i f^.' 
 
 THE CHURCH IN AMERICA 
 Buxton 
 
 r\- 
 
Library 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of NortH Carolina 
 
 This book was presented by the family 
 of the late 
 
 KEMP PLUMMEK BATTLE, '49 
 
 President of the University of North Carolina 
 from 1876 to 1890 
 
 Cp283 
 B99e 
 
 00034013399 
 
 This book must not 
 be taken from the 
 Library building. 
 
 Form No. 471 
 
, 
 
 
 THE CHURCH IN AMERICA, PARTICULARLY 
 
 IN N. CAROLINA, IN ITS EARLY HISTORY. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, which at once strikes the attention of 
 the ecclesiastical inquirer, that all through these American States 
 which were Colonies of Great Britain before 1776, whether among 
 the Independents or Puritans in Massachusetts and Connecticut on 
 the North, or among the Church of England Establishments in 
 Maryland and Virginia, at the South, or among the more central 
 Provinces, there never lived a Bishop of the English Church to 
 ordain and perpetuate her ministry, to confirm her baptized, and 
 perform other essential duties appertaining to the office of Bishop. 
 This anomalous condition of things continued, till American In- 
 dependence released this country from subjection to England, and 
 left the Church here free to take measures for securing the Episco- 
 pate, of which she had been deprived for nearly 200 } 7 ears. It is 
 to the Church only, in contradistinction to the State, of England, 
 that the Protestant Episcopal Church in these States, owns herself 
 to be indebted under God, for her first foundation and a long con- 
 tinuance of nursing care and protection. To the English State she 
 owes no gratitude ; for that State only kept her in the trammels 
 of State Bondage, and subjected her to the ever veering policy of 
 Statesmen and Dissenters, both at home and abroad, whose interest 
 it was, that the Church, though the Tree'of the Lord, should not 
 bear fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, for the propagation 
 of itself. F&r as the Church receives the Primitive Constitution 
 of her ministry as it exists in the Word of God, and in the 
 Apostolic Ages, so no propagation b} T her ministry could be made 
 except from that seed which Jesus Christ Himself first planted, 
 when He chose His Apostles and said unto them : "As My Eather 
 hath sent Me, even so send I you." " Lo ! I am with you always 
 even unto the end of the world." Yet, for nearly 200 years, the 
 
2 American Church Review. 
 
 Church in this country was left without a Bishop upon its own 
 ground. By customary usage, which seems to have taken its rise 
 from his connection with the " Virginia Council" of which he was 
 a member, the Bishop of London, from the year 1606, exercised 
 spiritual jurisdiction over the American Plantations, which it was 
 never expected that he should visit. In 1701, in the reign of 
 William and Mary, the Charter of th e "Venerable Society for the 
 propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," was obtained, and 
 by this society missionaries from England were furnished to all 
 the Colonies, except Maryland and Virginia which had their own 
 establishments, up to the period of the American Revolution. But 
 as all the clergymen who had come over prior to 1701 had been 
 licensed by the Bishop of London, the practice was continued by 
 the ..society, of placing its missionaries under the charge of the 
 same Bishop. So that, in some sense, the Bishop of that See all 
 along from 1606 up to the American Revolution, was the Bishop 
 or Diocesan of all the English Colonies in America. This whole 
 country formed, as it were, one enormous undivided Diocese un- 
 der the nominal jurisdiction, so far as the Church of England was 
 concerned, of a Bishop who was first brought into connection with 
 it through one of the Virginia Companies, and lived 3000 miles 
 off. Any actual oversight of such a Diocese was, of course, im- 
 practicable. The Churches in Maryland and Virginia, however, 
 had deputies of the Bishop of London, under the name of com- 
 missaries, which none other of the English Provinces had. The 
 duty of an ecclesiastical commissary, under the English Law, we 
 are told, is " to supply the office and jurisdiction of the Bishop, in 
 the outplaces of the Diocese." Of course, the rites of ordination 
 and confirmation were not within his powers, since he was only a 
 Presbyter. For certain purposes only of visitation through the 
 Diocese, such as inspecting the state of the churches, delivering 
 charges, and, in some instances, administering discipline though 
 not to the extent of deposition, was he in the Bishop's room, and 
 the Bishop's vicegerent. In 1689 the first commissary was duly 
 commissioned by the Bishop of London for the Colony of Vir- 
 ginia. This officer was, as we have said, deputed to none other 
 of the Provinces but Virginia and Maryland ; and it appears 
 from the history of those times, bad as they were, that even this 
 
Thr Church in America. 3 
 
 imperfect substitute for episcopal supervision, was of signal service 
 to the Church in these parts, though the office fell into disuse be- 
 fore 1760. 
 
