Part 10

The eighteenth century was a period of decadence in the colonial ministry. Things had not always been so bad. When the first settlers came to America, the clergymen who accompanied them were men of sterling worth and character. They were moved by a hope of converting the Indians, and came in a true missionary spirit. The journals of those adventurers testify to the courage with which their chaplain braved dangers and bore discomforts. "By unprosperous winds," they say, "we were kept six weeks in sight of England; all which time Master Hunt, our preacher, was so weake and sicke that few expected his recovery. Yet, although we were but twentie myles from his habitation, and notwithstanding the stormy weather, nor the scandalous imputations against him, all this could never force from him so much as a seeming desire to leave the businesse." All through the journey he was brave and cheerful, though there was a constant ferment of wrath in that hot-headed ship's company, which might have ended in bloodshed, "had he not, with the water of patience and his godly exhortations, but chiefly by his true, devoted example, quenched those flames of envy and detraction." Finally, after the fire at Jamestown, Master Hunt lost all his library and "all he had but the cloathes on his backe, yet none never heard him repine at his loss."

Following Hunt came the good Whitaker, "a schollar, a graduate, a preacher well born and well friended in England," who from conscientious desire to help the savages left "his warm nest and, to the wonder of his kinsmen, and to the amazement of them that knew him," undertook this perilous enterprise. Of such pith and worth were these first priests; but the Indian massacre made a great change. Friendly intercourse with the natives being cut off, there was no chance for missionary work among them, and the plantations were too far apart to make a vigorous church life possible. The pay was small and the field barren, so that there was little temptation either to the ambitious and intellectual, or to the spiritually minded class of the clergy, to come to America. They were as a rule, therefore, the ignorant, the dissipated, and the _mauvais sujets_ who filled the colonial livings. Yet at the lowest ebb there were exceptions to this rule. There, for instance, was Rector Robert Rose, whose tombstone describes him as discharging with the most tender piety the "domestick" duties of husband, father, son, and brother, and in short as "a friend to the whole human race." His journal gives a glimpse of his relations with his parish, very cheering in the dreary waste of quarrels and bickering so common in those days. On one occasion, during a drouth, when a famine threatened, he told his people that corn could be had from him. On the appointed day a crowd gathered before his house. He asked the applicants if they had brought money to pay for the corn. Some answered cheerfully, "Yes," others murmured disconsolately, "No." The good priest then said: "You who have money can get your corn anywhere, but these poor fellows with no money shall have my corn."

He was quite human, this old parson, and liked his glass of "Fyal" or Madeira, but he knew when to stop, and he feared not to rebuke the rich and great among his parishioners when he saw them making too merry. He enters in his journal the date of a call on one of his leading families, when he found the father absent at a cock-fight. The rector adds the significant memorandum: "Suffer it no more!"

In spite of a few bright exceptions like this, it is idle to deny that the relations between parish and clergy in the Southern church ill bore comparison with those of the Puritan and his minister; and this not because of doctrine, but chiefly because the Puritan minister represented the free choice of the people, who supported him willingly, and looked upon him with reverence, as the messenger of the Lord. In South Carolina, where the clergy were chosen by the vestries, the same harmony and good-will existed, but the church in Virginia writhed under the injustice of taxation without representation.

The parishioners were expected to receive and maintain the clergyman appointed them without criticism or question. How any attempt on the part of these vestries to discipline or dismiss the minister they supported was received, we may judge from this letter, sent by Governor Spotswood to the churchwardens and vestry of South Farnham parish in 1716:

"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.... As no vestry in England has 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 a substitute for a bishop in your diocesan.... In case of the misbehavior of your clergyman, you may be his accusers, but in no case his judges; but much less are you empowered to turn him out without showing cause."

