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Bi^Centennial 
 
 (Ebrist Cburcb 
 
 0>b«abelpbia 
 
 1695=1895 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Two Hundredth Anniversary 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FOUNDING 
 
 
 / 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 169^-189^. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PUBLISHED BY THE CHRIST CHURCH HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 i8g6. 
 
hiss 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Two Hundredth Anniversary 
 
 OF THE FOUNDING OF 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 BEING A RECORD OF SERVICES AND OF SER- 
 MONS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 The Rev. WILLIAM J. SEABURY, D.D., 
 Professor in the General Theological Seminary, New York. 
 
 The Rev. C. ELLIS STEVENS, LL.D., D.C.L., 
 Rector of the Parish. 
 
 CHARLES J. STILLE, LL.D., 
 Ex-Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 The Rt. Rev. LEIGHTON COLEMAN, D.D., LL.D., 
 Bishop of Delaware. 
 
 The rt. Rev. O. W. WHITAKER, D.D., 
 Bishop of the Diocese. 
 
 The Rev. J. LEWIS PARKS, D.D., 
 Rector of St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 The Rt. Rev. WILLIAM STEVENS PERRY, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., 
 Bishop of Iowa, and Histographer of the Church in the United States. 
 
 The Rev. WILLIAM B. BODINE, D.D., 
 Rector of the Church of the Saviour, Philadelphia. 
 
 The rt. Rev. CORTLANDT WHITEHEAD, D.D., 
 Bishop of Pittsburgh. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 published by the CHRIST CHURCH HISTORICAI, ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1S96. 
 
PRESS OF 
 
 P. C. STOCKHAUSEN, 
 53-55 N. 7th St., Phila. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ^tVHRIST CHURCH, Philadelphia, having its potential 
 ^ J origin in the requirement of the charter of Penn- 
 sylvania granted by King Charles II to William 
 Penn which provided for services of the Church of Eng- 
 land, dates its actual beginning from 1695. On November 
 15th of that year, the ground was purchased on which 
 stands the present church edifice. The purchase was 
 made by Joshua Carpenter, who, in a deed dated Jul)^ 
 20th following, " acknowledged and declared " that his 
 name was used in the deeds of purchase by " the special 
 nomination and appointment of the community of the said 
 church, and for their use and benefit," and that part of the 
 lot of land was intended for a cemetery or churchyard, and 
 that the church and the premises were to be perpetually 
 appropriated and used for the public worship of God, and 
 for the better instruction of the people inhabiting and to 
 inhabit in Philadelphia, in the one Christian religion as it is 
 professed in the Church of England, and established by the 
 laws of the realm, and to no other uses whatsoever. Ser- 
 vices according to the Book of Common Prayer had already 
 been begun ; and churchmen appealed for their rights of 
 'worship. One of the leading spirits in the embyro congrega- 
 tion was Colonel Robert Quary, whose gift of altar vessels 
 of silver is still constantly used in the parish. With encour- 
 agement from Francis Nicholson, Governor of Maryland, 
 advance was made and the first church edifice was built 
 of substantial brick. The movement attracted the atten- 
 tion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of 
 Eondon, and notably of the Rev. Thomas Bray, D. D., the 
 earnest friend of the Anglican Church in the colonies. 
 At the instance of the latter, Bishop Conipton of London 
 
2 Bi-Ceiitennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 sent over the first priest, the Rev. Thomas Clayton. The 
 present, which is the second edifice of the parish, dates 
 from so early as 1727. 
 
 The church thus founded has become the mother church 
 not only of Philadelphia, but of the dioceses of Pennsylva- 
 nia. Nay, more. Located in a city which grew to be the 
 colonial metropolis, and which eventually became the first 
 settled capital of the new nation, Christ Church has a 
 unique relation to the formative events of American national 
 history. As the church of Washington, Franklin and other 
 of our heroes it is endeared to all Americans. Churchmen 
 may well be pardoned a sense of pride that a parish of the 
 Church is so richly associated with patriotic memories. But 
 churchmen cannot forget that here occurred events notable 
 in Church as well as State. For in Christ Church, our 
 branch of the Catholic Church which is in communion 
 with the archepiscopal see of St. Augustine, was definitely 
 and finally organized into the Church in the United States. 
 Here the Constitution and the Prayer Book of the American 
 Church were adopted. 
 
 The Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, was, not unnat- 
 urally, an event of interest to Philadelphians, to Penn- 
 sylvanians, and to churchmen throughout the United 
 States. The press of Philadelphia and of the country gave 
 notable attention to the octave of services which constitu- 
 ted the celebration. The sermons and addresses were rich 
 with historic reference and illustration ; and the interest felt 
 in the occasion was so wide and so deep, that a general 
 demand arose for the preservation of a permanent record. 
 
 Through the Christ Church Historical Association these 
 pages are ofiered to the public as such record. We may all 
 iinite in hope and expectation, that through the blessing of 
 the God of our fathers, the ancient parish will continue and 
 increase its usefulness to future generations, and come in 
 time to celebrate many another centennial anniversary. 
 
 C. E. S. 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 1895. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17. 
 
 ^N Sunday morning, November 17th, at 11 o'clock, 
 the first of the octave of services in commemora- 
 tion of the two hundredth anniversary of Christ 
 Church was held in the church. There were present the 
 Rector, the Rev. C. Ellis Stevens, LD. D., D. C. L. ; the 
 Rector's Assistant, the Rev. E. Gaines Nock ; the preacher 
 for the occasion, the Rev. William J. Seabury, D. D., Pro- 
 fessor of Ecclesiastical Polity in the General Theological 
 vSeminary, New York, great-grandson of the Rt. Rev. 
 Samuel Seabury, D. D., first Bishop of Connecticut, 
 Presiding Bishop of the Church in the United States ; and 
 the celebrant, the Rev. James Alan Montgomery, Assistant 
 Minister of St. Peter's Church, son of Thomas H. Mont- 
 gomery, Esq. (long a warden of Christ Church), and great- 
 great-grandson of the Rt. Rev. William White, D. D., 
 first Bishop of Pennsylvania, Presiding Bishop of the 
 Church in the United States. The Rector and his Assist- 
 ant conducted the morning service. The Rev. Mr. Mont- 
 gomery, as representing Bishop White, celebrated the Holy 
 Eucharist, assisted by the Rector, and by the Rev. Dr. 
 Seabury as representing Bishop Seabury. The congrega- 
 tion on this, as at nearly all public services of the octave, 
 filled the venerable edifice to its utmost capacity. The 
 sermon of the Rev. Dr. Seabur)' was as follows : 
 
4 Bi-Centen7tial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 SERMON OF THE REV. DR. SEABURY. 
 
 All things are double one against another, and He hath made 
 nothing imperfect. 
 
 One thing establisheth the good of another, and who shall be filled 
 with beholding His Glory? — Ecclus. xlii, 24, 25. 
 
 In extolling the glories of the Almighty, the wise Author 
 of this wonderful book here directs our attention to a cer- 
 tain characteristic of the Divine wisdom, manifested in 
 His creation and ordering of the Universe. The perfec- 
 tion of His work is shown in the relation of the objects of 
 creative power to each other. There is nothing in the 
 ordering of the Divine wisdom which works alone and 
 by itself, but each operation involves and depends upon 
 some other operation which is essential to its completeness 
 and perfection. All things are double, one against another, 
 and one thing establisheth the good of another. 
 
 Either by way of harmony or of contrast, the perfect 
 effect of the Divine wisdom is shown by this correlation 
 of operation. lyight and darkness, summer and winter, 
 seed-time and harvest, succeed one another, not merely in 
 sequence of time but because, in the Divine wisdom, 
 neither could produce its full effect for us without its rela- 
 tion to the other. In the natural world this relation and 
 fitness of things to each other is wonderfully manifested ; 
 and that is found to be a pervading order which is expressed 
 in the highest act of creative power, when it is said that 
 " in the image of God made He man — male and female 
 created He them." 
 
 So in the realm of abstract truth, whether we have 
 regard to philosophy or morals or religion, we find the same 
 correlation — insomuch that no principle can be understood 
 or applied without the due consideration of some other prin- 
 ciple by which its operation is limited or qualified. There 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Cicurch, Philadelphia. 5 
 
 are principles which may seem to the thoughtless to be 
 merely contradictory or mutually destructive. Yet the 
 wise can see that each is infallibly true, and must be with- 
 out question accepted : and thus he is lifted up to adore 
 the wisdom which is shown in the preservation of that 
 balance of the two which produces results which either by 
 itself would prevent. 
 
 And when we look at the order of society, or of any 
 department of society which is established by the will of 
 man, we find the wisdom of such order most manifest when 
 most regard is paid to the preservation of this balance in 
 the application to human action of those principles which, 
 however they may seem to work in opposite directions, 
 are yet in themselves equally important to human welfare. 
 Such administration is, after all, but the application to the 
 needs of men at any given time and place of those natural 
 principles of justice which, by the Divine wisdom, have 
 been made essential in the relations of men to each other 
 — for here also He hath made all things double one against 
 another, and one thing establisheth the good of another. 
 
 And so with regard to that department of society which 
 we call the Church. The Divine mercy has made provi- 
 sion for the association of men in a covenant relation with 
 the Father, based upon the merits of the Atoning Sacrifice 
 of the Son : and by the grace of the Holy Spirit men are 
 enabled to keep that covenant and be accepted in the 
 Beloved. To men thus associated are revealed those prin- 
 ciples of truth and order which are essential to the preserva- 
 tion of their privilege ; and all that the will of man can 
 do in the formation and regulation of the several parts of 
 such association is so to arrange the system in which they 
 work as best to ensure the application of these pre-existing 
 principles. In other words, while we cannot speak of the 
 Church in any day or place as established by the will of 
 
6 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 man, because it is already established by the Divine will ; 
 yet we may regard the form and manner of administration 
 as the proper object of human care and authority, and may 
 allow that there is a certain range or scope of action in 
 which men of different times and places may apply the 
 principles which they have received to hold, and pass over 
 to succeeding generations. A nd as there is alv/ays in these 
 principles a certain relation of truth to counter truth,' so 
 there will always be among men who seek to apply these 
 principles a proneness to dwell, some upon the one and 
 some upon the other aspect of the truth : and thus there 
 will always be the need of that wisdom in the counsels of 
 the Church which can reflect the wisdom of its Divine 
 Founder in the preservation of that just balance of prin- 
 ciples which is essential to the perpetuation of right rule. 
 No reflecting person can consider the Church in whose 
 sacred rites we join to-day, without perceiving the mani- 
 festation of this wisdom in a remarkable degree. The 
 great principles of Divine grace and human free will ; of 
 the need of faith and the use of reason ; of Sacramental 
 grace and personal sanctity ; of external evidence and 
 inward assurance ; of the sufSciency of scripture and the 
 completeness of the traditional faith ; of the grace of the 
 Holy Spirit in ordination and the inward movement of 
 him who comes to seek it by the same Spirit ; of the 
 Divine gift in Confirmation and the renewal of the human 
 covenant ; of regeneration in Baptism and the evil infec- 
 tion which remaineth even in them that are regenerate ; 
 of the One Oblation of Christ, once offered, and the con- 
 tinual presentation of that Offering by means of His own 
 appointment, — such principles as these may serve as in- 
 stances of the faithfulness with which the Church maintains 
 
 1 Cf. " Truth and Counter Truth ;" an admirable tractate by Rev. 
 Thos. Richey, D.D. 
 
Bi-Centemiial of Christ Clncrch^ Philadelphia. 7 
 
 the just balance of correlative truths ; swerving neither to 
 the one side nor to the other by an exclusive tenure of one 
 truth without regard to that which has been made double 
 over against it. Herein, too, lies the reason and the 
 measure, of what is sometimes, with a misleading applica- 
 tion, called the comprehensiveness of the Church : for the 
 Church is rightly to be regarded as comprehensive, not 
 because it insists upon no particular doctrine or principle 
 of truth, and receives within its communion and orders all 
 who would profess or teach whatever may seem to them to 
 be truth ; but because it maintains truth in its entirety, 
 and, recognizing the equal truth of correlative principles, 
 will not exclude those whose perception may not enable 
 them fully to adjust every truth to its counter-truth, but 
 receives such with the firmness of a true teaching, coupled 
 with the charity of the hope of their ultimate acceptance 
 of all its lessons. 
 
 If such be the wisdom which the Church has learned 
 from the workings of its Divine Founder, may we not 
 justly admire the application of this wisdom wherever in 
 measure and degree we may observe it, and be ready both 
 to emulate the example which is thus presented to us, and 
 to be thankful for that ordering of the Divine Providence 
 which has made it manifest ? 
 
 It is not the least of all the glories of this venerable fane 
 which it is our present purpose to commemorate, that from 
 it have proceeded many influences which have helped to 
 establish the Church in this country in the possession of 
 that fulness or completeness of truth and order which makes 
 it especially worthy of our affectionate admiration, and 
 which have resulted from the harmonious combination of 
 opposing principles. It is in connection at least with the 
 history of this church that such harmonious combination 
 has been accomplished, and we may fitly embrace the occa- 
 
8 Bi-Ce7itennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 sion to recall the honour which is due to the place as being 
 eminently distinguished b)' so remarkable an association. 
 
 The service in which we are engaged to-day introduces 
 us to a very wide range of commemorative thoughts. 
 Beginning with the foundation of the parish in 1695, when 
 the re-settlement of 1688 in England had just prepared the 
 way for the sturdier growth, if not for the planting, of con- 
 stitutional ideas which had a marked effect upon the mould- 
 ing of both Church and State in the colonies ; continuing 
 through the struggle for existence, amidst prejudice and op- 
 position which had almost reduced the Church to extinction; 
 watching over and fostering the growth and expansion of the 
 Church under the new relations in which our Revolution 
 had placed it, including within its communion and counsels 
 many of the most eminent in civil affairs ; and standing for 
 half a century', through its connection with the patriarchal 
 White, in a relation no less than that of a Canterbury to the 
 whole of this great American province ; Christ Church 
 touches in its history, at one point or another, almost every 
 vital interest that belongs to us as churchmen or as citizens. 
 
 It has appeared to me an act of most gracious courtesy, as 
 well as of suggestive significance, on the part of the authori- 
 ties of this church, to include with their proposed com- 
 memoration the name of Bishop Seabur}^, who lived remote 
 from this place, and whose line of life touched that of this 
 parish only on one notable occasion. The connection neces- 
 sarily suggests the bearing of the histor\' of this church 
 upon that which is of common interest to the Church of the 
 whole countr}^ I ask, therefore, to be permitted to select 
 from the great range of associations which flow out from the 
 life of this venerable parish one which relates especially 
 neither to the beginning nor to the later years of your his- 
 tory, but which brings more prominently into view the 
 period midwaj- between these — a period for which the times 
 
Bi-Centen?tial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 9 
 
 which are in God's hands had been preparing from the 
 beginning, and whose effects upon subsequent histor}' have 
 been abundant and abiding. 
 
 In this sacred place, in the year of our Lord 1789, was 
 organized the first General Convention, properly so called, 
 consisting of representatives of the Church in several States 
 of the Civil Union, duly authorized and empowerd to confirm 
 and ratify a general constitution, respecting both doctrine 
 and discipline, for the use and benefit and obligation of 
 every Church in a State which was represented in such 
 Convention and acceded to its authority/ 
 
 Other meetings of clergy and laity from different States 
 to confer in regard to an ecclesiastical union had been held 
 between 1784 and 1786 ; but those who attended such meet- 
 ings, while they called them Conventions, as in a lax sense 
 they might, were not possessed of the right to bind their 
 constituents. All that they agreed upon had to be referred 
 back for the consent of the Church in the States repre- 
 sented, and therefore their measures rested upon recommen- 
 dation only, and had no authority. 
 
 In the Convention of 1789 the case was different; and 
 what was there determined was agreed upon and ratified 
 with all the authority which the Church in the States could 
 confer. Nor was there any other authority by which the 
 common Constitution could be made effectually binding 
 upon the Church in any State, except what might be derived 
 from its own consent and ratification, thus expressed. That 
 the Church existing in the several States composing the 
 Civil Union was the same Church which had existed in the 
 colonies before the Revolution, and that so existing in the 
 colonies, it was a part of the Church of England, and as 
 such under obligation of conformity to the general princi- 
 ples of faith and order which underlie the administration 
 
 ^ Bioron's Journals, pp. 26-4S. 
 
lo Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy PhiladelpJiia. 
 
 of the Catholic Church of Christ, is true. But whether 
 those general principles were to be administered by the 
 Church in each State for itself alone, or, for that matter, in 
 lesser or other groups, who could authoritatively determine ? 
 The only common bond, so far as external government was 
 concerned, in the Church in the colonies had been found 
 in the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, who repre- 
 sented the oversight of the English episcopate. When, in 
 the course of Divine Providence, these States became free 
 and independent that jurisdiction in fact was no longer 
 exercised. During the war it was in abeyance ; at the con- 
 clusion of the war it was practically abandoned. The re- 
 strlt was the existence of a number of congregations, with 
 the presbyters respectively in charge of them, living in the 
 communion of the Church of England, adhering to its faith 
 and order, but without the possession of the episcopate, 
 and so without that common bond which would have suf- 
 ficed to keep them in union with each other. Until the 
 episcopate could be supplied to them, and so "locally- 
 adapted " as to ensure their unity, what hindered these 
 clergy and congregations from falling into confusion and 
 anarchy ? What hindered them, as Bishop White puts it, 
 from " taking different courses in different places as to all 
 things not necessary to salvation? which might have pro- 
 duced different liturgies, different articles, episcopacy from 
 different sources, and, in short, very many churches, instead 
 of one extending over the United States." ' 
 
 Shall we attribute our deliverance from these evils to the 
 good sense of the people ; to the strength of the persuasion 
 of the moral unity of those who, although politically dis- 
 tinct, were yet of one blood, of one language, and of one 
 faith ; to the wise statesmanship of noble spirits, and, pre- 
 eminent among these, of Bishop White himself? Yes, 
 
 1 Bishop White's Memoirs, p. gS. Ed. 1836. 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy PhiladelpJiia. ii 
 
 truly, to each of these in its own degree. Yet all these are 
 but secondary causes, operating under the will of that 
 Divine Providence which had prepared the field for the 
 Avork which was to be done in it. The course of history 
 which had given to each colony its chartered right of 
 individual existence, to each State its independent freedom 
 and sovereignty, had enabled the members of the Church 
 in every State to realize their unity with each other, and 
 so to recognize one obvious restraint upon individualism. 
 The course of history, enacted before their own eyes, and 
 in great part by their own agency, which had formed ONE 
 out of MANY, demonstrating the possibility of unity of 
 authority, consistently with the reservation of a severalty 
 of right, had shown the way for the members of the 
 Church in any State to establish a community of interest 
 and authority with the Church in every other State, with- 
 out forfeiting or merging its own individuality. So the 
 wisdom which hath made all things double one against 
 another, taught our predecessors in the Church to bring 
 order out of chaos, or rather to prevent chaos by the 
 preservation of order, by walking straight in the path 
 ■which the Divine Providence had prepared for them : and 
 in the absence of the episcopate, which had been tempor- 
 arily withdrawn from them, to follow the principles and 
 precedents of association which were directly before them. 
 And while the Church in each State preserved its individ- 
 ual right and authority over its own members, it joined 
 with others in constituting a common form of government 
 which should operate with direct authority upon every 
 individual member of all. The episcopate was no more 
 disregarded, or intended to be disregarded, in the system 
 than the matter of the faith itself; but it was not the epis- 
 copate which produced this union. Without the previous 
 operation of the episcopate, the Church in these States 
 
12 Bi-Centeiinial of Owist Chiirch^ Philadelphia. 
 
 could never have existed. Without its subsequent opera- 
 ation the Church in these States could not have continued 
 to exist. But in the Providence of God the episcopate, as 
 such, was not a factor in the production of that ecclesi- 
 astical union which made ONE out of MANY in the 
 constitution of the Church existing in the States thus 
 associated. What established that ecclesiastical union 
 was the voluntary and federative action of the Church in 
 those States by their duly authorized representatives who 
 came together here in 1789 ; and the means by which they 
 accomplished that result was the adoption of a written 
 Constitution — one great act — one grand bond of perpetual 
 union, whose several parts can never be anything but com- 
 ponents of one entirety, no matter with how many sibilants 
 its name may be stigmatized. The mind which was used 
 by God's Providence for the conception of this plan, and 
 which was enabled by God's grace to be chiefly instrumen- 
 tal in its accomplishment was that of the then Rector of 
 Christ Church. May his memory' be forever blessed, and 
 may this great memorial of him be in substance forever 
 preserved, and defended from all things which are not 
 legitimately deduced from the principles involved in it. 
 
