, my reverend brethren, and the whole
Church in the Diocese of Connecticut, elect of God and precious,
we receive these sacred vessels at your hands with such feelings
of gratitude and thankfulness, both toward God who hath put this
into your hearts, and toward yourselves, beloved in the Lord, as
no utterance of our lips can ever express. In this beautiful
Chalice and Paten, so graciously bestowed on us, we recognize,
venerable father and dear brethren of the Church in Connecticut,
the expression both of your faith toward God and of your love
toward us. In this gift we behold the visible evidence of your
faith in the promise of God that endureth from generation to
generation: "When I see the blood I will pass over you," and your
trust in the assurance of His Holy Word: "The cup of blessing
which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ?"
And here, too, is the evidence of your love toward us, in that ye
long that we should be "partakers with you in the One Bread and
One Body; for we are all partakers of that One Bread." As we use
these sacred gifts in our highest act of worship and nearest
approach to God, we shall ever rejoice in the consciousness of
your love toward us in the communion of saints, and that you share
with us in the precious heritage of the great liturgy bequeathed
to us by our fathers in the faith. Venerable father and dear
brethren, these days of praise and thanksgiving to God and
communion one with another, will assuredly leave their impression
on the Church in America and Scotland for all eternity. Our
Eucharistic worship to-day is surely blended with the same worship
offered a hundred years ago by our fathers in God and your saintly
predecessor in that humble upper chamber. May we who have knelt
to-day in the unseen presence of our Divine Lord and Master, unite
with them and with one another in the adoration of the unclouded
glory of His visible presence for all eternity.
The Bishop of Aberdeen then proceeded with the Communion-service
according to the English rite, being assisted by the Bishop of
Edinburgh and the Bishop of Glasgow. The Paten and Chalice just
presented were used in the consecration and administration of the
sacred elements.
Divine Service being ended and the Synod having been duly
constituted, after the Bishop of Connecticut had presented to the
Synod an address from the Bishops of the American Church and a
reply had been made by the Bishop of St. Andrews, presiding in the
Synod, the Connecticut delegation presented the address from the
Convention of their diocese, engrossed upon parchment, which was
read by the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, as follows:
TO THE BISHOPS OF THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH: HEALTH AND
GREETING IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. AMEN.
_Right Reverend Fathers:_
The Bishop, Clergy, and Laity of the Diocese of Connecticut, in
Convention assembled, send to you, by the hands of faithful
brethren, these presents, in glad remembrance that your
predecessors in office were moved, a hundred years ago, to raise
and consecrate to the Order of Bishops the Reverend Samuel
Seabury, Doctor in Divinity. We do honor to their fidelity to the
Church of Christ and to the purity of their motives when they
declared that they had "no other object in view but the interest
of the Mediator's Kingdom, no higher ambition than to do their
duty as messengers of the Prince of Peace." By their act we
received "the blessings of a free, valid, and purely ecclesiastical
Episcopacy," and our hitherto "inorganized Church" became
duly equipped for the work it has since done and the witness
it has borne.
The language of the clergy of Connecticut, when they acknowledged
on the sixteenth day of September, Anno Domini 1785, with "the
warmest sentiments of gratitude and esteem," the pastoral letter
addressed to them as a sequel to the consecration of their Bishop
and the Concordate, may well be called to mind once more: "Greatly
are we indebted to the venerable fathers for their kind and
Christian interposition, and we heartily thank God that He did, of
His mercy, put it into their hearts to consider and relieve our
necessity. Our utmost exertions shall be joined with those of our
Bishop to preserve the unity of faith, doctrine, discipline, and
uniformity of worship with the Church from which we derived our
Episcopacy, and with which it will be our praise and happiness to
keep up the most intimate intercourse and communion."
