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THE LIFE 
 
 OP 
 
 BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 JOH]^ ivr>]sroRTO¥, m.a., 
 
 BKCTOR OF ASCENSION CHUKCH, FKANKFOET, KY. ; AUTHOE OF " FULL 
 
 PEOOF OF THE MINISTEY ;" " EOCEFOKD PAEI8H ;'* "LIFE OF 
 
 BISHOP WHITE," ETC. 
 
 " Preach the word ; be instant in season, out of seaBon ; reprovej rebuke, exhort 
 With all long-suffering and doctrine." — iSf. Paul's Charge to Timothy, the Bishi)^,i 
 Bphesua. 
 
 NEW YOEK 
 CSeaeral 3Ptotcstant 3Eprscoa)al 5buntraT» School Sanfort, 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, 
 
 By the Gbneral Peotbstant Episcopal Sunday School Union, 
 AND Church Book Society, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 William Denysk, 
 
 fcTKREOTYPER AND ELECTROTYPKBj 
 
 188 WiUiam Street, N, F, 
 
 PUDNKY & RUSSELTj, 
 PBINTKR8, 
 
 ^9 John street, N, Y, 
 
TO 
 
 JOSIAH COLLIIfS, ESQ., 
 
 OF 
 SOMEESET PLACE, SCUPPEENONG, NOETH CAEOLINA, 
 
 AS A 
 
 FOR 
 
 HIS DISTINGIJISHED ABILITIES, 
 
 AND 
 
 FOB HIS DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE 
 
 OF 
 
" EvEET Christian may, and should be, ready, in matters of indif- 
 ference, to sacrifice mere opinions on the altar of peace and good 
 order, and to yield a prompt obedience to lawful ecclesiastical 
 authority. Such principles lead to the maintenance of the Church 
 in her integrity. They forbid us to attempt amalgamation with sur- 
 rounding brethren, separate, alike, in doctrine, polity, and institu- 
 tions. Such views and conduct are often stigmatized with oppro- 
 brious epithets. It is under such circumstances that a determined 
 spirit of obedience to God, in all things, is required of us."— Bishop 
 Db Lancet's Sermon^ published ty request of the Wardens and 
 Vestry of St, Luke's Churchy Rochester^ N. F., 1844. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The materials out of wMch tlie biographer must con- 
 struct his work, are oftentimes much more scanty than 
 would be generally supposed. 
 
 It is but seven-and-twenty years since Bishop Eavens- 
 croft's decease, and yet, when the attempt is made (and 
 that, too, with no little diligence and zeal) to discover 
 his surviving friends, and to note down their remem- 
 brances of him, the task is found to be almost as difficult 
 as in the case of Bishop Seabury, who has been dead for 
 more than sixty years. 
 
 The truth is that we are living in a busy, bustling age, 
 and one generation treads so closely upon the heels of the 
 next, that the departed are too soon forgotten, and the 
 benefit of their example, in many cases, is lost to the 
 Church. 
 
 This consideration, among others, has prompted the 
 writer to prosecute his task of preparing this series of 
 biographies, with all the expedition which so serious an 
 undertaking will permit him to use. 
 
** Stand as an anvil, when it is beaten upon." — 
 
 St. Ignatius to St. Poly carp : both Martyrs. 
 
 *' Stand, like an anvil," when the stroke 
 Of stalwart men falls fierce and fast ; 
 
 Storms but more deeply root the oak, 
 Whose brawny arms embrace the blast. 
 
 " Stand, like an anvil," when the bar 
 
 Lies, red and glowing, on its breast ; 
 Duty shall be life's leading star, 
 
 And conscious innocence, its rest. 
 
 /' Stand, like an anvil," when the sound 
 Of ponderous hammers pains the ear ; 
 
 Thine, but the still and stern rebound 
 Of the great heart that cannot fear. 
 
 Bishop Doanb. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 An exception to a general rule, and yet a case which ends like all 
 the rest— Birth — Parentage — Eemoval to Europe — The Ameri- 
 can boy at school in Scotland — His father's death — The widowed 
 mother and her only son — Good seed not lost — The Bible in 
 schools — A higher school in England — What Mrs. Kavenscroft 
 never dreamed of 13 
 
 Unsettled estates — Young Eavenscroft returns to Virginia — 1789 
 — State of the country at that time — The Church awaking after 
 long slumber — Success in recovering property — Plans for study- 
 ing law — William aad Mary College— Dr. Madison, President 
 and Bishop — Unrestrained license of youth — Worse and worse 
 — ^Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind 21 
 
 Little progress made at college — Turning over a new leaf— Mr. 
 Bnrwell's daughter — The influence which she was one day to 
 possess — Visit to Scotland — Farewell to mother and friends — 
 Settlement for life — A good wife — Eighteen years without God 
 in the world-^Kind and amiable traits — Morality not religion 
 —One thing lacking — The fire going out on the altar — The 
 blind leading the blind — God's long-suffering mercy 29 
 
 Foolish and false— True statement of the case— Turning from 
 darkness to light — 1810, a memorable year — Solemn reflections 
 — The resolutions of the self-righteous— Mortifying failures — 
 The Bible read once more— Eenewed struggles to do right — 
 Human strength again gives way — Convinced of sin— Prayers 
 and tears— D awnings of hope — What children may learn from 
 the narrative 36 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Open confession of Christ — Sad condition of the Church — Ee- 
 joicings of the enemy — Eepublican Methodists — The husband 
 and wife received into communion — The events of three years 
 — What conscience suggested — Obstacles— The decision of a 
 brave mind — Another difficult question— The origin of minis- 
 terial authority — The study of God's oracles making him wiser 
 than his teachers— Candidate for holy orders— Lay reading — 
 Harsh judgment — Death of his wife — " Such a Saviour !" 44 
 
 Ordination — Call to Mecklenburg — A vigorous laborer of forty- 
 five — No sham commission — Allowance which should be made 
 —Small beginnings — The oflfence of a faithful Gospel — Peculiar 
 manner — " Am I the only person present who believes in God ?" 
 — ^Mark his track in the snow- Success— New church— Bishop 
 Moore's report — Well-deserved honor— Dr. Wilmer's kind con- 
 gratulations 52 
 
 Second marriage— Losses and crosses— Diligence quickened — 
 Influence among his brethren— Invitations To different parishes 
 — A call to a still wider field of usefulness— History of the 
 Church in North Carolina — First settlement by the English — 
 Trials of the early settlers— The Eev. John Blair, Missionary 
 and Commissary — His first report — Fellow-laborers — Eev. 
 John Urmston— Hardships— Eesults of labor 60 
 
 Chapter 25ifil)t|). 
 
 The Eev. Mr. Eainsford— Service under the mulberry-tree — 
 Baptism of negroes — Lodging in the old tobacco barn — Indian 
 wars— Wearied and worn out— Fresh laborers in the field — 
 Eev. Thomas Newnan — A large parish— How the Sundays 
 were divided— Over-exertion and exposure do their work — 
 Still another missionary— Laboring yet more abundantly — De- 
 voted laymen — Desire for Bishops 
 
 d)aj)ter Kinti)* 
 
 A well-tried layman turning missionary— A hundred baptisms a 
 day — Mr. Garzia— The fifty pounds per annum— Scanty living 
 — Clement llall— Wide field of labor, and much accomplished 
 in it— Hard toil — Eesting from his labors — Six clergymen in 
 the Province— American Eevolution— Dark aud dismal daya 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAQB 
 
 for the Church— The rally of 1790— Another relapse— The day- 
 star arises at last • 77 
 
 Cf)aj)ter ^rentj). 
 
 A few more mtermediate steps— Convention at Newbern in 1817 
 — The session in the year following — An old pamphlet — Con- 
 vention at Fayetteville- Important proceedings — lieport on 
 the state of the Church in North Carolina— Bishop Moore's 
 first visitation to the diocese — The labors of a year — Good 
 hopes for the future 85 
 
 <S:i)at)ter Hlebentf)» 
 
 Bishop Moore visits North Carolina again — Eeport of his labors 
 there — Important step in 1S23 — Mr. Eavenscroft chosen Bishop 
 of North Carolina — Qualifications for this position— Consecra- 
 tion — Enters mto the harvest — Settlement of first principles — 
 Sermon at the primary Convention— Energy in preaching — 
 Anecdote — Knowledge of human nature— The stage-coach dis- 
 cussion about race-horses, and what grew out of it 93 
 
 Chapter 2rb3elft|)» 
 
 Severe labors — ^The penalty of over-exertion- Occupation of a 
 sick chamber— Controversy— Divisions among Christians de- 
 plored — Two modes of doing Church work — Both good in 
 their way— The course which necessity urged upon Bishop 
 Eavenscroft — Letter to Bishop Hobart — Faint, yet pursuing — 
 Humbleness of a great mind 101 
 
 €:f)a|)ter 2rf)irteent!). 
 
 Brethren dwelling together in unity — Bishop Moore's letter — A 
 Virginia Convention— Love for the Church—Men of prayer — 
 Wrestlings of a devout spirit- Entering into the closet — De- 
 light in the study of God's Word—" What commentator shall 
 I consult ?" — Teachings of the Spikit Ill 
 
 €:t)apter jfourteentf), 
 
 A Sunday among the Moravian Brethren — Early service at the 
 school — Worship in the church— Introduction to Bishop Be- 
 nade — Love-feast — Friendly interview — Longings after unity 
 — The Lord's Supper— Mode of its administration— Night serv- 
 ice — Parting with mutual expressions of regard— A petition in 
 Which all true Christians must heartily unite 119 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 fi^Sajiter jFitteentf). 
 
 The Bishop leaves the parish at Ealeigh— Eemoral to Williams- 
 borough — Last earthly tie broken — The Convention of 1829 re- 
 leases him from parochial charge— Visit to Tennessee and 
 Kentucky— Labors of Dr. Chapman— Kentucky organized as 
 a diocese— Bishop Kavenscroft at Lexington — Ninety-one con- 
 firmed—Interesting particulars 12T 
 
 Chapter <Si):teenti). 
 
 A long journey — State of health — General Convention — Medical 
 
 . advice— Prospect of recovery— Keturn home— Eelapse— Last 
 
 service— No more hope of life — Death-bed conversations— Dr. 
 
 Freeman's narrative— Folly of repentance delayed until the 
 
 close of life— Communion of the sick— The sleep of death 136 
 
 ^|)apter Sebenteentf)* 
 
 Burial— Minute directions in his will— Library for the diocese — 
 Works for the press— Personal appearance— Manners — Solem- 
 nity in church— Eeports of eye-witnesses— Ordinary courtesies 
 of life— An oft-told story spoiled — Love towards God — Success 
 in the ministry— The best knowledge— Affection for his clergy 
 — The wise old man at rest 145 
 
LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 BISHOP RAYENSCROFT, 
 
 aghr first. 
 
 WHICH ENDS LIKE ALL THE EEST— BIETH — PAEENTAGE 
 — REMOVAL TO ETJEOPE — THE AMEEICAN BOY AT 
 SCHOOL IN SCOTLAND — HIS FATHEE's DEATH — THE 
 WIDOWED MOTHEE AND HEE ONLY SON — GOOD SEED 
 NOT LOST — THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS — ^A HIGHEE SCHOOL 
 IN ENGLAND — WHAT MES. EAVENSCEOFT NEVER 
 DEFAMED OF. 
 
 N most of tlie biographies of the Bish- 
 ) ops of the Church which we have 
 hitherto had the privilege to write, 
 we have had occasion to notice the 
 happy effects which have uniformly 
 followed the faithful instruction of 
 2, 
 
14: ^LIFE OF BISHOP RAYEJSrSCROFT. 
 
 parents. The life of Bishop Eavenscroft, 
 •while it is no exception to this rule, will yet 
 be foimd quite different from the rest. It 
 will serve to illustrate the fact, that although 
 the good seed sown in childhood may lie for 
 a long time dormant, and apparently dead, 
 sooner of later, by God's grace, it will 
 again appear, and bring forth fruit unto 
 holiness. 
 
 John Stark Eayenscroft was born in the 
 year 1772, at an estate near Blandford, 
 Prince George's County, Virginia, which had 
 long been in the possession of his family. 
 He was the only child of Dr. John Eavens- 
 croft, a gentleman of fortune, who had been 
 educated for a physician. The Bishop's 
 mother was the daughter of Mr. Hugh 
 Miller, a native of Scotland, who resided in 
 the same county. 
 
 Dr. Eavenscroft's ample fortune and small 
 family soon induced him to abandon his 
 laborious profession, and within two months 
 
REMOVAL TO EUROPE. 15 
 
 after the birth of his son he crossed the 
 ocean, and spent a couple of years in the 
 north of England. He finally settled, how- 
 ever, in the sonth of Scotland. 
 
 It is not known, certainly, why Dr. Eav- 
 enscroft removed to Europe. Although many 
 persons fled thither, as the stormy days of 
 the American Revolution approached, it is 
 unlikely that the troubles between the 
 colonies and the mother country had any 
 influence in this particular case. Great ex- 
 citement had prevailed before, but the year 
 1772, and the early part of the following 
 one, was a season of remarkable tranquillity 
 — so much so, indeed, that the opinion was 
 generally entertained that the wiser and 
 more righteous policy which the British gov- 
 ernment had begun to pursue, would be the 
 means of preventing all further difficulties 
 with the colonies. 
 
 Whatever Dr. Eavenscroft's motives may 
 have been for leaving America, it was 
 
16 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCROFT. 
 
 plainly his intention to return no more, as 
 arrangements were made for the sale of 
 his landed estates and other valuable prop- 
 erty. 
 
 This business was all arranged to his satis- 
 faction, but in consequence of the unsettled 
 state of the country during the war, the pay- 
 ments were not promptly met, and he was 
 in consequence somewhat embarrassed dur- 
 ing the rest of his life, although he left his 
 widow in easy circumstances. He died to- 
 wards the close of 1780. 
 
 And now only two actors are left upon 
 the stage, the widowed mother and her son, 
 a promising boy, eight years of age. 
 
 The earliest recollections of Bishop Eav- 
 enscroft were associated with Scotland — ^its 
 clouds and mists, and its rugged and pictur- 
 esque scenery. His mother was a strong- 
 minded, intelligent woman, and she felt that 
 the best part which she could do for her 
 son was to give him the advantages of a 
 
GOOD SEED NOT LOST. lY 
 
 thorough education. The schools of Scot- 
 land were celebrated for affording peculiar 
 facilities to the student, and the little 
 American boj, thus early transplanted from 
 his native soil, made good use of his oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 Speaking of these early days, in a fragment 
 of an autobiography, which, it is much to be 
 regretted, was not made more complete, the 
 Bishop remarks : " Here I received the rudi- 
 ments of my education, and I feel bound to 
 record that I owe much to the custom there 
 established of making the Scriptures a school- 
 book — a custom, I am grieved to say it, not 
 only abandoned in the schools and academies 
 among us, but denounced as improper, if not 
 injurious. Although I was unconscious, at 
 the time, of any power or influence over my 
 thoughts or actions thence derived, yet what 
 mere memory retained of their life-giving 
 truths, proved of unspeakable advantage 
 when I became awakened to the subject of: 
 
 2* 
 
18 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 religion ; and I am constrained to believe, 
 that what was thus unconsciously sown in 
 my heart, though smothered and choked by 
 the levity of youth, and abused and per- 
 verted by the negligence and sinfulness of 
 my riper years, was, nevertheless, a prepara- 
 tion of Heaven's foresight and mercy, for 
 grace to quicken me — a mighty help to my 
 amazed and confounded soul, when brought 
 to a just view of my actual condition as a 
 sinner, both by nature and by practice. 
 "Without this help I might, like thousands 
 of others, have wandered in a bewildered 
 state, the prey of many delusions, engendered 
 by the anxieties of a disturbed and ignorant 
 mind, or by the fanaticism of those many 
 well-meaning, perhaps, but certainly most 
 ignorant men, who yet venture to become 
 teachers of religion. For this reason it is 
 that I have been earnest, during my min- 
 istry, in pressing upon parents, and upon 
 those who have the care of youth, the great 
 
A HIGHER SCHOOL IN ENGLAJSTD. 19 
 
 duty of furnisliing their tender and pliant 
 minds with the treasures of divine knowl- 
 edge and saving truth, contained in God's 
 revealed Word."*^ 
 
 It is certainly taking a long step backward 
 to leave the Bishop, in the maturity of his 
 gigantic mind, and to return to the little 
 American school-boy in Scotland ; but so the 
 course of the story leads. 
 
 When her son had finished his course at 
 the Grammar school where he had first been 
 placed, Mrs. Ravenscroft sent him to a semi- 
 nary of somewhat highef grade in the north 
 of England. Here, besides continuing his 
 classical studies, he was instructed in Mathe- 
 matics, Natural Philosophy, and other sci- 
 ences. The mother could have had no idea 
 how these treasures of knowledge would 
 afterwards be used. Little did she think 
 that this darling child — now growing up at 
 
 ^ Bishop Kavenscroft's Works, Yol. I., p. 8, etc. 
 