 I said that the episcopate, as such, was not a factor in 
 the production of this union, but of course I shall not be 
 understood as saying that bishops had no part in the estab- 
 lishment of it — much less that the right and authority of 
 their order was excluded by it. 
 
 When the Constitution was adopted in August, 1789, 
 there were bishops in two of the Churches engaged in the 
 union, viz.: of Pennsylvania and New York. When it was 
 adopted, as amended, in October of the same year, there 
 were bishops in three of the Churches so concerned, viz. : 
 of Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York. In the 
 draft Constitution of 17S5 and 1786 provision was made 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 13 
 
 for the membership in the Convention of the bishop in 
 every State in which one should be consecrated and settled. 
 In the Constitution of 1789, provision was made for the 
 formation of a separate Episcopal House, when there should 
 be three or more bishops. Their connection with the sys- 
 tem was contemplated by those who formed it from the 
 beginning : but in this formation the contemplation was 
 as of the future, and not as of the present ; and naturally 
 it underwent a process of development in which the epis- 
 copal influence and position attained more just proportion 
 to the whole. The germinal idea of the whole system was 
 in fact conceived, and to some extent elaborated, by Dr. 
 White, on the supposition of the impossibility of obtaining 
 bishops : in which supposed necessity, and during its con- 
 tinuance, their place was to be supplied by temporary sub- 
 stitutes. When the necessity imagined was proved not to 
 exist, this feature of course was abandoned ; but so far as 
 the union of the Churches in the States, and the applica- 
 tion of the authority of all to the members of each was 
 involved in the system, it was a matter apart from and 
 independent of episcopal influence and action. 
 
 Naturally under these circumstances, when that came to 
 be realized which had all along been anticipated, there 
 were serious questions to be answered, and, indeed, 
 momentous issues to be settled. 
 
 There was here an epoch in the history of the Church. 
 Never in the whole course of that history had such an 
 event occurred as that the clergy and laity of a whole 
 country should undertake the process of association, con- 
 stituting an organic unity of administration for themselves, 
 without bishops — upon whom as the successors of the 
 Apostles devolve the right and the duty of maintaining 
 and perpetuating such organic unity. Such a position 
 might find precedent, to be sure, in communities detached 
 
14 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 from the body of the Church to which they belonged, and 
 withdrawn from the episcopal communion and regimen. 
 But such is not the case here presented. These men were 
 still within the episcopal communion : and that they were 
 not still under episcopal oversight resulted from no fault 
 or intention of their own. They felt themselves obliged 
 to do, so far as they could, of their own motion, that which 
 had they been duly supplied with bishops it would doubt- 
 less not have occurred to them to do. And seeing that, in 
 what they did, they intruded upon no spiritual function of 
 the Apostolic Office, nor laid unlawful hands upon what 
 the Divine Founder of the Church had kept within the 
 gift of His own consecrated succession, I humbly conceive 
 that they were called of God to do what they did. 
 
 Known unto God are all His works. We are fain to 
 lament the failure of the Church of England to supply 
 the episcopate to these colonies. There is just ground of 
 complaint, for many reasons and in several points of view. 
 But when men will not do the right which they ought and 
 which there seems no sufficient reason to avoid, we must 
 be content to believe that some reason exists in the Divine 
 wisdom which prevents the accomplishment by the Divine 
 Providence of that which is simply and in itself good. 
 Is it not obvious, as we now look back upon the colonial 
 period, and the period of organization which it introduced, 
 that if England had sent us the bishops whom we had a 
 right to have it would have prevented, if not destroyed, 
 the opportunity which the Revolution brought to us? 
 Had there been so much as one bishop exercising through- 
 out the colonies that oversight which had belonged to the 
 Bishop of London, and succeeding to his jurisdiction, he 
 would have brought with him and perpetuated more or 
 less of that association with temporal power and rule which 
 has always been the bane of the episcopate since the time 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 15 
 
 of Constantine. And there would have been the further 
 consequence of the combination or fusion of the whole 
 number of his followers into a single community, so that 
 there could be no probable discrimination of them into 
 various constituencies, such as now is, and from the begin- 
 ning has been the safeguard of our system against the 
 arbitrary power, as well of popular majorities as of official 
 action. Now, by the blessing of God, having endured the 
 discipline of His temporary restraint of privilege, we have 
 not only to be thankful for a " free, valid, and purely 
 ecclesiastical episcopacy," but also for such a distribution 
 of power as furnishes the most salutary possible check upon 
 the tyrannous application of the common authority to the 
 individual Christian. 
 
 The ordeal of those who made the epoch, however, was 
 very great ; and it is not easy for us to understand all that 
 they felt. In regard to this matter of the episcopate and 
 its place in the system, it is manifest that there were two 
 ideas ; and if one was not exactly double against the other 
 in the true sense of those words, at least one established 
 the good of the other. 
 
 There has been floating in the minds of many since the 
 Reformation the idea that the episcopate, however it may 
 be desirable, is not necessary to the being of the Church. 
 In such minds — I speak of those who accept, and not who 
 reject episcopacy — there is apt to be present, with more or 
 less vividness, the vision of a case in which episcopacy 
 cannot be had : and they found a question upon this as to 
 the propriety of insisting upon that as necessary, which in 
 a case of necessity mvist be dispensed with. It may be 
 safely said that no such case has ever arisen, or can arise, 
 except under the most limited and transient circumstances, 
 not affecting the perpetuity of the order. But perhaps 
 there never were better grounds for the apprehension that 
 
i6 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 this anticipated exigency had arrived than there were at the 
 time now under consideration. 
 
 The idea, which is the antithesis of this, is that the epis- 
 copate, since it is necessary to the being of the Church, 
 cannot fail : and the working of these two ideas is well 
 illustrated in this period. While there were some that 
 took pains to provide against the contingency of the failure, 
 or of a still indefinite postponement, there were others that 
 rested not until they had taken effectual means to prevent 
 that failure. Hence came to pass that difference of opinion 
 in regard to the propriety and feasibility of the organization 
 whose consummation is now commemorated, which was so 
 quaintly and happily expressed by Bishop White when he 
 said that, while it was maintained by some that we should 
 " first have an head, and then proceed to regulate the body."^ 
 It was rejoined by others, " Let us gather the scattered 
 limbs, and then let the head be super-added." The latter 
 counsel prevailed in the Middle and Southern States ; the 
 former was acted upon by Connecticut, and sustained in 
 the other Eastern States. Immediately upon the first 
 tidings of peace, the clergy of Connecticut took their 
 stand, and believing that the causes which had hindered 
 the gift of the episcopate were now removed, made choice 
 of a presbyter for that promotion ; and before the last of 
 the retreating forces had left the coast Dr. Seabury had 
 sailed for England in quest of consecration. This action 
 took place in March, 1783, a year before the first step 
 toward the gathering of the scattered limbs had been 
 taken. The consecration, as you know, was not obtained 
 in England, but after a patient waiting of sixteen months 
 in that country, it was obtained from the bishops of the 
 Catholic remainder of the ancient Church of Scotland, as 
 
 Bp. White's Memoirs, p. 9S. 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 17 
 
 they pathetically styled themselves. The consequences of 
 this consecration, far-reaching in many respects, most 
 directly affected the organization under consideration : for 
 first, it demonstrated the possibility of consecration, and 
 thus removed from the weak in this country and the politic 
 in England, the excuse for assuming the necessity of doing 
 without bishops ; and secondly, it crj^stallized the Diocesan 
 State idea, and led to the conspicuous manifestation of the 
 federative character of the ecclesiastical union, by pre- 
 senting the spectacle of a complete Church within one 
 State, voluntarily and upon conditions acceding to the 
 Constitution already adopted by others for their common 
 government. 
 
 And the combination of this episcopacy with that after- 
 wards obtained from the English bishops, united in one 
 the sometime divergent lines of the Scotch and English 
 successions, and welded these twain, which had long been 
 one against the other, into an indissoluble unity in this 
 country, which was not without its healing effect in the 
 lands from which they came. 
 
 But the wisdom which hath made all things double, one 
 against another, and in which one thing establisheth the 
 good of another, guided our forefathers most effectually in' 
 respect to the balance attained in our system of the two 
 correlative principles of the authority and the duty of 
 rulers. Perhaps better words might be used to denote 
 these two principles, but I can think of no others more apt. 
 It is incident to the possession of power that there should 
 be a tendency to a tyrannical abuse of it. It is incident to 
 the rightful resistance of tyranny, that there should be a 
 tendency to the rejection of lawful authority. The battle 
 has been fought all along through the ages, and must be 
 fought while human nature lasts. Kappy are those who 
 live under the needful restraints of a just authority, and 
 
1 8 Bi-Ceniennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 who can retain their own just right of freedom, without 
 depriving others of their just right to rule. 
 
 You know how largely this battle has been concerned 
 with questions of episcopal power. I need not recite to 
 you the stories of the strife of Investitures, of Puritanical 
 protests against Prelatical pretensions, of the apprehension 
 and dread of the introduction of the episcopate into this 
 country, the intensity of which was not the least of the 
 moving causes of the Revolution which produced our 
 independence. I need only point out to you that, in the 
 Providence of God, it came to pass here that the Church 
 found itself under the shelter of a civil power, which, for 
 the first time since Constantine embraced Christianity, 
 declined — either on the plea of conscience or of policy — 
 to meddle with the affairs of the Church, and assumed an 
 attitude altogether external to it. And it was the very 
 basis of this civil system of which the members of this 
 Church were a part, that a just government must steady 
 itself by the consent of the governed. The statesmanlike 
 perception of Bishop White, and those who were associated 
 with him, divined the bearing of these facts upon the needs 
 of the Church, and seizing the principles involved in them 
 they embedded them in the verj' foundation of the system 
 which they established. Thenceforth the laity of the 
 Church exercised for themslves the powers in which 
 Christian princes had before acted as their representatives, 
 and thenceforth the divinely constituted authority of the 
 Apostolic Office is administered under the divinely imposed 
 limitation of the duty of consultation with inferior Orders 
 and laity ; which involves, in all matters pertaining to 
 jurisdiction, as distinguished from order, the correlation of 
 the principles of a supreme authority derived from God 
 and not from the people, and of the right of the people to 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 19 
 
 formulate their own consent in lawful ways to measures to 
 which they are to be required to yield obedience. 
 
 In the settlement of this Constitution it was one of the 
 most important of the steps to be taken that proper pro- 
 vision should be made for the continuance of a common 
 form of worship, and a commonly accepted statement of 
 those principles of faith and doctrine which worship in- 
 volves and implies. It was, indeed, the most important 
 step which could be taken. If nothing else had been ac- 
 complished, the adoption, for perpetual use, of the Book 
 of Common Prayer, with all the principles of faith and 
 order which are embodied in it, would have sufficed to 
 establish the union on the soundest and most enduring 
 foundation. 
 
 It is well known that the Book of Common Pra5'er was 
 originally the result of an endeavor to establish the uni- 
 formity of the Divine worship among a people who were 
 accustomed in various places to various uses. It is, perhaps, 
 not so generally known that there was some reason to 
 apprehend in the origin of the American system, that the 
 custom of various uses in different places might again pre- 
 vail. The Proposed Book, the result of a revision at the 
 meeting of clerical and lay delegates in 1785, was set 
 forth by that meeting as a provisional use ; and, being 
 published in 1786, was by the delegates in that year sanc- 
 tioned until more authoritative provision should be made. 
 At the Convocation in Connecticut in the same year Bishop 
 Seabur}- set forth a Communion ofiice, recommending it to 
 the Episcopal congregations in that State, provision having 
 been previously made for such changes in other parts of 
 the services as had appeared to be needed.^ In both of 
 these directions much more was contemplated than the 
 
 1 Cf. Rev. Dr. Samuel Hart's Historical Sketch in his edition of Bp. 
 Seabury's Communion Office. 
 
20 Bi-Centetmial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 mere adaptation of the English book to American con- 
 ditions, and in different ways it was sought to improve the 
 occasion by what were respectively regarded as beneficial 
 changes. It was the privilege of the General Convention 
 of 1789, assembled with power to ratify a book which 
 would be accepted as authoritative by the Churches in the 
 several States, and including in its counsels the sanction 
 of the episcopate, without which no liturg}- could have 
 ecclesiastical force, to determine the unifonn and common 
 manner of public worship, and to recognize the principles 
 of faith and order which the right conduct of that worship 
 involved. From this great act and, as it were, from under 
 the shadow of this holy place have flowed out, as from a 
 well of living water, those blessed and refreshing streams 
 which have ever since satisfied devout souls that have been 
 athirst for God in every part of this vast land and through- 
 out the world in which its missions ha\-e spread. I may 
 not enlarge upon the blessedness of this Divinely aided 
 act. I would only be permitted to point out that here also 
 we find the traces of that Divine wisdom which hath made 
 all things double one against another, and hath made one 
 thing establish the good of another. 
 
 For in worship, as in other provisions of the Divine will 
 for man, there are two ideas not so much contradictory as 
 complementary of each other ; and these indicate principles 
 in the proper balance of which only can right be found. 
 The direct uplifting of the soul to God is the essence of all 
 worship, and that only which makes the outward expres- 
 sion sincere and effectual in the individual case. But the 
 outward expression, besides being the necessar}- attribute 
 of a common or public worship, is also the natural means 
 by which the inward consciousness of adoration is enlivened 
 and made effective. 
 
 In the reaction from excessive formalism which followed 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 2i 
 
 the Reformation, the inward or subjective idea acquired 
 undue inportance in the minds of men, and it was forgotten 
 or overlooked that, in those primitive ages of the Church, 
 in which the inward spirit had been most devout, the out- 
 ward manifestations of it were most rich and exuberant. 
 Particularly in regard to the Holy Eucharist — the central 
 point of all worship — was this true : and the tendency 
 brought with it the obscuring of all conceptions of its 
 character except such as were connected with the exercise 
 of the inward emotions. Its refreshment was in the men- 
 tal remembrance of the Atonement of the Redeemer ; its 
 character of worship was not in the act itself, but in the 
 thankful sentiments which the observance of the act 
 engendered. So it was not strange that the sacrificial 
 aspect of the Eucharist, as being the means appointed by 
 Christ Himself for the presentation of His Sacrifice for a 
 perpetual memorial to the Father, should be lost sight of, 
 and other aspects of that Holy Sacrament, just enough in 
 themselves, should alone be considered. 
 
 It was the recovery of the true balance of these ideas, 
 by the restoration of the oblation and invocation in the 
 Eucharistic office, which was brought about by the adop- 
 tion, in this convention, of the Prayer of Consecration, as 
 it had been derived, through Bishop Seabury's office, from 
 the Scottish Church, which had adhered in substance to 
 that primitive and Catholic form, the revival of which had 
 been among the glories of the Reformation in the first 
 Prayer Book of Edward VI, but which, under Puritanical 
 pressure, had been pared to the quick in the second book 
 of that reign. For this blessed restoration we are, under 
 God, chiefly indebted to Bishop Seabury, who had pre- 
 served, and shaped, and exemplified, and urged with 
 respectful insistence this venerable and sacred tradition. 
 But in this place, and under these circumstances, we may 
 
22 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 not forget our obligations also to the Rev. Dr. William 
 Smith, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, the 
 president of the House of Deputies, for so impressively 
 reading the prayer before that body that all prejudice 
 against it was disarmed ■} nor may we here, more than 
 elsewhere, forget our obligations to Bishop White for his 
 cheerful co-operation in this particular with Bishop Seabury 
 in the episcopal house, and for the unfailing charity and 
 good sense which could see no superstition in these ancient 
 forms, and which, even if indisposed himself to accept 
 them in their full sense, prevented him from hindering 
 others from the benefit of them. 
 
 If you can pardon, dear brethren, the dryness of some 
 of the details which could not well be avoided in a task 
 of this sort, I trust that you will be deeply impressed, as I 
 mj'self am, with the consciousness of the profound grati- 
 tude which we owe to our forefathers of the period to 
 which I have referred, as the point at which the wise and 
 holy influences which have emanated from Christ Church 
 have touched the most vital and tender interests of the 
 Church of Christ in our whole communion in this country. 
 
 By others you will doubtless in the course of this com- 
 memoration be reminded of many other particulars of 
 your parish traditions. The present reference to them 
 has seemed best suited to the effort which it has been 
 devolved on me to make. There is nothing, I am per- 
 suaded, more notable or more important in the contempla- 
 tion of what God hath wrought for the Church in this 
 country than the understanding of the complex character 
 which has been impressed upon it by Him whose wisdom 
 hath made all things double one against another. And 
 while there are manj- great and honourable names connected 
 with the epoch which we have considered, yet the names 
 
 "Christ Church in the Revolution," sermon by Bishop Perrj,-. 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 23 
 
 of those two, to whom so frequent reference has been made, 
 must ever stand as the chief exponents of that harmony 
 or balance of correlative truth for which this Church is 
 perhaps most eminently conspicuous in the Christian 
 world. I thank God that the symbolism of this harmony 
 is noted on this day by the ministrations in this place of 
 a priestly descendant of each of these two brethren in the 
 episcopate, and that, as the elder serving the younger, I 
 may be permitted to receive the Bread of Ivife consecrated 
 in the form associated with the name of Seabury, from the 
 hands of a descendant of White. I pray God to bless his 
 priesthood to his own eternal peace, and the comfort and 
 salvation of many souls. 
 
 May He, in whose wisdom all things are double one 
 against another and who hath made nothing imperfect, 
 sanctify with His continual grace, and protect with His 
 perpetual providence the church which has thus far been 
 by Him enabled so fully to reflect His own wisdom, and to 
 constitute and perpetuate a system which hands down to 
 succeeding ages the Catholic verities of a venerable and 
 primitive tradition, and brings to bear upon the difiiculties 
 of their application to modern times the wise discretion of 
 a sanctified reason, which not only proves all things, but 
 also holds fast that which is good. 
 
 And may this holy place, in which so eminently one 
 thing has been made to establish the good of another, be 
 preserved in its good work of faith and love until the end 
 of time shall come, and in the brightness of the beatific 
 vision of God, they that have learned and loved the truth 
 shall be forever filled with beholding His glory. 
 
24 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 ADDRESS BY THE REV. DR. STEVENS. 
 