At that time the Catholic remainder of the ancient Church of
Scotland and the Church in this new world were in the dust. The
one was suffering from public disabilities, and the other lay
prostrate from the effects of war; its churches were dismantled,
its congregations scattered, and but a remnant of its clergy and
people could be found to build up again the broken walls. To-day
all things wear a new look. You are working with better and
brighter hopes than your predecessors could possibly have; and we
can assure you that the expectations of our honored forefathers in
the faith have been wonderfully fulfilled, so that the Church in
Connecticut has become "a fair and fruitful branch of the Church
universal." Our clergy have increased tenfold, and our parishes
have acquired both strength and public influence, and we stand to-
day upon the old foundations and perpetuate the love of our early
clergy and people for primitive truth and Apostolic order. The
generations after us will never forget the debt of gratitude due
to the Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church for their helping
hands in the day of our weakness and need; the bond of Christian
fellowship sealed in the Concordate by your predecessors and our
first Bishop will continue to be recognized and cherished, as it
has been by our fathers.
Invoking the Divine blessing upon the Scottish Episcopal Church,
and asking your prayers and benediction, we are, right reverend
fathers, your dutiful servants in Christ Jesus.
In behalf of the Bishop, Clergy, and Laity of the Diocese of
Connecticut:
EDWIN HARWOOD, D. D., Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven;
SAMUEL FERMOR JARVIS, M. A., Rector of Trinity Church, Brooklyn;
SAMUEL HART, M. A., Presbyter and Professor in Trinity College,
Hartford;
WILLIAM T. MINOR, LL.D., Lay Delegate, St. John's Parish,
Stamford;
JOHN C. HOLLISTER, M. A., Lay Delegate, St. Paul's Parish, New
Haven.
Dated at New London, June 10th, A. D. 1884.
The Bishop of St. Andrews read the following reply of the Synod to
the address from the Diocese of Connecticut:
_To the Right Reverend John Williams, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of
Connecticut, the Reverend the Clergy, and the faithful Laity of
the Diocese, from the Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland
in Synod assembled: Love and greeting in the Lord Jesus
Christ._
To receive any representatives of the American Church to-day and
to accord them a hearty welcome must be a cause of sincere
satisfaction to us; but in greeting you, dear brother, whom God
has set over Seabury's own diocese of Connecticut, and those who
accompany you as representing your flock, we experience a peculiar
pleasure. For giving us the happiness of seeing you here to-day we
thank you sincerely, and we thank the faithful of your diocese for
providing that their Bishop, in now visiting the scene of his
heroic predecessor's consecration, should not be unattended by
some of their own number, whose presence should be expressive of
the interest which they themselves feel in the event which we are
commemorating, and also (as we are glad to believe) of their love
towards the Church which gave them their first bishop.
"Connecticut," said the saintly Bishop Alexander Jolly in his
letter to the Bishop of Maryland in 1816, "has been a word of
peculiar endearment to me since the happy day when I had the
honour and joy of being introduced to the first ever-memorable
bishop of that highly favored see, whose name ever excites in my
heart the warmest veneration."
The Scottish Church, dear brother, finds in these words a true
expression of her own feelings--feelings which the visit which we
have "the honour and joy" of receiving to-day from so worthy a
successor of Connecticut's first bishop, will serve to intensify
for the future. You will the more readily therefore believe,
brother, that the words of gratitude towards our Church, which, in
your own name and in the name of your diocese, have just been
spoken, must be in the highest degree gratifying to us.
We cordially unite with you in your expressions of thankfulness to
Almighty God for the work which he has vouchsafed to carry out
through the agency of those branches of His Church which you and
we respectively represent.
We rejoice to hear of the vigorous life which the Church in your
diocese has manifested in the remarkable growth which the past
century has seen it make. We pray that it may continue to receive
God's blessing in rich abundance, and bring forth much fruit to
His glory.
We have a lively sense at the same time of our Lord's great mercy
to ourselves in lifting us up from our poor and despised estate,
in bringing us to comparative honour, and comforting us on every
side.
We trust that through His grace the work, still future, for which
He has been training and strengthening us through so many
generations, may be thoroughly and faithfully done by us and by
those who will come after us.
You allude approvingly to the Concordate drawn up and signed by
Bishop Seabury on the one part and his consecrators on the other,
which was, in the language of its framers, to serve as a "bond of
union between the Catholic remainder of the ancient Church of
Scotland and the now rising Church in the State of Connecticut,"
and you assure us that it "shall continue to be maintained and
cherished by you, as it has been by your fathers."
We have heard with gratification that the desire to be closely
allied in the matter of similarity of offices with our own Church,
which has prevailed in your diocese ever since the American
liturgy was, under your first Bishop's influence, enriched by some
of the most valuable of its present features, is still strongly
felt by you.
