| | 1 | Author: | Meade
William
1789-1862 | Add | | | Title: | Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia  | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | [From the Protestant Episcopal Quarterly Review.] † When your leasure
shall best serve you to peruse these lines, I trust in God the beginning
will not strike you into greater admiration than the end will give you good
content. It is a matter of no small moment, concerning my own particular,
which here I impart unto you, and which toucheth me so nearly
as the tenderness of my salvation. Howbeit, I freely subject myself to
your great and mature judgment, deliberation, approbation, and determination;
assuring myself of your zealous admonition and godly comforts,
either persuading me to desist, or encouraging me to persist therein, with
a religious fear and godly care, for which (from the very instant that this
began to roote itself within the secrete bosome of my breast) my daily
and earnest praiers have bin, still are, and ever shall bee poored forthwith,
in as sincere a goodly zeal as I possibly may, to be directed, aided, and
governed in all my thoughts, words, and deedes, to the glory of God and
for my eternal consolation; to persevere wherein I had never had more
neede, nor (till now) could ever imagine to have bin moved with the like
occasion. But (my case standing as it doth) what better worldly refuge
can I here seeke, than to shelter myself under the safety of your favourable
protection? And did not my case proceede from an unspotted conscience,
I should not dare to offer to your view and approved judgment
these passions of my troubled soule; so full of feare and trembling is
hypocrisie and dissimulation. But, knowing my own innocency and godly
fervour in the whole prosecution hereof, I doubt not of your benigne
acceptance and clement construction. As for malicious depravers and
turbulent spirits, to whom nothing is tasteful but what pleaseth their unsavoury
pallate, I passe not for them, being well assured in my persuasion
by the often trial and proving of myselfe in my holiest meditations and
praises, that I am called hereunto by the Spirit of God; and it shall be
sufficient for me to be protected by yourselfe in all virtuous and pious
endeavours. And for my more happy proceedings herein, my daily oblations
shall ever be addressed to bring to passe to goode effects, that yourselfe
and all the world may truly say, `This is the worke of God, and it
is marvellous in our eies.' As neither nature nor custom ever made me a man of
compliment, so now I shall have less will than ever for to use such ceremonies,
when I have left with Martha to be solicitus circa multa, and
believe with Mary unum sufficit. But it is no compliment or ceremony,
but a real and necessary duty that one friend oweth to another in absence,
and especially at their leave-taking, when, in man's reason, many accidents
may keep them long divided, or perhaps bar them ever meeting till
they meet in another world; for then shall I think that my friend, whose
honour, whose person, and whose fortune is dear unto me, shall prosper
and be happy wherever he goes, and whatever he takes in hand, when he
is in the favour of that God under whose protection there is only safety,
and in whose service there is only true happiness to be found. What I
think of your natural gifts or ability, in this age or in this State, to give
glory to God and to win honour to yourself, if you employ the talents you
have received to their best use, I will not now tell you; it sufficeth that
when I was farthest of all times from dissembling I spake truly and
have witness enough. But these things only I will put your lordship in
mind of. I understand that upon my former recommendation
to you of Mr. Samuel Eburne, you have received him, and he hath continued
to exercise his ministerial functions in preaching and performing
divine service. I have now to recommend him a second time to you,
with the addition of my own experience of his ability and true qualification
in all points, together with his exemplary life and conversation.
And therefore, holding of him in esteem, as a person who, to God's
honour and your good instruction, is fit to be received, I do desire he may
be by you entertained and continued, and that you will give him such
encouragement as you have formerly done to persons so qualified. I congratulate you on the honour your county has
done you in choosing you their representative with so large a vote. I
hope you are come into the Assembly without those trammels which some
people submit to wear for a seat in the House,—I mean, unbound by
promises to perform this or that job which the many-headed monster may
think proper to chalk out for you; especially that you have not engaged
to lend a last hand to pulling down the church, which, by some impertinent
questions in the last paper, I suspect will be attempted. Never, my
dear Wilson, let me hear that by that sacrilegious act you have furnished
yourself with materials to erect a scaffold by which you may climb to the
summit of popularity; rather remain in the lowest obscurity: though, I
think, from long observation, I can venture to assert that the man of
integrity, who observes one equal tenor in his conduct,—who deviates
neither to the one side or the other from the proper line,—has more of the
confidence of the people than the very compliant time-server, who calls
himself the servant—and, indeed, is the slave—of the people. I flatter
myself, too, you will act on a more liberal plan than some members have
done in matters in which the honour and interest of this State are concerned;
that you will not, to save a few pence to your constituents, discourage
the progress of arts and sciences, nor pay with so scanty a hand
persons who are eminent in either. This parsimonious plan, of late
adopted, will throw us behind the other States in all valuable improvements,
and chill, like a frost, the spring of learning and spirit of enterprise.