20 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 such a distance from his native land — would 
 again go back, and there become, in after 
 life, one of the boldest leaders in the warfare 
 of the Church of God against the mighty- 
 power of Satan and his hoSts ! 
 
UNSETTLED ESTATES — YOUNG EAVENSCEOFT EETUEN8 TO 
 VIEGINIA — 1789 — STATE OF THE OOUNTEY AT THAT 
 
 TIME — THE CHUEOH AWAEING AFTEE LONG 8LUMBEE 
 
 SUCCESS IN EECOVEEING PEOPEETY PLANS FOE STUDY- 
 ING LAW — WILLIAM AND MAEY COLLEGE — DE. MADI- 
 SON, PEESIDENT AND BISHOP — ^UNEESTEAINED LICENSE 
 OF YOUTH WOESE AND WOESE FULFILLING THE DE- 
 SIRES OF THE FLESH AND OF THE MIND. 
 
 ^^^^AD Dr. Eavenscroft been able to 
 make a satisfactory settlement of his 
 affairs on leaving Virginia, it seems 
 more than likely that his son would 
 never have returned to this country. 
 A young man of fortune might 
 have found enough to occupy his atten- 
 tion among the refinements and pleasures 
 of European society. But the all- wise Dis- 
 
22 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCROFT. 
 
 poser of human events had other purposes in 
 view. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Eavenscroft had entered 
 upon his seventeenth year, his friends thought 
 it advisable that he should return to Virginia, 
 and endeavor to recover the portion of his 
 father's estate which had so long been lost 
 to his family. Accordingly, bidding fare- 
 well to all that he had ever known or loved, 
 he left Scotland in the beginning of the 
 winter of 1788, and reached Virginia on 
 New Tear's day, 1Y89, a stranger to all 
 around him, and in great part his own 
 master. 
 
 No young man could possibly have been 
 placed in circumstances of greater peril. 
 With no intimate friends to watch over and 
 advise him, and with means at command for 
 the gratification of every desire, it would not 
 have been strange if he had become the vic- 
 tim of irresistible temptations, and been led 
 on blindfold to ruin. 
 
STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 23 
 
 The period when Mr. Ravenscroft landed in 
 America was a most eventful one in the his- 
 tory of this country. 1789 was the year when 
 George Washe^gton entered upon his duties 
 as the first President of the United States, 
 and the federal constitution was adopted. 
 
 The earliest permanent settlement of the 
 whites had just been made within the limits 
 of the present State of Ohio ; and Tennessee, 
 which had belonged to "North Carolina, was 
 ceded to the general government. The 
 cotton-seed, planted two years before in 
 South Carolina, had begun to give evidences 
 of what might be expected in future from 
 the cultivation of this profitable crop ; and a 
 steamboat (well-named the Perseverance) had 
 just commenced her regular trips uipon the 
 river Delaware, lunning eight miles an hour. 
 
 Old-fashioned manners and customs still 
 prevailed in Yirginia ; and a stranger from 
 abroad, as he shared in the generous and re- 
 fined hospitalities of the " Old Dominion,'' 
 
24: LIFE OF BISHOP EAVEN^SCROFT. 
 
 might readily have imagined himself a guest 
 at the mansion of some English lord. 
 
 The Church, which, before the Eevolu- 
 tionaiy war, had been so strong in Virginia, 
 was now well-nigh extinct. It is true, Bishop 
 Seabury had been laboring in Connecticut 
 for four years past, and Bishop White in 
 Pennsylvania, and Bishop Provoost in New 
 York, during half that period, to rouse the 
 sinking energies of the few Churchmen who 
 were left, but little did Mr. Ravenscroft sus- 
 pect that he would ever feel an interest in 
 such a cause, and even share in their labors ! 
 
 He was so successful in recovering the 
 wrecks of his father's property that he soon 
 became master of an ample fortune. By the 
 advice of his friends he now turned his at- 
 tention to law, as presenting the fairest field 
 of honor and emolument, and he accordingly 
 entered William and Mary College, at Wil- 
 liamsburg, Virginia, with a view to the pros- 
 ecution of that study, and to the acquisition 
 
WILLIAM AND IVIAEY COLLEGE. 25 
 
 of a more thorough acquaintance with the 
 sciences. The lectures of the celebrated Pro- 
 fessor Wythe were the chief attraction which 
 determined him to seek the benefits of this 
 institution. 
 
 William and Mary College dates back its 
 history from the year 1692, and the list of its 
 presidents and professors includes the names 
 of many who have rendered themselves dis- 
 tinguished, while the graduates compare 
 favorably with those of any institution in the 
 land.* 
 
 When Mr. Eavenscroft went to Williams- 
 burg, Dr. Madison (who was consecrated the 
 first Bishop of Yirginia, in 1790) was at the 
 head of the College, which position he oc- 
 cupied until his death in 1812. 
 
 The plan recommended by the young 
 man's friends, that he should attend a course 
 of law lectures, was, no doubt, a good one, 
 
 * For a brief history of the CoUege, see Duyckinck's 
 Cyclopaedia of American Literature, VoL I., p. 82. 
 
 3 
 
26 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCROFT. 
 
 and miglit have been of the utmost advan- 
 tage to him in after-life ; but the time which 
 he spent at "William and Mary was, to a 
 great extent, worse than thrown away. The 
 professors in the several departments were 
 able men, and the regulations of the College 
 were judicious in themselves; but they w^ere 
 not very rigidly enforced, and the conse- 
 quence was that the students indulged in 
 habits of extravagance and dissipation to an 
 alarming degree. Separated by the wide 
 Attentic from the good mother who had 
 watched over his infancy and boyhood, and 
 supplied by a too indulgent guardian with 
 almost unlimited means of gratifying his 
 inclinations, Mr. Eavenscroft, though but 
 seventeen years of age, did not fall far be- 
 hind his companions in their irregularities 
 and excesses. 
 
 His own straightforward confession will 
 best disclose the true state of the case. " Ex- 
 cept at the hours appropriated to the lectures, 
 
WOESE AND WORSE. 27 
 
 my tim^ was at my own disposal ; and though 
 expected to attend prayers every morning in 
 the College chapel, absence was not strictly 
 noticed, and very slight excuses were ad- 
 mitted. Attendance at chnrch on Sunday 
 was entirely optional, and the great subject 
 of religion wholly unattended to.*^ 
 
 The students were required to board in 
 College ; but from the small number — ^not 
 exceeding fifteen — from the low price of 
 board, and the constant altercations with the 
 steward — the public table was given up, and 
 the students were permitted to board in the 
 taverns, or elsewhere, as suited them. This 
 every way injurious and most unwise per- 
 mission presented facilities for dissipation 
 which would not otherwise have been found ; 
 and encouraged, as they were, by the readi- 
 
 ^^ When young WiUiam Meade (now the beloved Bishop 
 of Virginia) was going to church, on Sunday morning, to 
 be admitted to Deacon's orders by Bishop Madison, the 
 students of the CoUege were seen with their dogs and 
 guns, setting out on a hunt ! 
 
28 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCROFT. 
 
 ness "witli which credit was obtained from 
 persons whose calculations were formed on 
 the heedlessness and improvidence of youth, 
 temptation was divested of all present im- 
 pediment to its power." 
 
LITTLE PROGRESS MADE AT COLLEGE — TURNING OYER A 
 NEW LEAF MR. BURWELL's DAUGHTER THE INFLU- 
 ENCE WHICH SHE WAS ONE DAY TO POSSESS — YISIT 
 
 TO SCOTLAND — FAREWELL TO MOTHER AND FRIENDS 
 
 SETTLEMENT FOR LIFE — A GOOD WIFE — ^EIGHTEEN 
 
 TEARS WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD KIND AND 
 
 AMIABLE TRAITS MORALITY, NOT RELIGION ONE 
 
 THING LACKING THE FIRE GOING OUT ON THE AL- 
 TAR — THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND GOD's LONG- 
 SUFFERING MERCY. 
 
 ^"^^OIJNG Eavenscroft remained, for 
 P i some time, a member of William 
 ^^^^ and Mary College ; but from the 
 painful picture presented in the last 
 chapter, no one can be surprised to 
 learn that he made little progress 
 with his legal studies — and it does not ap- 
 pear that he ever was admitted to the bar. 
 Before leaving Williamsburg, however, an 
 
 3^ 
 
30 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 event took place which was to be the means, 
 in God's hands, of arresting him in his career 
 of youthful dissipation, and of bringing him 
 back into safer paths. He here became ac- 
 quainted with a daughter of Lewis Burwell, 
 of Mecklenburg County, who afterwards be- 
 came his wife. She is represented as having 
 been a most lovely and accomplished person, 
 and one who exercised a very beneficial in- 
 fluence over his wayward disposition. Her 
 gentle temper was peculiarly adapted to a 
 collision with his impulsive and ardent spirit ; 
 and she possessed, at the same time, a firm- 
 ness of character and correctness of principle 
 which, while it enabled her to mould his less 
 established character, preserved her from the 
 influence of his evil example. 
 
 About the year 1Y92, Mr. Eavenscroft re- 
 visited Scotland for the last time, with a view 
 of disposing of his property there, and mak- 
 ing a permanent settlement in Virginia. It 
 must have been a sad parting with his wid- 
 
SETTLEMENT FOR LIFE. 31 
 
 owed mother, but she preferred to remain in 
 the land of her fathers, where she lived in 
 great comfort with her two sisters. She 
 could not withhold her consent, however, to 
 the return of her son to that new and rising 
 republic, where interest and inclination both 
 seemed to lead him. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one, Mr. Eavenscroft 
 was married to Miss Burwell, and having 
 abandoned all idea of prosecuting the pro- 
 fession of law, he purchased a handsome es- 
 tate, near his father-in-law, in the healthy 
 county of Lunenburgh, intending to devote 
 the remainder of his life to agricultural pur- 
 suits. 
 
 " Thus removed [he remarks, in the frag- 
 ment of his autobiography already referred 
 to] from the temptations and facilities to vice, 
 which our cities and towns present so readily, 
 with regular and pleasant occupation on my 
 farm, and my domestic happiness studied 
 and promoted by the affectionate partner of 
 
32 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 my life, my years rolled on as happily — were 
 the present life alone to be provided for — as 
 could reasonably be desired. The personal 
 regard I entertained for my wife increased to 
 the highest esteem, and even veneration, as 
 the virtues of her character opened upon me ; 
 while the prudence and discretion of her 
 conduct won me gradually from my previous 
 dissipated habits.""^ 
 
 Thus, for eighteen years, Mr. Eavenscroft 
 continued to live — a devoted husband, a kind 
 master, and a good neighbor, and universally 
 respected by all who knew him. Having 
 never been blessed with any children of his 
 own, he acted the part of a father towards 
 five orphans, who were placed under his care 
 while infants, and no parent could have dis- 
 charged his duties more conscientiously and 
 faithfully. 
 
 But although many a deluded moralist 
 
 ^ Bishop Ravenscroft's Works, Vol. I., p. 12. 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS WITHOUT GOD. 33 
 
 may have built his hopes of salvation upon 
 a foundation more slender than that which 
 Mr. Eavenscroffc could have claimed for him- 
 self, it must be confessed that during all these 
 years he was living without God in the world, 
 and leaned only unto his own understanding. 
 With no serious thought of religion, his Bible 
 unread, prayer neglected, and every means 
 of grace despised, how wretched was his lot, 
 even while thus surrounded with all which 
 could minister to the comfort of the body or 
 pamper worldly pride ! So great, indeed, 
 was his contempt for even the outward forms 
 of religion, that for eighteen years he was 
 not present at any place of public worship 
 more than six or seven times, and then not 
 from choice, but from some accidental cir- 
 cumstance, which seemed to require him, as 
 an act of politeness, to attend. He inter- 
 ested himself, with his accustomed zeal, in 
 the politics of the day, but found too much 
 satisfaction' in the bosom of the family to 
 
34 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 allow ambitious feelings to draw him away 
 after the pursuit of those official stations 
 which he was so well qualified to fill. 
 
 With all his w^ealth, and the comforts of 
 his home, Mr. Eavenscroft felt that sovfie' 
 thing was .wanting to complete his happiness 
 — ^the world was empty and unsatisfying, 
 and still he had no hope beyond. 
 
 Had the Church in Virginia then possessed 
 that life and vigor for which she is now dis- 
 tinguished, he might have been earlier at- 
 tracted by '' the beauty of holiness" to seek 
 the service of God. But, alas ! the fire had 
 well-nigh burned out upon her altars, and 
 her children, as sheep having no shepherds, 
 were everywhere scattered abroad. Mr. 
 Eavenscroft possessed too refined and well- 
 cultivated a mind to be favorably impressed 
 by those ruder forms in which religion was 
 presented to his sight. '' I soon found (he 
 says) that I knew more of the Scriptures 
 from memory than the preachers, and was 
 
god's loxg-suffering mercy. 35 
 
 vain enough to think that I understood them 
 better, and could apply them more correctly, 
 than the well-meaning, perhaps, but certainly 
 most ignorant, unqualified, and, of course, 
 injurious men, who appeared around in the 
 character of ministers of religion. But as I 
 had no spiritual senses as yet quickened in 
 me, the preaching of the Cross, even from 
 an angel, would have been to me as to the 
 Greeks of old — ^foolishness. 
 
 " Oh, what a miracle of long-suficring, 
 that in all this time God was not provoked 
 to cut me off! What a miracle of grace 
 that I am permitted to think and speak of 
 it, and to adore the riches of His mercy, in 
 bringing me to a better mind !" 
 
 M' 
 
FOOLISH AND FALSE — TEUE STATEMENT OF TME CASE — 
 
 TUENING FEOM DAEKNESS TO LIGHT 1810, A MEMOE- 
 
 ABLE YEAE SOLEMN EEFLECTIONS — THE EESOLUTIONS 
 
 OF THE 8ELF-EIGHTE0US MOETIFTING FAILUEES THE 
 
 BIBLE EEAD ONCE MOEE — EENEWED 8TEUGGLES TO DO 
 
 EIGHT HUMAN STEENGTH AGAIN GIVES WAY CON- 
 
 YINOED OF SIN — PEAYEES AND TEAE8 DAWNING8 OF 
 
 HOPE — WHAT CHILDEEN MAY LEAEN FEOM THE NAE- 
 EATIYE. 
 
 S many false and foolisli stories were 
 circulated, respecting the causes and 
 manner of that marvellous change 
 in Mr. Ravenscroft, by which he put 
 off^ Goncerning the former conversa- 
 tion^ the old man^ and put on the 
 new man^ which^ after God is created in 
 righteousness and true holiness^ he was per- 
 suaded by his friends, towards the close of 
 
TRUE STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 3T 
 
 life, to draw up a statement himself. 1 
 should consider it presumptuous in me to 
 attem23t to give this narrative in words other 
 than his own : 
 
 "It was in the year 1810 that it pleased 
 God to set my mind at work, and gradually 
 to bring me to doubt the dark security of my 
 unawakened state. But I am not conscious 
 of any peculiar incident or circumstance that 
 first led me to considerations of this kind. 
 
 " As I was the manager of my own estate, 
 which comprised a set of mills, as well as a 
 plantation, about two miles distant from each 
 other, I was, of course, much alone — at least 
 in that kind of solitude which gives the mind 
 opportunity to commune with itself. It was- 
 in my rides from one to the other, and while 
 superintending the labors of my people, that 
 a train of thought, to which I was previously 
 altogether unaccustomed, began to occupy 
 my attention, and though dismissed once 
 and again, would still return, and with every 
 
 4 
 
S8 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCKOFT. 
 
 return would interest me more and more. 
 'That the train of thought thus suggested con- 
 cerned my condition as an accountable crea- 
 1;ure will be readily imagined, as, also, that 
 'On the review I found it bad enough. This 
 it was no difficult thing for me to feel and to 
 admit, nor as yet did there appear much dif- 
 ficulty in reforming what I could not justify. 
 "An impatient and passionate temper, 
 with a most sinful and hateful habit of pro- 
 fane swearing, in which I was a great pro- 
 ficient, were my most open and besetting 
 .sins. These, however, I considered as within 
 my own control, and as such, set forthwith 
 about amending them ; but without any re- 
 liance upon God for help, or without much, 
 if any, impression that it was at all needful. 
 In this endeavor at reformation, which it 
 pleased God thus to permit me to make, I 
 went on prosperously for a season, and began 
 to pride myself in that self-command I seem- 
 ed to possess. But my own weakness was 
 
THE BIBLE KEAD ONCE MOKE. 3& 
 
 yet to be showed me, and when temptation 
 again assailed me, all mj boasted self-com- 
 mand was but as a rush against the wall. I 
 surrendered to passion, and from passion to 
 blasphemy. When I came to reflect upon 
 this, then it was that, for the first time in my 
 life, I was sensible of something like concern 
 — some consciousness of wrong beyond what 
 was apparent. But without waiting to ex- 
 amine further I hastily concluded to exert 
 myself more heartily, and yet to command 
 myself thoroughly. 
 
