_First Years in the Episcopacy_
When Bishop Cheshire assumed the episcopal oversight of the Diocese of
North Carolina, he felt little confidence in his ability to fulfill the
duties of the office. He did feel that by sincere and diligent
application he could accomplish much for the welfare of the church. When
elected assistant bishop he was, in his own words, "constrained to
accept the call, not from any sense of fitness in myself, but simply
because such a call seems to me to carry with it an imperative
obligation to accept, unless the hand of God should plainly point in
another direction: a dispensation was laid upon me."[30] Notwithstanding
his expressed views, Bishop Cheshire was, in the opinion of most
churchmen, better fitted for his office by ability, temperament, and
training than any other man in North Carolina.
Bishop Cheshire met his first diocesan convention in May, 1894, at St.
Paul's Church, Winston. He opened his annual address by saying: "I
cannot bring into any order or method in my own mind, much less can I
put it into words, the feelings which this occasion calls up. To no one
can it seem stranger than it does to myself that I should occupy this
place, and thus address you from the chair of Ravenscroft, of Atkinson,
and of him so lately taken from us." He made no recommendations for
important changes in the policy or work of the church, since he wished
to become more thoroughly acquainted with the problems and needs of the
Diocese before doing so. The Bishop urged upon the clergy then, as he
was to do many times in the future, the necessity of keeping their
parochial records in proper order, and observed that no businessman
would employ a clerk for a week if he kept his books as many of the
parish registers were kept. In concluding his address, the Bishop
touched on three subjects which were to be collectively the theme of his
episcopate: namely, the importance of regarding the Diocese rather than
the parish as the unit of the church; the necessity of supporting all
diocesan institutions; and the great need for continuing and expanding
the missionary work of the Diocese. Time and time again he drove home
the spirit and essence of these subjects, until the clergy and laity
alike caught some of the fire of his enthusiasm and translated his ideas
into living reality.
One of the first diocesan projects Bishop Cheshire undertook was the
revival of the old mission of Valle Crucis, established by Bishop Ives
about fifty years before. At the same time he planned to revive the
mission work along the Watauga River. For this difficult work the Bishop
had one man in mind who he thought was eminently qualified—Rev. Milnor
Jones. His first meeting with Jones had been at the convention of 1883.
Shortly afterwards, Bishop Lyman had asked Cheshire if he would carry to
Jones a sum of money which had been raised to aid him in erecting a
church at Tryon. The Bishop had added that he hoped Cheshire would spend
a few days with Jones to observe his work. Cheshire complied with the
Bishop's request, and spent a few unforgettable days with Jones, driving
with him over the hills and valleys of Polk County to visit his
scattered missions. At the time, he had been greatly impressed with
Jones' influence with the mountain people. When he began to plan the
revival of Valle Crucis, he remembered his experience with the
picturesque mountain missionary.
Milnor Jones, however, was in Oregon when the Bishop was ready to
commence his mountain work. In January, 1894, Cheshire wrote asking him
to return to North Carolina. In replying to Bishop Cheshire, Jones wrote
this characteristically laconic letter: "Where do you want me to go?
What do you wish me to do? And what salary will you give? Not that the
_amount_ of the salary makes any difference; I only wish to know just
what I have to go on." The Bishop answered as concisely: "I want you to
go to Valle Crucis, on the Watauga River. I want you to revive the old
Valle Crucis Mission, as your special work; and I give you for your
field of operations Watauga, Mitchell, and Ashe Counties, to do what you
can in them. I will give you six hundred dollars a year, payable
monthly."[31]
Milnor Jones was a rough, plain-spoken individual with a remarkable
faculty for understanding and winning the confidence of the simple
mountain folk. He had a deeply religious nature, and a complete
fearlessness in preaching the Gospel as he understood it. Bishop
Cheshire found him an unusually effective man in laying the foundations
of missionary work, but from that point he seemed to lack the power to
build further.
Jones entered with enthusiasm upon his work in the mountains of North
Carolina. When the Bishop began his visitations to the western counties
in June, 1895, he found that Jones had made a promising beginning.
Bishop Cheshire spent several weeks with him, visiting one mission
station after another in the counties of Mitchell, Watauga, and Ashe.
