CONSECRATION OF AMERICAN BISHOPS.

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Prior to the Revolution the Protestant Episcopal Church was under the oversight of the Bishop of London. During the Revolution that jurisdiction could not be exercised. At the close of the Revolution this bond, though not formally sundered, was superseded or in abeyance, and it became necessary to combine on some new plan of association. Organization was undertaken by two methods, the conventional and the Episcopal, the former in the Middle States and the latter in Connecticut. In May, 1784, a few clergymen of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania met at New Brunswick, N. J., for consultation. Again in October, in New York city, they reassembled, and agreed upon a basis for future ecclesiastical organization. In September, 1785, another meeting was held in Philadelphia, in which seven States between the Hudson River and the Savannah were represented. The book of Common Prayer was accommodated to the recent changes. In the meantime in Connecticut the Episcopal method was undertaken. Rev. Dr. Seabury, of Connecticut, a little in advance of his brethren in the Middle States, applied to the English bishops for Episcopal ordination. Discouraged by delay, he transferred his application to the non-juring bishops of Scotland, received ordination November 14, 1784, and returned to America on the 3d of August, 1785. The first exercise of his Episcopal functions was in August, 1785, in Connecticut. The members of the Philadelphia Convention at first looked with disfavor upon the Scotch episcopacy, and pressed an application for ordination directly from England. On the 4th of February, 1787, Revs. William White, D.D., of Philadelphia, and Samuel Provost, D.D., of New York, were consecrated bishops in Lambeth Palace, London. At a general convention held in September, 1789, the clergy from New England were present, the union became general and complete, and Bishop Seabury's ordination was recognized. Five other bishops were consecrated prior to 1800, and seven of the eight bishops were living at that date. In the year 1800 this denomination had 264 clergymen and 11,978 communicants, and the following dioceses had been constituted: Connecticut and Maryland, 1783; Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, 1784; New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina and Virginia, 1785; Vermont and Rhode Island, 1790; Delaware, 1791.t

* Episcopal Record for 1860.

*

+ The Episcopal ministers of this period were, James Madison. D.D., 1775-1812; John Buchannan, D.D., 1775-1822; Nathaniel Fisher, 1777-1812; Charles H. Wharton. D.D., 17841833; Collin Ferguson, D.D., 1785-1806; William Smith. D.D., 1785-1821; Philo Shelton, 1785-1825; Joseph G. J. Bend, D.D., 1787-1812; Slater Clay, 1787-1821; Tillotson Bronson,

The Episcopal Church in its organized form was reluctantly recognized by many in New England. The propriety of admitting bishops into Massachusetts was gravely questioned and discussed in the Boston Gazette (January 1785). When the news came of the ordination of Bishop Seabury the Gazette exclaimed, "Two Wonders of the World-a stamp act in Boston and a Bishop in Connecticut."

The Presbyterian Church was located principally in the Middle States, where the ravages of the war were most severely felt, but the Synod of New York and Philadelphia kept up its annual meetings, although the attendance was generally small. After the paralyzing effects of the Revolution had begun to pass away, this denomination gradually extended itself,* and, in view of its prospective growth, it was felt that measures must be taken for perfecting its organization and a fuller declaration of its principles. The question was considered and matured during several years (17851788), resulting in the organization of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, which held its first session in the Second Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in May, 1789, Rev. Dr. John Rodgers moderator. At this session an address. of recognition and congratulation to the President of the United States was adopted. A Committee on Home Missions was also appointed, which is believed to have been the earliest action of this kind, except that of the Congregationalists.

Pre-eminent among the Presbyterian clergy of this period was Dr. John Witherspoon, Professor of Divinity in Princeton College. A native of Scotland, called to this position in 1769, he was a man of varied and profound scholarship, an elegant and powerful preacher, with a vigorous physical constitution, a statesmanlike mind, and possessed a personal "presence second only to that of Washington." He was for several years a member of the Continental Congress, where his sagacity and discernment were highly esteemed, and his pen was brought into frequent requisition upon important state papers, involving intricate subjects of political economy.