 On the afternoon of Sunday, November lytli, a service 
 was held for children of the parish. The Rector, the Rev. 
 Dr. Stevens, delivered an extemporaneous address. He 
 detailed scenes in the history of the church, beginning 
 with a description of the primeval forest that originally 
 occupied the site, and of the Indians who were accustomed 
 to perform savage dances and other rites at a pond near by. 
 He narrated the incorporation by King Charles II in the 
 charter of Pennsylvania granted to William Penn of the 
 clause providing for services of the Church of England, by 
 right of which Christ Church had been founded. He 
 recounted the history of the colonial period, referring to 
 the use of the church as the official place of worship of 
 the colonial governors, and eventually of the Penn family. 
 The colonial wars were alluded to, and the fact that the 
 parishioners had sent powder and bullets to fight the French 
 and Indians in the Seven Years' War, and had delayed the 
 building of the spire in order to do so. The grave of Gen. 
 Forbes, who commanded the successful expedition that 
 captured Fort Duquesne, was pointed out in the chancel. 
 The erection of the spire by a committee, of which Frank- 
 lin was an active member, was told. Then followed an 
 account of the relation of Christ Church to the Revolu- 
 tionary- War ; of the meeting in the church of the Conti- 
 nental Congress, and of the ringing of the bells in welcome 
 of the Declaration of Independence. The time of the 
 making of the Constitution of the United States was also 
 referred to, and the presence in the church at that period of 
 many who were engaged in the great undertaking. 
 
 The narrative of subsequent events began with a descrip- 
 tion of the worshipping for six years in Christ Church of 
 
Bi-Centemiial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 25 
 
 the first President of the United States, George Washing- 
 ton, — regularly accompanied in the Washington Pew by- 
 Martha Washington. The singular fact was noted that 
 here also had worshipped Mrs. Ross, the maker of the first 
 American flag ; and Joseph Hopkinson, author of the 
 national hymn, "Hail Columbia." The presence in the 
 church of notable men of our history, including the Mar- 
 quis de Lafayette, was touched ; and the association of the 
 church with great names of the War of 181 2 and of the 
 Rebellion. Finally the relation of Christ Church to the 
 Church in the United States was dwelt upon, — this being 
 the spot where met the first House of Bishops and the first 
 House of Deputies ; where the American Church was organ- 
 ized, and its Constitution and Prayer Book adopted ; and 
 where, in later years, the General Convention officially cele- 
 brated the first centennial of our national communion. 
 
 MONDAY, NOVEMBER i8th. 
 
 On the morning of this day the Holy Eucharist was 
 celebrated at an early hour. In the evening there was a 
 festival for the Sunday-school in the Parish House. 
 
 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19th. 
 
 The early celebration of the Blessed Sacrament was 
 continued. In the evening a public function in connec- 
 tion with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania was held 
 in the church in the presence of a distinguished gathering. 
 The President of the Society, Charles J. Stille, LL.D., 
 
26 Bi-Ceiiiennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 ex-Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, was intro- 
 duced by the Rev. Dr. Stevens, and delivered an address 
 on "The Historical Relations of Christ Church with 
 Pennsylvania." 
 
 ADDRESS OF CHARLES J. STILLE, LL.D. 
 
 The history of the indirect influence of Christ Church 
 upon the lay element in Pennsylvania, in the provincial 
 era, is not as interesting nor as attractive a topic as the 
 ecclesiastical history proper of the church. The most 
 conspicuous examples of such influence are to be found in 
 the repeated but unsuccessful eSbrts made b}' members of 
 this congregation to persuade the King to subvert the 
 Proprietary government, the administration and policy of 
 which they alleged tended to destroy the exercise of their 
 rights and privileges, civil and religious, as free-bom 
 Englishmen. On four different occasions at least in 
 seventy years its members were the leaders of such a 
 movement, and I propose, in treating of the topic which 
 has been assigned to me, to explain why they adopted 
 such revolutionary measures to destroy the government 
 under which they lived. 
 
 The lay element in Philadelphia society in provincial 
 days belonging to the dominant religious sect, may be said 
 to have been for many years unfriendly to the doctrine and 
 discipline of the Church of England, and it watched the 
 growth in strength and power of Christ Church with sus- 
 picion and jealousy. From the beginning there were two 
 parties here : the Church party and the Quaker party. 
 The former contended that its opponent had usurped power 
 not granted by the Charter of the Province, to the mani- 
 fest injury of the civil and religious rights of other free- 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Clnirch^ Philadelphia. 27 
 
 born Englishmen. Strange to saj^, Christ Church, — although 
 flourishing for more than seventy years in a peaceful com- 
 munity, with absolute freedom of worship, the right to 
 which had never even been questioned by the Quaker 
 rulers of the Province nor by anyone else, — was in a very 
 important sense a Church Militant. Indeed, I do not think 
 it is going too far to say that in no American colony were 
 the Church and those who dissented from it during many 
 years placed in more open and violent antagonism. The 
 Quakers formed for a long time the dominant party in the 
 Province, and Churchmen alleged that it exercised at times 
 its power in such a way as to conflict with the traditional 
 religious beliefs and practices of the members of the 
 Established Church. The latter, feeble in number, con- 
 stantly resorted to the Imperial power in England to main- 
 tain what they claimed to be their civil and religious 
 rights and privileges. They petitioned the King to force 
 the Quaker magistrates to take such oaths of ofBce as were 
 customary and obligatory in England, and to which alone 
 they attributed any binding legal force here. They asked 
 that the juries and witnesses in the courts should come 
 under the same formal obligation, that the right of petition, 
 which they alleged the Quakers had set at naught, should 
 be maintained as sacred, and that they should be forced to 
 place the Province in a state of defence against the pirates 
 and Indians, by whose incursions they were threatened. 
 Feeling that there was little prospect of compelling the 
 Quakers to adopt any such measures of legislation in the 
 Provincial Assembly' as the emergency required, they 
 earnestly urged the King to dispossess the Proprietor, to 
 dissolve the existing government, and to govern Pennsyl- 
 vania henceforth as a Royal Province. 
 
 There is a popular opinion that the Provincial Regime 
 in Pennsylvania was marked not only by religious tolera- 
 
28 Bi-Cetitennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 tion, but by absolute religious freedom ; that there was, 
 during this provincial era, a kind of idN'llic tranquility and 
 harmony here, resulting from non-interference with the 
 religious rights and opinions of those who did not agree 
 with the ruling party. Those who hold such opinions for- 
 get that although William Penn, our founder, was the most 
 enlightened political philosopher of his time, and one of 
 the earliest advocates, since the days of the Emperor Con- 
 stantine, of absolute religious freedom, none of his succes- 
 sors in office held the same opinions as he. There was not 
 a Quaker among them. They and their Deputy Governors 
 during the whole Provincial Regime were strong adherents 
 of the English Church, as by law established, and in an 
 important sense special patrons of Christ Church. Their 
 notion of other people's religious rights did not extend 
 beyond the protection vouchsafed to Dissenters by the 
 English Toleration Act (so called) of 1689. They held 
 that the Quakers had no special power in this Province to 
 enlarge the indulgence granted by that Act. The history, 
 therefore, of the comparatively small body of Episcopalians 
 here, or of the members of Christ Church (for I use in this 
 paper the terms as equivalent), is a histor\' of strife for 
 objects which we may now think trivial, but which both 
 parties, two hundred j-ears ago, looked upon as fundamental. 
 It is, of course, not pleasant to recall the history- of more 
 than seventy years of religious discords, but I trust that we 
 are now far enough awa}- from the battle-field to describe 
 its scenes with impartialitj' and truth. If I am forced to 
 " rake iip the ashes of our fathers," I trust that it will not be 
 necessary- to disturb them further than to throw light upon 
 the scenes in which they were such conspicuous actors. 
 
 By the "great law" adopted by the freemen at Upland 
 in December, 1682, it was provided that " no person now 
 or hereafter li\-ing in the Pro\"ince, who shall confess one 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 29 
 
 Almighty God to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of 
 the world, and professeth himself or herself obliged in con- 
 science to live peaceably and justly under civil government, 
 shall in any wise be molested or prejudiced for his or her 
 conscientious persuasion and practices ; nor shall be obliged 
 at any time to frequent or maintain any religious worship, 
 place or ministry, contrary to his mind, but shall fully and 
 freely enjoy his or her liberty in that respect without any 
 interruption or molestation." This provision, it will be 
 observed, establishes religious toleration, not liberty. 
 
 Before the Charter was granted by the King, it was sub- 
 mitted to the Bishop of London, and an amendment was 
 made to it, at his instance, providing that that Bishop 
 should have power to appoint a chaplain for the service of 
 any congregation, consisting of not less than twenty persons, 
 who might desire such a minister. Out of the different 
 interpretation which was placed by the Quakers and by the 
 Church people on this innocent looking provision, arose all 
 the bitterness of the controversy which characterised the 
 relations of these religious bodies during the Provincial 
 era. There never was, it seems to me, a religious dispute 
 in which each side was more sincere in maintaining oppo- 
 site views. The Quakers insisted that the principal object 
 which Penn had in view in founding the colony was to 
 secure a place of refuge and safety for those of his followers 
 who were exposed to persecution in England, and where 
 they might with absolute freedom maintain their creed and 
 practice their profession ; that all acts of the government 
 should be subordinated to carrying out such a scheme, 
 called by its leader " the Holy Experiment," and that any 
 act of government, Imperial or Provincial, which inter- 
 preted the Charter in any other way, was repugnant to its 
 spirit, if not to its letter. 
 
30 Bi-Ce?itennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 The conditions imposed by law on the power of the 
 Ivegislative Assembly, and to which they all heartily agreed, 
 were that they should not deny liberty of worship to those 
 who differed from them and should not deprive any one 
 of his rights as an Englishman. The Quakers had, of 
 course, the entire control of the legislative body, and they 
 practically determined how far the privilege granted by the 
 Charter extended. In their early legislation here they made, 
 what turned out to be (as Penn had tried in vain to convince 
 them), a serious mistake, and that was by sometimes acting 
 as if this was a Quaker colony exclusively, possessed of 
 certain privileges to which, as refugees and as Quakers, 
 they considered themselves entitled, and to which all the 
 inhabitants must conform ; and not, as it really .was, in law 
 and in intention, a colony of free-born Englishmen, all of 
 whom were entitled to the privileges granted by the Charter, 
 as well as those common law rights of Englishmen which 
 they had not forfeited by crossing the sea, whether they 
 belonged to the Society of Friends or not. In those days 
 a limited toleration, strictly laid down by a formal statute, 
 was the only one which was recognized by English or 
 Provincial law. The natural right to religious liberty, as 
 it is now called, was not asserted, except by a stray philos- 
 opher, until the period of our Revolution. Toleration in 
 that era meant simply an exemption from the penalties 
 which had been imposed upon Dissenters from the Estab- 
 lished Church by various statutes which had been enacted 
 since the Reformation. 
 
 The utmost limit of that toleration was reached by a 
 statute of the first year of William and Mary, 1689, com- 
 monly called "the Toleration Act," which relieved certain 
 Dissenters, including Quakers, who took the Test and made 
 the Declaration against certain Roman Catholic dogmas, 
 from penalties to which at the time they were amenable. 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ CJnirch^ Philadelphia. 31 
 
 The early legislation here of the Assembly, professed to 
 give a wider or freer toleration than that granted in England 
 by that Act. Hinc illae lacryniae. 
 
 The English Churchman in this Province, and especially 
 the English clergyman sent here by the Bishop of London, 
 regarded all these pretensions of the Quakers as unfounded, 
 illegal and extravagant. The clergyman when ordered 
 here for duty by the Bishop of London might be a poor 
 missionary, but he was a member of what he called the 
 Established Church in America, and he brought with him, 
 in his opinion, the whole power of that Church, with all 
 the rights and immunities with which it was clothed in 
 England. He had a lofty conception of the inherent dig- 
 nity of his office. The Bishop of London was his lawful 
 superior, he alone having jurisdiction over him, and in his 
 Church courts alone could he be called upon to account for 
 any offence in which the rights of conscience or his rights 
 as a clergyman were involved. The tenure of his office 
 was life-long ; his congregation and his vestry had no con- 
 trol either in choosing or deposing him. With many of 
 the clergy sent to this country, it was a favorite maxim 
 that vestries were useless bodies, and they held to the old- 
 world doctrine that the clergy should be supported by the 
 State ; if not directly by tithes, then by setting apart large 
 tracts of land, the income of which should be reserved for 
 their support. In a word, for many years they held that 
 any action of the Provincial government which interfered 
 with their status and privileges here, as members of the 
 Established Church of England, as settled by the statutes 
 of the realm, should be disallowed by the Privy Council ; 
 hence the frequent appeals on their part to the Imperial 
 government, asking not merely that such action should be 
 declared illegal and void, but that the Proprietary govern- 
 ment should be abolished as incurably bent on setting 
 
32 Bi-Cente7t7tial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 aside their privileges, which they claimed as absolute in 
 English law. 
 
 With claims such as these, and with the feeling of supe- 
 riority to their fellow-colonists begotten of those claims, it 
 is not to be wondered at that any act of the Quaker majority 
 of the Assembly, which seemed to dispute their validity, 
 should be severely criticised and opposed by the Episcopal 
 clergy. It is perhaps not too much to say that the Church- 
 men from the beginning, under the lead of Colonel Quarry, 
 the Judge of Admiralty, and the most conspicuous member 
 of the vestry of Christ Church, were anxious to substitute 
 a Royal for a Proprietary government, but they were 
 ready, before the controversy was closed, to avow that it 
 was their purpose to contend for it. In the meantime a 
 most uncomfortable feeling existed between the parties, and 
 any act of the majority which could be construed to con- 
 strain the actions of Churchmen in anyway, seemed likely 
 to kindle into a consuming flame the spirit of discord 
 which grew apace with the growth of Christ Church. 
 
 But the clergy were not the only complainants ; mur- 
 murs of dissatisfaction were heard among those of the 
 laity who were not Quakers, that the legislation of the 
 Quaker Provincial Assembly was inconsistant with the 
 Charter and the safety of the Province. No proper pre- 
 paration, it was alleged, was made to protect the inhabitants 
 against the pirates in Delaware Ba}', the French and 
 Indians, the Test Oath was made more indulgent in its 
 terms than had been prescribed by Parliament, and a general 
 disposition, it was said, was shown to govern the Province 
 on Quaker principles, not on those distinctl}' English. 
 
 To those who have looked on William Penn as the 
 apostle of toleration, it seems indeed strange that the very 
 first complaint made by the vestry and congregation of 
 Christ Church against the legislation of the Assembly and 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 33 
 
 the action of the magistrates under it, was that it violated 
 the civil and religious rights of these Englishmen, inhabi- 
 tants of the Province, who were not Quakers. Yet such was 
 the charge brought before the Privy Council. Within ten 
 years after the settlement of the Province, George Keith, at 
 one time a most zealous Quaker and a very learned man, 
 but who afterwards became a very active Church missionary, 
 denounced the leaders of his former friends in a manner, 
 which, to put it mildly, constituted the serious ofifence (as 
 the Quakers considered it and had so declared by a Provin- 
 cial statue) of " speaking evil of dignities." For this 
 ofifence Keith was brought before the magistrates (many 
 of whom were members of the Ecclesiastical Meeting, a 
 tribunal which had deposed him from his membership in 
 the Society), and being somewhat bullied by them, he lost 
 his temper and abused his judges in his turn. For this he 
 was nominally condemned to pay a fine, but Churchmen 
 chose to consider his sentence as really that of an apostate, 
 and not merely the punishment meted out to an ofiFender 
 against the statute which prohibited speaking disrespect- 
 fully of the government or its officers. His friends, and 
 especially Churchmen, took up his cause with zeal, and as 
 they had no hope of relief from the Provincial govern- 
 ment, they went to the root of the matter and sent a peti- 
 tion to the Imperial government, begging it to depose that 
 of the Proprietar>-. They insisted that Keith had been 
 tried by a tribunal which had no legal authority whatever, 
 the judges never having been qualified for their office by 
 taking either the oath or affirmation then required of all 
 officials by the Imperial government. They insisted, too, 
 that Keith had really been condemned for an ecclesiastical, 
 not for a civil offence, and that thus the rights of non- 
 Quakers were placed in jeopardy. These charges, which 
 accused the authorities of a flagrant usurpation of power, 
 
34 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 ■were formally laid before the Privy Council in England. 
 At the same time it was alleged that the Quakers, owing 
 to their conscientious scruples about war, had taken no 
 measures to protect the shores of Delaware Bay from the 
 incursions of pirates. As William Penn was probably 
 thought by the new sovereigns to be something of a 
 Jacobite, owing to his favor with James II, he was suspended 
 from his government, which was handed over temporarily 
 to Governor Fletcher, of New York. Thus it would appear 
 that the lay element of the Church here, even before the 
 formal organization of Christ Church, was strong enough 
 to induce the English government to revolutionize the 
 administration, mainly on the ground that the rights of non- 
 Quakers were not adequately protected by the action of the 
 Provincial Assembly which the Quaker majority controlled. 
 It is difficult, I confess, to understand with our present 
 notions of religious liberty, how Churchmen, possessing, 
 as they did, freedom of worship and the absolute control of 
 the property belonging to their Church, could have made 
 any complaint on that score of a violation of the religious 
 rights of those who were non-Quakers. However this may 
 be, it was evident that the Provincial Assembly did not 
 learn wisdom from experience. In 1698, after the Proprie- 
 tary government had been restored, the magistrates con- 
 tinued their prosecutions against those who attacked the 
 Provincial government, and their opponents asked that the 
 King should take them under his special care. A petition 
 to the Crown requesting that such a change should be m.ade 
 was denounced by the Provincial magistrates as seditious, 
 and its supposed author was arrested and condemned for 
 violating the statue making it a penal offence to speak 
 disrespectfully of the government and its officers. To 
 this was added by the non-Quakers a protest against a 
 statute passed in 1700, substituting a new form of test in 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 35 
 
 the room of that which had heretofore been in force by 
 virtue of the Toleration Act, by which the Quakers here 
 were granted a toleration which did not exist in England. 
 All these measures were protested against by the vestr}' of 
 Christ Church as an invasion of what they called their 
 religious rights as members of the Church of England. 
 They sent a second time a petition to the Privy Council by 
 Colonel Quarry, asking that some remedy for their griev- 
 ances should be found. So great was the influence of this 
 then feeble church with the Imperial authorities, that they 
 were again led to interpose, and orders were sent out here in 
 1702 requiring that hereafter all persons who wished to 
 celebrate their worship publicly or to hold any office under 
 the Provincial government without exposing themselves to 
 the law against non-conformity, should be obliged to make 
 a declaration of fidelity and allegiance to the sovereign and 
 to take the Test ; that is, make a declaration of their dis- 
 belief in certain Roman Catholic Dogmas in the exact 
 form provided by the English Toleration Act. There was 
 at first considerable hesitation here in taking this Test, not 
 that there was any objection to the doctrines it avowed, but 
 the objections were as to the form of the affirmation required. 
 The Assembly was induced in 1705, by what influence 
 I have never been able clearly to understand, to embody 
 in a statute provisions requiring all persons in the Province 
 to qualify themselves for taking any office by taking and 
 subscribing the Test and affirming their belief in the Decla- 
 ration as an indispensable qualification before assuming its 
 duties. This Act, which is simph^ a copy of that portion 
 of the English Toleration Act, which granted exemption 
 from any penalty upon certain classes of Dissenters from 
 the Established Church, remained in force up to the time 
 of the Revolution, and it seems to have settled the vexed 
 question how far any one could go astray from the orthodoxy 
 
36 Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 required by the Imperial government and yet hold office, 
 by pleading that another standard had been set up b}' the 
 Assembly of the Province. The policy which provided 
 that these Tests should prevail in Pennsylvania was in 
 strict imitation of the widest form of toleration then 
 known in England. If we wish to trace the influence of 
 Christ Church on the lay element during the Provincial 
 era, not only here but in England, we cannot do better 
 than consider carefully the part that she took in this other- 
 wise profitless controversy, and for that reason I have 
 called attention to these long-forgotten quarrels. I have 
 alluded to them here only because they jeopardized the 
 existence of the Proprietary government. 
 