I have insensibly extended what I had to say beyond my first
design, but will not quit the subject without giving you a hint, from a
very good friend of yours, that your weight in the House will be much
greater if you do not take up the attention of the Assembly on trifling
matters nor too often demand a hearing. To this I must add a hint of
my own, that temper and decorum is of infinite advantage to a public
speaker, and a modest diffidence to a young man just entering the stage
of life: the neglect of the former throws him off his guard, breaks his
chain of reasoning, and has often produced in England duels that have
terminated fatally. The natural effect of the latter will ever be procuring
a favourable and patient hearing, and all those advantages that a
prepossession in favour of the speaker produces. Yours dated the 30th of January, asking for
some information relative to Temple Farm, near Yorktown, which, according
to history, was once the residence of Governor Spottswood, and
the house in which Lord Cornwallis signed the capitulation, was received
a few days ago. I have read with deep and filial
interest your reminiscenses published in the Southern Churchman, and I
send you a memorandum, hastily made from recollection. I have no
disposition to have my name appear in print, but if you have not already
all the information that you may desire in regard to Elizabeth City parish
and the old church at Hampton, you may use such parts of the following
memorandum as may suit you:— Having been at this place during the present
month, your letter of the 16th has only just reached me. Nothing was
published after my dear and distinguished brother's death, except the
poem of `Yamoyden, a Tale of the Wars of King Philip,' which he composed
in company with his friend, Robert C. Sands, and which the latter
edited. I can only say, in a few words, that he was ordained by Bishop
Hobart at the Diocesan Convention of New York, in October, 1818;
commenced his ministry in Accomac county almost immediately; and,
after a short but truly glorious ministry of about eight months, (during
which, as I heard him say, he thought he had been the instrument of the
conversion of seventeen persons,) returned, broken in health, to New
York, and expired in December, 1819, on his passage to St. Croix, W. I.,
to which island, in company with his mother and myself, he was proceeding
for the benefit of his health. He had just reached the age of
twenty-two years; but he was mature in mind, accomplished in attainments
both of ancient and modern learning, and one of the most "burning
lights" in the Church of God I ever knew. I think he left an impression
in Accomac which is not yet effaced. Being employed by Colonel Spottswood, our Governor,
to instruct the Indian children at this settlement, I thought it my duty to
address your lordship with this, in which I humbly beg leave to inform
you what progress I have made in carrying on this charitable design of
our excellent Governor. Should I presume to give an account of the kind
reception I met with at my arrival here from the Indian Queen, the great
men, and, indeed, from all the Indians, with a constant continuance of
their kindness and respect, and of the great sense they have of the good
that is designed them by the Governor in sending me to live with them
to teach their children, as also at the great expense he has been at, and
the many fatigues he has undergone by travelling hither in the heat of
summer, as well as in the midst of winter, to the great hazard of his
health, to encourage and promote this most pious undertaking, I should
far exceed the bounds of a letter, and intrude too much on your lordship's
time. I shall, therefore, decline this, and humbly represent to your lordship
what improvements the pagan children have made in the knowledge
of the Christian religion, which I promise myself can't but be very acceptable
to you, a pious Christian Bishop. We have here a very handsome
school-house, built at the charge of the Indian Company, in which
are at present taught seventy Indian children; and many others from the
Western Indians, who live more than four hundred miles from hence, will
be brought hither in the spring to be put under my care, in order to be
instructed in the religion of the Holy Jesus. The greatest number of my
scholars can say the Belief, the Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments,
perfectly well; they know that there is but one God, and they are able to
tell me how many persons there are in the Godhead, and what each of
those blessed Persons have done for them. They know how many sacraments
Christ hath ordained in his Church, and for what end he instituted
them; they behave themselves reverently at our daily prayers, and can
make their responses, which was no little pleasure to their great and good
benefactor, the Governor, as also to the Rev. Mr. John Cargill, Mr. Attorney-General,
and many other gentlemen who attended him in his progress
hither. Thus, my lord, hath the Governor (notwithstanding the many
difficulties he laboured under) happily laid the foundation of this great
and good work of civilizing and converting these poor Indians, who,
although they have lived many years among the professors of the best
and most holy religion in the world, yet so little care has been taken to
instruct them therein, that they still remain strangers to the covenant of
grace, and have not improved in any thing by their conversing with Christians,
excepting in vices to which before they were strangers, which is a
very sad and melancholy reflection. But that God may crown with success
this present undertaking, that thereby his Kingdom may be enlarged
by the sincere conversion of these poor heathen, I humbly recommend
both it and myself to your lordship's prayers, and beg leave to subscribe
myself, with great duty, my lord, your lordship's "It is a great satisfaction to me that I can now recommend to your
parish, which has been so long without a minister so good a man as the
bearer hereof, the Rev. Mr. Gammill, whose good life and conversation
will be very agreeable to you, as it is to, gentlemen, My letters to your brother Mann and your sisters
will inform you how and when I arrived here. I will tell you then what
I have not told them, and what you, a young traveller, ought to know.