 As far back as 1672, in the reign of King Charles II., it had been 
 resolved by the King in Council, to send a Bishop to Virginia, 
 and Dr. Alexander Murray, who had been the companion of the 
 King in his travels, was the person nominated to be Bishop of 
 Virginia, with a general charge over the other Provinces. His 
 Letters Patent, but not signed by the King's name, it is stated by 
 Gibson, Bishop of London fifty years afterwards, were extant 
 among the records of that See ; but the design of Jconsecrating 
 him fell through, it is asserted, because the endowment was made 
 payable out of the customs. It was the era of " the Cabal 
 Ministry," who thought little and cared less for the Church, either 
 at home or abroad, and had no mind, at any rate, that it should 
 be a tax on the revenues. 
 
 As we have before said, the Venerable Society for the propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts had been founded in 1701, the 
 last year of William and Mary's reign — an important era in the 
 history of the Colonial Church of America, because it was this 
 society which bec amp. the ehief sonre.e of support to the Chn_rgh_ 
 Ministers in the Colonies, except those of Maryland and Virgini a. 
 Its missionaries , at times to the number of 10 0, were at work 
 at almost every important town on the Atlantic coast. Th ree dis- 
 tinct and u rgent applications fo r an American Episcopate are re- 
 corded in the reig ns of Queen Anne a nd George I ., u^fder the 
 
 ' \ ■ ; JF. I I — s 
 
 aug piges of frb is soci ety ; but just when they were on The point of 
 obtaining all they desired, some untoward event, occasioned either 
 by death or by political troubles, would frustrate their plans. The 
 society had even gone so f ar as to purchase at Burlington, X. J ., 
 in the year 1710, at an expense of £600, a convenient Mansio n 
 House, w hich was also put in thorough repair, together with 15 
 acres of land and 12 acres of meadow, for the use of the future 
 Bishop, whose charge^ as desig nated, extended " from the East 
 side of Delaware River, to the utmost bounds Eastward of the 
 B ritish Dominions, including New Foundland ;" while anothe r 
 Bishop was designed to be settled .a t Willia msburg, y a .. to whom 
 was allotted the district extending " from the West side of the 
 
4 Amebic an Church Review. 
 
 Delaware River, to the utmost bounds Westward." But this, as 
 well as another plan in 1726 for consecrating a Suffragan in 
 Maryland to the Bishop of London, came to nought. 
 
 But as the century waned on after 1750, the chances of obtain- 
 ing a Bishop for America, became more and more hopeless, though 
 vigorous efforts were still made for that purpose. Difficulties and 
 misunderstandings with the Mother Country began to thicken ; 
 and the odium which raged against the political measures of 
 England, especially the stamp duty of 1764 was zealously turned 
 by the enemies of the Church, against the Church herself. The 
 hostile denominations, both in this country and in England, con- 
 centrated their forces against the Church, in a committee in Lon- 
 don which carried on constant correspondence with a kindred 
 committee in this country, forming together a sort of anti-episco- 
 pal " League and Covenant." The English Ministry sought to 
 disarm their opposition by frowning down the revived scheme 
 of the Bishop of London for sending over Bishops to America, 
 and by giving assurance to the agitators that no Bishop should be 
 consecrated for America without their consent. 
 
 It was about this period, 1765, that a controversy broke out b e- 
 tween^ Church Clerg yman of Camb ridge, M ass., an<3 _a_j)r May- 
 iiey^_a.Cpijgi^gj^on_aLMLoister of Bositon^on^erning the course 
 t hat had been pursued by the " Society for prop agatin g the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts," which, the congregationalist charged, instead 
 of sending the Gospel and the ministry to the destitute parts of 
 the continent, had sought out the better settled and more com- 
 fortable portions of the country and there stationed its missionaries 
 as intruders upon the descendants of the first settlers. He also 
 inveighed against the plan of appointing Bishops for America^ 
 