They preached, baptized, and confirmed in the most out-of-the-way places
and under the most varied conditions. When they first visited
Bakersville they held services in the courthouse, but upon their return
for a second service some time later, they were refused the use of the
building on the grounds that the courthouse was not safe for large
crowds. The local newspaper, however, gave as the reason for the refusal
the fact that the Methodists and Baptists held that "the Episcopalians
had been preaching uncomfortable doctrine." The Bishop and Jones were
not to be daunted; they held their service on the street in front of the
courthouse. A large congregation gathered for the service. When the
Bishop began preaching he did not think his voice would reach the
assemblage, but after a few minutes he felt as if he could make himself
heard "a mile away." He afterwards declared that "I never spoke with
more ease, freedom, and enjoyment, or with a greater sense of the high
privilege of being a servant and ambassador of my Lord."[32]
Another interesting episode in Bishop Cheshire's mission work in the
mountains took place at Beaver Creek, Ashe County, in the summer of
1896. Here the Bishop and Jones were maintaining a mission school with
two teachers in a building which had been leased for two years. When the
Bishop went to the schoolhouse to hold a service, he was met by a mob of
more than fifty men who "forcibly prevented" him from entering. The mob
declared that the reason they were preventing him from holding his
service was that they did not like "Mr. Jones' doctrine" and they
understood that he, the Bishop, taught the same doctrine. In reporting
the incident to the convention of the Jurisdiction of Asheville, the
Bishop described it as "an experience which I certainly had never
thought a possibility in my native state of North Carolina."[33]
In reviving the old mission at Valle Crucis Bishop Cheshire did not
intend to follow the plan of Bishop Ives, which had been to establish a
boys' school and a training school for the clergy. His primary motive
was to evangelize the people of the mountain counties. He wanted to make
Valle Crucis "an associate mission from which preachers and teachers
should go out and keep up the work of evangelizing, instructing, and
educating wherever an opening might be found or made."[34]
Milnor Jones, carrying letters of introduction from his Bishop, in the
fall of 1895 visited the northern states to raise funds for his mountain
work. He was successful in his efforts and, with the money thus raised,
mission schools were established at Valle Crucis and at Beaver Creek. In
the course of 1896 and 1897 a mission home, consisting of an eight-room
house, was erected at Valle Crucis at a cost of twelve hundred dollars.
It was built to accommodate a missionary, a teacher, and several pupils
attending the mission school. Shortly after this constructive beginning
Milnor Jones gave up the work at Valle Crucis. He confined his efforts
to the small mission stations scattered over Mitchell, Watauga, and Ashe
counties. The Bishop placed Rev. Samuel F. Adams in charge of Valle
Crucis, and under his guidance and that of his successors the work
progressed steadily.
Milnor Jones left North Carolina towards the end of 1897. He, with the
assistance and encouragement of Bishop Cheshire, had laid the
foundations of a missionary work which was to be a credit to the church.
Referring once to the character of Jones' work, the Bishop remarked: "If
I had a wild mountain country full of moonshiners, I think I would like
to have him, but for anything more civilized he is too savage."[35] With
all of Jones' crudeness and faults, Bishop Cheshire believed him to be
"really a more Godly man than many an one whose life is perfectly
conventional and blameless." The Bishop often remarked that the visits
he made to Milnor Jones in the mountains of North Carolina were among
the most interesting experiences of his career.
Coinciding with Bishop Cheshire's efforts to expand and revive the
missionary work of the church in the mountains, a movement was initiated
to create a missionary district from the western counties of the Diocese
of North Carolina. At the diocesan convention of 1894 a committee was
appointed to study the advisability of requesting the General Convention
to organize the western counties of the state into a missionary
jurisdiction. It was felt by many that the present Diocese was too large
to be adequately administered and supervised by one bishop. In his
address to the convention of 1895 Bishop Cheshire substantiated this
view when he reported that during the past year he had been able to
devote only nine weeks to the western section of the state, which
embraced nearly thirty counties.
The Bishop was "in sentiment" strongly opposed to a division of his
Diocese, for he disliked seeing the church in North Carolina divided
further. Also, he had become deeply interested in his mountain missions
and was loath to relinquish them. He realized, however, the
impossibility of properly serving such a large territory. Moreover, he
was determined not to make the mistake which he thought Bishop Atkinson,
in 1877, and Bishop Lyman, in 1882, had made when they opposed the
formation of a new diocese. In his opinion, a bishop "makes a mistake,
when he opposes the well-settled convictions of his clergy and people
upon a matter affecting the development of the Diocese."[36]
When the diocesan convention met in May, 1895, the Committee on the
Proposed Missionary Jurisdiction recommended that the General Convention
be requested to set apart the western section of the Diocese of North
Carolina as a missionary jurisdiction. It was further recommended that
the line of division should be the eastern boundaries of the counties of
Alleghany, Wilkes, Alexander, Catawba, Lincoln and Gaston. Bishop
Cheshire had suggested to the committee this territorial division.
