sore trial and despondency is equally true. There was unhappily in the early part of the century a lack of thorough education in Church principles; there were the prevalence of sectarianism, jealousy felt by the various Protestant denominations, the sleepless enmity of the Roman Church towards the Protestant Epis- copal Church, and wide-spread ungodliness on every hand, resulting in spiritual torpor and almost death. For a time it seemed (as Dr. Hawks says of Virginia) as if naught but "gloomy darkness" enveloped the Church. By a strange combination of circumstances, the act of the legislature of Virginia confiscating the glebes and Church property, which was resisted on the ground of being clearly illegal, became law by the death of the presiding judge in the court of appeals the night before he was to deliver the decision, all written out, securing to the Church its just rights. The effect upon the Church in Virginia was fearful and well-nigh disastrous, especially in the ruin and utter abandonment of church edifices and the dying- out of religion in every shape among the people. Even when, in 1814, a brighter day began to dawn, "the journals of the convention by which bishop R. C. Moore was elected show the presence of but seven clergymen and seventeen laymen. We look back upon the past, and are struck with the contrast. Seven clergymen were all that could be convened to transact the most important measure which our conventions are ever called upon to perform, and this in a territory where once more than ten times seven regularly served at the altar. We look back still farther, and find the Church, after the lapse of two hundred years, numbering about as many ministers as she possessed at the close of the first eight years of her existence" (Hawks). In Mary- land and its neighbor Delaware, matters were hardly any better. " In 1803 there was a spirit of indifference to religion and the Church too extensively prevalent in the parishes ; nearly one half of them were vacant ; in some, all ministerial support had ceased. Some few of the clergy had deserted their stations; and of the residue, several, disheartened and embarrassed by in- adequate means of living, had sought subsistence in other states. Infidelity and fanaticism were increas- ing; and, on the whole, there never was a time when ministers were more needed, or when it was more diffi- cult to obtain them" (Hawks). Such was the state of things in general at the South in the early part of the 19th century. Further North, in New York, New Jer- sey, Connecticut, and much of New England, the pros- pects wyere more cheering. The consecration of John Henry Hobart as assistant to bishop B.Moore of New York, May 29, 1811, and of Alexander Viets Griswold for the eastern diocese (i. e. Massachusetts, Rhode Isl- and, New Hampshire, and Vermont) at the same date, were indications of healthy growth. The former be- came especially prominent, during his episcopate of nearly twenty years, as the representative of what are called " High-Churchmen"* in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and his influence on the character, claims, and position of the Church in the United States, in the es- timate of his own people as well as the various Chris- tian bodies among whom he lived, can hardly be over- valued. No one could possibly, or did, misunderstand him, and he was so resolute withal in the open avowal of his principles and convictions, and so ready to defend them on all occasions, even that " unchurching" dogma, as many like to call it, that it may be doubted if any bishop or clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church
* Perhaps it may be well to say here that the terms or appellations '• High-Churchman," " Low-Churchman," "evangelical," "ritualist or ritualistic," etc., are used simply for convenience, and to save repeated periphrases. The writer of these pages neither affirms nor denies the applicability of the words to or about those specially con- cerned. No disrespect, is meant to any one, on the one hand, by the use of terms, nor, on the other, is any claim of superiority made in behalf of those to whom the word is applied.
PROTESTANT EPISC. CHURCH GTS PROTESTANT EPISC. CHURCH
r done so much as John Henry Hobart in defin- ing the position and claims, and educating, so to peak, the whole Church to the adoption of fixed and settled views on this important subject, 1 >i>li<-[> Hobart's per- sonal character and devotion to his work, his i nques- tioned purity of purpose in all that he did, hi- life- arid cordial correspondence « ith bishop White (whom no one ever charged with being a High-Church- ngthened, undoubtedly, his influence; and even those who differed with him, and represented whal are called •■ Low-Church" views and principles, could not but a high-toned, conscientious advocate of princi- ples i" which they were, with equal conscientiousness, totally opposed. It is not, probably, too much to affirm thai the steadfast adherence of the Protestant Episco- pal Church i" its standards of doctrine, discipline, and worship, and its fixed and often expressed determina- tion (through the General Convention and its action), never to recede from its attitude towards either Rome or Protestants of various names, are due in great meas- ure to the labors, teaching, and publications of bishop Hobart, and the large number of clergymen and laymen « bo ii.i\ e been educated in the Church principles n itb which his name is associated.