This haughty language recalls the messages of Charles the First to his parliament. Yet in spite of his support of the priest against the parish, the Governor never dreamed of recognizing him as his own equal. Some years later, when the stately old aristocrat was in his grave, a member of the clergy sued for the hand of his widow, Lady Spotswood. The reverend suitor writes after a very humble and apologetic fashion: "Madam," he begins, "by diligently perusing your letter I perceive there is a material argument--upon which your strongest objection against completing my happiness would seem to depend, viz.: That you would incur ye censure of ye world for marrying a person in ye station of my station and character. By which I understand that you think it a diminution of your honour and ye dignity of your family to marry a person in ye station of a clergyman. Now, if I can make it appear that ye ministerial office is an employment in its nature ye most honorable and in its effects ye most beneficial to mankind, I hope your objections will immediately vanish--that you will keep me no longer in suspense and misery, but consummate my happiness." After a long enumeration of the dignities, spiritual rather than social, appertaining to the clergy, he closes thus: "And, therefore, if a gentleman of this sacred and honourable character should be married to a lady, though of ye greatest extraction and most excellent personal qualities (which I am sensible you are endowed with), it can be no disgrace to her or her family; nor draw the censures of ye world upon them for such an action." Such language is in curious contrast with the attitude of New England, where the praise bestowed on a woman by Cotton Mather as the highest possible compliment was, that she was worthy to be the wife of a priest.

The chief cause of irritation between parson and parish in the colonial church was from the beginning the question of the ministers' salaries. In some places these were very small. It appears, for instance, in the record book of the church at Edenton, in North Carolina, that Parson Garzia in the year 1736, was paid only £5 for holding divine service. But in Maryland and Virginia the salaries were frequently higher than those paid in New England. In each Virginia borough a hundred acres were set off as a glebe, or parsonage farm. Besides this and the salary, there were fees of twenty shillings for a wedding by license and five shillings for every wedding by banns, beside forty shillings for a funeral sermon. It is easier to understand the fulsomeness of these old funeral discourses when we learn how well they were paid for, and realize that, in common honesty, the minister was bound to render a forty-shilling certificate of character to the deceased.

As time went on, the salary question became a burning issue. The plantations being so widely separated, quarrels often arose as to the portion of the parish on which the chief burden of the minister's support should fall. In the records of the very early Virginia church history, we come upon an instance of this in the proceedings in Lower Norfolk County, at a court held 25th May, 1640.

"Whereas the inhabitants of this parrishe beinge this day conevented for the providinge of themselves an able minister to instruct them concerning their soules' health, mr. Thomas Harrison tharto hath tendered his service to god and the said inhabitants in that behalf wch his said tender is well liked of, with the genall approbacon of the said Inhabitants, the parishoners of the parishe church at mr. Sewell's Point who to testifie their zeale and willingness to p'mote gods service doe hereby p'mise (and the court now sittinge doth likewise order and establish the same) to pay one hundreth pounds starling yearely to the sd mr. Harrison, soe Longe as hee shall continue a minister to the said Parishe in recompence of his paynes."

This arrangement apparently did not long prove satisfactory, for the record goes on to state that

"Whereas there is a difference amongst the Inhabitants of the fforesaid Pishe, concerninge the imployinge of a minister beinge now entertayned to live amongst them, The Inhabitants from Danyell Tanner's Creek and upward the three branches of Elizabeth river (in respect they are the greatest number of tithable persons) not thinknge it fitt nor equall that they shall pay the greatest pte of one hundred pownds w{h} is by the ffore sd order allotted for the ministers annuall stipend, unlesse the sd minister may teach and Instruct them as often as he shall teach at ye Pishe church siytuate at mr. Sewell's Pointe. It is therefore agreed amongst the sd Inhabitants that the sd minister shall teach evie other Sunday amongst the Inhabitants of Elizabeth River at the house of Robert Glasscocke untill a convenyent church be built and Erected there for gods service w{h} is agreed to bee finished at the charge of the Inhabitants of Elizabeth River before the first day of May next ensueinge."

However little value they might set on Gospel privileges, these Danyell Tanner's Creek men meant to have what they paid for, or cease their payments.