Although it meant a great loss of strength to his own Diocese, the
Bishop believed that the missionary jurisdiction should be made large
enough to be of importance, and that it should be created with the view
of its becoming a diocese at some future date. The convention adopted
the committee's recommendations, and instructed its deputies to present
them to the General Convention.
When this body met in the fall of 1895, Bishop Cheshire presented in the
House of Bishops the memorial of the Diocese of North Carolina
requesting the erection of a missionary jurisdiction. The memorial was
referred to the Committee on Domestic Missions. A few days later the
Bishop of Florida, chairman of the committee, reported the memorial
unfavorably, stating that his committee did not believe the reasons set
forth were sufficient to justify an affirmative action. He further
reported that the legal and constitutional requirements had not been
properly provided for. Bishop Cheshire then introduced a resolution
calling for the erection of a missionary district and providing that it
should be under the limited jurisdiction of the Bishop and Convention of
the Diocese of North Carolina until such constitutional amendments could
be adopted to remove the objections advanced by the Bishop of Florida.
The House of Bishops adopted the resolution with little discussion, and
two days later it was approved by the House of Deputies. Following this
action Bishop Cheshire moved that the House of Bishops should proceed to
the election of a missionary bishop for the newly created district. His
motion met with opposition and was postponed to a future meeting of the
House of Bishops. The district, which was to be known as the
Jurisdiction of Asheville, was temporarily placed under the episcopal
care of Bishop Cheshire.
Only a few weeks after the close of the General Convention, Bishop
Cheshire, on November 12, 1895, met the first convention of the
Missionary Jurisdiction of Asheville. He outlined to the clergy and
laity what would be expected of them as a missionary jurisdiction, and
gave much helpful advice on setting up the machinery for carrying on
their work. The Bishop called to their attention the almost incalculable
opportunities for extending the influence of the church in the mountain
counties. The next year he greatly expanded this idea in a charge to the
clergy of the Jurisdiction. The Bishop pointed out that nine-tenths of
the work in the Jurisdiction of Asheville was to evangelize people who
were almost wholly ignorant of the church. Such material aids as
rectories, schoolhouses, and even churches, while undoubtedly helpful,
were not necessary adjuncts to the primary object of the church: "to
catch men." He urged the clergy to know the people, to preach to them in
words they could understand, and to make religion an integral part of
their lives.
After completing his first year in charge of the Jurisdiction of
Asheville, and after a careful study of the manifold problems peculiar
to it, Bishop Cheshire was convinced that the erection of the missionary
jurisdiction was "an act of wise and prudent statesmanship." He thought
that a missionary who had the oversight of three or four counties sorely
needed regular visitations from the bishop, and in his opinion the work
could be more effectively carried on if the bishop were able to remain a
week or more with each missionary. He pressed these points upon the
members of the House of Bishops in strongly advocating the election of a
bishop for the Jurisdiction. Finally, in the fall of 1898, the House of
Bishops elected the Rev. Junius Moore Horner, a native North Carolinian,
as missionary bishop of the Jurisdiction of Asheville. He was
consecrated on December 28, 1898, in Trinity Church, Asheville, with
Bishop Cheshire as the consecrator. After this service Bishop Cheshire
formally turned over to Bishop Horner the full administration of the
Jurisdiction.
Turning now to a wholly different phase of Bishop Cheshire's work, we
take up one of the most important achievements of his long episcopate,
the establishment of St. Mary's School for girls as a church
institution. This school had been founded in Raleigh by Dr. Aldert
Smedes in 1842, and had been nurtured and maintained, through good and
hard times, by its founder and his son and successor, Dr. Bennett
Smedes. St. Mary's was not a church school, but its two rectors had been
Episcopal clergymen, and thus the institution had been under the
exclusive influence of the Episcopal Church. By 1896 Dr. Bennett Smedes
was finding it very difficult to compete with publicly supported and
privately endowed schools. At this time he made it known that he could
no longer continue St. Mary's as a private school.
