SUBJECTS.

Rev. Wm. Jackson,

Rev. Dr. Neufville,
Rev. Dr. J. A. Clark,

Rev. Daniel Cobia,
Rev. A. Kauffman,

་

Bishop Griswold,

Rev. Arthur Carey,

Rev. Wm. M. Jackson,

WRITERS.

Bishop Smith,

Rev. Dr. Pitkin,
Rev. Dr. Humphrey.
Rev. Dr. Stevens.
Rev. Dr. Stevens,
Rev. F. Peck.
Rev. C. C. Pinckney.
Rev. Dr. Duffield,
Rev. Dr. Taylor,
Bishop Southgate,
Rev. Dr. Spear.
Rev. Dr. Humphrey,
Rev. Dr. Tyng,

Bishop Clark.

Bishop Hopkins,
Rev. A. C. Coxe.
Bishop Johns.

In such a list it is almost invidious for us to make any discrimination; but we may here cite, as models, though each in its particular line of epistolary and anecdotical biography, the letters of Bishop Onderdonk, Bishop Potter, and Mr. Ingersoll, on Bishop White; those of Bishop Otey on the Messrs. Stephens and on Mr. Patterson; that of Bishop McIlvaine on Dr. Bedell; that of Dr. Mason on Bishop Ravenscroft; that of Dr. Sparrow on Dr. Keith; those of Dr. Stevens on Dr. Neufville, and Dr. Clark; those of Dr. Tyng and Bishop Clark on Bishop Griswold; that of Bishop Johns on the Rev. Wm. M. Jackson; that of Rev. A. C. Coxe on Mr. Carey; that of Mr. Pinckney on Mr. Cobia; and those of President Tyler on Bishop Moore and Bishop Madison. From these, and from other letters perhaps equally interesting, we hope hereafter to lay extracts before our readers.

There are one or two exceptions, however, to the genial yet generous and candid spirit, by which these contributions are in the main marked; and these exceptions we will now for a moment notice. Why was it necessary, for instance, for the Rev. Ethan Allen, an Episcopal minister of Baltimore, to inform Dr. Sprague, a Presbyterian, and through Dr. Sprague, non-Episcopalians generally, that in the Maryland election of 1812, "those of the clergy, who claimed, par excellence, to be Evangelical, made Dr. Contee their candidate for the Episcopate"? Does not Dr. Allen very well know, that the term, "Evangelical," was one of reproach, cast upon these very clergymen by a body of ministers, some of whom, as this very volume tells us, led lives of unrestrained worldliness and ease? Is he keeping within the range of historical fact or generous feeling, when he sneers at those eminent and faithful men who resuscitated the Maryland Church, as "claiming to be, par excellence, Evangelical"? When did they make such claims? to whom? in what shape? Unless Dr. Allen can answer these questions, so as to substantiate this charge, he opens himself to the rebuke of having seized an accidental confidence, not merely to vent on persons now gone to their rest his party animosities, but to attempt to damage their memory by charges of which he has no proof. What were the real divisions in those days, he himself in a previous letter abund antly indicates. "The state of religion" — we quote from his sketch of the Rev.

W. D. Addison "was very low in the Church in this period," (1793.) "Mr. Addison had acquired some distinction for his piety before his ordination. It was known that he would not attend theaters, balls, etc., and that he condemned it in others. The Rector of the parish in which he lived, then a member of the Standing Committee, determined to prevent Mr. Addison's admission to the ministry, saying that his views were Puritanical, and suited rather to the Methodists. But Mr. Addison's guardian, a vestryman in the parish, interfered, and the Rector was induced to withhold his opposition. It may serve to illustrate the different views of the Rector and the candidate, to state that at the wedding of Mr. Addison's sister, the Rector played the violin for the company to dance after." Now it so happens that Mr. Addison was in Maryland at the Episcopal election of 1812, and was prominent among those clergy at whom Dr. Allen now sneers. It is well that side by side with this sneer, we have a paragraph showing one at least of the distinctions that separated these despised "Evangelicals" from their brethren who conferred on them this title..

One other complaint which we have to make, is in reference to the treatment of the late Dr. J. S. J. Gardiner, of Boston. The school of divines, to which this well-known minister belonged, is worthy of a special historical notice. They held themselves at a distance equally polite, but equally unsurmountable, from Puritanism and Methodism on the one hand, and from Sacramentarianism on the other. It is true that they had a strong and comfortable respect for the Episcopal Church, but it was for the Church as a refined social institution, and not as an organization necessary for the salvation of all our lost race. Hence it was, that

while their talents and fine tastes were given to the closer adaptation of the Church to the cultivated classes, they felt no enthusiasm on behalf of her extension among what we now call the masses. Perhaps they doubted whether she would be fit for ordinary missionary labor in the dress in which they would equip her. Perhaps also they felt that as a classical and dignified Church, it was not desirable that she should be troubled with too great an influx of the vulgar; and like those who destroy the plates after a limited number of engravings are cast off, they believed that value is augmented by a feeling of exclusiveness. There was rarely any particular zeal against other communions; and when the "sects" did not tread within certain social limits, they were pronounced good enough in their way. Nor on the other hand was there among these old-fashioned latitudinarians any of the asceticism and zeal of the non-Jurors, which the Oxford tracts have revived among High Churchmen of our own day. The minister regarded with no affection zealots who would compel him to hold week-day services, and to consider himself as especially devoted to the graces of fasting, and of labor among the poor.