 At this time (1704) the congregation consisted of about 
 five hundred members, and the number of persons in the 
 Province who were Episcopalians was constantly increasing. 
 Mission churches were established at Chester, Oxford, 
 Radnor, New Castle and Dover, which were served by 
 clergymen sent out by the Venerable Societ}^ And as they 
 secured a firmer footing in the Province, the fear which 
 had oppressed the earliest members of the Church that 
 they would perish from their own weakness, gave way to a 
 more hopeful spirit. Still, as late as 17 18, the friends of 
 the Church, both here and in England, endeavored to per- 
 suade Sir William Keith, the most popular of the Proprie- 
 tary Governors, and the one least inclined to stretch his 
 prerogative, to make an effort to secure permanent legal 
 support for the Church. His answer tells the whole story 
 in a single sentence. " I agree with you," he saj's, " that 
 the Church should be endowed by the Province, but what 
 can I do for such an object with an Assembly composed 
 of twenty-five Quakers and three Churchmen." 
 
 As time passed on the controversial spirit became less 
 bitter, and indeed differences of opinion grew less marked 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 2>7 
 
 as people knew each other better. Churchmen became 
 less exclusive and welcomed here in this church the 
 ministrations of the Swedish clergymen who then had 
 charge of the Swedish mission here. For many years 
 the services of the Church were in charge at different 
 times of Rudman, Sandel, Lidman, Hesselius and Lin- 
 denius, who were recognized as in full communion with 
 the Church of England, although they had been ordained 
 by the Archbishop of Upsal and not by the English 
 Bishops. As one remarkable result of this fraternal spirit, 
 and as illustrating how the influence of this church 
 extended bej-ond its borders, I may remind you that four 
 churches originally Swedish in this State, one in Delaware 
 and one in New Jersey, became, at different times, by the 
 almost unanimous vote of their congregations, constituent 
 members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
 United States. 
 
 In speaking of the influence of the members of this 
 congregation on public affairs during the Provincial era, I 
 must not forget to claim for some of them the great honor 
 of having been the founders and the early guardians of the 
 College and Academy of Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin, who 
 first conceived the plan of this establishment, and sought 
 with characteristic vigor to organize it by securing money 
 for its endowment and selecting its professors, was a pew- 
 holder in this church, although he disclaimed any inten- 
 tion of making the College a Church institution. He 
 preferred that in a Province such as this it should rest 
 upon what was called in those days the "broad bottom," 
 that is, that it should be independent of the control of any 
 church or denomination. But when he looked around for 
 those who would appreciate and support his project, he was 
 obliged to take from this congregation mainly the men of 
 education and of means who would aid him. His first 
 
38 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 choice for rector or head master of the Academy was the 
 Rev. Richard Peters, one of the most scholarly men in the 
 Province, who had long held the important place of Secre- 
 tary of the Land Office and afterwards for nearly ten years 
 was the Rector of Christ Church. Finding it impossible 
 to induce Mr. Peters to accept the place, he made the final 
 choice of Rev. William Smith, a man of indomitable 
 energy, of very considerable learning and of great organ- 
 izing power. Mr. Smith was an Episcopal clergyman of 
 high reputation, and, as far as a man in his position could 
 be, he was a member of this congregation. He gave life 
 and vigor to the skeleton plan which Dr. Franklin had 
 sketched out. His experience as a teacher and his various 
 learning led him afterwards into paths where Dr. Franklin 
 could not follow him, yet his scheme of college education, 
 in accordance with the universal judgment of scholars for 
 more than a hundred years, formed the true model for the 
 liberal training of young men in this country. He induced 
 the trustees of the Academy, shortly after his induction, 
 to solicit from the Proprietaries a charter for a college, 
 and, this obtained, he established as a means of instruction 
 in this institution a curriculum of studies which formed 
 the basis of the system afterwards adopted by every college 
 in this country professing to give a liberal training to 
 young men. The result of the life and vigor which he 
 had infused into the college which he had created, was, in 
 the opinion of the late Dr. George Wood, such, that in a 
 short time this college, founded by two of your members, 
 " was perhaps unrivalled and certainly not surpassed by 
 any seminary at that time existing in the Provinces." 
 And, I may add, that had it escaped from the mischievous 
 designs of unscrupulous politicians during the Revolution, 
 and had its afiairs since that era always been managed 
 with the same self-sacrificing devotion and fidelity to its 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 39 
 
 interests exhibited by its trustees before that change, it 
 would doubtless to-day occupy the same proud pre-emi- 
 nence. Of the trustees previous to the Revolution nearly 
 four-fifths were members of this congregation ; and this 
 was the period when its work was most active and the 
 demands on their enlightened care incessant. Mr. Peters,, 
 the rector of the church, was for many years the president 
 of the board, and the trustees, agreeing with Dr. Smith 
 as to the plan of education which had been adopted, and 
 disagreeing wholly, much to his chagrin, with that urged 
 by Dr. Franklin, supported fully their Provost, not only in 
 all his efforts for the promotion of higher education here, 
 but in all the various trials and difficulties into which his 
 eager and impetuous temper led him. Dr. Smith was a 
 strict Churchman for those days, as were doubtless the 
 majority of the trustees of the college, but they ever 
 maintained its original design by selecting as its professors 
 men who represented the various denominations in the 
 city. One of the more immediate good results of the 
 establishment of this college was the training of men who 
 occupied a prominent position as ministers of Christ 
 Church at the outbreak of the Revolution. William 
 White, Jacob Duche and Thomas Coombe were all gradu- 
 ates of the College of Philadelphia and received their 
 training from Dr. Smith. 
 
 Between the years 1740 and 1756 there was perpetual 
 fear of war and an invasion of this Province by the Indians 
 and French, who had formed what was intended to be a 
 permanent alliance, and had established themselves on the 
 line between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie. The object of the 
 invasion on the part of the French was supposed by many, 
 who thought themselves wise, to be part of a systematic 
 scheme to subjugate the English colonists on the borders 
 of the Atlantic in this and other provinces ; to make them 
 
40 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 dependencies of France, and, worse than all, to force, by 
 persecution, the inhabitants to become Roman Catholics. 
 However chimerical all these fears may appear to us now, 
 there is no doubt of the reality of the anxiety and appre- 
 hension which they excited at the time. To the intensity 
 of the desire to make some adequate military preparation 
 to defend themselves, was added the natural dread of con- 
 tending with such a nation as France, when no means of 
 defence had been made ready, as well as a special horror of 
 the practices of the savage and inhuman warfare of the 
 Indians. Those who had now combined against us were 
 the descendants of those whom William Penn on his 
 arrival had found so friendly — the Delawares and the 
 Shawnees — who had been made desperate by the cruel and 
 fraudulent appropriation of their lands by his successors. 
 Gentle as lambs when the white man first came among 
 them, they had become fiends now, as all the accounts of 
 their cruel massacres of the inhabitants clearly showed. 
 The settlers in the territory exposed to these ravages called 
 loudly upon the government for protection and succor. 
 Although the deepest sympathy was expressed on all 
 hands for their unfortunate condition, no troops were sent 
 to defend them, owing to the quarrel between the Governor 
 and the Assembly as to the best mode by which the soldiers 
 and the money for their support should be raised. The 
 Governor, to state the nature of the controversy in a 
 single sentence, urged that a Militia Bill, which should 
 enroll as many of the able-bodied men of the Province as 
 might be needed, should be passed, and that a tax should 
 be levied for their pay and equipment, from which the 
 immense private estates of the Proprietaries should be 
 exempted ; while the Assembly contended that the neces- 
 sary force should be raised by a voluntary enlistment, and 
 that loans should be issued to raise money, to be reim- 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 41 
 
 bursed by general taxation, for the maintenance of the 
 troops. For many years this wearisome and profitless 
 struggle continued and nothing was done in the way of 
 defence of the frontier or to avert the threatened danger of 
 invasion. The Governor and the Proprietary party insisted 
 that the refusal to adopt his suggestions was owing to con- 
 scientious scruples on the part of the Quakers about 
 making war, but so untrue was this charge that the 
 Assembly, goaded into action by Braddock's defeat in July, 
 1755, consented at last to exempt the estates of the Pro- 
 prietaries from taxation, in consideration of a gift by them 
 to the Province of five thousand pounds, and established a 
 chain of forts from the Delaware to the Maryland frontier 
 along the Alleghany Mountains, garrisoned by a body of 
 volunteers. Provincial troops, who for a long time effectu- 
 ally guarded the threatened districts. In this controversy 
 the larger number of the members of this congregation 
 sided with the Proprietary party, having convinced them- 
 selves that no Assembly in which the Quakers had a 
 majority of the votes would, under any circumstances, 
 adopt warlike measures. They went so far on this account 
 as to join with the Presbyterians, who had suffered most 
 severely from the Indian raids after Braddock's defeat, in a 
 petition to the Crown, being the third time in which they 
 had made the same application, asking that Quakers 
 should not be permitted hereafter to sit as members of the 
 Assembly. Their action must be attributed to a deep- 
 rooted delusion on the subject, which then prevailed here, 
 and which perhaps the professed principles of the Quakers 
 had done much to foster, and to the natural anxiety which 
 they felt to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of 
 a neglect of the safety of the Province. 
 
 But during the years of danger which threatened their 
 safety, when the accounts from the West told of little but 
 
43 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 of Indian outrages and French victories and marches east- 
 ward, the conduct of this congregation was marked by a 
 manliness and courage and readiness to make sacrifices for 
 the safety of the Province, worthy of all praise as an 
 example, and to which those who succeed them here may 
 point with becoming pride. They were taught from this 
 pulpit the Christian duty of warfare in defending them- 
 selves. Dr. Smith tells us that in this crisis he preached 
 here no less than eight " militar}' sermons," as he calls them; 
 and we may be quiet sure that in them the duty of defend- 
 ing their lives and their homes from a French and Indian 
 invasion was duly inculcated. We may be also certain, 
 from what we know of the membership of Christ Church 
 at that time, that the men on whom the Governor most 
 fully depended at that critical time for the safety of the 
 Province were to be found among those who gathered 
 here to worship God. The military spirit which prevailed 
 in the congregation was so marked that, in 1758, at the 
 opening of the campaign of that year General Forbes, 
 commander of the army in this Province, could find no 
 better means of rousing the military ardor of the inhabi- 
 tants than by asking Dr. Smith to denounce here once 
 more the horrible cruelties which his army was sent to 
 avenge. 
 
 During the eventful years (1740-1756) in which the 
 Province was forced to defend itself from the incursions of 
 the Indians to the westward, none of the inhabitants who 
 formed social organizations were more zealous and steady 
 in upholding the hands of those to whom were committed 
 Ihe safety, honor and welfare of the people of this Prov- 
 ince, than the members of this congregation. Opinions 
 might differ, and doubtless often did, among them in regard 
 to the righteousness of the conduct of the agents of the 
 government in their treatment of the Indians, but when 
 
Bi-Cente7inial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 43 
 
 these savages determined to wreak their vengeance by an 
 indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, the law which 
 Churchmen invoked was that of self-defence. At that 
 time the members of Christ Church succored the distressed 
 inhabitants west of the Susquehanna by timely gifts, and 
 they urged the immediate necessity of raising money and 
 men to protect them, profiting by the lessons which they 
 had learned, as I have stated, from this pulpit as to the 
 clear duty of the citizens and the Christian. At that time 
 the special interest which the members of this church 
 could feel as Episcopalians in the sufferings of those 
 exposed to Indian assaults was centered in a feeble mission 
 of the Venerable Society, of which the headquarters were 
 at Carlisle. But the sympathy exhibited by them in this 
 city for the victims of savage cruelty was not bounded by 
 any such narrow frontier. Judging from the names 
 attached to a petition to the Crown in 1756, praying that 
 hereafter no non-resistant Quaker should be permitted to 
 hold a seat in the Assembly, the members of this congre- 
 gation were the most determined of those who were willing 
 to undergo any revolutionary change in government which 
 would guarantee that the white population of the Province 
 should be duly protected. 
 
 There were many officers, members and pew-holders in 
 Christ Church in the regiments raised by the government 
 of the Province for service during the French and Indian 
 wars. General James Irvine, who was a prominent mem- 
 ber of this congregation, and is traditionally remembered 
 from his always appearing clad in mourning on Good 
 Friday, began his military career as an officer in Bouquet's 
 expedition for the recapture of Fort Duquesne, and was 
 during the Revolution an officer of high rank in the 
 Pennsylvania line. Among others, we find the well- 
 known names of Colonels Thomas Lawrence, Edward 
 
44 Bi-Cente7i7iial of Christ UiJirch^ Philadelphia. 
 
 Jones and Turbutt Francis ; of Lieut.-Colonels Thomas 
 Yorke and James Coultas ; of Major Samuel McCall ; of 
 Captain Thomas Bond ; of Lieutenants Lynford Lardner, 
 William Bingham, Atwood Shute, James Claypoole and 
 Plimket Fleeson. 
 
 It is not to be forgotten that the social position of many 
 of the members of this Parish (the united churches of 
 Christ and St. Peter's) gave them an influence out of all 
 proportion with their numbers. It is true, of course, that 
 in the Provincial era the laymen of this church were, 
 generally speaking, of the Proprietary^ party, and had sup- 
 ported the war measures of that party ; but when they 
 found that the government of the Province had become 
 that of a deputy, without whose consent no legislation 
 could be enacted, and who was bound in his acts to obey 
 the instructions of the Proprietaries in England, and who 
 was in no way responsible to the people of the Province 
 for them, they joined with other parties in the Assembly 
 in unanimously declaring, in 1763, that pretensions such 
 as these were as dangerous to the prerogative of the Crown 
 as they were to the liberties of the people. Proprietary 
 men as they were supposed to be, they had no hesitation 
 in praying the King, for the fourth time, with Dr. Frank- 
 lin, in 1764, that he would resume the government of 
 the Province and that the Proprietary system should be 
 abolished. 
 
 The signs of the times became more portentous after the 
 enactment of the Stamp Act of 1765, and it soon became 
 apparent that there would be as much opposition here on 
 the part of Churchmen to Imperial misgovernment, as there 
 had been to the arbitrary pretensions of the Governors. 
 Indeed, it is hardly worth proving that during these 
 perilous times all classes of people in Pennsylvania, resist- 
 ants and non-resistants alike, protested against the Minis- 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 45 
 
 terial measures. The members of this congregation, in 
 common with their fellow-citizens of other beliefs, remon- 
 strated against the Stamp Act and the Tea Act, as well as 
 against the Boston Port Bill and other measures intended 
 to punish the town of Boston ; they all signed the Non- 
 importation and the Non-exportation Agreements ; they all 
 petitioned the Crown to guarantee the right of self-govern- 
 ment ; they determined to maintain the fundamental rights 
 of the colonies ; they warned the Ministry that armed 
 resistance would be made to further encroachments, and 
 they did not hesitate to vote for raising men and money for 
 the defence of the Province after the battle of Lexington. 
 Yet, with all this, they never ceased to hope that some 
 peaceful settlement of the dispute might be made, and that 
 no violent separation from the Mother Country would take 
 place. As the crisis of the Revolution approached, the 
 opinions held by the congregation as to the course they 
 would take, are best expressed in the letter of their clergy 
 to the Bishop of London. In this letter, dated June 30, 
 1775, the clergy of this parish, Messrs. Richard Peters, 
 Jacob Duche, Thomas Coombe, William Stringer and 
 William White, join with Dr. Smith, the Provost of the 
 College, in saying to the Bishop of London, " All that we 
 can do is to pray for such a settlement and to pursue those 
 principles of moderation and reason which your Lordship 
 has always recommended to us. We have neither interest 
 nor consequence sufficient to take any great lead in the 
 affairs of this great country. The people will feel and 
 judge for themselves in matters affecting their own civil 
 happiness ; and were we capable of any attempt which 
 might have the appearance of drawing them to what they 
 think would be a slavish resignation of their rights, it 
 would be destructive to ourselves as well as to the Church 
 of which we are ministers. But it is but justice to our 
 
46 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 superiors, and to your Lordship in particular, to declare 
 that such conduct has never been required of us. Indeed, 
 could it possibly be required, we are not backward to say 
 that our consciences would not permit us to injure the 
 rights of the country. We are to leave our families in it, 
 and cannot but consider its inhabitants entitled, as well as 
 their brethren in England, to the right of granting their 
 own money ; and that every attempt to deprive them of 
 this right will either be found abortive in the end or 
 attended with evils which would infinitely outweigh all 
 the benefits to be obtained by it. Such being our persua- 
 sion, we must again declare it to be our constant prayer, in 
 which we are sure that your Lordship joins, that the hearts 
 of good and benevolent men in both countries may be 
 directed towards a plan of reconciliation worthy of being 
 ofiered by a great nation that have long been the patrons 
 of freedom throughout the world, and not unworthy of 
 being accepted by a people sprung from them and by birth 
 claiming a participation in their rights." 
 
 The sentiments frankly expressed in this letter were not 
 merely those of the clergy of Christ Church, but voiced 
 doubtless the opinion of its lay members, as well as that of 
 a large circle of friends not of their religious faith, but 
 within the sphere of their influence. In a community 
 such as Philadelphia then was, it is not easy to over- 
 estimate the power derived from the common opinion on a 
 momentous question of its foremost citizens. Men like 
 William Bingham, Richard Bache, Benjamin Chew, John 
 Cadwalader, Gerardus Clarkson, Redmond Conyngham, 
 Manuel Eyre, Michael Hillegas, Archibald McCall, Charles 
 Meredith, Edmund Physick, William Plumstead, Samuel 
 Powel, Edward Shippen, Richard and Thomas Willing, 
 never speak in vain. These are names as familiar to those 
 who have passed a long life in Philadelphia as household 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 47 
 
 words, and those who bore them were all members of the 
 congregation of Christ Church. This letter to the Bishop 
 of London doubtless reveals that feeling of mingled defi- 
 ance and dread with which they viewed the approach of 
 the Revolution. 
 
 Of these clergymen of the Church here, it may be said 
 that Messrs. White and Duche became afterwards chaplains 
 of the Continental Congress, and that Dr. Smith urged, in 
 a powerful sermon delivered before Colonel Cadwalader's 
 regiment of Volunteer Associators in this church, the 
 right and duty of armed resistance if the grievances com- 
 plained of were not redressed. At that time (the early 
 period of the Revohition) it is hardly necessary to say that 
 there was no question of independence, for no public man 
 in Pennsylvania, within or without Christ Church, had 
 advocated such a measure. When the time arrived when 
 it was thought necessary by Congress to proclaim our inde- 
 pendence, no less than three of the signers of that immortal 
 instrument, Franklin, Robert Morris and Hopkinson, were 
 found to be pew-holders in this church. And on the very 
 day on which that great charter of a new nation was 
 signed, it was agreed by the vestry and clergy of this 
 church that the long-familiar prayer for the King and the 
 Royal Family should thenceforth be omitted from the 
 service. In short, in no quarter was the action of the 
 Assembly of the State and of Congress dissolving our 
 allegiance to Great Britain more loyally obeyed than in 
 this church, to which kings and queens in happier days 
 had been loving nursing fathers and nursine mothers. 
 
 With the close of the Revolution that direct and peculiar 
 influence of Christ Church upon the lay element in Phila- 
 delphia, which, during the provincial era, had been so 
 characteristic a feature of its corporate life, in a great 
 measure ceased. Whether this was due to changes which 
 
48 Bi-Ce7ite)inial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 then brought into power men of a very different social 
 position and very different political ideas from those who 
 had governed this community in former days, I will not 
 stop to inquire. Whatever may have been the cause, there 
 can be no doubt in the mind of any student of our history 
 that Quakers and Episcopalians, the foremost citizens of 
 the Province, however faithful they may have been to the 
 changes produced by the Revolution, lost their prestige 
 and political leadership in the Commonwealth created by it. 
 