That for all time to come we may be all of one heart and of one
soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and
charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify the one and
only God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is our hearty prayer
and our confident hope.
To His love and blessing we commend you.
CHARLES WORDSWORTH, Bishop of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane;
HENRY COTTERILL, Bishop of Edinburgh;
WM. S. WILSON, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway;
HUGH W. JERMYN, Bishop of Brechin;
ARTHUR G. DOUGLAS, Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney;
J. R. A. CHINNERY-HALDANE, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles;
For the Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness, _Primus_,
ROBERT A. EDEN, M. A., _Commissary_."
[Seal of the Primus attached.]
Before the synod proceeded to business, the Bishop of Aberdeen
presented to the Bishop of Connecticut a Pastoral Staff, the gift
of Scotch Churchmen to him and his successors in office, with
these words: [Footnote: The Staff is of ebony, the upper part
being of silver parcel gilt. The crook proper has for its central
subject our Lord's charge to St Peter, who kneels at the Saviour's
feet. The pierced side of our Lord is significantly seen, as the
drapery falls open. A vine is growing up behind Him bearing grapes
(expressed by precious stones), and gathered at His feet are sheep
and lambs. The ornamental work of the crook takes the form of
thistle-leaves--in allusion to the Scotch origin of the gift--and
the bossy flowers are expressed by cut amethysts. The crook is
hexagonal in plan; the tower which surmounts the canopied niches
immediately below the crook also takes the same shape, and
accommodates the six figures introduced. This hexagonal tower has
Gothic tracery, with pinnacles, pillars, and canopies, enriched
with cairngorms. The figures (St. John, St. Andrew, St. Ninian,
St. Augustine of Canterbury, Primus Kilgour, and Bishop Seabury)
represented in the niches, are intended to illustrate the main
points in the Episcopal succession and the characteristics of the
Scottish Church. The tower is supported upon a carved capital with
six amethysts between _repousse_ oak-leaves, and is jointed
to a circular boss surrounded with four vertical bands enriched
with cairngorms, while between the bands are carbuncles set off by
filigree work. There are also silver bosses at the joints of the
ebony portions of the staff.]
No words of mine can convey to you the feelings of gratitude which
animated the hearts of all Scottish Churchmen when they heard of
your remarkable kindness in coming to our shores at this time to
celebrate with us our service of praise and thanksgiving to
Almighty God for the blessing He has bestowed upon the work of our
fathers. As a small testimony to their venerable father and to the
Church of his diocese, they ask Bishop Williams to accept this
pastoral staff. May I point out that there are portrayed on this
staff figures which represent the history of the Church in this
land, and therefore a great chapter in the history of the American
Church. You will find on the staff the figure of St. Andrew, the
patron saint of Scotland; you will find also the figure of St.
John, reminding you that Christianity reached Scotland from
Eastern sources; you will find the figure of St. Ninian, uniting
the Scottish succession and ministry with the Celtic Church; and
you will find the figure of St. Augustine, signifying that act of
brotherly love and communion which we received from the English
Church, restoring to us the Episcopacy which in troublous times
had been lost; you will also find the figure of that Primus of the
Church who was the chief consecrating bishop of your venerable
Seabury, and you will find also the figure of Seabury himself. In
the head of this staff you will recognize the figure of the great
Head of the Church giving His divine commission to St. Peter and
to all others ordained and consecrated to the same sacred office:
'Feed my sheep; feed my lambs.' I will rejoice to think that this
staff, which you and your successors will carry on your
confirmations and visitations and other episcopal acts, by
reminding you of the sanctuary where we have just now held our
great service to God, and of the figure of the Good Shepherd which
stands over its altar, will not only recall to you the pastoral
work in which it is your high office and privilege ever to
minister, but will encourage you to seek also the blessing and the
favour of the chief Bishop and Pastor of souls. In now presenting
you with this emblem of your sacred office, as I have the
privilege of doing on behalf of the Scottish Church, I may mention
that many of the offerings that have been given towards it have
been the pence of the very poorest in the land.