The Alumnae Association of St. Mary's at once took action to preserve
the school for the church. It sent a memorial to the diocesan convention
of 1896, in which it appealed to the Episcopal Church in North Carolina
"either to endow the School, or to erect for it suitable buildings in
Raleigh or elsewhere, and thus relieve it of one great drain, its heavy
rent." The appeal met with sympathetic attention from Bishop Cheshire.
Only the year before, he had remarked to the convention: "I have been,
from earliest childhood, brought up to look upon St. Mary's School, at
Raleigh, as the most valuable of all our church institutions or agencies
in North Carolina.... I cannot too highly recommend this school to the
confidence of all the people of North Carolina."
After careful consideration of the St. Mary's Alumnae memorial, the
convention adopted a resolution providing for the appointment of a
committee of six, to include the Bishop, with the authority to buy
suitable buildings for a girls' school or to purchase land and erect new
buildings. In direct reply to the memorialists, Bishop Cheshire offered
a resolution, which the convention adopted, assuring the alumnae that
the church in North Carolina "will do all in its power to place St.
Mary's School upon a permanent foundation as an institution under the
charge and patronage of the Church throughout the entire State...."
At the convention of 1897 the special committee on a diocesan school for
girls reported that it had procured a charter of incorporation for the
Board of Trustees of St. Mary's School from the state legislature, and
had turned over to this corporation all further negotiations. The newly
constituted Board of Trustees, of which Bishop Cheshire was chairman,
then made its report. It recommended that not less than one hundred
thousand dollars be raised for the purchase of a location, the erection
of buildings, and an endowment of St. Mary's School. The Board announced
that it had contracted to purchase for fifty thousand dollars a site
known as the St. Mary's Tract. The convention adopted the report as it
was made.
During the past year, at the request of the Trustees, Bishop Cheshire
had spent a month visiting many towns throughout the state in an attempt
to interest the people of the church in the needs and potentialities of
St. Mary's School. His efforts met with gratifying success. He appealed
to the women of the state, and especially to the alumnae of St. Mary's,
to raise fifty thousand dollars for an endowment which should be known
as "The St. Mary's Alumnae Association Fund." To stimulate the interest
and increase the activity of the women in this plan, Bishop Cheshire
organized the "Order of the Patrons and Daughters of St. Mary's." He
proposed to find fifty women who would give five hundred dollars each
towards the endowment, and two hundred and fifty others who would each
contribute one hundred dollars. He reported to the convention of 1897
that he had raised a substantial amount in this way.
Thus, St. Mary's was established as the official school of the Episcopal
Church in North Carolina. The Diocese of East Carolina and the
Jurisdiction of Asheville had agreed to contribute to the maintenance of
the school and were given representation on the Board of Trustees. Dr.
Bennett Smedes was retained as rector of the school and continued in
this position until his death in 1899. The first year the school was
under the control of the church the number of boarding students
increased fifty per cent. To a great extent the enlarged enrollment was
due to the renewed interest which Bishop Cheshire had aroused.
In the course of his negotiations to establish St. Mary's as a church
school, the Bishop discovered that the churchmen of South Carolina had
been for some time loyal and generous supporters of the school. After
reflection upon this fact, he determined to ask the Diocese of South
Carolina to co-operate in the maintenance and management of St. Mary's.
When he discussed the subject with the Board of Trustees, it was decided
to appoint a committee of the Board to meet at Saluda to confer with
representatives from South Carolina. The conference was held in August,
1898. After a friendly and constructive discussion, the conference
resolved that St. Mary's School should be placed under the "control and
patronage of all the Carolina Dioceses."
Bishop Cheshire met with the convention of the Diocese of South Carolina
in the spring of 1899 and presented the advantages and possibilities of
St. Mary's as a church institution. The resolution of the Saluda
conference was reported to the convention and was unanimously adopted.
Bishop Capers, two clergymen, and two laymen were appointed to the Board
of Trustees to represent South Carolina. After patient and diligent work
Bishop Cheshire was able to unite the church of the two states in the
support of one church school for girls. In a comparatively short time it
was to become the largest Episcopal school for girls in the United
States.
In the winter of 1897 Bishop Cheshire suffered an irreparable loss in
the death of his wife. Their married life of twenty-two years had been
remarkably happy. Mrs. Cheshire had been a great help to him in his work
as deacon and priest and later as bishop of the Diocese. She gave him
encouragement, devotion, and the benefit of her sound common sense. The
Bishop often spoke of how much she meant to him in his work, and of
their happy life together.