This town is not half so large as Philadelphia, nor in any manner to be
compared to it for beauty and elegance. Philadelphia, I am well assured,
has more inhabitants than Boston and New York together. The streets
here are badly paved, very dirty, and narrow as well as crooked, and filled
up with a strange variety of wooden, stone, and brick buildings, and full
of hogs and mud. The College, St. Paul's Church, and the Hospital are
elegant buildings. The Federal Hall also, in which Congress is to sit, is
elegant. What is very remarkable here is, that there is but one well of
water which furnishes the inhabitants with drink, so that water is bought
here by every one that drinks it, except the owner of this well. Four
carts are continually going about selling it at three gallons for a copper;
that is, a penny for every three gallons of water. The other wells and
pumps serve for washing, and nothing else.*
*In another letter he says that he was mistaken—that there were several good
wells.
I have not time to say more
about this place and the other towns through which I passed, but will by
some other opportunity write you whatever may be worth your knowing.
You must show this to Frank. Give my love to him, and tell him I will
write to him and Judy next. Kiss her for me, and be a good boy, my
dear. Give my love to your brothers and sisters and to your cousin Mat
and Nat. Tell Beck [a maid-servant] that Sharp [the servant that went
with him] is well, and sends his love to her, [his wife, I suppose.] That
God Almighty may bless you all, my dear, is the fervent prayer of your
affectionate father, The love I bear my God, my King, and
my Church, hath so often emboldened me in the worst of extreme dangers,
that now honesty doth constrain me to presume thus far beyond myself,
to present to your Majesty this short discourse. If ingratitude be a
deadly poison to all honest virtues, I must be guilty of that crime if I
should omit any means to be thankful. So it was, that about ten years ago,
being in Virginia, and being taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan,
their chief king, I received from this great savage exceeding great courtesy,—especially
from his son, Nantiquaus, the manliest, comeliest, boldest
spirit I ever saw in a savage, and his sister Pocahontas, the king's most
dear and beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen years
of age, whose compassionate, pitiful heart of my desperate estate gave me
much cause to respect her. I being the first Christian this proud king
and his grim attendants ever saw, and thus enthralled in their power, I
cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in the power of those,
my mortal foes, to prevent, notwithstanding all their threats. After some
six weeks' fattening among these savage courtiers, at the minute of my
execution she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine;
and not only that, but so prevailed with her father that I was safely conducted
to Jamestown, where I found about eight-and-thirty miserable,
poor, and sick creatures to keep possession of all those large territories in
Virginia. Such was the weakness of this poor Commonwealth, as had not
the savages fed us, we directly had starved. And this relief, most gracious
Queen, was commonly brought us by the Lady Pocahontas. "The humble petition of the vestry held for Christ Church parish the
7th day of May, 1722, showeth that this vestry, taking into consideration
the great satisfaction given to this parish for about eighteen years, and the
general good character of our minister, Mr. Bartholomew Yates, which we
are apprehensive has induced some other parishes to entertain thoughts
of endeavouring to prevail with him to quit this parish for some of those
more convenient, humbly pray they may be enabled to make use of such
measures as may be proper and reasonable to secure so great a good to
the parish. I do hereby, in his Majesty's name, will and require you to
acquaint the minister or ministers within your county, that (God willing)
they do not fail of meeting me here on Wednesday, being the 10th of April
next, and that they bring with them their Priests' and Deacons' Orders, as
likewise the Rt. Rev. the Father in God, the Lord-Bishop of London his
license for their preaching, or whatever license they have, and withall a copy
out of the vestry-books of the agreement they have made with the parish or
parishes where they officiate. If there be any parish or parishes within
your county who have no minister, I do hereby, in his Majesty's name,
command that the vestry of said parish or parishes do, by the said 10th
