The Colonial Cavalier Part 9

Religious observances played an important part in the early days of the settlement. The first statute made by an early legislative a.s.sembly, requires that in every plantation some house or room be specially dedicated to the worship of G.o.d, sequestered and set apart for that purpose, and not to be of any temporal use whatever.

It is curious, in view of this last clause, to find it recorded of the House of Burgesses itself: "The most convenient place wee could finde to site in was the quire of the churche." Surely no place could have been more appropriate for the gathering of the first free a.s.sembly of the people in America, and it was equally fitting that their proceedings should open with a prayer for guidance in the path which was destined to be darker and more difficult than they knew. "Forasmuch as men's affaires doe little prosper when G.o.d's service is neglected," a prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the minister, "that it would please G.o.d to guide and sanctifie all our proceedings to His owne glory and the good of this Plantation."

If the church of that time was devoted to temporal uses, religious services were not confined within its walls. Alexander Whitaker, the apostle of Virginia, writes home that he _exercises_ at the house of the governor, Sir Thomas Dale, every Sat.u.r.day night. This "exercising," or hearing of the catechism, with prayer and song, in private houses, was a matter of necessity in days when a parish covered a s.p.a.ce hardly to be crossed in a day's journey, with the roads or bridle-paths choked with undergrowth, and blocked by fallen logs. The Rev. Mr. Forbes seems to have been of a complaining nature, yet he rouses one's sympathy when he tells of the difficulties under which he labored.

"My parish," he says, "extendeth LX miles in length, in breadth about XI."

Over this distance were scattered some four hundred families, to whom he was expected to minister. "Sometimes," he goes on plaintively, "after I have travelled Fifty Miles to Preach at a Private House, the weather happening to prove bad on the day of our meeting so that very few met, or else being hindred by Rivers and Swamps rendred impa.s.sable with much rain, I have returned with doing of nothing to their benefit or mine own satisfaction."

Few clergymen of that day and region took their duties so seriously. They were for the most part quite willing to have service read by some deputy-priest or layman in the "chapels of ease;" or if they must officiate, they chose some sermon from Thomas Fuller or Jeremy Taylor, or, as a last resort, constructed one at small expense of labor on a scaffolding of headings resting on an underpinning of text. A fine example of this method of sermon-building I find in the discourse sent home by the pious Whitaker. He takes as his text, "Cast thy bread upon the waters,"

and expounds it after this fashion:

"1. The dutie to be performed: _Cast thy bread._ Be liberal to all.

"2. The manner of bestowing alms: By _casting_ it away.

"3. What is to be given? _Bread_; all things needful, yes, and of the best kind.

"4. Who may be liberal? Even those that have it. It must be _thy_ bread--thine own.

"5. To whom we must be liberal: To all; yea to the _Waters_."

This kind of sermon had the double advantage of being easy for the preacher, and restful to the congregation. It went along at a comfortable jog-trot, like a family horse, and the hearer was in no danger of being hurled over the head of revival eloquence into lurid threats of future punishment. If the preachers of the Church of England did not kindle spiritual ardor, at least they did not keep children awake o' nights, nor frighten nervous women into hysterics.

While these drowsy discourses were going on in the Southern colonies, the Puritan divine in the New England pulpit was throwing off such cheerful observations as these: "Every natural man and woman is born full of all sin, as full as a toad is of poison, as full as ever his skin can hold; mind, will, eyes, mouth; every limb of his body and every piece of his mind." The future awaiting such a wretch, he sets forth vividly: "Thou canst not endure the torments of a little kitchen-fire on the tip of thy finger, not one-half hour together. How wilt thou bear the fury of this infinite, endless, consuming fire in body and soul!" To these inspiring doctrines of the Rev. Thomas Shepherd, another Puritan preacher added his conviction that "there are infants in h.e.l.l not a span long."

To the credit of the Colonial Church of England be it recorded that no such sentiments disgraced its pulpit and made its Sabbath terrible to little children. The day was one of innocent enjoyment, and the church building was dear to generation after generation, as a peaceful and memory-hallowed spot. The early settlers had little money to spend in adorning their churches, yet from the beginning there was a great difference between the bare and square wooden New England meeting-house and the quaint Southern church of brick or stone, recalling in every line the beloved parish churches of Old England. The churchmen, unlike the Puritans, found no sin in beauty or adornment. St. John's Church at Hampton bore the royal arms carved on its steeple. Colonel Springer left by his will one thousand pounds of tobacco to pay for having the Lord's Prayer and Commandments put up in the new church at Northampton. By a statute of 1660, parishes are enjoined to provide at their own cost a great church Bible and two books of Common Prayer in folio for the minister and "clark"; also communion-plate, pulpit-cloth, and cushion, "that all things may be done orderly and decently in the church."

In the next century, there is a record of an order sent to England for gold-leaf to enrich a chancel, which was to be made gorgeous with an original painting of an angel holding back a crimson curtain, draped with a golden cord and ta.s.sel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Y{e} Pulpit.]

The pulpits in the old churches were placed at an angle, if the church were in the form of a cross; or if the building were an oblong on one side. These pulpits were so high that, unless the preacher were very tall, nothing could be seen by the congregation but the top of his head. Bishop Meade confesses that when he was to speak from one of these old box-pulpits, he would often hurry to church before his hearers, in order to pile up bricks or boards on which to stand. The good bishop must sometimes have found his thoughts sadly distracted from the sermon by the necessity of keeping his balance on his improvised platform.

