it may here be slated thai down to the outbreak "I
tb. Revolution, the Society for Propagating the Cos- pel maintai 1. on an average, thirty clergymen in the
New England slates, and about fifty in the other col- onies. » in.- list of churches w hich was sent home by a missionary in 1748 makes the number in New Hamp-
PROTESTANT EPISC. CHURCH 673 PROTESTANT EPISC. CHURCH
shire two, in Rhode Island five, in Massachusetts twelve, in Connecticut seventeen — total, thirty-six. It must be borne in mind, too, that each missionary was placed in the centre of an extensive district, and supplied as far as possible the spiritual wants of the people, whom oft- times he could reach only by long and even dangerous journeys to and from distant settlements. The Society- did all that its means allowed in sending missionaries in all practicable directions, and it may justly and properly be noted of its work that when it began its operations in the colonies, it found but five churches; and when compelled by the revolt of the colonies to close its labors, it left the country with some two hun- dred and fifty churches.
The Church of England in America was peculiarly unhappy in its position just before and at the period of the Revolution. It had no popular favor to fall back upon in those days of trial. It was small in proportion to other Christian bodies, especially in the north, and it was hated and despised by the ill-informed multitude, ■who regarded it as virtually identical with priestcraft and tyranny. A considerable number of its clergy, par- ticularly those who were English-born, felt compelled by their ordination vows to adhere to the cause of the king. This was sure to bring distress and trouble upon them and the Church likewise; for when the disputes with the mother country reached that crisis which cul- minated in the war of the Revolution, there could be no longer any hesitation as to the side which every man must take. Then it became a necessity for a man to side with his country or with the king's party; he must be a patriot, heart and soul, or he must be ranked with and suffer with the odious Tories. The result was the abandonment of their fields of labor by most of the clergy in the employ of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, who found their only safety in flight to England or the British provinces ; the closing of nearly all the churches; and, worse than all, the disgraceful ruin and defilement heaped upon many church edifices. It was none the less hard and unjust to American churchmen to be forced to bear all this in addition to the trials of war, inasmuch as it is only simple justice to put it on record, to the perpetual honor of the Church and the vindication of its members against the freely circulated charge of lack of patriotism in the great struggle against the tyranny of the English govern- ment, that the commander-in-chief of our army was a churchman, and the first chaplain of Congress was Will- iam White, a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
2. History subsequent to the Revolution, including the full organization and entrance on its work of the Prot- estant Episcopal Church in the United States. — When, at last, the war was over, and the independence of the United States was acknowledged (1783), it became a matter of immediate concern to those who had hereto- fore been dependent on England for ordination of cler- gy, and for efficient and steady help from the Society for Propagating the Gospel, to ascertain what was now to be done. Here they were, few in numbers compara- tively; cut off from all direct connection with the Eng- lish Church ; having not even the small comfort of be- ing considered as any longer in the diocese of London; with no means of helping themselves; no bishops, few clergy, and these scattered over a large surface of coun- try; in great perplexity as to the proper course to be pursued ; and reduced pretty nearly to the condition of hopeless uncertainty. In Virginia, for instance, at the beginning of the Revolution, there were 164 churches and chapels and 91 clergymen; at the close of the great struggle a large number of these churches had been de- stroyed ; 95 parishes were extinct or forsaken ; of the remaining 72, there were 34 without ministerial ser- vices; while of the 91 clergy only 28 remained. But, bad and distressing as was the state of affairs, it was not altogether desperate. The great Head of the Church did not abandon his people in their trouble. VIII.— U u
Those brave and honest men who had tried for years and years to induce the government and Church of England to allow them to have a bishop — were thor- oughly- conscious that they must not now give up in despair. The mean and paltry reasons of state, and the venomous prejudice that had been stirred up from this side of the water against the continuous supplica- tion for a bishop dining marly a century just past — these could certainly no longer have any force ; for now there was a new nation in the world, in no wise ham- pered by any union of Church and State; now it could not be pretended that there was any danger to public liberty from the Episcopal Church having and enjoy- ing what it regards as essential to its very life and growth. To us, at this day, when a century of exist- ence has been granted to the United States, and the Protestant Episcopal Church has proved its right to be what it has now become, it seems almost incredible that it could ever have been seriously urged against that Church that its having bishops of its own was (in some strange, unaccountable way) hurtful and dan- gerous to liberty and true patriotism. However singu- lar it may appear that such an opinion should prevail among fair-minded, intelligent persons, the fact is indis- putable; this opinion did prevail, and did cause great trial and suffering to the Church in America. All that can be said is, that as prejudice is usually utterly unreasoning, and will listen to nothing which militates against its preconceived conclusions, so we have no al- ternative but to attribute some, at least, of the opposi- tion to the Episcopal Church to this hard, stony preju- dice; while it is almost certain that a large part of the opposition arose from settled hatred towards the Church and a determination to prevent its growth and influ- ence. Bishop White's testimony is instructive in this connection. Writing in 1830, he says, "What a won- derful change has the author lived to witness in ref- erence to American episcopacy! He remembers the ante -revolutionary times, when the presses profusely emitted pamphlets and newspaper disquisitions on the question whether an American bishop were to be en- dured; and when threats were thrown out of throwing such a person, if sent among us, into the river, although his agency was advocated for the sole purpose of a com- munion submitting itself to his spiritual jurisdiction