 "During these my endeavors, however, 
 the Scriptures were more and more the ob- 
 ject of my attention, and from them I began 
 gradually ta discover (what I was very loath 
 to admit) the true state and condition of 
 human nature. What little I had lately 
 come to know of myself, however, and all 
 that I knew of the world, seemed to rise up 
 as strong proofs that the doctrine of our 
 natural depravity was true. 
 
40 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCKOFT. 
 
 " Willing to escape from it, I resorted to 
 the subterfuge of too many among us — that 
 what we find in the Scriptures is figuratively 
 expressed, and is, therefore, not to be taken 
 in the strictness of the letter. But my own 
 experience was to be the expositor of the 
 Word. Again and again were my self- 
 righteous endeavors foiled and defeated, 
 much as at the first, and humbled and con- 
 founded, I became alarmed at what must be 
 the issue — if I was thus to remain the sport 
 of passions I could not command — the prey 
 of sin I could not conquer. Something like 
 prayer would flow from my lips, but it was 
 the prayer of a heart that yet knew not 
 aright its own plague. One more effort was 
 to be made, and Avith great circumspection 
 did I watch over myself for some weeks. 
 Still did I continue, liowever, my search in 
 and meditation upon the Scriptures ; and 
 here it was that I found the benefit of my 
 early acquaintance with them. I had not to 
 
COlSrV^INCED OF SES". 41 
 
 look afar off for their, doctrines, they were 
 familiar to my memory from a child, I had 
 known them thus far, though now it was 
 that their living proof was to be experienced. 
 The whole, I believe, was to be made to de- 
 pend on my acquiescence in the turning 
 point of all religion — that we are lost and 
 imdone, spiritually dead and helpless in our- 
 selves — and so I found it. 
 
 "Again, and dreadfully, did I fall from 
 my own steadfastness — temptation, like a 
 mighty man that shouteth hy reason of wine^ 
 swept my strength before it, carried away 
 my resolutions as Sampson did the gates of 
 Gaza, 
 
 " I returned to the house convinced of my 
 own helplessness, of my native depravity, 
 and that to spiritual things I was incom- 
 petent. I now found of a truth that in me 
 dwelt no good thing. I threw myself upon 
 my bed in my private room — ^I wept — ^I 
 prayed. Then was showed to me my folly 
 
 4^ 
 
42 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCKOFT. 
 
 in trusting to an arm of flesli. Then did it 
 please the Lord to point my bewildered view 
 to Him who is the Lord out righteousness. 
 Then was I enabled in another strength to 
 commit myself unto His way. From that 
 moment m^ besetting sin of profane swear- 
 ing was overcome, and to this moment has 
 troubled me no more. But much was. yet to 
 be done, which the same gracious Friend of 
 poor sinners continued to supply, and to lead 
 me, step by step, to proclaim His saving 
 name, and declare His mighty power openly 
 to the world." 
 
 Thus much for this interesting narrative. 
 There are many things which even children 
 may learn from it. That time is well spent 
 in which they are employed in learning by 
 Tieart passages of the Holy Scriptures, to be 
 recited to their parents at home, or to their 
 teachers at Sunday School. These sacred 
 ^treasures will profit them in after-life. Mr. 
 Havenscroft's history shows, also, how wretch- 
 
WHAT CHILDREN MAY LEARN. 43 
 
 ed every child of Adam must be, until he 
 has made the Lord Jesus Christ his Friend. 
 We are reminded, too, that without the help 
 of God's grace we need not hope to J)e able 
 to do right. How true are those words of 
 the Hymn : 
 
 God wiU support our hearts 
 With might before unknown ; 
 The work to be perform' d is ours, 
 The strength is aU His own. 
 
€\^tn liftl] 
 
 OPEN CONFESSION OF CHRIST — SAD CONDITION OF THE 
 
 CHURCH — REJOICINGS OF THE ENEMY REPUBLICAN 
 
 METHODISTS THE HUSBAND AND WIFE RECEIVED INTO 
 
 COMMUNION THE EVENTS OF THREE YEARS — WHAT 
 
 CONSCIENCE SUGGESTED OBSTACLES — THE DECISION 
 
 OF A BRAVE MIND — ANOTHER DIFFICULT QUESTION 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF MINISTERIAL AUTHORITY THE STUDY 
 
 OF god's oracles MAKING HIM WISER THAN HIS 
 
 teachers candidate for holy . orders lay 
 
 beading ^harsh judgment — death of his wife — 
 
 "such a saviour!" 
 
 E. EAYENSCEOFT had thus 
 PL been led, by God's good Spirit, to 
 (j^^ittlA^ renounce all dependence on his 
 own unaided eflForts, and to look 
 to an Almighty arm to guide his 
 feet into the ways of truth and 
 peace. 
 
 He was too well read in the Bible not to 
 
SAD CONDITION OF THE CHURCH. 45 
 
 know that a public confession of Christ be- 
 fore the world was required of him, and he 
 began to think of uniting himself with the 
 Church. Alas ! how much perplexity of 
 mind he might have been spared, if the 
 Apostolic Church of God, a branch of which 
 had been planted in Virginia, had only been 
 true to herself, and had now been able to set 
 up her banners for tokens to those who were 
 seeking for the true Ark of the Covenant ! 
 But such was not the case. The Episcopal 
 Church was at its lowest ebb. The little 
 effort which Bishop Madison had been dis- 
 posed to make at the beginning of his Epis- 
 copate had given place to hopeless despair. 
 The enemies of Zion lt)oked upon her as 
 dead. But had they forgotten the promises 
 of God to His Church ? 
 
 In making a public confession of his Sav- 
 iour, Mr. Eavenscroft, having never turned 
 his attention to the questions of Church gov- 
 ernment and ministerial authority, merely 
 
46 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYEN8CE0FT. 
 
 looked about among the divers and dis- 
 cordant sects which overran the land, and 
 chose a society called Republican Method- 
 ists^ as being the most unexceptionable. 
 He says that he was influenced, in this 
 matter, by, personal friendship for one of 
 their preachers, Mr. John Robinson, of Char- 
 lotte County. 
 
 The Repulliean Methodists had a station, 
 for preaching, eight miles from Mr. Ravens- 
 croft's plantation, and here he and his wife 
 were admitted to membership, according to 
 the forms of that body. The new convert 
 was so zealous in the cause, that on those 
 Sundays when no preacher was present, he 
 conducted public worship himself, and read 
 a printed sermon for the benefit of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 Three years thus passed away, and Mr. 
 Ravenscroft began to reflect whether it 
 might not be his duty, in a country so des- 
 titute of religious privileges, to devote him- 
 
WHAT CONSCIENCE SUGGESTED. 47 
 
 self exclusively to the ministry. Conscience 
 seemed to urge him to take this important 
 step, while self-interest, and the dread of 
 exciting the ridicule of his neighbors, kept 
 him, for a season, in an unsettled state. 
 
 He was too independent and bold a man, 
 however, to be influenced long by consider- 
 ations of this nature, and soon the determin- 
 ation was formed to enter upon the work. 
 
 But now the question occurred to his mind, 
 where was he to look for authority to act as 
 an ambassador for the Most High ? 
 
 He read, and studied, and consulted with 
 preachers of various denominations on the 
 subject, and at last he became firmly con- 
 vinced that " the awful deposite of the Word, 
 by which we shall all be judged, could never 
 be thrown out into the world to be scrambled 
 for, and picked up by whosoever pleased to 
 take hold of it." 
 
 His old friends, the BepuUican Method- 
 ists^ being merely a voluntary society of 
 
48 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 men and women 5 banded together for a 
 good object, indeed, but with no authority 
 from God to establish a church, could not 
 supply what his reason and conscience 
 obliged him to seek after. He accordingly 
 asked for a 'letter of dismission from their 
 communion, which being reluctantly grant- 
 ed, they parted as kind and affectionate 
 neighbors. 
 
 Mr. Eavenscroft now turned his attention 
 to the other religious bodies about him, but 
 found none which could show a valid com- 
 mission for its ministers, except that branch 
 of Christ's Church known in this country as 
 the Protestant Episcopal. He hastened to 
 Richmond, and laid his credential as to 
 character and standing before good Bishop 
 Moore, and was received by him as a can- 
 didate for holy orders. This took place in 
 February, 1816. He was now required to 
 pass one year in study, before he could be 
 ordained Deacon ; but during this period he 
 
HAESH JUDGMENT. 49 
 
 made himself useful as a lay -reader in the 
 parishes of Cumberland, Lunenburg County, 
 and St. James, Mecklenburg. 
 
 The whole history of Mr. Eavenscroffc's 
 coming into the Episcopal Church is a re- 
 markable one. There were no family asso- 
 ciations to turn his mind that way, and he 
 had no intimate friend to exert an influence 
 over him, or place books in his hands from 
 which information could be gained. His 
 interest and his inclination led him in other 
 directions. But the prayerful study of the 
 Bible, and that alone, brought him to the 
 conclusion that the Episcopal Church was 
 that which was founded by Christ and His 
 Apostles in the beginning, and which was 
 to last always, even unto the end of the 
 world. 
 
 Those who have been disposed to judge 
 harshly of Bishop Ravenscroft, because he 
 so strenuously supported these views through 
 all his after-life, should remember the pecu- 
 
 5 
 
50 LIFE OF BISHOP BATEN8CR0FT. 
 
 liar circumstances which brought him into 
 the Church, and consider what very strong 
 reasons he had for believing himself to be 
 in the right* 
 
 " Had he been trained up from a child to 
 love and venerate the Church, or had he 
 been led by the mere force of education or 
 expediency to become a member and a min- 
 ister of it, it is possible that his feelings in 
 relation to it might have been somewhat 
 different from what they were."* 
 
 Before Mr. Ravenscroft's mind had been 
 thoroughly made up on the question of 
 Church government, he was called to bear 
 a heavy loss, in the death of his beloved 
 wife. This occurred in 1814. She had been 
 baptized in the Church in tender infancy, 
 and had adorned the doctrine of God our 
 Saviour by her consistent life, and had the 
 satisfaction of seeing her husband, once so 
 
 « Bishop Ravenscroft's Works, Vol. I., p. 21. 
 
"such a satioue!" 51 
 
 hardened in liis sins, a devout servant of 
 Christ. As he watched hy her dying bed, 
 she would oftentimes exclaim! "Oh, how 
 good it is to have a Saviour, and such a 
 Saviour I" 
 
a^tn Si^tl]. 
 
 OEDINATION — CALL TO MEOKLENBURO — A YIG0E0U8 
 LABOEEE OF FOETY-FIVE — NO SHAM COMMISSION — AL- 
 LOWANCES WHICH SHOULD BE MADE — SMALL BEGIN- 
 NINGS THE OFFENCE OF A FAITHFUL GOSPEL 
 
 PECULIAE MANNEE " AM I THE ONLY PEESON PEESENT 
 
 WHO BELIEVES IN GOD?" MAEK HIS TEACK IN THE 
 
 SNOW — SUCCESS NEW CHUECH — BISHOP MOOEE's EE- 
 
 POET — WELL DESEEVED HONOE — DE. WILMEE's KIND 
 OONGEATULATIONS. 
 
 E. KAYENSCEOFT was ordained 
 \^ Deacon, by Bishop Moore, in the 
 (i^^y/ Monumental Church, Eichmond, 
 April 25, 181Y, and at once ac- 
 cepted an urgent invitation to be- 
 come the minister of St. James' 
 Parish, Mecklenburg County, where lie had 
 done much good service as a lay-reader. 
 
 The clergy in Virginia were now too few, 
 and too widely scattered, to make it expedi- 
 
 f 
 
NO SHAM COlVrMISSION. 
 
 53 
 
 ent for a laborer to go forth without his full 
 commission— and accordingly on the 6th of 
 May, in the same year, he was ordained 
 Priest, in the church at Fredericksburg, dur- 
 ing the session of the Convention in that place. 
 Mr. Eavenscroft was no youthful stripling, 
 putting on his armor early in life, and look- 
 ing forward to long years of toil ; but a man 
 of five-and-forty years, who felt that too 
 much time had already been wasted, and 
 that he must use all diligence, before his 
 days of usefulness should end. "On re- 
 turning to my parish," he remarks, in the 
 closing sentence of his narrative, "deeply 
 impressed with the awful commission in- 
 trusted to me, and with the laborious task 
 of rescuing from inveterate prejudice the 
 doctrines, discipline, and worship of the 
 Church,* and of reviving among the people 
 
 o 
 
 A picture of the forlorn condition of the Church in 
 Virginia wiU he found in the life of Bishop Moore, a 
 former volume of this series. 
 
 5* 
 
54: LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCROFT. 
 
 that regard for it to whicli it was truly entitled, 
 I commenced my ministerial labors, as the 
 only real business I now had in life, relying 
 on God's mercy and goodness, through the 
 LoED Jesus Christ, for fruit to His praise." 
 
 We have had occasion to notice before the 
 very decide'd views which Mr. Eavenscroft 
 held with reference to the claims of the 
 Church, at whose altars he was now com- 
 missioned to act as a minister. 
 
 No one could doubt his perfect sincerity, 
 and those who differed from him as to the 
 propriety of bringing forward such subjects 
 so often in the pulpit, were obliged to honor 
 him for his masterly abilities, his glowing 
 zeal, and his uncompromising consistency. 
 
 When he began his labors as a lay-reader, 
 the Prayer Book was almost unknown in the 
 neighborhood where he officiated ; but in 
 the course of fifteen months afterwards he 
 had a large and attentive congregation, and 
 a commodious church was built. 
 
PECIJLIAR MAKNER. 55 
 
 "To some, however, his preaching was 
 very offensive, and brought upon him that 
 reproach to which the faithful minister of 
 Christ has been liable in every period of the 
 world. 
 
 " To the rich and worldly-minded, espe- 
 cially, to whom he had been so long allied in 
 feeling and in practice, he now addressed his 
 most heart-searching appeals, and familiar as 
 he was with all their shifts and evasions, he 
 exposed them to themselves with a fidelity 
 and truth of coloring which they could not 
 tolerate. Preaching of this kind, which 
 they knew not how to resist, they affected to 
 despise, and this faithful minister, though 
 never deterred for a moment from revealing 
 the whole of God's will, was much and often 
 grieved at the deadness and coldness of this 
 class of his hearers." 
 
 Mr. Ravenscroft had a manner peculiar to 
 himself, and the effect of some of his remarks, 
 made upon the spur of the moment, wa? 
 
56 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 actually startling. On a certain occasion, 
 while reciting the Apostles' Creed, in the 
 public service, finding himself almost alone, 
 his voice being unsustained by the congrega- 
 tion, he stopped short and exclaimed, with 
 emphatic earnestness, "Is it possible that I 
 am the only person present who believes in 
 God, the Father Almighty?" The rebuke 
 was felt to be well-deserved, and at once, 
 with united voice, priest and people began 
 the simple formulary of the faith, " Ihelieve 
 in God^^ etc. No further advice as to the 
 duty of responding aloud was needed for a 
 long time to come. 
 
 Another characteristic anecdote is told of 
 him, showing the spirit of self-sacrifice which 
 distinguished the whole course of his min- 
 istry. When the weather was so inclement 
 that lie would not permit the colored servant, 
 who acted as sexton, to accompany him to 
 church, he would tal^e the keys and ride off 
 five or ten miles by himself, without the 
 
MAItK HIS TRACK IN THE SNOW. 57 
 
 smallest expectation of finding one individual 
 on the ground to attend service. And then 
 he would deliberately ride around the church 
 and leave his track in the snow, as a testi- 
 mony against the fair-weather Christians 
 whom the unpleasant day had kept at home. 
 
 Some may consider this as an unnecessary 
 exposure of his own health, but the reason 
 which he gives is one which has great 
 weight. " If," remarked he, my people 
 could say, with any sort of plausibility, the 
 weather is bad to-day, and Mr. Eavenscroft 
 will not turn out, the consequence would be 
 that the slightest inclemency would avail 
 them as an excuse for staying at home ; but 
 I put a stop to all such evasions, by being 
 always at church, let the weather be what it 
 may, and they can always calculate with 
 certainty upon meeting m^, if they choose to 
 turn out themselves." 
 
 Such diligence and devotion were attended 
 with their natural results. By the blessing 
 
68 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 of God, the seed scattered broadcast, and 
 watered with fervent prayers, brought forth 
 an abundant harvest. Bishop Moore re- 
 marks, in his address to the Virginia Con- 
 vention of 1818, " I consecrated a new church 
 in Mecklenburg, erected by the parishioners 
 of the Rev/ Mr. Ravenscroft. In that place, 
 in which the Church was thought to be ex- 
 tinct, the friends of our communion have 
 awakened from their slumbers ; aided by the 
 exertions of their faithful and laborious min- 
 ister, they have raised a temple sacred to 
 the living God. May that Saviour whom 
 they worship with so much ardor and sin- 
 cerity of heart, accept their sacrifice and 
 remember them for good." 
 
 During the same Convention, Mr. Ravens- 
 croft was elected one of the four clerical dele- 
 gates to represent the diocese in the next 
 General Convention. 
 