The sharp distinction of cla.s.ses, which was so marked a feature of the Cavalier Colonies, showed itself even in church. Certain pews were set apart and marked "Magistrates" and "Magistrates' Ladies." Into these the great folks marched solemnly on Sundays, followed by their slaves bearing prayer-books, and never suspecting that their conduct was at variance with gospel principles. The great families kept their private pews for generations, and held firmly to their privileges. Matthew Kemp, as churchwarden, was commended by his vestry for displacing "a presuming woman, who would fain have taken a pew above her degree." In the very earliest church, Lord De la Warre's seat was upholstered in green velvet with a green "cooshoon;" Governor Spotswood's pew in Bruton Parish Church at Williamsburg was raised from the floor, and covered with a canopy, while the interior was ornamented with his name in gilt letters. In 1750, it was ordered by the vestry of St. Paul's Church, Norfolk, that "three captains and Mr. Charles Sweeny be allowed to build a gallery reaching from the gallery of Mr. John Taylor to the school-boys' gallery, to be theirs and their heirs' forever."

Washington's pew was an ample square, fitted with cushions for sitting and kneeling. The Puritans would have thought it a glaring iniquity to pay such heed to creature comfort in the house of G.o.d. They would have been more in sympathy with the Virginia dame of high degree who, in tardy atonement for her pride, directed that her body be buried under the pavement in the aisle occupied by the poor of the church, that they might trample on her dust. Such gloomy and ascetic a.s.sociations with the house of G.o.d were rare at the South. The church was a centre of cheerfulness, and the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of innocent enjoyment. All work was frowned upon as inconsistent with a due observance of its sanct.i.ty, however; and the Grand Jury in Middles.e.x County, Virginia, in 1704, presented Thomas Simms, for travelling on the road on Sunday with a loaded beast, William Montague and Garrett Minor for bringing oysters ash.o.r.e on the Sabbath, James Senis for swearing and cursing on the holy day; but outside such restrictions as these, no Blue Laws enforced gloom as part of the decorum of Sunday-keeping.

When the church-bell, hung usually from the bough of a tree, began to ring for service, the roads were filled with worshippers moving churchward, full of peace and good-will. First might be seen the young men on horseback, with the tails of their coats carefully pinned in front, to protect them from the sweat of their horses' flanks. Lumbering slowly after these equestrians came the great family-coaches, from which the ladies are a.s.sisted by the dismounted gallants. Every young damsel is planning some social festivity. Before or after service, invitations are given, and visits of weeks in length are arranged at the church door. It is to be feared that these colonial maidens sometimes allow their thoughts to wander in sermon-time, from their quaint little prayer-books, with their uneven type and crooked f's, and that they are thinking of dinners while they confess themselves sinners. But their levity is not treated severely by the priest, for he is as eager for his Madeira as his young parishioners are eager for their minuet.

They were jolly dogs, those colonial clergymen of the Church of England in the eighteenth century, and no more to be taken seriously than Friar Tuck, whose apostolic successors they were. Parishioners who wished spiritual counsel had difficulty in finding the parson. In the morning he was fox-hunting, in the afternoon he was over (or under) the dining-table, and the midnight candle shone on his wine-cup and dice-box.

Like their brethren across the Atlantic, the colonial clergy were strong on doctrine. "They abhorred popery, atheism, and idolatries in general, and hiccupped 'Church and State!' with fervor." Yet their morals were at so low an ebb as to justify the complaint made against them that they were "such as wore black coats and could gabble in a pulpit, roar in a tavern, exact from their parishioners, and rather by their dissoluteness destroy than feed their flock."

One clergyman a.s.saulted a dignitary in vestry-meeting, pulling off his wig and subjecting him to various indignities, and capped the climax of audacity by preaching the next Sunday from the text: "I contended with them and cursed them, and smote certain of them and pulled off their hair." Another minister fought a duel behind his church, and a third, the Rev. Thomas Blewer (p.r.o.nounced probably _Blower_), was presented by the Grand Jury as a common swearer. All efforts to reform the clergy were in vain. Ministers were sometimes tried for drunkenness, and some of the tests of what const.i.tutes drunkenness were laid down by the court: "Sitting an hour or longer in the company where they are drinking strong drink and in the mean time drinking of healths, or otherwise taking the cups as they come round, like the rest of the company; striking or challenging or threatening to fight." Staggering, reeling, and incoherent speech are justly regarded as suspicious circ.u.mstances, and the advice continues: "Let the proof of these signs proceed so far till the judges conclude that behavior at such time was scandalous, undecent, unbecoming the dignity of a minister." There is unfortunately only too clear a case against the colonial clergy; but it is only fair to take into account the condition of the church at home. If the clergymen in Maryland and Virginia gambled and drank, so did those in England and Wales. Did not Sterne grace the ca.s.sock? Did not Gay propose taking orders for a living, and did not Swift write from a deanery stuff too vile for print? There was some talk at one time of sending this great Dr. Swift over to Virginia as a bishop, and a worthy one he would have been, to such a church.

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 G.o.dly 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 ma.s.sacre 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 cla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 c.o.c.k-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 subst.i.tute 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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 t.i.thable 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 Gla.s.sc.o.c.ke untill a convenyent church be built and Erected there for G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed, 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 doc.u.ments. 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.s along the bench of the clergy, suddenly changed his whole att.i.tude. All at once he shook off embarra.s.sment, 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 debas.e.m.e.nt 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 c.o.c.ked 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.