University of Virginia Library

THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

The General Theological Seminary was first established in New
York in the year 1817, then removed to New Haven, as a more
suitable place. Jacob Sherred, of New York, bequeathed a large
sum to a seminary within the State. A question arose as to the
construction of the will. Bishop Hobart maintained that the bequest
properly belonged to New York, and that he had established
a seminary there to inherit and apply it. Others thought somewhat
differently. A General Convention was called in October, 1821, to
settle the question. After much discussion, it was resolved that
the seminary should be restored to New York on certain terms, and
with a new constitution,—placing it, as many thought, too much in
the power of the Bishop and diocese of New York. In Bishop
White's Memoirs of the Episcopal Church in America, the following
account is given of this transaction. Speaking of the committee
to whom the subject was referred, he says, "All the members of
the committee concurred in giving praise to Judge Cameron, of North
Carolina, for the ability and good-temper manifested by him in the
progress of the business; and the same were again displayed by
him when it came before the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies.
However, it did not pass without opposition, which was almost
entirely confined to the clerical and lay gentlemen of Virginia, with
whom it is a favourite idea to establish a theological professorship
in the College of William and Mary." I endorse all that is here
said of Judge Cameron. I knew his venerable father,—one of the
best of our old Virginia clergymen. I think I knew the son well.
I heard him, during the time of his first love, tell what God had
done for his soul, under the ministry of Dr. Bedell, while in North
Carolina. He said, "If I have experienced a change in my soul,

I know that it was done by God's Spirit. That Spirit began the
work, not I." He had no sympathy with certain views of religion,
even then too prevalent. He did not desire the seminary to be
placed at New York. He thought the terms forced upon the Church
were hard; but they were the best that could be obtained, and
the good-temper displayed by him was in submitting to them and
counselling others to do so. I remember his speech well, and
conversed freely with him in private. The question he believed to
be between a General Seminary in New York, under the partial
influence of the whole Church besides, or a Diocesan Seminary in
New York, with Sherred's legacy and all the wealth and power
and numbers of that State,—able to overwhelm a General Seminary
elsewhere without funds. He believed, or at least hoped, that the
evil of the undue influence of New York in the General Seminary,
under the constitution as agreed upon by the committee, would be
chiefly at the beginning, and would be decreasing every year. In
glowing prophetic vision, he saw the Church extending itself over
the land; new dioceses rising up in every part and rapidly filling
themselves with ministers and churches,—sending their funds to
the treasury of the General Seminary, and, on their account, as
well as on account of the ministers, having the right to regulate
the seminary; by which means the power of the General Church
would be increasing, and that of New York proportionally decreasing.
This he said to comfort those of us who feared the overwhelming
influence of New York. I remember well how he applied
the prophetic words of the patriarch Jacob, that "the sceptre should
not depart from Judah until Shiloh come; and unto him should be
the gathering of the nations." I do not say that the scriptural application
was correct, but his meaning was plain. The dioceses
were to be the gathering together of the nations to take the sceptre
from New York in the management of the General Seminary.
Bishop White also intimates that the opposition from Virginia proceeded
from "a favourite idea with us to establish a theological
professorship in William and Mary College." We ought to have
been better acquainted with our views, motives, and reasons than any
one else. We were then struggling on with our effort at Williamsburg,
faint, yet pursuing, with Dr. Keith and one student, and scarce
any funds. We knew not but Virginia might have to depend on some
General Seminary. It was not a selfish attachment to Virginia alone
—a desire for the aggrandizement of ourselves or the destruction
of others—which prompted what we said and did. Not knowing
how soon we might have to rely on a general institution, we wished
it placed under more favourable auspices for the promotion of what
we believed to be sound views of the Gospel and the Church, than
it would be in New York. The writer of these lines recollects his
thoughts, and almost his very words, when he dared to lift up his
voice even in opposition to Judge Cameron. Whether Judge
Cameron, with all his purity of motive and strength of mind and
practical wisdom, was in this instance right, or those so greatly his
inferiors in all respects, let subsequent events and the present controlling
influence of New York in the conduct of the General Seminary
declare. The sceptre has not yet departed from Judah;
Shiloh has not yet come. The gathering together of the nations
(dioceses) has not yet been, and never will be. It was even formally
proposed, some years since, by the Bishop of Western New
York, to give it up entirely into the hands of New York, and let the
several sums contributed from other dioceses be returned to them.