of April, return me an account how long they have been without a minister,
and the reason thereof, as also if they have any person that reads the
Common Prayer on Sundays and at their church. This account must be
signed by them, and they may send it by the minister who lives next to
them. So, not doubting of your compliances therein, I remain your
loving friend, "Gentlemen:—I'm not a little surprised at the sight of an order of
yours, wherein you take upon you to suspend from his office a clergyman
who, for near sixteen years, has served as your minister, and that without
assigning any manner of reason for your so doing. I look upon it that
the British subjects in these Plantations ought to conform to the Constitution
of their mother-country in all cases wherein the laws of the several
Colonies have not otherwise decided; and, as no vestry in England ever
pretended to set themselves up as judges over their ministers, so I know
no law of this country that has given such authority to the vestry here.
If a clergyman transgresses against the canons of the Church, he is to
be tried before a proper judicature; and though in this country there be
no Bishops to apply to, yet there is the substitute of the Bishop, who is
your diocesan, and who can take cognizance of the offences of the clergy;
and I cannot believe there is any vestry here so ignorant but to know that
the Governor, for the time-being, has the honour to be intrusted with the
power of collating to all benefits, and ought, in reason, to be made acquainted
with the crime which unqualifies a clergyman from holding a
benefice of which he is once legally possessed. In case of the misbehaviour
of your minister, you may be his accusers, but in no case his
judges; but much less are you empowered to turn him out without showing
any cause. But your churchwardens, ordering the church to be shut
up, and thereby taking upon them to lay the parish under an interdict, is
such an exorbitant act of power, that even the Pope of Rome never pretended
to a greater; and if your churchwardens persist in it, they will
find themselves involved in greater troubles than they are aware of. I have read with deep interest your account of
many of the old churches and families of Virginia. Having just risen
from the perusal of that on York-Hampton parish, it seems to me that you
have not given all the credit it deserves to the character of the Rev.
Samuel Shield. "Right Rev. Father in God:—I received your Lordship's blessing in
May, 1735, and by bad weather we were obliged to go up to Maryland,
and from thence five weeks after I came to Williamsburg, and was kindly
received by our Governor and Mr. Commissary Blair. I got immediately
a parish, which I served nine months; but hearing that a frontier-parish
was vacant, and that the people of the mountains had never seen a clergyman
since they were settled there, I desired the Governor's consent to
leave an easy parish for this I do now serve. I have three churches,
twenty-three and twenty-four miles from the glebe, in which I officiate
every third Sunday; and, besides these three, I have seven places of service
up in the mountains, where the clerks read prayers,—four clerks in the
seven places. I go twice a year to preach in twelve places, which I reckon
better than four hundred miles backward and forward, and ford nineteen
times the North and South Rivers. I have taken four trips already, and
the 20th instant I go up again. In my first journey I baptized white
people, 209; blacks, 172; Quakers, 15; Anabaptists, 2; and of the white
people there were baptized from twenty to twenty-five years of age, 4;
from twelve to twenty, 35; and from eight to twelve, 189. I found, on
my first coming into the parish, but six persons that received the Sacrament,
which my predecessors never administered but in the lower church;
and, blessed be God, I have now one hundred and thirty-six that receive
twice a year, and in the lower part three times a year, which fills my heart
with joy, and makes all my pains and fatigues very agreeable to me. I
struggle with many difficulties with Quakers, who are countenanced by
high-minded men, but I wrestle with wickedness in high places, and the
Lord gives me utterance to speak boldly as I ought to speak. I find that
my strength faileth me; but I hope the Lord will be my strength and
helper, that I may fight the good fight and finish my course in the ministry
which is given me to fulfil the word of God. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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