 It must have been extremely gratifying to 
 one who had so recently begun his labors, 
 
DR. WILMEr's kind CONGRATULATIONS. 59 
 
 to find that they were thus duly ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 The late Dr. Wilmer, a most eminent cler- 
 gyman of Virginia, thus writes to Mr. Rav- 
 enscroft : '' The Lord of the vineyard seems 
 to be granting you the rare favor, that as 
 you have entered late into His service you 
 should have the honor and reward of doing 
 much in a short space ; while we who have 
 been longer at the work hardly begin to 
 enter upon the fruits, you at once seem to 
 have reaped a glorious harvest. You get 
 even more than your ' penny,' ""^ 
 
 * I hope that my young readers wiU turn to the par- 
 able here referred to, which wiU be found in St. Matthew, 
 XX. 1-16, and ask their minister or some other person to 
 explain it to them. There is no part of the Bible more 
 generally misunderstood. 
 
C|aptu S«lifut|. 
 
 8E00XD MAEEIAGE — LOSSES AND CEOSSES — DILIGENCE 
 QUICKENED — ^INFLUENCE AMONG HIS BEETHEEN — IN- 
 VITATIONS TO DIFFEEENT PAEISHES A CALL TO A 
 
 STILL WIDEE FIELD OF USEFULNESS — HISTOEY OF THE 
 CnUECH IN NOETH CAEOLINA — FIEST SETTLEMENT BY 
 
 THE ENGLISH TEIAL8 OF THE EAELY SETTLEES THE 
 
 EEV. JOHN BLAIE, MISSIONAEY AND COMMISSAEY HIS 
 
 FIEST EEPOET — FELLOW-LABOEEES EEV. JOHN UEM- 
 
 STON — HAEDSHIPS EESULTS OF LABOE. 
 
 ff^% 'N tlie year 1818 Mr. Ravenscroft mar- 
 ) ried the second time. The lady thus 
 ^ chosen to aid and encourage him in 
 his* work was Miss Buford, of Lunen- 
 burg County, the daughter of one of 
 his oldest friends. 
 During the winter following his marriage, 
 he sustained a severe loss by fire, his dwell- 
 ing-house and all it contained being burnt 
 
DILIGENCE QUICKENED. 
 
 61 
 
 up while he was absent from home. Mis- 
 fortune did not come in this shape only, for 
 the value of his estate was seriously impaired 
 by reason of the withdrawal of his attention 
 from worldly pursuits, and mistaken kindness 
 in indorsing for friends reduced him almost 
 
 to poverty. 
 
 None of these trials, however, stopped Mr. 
 Eavenscroft in his work. Indeed, they seem- 
 ed rather to quicken his diligence, by bring- 
 ing before his mind more forcibly than ever 
 the important truth, that the kingdom of God, 
 and the righteousness thereof, are the only 
 things which can endure. 
 
 Besides the zeal and activity displayed in 
 his own parish, his surpassing abilities and 
 singleness of purpose gave him an unusual 
 degree of influence in the councils of the 
 Church and the societies under its control, 
 and he did not hesitate to stimulate his 
 brethren, by the mxost affectionate appeals, 
 to constant diligence and faithfulness. 
 
 6 
 
62 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 In 18285 ^^ ^^s invited to take charge of 
 a large and flourishing congregation at Nor- 
 folk. He would have consulted his worldly 
 interests by going, but having made up his 
 mind never to abandon his own little flock, 
 until Providence should seem plainly to 
 direct him elsewhere, he promptly declined 
 the call. Soon afterwards, he was applied to 
 by the Yestry of the Monumental Church, 
 Richmond, to become the assistant to the 
 venerable Bishop Moore, in the charge of 
 that parish. 
 
 Regarding the services of the Bishop, 
 which were seriously interrupted by his ad- 
 ditional labors in this congregation, as too 
 important to the diocese to be lost through 
 any impediment which his own private in- 
 clinations miglit present, Mr. Ravenscroft 
 was about to yield to what he could not help 
 considering as an imjDcrative case of duty, 
 when another application, still more import- 
 ant in its character, led him to turn his 
 
FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE ENGLISH. 63 
 
 thoughts elsewhere, as the field where God 
 was appointing him to labor. I refer to his 
 election as Bishop for the diocese of North 
 Carolina. 
 
 And here, that justice may be done to the 
 work which we have undertaken, it will be 
 necessary to give our readers some informa- 
 tion concerning the new diocese which wasi 
 thus seeking to supply itself with an Epis- 
 copal head. 
 
 The first Englishmen who discovered and 
 took possession of the Province of Carolina 
 were Amadas and Barlowe, who came out 
 to America under the direction of Sir Wal- 
 ter Raleigh, in 1584. 
 
 France and Spain, at diflferent periods, set 
 up their respective claims to the same fair 
 region of the earth. "We have no room for 
 telling the long story of the various mis- 
 understandings and quarrels between these 
 three rival nations."^ 
 
 ^' A weU-digested account of the early history of Car- 
 
64 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 Parties of emigrants from Yirginia, and 
 some from the more northern region of Mas- 
 sachusetts, came to Carolina in search of new 
 homes. The charter granted by Charles 11. 
 to the colonists unfolded a grand and im- 
 posing scheme for the establishment of an 
 empire in the Western World, and for the 
 spread of the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 North Carolina proper embraced a district 
 four hundred and thirty miles long, and 
 about one hundred and eighteen in breadth, 
 and containing an area equal to that of all 
 England. So lately as the year 1702, the 
 population of European descent did not 
 exceed six thousand. The settlers lived 
 widely apart, scattered over the face of a 
 country intersected by swamps and inlets 
 of the sea. Roads, properly so called, there 
 were none ; and those who journeyed from 
 one part of the Province to another, made 
 
 olina win be found in Anderson's History of the Colonial 
 Church, Vol. II., p. 307, etc. 
 
HIS FIRST REPORT. 65 
 
 their way, as best they might, over rivers 
 and through tangled forests, glad to take 
 refuge at night in the rudest hut, or under 
 the shelter of overhanging trees. 
 
 Foremost among the devoted ministers of 
 Christ who came, at that early day, to bring 
 the knowledge of salvation to this far-off 
 land, was the Eev. John Blair. Landing in 
 Virginia, in January, 1Y04, he made his way 
 on horseback to Carolina, of which Province 
 he had been appointed Commissary by the 
 Bishop of London.* At this time there 
 were three small churches in the Colony, 
 with glebes belonging to them. 
 
 " I found (he says) in the country a great 
 many children to be baptized, where I bap- 
 tized about a hundred, and there are a great 
 many still to be baptized whose parents 
 would not condescend to have them bap- 
 tized with godfathers and godmothers. I 
 
 ^- The ojBdce of Commissary is explained in the Life of 
 Bishop Dehon. 
 
 6* 
 
66 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVEKSCROFT. 
 
 married none in the country, for tliat was a 
 perquisite belonging to the magistrates which 
 I was not desirous to deprive them of. I 
 preached twice every Sunday, and often on 
 the week-days, when their vestries met, or 
 could appoint them to bring their children to 
 be baptized. 
 
 "Besides such a solitary, toilsome, and 
 hard living as I met with, there were very 
 sufficient discouragements. I was distant 
 from any minister one hundred and twenty 
 miles, so that if any difficulty or doubt should 
 happen, with whom should I consult ? And, 
 for my travelling through the country, I rode, 
 one day with another, Sunday only excepted, 
 above thirty miles per diem, in the worst 
 roads that ever I saw, and have sometimes 
 lain whole nights in the woods."'^ 
 
 Mr. Blair's fellow-laborers, sent out by the 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in 
 
 '"' The whole report wiU be found in Vol. I. of the Prot- 
 estant Episcopal Historical Society, p. 184. 
 
HARDSHIPS. 67 
 
 1707, and the few next years, were Adams, 
 Gordon, Urmston, Eainsford, j^lTewnan, Gar- 
 zia, and Moir — some of whom, worn out by 
 the hardships which poverty and fatigue and 
 the indifference or hostility of the people 
 brought upon them, returned soon afterwards 
 to England. 
 
 Tlie Rev. John Urmston, writing home, 
 July, 1711, says, "I am at last, together 
 with my family, in manifest danger of per- 
 ishing for want of food. "We have lived 
 many a day only on a dry crust and a 
 draught of salt water out of the Sound." 
 
 Again, speaking of the difficulty of reach- 
 ing the different parts of his mission, he re- 
 marks : " In many places there are great 
 rivers, from one, two, to six, twelve, and fif- 
 teen miles over, no ferry, neither will the 
 people be at the trouble of setting me over. 
 
 " He that will answer the end of his mis- 
 sion must not only have a good horse but a 
 good boat, and a couple of experienced 
 
68 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCEOFT. 
 
 watermen. I am forced to work hard with 
 axe, hoe, and spade. I have not a stick to 
 burn for any use but what I cut down with 
 my own hands." 
 
 But in spite of all these diflSculties the 
 missionary persevered, and as a part of the 
 fruits of His labors, he reports the baptism of 
 a hundred and fifty-four children. 
 
 
THE EEY. ME. EAINSFORD SERVICE UNDER THE MULBER- 
 RY-TREE — BAPTISM OF NEGROES — LODGING IN THE OLD 
 
 TOBACCO BARN INDIAN WARS — WEARIED AND WORN 
 
 OUT — FRESH LABORERS IN THE FIELD — REV. THOMAS 
 NEWNAN — A LARGE PARISH — ^HOW THE SUNDAYS WERE 
 
 DIVIDED OVER-EXERTION AND EXPOSURE DO THEIR 
 
 WORK — STILL ANOTHER MISSIONARY LABORING YET 
 
 MORE ABUNDANTLY DEVOTED LAYMEN DESIRE FOR 
 
 BISHOPS. 
 
 HE Eev. Giles Rainsford, who came 
 to Carolina about the same time with 
 Mr. TJrmston, had the same difficul- 
 ties to contend with, but was not 
 unrewarded with some tokens of suc- 
 cess. 
 
 At the first service which he held, many- 
 persons were present who had hitherto been 
 perfect strangers to the worship of the 
 
70 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 Churcli. His regular station was Chowan, 
 but he extended his labors to many other 
 points. At an old Indian town on the north 
 shore, great crowds attended, and he baptized 
 seventeen children. The next week he of- 
 ficiated at the house of a Mr. Garrat, at the 
 upper end of Chowan, where such numbers 
 turned out to hear him, that he took his sta- 
 tion under a large mulberry-tree, and preach- 
 ed to them out of doors. The missionary 
 was gratified by the devout behavior of the 
 people, and by the heartiness with which 
 they united in the responses and singing. 
 
 " By much importunity," he says, ^' I pre- 
 vailed on Mr. Martin to let me baptize three 
 of his negroes. All the arguments I could 
 make use of would scarce effect it, till Bishop 
 Fleetwood's sermon, preached before the So- 
 ciety, turned the scale." 
 
 Having once made a beginning, Mr. 
 Eainsford persevered in his eff'orts for the 
 benefit of the colored people, and in one 
 
INDIAN WARS. 71 
 
 year lie baptized no less than forty of 
 them. 
 
 The accommodations for a clergyman's 
 comfort were poor indeed. Speaking on this 
 subject, he remarks : " My lodging, for the 
 best of my time, was in an old tobacco-house, 
 and exposed, even in my bed, to the injuries 
 and violence of bad weather, with other in- 
 conveniences, only to settle myself where I 
 thought I had an opportunity of doing most 
 good." 
 
 The labors of Mr. Urmston and Mr. Eains- 
 ford were seriously interrupted by the Indian 
 wars, which, for a season, seemed to threaten 
 the total ruin of the colony. Had it not 
 been for the timely assistance rendered by 
 the settlers of the neighboring province of 
 South Carolina, there seems every reason to 
 believe that the cunning devices of the 
 enemy would have been successful. 
 
 The two missionaries whose course we 
 have thus far pursued, finally became com- 
 
72 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCEOFT. 
 
 pletely worn out and discouraged, and re- 
 turned to England. 
 
 The Eey. William Gordon and the Eev. 
 James Adams came together as missionaries 
 to North Carolina, in 1707, and after experi- 
 encing hardships and privations like those 
 already described, the former went back 
 home at the close of a year, and the latter 
 died as he was preparing to follow him. 
 
 Towards the close of 1821, the Eev. 
 Thomas Newnan was sent as a missionary 
 to the province. His first report to the So- 
 ciety, dated June, 1822, contains this inter- 
 esting statement of his labors : 
 
 "After a long and fatiguing voyage of 
 above four months, myself and little family 
 arrived at Carolina. The late Governor 
 Eden being dead, I waited upon the Presi- 
 dent, a worthy gentleman, delivered him my 
 credentials, with which he declared himself 
 satisfied, and received me with great kind- 
 ness and respect. I hope I shall do a great 
 
HOW THE SUiq^DAYS WERE DIVmED. 73 
 
 deal of good. The Yestiy have laid out my 
 journeys where I am to officiate. The first 
 Sunday I go by water, and some few miles 
 by land, and preach at Esquire Ducking- 
 field's House (which is large enough to hold 
 a good congregation), till such time as they 
 can build a church. The second Sunday I 
 take a journey up to a place called Maharim^ 
 about forty miles off", where there are abun- 
 dance of inhabitants, who are also making a 
 collection to build a church forthwith. The 
 third Sunday I perform Divine Service at 
 Esquire Duckingfield's. The fourth Sunday 
 I go up to a place called Wicacon, about 
 thirty miles' journey. The fifth Sunday I 
 cross the Sound to go to Eden Town, where 
 the Yestry have also proposed to build a 
 church very soon. The sixth Sunday I go 
 up to a chapel on the south shore, about 
 twelve miles by water, and the seventh Sun- 
 day begin the same course again. But once 
 every quarter I go up to a place called 
 
 7 
 
"74: LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 Henoque — eighty miles' journey — and the 
 £ve last Sundays of the year the Yestry 
 allow I may go my rounds, and visit the re- 
 :mote parts of the country, where some in- 
 liabitants live, one hundred and fifty miles 
 ofi* — ^people who will scarce ever have the 
 opportunity of hearing me, or of having their 
 children baptized, unless I go among them."* 
 Surely this was a pretty extensive field to be 
 cultivated by one single-handed laborer. 
 
 Mr. Newnan proved himself to be a work- 
 man who needed not to be ashamed, for God 
 rewarded him with good success ; but his 
 severe exertions, and exposure in all kinds 
 •of weather, brought on severe illness, under 
 which he sunk, in 1723, much to the grief 
 of his people. 
 
 In 1732, Mr. John Boyd, who had lived 
 some years in Carolina, went to England, 
 and having received ordination at the hands 
 
 «'' Humphrey's History of the Propagation Society, 
 Chapter V. 
 
A LARGE PARISH. '75 
 
 of the Bishop of London, returned at once as 
 a missionary to the province. His parish^ 
 Albemarle County, was one hundred miles 
 in length and fifty in breadth, and he 
 preached in seven different places, thus 
 obliging him to ride two hundred and sixty 
 miles every month. " This will convey some 
 idea of the painful destitution of the means 
 of grace in which a great part of the settlers 
 must have lived. The duty of many clergy- 
 men was laid upon one, who was, of course, 
 unable to meet the requirements of so exten- 
 sive a district. Even one, however, could do 
 something, and was at least a witness to the 
 colonists that they were not altogether for- 
 gotten by the mother church. In 1735, he 
 had baptized one thousand children and 
 thirty adults." ^ He was also the means of 
 bringing back great numbers into the "old 
 paths" of the Church, who had been drawn 
 
 ^ Hawkins' History of Missions of the English Church, 
 p. 77. 
 
76 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 off by teachers of various persuasions around 
 them. Mr. Boyd ended his earthly toils in 
 1738. We have spoken thus far of the 
 efforts of the dergy in advancing the inter- 
 ests of the Gospel; but many of the laity 
 were scarcely less earnest and devoted. 
 Colonel Eden, governor of the colony, proved 
 himself to be the warm friend of the Church. 
 Arthur Dobbs, Esq., who held the same office 
 afterwards, was equally zealous, and warmly 
 seconded the efforts which were made to 
 induce the English Goverment to send out 
 Bishops to America. 
 
ui^ttx 'ght\. 
 
 A WELL-TEIED LAYMAN" TUENING MISSIONARY — A HUN- 
 DEED BAPTISMS A DAY — ME, GAEZIA — THE FIFTY 
 
 POUNDS PEE ANNTIM SCANTY LIVING CLEMENT HALL 
 
 WIDE FIELD OF LABOE, AND MUCH ACCOMPLISHED IN 
 
 IT HAED TOIL EESTING FEOM HIS LABOES SIX CLEE- 
 
 GYMEN IN THE PEOVINCE — AMEEICAN EEVOLUTION 
 
 DAEK AND DISMAL DAYS FOE THE CHUECH — THE EALLY 
 OF 1790 — ANOTHEE EELAPSE — THE DAY-STAE AEISE8 
 AT LAST. 
 