Bishop Williams, in acknowledging the presentation, said:
There are times and things concerning which words utterly fail and
must fail to give utterance to the feelings of the heart, and
this, let me say, is one of those times--a day that I can never
forget, a day for which--though most unworthy of what has been
given me--I must always feel the devoutest thankfulness to
Almighty God. A hundred years ago you gave my great predecessor
here in Scotland the office of Bishop in the Church of God, and
now this day, a hundred years after, in the fulness of your loving
hearts and kindly remembrances of that great act, you give Bishop
Seabury's successor the sacred symbol of the same high office in
the Church. I only wish it were given to worthier hands; but I can
pledge myself to this, that to my successors as they follow me
year after year, and, if God so wills, century after century, the
staff will be handed down as a most sacred deposit and memorial.
It will drop from many a hand before another hundred years go by
and another gathering takes place here in this place of sacred
memories, but the office of which the staff is the symbol--that
office, I thank God, never dies. Men pass away, the office lives
on; and though many hands that shall have held this staff may by
that time be folded in the sleep of death, I trust that when the
hundred years come round again, my successor may come here, as I,
Bishop Seabury's successor, have come, to offer to the Bishops of
the Scottish Church, to its clergy, and its faithful laity, the
assurance of his deep love and undying gratitude that they were
bound together in one common bond of one holy faith, and in a
common love of one living Lord and of each other. I trust that
that day will show the whole world, as this day has done, "how
good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity."
On the afternoon of the same day a conference was held in the
Albert Hall, at which the Rev. Dr. Beardsley read the following
paper:
SEABURY AS A BISHOP.
A great deal has been said within the last week--never too much,
I trust--of that grand man who left the shores of America a
century ago, and came to the mother country in quest of a
spiritual gift which, for reasons of state, was refused him by the
Bishops of the Church of England.
In the providence of God, and under instructions from the clergy
of Connecticut, who selected and sent him over, he found his way
to Aberdeen, and was here duly raised to the Apostolic office, and
so became the head of an anxious and long-waiting body, as well as
the first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States of America.
The many blessings which have flowed from this act of consecration
by the Scottish Bishops have been recognized and recounted again
and again, and it is not my purpose to dwell on them now; but
rather to speak of that part of the life of Seabury which covers
the exercise of his Episcopal office.
But before I proceed to do this, let me step back for a few
moments under the arches of history, and make two or three
references to show that our Church in America is indebted to
Scotland, and especially to Aberdeen, for other favors besides the
gift of Episcopacy. You gave us men who were great historic
pioneers in our ecclesiastical existence. The Venerable Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was chartered
in 1701, and for three-quarters of a century its chief field of
labor was in New England. This fact may be ignored, but it forms
an important and salient feature in its early history; and what is
remarkable, the very first missionary sent out by the Society to
the American colonies was a native of Aberdeen, George Keith, a
school companion of the celebrated Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of
Salisbury, whom he mentions in his "History of his own Time." And
then that wonderfully numerous tribe or family, which always has
its representatives in every Christian country of the wide world,
furnished us William Smith, born on the banks of the river Dee,
not far from this city, a man with glaring imperfections of
character, but a scholar and a divine, who knelt side by side with
Seabury in the chapel of Fulham Palace when they were admitted to
Holy Orders, and who subsequently became a conspicuous actor in
the organization and establishment of our American Church, having
been the first President of the House of Deputies, and having
guided that body to concurrence with the House of Bishops in
revising the Book of Common Prayer and accepting the Scotch
Communion-office. We might not have had this office in its present
shape had he not risen to favor its adoption when signs of
dissatisfaction and a disposition to reject it appeared.
Still again we are indebted to another native of Aberdeenshire,
known in our history as William Smith the younger, who went to
America soon after the acknowledgment of American Independence,
being in Holy Orders which he received in Scotland, and, having
served the Church for a time in other States of our Republic,
appeared in Connecticut, and held important educational and
parochial positions in that diocese. The office for the
Institution or Induction of Ministers into parishes or churches,
set forth in our Book of Common Prayer, was compiled by him. He
was a man of much learning, ardent temperament, and quick
impulses. He possessed singular versatility of talents, was a
composer of church music, and a constructor of church organs. He
was a pioneer in our country in chanting, and did us good service
in overcoming or diminishing the popular love for a Puritan style
of metrical psalm-singing.