 This controversy is remarkable chiefly as having been partici- 
 pated in by Seeker, then Archbishop of Canterbury and ex-ofiicio 
 President of "the Venerable Society, etc." In his tract, he had 
 occasion to assign the reasons for desiring the appointment of 
 Bishops, which furnish a graphic picture of the grievances under 
 which the Church in America labored. X he p rincipal reason s 
 assigned by him for desiring a Bishop , are, the want of confirma- ' 
 tion of the bapti zed, the need for superintendence of the clergy, 
 and especially the savingcandidates for Holy Ord ers the trouble, 
 
The Church in America 5 
 
 costjmJLjisk--^^ from -England. While all de- 
 
 nominations had the means within themselves of perpetuating their 
 ministry, the members of the Church of England alone, he says, 
 were excluded from a right whose exercise was, in their view, 
 essential to their existence, as a Church. Would they think them- 
 selves tolerated, were they obliged to send all their candidates for 
 the ministry to Geneva or Scotland % The expense. of the voyage 
 to and from England he sets down at not less than £100 ; nearly 
 one fifth of those who had taken that voyage had lost their lives 
 either by shipwreck or by sickness, and in consequence of these 
 discouragements, one-half of the Churches in many of the Pro- 
 vinces were destitute of Clergymen. The Archbishop went on to 
 state, that the proposed Bishops were never designed to have any 
 concern with persons who do not profess themselves to be of the 
 Church of England, but to ordain ministers for the members of 
 that Church, to confirm their children when brought to them at 
 a fit age, and take oversight of the Episcopal Clergy. But it was 
 not desired in the least that they should be vested with any tem- 
 poral authority, exercised either by provincial Governors or subor- 
 dinate Magistrates, or infringe upon or diminish any privileges or 
 liberties enjoyed by any of the laity even of our own Com- 
 munion. 
 
 It thus appears, from the foregoing declarations, that an 
 English Archbishop of Canterbury, taught by the situation of 
 affairs over in this country, had worked his way out from the 
 hampering bonds of a Legal Establishment, to the pure concep- 
 tion of an Episcopate exercising only spiritual functions of office, 
 and especially disclaiming any connection at all with the functions 
 of the State. Such was Archbishop Seeker's idea of the proposed 
 American Episcopate. Such was the primitive idea before the 
 time of Constantine. Such is the true American idea. The time 
 was not yet come, in the order of Divine providence, for realizing 
 it in fact. But there was something, at least, gained in the 
 Church having been educated up to that point of a scriptural and 
 primitive Episcopate, friend and foe thus becoming familiarized 
 with the conception. In due time, a watchful providence would 
 take care to prepare the way and the time for its full realization. 
 But the storm of an eight years' war was destined first to sweep 
 
6 American Church Review. 
 
 over the laud and reduce all things to chaos, ere the States, and 
 with them the Church, could emerge free and independent, to 
 begin together their new career. Of course, the whole subject of 
 the Episcopate remained in abeyance during the Revolutionary 
 War. Of the Clergy of the Church of England some took sides 
 with the American Patriots ; others chose to transfer their services 
 to Colonies of the British Crown, the West Indies, the Ber- 
 mudas, particularly Nova Scotia, which became in 1787 the first 
 Colonial See of the English Church, on this Continent. Others 
 of the Clergy closed their Churches, remained at home and opened 
 schools, but with limited success — for the war of the revolution 
 left the youth of the day but little opportunity for education. The 
 mass of the Church of England Laitjr, among them such men as 
 General Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee the 
 mover of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Lee one of 
 the signers, the Carringtons and Graysons and Mercers, with hun- 
 dreds of other names well-known to fame, took sides against 
 England; for the quarrel of all these great men was with the 
 State of England, not with the Church of England, in which 
 they had been baptized and to which they remained faithful, 
 through the conflict of arms, to draw their last breath in the peace 
 of her Holy Communion. Peace was proclaimed in America on 
 the 19th April, 1783 ; but it dawned upon a land, especially 
 through the rural districts, with roofless and forsaken churches, 
 with broken altars and a scattered and diminished Clergy \ 
 
 But to everything under the sun, the wisdom of Solomon tells 
 us, belongs a time or crisis, which, if embraced, stamps human 
 efforts with success, but is followed by ruin, if it be past or lost. 
 To the Church that survived the wreck of war, the blessing of 
 God was given to improve its crisis, in a signal manner, for all 
 time to come. 
 