 Thenceforth Christ Church entered upon a new era, and 
 devoted herself to the propagation exclusively of that 
 special form of Christianity of which she had been the 
 recognized representative here. Under the guidance of 
 that wise, discreet, revered and saintly man who was then 
 her Rector and was soon afterwards to become the chief 
 pastor of this diocese, she became in a very important 
 sense omnium ecclesiartim mater et caput. 
 
 Bishop White, I need not say, was not only a great 
 Churchman, but he was a great citizen also. From the 
 stormy days of the Revolution, when he taught Congress 
 that resistance to oppression is a religious duty ; from the 
 day in which in his study in St. Peter's house in this city 
 he outlined a plan for the federal union of the Church, 
 down to the day when he was laid at rest under the chan- 
 cel of this church, the great work of his life was, so to 
 speak, the naturalization of the order and discipline of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church under its new conditions in 
 this countr}^ What measure of success attended his efforts 
 it is not my province to speak of, but I may venture to 
 affirm that the Church in this country can never be too 
 grateful for what she owes to his wisdom and sagacity. 
 He is the great link which binds the past to the present. 
 He was the champion of all that is true and noble and 
 inspiring in the history of that form of Christianity of 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 49 
 
 which he was here the chief minister ; and to no wiser 
 hands could the great task of adapting that historical and 
 venerable form of ecclesiastical polity to our present need 
 have been confided than to his. 
 
 I count it as one of the happiest recollections of my 
 youth that I should have been permitted to see Bishop 
 White in the last year of his life, not robed in his canon- 
 ical vestments nor surrounded by those things calculated 
 to impress a boyish imagination with the dignity of his 
 position, but walking these streets in the ordinary dress of 
 a clergyman of that day. His tall, spare figure, his cos- 
 tume, that of a gentleman of the old school, the broad- 
 brimmed hat which half concealed his flowing white locks, 
 his ample coat, his short clothes, his long stockings and 
 buckled shoes, and his stout walking stafi" — all these 
 things made him truly venerable in my eyes and produced 
 an impression which the lapse of sixty years has not 
 removed. As he passed along, supported on the arm of his 
 grandson, I remember that I looked upon him, as I had 
 ever been taught to regard him, as the last of the Revolu- 
 tionary patriots. To those who met him and knew any- 
 thing of his history and character, he was the type and 
 exemplar of that pure and lofty doctrine which he had 
 preached all his life. His perfect sincerity, his genuine 
 simplicity, his boundless charity of act and opinion 
 towards those who differed from him, caused him to be 
 recognized, as was well said by a distinguished divine of 
 another communion than his, as " truly the Bishop of us 
 all." 
 
 With such a history and with such personages serving 
 as illustrations of it, Christ Church is not merely a temple 
 where men have-met during the last two hundred years to 
 worship God after the manner of their fathers, but it is 
 also one of the brightest jewels in the mural crown of this 
 
50 Bv-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 goodly city. Here men have been taught during all that 
 long period, not merely their duty to God, but also to con- 
 secrate the service of their lives to the welfare of their 
 fellow-men, and especially to that of our own community 
 and Commonwealth. As we recall the names of its mem- 
 bers who, in times past, amidst trials and obstacles of all 
 sorts, have done their duty, while doing the State some 
 service, may we emulate their example, never failing to 
 heed the voice of God and our country' when it calls upon 
 us for work and self-sacrifice. 
 
 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20th. 
 
 The Rector celebrated the Holy Eucharist at 11 a.m. In 
 the evening a festival Te Deum was sung, and a musical ser- 
 vice rendered by the vested choir of Christ Church Chapel, 
 under the direction of the choir-master of the chapel, Mr. 
 J. Spencer Brock. An address was delivered by the Rt. 
 Rev. Eeighton Coleman, D.D., LL-D., Bishop of Delaware. 
 
 ADDRESS BY RT. REV. BISHOP COLEMAN. 
 
 Hardly any saying is more generally accepted than this 
 one: "Truth is stranger than fiction." There is no 
 romance that can, for a moment, be compared as to real 
 interest with simple history. Actual life has a sufficiency 
 of the most startling events to satisfy any craving that is 
 not totally awry. 
 
 To some of us there is no branch of history which has 
 about it the same attractive features that belong to what is 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 51 
 
 known as Church history. Of necessity, it contains those 
 elements which most appeal to our highest tastes and 
 purest passions. Its study is also replete with lessons of 
 the greatest profit. Covering now a period of nineteen 
 centuries, and extending to so many parts of the world, its 
 characters and events have relations to almost every interest 
 that is universal and permanent. 
 
 This is eminently true of that portion of ecclesiastical 
 history which is connected with our own country. One 
 may safely say, speaking generally, that America was 
 originally colonized by the Church. I do not mean that 
 the Church as such undertook or supervised this work. 
 But it was largely done under her auspices. 
 
 The charters, by right of which the chiefest settlements 
 were made, bear evidence uniformly of the religious objects 
 which they had in view, and the religion therein professed 
 was that of the English Church. Thus the early history 
 of what we now call the United States is contemporaneous 
 with our own Church history. 
 
 In the charter granted in 1681 by Charles II, provision 
 was made for the introduction of the Church's ministrations 
 into William Penn's colony. It is said that this provision 
 was inserted at the instance of Bishop Compton, of London, 
 who obtained for it the ready acquiescence of one whose 
 family largely belonged to the Church. Chalmers asserts 
 that the peaceful policy which Penn pursued toward the 
 Indians was not a little due to the advice given him by this 
 same prelate. 
 
 His own kindly feelings toward the Church were not 
 shared by many of those belonging to the Society of Friends. 
 On the contrary these were very malignant, and persisted 
 in their persecutions, summoning before the civil courts 
 such Churchmen as dared to petition the authorities at 
 home for clerg>-men. 
 
52 Bi- Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 This bitter opposition somewhat delayed the accomplish- 
 ment of plans already formed, and it was not until nearly 
 the close of the seventeenth century that we have any 
 records of the establishment of regular Church services in 
 the city of Philadelphia. 
 
 And these records have to do with this venerable parish 
 which is now celebrating its bi-centennial. For it was in 
 the year 1695 that the first Christ Church was erected. 
 The Rev. Dr. Dorr, in his valuable history of the parish, 
 describes it as a goodly structure "for those days." He 
 furthermore describes it as of brick, with galleries, and 
 having accommodations for more than 500 persons.' Its 
 cost was about ^600. 
 
 It is difficult to do what seems imperative upon me at 
 a time like this — namely, to pursue the history of this 
 parish — without repeating what has already been told here 
 upon many an interesting occasion. It is, unquestionably, 
 a tempting theme ; for, as Dr. Dorr observes in the very 
 outset of his introduction : " there is no building in our 
 city, and it may be doubted whether there is any in our 
 country, around which so many hallowed associations 
 cluster, and which calls up so many time-honored and holy 
 reminiscences" as this very structure. In a certain way it 
 is, indeed, the Mother Church of the whole American 
 Church.^ 
 
 It stands a most impressive witness to the eventful his- 
 tory of this branch of the Catholic Church — a history not 
 without its periods of depression, but, so soon as the Church 
 was fully organized, showing everywhere signs of whole- 
 some progress and growth. When this building was first 
 
 ' See p. 25. By reference to p. 14, it may be inferred that the building 
 was by no means so spacious as it is here represented to be ; there being 
 only forty-two pews when enlarged in 171 1. 
 
 ^ See Bishop Stevens' Discourse of July 4, 1S76, p. 4. 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 53 
 
 erected, Philadelphia had scarcely more than five thousand 
 inhabitants. There was but one minister of the Church 
 in the city. A great many of the younger people who 
 were afraid of displeasing their parents or employers by 
 attending the services in the daytime were obliged to listen 
 to them while standing under the windows at night. 
 
 In a letter addressed, under date of January 18, 1696-97, 
 to Gov. Nicholson by Col. Quarry and others, it is declared 
 that a great number of people conformed to Quakerism 
 only for want of other religious services ; and, further, that 
 " the late great distractions and divisions amongst the 
 Quakers, and the many notorious, wicked and damnable 
 principles and doctrines discovered to be amongst the 
 greatest part of them, this makes the rest very uneasy and 
 inquisitive after truth and the sound doctrine of the Church 
 of England, which makes us positively {sic) assert that a 
 pious, good and orthodox ministry would bring most of 
 them over to the Church." 
 
 There seems to be but little reason to doubt that in gen- 
 eral the ministry provided in those days answered well to 
 the description of the petitioners. And that their enthu- 
 siastic prophecy was none too sanguine may be inferred 
 from the fact that the Rev. George Keith, himself a dis- 
 tinguished convert from the Friends, baptized not less than 
 seven hundred members of that society in a comparatively 
 short period of time. 
 
 It is difficult for any one to imagine what might have 
 been the total result if there had been more clergymen in 
 the field, or the Church had been equipped with the means 
 (especially bishops) whereby this lack could have been 
 supplied. Even as late as the period of Bishop White's 
 incumbency here as Rector, in the latter half of the century 
 following that of which we are now more particularly treat- 
 ing, he was the only clergyman in the whole Common- 
 
54 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 wealth of Pennsylvania ; and when he was chosen, in 1786, 
 bishop of the diocese, there were but three clergymen 
 present and voting. 
 
 It can easily be seen how, amidst such general insuffici- 
 ency, Christ Church filled a very important place in this 
 city and diocese. The clergy and the vestr>' appear to 
 have been equally in earnest in their endeavors to discharge 
 the responsibilities thus resting upon them. In doing so, 
 they pursued no narrow policy. When it became evident 
 that a new church was needed in what was then called the 
 southern part of the city, they set about the erection of St. 
 Peter's Church. And later, when a similar want for the 
 western part of the city was seriously felt, they undertook 
 the building of what was named St. James' Church, in 
 Seventh Street above Market. 
 
 The duties of the sextons of these churches do not seem 
 to have been any more onerous than were their stipends 
 enriching. In 1761 the sexton of Christ Church applied 
 for an increase of salary. The vestry agreed to give him 
 £20 per year, on condition that he wash the church twice 
 a year, and sand it at Easter and September, and also sweep 
 the church every two weeks, and ring the bell. 
 
 There was the same trouble in raising by ordinary means 
 the necessary funds for Church purposes that parishes in 
 more modern days have encountered. Twice resort was 
 had (under, it would seem, the guidance chiefly of Benjamin 
 Franklin) to lotteries for the money required to erect the 
 graceful spire which has always been one of Philadelphia's 
 most noted landmarks. The true appreciation of what is 
 involved in systematic offerings was wanting then, as alas ! 
 it is still with many who might naturally enough be ex- 
 pected to have it. We read, under the date of 1763, of 
 a certain lady, who not being willing to be called upon in 
 the box collections — made in the church on Sundays — 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 55 
 
 chose rather to pay yearly the sum of $3 for the purposes 
 of such collections. 
 
 On special occasions the congregation was not wanting 
 in generosity. When in this same year of 1763 the frontier 
 or back inhabitants, as they were styled, were suffering 
 great distress and necessity by reason of an invasion by the 
 Indians, the members of the united parishes of Christ 
 Church and St. Peter's contributed to their relief over 
 ^660, besides a liberal supply of provisions. 
 
 The matter of Church music has always received much 
 attention at the hands of the parochial authorities. In the 
 early part of 1763, provision was made for the erection of 
 an organ in St. Peter's Church, and in the latter part of 
 the same year steps were taken to procure one for Christ 
 Church. The children of the united congregations had 
 for some time been, as the records express it, " improved 
 in the art of psalmody." Mr. William Young and Mr. 
 Francis Hopkinson are mentioned as having taken great 
 and constant pains in instructing them, and are especially 
 thanked by the vestry, who encouraged those engaged in 
 the work by frequently attending the rehearsals. The Mr. 
 Hopkinson here named was one of the signers of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, and was also a distinguished jurist 
 and poet. For a while, during the absence of the regular 
 organist, he served in that capacity. 
 
 In this same connection, it may not be amiss to say some- 
 thing in regard to the introduction of surpliced choirs into 
 America. The first mention of them of which I have any 
 knowledge is found in the records of St. Michael's Church, 
 Charleston, S. C. In 1798 a bill was passed by the vestry 
 for washing the surplices " of clergy and children." In 
 1816 a parishioner of Christ Church, Philadelphia, left by 
 will a share in the Bank of Pennsylvania of the value of 
 $400, in trust, as the nucleus of a fund "for teaching six 
 
56 Bi-Cetziennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 boys as a choir to sing in the orchestra," as it is expressed. 
 Whether or not these boys were surpliced I have no means 
 at the time of my present writing of learning. 
 
 The authorities of the parish were early mindful of the 
 advantages of what is known as " congregational singing; " 
 for we find that in 1785 the following resolution was passed 
 at a vestry meeting, viz. : 
 
 " Resolved, That the clerks be desired to sing such tunes 
 only as are plain and familiar to the congregations ; the 
 singing of other tunes, and frequent changing of tunes 
 being, to the certain knowledge of this vestrj', generally 
 disagreeable and inconvenient." 
 
 Dr. Dorr well calls it " a wholesome resolution." 
 
 It might well have been recommended to other parishes. 
 Having been privileged to serve as the leader of the choir 
 in one of Philadelphia's churches, I can testify to the great 
 variety in tunes and chants that prevailed say thirty or 
 forty years ago, when it seemed to be the chief desire on 
 the part of most musicians to have as many changes as 
 possible. If the Gloria Patri were repeated between the 
 Psalms, it was never chanted twice to the same music. 
 What with the Cantus EcclesicB, the Carmina Sacra, The 
 Shawm, The Church Choir, et id omne genus, it required 
 the amplest sort of closets to contain, and the greater 
 time of one during the service to find the places in, such a 
 vast library of separate volumes. 
 
 What a change for the better has been wrought in these 
 latter days, and what an amount of prejudice and trepida- 
 tion has been allayed ! When it was first proposed to 
 chant the Venite, the proposition was resisted in some of 
 our larger parishes as something bordering on the Church 
 of Rome. The same dread was exhibited when it was 
 suggested that the Te Deum should be rendered musically 
 every Sunday : that hymn being always read, except on- 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 57 
 
 what was then known as " Communion Sunday" (the first 
 of the month) and the greater festivals. Except on some 
 such occasions, the Gloria Patri^2& then used only at the 
 end of each day's Psalms. Thank God ! owing to a greater 
 appreciation of the obligations and privileges of Church 
 membership, every Lord's Day now is almost universally 
 known by the celebration of His own blessed Feast ! 
 
 There are many other features of your parochial history 
 which I myself would find very interesting to rehearse and 
 discuss, but I forbear to do so for reasons already adduced. 
 The relations of this sacred edifice to the events which 
 preceded and followed the Declaration of Independence are 
 too well known to find a place in this present discourse. 
 The same may be said of its associations with the earlier 
 history of our national Church, and with such Churchmen 
 and patriots as White and Washington and Hopkinson and 
 Morris and Franklin. And yet when we recall the unjust 
 aspersions not infrequently cast upon the patriotism of our 
 ecclesiastical forefathers, it may be well for us at such a time 
 as this to recall the distinguished services rendered to both 
 Church and State by many of those who worshipped here. 
 
 The effort is frequently made to persuade the American 
 people that this Church of ours was inimical to the struggle 
 for national independence. While for conscientious reasons 
 there were clergymen and laymen who, at the outset 
 particularly, were opposed to the separation of the Colonies 
 from the Motherland, it is but just to remember that George 
 Mason, a Churchman, wrote the Declaration of Rights, 
 which formed the basis for the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, written by Thomas Jefferson, another Churchman. 
 Not less than two-thirds of all the signers of the latter 
 declaration were Churchmen, and the same statement may 
 be made concerning those who framed the first national 
 constitution. 
 
58 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 I am very glad that, under the enthusiastic leadership 
 of your energetic Rector, Christ Church has become more 
 and more the recognized centre for religious observances 
 that are connected with our national histor)'. This bi-cen- 
 tennial commemoration affords a convenient opportunity 
 of witnessing to the blessings which have for so many gen- 
 erations found — humanly speaking — their mainspring here, 
 and of expressing one's hearty desire that such blessings 
 may continue hence to flow in steady course through the 
 ages that are yet to come. 
 
 The very position which this church-building occupies 
 confers upon it a special duty and privilege of no mean 
 significance. Standing as it does in the midst of the com- 
 mercial thoroughfares of this great city, it testifies in itself 
 to the sovereignty of Him Whose are the silver and the 
 gold, reminding men as they go up and down within its 
 shadow that, while they are not to be slothful in business, 
 they are yet to be "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 The sight of it, and the sound of its ancient bells must 
 surely have their influence, and serve at times to admonish 
 those who sell and buy among the many marts surrounding 
 it of those maxims of equity and honesty which should 
 govern them in their daily trade. 
 
 Among the weakening changes resulting from the many 
 removals to distant portions of the city, this church has 
 yet a wide field for usefulness. It must ever be an ecclesi- 
 astical centre of singular importance ; and we look forward 
 confidently to its future annals as to those which shall 
 record much additional and fruitful work for God and His 
 Church. 
 
 In your history Delaware must always feel an especial 
 interest ; not only because we are such near neighbors, but 
 also because, while we were still reckoned as " The Three 
 Lower Counties of Pennsylvania," and even when we had 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 59 
 
 achieved our State independence, we received the blessing 
 that came from the occasional visits and the temporary 
 oversight of your sainted Rector, Bishop White. And so 
 in your commemorative services this year we may ask the 
 place of kindred. Certain it is, we offer you our hearty 
 congratulations and the assurance of our equally hearty 
 prayers. 
 
 You will, I am sure, permit me, in the same spirit of 
 affectionate interest, to remind you how your parish is in 
 an especial way a city set upon a hill, whose light is to go 
 into many a darksome place. Think what might have 
 been your own condition had not your ancestors left 5'ou 
 the priceless legacy of the Christian faith. Think of the 
 wretched condition of such as are to-day without such 
 knowledge. It was, and still is, a mystery indeed, that 
 was manifested to the Gentiles — long hidden in the coun- 
 sels of God — that we should be " fellow heirs and of the 
 same body and partakers of His promise in Christ by the 
 Gospel." But it was a manifestation that shed a new and 
 wondrous light upon all human life, and made those to 
 whom it was revealed to rejoice and praise God as men 
 had never done before : a light of cheerful hope and an- 
 ticipation, the dawning of a better day, in which the king- 
 dom of darkness should fail beforethe kingdom of Christ 
 and of holiness, and the good news of His coming should 
 go out into all the world. 
 
 We do not as yet see this gracious purpose fulfilled, even 
 in nominally Christian lands. Therefore, it is that to-day 
 we ought especially to think ourselves bound to help by 
 personal service and by every other legitimate agency in 
 the diffusion of the Gospel and the advance of the kingdom 
 of our lyord. 
 
 By reason of the historical review in which we have 
 
6o Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 indulged this evening, we should be the more moved to 
 earnestness in the cause. With all our fair speeches on 
 the subject, we do not sufficiently appreciate how much we 
 owe to the past. The very creed which we utter now with 
 so much confidence was forged and framed by men who, 
 after years of heroic experience, had reached its truth 
 under the Spirit's guidance through the rich stores which 
 the past had bequeathed to them. What a debt we owe to 
 them, who did not think of this rich continent as a place 
 merely to plunder, but a place to be evangelized with the 
 precious doctrines of that same old creed ! What a debt, 
 too, we owe to them who built us churches, established 
 our kindly institutions, and adorned the land with their 
 godly lives. 
 