 ^ E cannot hope to do justice to the 
 ? labors of the faithful missionaries 
 }^^^^ who gave their lives to the work 
 of preaching the Gospel in North 
 Carolina, but we can at least pre- 
 vent their names from being alto- 
 gether forgotten. 
 
 In 1739, Mr. James Moir, who had spent, 
 six years in South Carolina, where he had; 
 
 K 
 
78 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCEOFT. 
 
 gained many friends, was ordained mission- 
 ary for the northern province. His field of 
 labor extended along the coast for a hundred 
 and fifty miles, and the people were so scat- 
 tered that the most he could hope to do was 
 to visit them occasionally, for the purpose of 
 preaching and administering the sacraments. 
 
 On some of these journeys he baptized as 
 many as a hundred children a day. 
 
 Mr. Garzia, another missionary, states that 
 during the period of five years (from 1733 to 
 1738), while he served the parish of St. 
 Thomas, he baptized two thousand two hun- 
 dred and seventy-eight persons. 
 
 The Society in England which sent out 
 clergymen to the colonies, allowed each one 
 fifty pounds ($250) a year towards his sup- 
 port. For* his main dependence, however, 
 the clergyman was expected to look to the 
 people for whose benefit he labored ; but this 
 reliance was found to be most uncertain, and 
 -oftentimes failed him entirely. The settlers, 
 
CLEMENT HALL. T9 
 
 not always in very prosperous circumstances 
 ttemselves, paid their ministers in rice, or in 
 paper money, which was of little value, and 
 not unfrequently in empty promises alone. 
 
 But this sad story is not a new or strange 
 one. There are multitudes of God's chosen 
 servants now laboring in His vineyard, whose 
 bodily wants are as little cared for by those 
 for whom they are wearing out their strength. 
 We spoke, in the last chapter, of the case of 
 Mr. Boyd, who, having lived as a layman for 
 several years in the province, and witnessed 
 the spiritual destitution of the inhabitants, 
 devoted himself to the ministry. 
 
 Another instance of the kind is now to be 
 recorded. Clement Hall, who had officiated 
 for some time as lay reader in congregations 
 which could not secure the services of a cler- 
 gyman, went to England, in 1743, with the 
 highest testimonials, and, having received 
 ordination, returned to North Carolina as a 
 missionary. 
 
80 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 Although he chiefly confined himself to 
 Chowan Coiintyj he extended his labors, at 
 regular periods, to several others. From one 
 of his reports it appears that, within the 
 space of three weeks, he had preached six- 
 teen times, and baptized twenty adults and 
 four hundred children. "But the mere re- 
 cital of numbers would describe very imper- 
 fectly the amount of labor involved in such 
 visitations. The distance and difficulties of 
 the journeys which they required must also 
 be taken into account ; and in the case of 
 Mr. Hall, the difficulties became greater 
 through his own weakness of health. No 
 sooner did he end one visitation tlian he 
 made preparation for another; and, except 
 when sickness laid him prostrate, his work 
 ceased not for a single day. In the face of 
 much opposition and discouragement, he still 
 pressed onward, and, in many places, was 
 cheered by the eager sympathy of the 
 people. The chapels and court-houses were 
 
HARD TOIL. 81 
 
 seldom large enough to contain half the 
 numbers who flocked together to hear him. 
 Sometimes the place of their solemn meeting 
 was beneath the shades of the forest ; at 
 other times, by the river-side, or upon the 
 sea-shore, the work of truth and holiness was 
 permitted to ' have free course and be glori- 
 fied.' A summary of the labors of Clement 
 Hall, made about eight years after he had 
 entered upon them, shows that, at that time 
 (1752), he had journeyed about 14,000 miles, 
 preached nearly 700 sermons, baptized more 
 than 6,000 children and grown-up persons 
 (among whom were several hundred negroes 
 and Indians), administered the Lord's Supper 
 frequently to as many as two or three hun- 
 dred in a single journey, besides performing 
 the countless other offices of visiting the sick, 
 and of catechising the young, which he was 
 everywhere careful to do." * All this, it 
 
 ^- Anderson's History of the Colonial Church, III., 
 491-2. 
 
82 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 must be remembered, was accomplished by 
 one whose health was never robust, and who 
 was oftentimes laid up by sickness. 
 
 After sixteen years of hard toil, Mr. Hall 
 closed his useful career in the bosom of an 
 affectionaj-e and grateful people. 
 
 The fields were white for the harvest, but 
 the laborers were altogether too few to per- 
 form the necessary work. In 1Y64, Governor 
 Dobbs reported that there were at that time 
 only six clergymen to do duty in twenty-nine 
 counties, or parishes, and very properly adds 
 that such was likely to be the case where 
 they had " no Bishops to visit the clergy, 
 and to confirm and confer orders." 
 
 Nothing out of the ordinary course of 
 things occurred from this date until the 
 period of the American Eevolution. The 
 Church in North Carolina, weak as it was 
 before, was reduced to a condition deplorable 
 indeed, during the continuance of this mem- 
 orable struggle for our national independ- 
 
THE EALLY OF 1790. 83 
 
 ence. Only four of her clergy remained 
 steady at their posts, to discharge the duties 
 of their holy office. 
 
 At the close of the war, the Episcopal 
 Church in North Carolina was brought down 
 to almost as hopeless a state as even her 
 worst enemies could desire. And so things 
 continued until 1790, when an abortive at- 
 tempt was made by her few remaining chil- 
 dren to revive their drooping spirits. In 
 that year a Convention was appointed to 
 meet at Tarborough, which accordingly as- 
 sembled on the 12th of N'ovember. Dele- 
 gates were appointed to attend the General 
 Convenlion, which was to be held in Kew 
 York, in 1Y92. 
 
 The Rev. James L. Wilson and Dr. John 
 Leigh proceeded to New York at the time 
 appointed ; but the voyage proved to be so 
 unusually long, that the Convention had ad- 
 journed before their arrival there. Twenty- 
 three years passed away, and the fortunes of 
 
84 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 the Church in North Carolina were in no 
 wise improved. From 1794 to 1817 all was 
 dark and dreary, and no star appeared in 
 any quarter of the horizon. 
 
 "It was then," writes one who was him 
 self an actor upon the stage, "it was then 
 that the day-star from on high visited us in 
 mercy ; when two heaven-sent heralds of the 
 everlasting Gospel (the Rev. Adam Empie 
 and the Rev. Bethel Judd) came to Wilming- 
 ton and Fayetteville, and there laid the 
 foundation of the restoration of the Episcopal 
 Church and cause in North Carolina." ^ 
 
 ^ From a long and interesting letter of the Rev. Robert 
 J. Miller, published by Dr. Hawks in the Church Review, 
 Vol. III., p. 309. In 1794 the Rev. Charles Pettigrew 
 was elected Bishop of North Carolina, but was never con- 
 secrated. Mr. Pettigrew considered the appointment as 
 premature, and only consented to it to prevent an im- 
 proper person from receiving this high and holy office. 
 
agtu %nt^. 
 
 A FEW MOEE INTEKMEDIATE STEPS — CONTENTION AT 
 NEWBEEX IN 1817 — THE SESSION IN THE YEAE FOL- 
 LOWING AN OLD PAMPHLET — CONTENTION AT FAT- 
 
 ETTETILLE — IMPOETANT PEOCEEDINGS — EEPOBT ON 
 THE STATE OF THE CHUECH IN NOETH CAEOLINA — 
 
 BISHOP MOOEE's FIEST TISITATION to the DIOCESE 
 
 THE LABOES OF A YEAR — GOOD HOPES FOE THE FTJTUEE. 
 
 E are now drawing near the period 
 
 JD when the subject of this memoir 
 ^^j >^ ^ will appear before ns in a new 
 and more important relation to the 
 Church. But it will be necessary 
 to notice two or three intermediate 
 steps, which prepared the way for his re- 
 moval to North Carolina. 
 
 A Convention was held in Newbern, in 
 June, 1817, attended by three clergymen and 
 
 8 
 
86 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 six or eiglit lay delegates, when a constitu- 
 tion was adopted, and an address made to 
 the friends of the Church throughout the 
 State, proposing a second convention the fol- 
 lowing year. > This assembly was more nu- 
 merously attended than the former, and the 
 Church from that time began to rouse her- 
 self from her death-like slumber. 
 
 The w^riter has mow before him the unpre- 
 tending little pamphlet in which the proceed- 
 ings of that important Convention are pre- 
 served, • " Printed [as the dingy title-page 
 informs us] by William Hollingshead for 
 Thomas Loring. Wilmington, JST. C, 1818." 
 
 The delegates met at Fayetteville on the 
 second of April, and, after morning prayer 
 by the Rev. John Avery, of St. Paul's 
 Church, Edenton, and an appropriate sermon 
 from the Rev. Adam Empie, the Holy Com- 
 munion was celebrated. The Rev. Mr. Em- 
 pie, Rector of St. James' Church, Wilming- 
 ton, was then re-elected Secretary, and the 
 
CONVENTION AT FAYETTEVILLE. 87 
 
 Rev. Bethel Jucld, Eector of the church in 
 which the Convention met, was chosen Pres- 
 ident. Besides these clergymen, tlie Rev. 
 Eichard S. Mason, of Christ's Church, New- 
 bern, was present as a member of the body, 
 and the Rev. John Phillips, of Virginia, was 
 admitted to an honorary seat. 
 
 Seven lay delegates attended the Conven- 
 tion. In conformity with the appointment 
 made at the former Convention, the Eev. 
 Mr. Judd reported that Bishop Moore, of 
 Virginia, consented to perform Ej)iscopal 
 offices in North Carolina, and that he Avould 
 be ready to visit the congregations of the 
 diocese during the ensuing summer or autumn. 
 
 The Committee on the State of the Church 
 made the following statement in regard to 
 its condition and prospects : — " In JSTovem- 
 ber, 1816, the Eev. Bethel Judd, of the 
 diocese of Connecticut, and the Eev. A. 
 Empie, of the diocese of New York, being 
 deprived of health, and advised to change 
 
88 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 their climate, met at Wilmington, and dur- 
 ing the subsequent winter oflficiated in the 
 church at that place. Previously to their 
 arrival, there was no Episcopal clergyman 
 in this State, and but one congregation 
 in which ^ the worship of our Church was 
 performed. By their joint endeavors, how- 
 ever, together with the aid of the pious 
 and zealous members of the congregation 
 at Wilmington, under the blessing of God, 
 piety and devout attention to religious ordi- 
 nances rapidly increased. Since the first 
 of the following May the charge of the 
 congregation has devolved entirely upon its 
 present Rector, the Eev. A. Empie, whose 
 ministrations have been greatly blessed to 
 his own comfort, to the satisfaction of his 
 Christian friends, and, we trust, to the glory 
 of God. 
 
 «0n the 1st of May, 1817, the Eev. B. 
 Judd removed his station to the charge of a 
 congregation, which, on the preceding Easter 
 
IMPORTANT PROCEEDINGS. 89 
 
 Monday, had by him been organized in 
 Fayetteville. The zeal of that congregation 
 — of which young men form a principal 
 part — ^has been eminently evinced by their 
 regular and devout attention to the worship 
 of the Church, by their liberal contributions 
 for the support of their minister, and by 
 their donations and exertions for the erection 
 of a church, which will soon be completed, 
 and which, when completed, will be equal, 
 perhaps, in point of elegance, to any in the 
 State. 
 
 " About the 1st of January, 1817, the 
 Eev. Mr. Clay took charge of the church at 
 IsTewbern, and by his assiduity and talents 
 gave great hopes of extensive usefulness ; 
 but circumstances inducing his removal to 
 the diocese of Maryland, cast a gloom for a 
 time over the prospects, and damped the 
 zeal of the friends of Zion. A seasonable 
 relief, however, is anticipated from the talents 
 and zealous efforts of the Kev. Mr. Mason, 
 
 8* 
 
90 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 wlio has recently commenced his labors in 
 that congregation with every piospect of suc- 
 cess. The Key. Mr. Avery^ having for some 
 time taught an academy, and performed the 
 duties of lay-reader at Edenton, was ordained 
 in October last, and now ofl&ciates as the 
 minister of that congregation ; which, though 
 not numerous, gives good evidence of its 
 desire to promote religion, particularly by a 
 very generous contribution for the support 
 of missionaries in this State — an object in 
 which all the friends of our Church should 
 feel a deep interest, and to which we cherish 
 the hope that they will be liberal to the 
 utmost extent of their means." 
 
 A great deal had certainly been accom- 
 plished during the space of a single year, 
 and much more yet remained to be done. 
 The materials out of which the living temple 
 was to be built up were ready at hand ; but 
 more clergymen were needed to go on with 
 the work. 
 
THE LABORS OF A YEAR. 91 
 
 According to his promise. Bishop Moore 
 made a visit to the parishes in North Caro- 
 lina, in the autumn of 1818, and thus speaks 
 of it in his address to the Virginia Conven- 
 tion the next year. " The Church in North 
 Carolina is rising in all the vigor of youth, 
 A new edifice has been lately erected in 
 Fayetteville, an ornament to the town, and 
 a credit to the exertions of its founders, 
 which I consecrated to the service of Al- 
 mighty God. I confirmed in that place 
 sixty persons, and admitted the Eev. Mr. 
 Shaw to the order of Deacons. Among the 
 list of worthies who have exerted themselves 
 in the building of the church in Faj-etteville, 
 I find the names of Cameron and Win slow, 
 the sons of two of our deceased clergy. 
 May the spirit of their fathers continue to 
 animate their bosoms, and may the children 
 of other ministers imitate their noble and 
 laudable example ! 
 
 " The Church in Wilmington is also in a 
 
92 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP RA.YENSCEOFT. 
 
 prosperous condition. I preached in that 
 place to pions, crowded auditories, and con- 
 firmed one hundred and thirty-three persons. 
 Newbern is also rising in importance. The 
 congregation have determined to erect a new 
 church, upon the plan of that in Fayetteville. 
 I preached at Newbern five times in three 
 days, confirmed fifty-two persons, and ad- 
 ministered the Lord's Supper to a large body 
 of pious communicants. I visited Washing- 
 ton, Greenville, and Tarborough, and preach- 
 ed several times in each place." 
 
BISHOP MOORE VISITS NORTH CAROLINA AGAIN — REPORT 
 
 OF HIS LABORS THERE IMPORTANT STEP IN 1823 
 
 MR. RAVENSCROFT CHOSEN BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR THIS POSITION — CONSECRATION 
 
 — ENTERS INTO THE HARVEST — SETTLEMENT OF FIRST 
 PRINCIPLES — SERMON AT THE PRIMARY CONVENTION — 
 
 ENERGY IN PREACHING ANECDOTE — KlifOWLEDGE OF 
 
 HUMAN NATURE THE STAGE-COACH DISCUSSION ABOUT 
 
 RACE- HORSES, AND WHAT GREW OUT OF IT. 
 
 HE next year (1819) good Bishop 
 Moore, besides attending faithfully 
 to his own duties in Virginia, made 
 another visitation to North Carolina. 
 On this occasion he presided at the 
 Convention of this young and prom- 
 ising diocese. 
 
 " In Edenton [he remarks], at which 
 place the Convention convened, our sittings 
 
94: LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCROFT. 
 
 were attended by great numbers of people, 
 some of whom had come from a distance of 
 fifty miles, to witness our proceedings and 
 attend npon our ministry. In that place I 
 ordained two Deacons, and admitted one 
 gentleman to the Priesthood. In that dio- 
 cese, so late as the year 1817, there was not 
 a single clergyman ; they are now blessed 
 with the labors of seven faithful men, and 
 in the course of another year several candi- 
 dates who are now preparing for holy orders, 
 will be admitted to the ministry of the 
 Word." 
 
 The venerable Bishop of Yirginia con- 
 tinued his patriarchal supervision of the 
 Church in North Carolina until the year 
 1823, when the Convention, which assembled 
 at Salisbury, elected the Rev. John S. Ea- 
 venscroft, by a unanimous vote, to the office 
 of Bishop. Never was a person taken more 
 completely by surprise. Mr. Eavenscroft 
 was a stranger to almost every individual in 
 
QrALlFlCATIONS FOR THIS POSITION". 95 
 
 the Conyention ; but his good name had 
 gone abroad, and in calling npon him to 
 accept this most important office, the Church- 
 men of ITorth Carolina were well assured 
 that their confidence was reposed on one 
 who would never disappoint their hopes. 
 
 A zealous and devoted servant of Christ — 
 a man disinterested to a fault, and possess- 
 ing rare qualifications for usefulness as a 
 preacher and pastor — ^it was believed that 
 the uncompromising firmness with which 
 he held fast to the Gospel in the Church, 
 would keep the children of Zion steadfast 
 in the faith, and draw back many into the 
 right way, who had thus far been wandering 
 abroad. 
 
 Mr. Kavenscroft could not but think that 
 a call so unexpected and unsought for must, 
 indeed,. be considered as a voice from God, 
 and he did not dare to decline the position 
 of labor and trial which thus presented it- 
 self before him. Eelying, therefore, on the 
 
96 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 help of God, he signified his readiness to 
 accept the appointment, and he was accord- 
 ingly consecrated Bishop of Korth Carolina, 
 during the session of the General Conven- 
 tion at Philadelphia, on Thursday, May 22d, 
 1823. 
 