Rev. John Ewing, D.D., for thirty years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and for twenty years Provost D.D., 1787-1826; John S. J. Gardner, D.D., 1787-1830; Richard Channing Moore, D D.,17871841; James Kemp, D.D., 1789-1827; John Croes, D.D., 1790-1832; William Harris, D.D., 1791-1829; David Butler, D.D, 1792-1842; James Abercrombie, D.D., 1793-1841; Charles Seabury, 1793-1844; Walter D. Addison, 1793-1848; Daniel Burhans, D.D., 1793-1853; Alexander V. Griswold, D.D., 1795-1843.

* In 1788 it numbered 419 congregations, about one half of which were destitute of pastors. + Minutes of the Synod of Philadelphia and New York, 1788, 1789.

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DISTINGUished MINISTERS.

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of the University of Pennsylvania, was eminent for his knowledge in classical and scientific studies, and also for his ability as a preacher. The pastor of the Second Church for nearly half a century, Rev. Dr. James Sproatt, was also a distinguished minister, pre-eminent for personal piety and for his mastery of the art of persuasion. He fell a victim to the yellow fever in 1793. The pastor of the Third Church, Rev. Dr. George Duffield, in whose veins mingled Irish, English and Huguenot blood, was an earnest, ardent, and fearless man, and a powerful champion of civil and religious liberty. The celebrated John Adams was one of his hearers and admirers. Revs. John Blair Smith, D.D., President of Hampden-Sidney College, and subsequently of Union College, and his brother, Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D., President of Nassau Hall, were leading men of this period. The former has been styled "a model preacher, whose soul glowed with evangelical fervor and love of souls." Dr. William M. Tennent also is worthy of special mention as a man of devoted piety, of great sweetness of temper and politeness of manner. Rev. James Grier, of Delaware, was an effective preacher, of deep sonorous voice, earnest, and often deeply impassioned. "The patriarch of the Presbytery of Carlisle " was Rev. John Elder, who for more than fifty most eventful years discharged the duties of the pastoral relation in the towns of Paxton and Derry, Pa. He was a man for the times, with a robust constitution, large stature, commanding presence, and indomitable courage and energy. Dr. Charles Nisbet, first president of Dickinson College, was a Scotchman by birth, an able debater, abounding in ready wit, brilliant in conversation, and so extensively read that he was proverbially called a walking library. Dr. Patrick Allison, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, was a man of impressive personal appearance, in a remarkable degree graceful and dignified in his demeanor, of irreproachable character, and possessed intellectual gifts of a high order. Rev. Dr. Isaac S. Keith, of Alexander, and subsequently of Castleton, S. C., is a name noted for the honorable memories of usefulness and devotion associated with it. To these might be added numerous other names of distinction and great personal worth. There was the Rev. James Waddell, of Virginia, the preacher of unrivaled eloquence, and Thomas Moore, of Western Pennsylvania, called the scourge of Arminianism;' Dr. John Anderson, the zealous pioneer missionary preacher; John Watson, of Canonsburg, the youthful genius; the venerable John Clark, of the Redstone Presbytery; Dr. John King, the elaborate thinker; Dr. Rodgers and his colleague, Dr. J. McKnight, of New York; Dr.

Stephen B. Balch, of Georgetown; Dr. Samuel Buel, of East Hampton, L. I., the friend of Branerd, Whitefield, Belamy, and the elder Edwards; Dr. Phillip Milledoler, of Philadelphia, and subsequently of New York city, the faithful preacher and successful pastor in Connecticut about fifteen years previous.

The extent of this denomination, at the close of the century, will be seen from the following data for 1798: *

In Ohio there was one presbytery, with 9 ministers, 3 licenciates, and 15 congregations. In Kentucky there were 5 ministers. The above statistics are supposed to be not quite complete. Rev. Dr. Baird gave the statistics of the Presbyterian Church in 1800 as follows: 500 churches, 300 ministers, and 40,000 communicants.

The Associate and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian churches both prospered after the Revolution. The New York Synod of the latter branch was organized in 1782. Among the distinguished ministers of this body were Revs. John M. Mason, D.D., Thomas Clark, Robert Arnan and James Proudfit, D.D.