 The first General Convention of this Church, after two prelimi- 
 nary meetings of Clergy and Laity from different States, assembled 
 in Christ Church, Philadelphia, in the month of September, 1785. 
 The two most important subjects which came before this body 
 were.(l) the preparation of a general Ecclesiastical Constitution, 
 and (2) the adaptation of the Liturgy of the Church of England 
 to the altered situation of the American Church — both of which 
 objects were at length happily accomplished. 
 
The Church in America. 7 
 
 The General Convention met again the following year (Oct. 
 1786), among other purposes, to consider the answer that had been 
 received by the Church Committee appointed to correspond with 
 the English Bishops concerning the consecration of Bishops for the 
 Church in the United States. That answer being favorable to 
 their consecration, Drs. White, of Philadelphia, and Provoost, of 
 New York, were invested with the office of Bishop, 4th Feb., 
 I787,in Lambeth Chapel, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted 
 by the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Bath and Wells, 
 and of Peterborough. To these two, Dr. Madison, of Virginia 
 was afterwards added, having been consecrated in Lambeth 
 Chapel, 19th September, 1790. And thus was "the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church" in this country, the old Church of England, 
 after nearly two centuries of waiting, and longing, and pleading, 
 furnished with three Bishops, thus becoming qualified, according 
 to the oldest Canons in existence, to propagate its own line of 
 Apostolic succession, "even unto the end of the world." 
 
 But now we turn back a little to another interesting chapter in 
 American Church History. Nearly three years before the conse- 
 cration of Bishops White and Provoost in England, that is, in 
 1784, another line of Episcopacy, through the Scottish line of 
 succession, had been introduced into New England, under these 
 circumstances. In 1782 a plan designed as a temporary substitute 
 for Episcopacy had been published by Dr. White, a sort of super- 
 intendence 7 or moderatorship in the person of a Presbyter, that 
 was supposed by him to be justified by the necessity of the case. 
 The plan was professedly to give way or be superseded whenever 
 lawful Bishops could be obtained. Had this scheme been adopted, 
 as was recommended by the high authority of Dr. White, it would 
 probably have ended, like all other schemes of the kind in the 
 history of the Church, professedly at first temporary and designed 
 to meet exigency, in becoming a permanent sectarian organization 
 with its blind following of the multitude. The proposed plan 
 gave great alarm to the Church in Connecticut, which, having 
 been trained by continual combat with the Puritans, in Church 
 principles, was determined to stand or fall by the Church of Holy 
 Scripture and Primitive Antiquity. Accordingly, the moment 
 that peace was declared in 1783, they elected Dr. Samuel Seabury 
 
8 American Crutch Review. 
 
 for their Bishop, furnished him with testimonials and sent him 
 to England for consecration. But the English Bishops could 
 not consecrate a Foreigner without a special Act of Parliament, 
 which was refused to them. After waiting in England more than 
 a year, with no prospect of success, the Clergy of Connecticut 
 directed their Bishop-elect to proceed to Scotland where he was 
 consecrated at Aberdeen, 14th Nov., 1784, or nearly three years 
 earlier than Drs. White and Provoost. Bishop Seabury, 
 on returning to his Diocese, went vigorously to work, but 
 for several years took no part in the proceedings outside of his 
 own Diocese. We are indebted to this staunch old Bishop, it may 
 be mentioned in passing, for the insertion in the Prayer of Con- 
 secration in the Communion office, of the Invocation of the Holy 
 Ghost " to bless and sanctify the Creatures of Bread and Wine," 
 after the Use of the Scottish Communion office, which is not 
 found in the English office. 
 
 As yet there was no union among the Episcopal Churches 
 in the United States; only, a large nucleus for a general union 
 existed among the States southward of New England, comprising 
 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, 
 Virginia, North and South Carolina. But there was a sincere de- 
 sire felt for general union of the whole Church, which was sure to 
 work its way, in due time, to the desired end. By the time of the 
 adjourned meeting of the General Convention of 1789, the New 
 England Churches had all acceded to the General Constitution, 
 adopted during the previous session of that Convention. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that the Convention of 1789, which wit- 
 nessed the Union of the Church under a Constitution, witnessed 
 also in the same year the Union of the States under the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. That Convention also presented an 
 Address to Washington which they opened with saying " that with 
 the highest veneration and the most animating national consider- 
 ations we express our cordial joy on your election to the 
 Chief Magistracy of the United States." President Washington, 
 after heartily thanking them for their affectionate congratula- 
 tions, closed his reply with this memorable benediction, " May 
 you and the people whom you represent be the happy subjects 
 of Divine benediction, both here and hereafter 1" May the bene- 
 
The Church tn America. 9 
 
 diction thus invoked by the Father of his Country be abundantly 
 fulfilled through the ages! 
 