 The service was held in St. Paul's Church, 
 the venerable Bishop White presiding, and 
 Bishops Griswold, Kemp, Croes, Bowen, and 
 Brownell being present and assisting. 
 
 As the Church in North Carolina was still 
 in its infancy, it was necessary for the 
 Bishop to assume the charge of a parish, in 
 addition to his Episcopal duties, in order to 
 secure a support. Immediately after his con- 
 secration, Bishop Bavenscroft hastened to 
 Raleigh, and began his labors as Rector of 
 the church there, and within a month from 
 the adjournment of the General Convention 
 he had entered upon his first visitation to 
 the several parishes of his diocese. One of 
 his first efforts was to impress upon his 
 
ANECDOTE. 97 
 
 clergy and people a -proper estimation of 
 Baptism and Confirmation; and in order to 
 this, lie preached often and earnestly on these 
 important subjects, and taught from house to 
 house, as he journeyed through the State. 
 At the opening of the primary Convention 
 of the Diocese, the Bishop delivered an able 
 sermon, setting forth in plain terms his views 
 in regard to the Church, and the most effect- 
 ual means of promoting its growth and 
 prosperity, and communicating the details 
 of the course which he should feel bound to 
 pursue. 
 
 No one who ever listened to the glowing 
 words of Bishop Ravenscroft, while standing 
 in the pulpit and addressing his fellow-men, 
 as the ambassador whom God had appointed, 
 could doubt for a moment his thorough sin- 
 cerity, and his anxious desire to do the will 
 of Him that sent him. 
 
 "I remember well his intense energy in 
 preaching," remarks Bishop "Whittingham, in 
 
 9 
 
98 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 a letter to the writer of this memoir, " and 
 how, on one occasion, in Philadelphia, his 
 entire possession of his work was shown in 
 the fact that, the fastening of his cravat 
 having given way in preaching, he went on 
 nninterruptedly, and with undiminished earn- 
 estness of delivery, while with one hand he 
 deliberately relieved his neck of the entangle- 
 ment of the offending garment, and laid it 
 down behind him. This I saw, and well 
 remember how it rather increased than in 
 any way detracted from the effect of his 
 energetic eloquence." 
 
 The training which the Bishop had gone 
 through with in former days, and his ac- 
 quaintance with human nature, enabled him 
 to do a work for the Church in JSTorth Caro- 
 lina, which some cloistered student, rich in 
 stores of Greek and Hebrew, would have 
 been unable to accomplish. As an illustra- 
 tion of what we mean, a well-authenticated 
 anecdote is introduced. The Bishop was 
 
DISCTJSSIOlSr ABOUT RACE-HOKSES. 99 
 
 once riding in a stage-coach, throngli his ex- 
 tensive diocese, with a company of Southern 
 planters, all strangers to himself, when the 
 conversation turned upon the subject of 
 race-horses ! As the discussion waxed warm, 
 and the passengers took different sides, an 
 old gentleman, who was one of the cham- 
 pions, appealed to the Bishop to sustain the 
 opinions he had expressed, not at all suspect- 
 ing that he was addressing a dignitary of the 
 Church. 
 
 Bishop Ravenscroft happened, at an ear- 
 lier period of his life, to have been thor- 
 oughly versed in matters of the sort ; and, 
 when thus unexpectedly called upon, he 
 came to the assistance of the perplexed con- 
 troversialist with a hearty good-will. 
 
 As usual with him, he carried the day. 
 Some time after, the old gentleman discov- 
 ered who his valuable ally was ; and, in 
 speaking of him to a friend, in the highest 
 terms of admiration, he added, as a climax 
 
100 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCEOFT. 
 
 to his praises, " Why^ he Mows all about race- 
 horses /" 
 
 Learning, about this time, that the Bishop 
 was endeavoring to build a church in some 
 desolate place, he sent him a generous con- 
 tribution towards the object. 
 
4\ni^tn ftotlft^. 
 
 SEVERE LABOE — THE PENALTY OF OVER-EXEETION — OCCU- 
 PATION OF A SICK CHAMBER — CONTROVERSY DIVI- 
 SIONS AMONG CHRISTIANS DEPLORED TWO MODES OF 
 
 DOING CHURCH WORK BOTH GOOD IN THEIR WAY 
 
 THE COURSE WHICH NECESSITY URGED UPON BISHOP 
 
 RAVENSCROFT LETTER TO BISHOP HOBART FAINT, 
 
 YET PURSUING — HUMBLENESS OF A GREAT MIND. 
 
 ISHOP EAYENSCROFT had 
 
 thrown his whole soul into the work 
 from the first day of his ordination 
 to the ministry ; but now that he 
 was not only the Rector of a parish, 
 bnt the chief shepherd of a whole 
 diocese, every energy of body and mind was 
 taxed to the utmost, in the discharge of the 
 duties of his high calling. 
 
 9^ 
 
102 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSOROFT. 
 
 Tlie farthest western congregation was 
 more than three hundred miles distant from 
 the most eastern one ; and yet, even after 
 disease had laid its firm grasp upon him, 
 constantly reminding him of the uncertainty 
 of life, he^punctually made his annual visits 
 to both. 
 
 A younger man might, perhaps, have 
 undergone the fatigue and exposure of these 
 long journeys with less difficulty, but cer- 
 tainly no hero ever faced difficulties and 
 dangers with a bolder front than did the 
 venerable Bishop of North Carolina. 
 
 Hardships and anxieties of mind, however, 
 soon left their mark upon his once vigorous 
 constitution, and during the whole of the 
 second winter after his removal to the dio- 
 cese he was confined to the house by illness. 
 But even the sick chamber was no place of 
 idleness and repose. 
 
 Just before his first illness he had been 
 invited to preach before the Bible Society at 
 
CONTEOYERSY. 103 
 
 its annual meeting, in December, at the city 
 of Ealeigh, altliougli he had openly ex- 
 pressed his disapprobation of one feature in 
 the constitution of the Society. Availing 
 himself of the occasion, he explained his ob- 
 jections, and gave in general his views of 
 the proper principle upon which Bible so- 
 cieties should be founded to be most efficient 
 in their operations. 
 
 This sermon having been published, elicit- 
 ed very severe animadversions from various 
 quarters, and eventually attracted the notice 
 of a celebrated professor of theology in Vir- 
 ginia. That gentleman, in his strictures 
 upon the sermon, and the publications aris- 
 ing out of it, having assailed the Church of 
 which Bishop Eavenscroft was a member 
 and a minister, the Bishop felt himself im- 
 periously called upon to stand forth to vindi- 
 cate it from his aspersions. 
 
 Though worn by severe and protracted ill- 
 ness, the result of his labors was a masterly 
 
104 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 and triumphant vindication of the doctrines 
 of the Church.^ 
 
 However mucli all good people must de- 
 plore the divisions which mar the face of 
 the Christian world, it is certainly the boun- 
 den duty of those whom God has Sailed to 
 watch over the affairs of His Church, to be 
 ready, on all suitable occasions, to give a 
 reason for the hope that is in them. 
 
 To Bishop Kavenscroft w^as committed the 
 arduous undertaking of setting in order the 
 affairs of a new diocese, which had its begin- 
 ning in the midst of those who were bitterly 
 opposed to the Church, and a man with a 
 spirit less bold and determined might have 
 been cowed into silence, or induced to con- 
 ceal the more unpopular features of religion. 
 But he had not so learned his duty. Cost 
 what it might, he was ready to live and die 
 by principles which he believed to be found- 
 ed in truth. 
 
 - Bishop Ravenscroft's Works, Vol. I., 42, 43. 
 
BOTH GOOD IN THEIR WAY. 105 
 
 There will always be a difference of opinion 
 among good men as to the best mode of ex- 
 tending the Church. Some seek to win 
 their way quietly and almost imperceptibly, 
 attaching the people to them by their faith- 
 fulness in preaching the Gospel and by their 
 diligence as pastors, leaving the peculiarities 
 of the Church to come afterwards ; while 
 they who are no less zealous in the discharge 
 of these duties, will feel it incumbent on 
 them not only to bring forward the truths of 
 religion, which are held in common by all 
 true believers, but also to follow the example 
 of St. Paul, and " Speak concerning Christ 
 and the CJiurcJiP 
 
 There can be no question that both of 
 these modes of operation have their peculiar 
 advantages, and while one may succeed best 
 under certain circumstances, the other would 
 be found most effectual among a different 
 class of people, with inquiring minds, and 
 with the means of investigation within their 
 
106 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 reach. Bishop Griswold and Bishop Moore 
 may be mentioned as examples of those who 
 acted upon the first of the principles, and 
 Bishop Hobart and Bishop Eavenscroft of 
 those who pursued th^ latter course. 
 
 Were not all of these men devotedly at- 
 tached to the same branch of Christ's holy 
 Church? Did they not all labor with the 
 same spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to 
 advance its interests ? No one can deny it. 
 Does not this show us that God works by dif- 
 ferent instrumentalities, and in various ways, 
 for the accomplishment of the same great 
 end ? And ought not such considerations to 
 pour oil upon the troubled waters, and keep 
 the whole Church in peace ? 
 
 In the last paragraph I have coupled to- 
 gether the names of Hobart and Eavens- 
 croft. This seems a favorable opening for 
 introducing a letter from the Bishop of North 
 Carolina to his Eight Eeverend brother of 
 New York, upon his return to America, after 
 
LETTER TO BISHOP HOB ART. 107 
 
 a visit to Europe for the benefit of his 
 health : 
 
 Raleigh, March 18, 1826. 
 
 Right Rev. and dear Sir — It was my 
 anxiety not to appear indifferent to the 
 happy event of your restoration to health, to 
 your family, and to the Church, through the 
 miscarriage of a letter (which is a very com- 
 mon thing), that prompted me to write the 
 second time. I well knew that you could 
 have time for nothing but to meet and 
 answer the congratulations of your numerous 
 friends. 
 
 I thank you very gratefully for the favor- 
 able opinion you are pleased to entertain 
 and express of my principles and conduct. 
 
 The situation of this southern country, 
 surrendered for the last forty or fifty years to 
 the exclusive influence of the dissenters, left 
 me no alternative but to increase that influ- 
 ence by adopting haK-way measures, or, by 
 a decided course, to call into action what 
 
108 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCROFT. 
 
 was left of predilection for tlie Churcli, to 
 rally her real friends around her standard, 
 and to strike fear into her enemies by the 
 unqualified assertion of her distinctive char- 
 acter ; and I have cause of thankfulness be- 
 yond expression, that it has pleased God to 
 give success so far to the little I have been 
 enabled to do. Multitudes have owned to 
 me, that but for the imperious call upon 
 their most serious consideration, occasioned 
 by the announcement of the doctrines of 
 the Church, they might have gone dream- 
 ing through life, without once realizing 
 their practical use to the assurance of 
 faith. 
 
 Our progress is comparatively slow in 
 organizing new congregations. We want 
 missionaries, and have funds to employ two, 
 but cannot obtain them; yet my hope is 
 strong— it is not my cause but the Lord's, 
 and His providence is so distinct in His over- 
 ruling direction of events for the furtherance 
 
LETTER TO BISHOP HOBAET. 109 
 
 of that cause, that both my clergy and my- 
 self are greatly encouraged. 
 
 The habits and occupations of my best 
 years were not favorable to the retaining, 
 far less to the improvement, of a good educa- 
 tion. Every hour I have cause to regret 
 that improvidence which abandoned the 
 continuation of mental improvement, and in 
 a good degree threw away the fruits of 
 care, and pains, and expense in my early 
 education. 
 
 But I foresaw not the use the Lord had 
 for me. Wonderful it is that He should 
 have sought me dut, and what is left of me I 
 wish to be all His. Remember me in your 
 prayers, help me with your counsel, reprove 
 me where I am in error or wrong, and be- 
 lieve me, very truly and affectionately, your 
 friend and brother in the Lord, 
 
 John S. Eavenscroft.* 
 
 « Beman's Life of Bishop Hobart, Vol. I., p. 364. 
 10 
 
110 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVEKSCROFT. 
 
 Beautiful example of humility in a great 
 and noble mind ! Bishop Hobart was sev- 
 eral years younger than the Bishop of^SSTorth 
 Carolina, yet the elder calls upon him for his 
 counsels, his reproofs, and his prayers. 
 
BEETHEEN DWELLING TOGETHER IN TJIsnTT BISHOP 
 
 MOOEE's letter A VIEGINIA CONTENTION LOTE 
 
 FOR THE iCHUECH MEN OF PEAYEE WEESTLINGS OF 
 
 A DEVOUT SPIEIT — ENTEEING INTO THE CLOSET — DE- 
 LIGHT IN THE STUDY OF GOd's WOED '' WHAT COM- 
 MENTATOR SHALL I CONSULT?" — TEACHINGS OF THE 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 HE letter given in the last chapter 
 shows for itself the friendly relations 
 which existed between Bishop Ea- 
 venscroft and Bishop Hobart. As 
 they sympathized so perfectly in 
 their views of the Church, such an 
 appearance of brotherly kindness will occa- 
 sion no surprise. In order to sustain the 
 position laid down before, that Churchmen of 
 every gx-ade, being left free to promote the 
 
112 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 welfare of God's kingdom in the way whicli 
 seems to each the best calculated to secure 
 this end, may live on the closest terms of 
 intimacy with one another, I shall introduce 
 a letter from the venerable Bishop of Vir- 
 ginia, written less than two years before 
 Bishop Eavenscroft's decease. 
 
 Richmond, Va., March Idth, 1828. 
 
 Right Eev. and dear Sir- — The last meet- 
 ing of our Convention in Fredericksburg was 
 one of the most interesting that I have ever 
 witnessed. It was thought that there were 
 at least twelve hundred visitors in that place 
 on that occasion, and those visitors people of 
 the first distinction in our country. 
 
 I look forward to our contemplated meet- 
 ing in Petersburg with hope ; and should it 
 please God to bless us with such a sense of 
 His presence as was enjoyed in Fredericks- 
 burg, it will meet the most sincere expression 
 of gratitude. It would afford me the great- 
 
BISHOP moore's letter. 113 
 
 est satisfaction, could you make it convenient 
 to visit Petersburg at that time ; and I have 
 no doubt all your old friends would be 
 pleased to see you also. You once delighted 
 to be with us, and it is my belief you would 
 be delighted again ; for if I know you, and I 
 think I do, you are not adverse to the most 
 ardent expression of devotion. I am now an 
 old man, and cannot be far distant from that 
 country to which we are all hastening ; and 
 as I believe we shall experience no coldness 
 in heaven, I do not see why the Church be- 
 low should not taste a little of that joy of 
 which we hope to partake in another and a 
 better world. Tou must perceive that I am 
 now addressing you as I formerly did, when 
 you resided in Virginia ; and should the 
 friendly expression I use touch that chord of 
 affection which used to beat in perfect unison 
 with my own feelings, you will not be 
 offended with me. I love order — I love the 
 Liturgy of the Church with all the powers 
 
 10* 
 
114 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 of my heart, but am of opinion that our 
 services, instead of producing formality, are 
 calculated to make us feel, and rejoice, and 
 give thanks. 
 
 Tour affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 ElCHAED ChANNLNG MoOEE.* 
 
 Little did the venerable writer of this let- 
 ter (then in his sixty-sixth year) suppose that 
 he should be living and laboring on the 
 earth for more than eleven years after his 
 brother Bishop, who was ten years younger 
 than himself, had gone to that better country 
 of which he so touchingly speaks ! Yet so it 
 was ordered by Him who doeth all things well. 
 
 However Bishop Moore and Bishop Ra- 
 venscroft might differ in opinion as to the 
 best mode of extending the Church among 
 those who were ignorant of her high and 
 holy claims, it could not be said that the one 
 
 * Henshaw's Life of Bishop Moore, p. 234. 
 
MEK OF PRAYER. 115 
 
 went beyond the other in sincere attachment 
 for her, since both spent their lives in her 
 service, and both died while engaged in the 
 field of duty. 
 
 It is apparent, from the most cursory read- 
 ing of the letter just quoted, that the Bishop 
 of Virginia was a man of /prayer. The same 
 was true of the Bishop of North Carolina. 
 " I cannot conclude these brief notices of my 
 beloved diocesan," writes one who knew him 
 most intimately for years, "without advert- 
 ing to what I conceive was one of his most 
 distinguishing and lovely characteristics — 1 
 mean Ms devotion in private. On more 
 than one occasion I have been unavoidably 
 placed as an ear-witness of his moments of 
 retired devotion — a devotion to which I am 
 sure that he thought there were no witnesses 
 but himself and his &od. And it was at such 
 times that I wished a censorious world could 
 have stood in my place. I distinctly remem- 
 ber the first time that I was so situated. 
 