It was a fortunate coincidence that the Lambeth Conference came in the
summer of 1897, for it enabled him to have a complete change, removing
him from those associations which reminded him so strongly of his wife.
The Lambeth Conference, which convenes approximately every ten years at
Lambeth Palace, London, is composed of all the bishops of the Episcopal
Church throughout the world. Bishop Cheshire decided to attend,
believing it would be broadening and an exceedingly worth-while
experience. The object of the Conference was to discuss religious
questions of world-wide interest. In the course of its sessions it would
be divided into groups which would discuss problems relating to
particular countries.
The Bishop sailed from New York on June 2, arriving in England six days
later. Since the Conference did not commence until July 1, he spent the
intervening time sight-seeing. This was the summer of Queen Victoria's
Diamond Jubilee, giving an additional interest to his trip. He attended
the Jubilee service at St. Paul's, and remarked that the Bishop of
London preached "a good sermon" for the occasion.
The Lambeth Conference was formally opened at Westminster Abbey by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who was to preside over its sessions. There
were present for the Conference one hundred and ninety-four bishops from
all parts of the world. Forty-nine of these represented the Episcopal
Church of the United States. The sessions of the Conference continued
through July 31. Bishop Cheshire was a member of the committee on church
unity, and, as far as his journal reveals, this was the only committee
on which he served. Reporting upon the Lambeth Conference to his
diocesan convention the following year, Bishop Cheshire said: "The first
message which we bring home from the Lambeth Conference of 1897 is that
God in His Providence is opening the world to us; and to prepare us for
the work we are to do, He is drawing all parts of the world-possessing
Anglo-Saxon race into a closer union of common interest and sympathies,
and of mutual confidence." He declared that the American bishops, while
receiving much benefit from the Conference, had also contributed
constructively to its work.
Shortly after the Conference closed, Bishop Cheshire visited the
Archbishop of York for a few days. Upon leaving York he spent about a
month traveling in England, Scotland, the Orkneys, and Ireland. In early
September he left England for the Continent, where he visited in
succession Antwerp, Brussels, and Cologne. Of his reactions to the
cathedrals of these three cities, the Bishop observed that they "do not
seem to me to be really so full of interest and beauty as even the
inferior English cathedrals. They do not so abound with evidences and
symbols of their connection with the life and history of the country and
people, and so in spite of all their ornamentation they have a barren
look."[37] The Bishop did some further sight-seeing in Germany,
Switzerland, and France. While in Switzerland he saw the famous Lion of
Lucerne, which he thought possessed "a dignity, nobleness, and beauty
about it which exceeds anything of the kind I have ever seen before."
Leaving from Southampton, he arrived in New York on September 24,
feeling much refreshed and ready to return to the work of his Diocese.
Two years after his visit to England Bishop Cheshire married Miss
Elizabeth Lansdale Mitchell, of Beltsville, Maryland. She was the
daughter of Rev. Walter A. Mitchell, an Episcopal clergyman. The
marriage proved to be happy and successful in every way. Mrs. Cheshire
was a splendid mother to the Bishop's children, and they all became
devoted to her.
When a friend heard that Bishop Cheshire was to be married, he remarked
to the Bishop that with his large family he needed a wife. With his
characteristic honesty the Bishop replied: "I don't need any such thing.
My daughters take the best care of me and want me to have the best of
everything. I don't need a wife; I am marrying again just because I want
to."[38]
From the General Convention of 1895 to that of 1931, Bishop Cheshire
attended every triennial meeting of this body. In the first three or
four conventions, he did not take an active part in the discussions of
the House of Bishops. For that matter, he never participated as
prominently in its deliberations as some of the other bishops. At the
1895 convention he was appointed to the committees on the Admission of
New Dioceses and on the Consecration of Bishops, and at the next
triennial meeting he was made a member of the Joint Commission on the
Revision of the Constitution and Canons. This last appointment pleased
him, since it was the kind of work for which he was well prepared. His
legal training influenced his partiality for this type of work. In 1904
he was appointed to the Committee on Canons, on which he served for
almost every convention until his death. As a member of this committee
he made his most important contribution to the work of the General
Convention. It will be recalled that it was in this capacity that he had
done his best work in the diocesan conventions. From time to time he was
made a member of other regular and special committees.