 At this point, looking back, we pause to note the remarkable 
 synchronisms between the dates and great epochs of our civil and 
 ecclesiastical history. This Church and the American. States had 
 their Colonial training together up to 1775. After that year, they 
 passed through the trying ordeal of the eight years' struggle, each 
 reduced to the lowest extremity and almost laid in ruins. With 
 1783, on the return of peace, began their common era of uprising 
 and resuscitation. The year 1789 marks the era of time when 
 the National Constitution and the Constitution of this Church, 
 as a National Church, both went into operation; and we our- 
 selves know, from the events of our own day, how the fortunes 
 alike of Church and State have again synchronized in division 
 and in re-union. History, as the order of ages rolls onward, in 
 its divinely purposed manifestation of results will evolve more 
 and more luminously the plan of Divine wisdom that lies hidden 
 in such wonderful coincidences of times and events — " series junc- 
 turaque rerum." 
 
 Before closing the review of our early Church History, it may 
 be interesting to notice, as a matter of history, what was the 
 professed relation of the Methodists in those times, to the Church 
 of England in America ; for it was as far back as 1735 that John 
 and Charles Wesley, both of them Presbyters of that Church, came 
 over to America, where, during a stay of about three years, they 
 gathered the rudiments of a Methodist society. From that time 
 onward, and all through the war of the Revolution, the Metho- 
 dists professed to consider themselves as belonging to the Church 
 of England, claiming for their preachers to be only lay-preachers 
 and resisting every attempt to set up for themselves, as a Church, 
 for the administration of the Sacraments. Their separation from 
 the Church of their baptism did not take place till 1 784, after the 
 war was over, when Mr. Wesley appointed Dr. Coke and Mr. 
 Francis Asbury to be joint Superintendents over the Methodists 
 in this country, and also two others to act as elders among them, 
 in baptising and administering the Lord's supper, for the first 
 time. Wesley, in England, laid hands upon Coke, who was 
 already a Presbyter of the Church of England, like himself. 
 2 
 
10 American Church Review. 
 
 Coke thereupon came over to America and laid hands upon 
 Asbury, one of the lay-preachers of the Society. Such was the 
 beginning and origin of " Methodist Episcopacy " or rather 
 " Methodist Superintendency." For Mr. Wesley, the father of 
 Methodism, never designed either Dr. Coke or Mr. Asbury to 
 bear the title of " Bishop," whatever else was his purpose in lay- 
 ing hands upon Dr. Coke. The proof of this fact is taken from 
 Lee's History of Methodism, wherein he affirms thai; in the year 
 1787 (or three years after the assembling of the first General 
 Conference in Baltimore under Superintendent Coke), Mr. Asbury 
 reprinted the General Minutes of that Conference in a different 
 form and under a different title from what they were before, 
 styling them " A form of discipline for the ministers, preachers 
 and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, 
 etc." In this reprint of the Discipline, he altered the title of 
 " Superintendent " into that of "Bishop." " This was the first 
 time" says Lee, " our Superintendents ever gave themselves the 
 title of Bishops in the Minutes. They changed the title them- 
 selves, without the consent of the Conference." This alteration of 
 title, contrary to Mr. Wesley's intention, was energetically 
 resented by him, in a letter written to Mr. Asbury, under date of 
 September, 1788, from which we take the following extract : 
 " How can you, how dare you, suffer yourself to be called Bishop. 
 I shudder, I start at the very thought. Men may call me a knave, 
 or a fool, or a rascal, or a scoundrel, and I am content, but they 
 shall never, by my consent, call me Bishop. For my sake, for 
 God's sake, for Christ's sake, put a full end to this !" 
 