 After all, brethren, the good life is not the lonely contest 
 we sometimes are disposed to think it ; not the anxious 
 struggling through dangerous waves to the unknown shore 
 on a lonely plank, saved as by a miracle out of a full ship. 
 We believe in the communion of saints. And so to-day we 
 reverently and gratefully remember those servants of God 
 into whose labors we have so happily entered. We can 
 almost see with our bodily eyes the cloud of witnesses who 
 have worshipped in this very sanctuary. We ourselves are 
 moving onward, consciously or unconsciously, fashioned 
 largely by the influence of many lives ; and, in turn, affect- 
 ing largely the character of many other lives. 
 
 The Church, not as she was two hundred years ago, 
 despised or simply tolerated, but honored and strong, is 
 now recognized everj'where as one of the chief factors in 
 the prosperity of every community. Her remarkable growth 
 during the latter part of the present century is only what 
 might have been anticipated when her unassailable claims 
 should come to be fairly studied by our intelligent fellow 
 
Bi-Ceiitennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 6i 
 
 countrymen.' Intrenched in their confidence, and well 
 equipped as she is with what is required for the larger 
 work to which our vast Republic is calling her, the outlook 
 for the rapidly coming century is one of hopeful inspira- 
 tion. We cannot but envy those who shall, at its close, be 
 privileged to recount what may then be reckoned among 
 her achievements. I know of no branch of the Catholic 
 Church that has ever had a wider opportunity of manifest- 
 ing the great truths which the incarnation of Christ has 
 brought to light. May you in this parish, and all her 
 members everywhere, be faithful to the high trust com- 
 mitted to us ; making our daily lives a very Epiphany of 
 the Gospel which has done such great things for us ; the 
 Day Star from on high visiting our hearts by His Spirit, 
 and guiding our erring feet into the way of eternal peace ! 
 
 'It may not be amiss to add a few statistics in this connection : 
 
 In 1844, the number of communicants of the Church was about 60,000. 
 The whole population was about 6,000,000. The ratio of communicants 
 to the population was then as i is to 300. 
 
 In 1894, the number of our communicants was about 600,000. The 
 whole population was about 65,000,000 The ratio of the one to the other 
 was as I is to 108. In iifty years, the population increased 260 per cent, 
 while the communicants increased 900 per cent. 
 
 In 1832 there were 592 clergymen, including 15 bishops. In 1896, there 
 were not less than 4500 clergymen, including 86 bishops. 
 
 Should the same rate of gain be accelerated during the next four years 
 as it has been in the latter half of the nineteenth centiu-y, it will not be 
 long before we can, without challenge, speak of our ecclesiastical mother 
 as indeed. The American Church. 
 
62 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21st. 
 
 The day was ushered in with an early Eucharistic celebra- 
 tion. At night a service was held under the auspices of 
 Christ Church Historical Association. The church was 
 crowded with persons from all over the Diocese. Two 
 processions entered the church in succession, and took seats 
 specially reserved. The first was composed of the Vestries 
 of Christ Church, St. Peter's Church and St. James' Church, 
 and the managers of Christ Church Chapel, and of Christ 
 Church Hospital, together with lay members of the Stand- 
 ing Committee of the Diocese, trustees of the various 
 diocesan institutions, and Mr. Charles C. Harrison, Provost 
 of the University of Pennsylvania, the latter wearing his 
 official robes. The second procession was composed of 
 about seventy vested clergy of the Diocese of Pennsyl- 
 vania and other dioceses, including the Ven. C. C. Tiffany, 
 D.D., Archdeacon of New York, the Rev. Benjamin Wat- 
 son, D.D., President of the Standing Committee of the 
 Diocese ; clerical representatives of all the diocesan insti- 
 tutions ; the rectors of St. Peter's and St. James' Churches, 
 and of all the principal churches of the city, the Rector of 
 Gloria Dei Church, which from colonial days has been 
 associated with Christ Church ; the Rev. Edward Riggs, 
 Assistant Minister of Christ Church in charge of Christ 
 Church Chapel ; the Rev. E. Gaines Nock, Rector's Assist- 
 ant of Christ Church; the Rev. C. Ellis Stevens, LL.D., 
 D.C.L., Rector of the parish; the Rt. Rev. William Ste- 
 vens Perry, D.D., LL,.D., D.C.D., Bishop of Iowa, and 
 Historiographer of the Church in the United States ; the 
 Rt. Rev. Lemuel Henry Wells, D.D., Bishop of Spokane ; 
 the Rt. Rev. Francis Key Brooke, D.D., Bishop of Okla- 
 homa ; the Rt. Rev. Frederick Rodgers Graves, D.D., 
 
Bi-Cente7niial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 63 
 
 Missionary Bishop of Shanghai, China ; and, bringing up 
 the rear of the procession, the Rt. Rev. Ozi William 
 Whitaker, D.D., Bishop of Pennsylvania. 
 
 The choir was augmented for the occasion by the addi- 
 tion of members from the choir of Christ Church Chapel. 
 The Bishop of Pennsylvania presided, and delivered an 
 address on " Christ Church and the Diocese of Pennsylva- 
 nia." The Rev. J. Lewis Parks, D.D., Rector of St. 
 Peter's Church, delivered an address on " Christ Church 
 and the Daughter Churches." The Rt. Rev. the Bishop 
 of Iowa, spoke on "Christ Church and the National Church." 
 The addresses follow : 
 
 ADDRESS OF BISHOP WHITAKER. 
 
 I have been asked to say a few words concerning " Christ 
 Church and the Diocese of Pennsylvania." No other 
 church in the United States, perhaps no other church in 
 the history of the world, has ever had so intimate a connec- 
 tion with the Diocese which grew up around it, — certainly 
 if compared with a Diocese of equal territorial extent, — as 
 Christ Church has had to do with the foundation, the early 
 growth and the development of the Diocese of Pennsylva- 
 nia. Its formal connection with that Diocese began, of 
 course, in 1785, when the organization of the Diocese took 
 effect ; but it had to do with its early history ; from the very 
 beginning it was a force operating throughout this region. 
 It was an influence preparing the way for the Diocese 
 which was to come. It was an encouragement in the estab- 
 lishment of missions and parishes ; it was a beacon light 
 guiding b}' its wisdom the management and conduct of 
 these parishes and missions in the early history of the State. 
 
 From 1695 to 1772, when the Rev. William White be- 
 
64 Bi-Centennial of Christ Chtirch^ Philadelphia. 
 
 came the Rector of this parish, there were eight Rectors of 
 Christ Church. Their history need not be entered into in 
 detail in any discussion of this subject, and certainly not in 
 one so brief as it is purposed to give at this time. But 
 during that period Christ Church held on its way, exercis- 
 ing its ministry and exerting an influence in the region 
 around. Within that period there were established in this 
 city, in close connection with Christ Church, St. Peter's 
 and St. Paul's ; and in the country around, within the limits 
 now embraced by the present Diocese of Pennsylvania, 
 there was a line, a tier, of parishes organized, among which 
 were Trinity, Oxford ; St. James', Bristol ; St. James', 
 Perkiomen ; St. Peter's, Great Valley ; St. David's, Radnor ; 
 St. John's, Concord ; St. Martin's, Marcus Hook, and St. 
 Paul's, Chester. 
 
 This line of outposts extended almost from the frontiers 
 of this present Diocese, as if there had been a sort of fore- 
 sight of what was to come, as if the efforts made for the 
 establishment of the Church in this region during this 
 time fell within these limits. There were organizations, 
 indeed a number of them, made within the limits of the 
 present dioceses of Central Pennsylvania and Pittsburg, but 
 the most striking feature is the line of frontier outposts. 
 And the fact that this church was here, that here a ministry 
 was exercised, and that here a liturgy was observed, was 
 an inspiring motive in the establishment of some these of 
 parishes, and was a force entering into the congregations 
 composing them : and they are indebted to Christ Church. 
 
 In 1772, when Rev. William White became Rector of 
 this parish, there began a history, extending through the first 
 fourteen years of his rectorship, unparalleled in the history 
 of the United States. As the nation, immediately following 
 the Declaration of Independence and its establishment, 
 passed through its period of greatest trial, so did the 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 65 
 
 Church in the State of Pennsylvania. For several years 
 Bishop White was the only minister, and his congregation 
 the only congregation in the Episcopal Church in this 
 region. But Christ Church held on its way, — most of the 
 others were closed. The people were discouraged, they 
 were disheartened in Church work, as they were in the 
 affairs concerning their government and the prospects of 
 the country. 
 
 Here, in this place, gathered a body of men, — clergy and 
 laity, over which the Rector of this church presided, — 
 to hold the Primary Convention of the Diocese in 1784. 
 William White was chosen president ; and the next year 
 that body met as the Diocesan Convention and organized 
 the Diocese of Pennsylvania. It seemed a small beginning. 
 There were, I think, six clergymen present, three of whom 
 resided in Philadelphia, and three represented country 
 parishes. There were eight laymen, three of whom repre- 
 sented parishes in this city, and five of whom came from 
 the surrounding country. Several of the succeeding Con- 
 ventions were of about the same proportions, — six, seven, 
 eight, nine clergymen, and the same number of laymen or 
 a little larger number, representing the parishes with which 
 the}^ were connected. And so it was when, in 1786, 
 William White was elected Bishop of the Commonwealth 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 When he returned here in 1787 he became the Bishop 
 of the Diocese of Pennsylvania ; and I wish to pause here 
 to notice the wisdom which was exhibited in the delibera- 
 tions of that Primary Convention and in the Conventions 
 which followed in framing the organic law of the Diocese. 
 If you compare what was done by these three or four first 
 Conventions, more especially what was done in the first 
 two, with our canon law as it exists to-day, you will find 
 the germ of all that we have in that legislation that was 
 
66 Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 then adopted. It would seem as if the discerning mind of 
 Bishop White looked beyond the surroundings of that 
 time and anticipated what was to come, and had, even as 
 the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the 
 organizers of the Constitution of the United States, a fore- 
 sight almost more than human in preparing an instrument 
 capable of being adjusted to the growth and development 
 that might come in after years. 
 
 Bishop White, as you all well know, — and all these facts 
 are doubtless known to all who are here present, — Bishop 
 White continued as the Bishop of this Diocese a period 
 of forty-nine years, until 1836. He lived to see the little 
 Convention of six clergymen and eight laymen grow to be 
 a diocese in which there were eighty-six clergymen and 
 twenty-five candidates for orders, with representatives from 
 all parts of the State ; a strong, united body, governed with 
 that consummate wisdom which he always exhibited, — loyal 
 to the Church of England, loyal to the truth of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Here Bishop White was baptized, here he received his 
 first Communion, here he exercised his ministry as Rector 
 of this church for fourteen years, here he was chosen to the 
 Episcopate, here he performed his first ordination, here his 
 remains lie. We may almost say that in these early years 
 Christ Church was the Diocese of Pennsylvania ; and we 
 may say, from another point of view, that Bishop White 
 was the Diocese of Pennsylvania. For there was an influence 
 radiating from Christ Church and entering into the life of 
 the Diocese which we can feel still ; and the Diocese of 
 Pennsylvania owes a great debt to Christ Church. 
 
 How shall that debt be discharged ? We certainly hold 
 in grateful memory all those who were so identified with 
 its organization, laymen and woman, ministers of the 
 Church, Bishop, priests and deacons. And we would not see 
 their work, we would not see that which formed the house 
 
Bi^Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 67 
 
 in which their work was begun and carried on, we would 
 not see it crumble into ruin, we would not see its energies 
 decay. We all know what changes have taken place in 
 this part of the city. We know how entirely the con- 
 ditions surrounding Christ Church have changed. I do 
 not suppose there are less people, less souls, within a radius 
 of ten squares, than when it was filled with the elite, the 
 cultured, the wealthy and refined of Philadelphia. Yet 
 how greatly the character of the population has changed ! 
 Some of the descendants of those families still maintain 
 their connection with Christ Church, but the tide of busi- 
 ness — which has swept westward with resistless force — is 
 leaving Christ Church farther and farther behind the 
 centres of influential population. 
 
 Is it too much to think of this Diocese as providing for 
 . Christ Church an endowment by which it shall be enabled 
 to exercise its ministry amongst this working, tenement- 
 house, laboring, poor population that is crowding this 
 neighborhood and filling these streets ? Is not this the dic- 
 tate of patriotism and of piety ? In reverence for the past 
 and hope for the future of the Diocese, in recognition of 
 Christ Church's early influence and continuing influence in 
 the Diocese, there should be provided, in addition to the en- 
 dowment which Christ Church already possesses, a sufficient 
 increase to sustain this work. It is worthy of the considera- 
 tion of Churchmen and Churchwomen, who hold to the 
 traditions of the past, and who look forward with anticipa- 
 tion and hope to the growth of the Church that is yet to be 
 in this Diocese. And, indeed, we may all count it a privilege 
 to live and labor for the Church of Christ and for our 
 IvOrd Himself. 
 
 I take great pleasure in presenting the Rev. Dr. Parks, 
 the Rector of St. Peter's, who will speak of " Christ Church 
 and its Daughter Churches." 
 
68 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 ADDRESS OF REV. J. LEWIS PARKS, D.D. 
 
 The Bishop of this Diocese has virtually called this 
 church the mother of the Church of God in this Common- 
 wealth. Even more than that I suppose it might be 
 said without exaggeration that this church is truly the 
 builder of the Church of God in the United States. But 
 at any rate from her have emanated every organization 
 ecclesiastical within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 
 
 It is particularly of her immediate family that I am to 
 speak, and to bear to her their congratulations. She has, 
 as I understand, three or four daughters. There is St. 
 Peter's, St. James', and Christ Church Chapel — last born 
 in her old age, and vigorous to the extent that it has now 
 more communicants than this united parish had when 
 Bishop White died. The daughters reflect the greatest 
 possible credit, in my opinion, upon their mother. 
 
 It is not very singular, if you will consider it, that even 
 in the earliest times, under the political domination of the 
 Friends, this church should have attracted to itself an 
 increasing number of the cultured, and of the wealthy, 
 and of the civicly influential of the laity of this great 
 city of Philadelphia. This was so even in the beginning ; 
 and it became still more so when the city, under the inde- 
 pendent government, became the centre literary, and for 
 awhile, the centre politically, of this country. 
 
 As to the clergy, of course the daughters share with the 
 mother for a long time, because for a long time they were 
 united. And the clerical roll of the parish was a roll of 
 scholars, of gentlemen, of God-fearing men. It was not 
 unnatural that clergy of the Church of England, unoccu- 
 pied and not desired at home, should seek occupation in 
 the colonies ; and in the nature of things such pastors 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 69 
 
 added little to the dignity or piet}' of the colonial Church. 
 But the record of the clerical care of the parish of Christ 
 Church, St. James' and St. Peter's has absolutely no stain 
 upon it. Duche, Coombe, Jenney, Peters, are honorable 
 names ; and perhaps for the same period in any other part 
 of the colonies it would have been difficult — I say, perhaps, 
 it would have been difficult — to render in all cases the same 
 unqualified praise. Of the clergy of the chief of these 
 daughters of Christ Church, I will speak in a moment. 
 Of St. James' (for Christ Church Chapel is a baby yet and 
 needs not to be spoken of), the clergy in old times left 
 names identified with the religious life of the city, known 
 to every Churchman of Philadelphia. Dr. Henry Morton, 
 distinguished for his courtly urbanity, whose hospitality is 
 still mentioned, and who was always ready to receive any, 
 even to the youngest, of his brethren and shelter them, as 
 they passed through the city ; and Nichols, whom you 
 remember with the greatest regard, and whom you surren- 
 dered with reluctance, that he might devote his energy, 
 his exuberant fertility of plans, and his single-mindedness 
 to the upbuilding of the great Diocese to which he was 
 called. If you come to St. Peter's, the oldest daughter, I 
 suppose we all understand that there is nothing like her 
 list of clergy in a given space of years in any other parish 
 we know of in this country. To pass on beyond the days 
 of the united parish, from the time when St. Peter's separ- 
 ated from her mother and became independent, there occur 
 such names as De Lancey, a prince and a statesman ; 
 Odenheimer, whose influence is felt to-day, long after he 
 has been dead, — such a pastor that the grandchildren of 
 his parishioners tell me of his instructions still ; then Leeds, 
 of gracious godliness ; and lastly Davies, transferred to the 
 administration of a great diocese of the Northwest. 
 
70 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 Even in the subordinate clergy- of the united parish were 
 several remarkable men, — Muhlenberg, the seer of the 
 clergy in this country, a man whose mind seemed to contain 
 the germs of the great problems to the solution of which 
 we are beginning to address ourselves to-day ; Kemper 
 the great missionary bishop, and Milnor the orator. 
 
 One may speak as proudly of the laity. The names of 
 the laity run back into the most eventful times, and belong 
 to the best of Philadelphia. As such they are well-known 
 to Philadelphians ; but an outsider would find a great many 
 names of national repute. Francis Hopkinson, a signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence ; and James Biddle, who 
 served under Preble and Bainbridge and Decatur and lay a 
 year in the dungeons of Tripoli ; and Commodore Richard 
 Dale, whose responses in the services partook of the vigor 
 of his convictions, and were uttered in a voice that had 
 been trained in breezy weather ; Horace Binney, of whom 
 the notable thing I know, was his refusal of a justiceship 
 in the Supreme Court of the United States, and his retiring 
 in his full vigor from active life, — such was his anxiety 
 lest he should be tempted to occupy a position which failing 
 powers might disqualify him to fill ; Joseph R. IngersoU, 
 minister to England ; Henry Reed, lawyer, professor, 
 literateur, lost in the " Arctic " in 1854 ; and John Welsh, 
 minister to England in these our days. 
 
 Outside St. Peter's Church there are lying in her tombs 
 men like Dallas ; a man who was, or might have been, 
 Attorney -General, and was director of the old bank, minister 
 to Russia, Vice-President of the United States and minister 
 to England. And lastly, the greatest of all our naval 
 heroes until you come to Farragut, the only man who 
 compared with him, — Stephen Decatur, a man whose death 
 left his friend Baron broken hearted for the remainder of 
 his days. 
 
Bi~Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 71 
 
 Now the daughters of Christ Church are still vigorous. 
 St. James, with very timely, and I should not hesitate to 
 say, very proper wisdom, transferred her site. Put by 
 God's providence into a locality which makes her a future 
 necessity, it is almost inconceivable that the western ad- 
 vance of business will oust her from her present position of 
 ministering to the cultered and wealthy, who need to be 
 trained and ministered to that they may become the guides 
 of cities. Of Christ Church Chapel and her position well 
 nigh the same may be said. But old St. Peter's stands by 
 her mother ; and while it is true of both mother and 
 daughter that such is the singular attachment — and the at- 
 tachment extends, I think, to the very children — which the 
 descendants of the original worshippers entertain toward 
 these two churches, that they still have a connection of 
 some sort with them ; I think the congregations recognize, 
 and I am persuaded they recognize it heartily and grate- 
 fully, that their first and main duty is to the poor. There 
 is no desire to mince or to conceal the fact that we are in 
 the slums, and our duty is toward them. Both these 
 churches are anchored stem and stern against the tide of 
 change, not desiring to move ; having outgrown the temp- 
 tation. Both have a dense humanity around them to be 
 cared for in body and soul. The work has always been 
 done. As soon as the changes began, there began also 
 changes in the work secular as well as religious, — not 
 merely secular for the religious but for the irreligious, — 
 that by our works we might bring men to piety. 
 