When Bishop Cheshire assumed the office of bishop of the Diocese of
North Carolina, he felt it his duty to exercise the full authority of
that office. In deciding upon this course of action he did not intend to
be arbitrary or despotic in administering the Diocese, although at times
some clergymen and laymen seemed to think so. But when they became
better acquainted with him and his methods, they admired and respected
him the more. The Bishop had a forthright, and sometimes decidedly
blunt, manner of speaking, which, to those who did not know him so well,
seemed arbitrary or overbearing. He had disagreements with his
clergymen, but they felt that they could always count upon receiving a
fair hearing from him. When the Bishop realized he was in error upon any
point, no one was quicker than he to admit it.
In 1895 Bishop Cheshire, for the first time in the history of the
Diocese, issued to the clergy "Visitation Articles," as called for by a
canon of the church. After employing them for a year he found they were
useful and "calculated to make the visitations of the Bishop of more
real value to the Clergy and to the people. The Bishop has for so long a
time ceased to exert any real influence or control in the ordinary life
and work of the parish in all parts of the United States, that the
assertion of that authority, which in theory our Bishops are supposed to
possess, is perhaps impracticable at present."[39] He thought that if
the bishop would make himself acquainted with the affairs of each
congregation during his visitation, it would strengthen the influence of
the episcopate, and would go far towards the "breaking up of our present
congregational parochialism." One of Bishop Cheshire's customs which
endeared him to his people was that of calling upon the members of a
congregation during his visitation. Of this practice he once remarked:
"People like the attention and it makes Bishop and people feel nearer
together, but in most cases they do not want very long visits."[40] The
Bishop's keen understanding of human nature was one of his most notable
qualities.
Bishop Cheshire thought that southern bishops had a great deal to be
thankful for, particularly that in the South "as much as anywhere in the
world, I believe, the Bishop may still be in some real and personal
sense, the pastor of his flock, can live in familiar and confidential
relations with his people." He deplored the tendency, which seemed to be
growing in some quarters, of making the bishop simply an administrator
of ecclesiastical affairs.
While Bishop Cheshire was in no sense a ritualist, or what is commonly
known as high church, he believed in a strict adherence to the rubrics
of the Book of Common Prayer. He had a great reverence and admiration
for the services of the Prayer Book, and consequently little patience
with those clergymen who attempted to alter their order or length. He
was not a dogmatic formalist, but was thoroughly convinced that the
canons and rubrics of the church should be obeyed and not disregarded by
those individuals who might take exception to them.
In a charge to his clergy on the subject of Public Worship, Bishop
Cheshire pointed out that the church was established and is sustained by
Christ for two purposes: "first, to be the depository and source of
spiritual Truth and Power; and second, to bring men into living contact
with that spiritual Truth and Power." The Prayer Book is a means by
which the church can diffuse and extend the truth, and it is also a
means of developing and conserving the influence of the church. In his
opinion, extemporary methods of worship had a tendency to weaken and
finally destroy the concept of common public worship. The public worship
of the Episcopal Church was not left to individual whim or judgment, but
was definitely prescribed. He maintained that the participation of the
congregation in the services and sacraments of the church is its
principal means of cultivating its oneness with Christ. The Bishop
enjoined the clergy to follow the services as they were set down in the
Prayer Book, and warned them that they would gain nothing, but rather
would injure the church by seeking to make their services more
attractive through short cuts or innovations.
In a Pastoral Letter to the clergy and laity of the Diocese, Bishop
Cheshire further developed the subject of public worship and the use of
the Prayer Book. He gave much sound instruction as to how the minister
and congregation should conduct themselves in any of the church's
services, particularly emphasizing the importance of correct kneeling
and audible and intelligent responses. He stressed the value which the
clergy and laity would receive from a regular observance of the feast
days and fast days. The Bishop expressed his strong disapproval of
decorating the church for any purpose other than "for God's honor." The
sacred character of the church should not be sacrificed to gratify the
vanity of men and women. He referred particularly to the extravagant
excesses often indulged in when decorating the church for weddings.
This Pastoral Letter is just as applicable to churchmen today and is
worthy of as much consideration from them as when it was first issued in
1912. It would be of great value to them to hear it read annually in the
churches of the Diocese.
Bishop Cheshire never went to extremes in anything. In spiritual as well
as in material matters he believed in preserving a sense of proportion.
He advised his clergy to use practical judgment in the observance of
Lenten services. Very few clergymen were capable of preaching good
sermons for forty or more consecutive days and, in his opinion, few
congregations desired them. Even in those cases where a preaching Lent
had been successful, he thought that a change would have a salutary
effect upon the people.