"The Associate Presbyterians," a secession from the Presbyterian Church, under the leadership of Rev. Jacob Green, originally consisted of four ministers, who quietly withdrew and organized the "Presbytery of Morris County," at Hanover, May 3, 1780. Their platform has been characterized as "Presbyterian in form, but Congregational in fact." This new body received sympathy in regions where Congregational influence was felt, in the counties of Dutchess and Westchester, N. Y., along the New England line, and in course of time five Presbyteries were organized. This movement started under a vigorous impulse of growth, which was felt for almost twenty years. It subsequently, however, declined, and before 1830 its presbyteries had been disbanded, its churches had all been absorbed into Presbyterian or Congregational organizations, and all its memorials passed away.†

Dr. Crooks, in his history of the one hundred years of Dickinson College, says:

*Minutes of the General Assembly, 1798.

History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. By Rev. E. H. Gillett, D.D. Vol. I, p. 218.

BAPTIST GROWTH.

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The debt which this country owes to the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians has not been understood, much less acknowledged. They, in their Synod which met at Philadelphia, in 1775, were the first religious body to declare themselves in favor of open resistance to the king. They issued the first Declaration of Independence, that of Mecklenberg, May 20, 1775. They were the founders of the schools of learning in the Middle States, and notably the founders of Dickinson College.

Their history has as yet been but imperfectly told, but the time will come when the Scotch and Irish Presbyterian of Pennsylvania will take his place alongside the New England Puritan as one of the founders of liberty and learning in the New World. The race which has given to the country John Witherspoon, Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, Andrew Jackson, Robert Fulton, Horace Greeley, and others of equal or lesser fame, is one whose memory men cannot willingly let die.

At the time of the Revolution the Baptists were few in number, suffering pitiless persecution in the chief colonies-fines, mobs, imprisonment, scourging. Against terrible odds they strove to realize their ideal of a Church of regenerated persons, baptized on a profession of personal faith, and exercising absolute freedom of conscience. They numbered about fifteen thousand communicants. They entered into the Revolution with great zeal, hoping for religious as well as political liberty. In the triumph of the Revolution they, therefore, doubly rejoiced, and rapidly won upon popular favor on account of their conspicuous advocacy of freedom of conscience. They grew rapidly,* in 1792 numbering 891 churches, 1,156 ministers,† and 65,345 members. These were distributed as follows: in New England, 266 churches, 342 ministers, and 17,174 members; in the Middle States, 126 churches, 155 ministers, and 8,025 members; in the Southern States, 437 churches, 565 ministers, and 36,100 members; in Kentucky and Tennessee, 60 churches, 82 ministers, and 3.984 members; in Ohio there were 2 churches, 2 ministers, and 62 members. In Virginia alone there were 261 Baptist churches and 20,443 members. Exact data for 1800 have not been compiled, but it has been estimated that this denomination had at that time about 100,000 members.

After the Revolution the Methodist preachers, relieved from their

* Rev. Rufus Babcock, D.D., in American Quarterly Register, 1840, 1841, p. 185.

+ The Baptist ministers of this period were Joseph Cook, 1776-1790; Benjamin Foster, D.D., 1776-1798; Caleb Blood, 1776-1814; John Pitman, 1777-1822; Lewis Richards, 1777-1832; Ambrose Dudley, 1778-1823; Isaac Case, 1780-1852; Thomas Baldwin, D.D., 1782-1826; Henry Holcomb, D.D., 1784-1824; Joseph Grafton, 1784-1836; Stephen Gano, 1786-1828; William Elliot, 1786-1830; Aaron Leland, 1786-1833; John Stanford, 1786-1834; Andrew Marshall, 1786-1856; Thomas B. Montanye, 1787-1829; Elisha Andrews, 1787-1840; John Tripp, 17871847; Henry Smalley, 1788-1839; Jesse Mercer, D.D., 1788-1841; Andrew Broaddus, 1789-1818; Jonathan Maxcy, D.D., 1790-1820; Robert B. Semple, 1790-1831; Abel Woods, 1790--1850; Daniel Wildman, 1791–1849; William Bachelder, 1792-1818; Asa Messer, D.D., LL.D., 1792– 1836; William Staughton, D.D, 1793-1829; Morgan J. Rhees, 1794-1804; Zenas L. Leonard, 1794-1841; John Healey, 1794-1848; John Williams, 1795-1825.