If, however, ecclesiastical enthusiasm was distateful to the "Establishmentarian" Churchmen of the last century-to borrow again from Dr. A. C. Coxe-spiritual enthusiasm was still more so. They were alarmed and distressed at what they called religious "excitement," and which not only disturbed their own quiet, but broke up the classical calm of the Church. Hence, if they ever betrayed ill-temper, or departed from their usual polished courtesy, it was at the introduction of any religious exercises, except such as the Church-service and their own preaching supplied. Zealous ministers of their own communion, who preached with passionate earnestness the cross and the depravity of the human heart, harassed them even more than preachers from outside. And when a revival, as it swept along its orbit, penetrated the outskirts of their own congregations, their embarrassment

became extreme, particularly as they would see young men, as was not unfrequently the case, under vehement convictions of sin, groaning, agonizing, in the terrific earnestness of an awakened spirit. Such phenomena, by opening the realities of the spiritual world, often exercised blessed influences on the minister himself. Sometimes he would remain merely quiescent, attempting no positive interference. Sometimes, however, he incurred the awful responsibility of endeavoring to calm the sense of guilt, by turning the attention of the inquirer to other channels. "Ride on horseback and play chess," is said to have been prescribed in one case. In another, the minister listened with profound surprise to the narrative of a soul, supposed to have been awakened under his preaching, and asked of the inquirer, what he (the preacher) could "have said to have produced such a state of mind?" Now, what we have to complain of in Dr. Sprague's book is, that little or no discrimination is made between ministers of this and of other classes, but that each is introduced to us under the auspices of his special friends and admirers. The inquiry of the child, as to where the bad people are buried, may be here so paraphrased as to make us inquire what has become of that large class of latitudinarian ministers-men of literary address, of social distinction, but yet cold and formal in their views of religious truth-whom history tells us abounded in England and in this country, at the beginning of the present century; and the difficulty is, that they are here introduced to us under the auspices of friends who, either from not being aware of their defects, or from an unconscious suppression of them, present the deceased to our notice in a costume at which he would have been of all others the most amazed. Thus Mr. W. H. Prescott, an Unitarian, whose eminent literary gifts are not the only qualifications for such a purpose, and Bishop Doane, are the author of the two letters on Dr. Gardiner. We do not know of which Dr. Gardiner would most complain—the robe of philosophic indifference thrown over him by the former of his biographers, or that of fantastic ecclesiasticism by the latter. But thus much we can safely say, that in thus passing over Dr. Gardiner's life, the opportunity of teaching a great truth has been lost. There is no lesson more impor tant for the future historian to study, than that which tells of the connection be tween polite latitudinarianism on the one side, and positive defection to heresy on the other.

The statistical data arising from Dr. Sprague's labors are in themselves not with. out interest. Take, for instance, those giving the denominational origin of the clergy. Of these, out of about one hundred and thirty concerning whose early religious training information is given, we have forty-nine coming from non-Episcopal communions, and one, (Dr. D. H. Warton,) from the Romish. Of those coming to us from non-Episcopalians, we have churchmen of all grades, including on the one side the Altidinarianism of George Keith, of Bishop Seabury, of Timothy Cutler, of Samuel Johnson, of Bishop Ravenscroft, of John C. Rudd, of George Boyd, of Bishop Kemp, and on the other the broad evangelicalism of Joseph Pilmore, of James Milnor. The great majority, however, of those who entered our ministry from outside, have in the impetus of their launch gone much beyond the usual channel of Episcopal ecclesiastical belief. Among those who have grounded on the opposite shores of Rome, nearly the whole came to us in this way. Of our deceased Bishops nearly one half were originally non-Episcopalians, embracing Bishop Bass, Bishop Seabury, Bishop Provoost, Bishop Parker, Bishop Kemp, Bishop Chase, Bishop Henshaw, Bishop Wainwright, and Bishop Ravenscroft.

As to the domestic annals of our clergy, Dr. Sprague, with his usual industry,

collects much information. The fathers who have been taken were greatly given to matrimony. Out of those of whom the necessary information is before us-and of the earlier divines, Dr. Sprague has not been able, in most cases, to collect the details we have twenty-nine who married more than once, these twenty-nine having sixty-four wives in the aggregate. Only two or three "celibates" can be found in the whole volume, if we exclude those who died in early manhood. The average number of children is very large. One very remarkable fact is developed by Dr. Sprague, and a favorite error of skeptics thereby refuted. "Ministers' sons," we are told, "generally turn out badly." It is not so with the sons of the ministers whose lives are given by Dr. Sprague in this and the two preceding volumes. The temporal condition of the children of the clergy thus brought before us, is marked by a degree of respectability which w apprehend the statistics of no other calling, not even the wealthiest, can approach. And in a majority of cases, where there is a family of sons, one at least receives his father's profession.

We close this notice-long, but not in its length at least disproportionate to the book it reviews-by a few extracts.

Dr. Sparrow's Reminiscences of Dr. Keith.

** "Dr. Keith was in person tall and slender, but not erect-he stooped much. His visage was thin, his nose aquiline, his complexion, hair, and eyes, darkthe last, when his attention was aroused, intensely so, and very penetrating; his forehead lofty and expanded. There was about him almost constantly an air of solemnity that was very observable. When not engaged in preaching or conversation, he seemed, whether in or out of doors, as though pondering some weighty and important subject. In the conventional meetings of this Diocese, and other suchlike assemblies, he seldom spoke or moved about as though taking an active interest in what was going on, but sat as one absorbed in his own thoughts. And yet he was not inattentive to any thing of real importance; he was only putting what he heard in his own crucible, and subjecting it to a thorough analysis for his own satisfaction. Sometimes he showed this by a few unexpected remarks-it may be abrupt, certainly striking. This peculiarity of manner in public assemblies, arose partly from his extreme sensitiveness, and also in part from his nearness of sight. Sometimes it arose from the habitual occupancy of his mind with the most solemn and important themes; indeed, he always appeared to me a person in whose intellect the great problems of human existence, though practically and happily settled for himself, pressed with incessant force, as matters of speculation and speculative adjustment. He lived in view of eternity in every way, and his whole demeanor-often even the minutest actions-showed that he felt continually the 'powers of the world to come.' As illustrative of this, a clerical brother informs me that when he was very young he received from the Doctor a letter of introduction, with a view to a certain situation, in which letter it was said: 'There is but one objection to the bearer-his youth; but that will lessen every day; time passes like the weaver's shuttle. Such was the prevailing tone of his mind; in matters great and small alike; and it imparted itself to his look and general mien and manner. And yet, on the other hand, as is apt to be the case with persons of his temperament, he had his seasons of great cheerfulness and abandon, in which he would be very playful, sometimes indulging in a vein of humor and satire with VOL. VI.-9

which he was largely gifted. When in this mood he would make himself most entertaining, as, at all times, when disposed for conversation, he was instructive and edifying.

"Dr. Keith was an absent-minded man, as might be inferred from what has already been said. It happened, on one occasion, before our Chapel was built, and while divine service used to be held in the library on Sundays, that a Romish translation of the Scriptures was laid upon the desk by accident. He took it up to find the text on which he was to preach, and read aloud the words, 'Do penance,' instead of 'Repent,' as in our version. He was bewildered, and put his hand to his brow, as fearing apparently that his mind was forsaking him, or that, somehow or other, he had ceased to be a Protestant! Some minutes elapsed, says my informant, who was present, before the truth flashed upon him, and taking a look at the title-page, he quietly laid the book aside."

Bishop H. U. Onderdonk on Bishop White's "party" views.

"Bishop White's theological opinions are contained in his several works-they are decidedly Anti-Calvinistic, and may be classed with what was currently denomi nated Arminianism in the last century; which, however, you are aware, was not the system of Arminius. He was, to the last, strongly opposed to the theory com. prised in the words Priest, Altar, Sacrifice; this being one of the very few points on which he was highly sensitive. The good Bishop's ecclesiastical views were those known in history as Low Church-it was not the Low Churchmanship of the present day, but that of Tillotson, Burnet, and that portion of the English divines with which they were associated.* He regarded with no favor stimulating methods, extempore prayer, deviations from the Liturgy, etc. Yet, though stern against the Priestly doctrine, as well as decidedly averse to modern Low Churchmanship, he was, on the one hand, most particularly attached to Bishop Hobart, and very largely under his influence, except in the few matters of which he was eminently tenacious; while, on the other hand, he was not only courteous, but altogether friendly with leaders on the opposite side. In which facts may plainly enough be read the almost unbounded amiableness of his temper and principles."

Bishop Burgess on Bishop Chase's manner, etc.

"In conversation his powers were singular, versatile, and exceedingly effective. He was profoundly serious, and he was irresistibly humorous, with the varying tide of the discourse; and whatever were the society or the occasion, he could adapt himself to its requisitions without losing at all the original freshness of his natural manner. So it was that on his visits to England, in some of the most elevated circles, the pious raciness, if the expression may be allowed, had a charm beyond the less striking words of men quite as able to present a cause successfully in public assemblies or through the press. His illustrations by anecdote and by his own experience may be conceived by those who have read his Reminiscences, which somewhat approach the character of his oral narratives. As a parish minister, he had great

We should like to know under what class Tillotson and Burnett, according to Bishop's O.'s analysis, would fall in our own day, unless under that of Low Churchmen. On matters of polity their views and those of present Low Churchmen are identical.-ED. EP. REV.