A Virginia statue of 1696 declared that each minister of a parish should receive an annual stipend of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco. This amounted to about £140, as tobacco sold for many years at two-pence the pound. But, in the year 1755, there was a shortage in the tobacco crop, and the legislature passed an act enabling the inhabitants of the county to discharge their tobacco-debts in money for the present year. The clergy seem to have made no active opposition; but five years later, when a similar law was passed, and tobacco rose sharply in price, they took alarm, and started a violent campaign in defence of their rights. The Reverend John Camm published a sarcastic pamphlet on "The Two Penny Act." This was answered by Colonel Bland and Colonel Carter in two very plain-spoken documents. Camm again rode a tilt against them in a pamphlet called "The Colonels Dismounted."

The community began by laughing, but ended by getting angry. Mr. Camm could find no more printers in Virginia, and was obliged to go to Maryland to carry on the war. The contest grew to larger proportions. It crossed the ocean and was laid before the king, who, always glad of an opportunity to repress anything which looked like popular sovereignty, declared in favor of the clergy. Armed thus by royal approbation, the parsons brought their case to trial. The Rev. James Maury brought suit in Hanover County against the collector. The defendants pleaded the law of 1758, but the plaintiff demurred on the ground that that law, never having been confirmed by the king, was null and void. The case was tried, Mr. Lyons arguing for the plaintiff and Mr. Lewis for the defendant. The court sustained the demurrer, and the clergy looked upon their case as won. Lewis was so sure of it that he retired from the cause, telling his clients that there was nothing more to be done in the matter. Nothing remained but for a jury to fix the amount of damages.

In this desperate state of affairs, Patrick Henry, though almost unknown at the bar, was called in, and he agreed to argue the case at the next term. On the first of December, accordingly, he came into the court-room, to find it densely packed with an excited throng of listeners. The bench was filled with clergymen. In the magistrate's seat sat the young orator's own father. The occasion might well have tried the nerve of an older and more experienced speaker. Lyons opened the cause for the clergy, with the easy assurance of one who sees his case already won. He told the jury that the law of 1758 had been set aside, and that it only remained for them to enforce the law of 1748 by awarding suitable damages to his clients, whom he exalted to the skies in a eulogy which might have better fitted better men. Lyons sat down, and young Henry rose. Awkwardly and falteringly he began, in painful contrast to the easy address of Lyons. The plaintiffs on the bench looked at each other with smiles of derision. The people, who realized that his cause was theirs, hung their heads; but only for a moment. The young orator, whose timid commencement had caused winks and nods of satisfaction to pass along the bench of the clergy, suddenly changed his whole attitude. All at once he shook off embarrassment, and roused himself like a lion brought to bay. The people at first were cheered, then became intoxicated with his eloquence. The clergy listened to the flood of sarcasm and invective till they could bear no more, and fled from the bench as from a pillory. Henry's eloquence swept the jury, who returned at once with a verdict of _one penny damages_ for the clergy. The people, wild with delight, seized their hero and carried him out on their shoulders. Henceforward he was a marked man, and for years, Wirt tells us, when the old people wished to praise any one's eloquence, they would say: "He is almost equal to Patrick when he pled against the parsons."

With so much hostile feeling toward their clergy, how shall we account for the strong affection felt by the Virginians for their church? I find the explanation in that loyalty to lost causes and that aristocratic conservatism which always marked the Cavalier. These, in spite of the debasement of the clergy, the zeal of the "New Lights," the allurements of Rome, and the eloquence of Whitefield, Fox, and the Wesleys, long kept the Cavalier Colonies true to the church of their fathers. It was not till the church allied itself with the king against the people in the Revolutionary struggle, that its doom fell.

It was a matter of course that self-interest as well as sentiment should lead the clergy to espouse the cause of England. In a letter, dated 1766, the Rev. John Camm writes from Virginia to a Mrs. McClurg in the mother-country. He begins, as is natural, with what is nearest his heart, namely his own affairs, and requests the lady to use her influence with Mr. Pitt to secure him a Living of one hundred pounds a year. Fearing that his request is too modest: "Observe," he says, "tho' a Living of one hundred nett will _do_, I care not how much larger the Living shall be. If by conversing with the Great, you have learnt their manners, and are unwilling to bestow so considerable a favour on a friend without some way or other finding your account in the transaction, which the unpolished call a bribe, you shall make your own terms with me. I will submit to what you think reasonable, and then, you know, the larger the Living or Post is, the better for both."