 And Superintendent Coke himself, in a letter addressed to 
 Bishop White, dated April 24, 1791, and published in White's 
 Memoirs, confesses — " I am not sure but that I went farther in 
 the separation of our Church in America, than Mr. Wesley, from 
 whom 1 had received my commission, did intend. He did indeed 
 solemnly invest me, as far as he had a right so to do, with Epis- 
 copal authority, but did not intend, I think, that an entire separa- 
 tion should take place. This I am certain of, that he is now 
 sorry for the separation." 
 
 But had Mr. Wesley waited a little longer on God's time, 
 which is always man's best opportunity, he would have been 
 
The Church in America. 1 1 
 
 saved from that rash act done by him at Bristol, the ultimate con- 
 sequences of which to the cause of Christianity in this country 
 no human vision can foresee. For, as we have seen, about this 
 very time (1784), Dr. Seabury, Bishop-elect of Connecticut, was 
 on the point of leaving England for Scotland, for the purpose of 
 receiving consecration at the hands of the Scottish Bishops. And 
 in point of fact, he had received consecration 14th November, 
 1784 — more than five weeks before Superintendent Coke had met 
 the Conference at Baltimore, on returning to America. 
 
 Mr. Wesley could hardly have been ignorant of these facts con- 
 cerning Dr. Seabury, as they were the talk of the time ; and they 
 were well known to his brother Charles, who expressed his mind 
 concerning them in a letter to Dr. Chandler, of New Jersey, from 
 which we extract at some length : 
 
 I can scarcely believe that in his eighty-second year, my brother, ray old inti- 
 mate friend and companion, should have assumed the Episcopal character, ordained 
 Elders, consecrated a Bishop, and set him to ordain lay-preachers in America. I was 
 then at his elbow in Bristol, yet he never gave me the least hint of his intention. 
 What will become of those poor sheep in the wilderness — the American Methodists ? 
 How have they been betrayed into a separation from the Church of England which 
 their preachers and they, no more intended, than the Methodists here? Had they had 
 patience a little longer they would have seen a real primitive Bishop in America, duly 
 consecrated by the Scotch Bishops who have their consecration from the English 
 Bishops and are acknowledged by them as the same with themselves. There is not, 
 therefore, the least difference betwixt the members of Bishop Seabury's Church and 
 the members of the Church of England. You know that I had the happiness to 
 converse with that truly Apostolic man, who is esteemed by all who know him as 
 much as by you and me. He told me he looked upon the Methodists in America as 
 sound members of the Church, and was ready to ordain their preachers whom he 
 should tind duly qualified. His ordination would indeed be genuine, valid and Episcopal. 
 But what are your poor Methodists now ? Only a new sect of Presbyterians. 
 
 Such was the judgment of Charles Wesley, the sweet singer of 
 Methodism, concerning his brother John's act in laying hands 
 upon Coke. But«as late as 1789, five years after that act, John 
 Wesley himself made this declaration. 
 
 I declare once more that I live and die a member of the Church of England, and 
 that none who regard my judgment or advice will ever separate from it. 
 
 Our limits forbid more than a condensed notice of the Early 
 Church in North Carolina. Its history is best gleaned from the 
 
12 American Church Review. 
 
 abstragjjs pf f l* p Lettecs of tha-Mi ssionaries supported he re by the 
 Venerable Society_for the propagation of the G ospeLin-Foreign 
 Pjirts. " These were required by the Society's rules, to send over 
 their reports every six month s. The impression left on our mind 
 on reading years ago those abstracts, published in England dur- 
 ing the colonial times in a sort of " Spirit of Missions " periodical, 
 was, that the col onial clergy of North Carolin a, though quite few 
 in number, were a most fait hful and jiard-working band of men. 
 Indeed, as a general thing, the Venerable Society's Missionaries, 
 both in this and the other Provinces, were the choice ministers of 
 that day on this Continent. Very few ministers of the Gospel, in 
 these after times, will have it recorded of them, at the end of 
 their labors, as is recorded of Rev. Mr. Hall, one of the Society's 
 Missionaries in North Carolina, who died in 1759, that he had 
 baptised 10,000 persons, including children and white and black 
 adults, and had travele d 35,000 mil es as travel was in those days,' 
 besides visiting the sick and distributing tracts. 
 