116 LIFE OF BISHOP EAYENSCEOFT. 
 
 Such were the strong wrestlings and deep 
 groanings of that man of God in prayer, that 
 my first impulse was to fly to his assistance, 
 fearing lest some sudden and violent pain 
 had seized upon him ; but a moment's reflec- 
 tion convinced me that it was not lodily 
 anguish that wrung these complainings from 
 him, but an agony of spirit, which seemed 
 driven for relief to these plaintive moanings. 
 Oh, how hard would he seem to wrestle with 
 his God! Every groan that burst from his 
 laboring soul seemed to say, I will not let 
 Thee gOy except Thou hless me. Nor was his 
 a short-lived or transitory devotion. Three 
 times a day, like the prophet of old, did he 
 kneel upon his knees, and, unless pressed by 
 other duties, he continued in prayer for the 
 space of half an hour. His usual custom 
 was to go from the reading of God's Word to 
 the seeking of His face in prayer. Indeed, I 
 have never known a more diligent reader of 
 the Bible. It was ever open on his desk, 
 
DELIGHT m THE STUDY OF GOd's WORD. 117 
 
 and in the composition of his sermons he sel- 
 dom sought assistance beyond its pages. 
 Enter his study when you would, there was 
 his Bible on one side of him, and his Con- 
 cordance on the other. As a practical ex- 
 pounder of Scripture I have never known 
 his equal. He left to others the applause of 
 critical acumen and deep research, and 
 sought rather to bring every passage of 
 God's Word to bear upon the conscience of 
 the sinner. And in these practical applica- 
 tions of Scripture he was peculiarly solemn 
 and interesting. When in health, I have 
 known him, after, preaching twice or thrice 
 in the day, lecture at family prayers for 
 thirty or forty minutes, upon, perhaps, the 
 first chapter that met his eye on opening 
 the Bible. And on these occasions it has 
 often been thought by his friends that, in 
 point of force of manner and richness of 
 thought, he even exceeded his more delib- 
 erate pulpit exercises." 
 
118 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCROFT. 
 
 The study of the Scriptures was Bishop 
 Eavenscroft's delight, and he would have all 
 go to this fountain-head to drink in refresh- 
 ment for their souls. When asked by the 
 young and inexperienced, " What comment- 
 ator shalj. I consult in reading my Bible ?'' 
 his invariable answer was, " No one. Read 
 it on your knees, and the Spirit of truth will 
 make all necessary things plain unto you." 
 
A SUNDAY AMOXG THE MORAVIAN BEETHEEN — EAELY 
 SEEYICE AT THE SCHOOL — WOESHIP IN THE CHrECH 
 
 INTEODUCTION TO BISHOP BENADE — LOYE-FEAST 
 
 — FEIENDLY INTERVIEW LONGINGS AFTER UNITY 
 
 THE LOED'S SUPPEE — MODE OF ITS ADMINISTEATION 
 
 NIGHT SEEYICE PAETING WITH MUTUAL EXPEES- 
 
 SIONS OF EEGARD A PETITION IN WHICH ALL TEUE 
 
 OHEISTIANS MUST HEARTILY UNITE. 
 
 T would be comparatively easy to turn 
 ) over Bishop Ravenscroft's reports to 
 the Convention of North Carolina, 
 and inform our readers, in detail, as 
 to the time of his visitations to the 
 several parishes, and the number of 
 persons confirmed in each ; but we prefer, in 
 the small space allotted for this memoir, to 
 bring forward such facts only as will be of 
 interest to all, "With this view, a somewhat 
 
^a 
 
 120 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 extended extract will here be given, from the 
 journal of one of his visitations to the west- 
 ern part of the diocese : 
 
 " Aitgust 12, 1827. — Sunday, — I attended 
 the services of the Moravian Brethren in this 
 place [Salem], which commenced in the 
 chapel of the female school at half-past eight 
 in the morning, and was performed in En- 
 glish, by singing accompanied with the 
 organ, extempore prayer standing, and a 
 short discourse from Revelation iii. 11. The 
 school is very numerous, and great order and 
 uniformity are maintained. At ten o'clock 
 the services commenced in the church, by 
 singing, accompanied with the organ and 
 other instruments. The line is given out by 
 the minister, and all sing sitting. After the 
 singing, their Bishop, by name Benade, 
 preached sitting, and with great fluency and 
 force, though in the German language, and, 
 therefore, not understood by me and the 
 other visitors. 
 
LOVE-FEAST. 121 
 
 ^' After the discourse, prayer was made, at 
 which the congregation stood, after which 
 they sung and were dismissed. After the 
 services I was asked into the vestry-room^ 
 and introduced to the Bishop and one of his 
 presbyters, but had no opportunity for con- 
 versation beyond that of civility. It being a 
 festival-day, commemorative of some remark- 
 able event in their history, the Bishop's time 
 was very limited. 
 
 " At one o'clock their love-feast was held^ 
 to which I was invited and attended. At 
 this there were no other services than the 
 singing of a jubilee psalm in parts, by the 
 choir and congregation, accompanied with 
 the instrumental music, during which there 
 was handed to every individual present a 
 round cake or kind of light bun, and a half- 
 pint mug of coffee, which was partaken of 
 by all during the singing, as each was dis- 
 posed. 
 
 "The parts performed by the choir were 
 
 11 
 
122 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 ♦executed standing^ in opposite galleries : the 
 ^congregation sang sitting. At the close, all 
 tBtood to sing the hallelujah. 
 
 " After the love-feast, I had another inter- 
 view with Bishop Benade in the vestry-room, 
 ^when he informed me the Communion would 
 be administered after an interval of about 
 two hours — say half-past three o'clock — at 
 which I could attend, either as a spectator or 
 a communicant. To this I replied, that 
 though curiosity was in part the cause of my 
 visit to Salem, yet it was not the sole cause, 
 it being my real desire, as we were the only 
 two Episcopal churches in America which 
 could and would acknowledge each other 
 [for the Eomanists presented an insuperable 
 bar], to know more of them, and let them 
 know more of us. If, therefore, I was pre- 
 sent, it would be as a communicant, and I 
 mast accordingly request information as to 
 the mode of administering. This was im- 
 mediately explained to me, and there being 
 
THE lord's supper. 123 
 
 nothing, in my judgment, nnscriptural or 
 inconsistent with the essentials of a sacra- 
 ment, I concluded to commune with them. 
 At the appointed hour the Church [mean- 
 ing thereby the communicants] assembled, 
 amounting to upwards of two hundred per- 
 sons, and at a signal given by the bell, the 
 vestry-room door was opened, the organ 
 began a solemn voluntary, and the Bishop, 
 with the Priests and Deacon, walked up to 
 the altar, carrying the bread in two baskets, 
 covered with a white linen cloth, themselves 
 habited in white surplices, bound round the 
 loins with a broad girdle. The wine was 
 previously placed upon the altar in six de- 
 canters, with glass mugs to distribute it. 
 The altar was covered with white drapery, 
 ornamented with festoons of artificial flowers. 
 ^^On the Bishop's taking the chair, he 
 gave out the line of a hymn, which was 
 sung by the people to the organ. He then 
 delivered a short exhortation, and proceeded 
 
124 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 to the consecration of the elements, which 
 was exactly similar to om' own mode, in the 
 recitation of Scripture, and the laying of his 
 hand on the bread, and on the wine, pre- 
 viously poured into the mugs. When the 
 consecration was finished, a Priest, attended 
 by a Deacon beai'ing the bread on the right 
 side of the altar, and another Priest, attended 
 by a Deaconess with the bread on the left 
 side thereof, proceeded to administer to the 
 communicants in this wise. The bread was 
 prepared very white and thin, unleavened, 
 and in oblong shapes, sufficient for two por- 
 tions. On coming to me, to whom it was 
 first presented, the Deacon administered to 
 two at a time, until the whole Church had 
 received, each row of seats rising up to 
 receive, and again sitting down holding the 
 bread in their hands. When the communi- 
 cants were all served, the baskets were re- 
 turned to the altar, when the Bishop and 
 clergy having taken the bread likewise, the 
 
NIGHT SEEYICE. 125 
 
 organ ceased, and all knelt down in silence 
 and ate the bread. A dne portion of time 
 was appropriated to private devotion, and 
 towards the close the organ struck a most 
 solemn strain, to which the communicants all 
 responded in a verse of a hymn sung upon 
 their knees. 
 
 " When this was finished, all rose up and 
 the cup was then distributed, each drinking 
 and handing to his neighbor — the Deacon 
 attending to replenish and to pass it from one 
 row of seats to another. The ceremony was 
 concluded with a hymn of praise, and dis- 
 mission of the congregation — ^I presume with 
 the apostolic benediction — and all I have to 
 regret is, that I was a stranger to their 
 language. 
 
 ^^At half-past seven the services again 
 commenced, and were precisely similar to 
 those in the forenoon. One of the Priests 
 delivered the sermon, being the same whom 
 I heard in the school chapel in the morning; 
 
 11* 
 
126 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 in English ; but in a very different style and 
 manner of address and delivery in his native 
 language. During this service Bishop Be- 
 nade and myself sat together, and at the close 
 we took leave of each other, I trust, with 
 mutual Christian regard, and with the desire 
 of a more close acquaintance." 
 
 That Bishop Ravenscroft was sincerely de- 
 sirous to see all branches of the Church of 
 Christ living together in harmony and peace, 
 may be gathered from this instance of his 
 going out of his way to meet with the Mora- 
 vian Brethren.*^ May God hasten the time 
 when all the kingdoms of the world shall 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ ! 
 
 ^ The origin of the Moravian Brethren is rather doubt- 
 ful and obscure. Some account of this Society will be 
 found in Hook's Church Dictionary. 
 
ajtu |iftnnt|. 
 
 The bishop leaves the paeish at ealeigh — eemoval 
 
 to williamsboeough last eaethlt tie beoken 
 
 the convention of 1829 eeleases him feom paeo- 
 chial chaege — visit to tennessee and kentijoky 
 
 laboes of de. chapman — kentucky oeganized as 
 
 a diocese — bishop eavensceoft at lexington 
 
 ninety-one confirmed inteeesting paeticulaes. 
 
 HE parish at Raleigh, of which 
 Bishop Eavenscroft was Rector, had 
 so increased in size and importance, 
 that it required more active and un- 
 interrupted labor than his duties to 
 the diocese at large and his failing 
 health would allow him to bestow, and ac- 
 cordingly, early in the year 1828, he resigned 
 this pastoral charge. 
 
 The congregations of Newbern and Wil- 
 mington — both of which were strong and in- 
 
128 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 fluential — were anxious to secure him for 
 their pastor, although his time would be thus 
 limited by other cares; but he thought it 
 best, on the whole, to settle in the village of 
 Williamsborough, where the people had 
 never enjoyed the privilege of regular ser- 
 vices, and, on this account, would be less 
 likely to receive injury from ministrations 
 which must necessarily be oftentimes inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 Soon after his removal to his new home, 
 the Bishop met with an irreparable loss in 
 the death of his devoted wife, who was called 
 away from earthly anxieties and cares, in 
 January, 1829. 
 
 It was a great source of comfort to her 
 husband, that not a single cloud obscured 
 the brightness of her heavenly prospect, and 
 as he himself expressed it, in his strong and 
 vigorous style, " there was not even a dis- 
 torted feature in the agonies of death, to be- 
 tray any quailing before the king of terrors." 
 
EELEASE FROM PAKOCHIAI. CHARaE. 129 
 \ 
 
 The last earthly bond which bound the 
 good Bishop to this world was now severed 
 forever. His own frail health rendered the 
 loss of this gentle and sympathizing com- 
 panion the more grievous, but it brought him 
 nearer to the Saviour. 
 
 The Convention of 1829, sensible of the 
 increasing infirmities of their chief pastor, 
 resolved to release him entirely from the 
 care of a parish. It is greatly to be regretted 
 that this relief did not come sooner, for the 
 visitation immediately preceding this session 
 of the Convention was the last he was ever 
 to make to the diocese, which owed so much 
 to his faithful labors. 
 
 Immediately after the adjournment of this 
 body, the Bishop set out to fulfil a promise 
 which he had made to visit the few churches 
 of our communion scattered through Ten- 
 nessee.. While at Nashville, he received an 
 urgent letter from the Eev. George T. Chap- 
 man, the Hector of Christ Church, Lexing- 
 
130 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCKOFT. 
 
 ton, Kentucky, begging the favor of him to 
 extend his journey to that place. 
 
 Hitherto, the Episcopalians of Kentucky 
 had never enjoyed the benefits of a visitation 
 from a Bishop, and the state of slumber and 
 inaction into which they had sunk seemed 
 only the precursors of death. 
 
 Dr. Chapman, the distinguished author of 
 "Sermons on the Church" — through whose 
 agency the scattered sons of the Church were 
 brought together — thus speaks of his efibrts 
 in this noble cause : " In the spring of 1829, 
 knowing that the General Convention was to 
 meet that year in Philadelphia, in concert 
 with some prominent members of my Church, 
 I took measures to secure the organization 
 of the State of Kentucky, as a diocese of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. Having heard 
 -^at a few Episcopalians were living at Dan- 
 ville, I set off for that place on the 30th of 
 May, and having in a few days collected 
 these persons together, my object in visiting 
 
LABORS OF DR. CHAPMAK. 131 
 
 them was fully explained, and the result was 
 a speedy organization of a church, and the 
 appointment of delegates to attend the then 
 proposed State Convention at Lexington, in 
 July. From Danville I proceeded to Louis- 
 ville, at that time destitute of a Eector, 
 preached in the church in that city, June Y — 
 stated my object to its members, in which 
 they cordially concurred, and also appointed 
 the desired delegates. Returning to Lexing- 
 ton the same week, preparations were made 
 for the meeting of the Convention.^ It as- 
 
 •«• As the Journal of this primary Convention is now a 
 rare document, the writer gives a few items from the 
 copy in his possession. There were three clergymen pres- 
 ent — viz., the Rev. George T. Chapman, D.D., Rector 
 of Christ Church, Lexington; the Rev. Benj. 0. Peers, 
 Deacon, Principal of the Pestalozzi Academy, and the 
 Rev. John Ward, Principal of a Female Academy— all 
 of the same city. The lay delegates represented three 
 parishes, and their names were as follows. From Christ 
 Churchy Louisville, Messrs. Richard Barnes, John Bustard, 
 and John P. Smith. From Trinity Church, Danville, Messrs. 
 Daniel Barbee, Henry I. Cowan, Ephraim M'Dowell, 
 M.D. ; Edward Worthington, and Frederick Yeiser, 
 
132 LIFE OF BISHOP KAVENSCROFT. 
 
 sembled in Christ Church, on Wednesday, 
 July 8, 1829. Divine service was celebrated 
 and a sermon preached by me, being the 
 only settled clergyman in the State. The 
 organization of the Diocese was then happily 
 effected, ,there being several lay delegates 
 from the three parishes of Lexington, Louis- 
 ville, and Danville, and three of the clerical 
 order from Lexington, when the Convention, 
 after discharging its remaining duties, ad- 
 journed.""^ 
 
 Soon after this important step had been 
 taken, Dr. Chapman learned from the papers 
 that Bishop Ravenscroft was then on a visit 
 to Nashville, and addressed him a letter, as 
 has been already mentioned. 
 
 He cheerfully acceded to the request 
 
 From Christ Church, Lexington, Messrs. Richard Ashton, 
 John E. Cook, M.D. ; Anthony Dumesnil, Josiah Dun- 
 ham, John W. Hunt, Charlton Hunt, William Morton, 
 and Thomas Smith. 
 
 o Spirit of Missions, Vol. XIII., No. 4. April, 1848, 
 p. 97, 98. 
 
BISHOP RAVENSCROFT AT LEXmaTON. 133 
 
 which had been made, that he would come 
 on to Kentucky, before returning home, and 
 stated the probable time when he might be 
 expected at Lexington. The prospect of a 
 visit from this venerable servant of the Cross 
 at once excited great interest among the 
 people. Those whose traditional love for the 
 Church had been brought from Virginia, at 
 an early day, but whose allegiance might 
 long since have given way, but for the old 
 dust-covered Prayer Books which were pre- 
 served as heir-looms in their families, now 
 felt their old attachment revive. 
 
 The class of Churchmen whose minds had 
 been impressed by the powerful writings of 
 Chapman and Cooke,* and who regarded 
 the Church as God's kingdom in the world, 
 took courage when it was noised abroad that 
 a Bishop would soon be with them, to ad- 
 minister those ordinances of the Gospel, 
 
 '"^ See sketch of Dr. Cooke's Life in Church Review. 
 July, 1856, Vol. IX., p. 226. 
 
 12 
 
134: LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 which, had never yet been brought to the 
 far-off West. 
 
 The highest expectations which had been 
 raised by reports of Bishop Ravenscroft's 
 heart-stirring eloquence were more than real- 
 ized, when he made his appearance at Lex- 
 ington. His matchless energy, and his 
 glowing piety, sustained and rendered even 
 more commanding by his manly proportions, 
 roused to enthusiasm the hopes of the chil- 
 dren of Zion. 
 