 The daughter has admirably prepared for this work 
 among Christ's poor. She has a large and almost adequate 
 endowment. She must have, she is getting, and will have 
 half a million dollars. Already she has some two hundred 
 thousand dollars in legacies and bequests ; but more she 
 must have, and she will have more, for she cannot get along 
 
72 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 without it. When Bishop Odenheimer raised a storm by- 
 putting a cross over St. Peter's, he had the felicitous wisdom 
 to put the cross over the globe. And o\-er this quarter of 
 the town these two churches must reign. 
 
 The daughter churches bring congratulations to their 
 mother to-night. They heartily believe that she ought to 
 have, and must and will have the necessary endowment for 
 her divinely given task ; that this great historical fane may 
 be maintained to the instruction of this Diocese, and that 
 the original parish of the city may go out and in among 
 the poor day by day, ministering that Gospel which is pre- 
 eminently the heritage of the little ones of the earth. 
 
 ADDRESS OF BISHOP PERRY. 
 
 It is to a cradle home of Church and country that we 
 come to-night. Amidst the shrines and sepulchres of this 
 land of ours there is no other spot so teeming with historic 
 associations, so abounding in sacred memories. The ground 
 on which we tread is holy ground. Reverently, lovingly, 
 as pilgrims to some scene, fair to look upon, consecrated 
 by faith and prayer and holy deeds, full of solemn memo- 
 ries of the past, we remember as we tread these aisles our 
 fathers trod, as we stand within these walls where gathered 
 the great and good of the Church and of the country's past, 
 the years of the right Hand of the Most High. For our 
 fathers' God is our God, and shall be to remotest generations. 
 We praise, we bless, we magnify His Holy Name for all that 
 in His loving kingdom He has done for them and for 
 ourselves. 
 
 j\ly theme requires a volume for its full and fitting treat- 
 ment. Bear with me while I touch briefly, on this anni- 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 73 
 
 versary occasion, on the connection of this venerable Christ 
 Church with the Church at large, the national historic 
 Church of Christ in these United States. 
 
 Answering with but brief delay, if not, indeed, antici- 
 pating the State House bell, the peal of Christ Church 
 rang out its proclamation, spiritual as well as temporal, of 
 liberty to all the world, — liberty, civil and religious ; free- 
 dom from alien potentate and power ; glad announcement 
 of the birth of the free Church in and coincident with the 
 birth of the free State. This is no empty boast. Ere the 
 clanging tongues of Old Liberty Bell and the answering 
 peal from Christ Church had ceased their ringing on the 
 natal day of the nation, there was born a National Church ; 
 and in response to the proclamation of the country's inde- 
 pendence, the Rector, Churchwardens and Vestrymen of 
 Christ Church met at the home of Parson Duche and freed 
 from the Prayer Book services all mention of King or of 
 royal family, of the high court of Parliament, of the 
 nobility of England ; and, in short, of everything indi- 
 cating subservience or allegiance to foreign domination, 
 civil or ecclesiastical. It was by this brave act, by this 
 repudiation, on the part of the newly freed and nationalized 
 American Churchmen of any connection implying subordi- 
 nation to the temporal or spiritual rule of England — Church 
 or State — that the ties of long existing dependence and the 
 recognition of years of loving, nursing care by the Mother 
 Church of the children in the western world were severed ; 
 and Church and State entered into independent life on one 
 and the self-same day, July 4th, 1776. 
 
 No other religious body can trace its origin to the very 
 birth-throes of the nation. With the news of what had been 
 done in the State House for civil freedom, that of the quick 
 response from Christ Church's Rector and Vestry for ecclesi- 
 astical liberty was borne to the northward to Parker, Rector 
 
74 Bi-Cente7tnial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 of Trinity Church, Boston, the leading spirit of the New 
 England clergy. At the southward, on every side, the 
 step taken by Christ Church was followed with alacrity ; 
 and so with glad acceptance the independence of Church 
 as well as State was recognized and assured. 
 
 When the first step in the direction of Church autonomy 
 was taken, this historic church numbered among its stated 
 worshippers two-thirds of the members of the Congress 
 which adopted the Declaration. The leaders in this move- 
 ment for independence were Churchmen. John Morton, 
 Churchman and vestryman at Chester, at that time a regu- 
 lar worshipper at this Church and a communicant at this 
 altar, gave the casting vote, placing Pennsylvania on the 
 side of freedom, and making the newly-organized State the 
 keystone indeed in the arch of American liberty. Dela- 
 ware's vote, as the gifted poet Buchannan Read so vividly 
 depicts it, was turned for freedom by Csesar Rodney's 
 famous ride, and Csesar Rodney was a Churchman and a 
 stated worshipper at Christ Church. This cradle-home of 
 civil and religious freedem was the church of Washington, 
 of Franklin, of Robert Morris, of Henry Laurens, of the 
 great body of the men who in the halls of Congress made 
 the State, and then modelled the economy of the Church 
 after its pattern. 
 
 The first step in the severance of the ties connecting the 
 churches in America with the Mother Church of England 
 was the act of this church's Rector, Churchwardens, Vestry- 
 men and people. It is no wonder that when the war drew 
 to a close, there appeared from the pen of the young patriot 
 priest in charge as Rector of the united churches of Christ 
 Church and St. Peter's the celebrated pamphlet entitled, 
 "The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered," 
 written by the foremost ecclesiastical statesman of his day, 
 a youth of thirty-six years, and containing among other 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 75 
 
 wise suggestions the incorporation of the laity in the 
 councils of the Church. 
 
 And so it occurred that the men who framed the national 
 government were associated in the even greater work, not 
 of founding or framing a Church, — for the Church is from 
 above and has one Head, one Founder, Christ our Lord, — 
 but of rearranging and readjusting the economy of the 
 Church as no longer dependent on the Church of England, 
 but as a national church, American in every feature of 
 outward organization, and yet in communion with and a 
 branch of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ. There 
 exists the closest agreement between our constitutions, our 
 conventions, our conciliar bodies, our general and diocesan 
 organization, in short, our very vestries — the outward and 
 visible machinery of our autonomy — and the principles and 
 practice of the nation as formulated in its constitution and 
 administration. It could not be otherwise, for the same 
 men framed and fashioned each ; and each we reverently 
 remember at this anniversary time. And so, when the war 
 was over and the adjustment of our ecclesiastical machinery 
 was being slowly, carefully, and with consummate skill 
 evolved, it was in Christ Church that the first ecclesiastical 
 synodical body convened, composed of laymen as well as 
 of clergymen ; and not only was our general ecclesiastical 
 constitution here enacted but the revision of the Prayer 
 Book— at first, in the " Proposed Book," carried, it may be, 
 too far, but resulting at length in the Prayer Book which 
 served us for a hundred years and more. 
 
 This very " Proposed Book " was here prepared, here 
 used for the first time, here discarded ; and here the Stand- 
 ard Prayer Book — only in 1892 superseded by a new 
 ■ " Standard" — was also prepared, and adopted for the cen- 
 tury's use. The old Church books of Christ Church bear 
 the indications of those use in those early revisions. They 
 
76 Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 enable us to trace the process through which the State 
 Prayers of England were transformed into patriotic petitions 
 for President, for Congress, and for the people of the 
 United States. 
 
 In this venerable Christ Church the measures were taken 
 for securing for us the episcopate in the English line of 
 succession. Gratefully, with every American Churchman, 
 do we recognize the heroism of the Catholic Remainder of 
 the Church of Scotland— despoiled, down-trodden, under 
 disabilities by law — in giving to the great-hearted Seabury 
 the consecration to his high office of first Bishop of Con- 
 necticut, first American Bishop, first Bishop presiding in 
 the American Church. But it was surely befitting, in view 
 of what the Mother Church of England had done for us, 
 that in the American line of succession from the Apostles, 
 and through them from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, 
 there should be had the line of Canterbury as well as that 
 of Aberdeen. Had not Seabury succeeded in Scotland we 
 may well believe with Parker of Massachusetts, that White 
 or Provoost would have gained their quest in England. 
 But thanks be to God, that within these walls the measures 
 were taken and the way made easy for the communication 
 of the Apostolical gift and grace through the hands of the 
 Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England. 
 
 And when the coveted gift was gained, when besides the 
 great-hearted Bishop of Connecticut at his New London 
 seat and See, there were in America as Bishops of the Angli- 
 can line, the aimable and saintly White, first Bishop of Penn- 
 sylvania, and the learned and militant Provoost, first Bishop 
 of New York, it was in this church that the measures 
 looking towards the union of the antagonistic churches of 
 New England and those of the Middle and Southern States 
 took form and shape. Here, in the early conventions, the 
 records of which are among our costliest Americana to-day. 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Chiiixh^ Philadelphia. 77 
 
 there were formulated the general ecclesiastical constitu- 
 tions, which, after needed revisions, brought into fraternal 
 union Seabury and his northern following with White and 
 Provoost, the representatives of the churches of the Middle 
 and Southern States. Here the first House of Bishops 
 met. Here were arranged the measures for the continu- 
 ance of the line of American succession. Here, after 
 solemn prayers and with earnest sermons, the men who 
 had been foremost in the framing of the government and 
 the Federal Constitution found their labors called for and 
 their prayers offered up to God, their toil, their interest 
 and their sympathies excited, as they made, after debate 
 and patient consideration, more fair, more stately, and 
 more beautiful the city of our God on earth. 
 
 Within these walls the communication of the three 
 orders of the ministry as derived from the English line of 
 succession began ; and not only priests, and deacons almost 
 innumerable, but bishops have gone forth to minister the 
 Word and sacraments to needy, perishing souls. From this 
 sacred place there went forth, after years of acceptable 
 service, the first Missionary Bishop of our Church, the 
 sainted Jackson Kemper. It was fitting that one trained 
 at the feet of White and receiving the apostolic commission 
 from his hands should be the Church's leader in the host 
 of self-denying and heroic bishops going East, West, North, 
 South to evangelize the nations. Here in Christ Church 
 where the first " act" of the General Convention recog- 
 nized the duty of the newly-organized American Church 
 to undertake the work of missions : — here where the 
 utterances of the fervid, eloquent Doane, proclaimed the 
 principle that every baptized member of the Church is a 
 member of the Church's missionary organization and con- 
 secrated to mission work and loving service, were our first 
 miissionary efforts taken. Here, too, has been the begin- 
 
78 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 ning of nearly all, if not all, of our eleemosynary societies, 
 our humanitarian efforts. 
 
 Is it of patriotic impulses that we seek a fitting source? 
 Where William White, the patriot chaplain of Congress, 
 seeking this post of danger when Congress itself was fleeing 
 from its foes, and where Blackwell, White's assistant or 
 curate, also served, after spending as chaplain at Valley 
 Forge that memorable winter of doubt and almost despair, 
 we may well find the incitement to the love of country as 
 well as of Church. 
 
 Is it of hospital and other humanitarian work we would 
 ask the beginning ? We find it here in Muhlenberg's ser- 
 vice as the assistant, friend, loving disciple of White. 
 
 Are we seeking the true source of our great theological 
 school — the General Theological Seminary of New York ? 
 Hobart was, indeed, the founder ; but the great Bishop of 
 New York was trained and taught by William White, and 
 from the very beginnings of this school, William White 
 was its friend, its guide, the shaper of its fortunes. Here 
 the work among the colored people had its start ; for 
 William White ordained the first clergyman of color 
 in this land. The suggestion of the Episcopal Academy 
 was an inspiration of William White, and its first trustees 
 were the Christ Chiirch parish officers and people. Christ 
 Church had its intimate connection with the founding of 
 the College and Academy of Philadelphia, now the noble 
 University of Pennsylvania, which we may well believe 
 has but entered upon the vestibule of its coming greatness. 
 It is the same with Christ Christ Hospital, one of those 
 gracious characters all the world must recognize and 
 approve, which had here its start and springings to light, — 
 and all this before the war which gave us freedom, civil 
 and religious. 
 
 This good work has ever gone on. From Christ Church, 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Chtirchy Philadelphia. 79 
 
 as from " Siloa's brook," there has ever flowed stream after 
 stream of beneficence, which have made glad the city of 
 our God. Here, besides those we have already mentioned, 
 De lyancey ministered and drank in from the lips of 
 White the lessons of wisdom that great first bishop of 
 Pennsylvania knew so well how to impart. May we not 
 trace back to Christ Church the coming readjustment of 
 ecclesiastical system, which White foresaw, when, like the 
 Church Catholic of Christ throughout the world, we shall 
 have provinces, primate, archbishops, and all the needed 
 helps to our development. The " evangelical" of to-day 
 will not forget that James Milnor here labored under the 
 loving direction of the holy influences and gracious gifts 
 of God to His Church attending the ministry of this gifted 
 and godly man. 
 
 But we may not thus go on, for were the remaining 
 hours of the day to be occupied by our recital of the close 
 connection of this sacred spot to the Church at large in the 
 United States, we could only indicate a tithe of what is in 
 our mind and almost on our lips. It is enough that in this 
 celebration of two centuries of parish life, in this remem- 
 brance of the years of the right hand of the Most High, 
 we have the Church in the United States turning its sfaze 
 upon us and rejoicing in this fitting eflbrt which we seek 
 to make to the glory of God, and the memory of our fathers. 
 Of this historic pile, of this holy ground on which we stand 
 to-night, we may well cry out ^'' Esto perpetua V 
 
 The generations yet to come shall gather here with love 
 and reverance. May they with us thank God for the good 
 example of the sires who here laid broad and deep the 
 foundations of Church and country to the glory of God 
 and the good of man. 
 
8o Bi-Centennial of Christ Ckurck, Philadelphia. 
 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22nd. 
 
 There was a celebration of the Blessed Sacrament at 1 1 
 A.M. on this day, followed in the evening by a festival for 
 parish workers in the Parish House. 
 
 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23rd. 
 
 A celebration of the Eucharist at an early hour in the 
 morning, was followed by a service at night for Church 
 workers of the Diocese, at which were present delegations 
 from parishes from all parts of the city. A sermon was 
 preached by the Rev. William B. Bodine, D.D., Rector of 
 the Church of the Saviour, Philadelphia, as follows : 
 
 SERMON OF REV. DR. BODINE. 
 
 Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and 
 to wait for his Son from heaven. — i Thessalonians i: 9-10. 
 
 I wish to begin this evening with the statement, which 
 no doubt has been uttered by all who have spoken in this 
 sacred place during the past week, that there is no church 
 in America around which cluster so many hallowed asso- 
 ciations as this Christ Church in this city of Philadelphia. 
 There is no church so well fitted to be the shrine of united 
 patriotic and religious devotion. And this pulpit in which 
 I am now standing for the first time, what words it has 
 heard; what scenes it has beheld ! How many golden utter- 
 ances have gone forth from it during the past one hundred 
 years ! Here William A. Muhlenberg preached his first 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 8i 
 
 sermon ; here William White preached for the sixty years 
 of his wonderfully wise and fruitful ministry ; here scores 
 and even hundreds of the strongest and best men in the 
 American Church have held forth the word of life. To- 
 night we are nearing the close of a remarkable bi-centennial 
 celebration, and in connection with this service I have been 
 asked to speak to you. Of course I had no option in reply- 
 ing to the request, which was, in itself, equivalent to a 
 command. So in this place I stand, rejoicing in the past and 
 hopeful for the future, as in the name of the Great Head of 
 the Church I try to bring to you His message of peace and 
 strength and salvation. 
 
 The text just named has been chosen because the duty 
 assigned to me has been that of speaking to you as a body 
 of Christian workers, and I have aimed to select a passage 
 of God's Word which not only speaks of service, but of the 
 spirit in which it should be performed. St. Paul is here 
 writing to the saints in the church of Thessalonica, and 
 tells them with gladness of that great crisis in their lives 
 when they turned to God from idols to serve the living and 
 true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. In writ- 
 ing thus he makes known to the Thessalonian followers of 
 our Lord just what the Christian life upon the earth ought 
 to be, vis.^ an earnest service of the living and true God 
 coupled with an attitude of expectancy for the final triumph 
 of the Son of Man, the two — the service and the sure 
 expectation — fitting together as the halves of an apple, 
 unitedly forming a rounded whole. The service of God 
 during our pilgrimage below needs something to brighten 
 it, the cheering and invigorating influence of hope. If a 
 man works for God in the present without looking on in 
 anticipation of the glorious triumph which is promised and 
 sure to come, his work will sink to the level of drudgery ; 
 and drudgery can never be the best kind of work. On the 
 
82 Bi-Ceniemtial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 other hand, if a man folds his "faithclad arms in lazy- 
 lock," and does nothing but look for the establishment of 
 Christ's kingdom of righteousness and peace, he becomes 
 a mere dreamer, an idler, a sentimentalist. Of the two 
 extremes, the latter is much the worse. It is the combina- 
 tion of the two, their harmonious union which gives us the 
 ideal experience for which we ought to be praying and 
 towards which we ought to be climbing. 
 
 No message is suited to this time and occasion excepting 
 one which is practical. So let me speak to you concerning 
 (I) the Christian's vocation ; (II) the Christian's attitude. 
 
 (I) The Christian's vocation is "to serve the living and 
 true God." For this partially he is left on the earth. He 
 needs discipline that so he may be a pillar, finely polished, 
 in the temple of our God. But in addition to this the 
 Most High has a cause upon the earth, the cause of 
 righteousness and peace and truth ; and that cause needs 
 help, and God's will concerning his servants is that they 
 should aid in every possible way in the furthering of that 
 cause. How then can we best serve God? The duty 
 being apparent, this becomes an important question. 
 
 {a) We can serve God by the promulgation of His truth. 
 According to the teaching of Sacred Scripture the range 
 of the truth is extensive, its power vast. St. James writes, 
 " Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth." 
 St. Peter writes, " Seeing ye have purified your souls in 
 obeying the truth." St. Paul writes, "God hath from the 
 beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification 
 of the Spirit and belief of the truth." And the "Holy 
 One," greater than all Apostles and Prophets, even our 
 L,ord Jesus Christ, has said, " Ye shall know the truth and 
 the truth shall make you free," praying earnestly for His 
 faithful followers, " Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy 
 word is truth." From these united utterances it plainly 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 83 
 
 appears that spiritual liberty, regeneration, sanctification, 
 salvation are results wliicli flow from the right reception of 
 the truth. When St. Peter preached the Word of God with 
 boldness on the Day of Pentecost, he was serving God. 
 When St. Paul reasoned in the synagogue of Thessalonica, 
 when he stood on Mar's Hill, when he taught publicly and 
 from house to house, he was serving God. So when St. 
 John declared the love that God hath to us, and when still 
 young through God's grace, though nearly five score years 
 might have made him old, he simply repeated the ever 
 inspiring message " lyittle children love one another ;" he 
 was serving God. So with St. Thomas in Parthia, with St. 
 Bartholomew in India, with L,azarus in Marseilles. They 
 proclaimed the truth, and thereby served God. So Chrysos- 
 tom and Gregory and Athanasius, and men of like spirit 
 and power during the eighteen Christian centuries ! So 
 the saintly men who have proclained the Word of the Lord 
 on this side of the ocean, and in this Cit}^ of Brotherly 
 Love during the two hundred years of the life of this 
 honored parish ! 
 
 But let us not forget that these men were merely leaders, 
 and that a mighty host hath followed in their train. The 
 Christian father, putting words of heavenly wisdom into 
 the heart of his child ! The Christian mother, teaching 
 her little ones the way of life and holiness ! The faithful 
 Sunday-school teacher ! The members of the Brotherhood 
 of St. Andrew doing their duty in prayer and manly effort ! 
 The Girls' Friendly Society ! All who speak or write 
 words of cheer and comfort, or who with accents of tender 
 sympathy pour the oil of consolation into bruised and 
 bleeding hearts telling of the Great Physician and the 
 Holy Ghost the Comforter ! All men everywhere who 
 wisely utter words of heavenly wisdom concerning repent- 
 ance towards God or faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, or love 
 to the brethren are thereby serving God ! 
 