 A few statistics, drawn from the Society's correspondence and 
 other sources, are here presented, with their respective dates: 
 
 In 1701, the year of the Society's charter, North Carolina con- 
 tained 5,000 inhabitants, besides Negroes and Indians, who all 
 lived without any form of public worship and without schools. 
 
 In 1705, or about two years after the establishment of the 
 Church by law in North Carolina, the first church was erected in 
 the Chowan District, nor is it known up to 172S, which marked 
 the close of the Proprietary Government, that more than two 
 churches had been erected in the Province of North Carolina. 
 
 In 1725, there were eleven Parishes or Precincts containing 
 near 10,000 Christian souls, without one minister of the Gospel to 
 officiate among them. 
 
 In 1732, after a previous exploration of the Province by the 
 Rev. Mr. Blair, the first Itinerant Missionaiw, Mr. Boyd, was sent 
 over by the Venerable Society. He found there not a single min- 
 ister of the Gospel, besides himself. 
 
 In 1745, Mr. Hall writes. " No clergjmian of the Church of Eng- 
 land in North Carolina, that I can hear of, but myself and Mr. 
 Moir." 
 
 In 1755, the population amounted to near 80,000, with but five 
 
The Ch ur ch in A m eric a . 1 3 
 
 Episcopal ministers. Five years later still, there were but eight! 
 clergymen left in the Province to officiate in 29 counties or 
 parishes. Meanwhile, the population was rapidly increasing, hav- 
 ing trebled itself within the thirty years before the Revolution. 
 
 The Parishes or Precincts into which the Province of North. 
 Carolina was divided, were Counties of immense extent, lying 
 northward and southward of Neuse River and bounded within 
 Cape Fear River and the coast. Once or twice there were at - 
 temp ts made to pstahlish Missions in .th r _ jffJULt ?X westward of the 
 Cape Fear among the Catawbans in Mecklenbere; County, but we 
 read of no results. To perform their ministrations in these Coun- 
 ties constant travelling was required on the part of the Mission- 
 aries. The Methodists afterward borrowed this Itinerant feature 
 of the Society's Mission work and incorporated it, with great 
 effect, into their system. Indeed, after we leave the towns, 
 especially amid the sparse population of a new country, there is no 
 other way of regularly reaching the people than by the Itinerant 
 mode, and a few zealous ministers, by this means may be enabled 
 to supply the indispensable demands of church people, as well as 
 extend the Gospel, over an immense territory. But the Colonial 
 Church of North Carolina had also her centres and strong points 
 in the towns of Edenton, Wilmington, New Berne and Bath, 
 where there were churches, schoolhouses, chapels and other paro- 
 chial conveniences. No t t however, till 1763, was fini she d tbejfirst 
 and probably theonl y Glebe House in the Province, and that was 
 i n St. Thomas^ _Parish, BatL 
 
 To give some idea of the relative proportions of the members of 
 the Church of England, especially in Eastern North Carolina, to 
 the rest of the inhabitants, at different times before the Revolu- 
 tion, we quote from the Report of the Missionaries. In 1761, 
 Mr. Reed, Missionary in Craven County, computes about 2,500 
 whites there, of whom about 1,800 were members of the Church 
 of England, the rest Protestant Dissenters ol various names, 
 except about nine or ten Papists. -v 
 
 Rev. Mr. Stewart, of St. Thomas' Parish, Bath, computes 2,200 
 whites there, seven-eighths of whom belonged to the Church of 
 England. 
 
14 American Church Review. 
 
 In 1765 Governor Tryon wrote to the Society : 
 
 That every sect abouuded except the Romanists, but he reckons the Church of 
 England to have the majority in the Province, and doubts not that the greatest part 
 of every sect would come over,*could a sufficient number of exemplary and orthodox 
 clergy persuade themselves to settle in this country. 
 
 But it was in vain for the Church of England to seek long to 
 hold her own against such increasing odds when the Province was 
 rapidly filling up from abroad with Germans, dissenting English, 
 Irish and Scotch, and she herself was without any source of sup- 
 ply, for her clergy, short of the Mother Country. For her clergy's 
 support, there was only an establishment by law, in name, with- 
 out revenues. Tjn3ir_jprincipal means of support was the £50 
 sterling , which the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel, allowed to each of its Missionaries. 
 