 Dr. Chapman thus speaks of this visit in 
 a letter written expressly for this work : 
 "The Bishop arrived at my house in Lex- 
 ington, at eight o'clock, Saturday evening, 
 July 25, 1829, and was therefore seen for the 
 first time by the congregation, on the next 
 morning, in Christ Church, when seventy- 
 one persons were confirmed, and on Tuesday, 
 the 28th, twenty more. Tlie Bishop went 
 the following day, and made no other, ac- 
 quaintance in Kentucky, but the passing 
 
INTEEESTINa PARTICIJLAE8. 135 
 
 througli it, in the stage, from Nashville to 
 Maysyille. At Lexington he was most cor- 
 dially received, and preached three admir- 
 able discourses, which were listened to by 
 crowded audiences with profound attention. 
 On Monday and Tuesday my house was 
 thronged with those desirous of testifying 
 their admiration of this truly excellent and 
 evangelical Bishop. On these occasions, I 
 took good care, by leading questions, to have 
 him discourse on the great doctrines of the 
 Cross, and this he did fully and freely to 
 large numbers of delighted hearers. These 
 interviews were altogether of a spiritual 
 cast. The Bishop was the only speaker, and 
 as it was with Paul at Athens, so it was with 
 him. ' His spirit was stirred within him,' to 
 declare the whole counsel of God with such 
 fervor, that all found it good for their souls to 
 be there. The language I do not profess to re- 
 member, but the effect was electric and search- 
 ing — ' a solemn stillness reigned around.' " 
 
ui^ttx Bhtttni\. 
 
 A LONG JOUENEY — STATE OF HEALTH — GENERAL CON- 
 VEjifTION — MEDICAL ADYICE — PEOSPECT OF EECOYEEY 
 — EETTJEN HOME — EEL APSE — LAST SEEYICE — ^NO MOEB 
 
 HOPE OF LIFE DEATH-BED CONVEESATIONS — DE. FEEE- 
 
 MAN's NAEEATIVE FOLLY OF EEPENTANCE DELAYED 
 
 UNTIL THE CLOSE OF LIFE — COMMUNION OF THE SICK — 
 THE SLEEP OF DEATH. 
 
 HE Episcopal visitation to Tennessee 
 and Kentucky, spoken of in the last 
 chapter, cost Bishop Ravenscroft a 
 long and fatiguing journey — more 
 than a thousand miles of which he 
 performed in stages and steamboats, 
 
 and a good part of that distance being over 
 
 a rough and mountainous region. 
 
 His friends entertained hopes that the trip 
 
 might benefit his health, and he probably 
 
 had some slight anticipations of the sort him- 
 
EELAPSE. 137 
 
 self; but they were by no means realized. 
 He attended the General Convention in 
 Philadelphia, and then continued a month in 
 the city, after the close of the session, in 
 order to enjoy the benefit of medical ad\dce. 
 The skill of the eminent physicians who pre- 
 scribed for him was so far successful that he 
 returned to North Carolina with sanguine 
 expectations that, by proper care, his health 
 might be thoroughly re-established. 
 
 Thus far, the Bishop had always been 
 reckless in the exposure of himself to the in- 
 clemencies of weather, and while his con- 
 stitution remained vigorous he, seemed to 
 suffer little inconvenience. His physicians 
 had so strongly impressed upon him the 
 absolute necessity of greater prudence, that 
 he went home with a determination to follow 
 their advice. He was, however, exposed 
 to severe cold, from a sudden change of 
 weather, while going to Fayetteville, where 
 he intended to make his future home, and all 
 
 12* 
 
138 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCKOFT. 
 
 the worst symptoms of his disease again re- 
 turned, in a still more alarming shape. The 
 Bishop disposed of his effects in Williams- 
 borough, preparatory to his removal, and 
 had reached Raleigh in December, where he 
 designed' to remain during the session of the 
 Legislature. 
 
 His health was now so miserable that his 
 friends were filled with the most serious 
 alarm. He continued, however, to struggle 
 manfully against his disease, and prepared a 
 sermon for the consecration of Christ Church, 
 Raleigh, and performed that service. 
 
 The chronic diarrhoea, to which he had so 
 long been subject, was rapidly wearing away 
 his strength, and other forms of disease 
 began to develope themselves. 
 
 Writing to a friend on the last of January, 
 1830, he says : " I am weakening daily, and 
 now can just sit up long enough at a time to 
 scribble a letter occasionally." And then he 
 adds : ^' As respects the result, I am, thank 
 
NO MORE HOPE OF LIFE. 139 
 
 I 
 
 God, free from apprehension. I am ready. 
 I humbly trust, through the grace of my 
 Divine Saviour, to meet the will of God, 
 whether that shall be for life or for death ; 
 and I humbly thank Christ Jesus, my Lord, 
 who sustains me in patience and cheerfulness 
 through the valley and shadow of death." 
 
 The Bishop's mind was fully made up that 
 this sickness would prove his last ; but he 
 enjoyed the reasonable, religious, and holy 
 hope of a Christian. Even to the closing 
 hour of life, he continued to bear testimony 
 to the great truths of , the Gospel, which he 
 had so faithfully preached. 
 
 The Rev. George W. Freeman, then Rec- 
 tor of Christ Church, Raleigh, and now 
 Bishop of Arkansas,"^ has furnished some in- 
 teresting particulars of Bishop Ravenscroft's 
 last days. The original manuscript contain- 
 ing them has been kindly lent to the writer, 
 
 '^ News of the decease of this esteemed prelate is stiU 
 recent, while these pages are passing through the press. 
 
140 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 for the better accomplislimeiit of liis pur- 
 pose. 
 
 " On one occasion," says Dr. Freeman, 
 " several persons being present, I turned to 
 tlie book of Proverbs, and read to those who 
 were sitting by me the following passage 
 [Chap. XX. 21] — An inheritance may he got- 
 ten hastily at the beginning ^ hut the end 
 thereof shall not he hlessed — and proceeded 
 to observe how little encouragement was 
 afforded by this passage for a man to make 
 haste to be rieh, etc. When I ceased speak- 
 ing, the Bishop, who I thought was not at- 
 tending to what passed, exclaimed : ' There 
 is another lesson to be learned from it. It 
 may be applied to those who have hastily 
 obtained a religious inheritance — who place 
 their dependence on those sudden and eya- 
 nescent fervors which they have experienced 
 in some moment of excitement.' 
 
 "- With respect to his own prospects he ap- 
 peared to entertain no apprehensions. I 
 
DEATH-BED CONVERSATIONS. 141 
 
 asked him, a few days before his decease, if 
 he had never, during his illness, been trou- 
 bled with doubts and misgivings ? 
 
 " ' ITever,' said he. ' So free have I been 
 from any suggestions of the enemy, that I 
 have never doubted for a moment, except, 
 that the thought has sometimes come over 
 me that my tranquillity is possibly an evi- 
 dence that Satan thinks himself sure of me, 
 and therefore lets me alone.' 
 
 " On my answering, that as he had been 
 I laboring to pull down Satan's kingdom — had 
 been constantly engaged in fighting, not in 
 his ranks, but in opposition to him, it was 
 not reasonable to suppose that he had any 
 claims upon him. 
 
 " ' True,' said he ; ' but then I have had 
 such a body of sin to struggle against, and 
 seem now to have been so much engaged in 
 preaching myself, rather than God, that I 
 feel humbled in the dust. My only ground 
 of consolation is, that as Christ suffered in 
 
142 LIFE OF BISHOP EAVENSCROFT. 
 
 weakness for our redemption, miicli more 
 may we hope to be saved by the power of 
 His resurrection.' 
 
 " Speaking of his enfeebled state, and what 
 he called the wandering of his thoughts, he 
 remarked on the folly of delaying repentance 
 to a sick bed, and expressed, as he had often 
 done before, his desire to warn every one of 
 the hopelessness of being able to settle on a 
 dying bed so vast a concern as that of mak- 
 ing one's peace with God. ' If I had my 
 work now all to do, what would become of 
 me? K I had put off this matter to this 
 time, it must have been entirely neglected.' 
 
 " He received the Holy Communion once 
 while on his sick bed, and had appointed to 
 receive it again a few days before his death. 
 But when the time came, he was so much 
 exhausted by the preparations which he had 
 znaJe, and which he would not omit, in order 
 that he might come, as he expressed him- 
 self, 'literally clean to the heavenly feast,' 
 
COMMUKION OF THE SICK. 143 
 
 that lie was obliged to forego the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 " ' I am not in a condition/ said he, ' to 
 partake discerningly, and I have no supersti- 
 tious notions respecting the Eucharist. I do 
 not regard it as a viaticum^ necessary to the 
 safety of the departing soul. I believe that, 
 in my case, the will will be accepted for the 
 deed / and tell my brethren [who were assem- 
 bled in the next room to partake with him] 
 that though I am denied the privilege of 
 shouting the praises of redeeming love once 
 more with them around the table of our com- 
 mon Lord, yet I will commune with them in 
 spirit.' 
 
 " The evening before his death, I had left 
 him for a few moments. Soon after, receiv- 
 ing intelligence that he was dying, I hastened 
 to him, and found him nearly speechless, and 
 sinking, to all appearance, very fast. I asked 
 him if I should pray. ' I cannot follow you,' 
 
 I was his reply, uttered with great difficulty. 
 
144 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 I then kneeled down by him, and prayed 
 silently. After some moments he seemed to 
 revive, and motioned to us to retire from his 
 bed-side and leave him undisturbed. I sat 
 and watched him from that time till he ex- 
 pired, wjiich he did about one o'clock the 
 following morning [March 5th, 1830], with- 
 out having spoken for five or six hours. He 
 appeared, however, to be in the entire pos- 
 session of his mind to the last, and expired 
 without a struggle." 
 
itx Sfbnttuntl]. 
 
 BTJEIAL MIXTJTE DIRECTIOXS IN HIS WILL — LIBEAEY FOB 
 
 THE DIOCESE WOEKS FOE THE PEESS — PEESONAL AP- 
 
 PEAEAI^CE — MANITEES — SOLEMNITY IN CHXJECH — EE- 
 
 POETS OF EYE-WITNESSES OEDINAEY COUETESIES OF 
 
 LIFE — AN OFT-TOLD STOEY SPOILED LOYE TOWAEDS 
 
 GOD — SUCCESS IN THE MINISTEY THE BEST KNOWL- 
 EDGE AFFECTION FOE HIS CLEEGY THE WISE OLD 
 
 MAN AT EEST. 
 
 HE remains of Bishop Eavenscroft 
 were deposited in a vault beneatli 
 the chancel of Christ Church, Ea- 
 leigh, and the following directions 
 concerning his burial, as fonnd in 
 his will, were scrupulously observed. 
 My will and desire is that the coffin to 
 contain my mortal remains be of plain pine 
 wood, stained black, and without ornament 
 
 13 
 
 u 
 
146 LIFE OF BISHOP RAYENSCROFT. 
 
 of any kind ; that my body be carried to the 
 grave by my old horse Pleasant, led by my 
 old servant Johnson ; that the service for the 
 burial of the dead, as set forth in the Book 
 of Common Prayer, and none other, be used 
 at my interment, with the 6th, Yth, 9th, 10th, 
 and 11th verses of the 16th Psalm,^ to be 
 used instead of the hymn commonly sung; 
 and that the Eev. George "W. Freeman, Eec- 
 tor of Christ Church, Ealeigh, do perform 
 the said services." 
 
 The Bishop bequeathed his valuable library 
 to the diocese, to be preserved for the use of 
 the clergy and laity of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church in North Carolina. 
 
 He also left to the " Episcopal Bible, 
 Prayer Book, Tract, and Missionary Society" 
 of the diocese, in which he had always felt a 
 deep interest, the copyright of such of his 
 writings as his friends might think it advis- 
 
 ^ Psalm 13 th in our present Selections. 
 
ERSONAL APPEABAKCE. 147 
 
 able to publish. Two large and handsome 
 volumes were afterwards issued, in accord- 
 ance with this permission. 
 
 In person Bishop Eavenscroft was large 
 and commanding, and his manner, especially 
 when engaged in any of the public offices of 
 the ministry, was remarkably dignified, and 
 so solemn and impressive as to inspire all 
 who witnessed it with reverence. It was im- 
 possible not to partake of the consciousness 
 which he ever seemed to feel when standing 
 up at the altar of God. 
 
 The w^riter has often heard a friend speak 
 of the deep impression made upon his mind, 
 when he heard the Bishop recite the Ten 
 Commandments in the Communion Service. 
 Another relates that on a certain Confirmation 
 occasion, a very large number of persons be- 
 ing present, when he gave out the beautiful 
 hymn, " Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove," 
 and began to read it, every one rose up, as 
 if struck with some overpowering influence. 
 
148 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCEOFT. 
 
 In his general intercourse with society, the 
 Bishop was polite and courteous, although, 
 when excited in debate, his loud tone of 
 voice and warmth of manner conveyed the 
 impression of a dictatorial spirit, with which 
 l{j he could not justly be accused. 
 
 His deep self-abasement on account of sin 
 prompted him to speak of himself in terms 
 so strong and forcible, as sometimes to mis- 
 lead strangers, and do injury to himself. 
 
 The truth is, that he felt so grateful to 
 God, for having called him to a knowledge 
 of the truth, and permitted him to preach it 
 to others, that he could think of no terms too 
 glowing in which to magnify the Divine 
 goodness towards him. 
 
 A story was very generally circulated 
 through various parts of the country, during 
 the Bishop's life, and is believed by many to 
 this day, which contains not a word of truth. 
 It runs thus : Before Mr. Ravenscroft aban- 
 doned the service of the world, and devoted 
 
AN OFT-TOLD STORY SPOILED. 149 
 
 himself to God, lie had severely chastised a 
 servant one day for disobedience, and had 
 ordered him to his cabin. He then secretly 
 follows, and stops in a secluded position near 
 by, in order to ascertain, if possible, the feel- 
 ings which the offender would manifest. 
 
 To the master's unutterable surprise, he 
 found him engaged in fervent prayer to God 
 for himself, the passionate being whose lash 
 had been so mercilessly applied ; and he was 
 so overcome by this pathetic apjDcal in his 
 behalf, that he abandoned his former course 
 of life, and became a sincere and devoted 
 servant of the Lord. 
 
 It is almost a pity to spoil so good a story, 
 but faithfulness as a biographer obliges me 
 to do so. While Bishop Ravenscroft was in 
 Kentucky, Dr. Chapman, of Lexington, in- 
 quired as to the truth of this narrative. He 
 replied, that " when rumors of that descrip- 
 tion are current, if not altogether correct, 
 there is usually to be found some incident, 
 
 13^ 
 
150 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 actually occurring, to whicli their circulation 
 miglit be traced. But, in this instance [he 
 added], there was not the slightest founda- 
 tion for the story. There was no such vie- 
 tim, no such prayer, and no such cause of 
 
 conyersian." 
 
 The most prominent feature in the Bishop's 
 Christian character was love towards God, 
 growing out of a profound sense of the 
 mercy which had been extended to him, a 
 poor erring sinner. 
 
 As a minister of the gosvel of Christy he 
 was most diligent and zealous, and he lived 
 to see many fruits of his labors. 
 
 Without having any great claims as a 
 scholar^ he was thoroughly conversant with 
 the Holy Scriptures; and, certainly, a man 
 of whom this could be truly said, he was, 
 indeed, a workman who needed not to be 
 ashamed. 
 
 As a Bishop^ he was untiring in his de- 
 votion to the duties, of his office, and North 
 
thp: wise old man at rest. 151 
 
 Carolina can never forget the debt of obli- 
 gation whicb she owes to him. 
 
 In his intercourse with his clergy, the 
 Bishop was kind and affectionate. He re- 
 garded them as his sons^ and they looked up 
 to him as a loved and honored /a^A^r. None 
 but offenders against the laws of God and 
 His Church had cause to fear him. In his 
 presence all distinctions vanished, except 
 that which his dignified person, his com- 
 manding talents, and his undoubted piety 
 might justly claim for him. 
 
 And now, while taking our last look at 
 this great and good man, laid low by death, 
 it is with the feelings of one who gazes with 
 admiration upon the matchless proportions 
 of some mighty triumph of the sculptor's 
 skill, thrown down from its pedestal by the 
 rude hand of time, yet grand and beautiful 
 in ruins. 
 
 * ' The good old man is gone ! 
 An Apostle's chair is void j 
 
152 LIFE OF BISHOP RAVENSCROFT. 
 
 There is dust on his mitre thrown, 
 And they've broken his pastoral rod ; 
 
 And the fold of his love he has left alone, 
 To account for its care to God. 
 
 * * The wise old man is gone ! 
 His honored head lies low, 
 And his thoughts of power are done. 
 
 And his voice's manly flow, 
 And the pen that, for truth, like a sword was drawn^ 
 Is still and soulless now. 
 
 ** The brave old man is gone ! 
 With his armor on, he fell ; 
 Nor a groan nor a sigh was drawn, 
 
 When his spirit fled, to tell ; 
 For mortal sufferings, keen and long, 
 Had no power his heart to quell. ' '