This pious worthy, having thus disposed of the affairs of the church, next deals in the same public spirited manner with the affairs of the colonial politics:

"One of our most active, flaming and applauded sons of liberty, Col. Rich'd Henry Lee, who burnt poor Mercer in effigy, raised a mob on Archy Ritchie, etc., etc., etc., has been lately blown up in the Publick Prints, it is said, by Mr. James Mercer. It appears that Lee, previous to his Patriotism, had made interest to be made Stamp Master himself, from letters it seems now in the possession of Col. Mercer, so that Lee will find it difficult hereafter to deceive anybody into an opinion of his Patriotism."

Posterity has quite definitely settled the question of the comparative patriotism of Col. Lee and the Rev. John Camm, and only wonders that a shrewd people tolerated that ecclesiastical fraud so long. Peace to his ashes! since he and his fellows have given way to good and sincere men who have purged the church of her disgrace and brought her back to her older and better traditions.

A gentleman of the old school, in cocked hat and knee-breeches, once said to Madison that a man might be a _Christian_ in any church, but a _gentleman_ must belong to the Church of England.

His Education

Governor Berkeley, that old stumbling-block-head who stopped the wheels of progress in Virginia for fifty years, wrote to the English Commissioners in 1670: "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have, for learning hath brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing hath divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!"

The bigoted Sir William set forth but too accurately the condition of affairs not only in Virginia, but in Maryland as well. It is impossible to avoid noting the striking contrast between the South and New England, where, by this time, every colony except Rhode Island had made education compulsory, where the school-house and the church stood side by side in every village. An old New England statute commands that "every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty households, shall appoint one to teach all the children to write and read, and when any town shall increase to the number of a hundred families, they shall set up a grammar school." All the energy of the Puritan which was not absorbed in religion vented itself on education. Ambition turned its current to learning as more desirable than wealth. "Child," said a New England matron to her boy, "if God make thee a good Christian and a good scholar, thou hast all that thy mother ever asked for thee."

Such a spirit bred a race of readers and students, trained to sift arguments and to weigh reasons. No such devotion to books or scholarship prevailed at the South. Yet when the Revolution came, the most thrilling eloquence, the highest statesmanship, the greatest military genius were found among these Southerners. Their education had been different from that of the Puritans, but it had been an education none the less. The Cavalier had been trained in the school of politics, in the responsibilities of power, and in the traditions of greatness.

The very absence of the reading habit tended to develop action, and the power of thinking out problems afresh, unhampered by the trammels of other men's thoughts. The haughtiness begotten by slave-holding made it doubly hard for the master to bow the knee even to a sovereign. The habit of command and responsibility of power, which shone on the battlefield and in the council-chamber, were learned on the lonely estates, where each planter was a king. Behind all these elements of training were the ideals which moulded the mind and the character.

Berkeley's taunting question to Bacon, "Have you forgot to be _a gentleman_?" owed its sting to this suggestion that he had been false to the traditions of his class. If we hold that tact and courtesy and gracious hospitality are results of education, we must admit that the Puritans of New England might have learned much from their neighbors in Maryland and Virginia. The education of politics, of power, of high traditions in virtue and in manners the Colonial Cavalier possessed. The education of books he lacked. Here and there, however, we find traces of some omnivorous reader even in the earliest times. Books were highly valued and treasured by generation after generation. We find among the old wills that "Richard Russell left Richard Yates 'a booke called Lyons play,' 'John porter junr. six books' 'John porter (1) my exec'r, ten books,' 'Katherin Greene three bookes,' 'One book to Sarah Dyer,' 'unto Wm. Greene his wife two books & her mother a booke,' 'Anna Godby two books,' 'Jno. Abell One booke in Quarto,' 'Richard Lawrence One booke.'"[1]

[1] V. _Library_ of Edmund Berkeley, Esq., Member of the Council (Died 15 Dec. 1718), from an inventory taken the 18 and 19 days of June, 1719: