History of American Christianity — Chapter XIII Reconstruction, Part 1

CHAPTER XIII. RECONSTRUCTION.

Seven years of war left the American people exhausted, impoverished, disorganized, conscious of having come into possession of a national existence, and stirred with anxious searchings of heart over the question what new institutions should succeed to those overthrown in the struggle for independence.

Like questions pervaded the commonwealth of American Christians through all its divisions.

The interconfessional divisions of the body ecclesiastic were about to prove themselves a more effectual bar to union than the political and territorial divisions of the body politic.

The religious divisions were nearly equal in number to the political.

Naming them in the order in which they had settled themselves on the soil of the new nation, they were as follows: 1. The Protestant Episcopalians; 2. The Reformed Dutch; 3. The Congregationalists; 4. The Roman Catholics; 5. The Friends; 6. The Baptists; 7. The Presbyterians;

8. The Methodists; to which must be added three sects which up to this time had almost exclusively to do with the German language and the German immigrant population, to wit, 9. The German Reformed; 10. The Lutherans; 11. The Moravians.

Some of these, as the Congregationalists and the Baptists, were of so simple and elastic a polity, so self-adaptive to whatever new environment, as to require no effort to adjust themselves.

Others, as the Dutch and the Presbyterians, had already organized themselves as independent of foreign spiritual jurisdiction.

Others still, as the German Reformed, the Moravians, and the Quakers, were content to remain for years to come in a relation of subordination to foreign centers of organization.

But there were three communions, of great prospective importance, which found it necessary to address themselves to the task of reorganization to suit the changed political conditions.

These were the Episcopalians, the Catholics, and the Methodists.

In one respect all the various orders of churches were alike.

They had all suffered from the waste and damage of war.

Pastors and missionaries had been driven from their cures, congregations had been scattered, houses of worship had been desecrated or destroyed.

The Episcopalian and Methodist ministers were generally Tories, and their churches, and in some instances their persons, were not spared by the patriots.

The Friends and the Moravians, principled against taking active part in warfare, were exposed to aggressions from both sides.

All other sects were safely presumed to be in earnest sympathy with the cause of independence, which many of their pastors actively served as chaplains or as combatants, or in other ways; wherever the British troops held the ground, their churches were the object of spite.

Nor were these the chief losses by the war.

More grievous still were the death of the strong men and the young men of the churches, the demoralization of camp life, and, as the war advanced, the infection of the current fashions of unbelief from the officers both of the French and of the British armies.

The prevalent diathesis of the American church in all its sects was one of spiritual torpor, from which, however, it soon began to be aroused as the grave exigencies of the situation disclosed themselves.

Perhaps no one of the Christian organizations of America came out of the war in a more forlorn condition than the Episcopalians.

This condition was thus described by Bishop White, in an official charge to his clergy at Philadelphia in 1832: "The congregations of our communion throughout the United States were approaching annihilation.

Although within this city three Episcopal clergymen were resident and officiating, the churches over the rest of the State had become deprived of their clergy during the war, either by death or by departure for England.

In the Eastern States, with two or three exceptions, there was a cessation of the exercises of the pulpit, owing to the necessary disuse of the prayers for the former civil rulers.

In Maryland and Virginia, where the church had enjoyed civil establishments, on the ceasing of these, the incumbents of the parishes, almost without exception, ceased to officiate.

Farther south the condition of the church was not better, to say the least."

[210:1] This extreme feebleness of Episcopalianism in the several States conspired with the tendencies of the time in civil affairs to induce upon the new organization a character not at all conformed to the ideal of episcopal government.

Instead of establishing as the unit of organization the bishop in every principal town, governing his diocese at the head of his clergy with some measure of authority, it was almost a necessity of the time to constitute dioceses as big as kingdoms, and then to take security against excess of power in the diocesan by overslaughing his authority through exorbitant powers conferred upon a periodical mixed synod, legislating for a whole continent, even in matters confessedly variable and unessential.

In the later evolution of the system, this superior limitation of the bishop's powers is supplemented from below by magnifying the authority of representative bodies, diocesan and parochial, until the work of the bishop is reduced as nearly as possible to the merely "ministerial" performance of certain assigned functions according to prescribed directions.

Concerning this frame of government it is to be remarked: 1. That it was quite consciously and confessedly devised for the government of a sect, with the full and fraternal understanding that other "religious denominations of Christians" (to use the favorite American euphemism) "were left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respective churches" to suit themselves.

[211:1] 2. That, judged according to its professed purpose, it has proved itself a practically good and effective government.

3. That it is in no proper sense of the word an episcopal government, but rather a classical and synodical government, according to the common type of the American church constitutions of the period.

[211:2] The objections which only a few years before had withstood the importation into the colonies of lord bishops, with the English common and canon law at their backs, vanished entirely before the proposal for the harmless functionaries provided for in the new constitution.

John Adams himself, a leader of the former opposition, now, as American minister in London, did his best to secure for Bishops-elect White and Provoost the coveted consecration from English bishops.

The only hindrance now to this long-desired boon was in the supercilious dilatoriness of the English prelates and of the civil authorities to whom they were subordinate.

They were evidently in a sulky temper over the overwhelming defeat of the British arms.

If it had been in their power to blockade effectively the channels of sacramental grace, there is no sign that they would have consented to the American petition.

Happily there were other courses open.

1. There was the recourse to presbyterial ordination, an expedient sanctioned, when necessary, by the authority of "the judicious Hooker," and actually recommended, if the case should require, by the Rev. William White, soon to be consecrated as one of the first American bishops.

2. Already for more than a half-century the Moravian episcopate had been present and most apostolically active in America.

3. The Lutheran Episcopal churches of Denmark and Sweden were fully competent and known to be not unwilling to confer the episcopal succession on the American candidates.

4. There were the Scotch nonjuring bishops, outlawed for political reasons from communion with the English church, who were tending their "persecuted remnant" of a flock in Scotland.

Theirs was a not less valid succession than those of their better-provided English brethren, and fully as honorable a history.

It was due to the separate initiative of the Episcopalian ministers of Connecticut, and to the persistence of their bishop-elect, Samuel Seabury, that the deadlock imposed by the Englishmen was broken.

Inheriting the Puritan spirit, which sought a _jus divinum_ in all church questions, they were men of deeper convictions and "higher" principles than their more southern brethren.

In advance of the plans for national organization, without conferring with flesh and blood, they had met and acted, and their candidate for consecration was in London urging his claims, before the ministers in the Middle States had any knowledge of what was doing.

After a year of costly and vexatious delay in London, finding no progress made and no hope of any, he proceeded to Aberdeen and was consecrated bishop November 14, 1784. It was more than two years longer before the English bishops succeeded in finding a way to do what their unrecognized Scotch brethren had done with small demur.

But they did find it.

So long as the Americans seemed dependent on English consecration they could not get it.

When at last it was made quite plain that they could and would do without it if necessary, they were more than welcome to it.

Dr. White for Pennsylvania, and Dr. Provoost for New York, were consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the chapel of Lambeth Palace, February 4, 1787. Dr. Griffith, elected for Virginia, failed to be present; in all that great diocese there was not interest enough felt in the matter to raise the money to pay his passage to England and back.

The American Episcopal Church was at last in a condition to live.

Some formidable dangers of division arising from the double derivation of the episcopate were happily averted by the tact and statesmanship of Bishop White, and liturgical changes incidental to the reconstitution of the church were made, on the whole with cautious judgment and good taste, and successfully introduced.

But for many years the church lived only a languishing life.

Bishop Provoost of New York, after fourteen years of service, demitted his functions in 1801, discouraged about the continuance of the church.

He "thought it would die out with the old colonial families."

[213:1] The large prosperity of this church dates only from the second decade of this century.

It is the more notable for the brief time in which so much has been accomplished.

* * * * * The difficulties in the way of the organization of the Catholic Church for the United States were not less serious, and were overcome with equal success, but not without a prolonged struggle against opposition from within.

It is not easy for us, in view either of the antecedent or of the subsequent history, to realize the extreme feebleness of American Catholicism at the birth of our nation.

According to an official "Relation on the State of Religion in the United States," presented by the prefect apostolic in 1785, the total number of Catholics in the entire Union was 18,200, exclusive of an unascertainable number, destitute of priests, in the Mississippi Valley.

The entire number of the clergy was twenty-four, most of them former members of the Society of Jesuits, that had been suppressed in 1773 by the famous bull, _Dominus ac Redemptor_, of Clement XIV.

Sorely against their will, these missionaries, hitherto subject only to the discipline of their own society, were transformed into secular priests, under the jurisdiction of the Vicar Apostolic of London.

After the establishment of independence, with the intense jealousy felt regarding British influence, and by none more deeply and more reasonably felt than by the Catholics, this jurisdiction was impracticable.

The providentially fit man for the emergency was found in the Rev. John Carroll, of an old Maryland family distinguished alike for patriotism and for faithfulness to Catholic principles.

In June, 1784, he was made prefect apostolic over the Catholic Church in the United States, and the dependence on British jurisdiction was terminated.

When, however, it was proposed that this provisional arrangement should be superseded by the appointment of a bishop, objections not unexpected were encountered from among the clergy.

Already we have had occasion to note the jealousy of episcopal authority that is felt by the clergy of the regular orders.

The lately disbanded Jesuits, with characteristic flexibility of self-adaptation to circumstances, had at once reincorporated themselves under another name, thus to hold the not inconsiderable estates of their order in the State of Maryland.

But the plans of these energetic men either to control the bishop or to prevent his appointment were unsuccessful.

In December, 1790, Bishop Carroll, having been consecrated in England, arrived and entered upon his see of Baltimore.

Difficulties, through which there were not many precedents to guide him, thickened about the path of the new prelate.

It was well both for the church and for the republic that he was a man not only versed in the theology and polity of his church, but imbued with American principles and feelings.

The first conflict that vexed the church under his administration, and which for fifty years continued to vex his associates and successors, was a collision between the American sentiment for local and individual liberty and self-government, and the absolutist spiritual government of Rome.