 ATelter of ParsoTrMifleiT'w^o'^ied in the adjoining County 
 of Burke, some years ago, furnishes us with these interesting par- 
 ticulars. He states that he made his first essay as a lay -preacher 
 with the Methodists, when they professed to be members of the 
 Church of England. But in the year 17S4. he accompanied Dr. 
 Coke to a Conference in Franklin County, in this State. He says : 
 
 Our chief conversation, during the time I was with him, which was for some 
 weeks, was on the subject of organizing what they call their Episcopal Church, on 
 which we could not agree, as the idea was early and deeply fixed in my mind, and I 
 may truly say, my conscience, that the Apostolical Succession must ever descend and 
 continue unbroken with the Church of God. And however inconsistent with this 
 assertion some of my subsequent conduct may appear to be, yet, at this moment, I 
 am certain it is the truth. 
 
 The inconsistency he refers to, was his leaving the Methodists 
 on that scruple, and afterward receiving ordination among the 
 Lutherans in Rowan County of this State, who, however, in 
 the letters of orders they gave him, expressly reserved his right to 
 attach himself to the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 should the Providence of God ever afford him an opportunity ; 
 which opportunity he afterward enjoyed and embraced at the 
 hands of Bishop Moore, of Virginia. 
 
 The first public effort of the Church in North Carolina after 
 the Revolution, to recover herself, was made in the year 1790, 
 November 12th, by a Convention appointed to meet at Tarboro'. 
 
The Church in America. 15 
 
 They elected deputies to represent them in the General Conven- 
 tion of 1792, also a Standing Committee. For the two subse- 
 quent years no Convention met ; but during that interval Rev. 
 Dr. Hailing was ordained by Bishop Madison, of Virginia, which 
 was the first ordination after the Revolution, held expressly for 
 the Church in North Carolina. He became Rector of Christ 
 Church, New Berne. 
 
 Another Convention was held at Tarboro', May, 1794, when 
 Rev. Charles Pettigrew, one ot the five clergy that are known 
 to have remained steady at their posts in North Carolina during 
 the Revolutionary War, was elected to be Bishop of the Diocese 
 of North Carolina. Bishop White states in his Memoirs that 
 Mr. Pettigrew set off to attend the General Convention for the 
 purpose of being consecrated, but was unable to reach Philadel- 
 phia in time. Parson Miller, in the published letter before 
 referred to, 1 states that he had it from Mr. Pettigrew himself, that 
 he thought the election of a Bishop premature, and that he sub- 
 mitted to the election of himself only to prevent the acceptance 
 of the office by some one else. A dreary night set in upon the 
 Church in this State, and indeed over the United States. In 1811 
 there was not a single candidate for Holy Orders in the American 
 Church, and Bishop White feared that it would again be com- 
 pelled to have recourse to the Church of England for the renewal 
 of its Bishops. A wide-spread spirit of infidelity, caught from 
 France, had infected all grades and classes of society. In the 
 front ranks of infidels were to be found those whose forefathers 
 had been the children and zealous friends of the Church. But 
 in 1819 the tide began to turn. Bishop Moore opens his notice 
 of the visitation he paid to the Church in North Carolina in 1819, 
 with these words : " The Church in that State is rising in all the 
 vigor of youth." 
 
 The Rev. John Stark Ravenscroft was consecrated the first 
 Bishop of North Carolina during the session of the General Con- 
 vention at Philadelphia, May, 1823. It is not our purpose to 
 follow the subsequent history and progress of the Church in this 
 State, under her line of Bishops. 
 
 1 Churoh Retlew, July, 1850. 
 
16 
 
 American Church Review. 
 
 We have seen from the present survey that this Church is the 
 old Church of North Carolina, for a long time the Church of the 
 majority of its population, notwithstanding the" grievous disad- 
 vantages she labored under from the necessity of supplying her 
 ministry from beyond the sea, for want of her own Bishop ; and 
 that historically and synchronically she has been associated with 
 the life of the State, whether in prosperity or adversity. 
 
 What the American Church most pressingly wants now, what 
 she ever has wanted and ought to pray for, never so earnestly as 
 now, in prospect of plenteous returns, is, that her Lord would 
 send forth more laborers into the harvest. 
 
 " They shall prosper that love Thee. Peace be within Thy 
 walls and plenteousness within Thy palaces ; for my brethren and 
 companion's sake, I will wish Thee prosperity." 
 
 JAKVIS BUXTON. 
 
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