On the subject of church music he tried to preserve an equilibrium of
opinion. The Bishop was very fond of good ecclesiastical music and
thoroughly enjoyed singing himself. While his standards of church music
were high, he did not at all approve of too elaborate arrangements of
the old chants and hymns. He wanted them sung properly, but also in such
a way that at least a part of the congregation would be able to join in
with the choir. On several occasions he was known to have stopped the
organist and choir in the middle of a hymn or chant because the tune was
either too difficult or too decorative.
Bishop Cheshire's interest in domestic missionary work was by no means
limited to the zeal which he had displayed when working in the mountains
of North Carolina. In his report on missionary work to the convention of
1898, he made a strong appeal for domestic missions and missionaries. He
called to the attention of the convention the fact that the growth of
the church in the Diocese was chiefly through its missions. Since there
were no large city parishes, its strength lay in the towns, villages,
and country districts. "In these," said he, "has been our growth, and in
these is our hope and strength for the future." The missionary clergymen
had presented for confirmation during the past year more than half of
the total number of persons confirmed. He concluded these remarks with
an urgent plea for adequate salaries for the missionaries.
Up to 1901 the administration of the diocesan missions was in the hands
of the Bishop and the Executive Missionary Committee of the convention.
Bishop Cheshire reported that under this system the missionary work
usually showed an annual deficit of from four to five hundred dollars,
even after he had used funds for it which should have been reserved for
special work. With the advice and approbation of Bishop Cheshire, the
convention of 1901 divided the missionary work of the Diocese into three
divisions—the Convocation of Raleigh, the Convocation of Charlotte, and
the Convocation for Colored Work. These convocations, each with an
archdeacon at its head, were given full control of diocesan missions.
The archdeacons, under the supervision of the bishop, had the direction
and control of the missionaries in their respective convocations. Under
this new organization the diocesan missions progressed steadily, and the
treasurers of the convocations seldom reported a deficit. Some fifteen
years after this plan was inaugurated, Bishop Cheshire declared that the
missionary work had been "prosecuted with greater vigor and system than
ever before in my knowledge of the Diocese."
At the close of the first decade of Bishop Cheshire's episcopate, a
large number of clergy and laity gathered at Good Shepherd Church,
Raleigh, on the evening of October 14, 1903, to celebrate the occasion.
At this service the Bishop made an address in which he reviewed his work
for the period. During the decade he had held more than 4,000 services,
preached 1,400 sermons, delivered 500 addresses, confirmed 4,400
persons, consecrated 27 churches and chapels, and ordained 27 clergymen.
To him the greatest achievement of the past ten years was the
acquisition of St. Mary's and its establishment as the church school of
all the Carolina dioceses. In 1897 his Diocese had assumed in behalf of
St. Mary's an obligation of fifty thousand dollars to be paid in twenty
years. At the end of six years only eighteen thousand dollars of the
debt remained, and in addition ten thousand dollars had been spent upon
permanent equipment for the school. Since the Diocese took over St.
Mary's, the number of boarding pupils had increased threefold. In
conclusion, he declared that they should not look too much to the past
but should press on to the future with the work of the church.
Representatives of the clergy and laity congratulated the Bishop upon
his tenth anniversary, pledging their loyalty and devotion to him, and
expressing the appreciation of their respective bodies for his splendid
work. Mr. Richard H. Battle, in behalf of a number of the Bishop's
friends, presented him with a beautiful pectoral cross and a silk
cassock. In acknowledging the kind expressions and gifts, the Bishop
remarked: "I have one single desire, it is to serve God in this Diocese.
It was the interest that I took in the work here that brought me into
the ministry, and I have no desire to labor elsewhere. I love my people,
and I appreciate the kindness, sympathy and aid that has been given
me...."[41]
The following day the colored clergy and laity honored the Bishop in a
service at St. Ambrose Church, Raleigh. Resolutions expressing the
confidence and affection of the colored churchmen were presented to
Bishop Cheshire by Rev. Henry B. Delany. Rev. Primus P. Alston, on
behalf of the colored clergy, gave the Bishop a handsome stole,
accompanying it with an address expressing the gratitude of the colored
people for his work among them. Afterwards, the Bishop observed that
nothing during the past ten years had been more gratifying to him than
"the unvarying respect, courtesy and loyal support" which he had
received at the hands of his colored clergy and laity.