The Catholics of New York, including those of the Spanish and French legations, had built a church in Barclay Street, then on the northern outskirt of the city; and they had the very natural and just feeling that they had a right to do what they would with their own and with the building erected at their charges.

They proceeded accordingly to put in charge of it priests of their own selection.

But they had lost sight of the countervailing principle that if they had a right to do as they would with their building, the bishop, as representing the supreme authority in the church, had a like right to do as he would with his clergy.

The building was theirs; but it was for the bishop to say what services should be held in it, or whether there should be any services in it at all, in the Roman Catholic communion.

It is surprising how often this issue was made, and how repeatedly and obstinately it was fought out in various places, when the final result was so inevitable.

The hierarchical power prevailed, of course, but after much irritation between priesthood and people, and "great loss of souls to the church."

[216:1] American ideas and methods were destined profoundly and beneficially to affect the Roman Church in the United States, but not by the revolutionary process of establishing "trusteeism," or the lay control of parishes.

The damaging results of such disputes to both parties and to their common interest in the church put the two parties under heavy bonds to deal by each other with mutual consideration.

The tendency, as in some parallel cases, is toward an absolute government administered on republican principles, the authoritative command being given with cautious consideration of the disposition of the subject.

The rights of the laity are sufficiently secured, first, by their holding the purse, and, secondly, in a community in which the Roman is only one of many churches held in like esteem and making like claims to divine authority, by their holding in reserve the right of withdrawal.

Other and unwonted difficulties for the young church lay in the Babel confusion of races and languages among its disciples, and in the lack of public resources, which could be supplied no otherwise than by free gift.

Yet another difficulty was the scant supply of clergy; but events which about this time began to spread desolation among the institutions of Catholic Europe proved to be of inestimable benefit to the ill-provided Catholics of America.

Rome might almost have been content to see the wasting and destruction in her ancient strongholds, for the opportune reinforcement which it brought, at a critical time, to the renascent church in the New World.

More important than the priests of various orders and divers languages, who came all equipped for mission work among immigrants of different nationalities, was the arrival of the Sulpitians of Paris, fleeing from the persecutions of the French Revolution, ready for their special work of training for the parish priesthood.

The founding of their seminary in Baltimore in 1791, for the training of a native clergy, was the best security that had yet been given for the permanence of the Catholic revival.

The American Catholic Church was a small affair as yet, and for twenty years to come was to continue so; but the framework was preparing of an organization sufficient for the days of great things that were before it.

* * * * * The most revolutionary change suffered by any religious body in America, in adjusting itself to the changed conditions after the War of Independence, was that suffered by the latest arrived and most rapidly growing of them all.

We have seen the order of the Wesleyan preachers coming so tardily across the ocean, and propagated with constantly increasing momentum southward from the border of Maryland.

Its congregations were not a church; its preachers were not a clergy.

Instituted in England by a narrow, High-church clergyman of the established church, its preachers were simply a company of lay missionaries under the command of John Wesley; its adherents were members of the Church of England, bound to special fidelity to their duties as such in their several parish churches, but united in clubs and classes for the mutual promotion of holy living in an unholy age; and its chapels and other property, fruits of the self-denial of many poor, were held under iron-bound title-deeds, subject to the control of John Wesley and of the close corporation of preachers to whom he should demit them.

It seems hardly worthy of the immense practical sagacity of Wesley that he should have thought to transplant this system unchanged into the midst of circumstances so widely different as those which must surround it in America.

And yet even here, where the best work of his preachers was to be done among populations not only churchless, but out of reach of church or ministry of whatever name, in those Southern States in which nine tenths of his penitents and converts were gained, his preachers were warned against the sacrilege of ministering to the craving converts the Christian ordinances of baptism and the holy supper, and bidden to send them to their own churches--when they had none.

The wretched incumbents of the State parishes at the first sounds of war had scampered from the field like hirelings whose own the sheep are not, and the demand that the preachers of the word should also minister the comfort of the Christian ordinances became too strong to be resisted.

The call of duty and necessity seemed to the preachers gathered at a conference at Fluvanna in 1779 to be a call from God; and, contrary to the strong objections of Wesley and Asbury, they chose from the older of their own number a committee who "ordained themselves, and proceeded to ordain and set apart other ministers for the same purpose--that they might minister the holy ordinances to the church of Christ."

[218:1] The step was a bold one, and although it seemed to be attended by happy spiritual results, it threatened to precipitate a division of "the Society" into two factions.

The progress of events, the establishment and acknowledgment of American independence, and the constant expansion of the Methodist work, brought its own solution of the divisive questions.

It was an important day in the history of the American church, that second day of September, 1784, when John Wesley, assisted by other presbyters of the Church of England, laid his hands in benediction upon the head of Dr. Thomas Coke, and committed to him the superintendency of the Methodist work in America, as colleague with Francis Asbury.

On the arrival of Coke in America, the preachers were hastily summoned together in conference at Baltimore, and there, in Christmas week of the same year, Asbury was ordained successively as deacon, as elder, and as superintendent.

By the two bishops thus constituted were ordained elders and deacons, and Methodism became a living church.