84 Bi-Centennial of Christ Omrch^ Philadelphia. 
 
 Nay, the whole truth is still larger even than this, for 
 there is truth in God's world as well as in His Sacred 
 Word. Sir Isaac Newton, gathering his pebbles upon the 
 shore of the great ocean of truth, and using these pebbles 
 for the good of his fellow-men, was thereby serving God. 
 Christopher Columbus sailing westward to make known 
 the glories of an undiscovered continent, was thereby serv- 
 ing God. Our own Agassiz, having " no time to make 
 money," but burning with desire to open the mines of 
 golden truth, hidden in the rock or buried beneath the sea, 
 and proclaiming the truth which he had learned through 
 fish and beast and bird, was thereby serving God. And so 
 wherever men are striving after truth in art, or literature, 
 or philosophy, or science, and laboring to make known 
 " the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," 
 they are serving God. 
 
 Of course there is a higher service and a lower service. 
 Service in the realm of religion is higher than service in 
 art or philosophy. Christ stands at the summit of all know- 
 ledge. In Him are hid all the purest and noblest treasures 
 of wisdom. L,et that be made emphatic ; but let it not 
 obscure the statement that all truth seeking and all truth 
 telling is a service of the living and true God. 
 
 {p) We can serve God by our works of active benevolence. 
 When we relieve the oppressed, or deal our bread to the 
 hungry, or clothe the destitute, or visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, we are thereby serving God. 
 
 With the circumstances of our modern life pressing 
 about us, many Christian men and women in our cities are 
 debarred from the privilege of doing much of this truly 
 Christian work in a direct way ; and this is no doubt to 
 their spiritual loss. For their growth in grace and in the 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ they ought to be doing 
 some of it — the more the better. But when the difSculties 
 
Bi- Centetmial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 85 
 
 thicken in the way of direct Christian activity through 
 actual contact with the poor and suffering, something can 
 be done by those who are " rich in this world's goods " 
 through the free, glad outpouring of their earthly treasure. 
 Time is power ; money is power also, for money is simply 
 a representative of other values. It is time condensed, 
 energy compressed, toil forced compactly together and 
 crowded into limits easily controlled. It will not do there- 
 fore for men or women, whose are the associations of 
 luxury, to say "I cannot be caring for the sick and ne- 
 glected ; I cannot be looking up poor, ragamufi&n children 
 all day long — I hav'nt the time." In one sense yes, in 
 another sense no ; you may have the time in the dollars 
 which you count your own. And just as you get your 
 bonnets or your coats with your money, just so with your 
 money you may undo many a heavy burden, and let many 
 oppressed go free. 
 
 Many years ago a Christian laymen said to me, " It seems 
 absolutely essential that my time shall be given to my 
 business. I wish that I could do this direct Christian work, 
 but apparently I cannot. But measurable business pros- 
 perity is mine, so I can afford to pay somebody to do work 
 for me as a 'substitute.' If I cannot fight at the front, I 
 can support somebody whilst struggling there. Can you 
 recommend to me a suitable person?" The person was 
 found, and the work done. And what gladness shone in 
 that counting-room in consequence ! 
 
 Personal activity in labors of Christian benevolence 
 brings to the laborer the fruit of richest perfection. But 
 this other kind of labor, through money freely offered in 
 Christ's name, counts also. So let us all serve God through 
 our labors of genuine benevolence. 
 
 (c) We can serve God by the cultivation of Christian 
 graces. Never did John Milton tune his lyre to sing more 
 
86 Bi-Centen7iial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 wisely, or with more strength and beauty, than when he 
 wrote that immortal sonnet upon his own blindness, in 
 which he says : 
 
 " God doth not need 
 Either man's work, or his own gifts ; Who best 
 Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best : His state 
 Is kingly : thousands at His bidding speed 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
 They also serve who only stand and wait." 
 
 Yes, we serve God by toil and by waiting also, and the 
 one service may be as important and rich in blessing as 
 the other. The poor, tired, suffering saints who sit in loneli- 
 ness and wait upon beds of pain and anguish sometimes say 
 mournfully, "What can I do in the way of service? I am 
 cut off" from that." Nay, my brother, that may be opening 
 to you in the very highest way. 
 
 " Birds by being glad their Maker bless, 
 B3' simply shining sun and star ; 
 And we, whose law is love, serve less 
 By what we do than what we are." 
 
 Henry Martyn was wont to say " the power of gentleness- 
 is irresistible." The power of patience ! with what glory 
 it shines, and how hearts are touched by it as with the 
 flashing rays of heaven ! So let us keep constantly in mind 
 the certain fact that every time we check a hasty word in 
 its utterance, every time we throttle an unlawful thought, 
 every time we crush an unholy desire, we are serving God ; 
 every time we hew a timber, every time we polish a corner, 
 every time we lift aloft a stone in the sacred temple of love, 
 joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- 
 ness, temperance, we are thereby serving God. And thus 
 all men and all women can be laborers together with God. 
 The silent and the active can alike ply their Christian voca- 
 
Bi-Centen7iial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 87 
 
 tion. The resolute and heroic toiler and the meek and 
 lowly sufferer can both serve the living and true God. 
 And opportunities abound, for 
 
 " The common round, the daily task 
 Will furnish all we ought to ask 
 Room to deny ourselves, a road 
 To bring us daily nearer God." 
 
 (II). And now as to the other side of the Christian life, 
 the bright and joyous side, that which gleams with the 
 light of expectation. "Ye turned to God from idols to 
 serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son 
 from heaven." 
 
 That Christ should come again to judge the living and 
 the dead was the faith of the early Church. It is the faith 
 of the Church to-day. How He may come we may not 
 definitely say. We only know that He will come, and 
 that every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced 
 Him. And the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of 
 Him. Our outward eyes may behold Him, or they may 
 not. He may be visible only to the spiritual sight within. 
 The essential thing to believe and know is that He will 
 come with power and great glory ; that He will appear on 
 earth as the avenger and destroyer of every wrong, and this 
 is the name by which He shall be called " The I^ord our 
 Righteousness. " " In His days shall the righteous flourish, 
 and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." 
 
 This is the Christian's hope. And it is no small matter. 
 It is a hope which covers the earth, and takes in the eter- 
 nities. A hope which brings life and immortality to light, 
 abolishing forever sin and suffering and death, — "a good 
 hope through grace." 
 
 Not very long ago in the most popular of the daily jour- 
 nals of the city of London there appeared the following 
 statement : " Agnostics and Secularists who think that we 
 
88 Bi^Ce7itcnnial of Christ Clmrch^ Philadelphia. 
 
 have only one life do not build hospitals or go as Sisters of 
 Charity among the poor. IvOgically one might suppose 
 that the persons who expect happiness beyond this earth 
 would ignore earthly unhappiness, believing it of no import- 
 ance comparing it with the bliss to come. It never has 
 been so, however, at any stage of the world's history. 
 Giving to the poor has been the outward and visible sign 
 of inward and spiritual faith, even before the rise of 
 Christianity. We suppose that out of every hundred 
 pounds given to charity in England to-day ninety-five 
 come from religious men and women." 
 
 This statement is doubtless true. Faith, hope, love, 
 these are the Christian virtues. And the love glows all 
 the more brightly because of the gladdening rays which 
 come from faith and hope. 
 
 That Christ's reappearing will be accompanied with 
 mighty social convulsions seems clear beyond question. 
 He comes to make an end of sin, and to bring in ever- 
 lasting righteousness. Of course His coming must be an 
 act of judgment. If wrongs are to be put away with a 
 strong hand, the wrong-doer must suffer. If evil is to be 
 ended forever, the evil-doers must go down in an agony of 
 defeat in the last dread conflict. This the early Christians 
 knew. But they looked beyond the terrors of the final 
 day to the glorious vision which entranced them, wherein 
 they beheld a redeemed creation, a better country, a new 
 heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
 That hope held them as an anchor of the soul when the 
 sea and the waves were roaring with the loud rush of per- 
 secutions. That enrapturing prospect filled them with joy 
 unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 So let us look up and on. So let us never grow weary 
 in well doing, for we shall reap if we faint not. Let us 
 humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that He 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Chzirch^ Philadelphia. 89 
 
 may exalt us in due time. Let us be diligent that we may 
 be found of Him in peace without spot and blameless. Let 
 us live as in His presence, our conversation being in heaven, 
 from whence also we look for the Saviour. 
 
 This then is the Church's message to Christian workers 
 delivered from this sacred place upon this most memorable 
 occasion. Your mission is to serve the living and true 
 God. That you may do this successfully, be sharers of 
 His spirit. He is the God of truth. Be true, absolutely 
 true, in all your earthly relations. Be alive also ! " More 
 life and fuller 'tis we want." Let His life quiver within 
 you. So shall you have both peace and power. And then 
 besides wait for His Son from heaven. " Be patient, there- 
 fore, my brethren unto the coming of the Lord." There 
 will be hours of discouragement, but remember that the 
 sun is behind the clouds. There will be times of difficulty 
 and danger. Wait in sure and certain hope. 
 
 " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written 
 for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of 
 the Scriptures might have hope." " Cast not away there- 
 fore your confidence which hath great recompense of 
 reward, for yet a little while and He that shall come will 
 come, and will not tarry." 
 
 Revelation is light, and the light brings with it a glori- 
 ous and enduring hope. Hope on then, hope ever ! Believe 
 this gospel of hope. So shall you be workmen having no 
 need to be ashamed. In the pews where you are sitting 
 George Washington worshipped God, Benjamin Franklin 
 pondered the ways of God to men, and Robert Morris 
 learned the way of heroic self-sacrifice. 
 
 Here Bishop White preached the gospel of hope. Our 
 fathers builded wisely and well. They believed in God, 
 and so became His servants. They trusted Him, and so 
 were strong to do the right. In the darkest hour of their 
 
go Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 lives, and of our nation's life, tlieir hope kept alive the 
 flickering flame of zeal. And so may you be quickened 
 more earnestly than ever " to serve the living and true God 
 and to wait for His Son from heaven." 
 
 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24th. 
 
 The Octave of services was completed by a service com- 
 memorating Christ Church and the Dioceses that have 
 grown out of it. This service began at 11 a.m. and ended 
 with a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The preacher 
 was the Rt. Rev. Cortlandt Whitehead, D.D., Bishop of 
 Pittsburgh. His sermon was as follows : 
 
 SERMON OF BISHOP WHITEHEAD. 
 
 That those things which cannot be shaken may remain. — Hebrews 
 xii, 27. 
 
 Two hundred years is a long period in the history of 
 anything American. And there are not many organizations 
 or institutions this side the Atlantic, not even our govern- 
 ment itself, which can at the present or in the near future 
 celebrate their bi-centennaries. 
 
 All the more noteworthy is it that we are called to-day to 
 a festival observance which witnesses to the pre-eminent 
 age of this parish among the venerable things of Philadel- 
 phia, and indeed of the United States. 
 
 Noteworthy, too, that the festival is ecclesiastical, bear- 
 ing testimony to the quality of permanence in religion, a 
 quality which, like salt, has preserved and purified what 
 otherwise might easily have been corrupted. For we must 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Pkiladelphia. 91 
 
 not forget that we are called to celebrate the bi-centennial 
 of an organization absolutely identical throughout all its 
 histor}', unchanged in all things, altered not one whit in 
 essential point since the beginning. Its witness has been 
 borne throughout its long and honorable career, and that 
 without hesitation, or compromise, to those principles on 
 which it was founded. Faithfully have all its rectors 
 upheld " Evangelic Truth and Apostolic Order." L,oyally 
 have its people acknowledged the same. Our Service 
 to-day is identical (without the change of more than a few 
 words) with that which was read b}'' the Rev. Mr. Clayton, 
 and shared by his congregation, two hundred years ago. 
 
 Do you say there is little noteworthy in that ? 
 
 I answer that two hundred years is by no means too 
 short to accomplish great changes even in ecclesiastical 
 affairs. Witness the merging of the old Swedish churches 
 in Delaware and Pennsylvania into the Anglican Church. 
 Witness what seems to us the betrayal of King's Chapel, 
 Boston, to an alien body. Witness in the same latitude a 
 few generations ago the rapid defection of orthodox con- 
 gregations one after the other to Socinianism. Witness 
 alterations, even in the essentials of the faith within the 
 last generation, by the Church of Rome. Witness the 
 shifting of various denominations since the Reformation, 
 and their increasing discord with their own formularies 
 and confessions before our very eyes to-day. 
 
 The two hundred years of this parish's existence have 
 sufl&ced for the inauguration and spread of the great Wes- 
 leyan body, and its disintegration already in several kinds 
 of Methodists. Within the same period have arisen 
 various kinds of Presbyterians, instead of the one staid and 
 well-settled communion to be found here two centuries 
 ago. Other numerous instances could be given. So that 
 it is indeed worthy of note that we celebrate the anniver- 
 
92 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 sary of something permanent and imchangeable, grown 
 indeed from infancy to maturity, but maintaining the 
 same features in the adult as in the child, possessing the 
 same organs and exercising the same powers, only brought 
 on further towards perfection. 
 
 It becomes pertinent then, and will not be unprofitable 
 to inquire what are those elements in the life of this parish 
 which have contributed and do now contribute to its per- 
 manent establishment, growth and influence. What ele- 
 ments have made it a fountain of help and encouragement 
 beyond its own borders? What has enabled it to be a 
 mother church, so that children from afar come (as I do 
 this day from beyond the Alleghenies) to offer gladly their 
 congratulations and render their grateful acknowledg- 
 ments? What are "the things that cannot be shaken?" 
 What are the things which, therefore, despite all vicissi- 
 tudes " shall remain," as they have remained? 
 
 We look around our modern denominationalism ; we see 
 chiirch built against church, altar reared against altar, con- 
 gregations divided on some question of method or of ritual ; 
 the various kinds of Presbyterians all holding the same 
 views as to the parity of the ministry, and as to the mode 
 of conducting divine worship, all upholding in the main 
 the same doctrine, but divided on some secondary matter, 
 concerning which the adherents themselves very often have 
 not a very clear intelligence. Several kinds of Baptists, 
 all holding very much the same faith, all practicing the 
 same immersion ; several kinds of Methodists united in 
 their zeal, and in their reverence for their founder, but 
 separated on some minor detail of government, or of prac- 
 tice. Little sects here and there, keeping up a vigorous, 
 and sometimes a sort of galvanic life, by virtue of adher- 
 ence to some one or two doctrines considered most import- 
 ant, and which, being magnified beyond all proportion, ' 
 
Bi-Centennialof Christ Church, Philadelphia. 93 
 
 claim the loyalty, even unto death, of those who rally round 
 them. And one cannot help wondering what must be the 
 effect of all this difference of opinion, what shall be the 
 ultimate result :— Is the house thus divided against itself to 
 come to desolation ? Is Christianity doomed to be a dismal 
 failure because men cannot agree about these thincrs? 
 Must there necessarily be before our Presbyterian brethren 
 for instance, the dark prospect of utter ruin, because just 
 now there is a difference of opinion as to the advisability 
 and method of revising the Confession of Faith ? 
 
 Almost every one answers such questions in the negative 
 simply because, by a sort of intuition, we recognize that 
 these are not the essential things. We must fain confess 
 that Christian disciples are divided by matters that are of 
 small importance when compared with those things which 
 " cannot be shaken," and which " remain." Thoir^^h there 
 should be ten times more difference of opinion and ques- 
 tioning on the part of the various portions of the great 
 company of disciples, though there should be far more 
 division than at present, and far more difference of adminis- 
 tration, and of belief, we should be compelled to assert that 
 the Christian religion would still make progress, as it has 
 m the past, notwithstanding the many divisions arising 
 since the English Reformation. We believe that the ulti- 
 mate triumph of Christ is assured, in spite of all these bar 
 riers and hindrances, because, by a sort of intuition, we look 
 past these things to Christ Himself, and recognize the eter- 
 nal vigor of His conquering arm, and believe that He shall 
 be more than conqueror at the last. 
 
 And that these things are only secondary, is witnessed by 
 the fact that Christian people work together, pray together 
 ]om hand m hand in many enterprises, and thus recognize 
 the underlying unity ; as when one stands upon the broad 
 earth, bearing all its teeming millions, and feels the pulse 
 
94 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 of the one humanity, even though family and clan and 
 nation be separated one from the other by walls and bar- 
 riers. It is a curious, and indeed a sad spectacle, Christian 
 people thus composedly and all unconsciously accusing 
 themselves of foolishness in caring more for secondaray 
 things than for the great privilege and duty of peace and 
 concord and unity. 
 
 The hope of Christianity lies in this, that more and more 
 each year, disciples of Christ, feeling the unwisdom and 
 the crime of many divisions, will turn their thought to 
 those things which unite us in one bond of fellowship. 
 For we all feel instinctively, that when the L,ord shall come 
 again in His glory, when we look at things terrestrial from 
 the other side of that great event, when we come to esteem 
 things at the value which eternity shall give them, almost 
 all these matters which now separate us will seem infiinites- 
 imally small in comparison with the awful verities which 
 are infinite and eternal. 
 
 I want to speak this morning about those things which 
 in the view of this Church " cannot be shaken," the things 
 upon which we all ought to be agreed, rather than the 
 things upon which we are divided ; the things for which, 
 as we believe, this venerable parish has stood through all 
 its history. If we would listen to their voices, the divisions 
 of Christendom, as we sincerely believe and claim, would 
 speedily disappear. 
 
 Our House of Bishops, in laying down in a solemn for- 
 mula, that which they held to be a sacred deposit, put in 
 trust for all the centuries, have enumerated four great 
 fundamental y«c/j-, upon which alone any true reunion can 
 be gained, or, as they expressed it, progress might be made 
 towards unity. First of all, the Word of God, as the 
 inspired revelation of God's will to man. Next, the Apos- 
 tles' and Nicene Creeds, as the sufficient embodiment of 
 
Bi-Centeniiial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 95 
 
 Christian belief. Third, the two great Sacraments insti- 
 tuted by Christ Himself ; Baptism and the Supper of the 
 Lord. And fourth, that Historic Episcopate, which 
 witnesses to the corporate and visible continuance of the 
 Gospel in the world, since the beginning. 
 
 As the geologist from one single bone can build up the 
 structure of an animal extinct, so from these four facts, can 
 the thoughtful and intelligent Christian elaborate and fill 
 out the form of the Christian Church of the future. Our 
 Bishops mentioned these four principles because they 
 believed them to be unshakable in the future as they have 
 been in the past. They will outlast all the changes and 
 chances of time, as they have outlasted until now ; they 
 are the foundation rocks upon which it would be safe to 
 build ; there is no shifting sand underlying them, they 
 imply very much more than they express, and their con- 
 sideration leads us back to the very beginning of things. 
 For you will notice that the four are all of them Institutions., 
 outward and visible — the Word of God, the Nicene Faith, 
 the Sacraments, and the Ministry. They are all outward 
 and visible signs which announce an inward and spiritual 
 grace, they all point to truths far beyond themselves. We 
 learn from them the great truths of God's existence, His 
 personality. His mind and heart turned towards the 
 creatures of His hand, so that He would communicate 
 Himself to them by holy men, moved to speak or write 
 under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thereby it has 
 been possible to glean from their speech first, afterwards to 
 be attested by their writings, a clear and definite statement 
 of that which is most essential to believe, that which we 
 call the Catholic Faith, which except a man accept impli- 
 citly., if not explicitly, " he must without doubt, perish 
 everlastingly." In the two Sacraments, God does not 
 reveal Himself, but communicates Himself to men, receiv- 
 
96 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 ing them into the manifest relation of sonship, and nour- 
 ishing them unto everlasting life. And the Ministry has 
 its triple duty of explaining the will of God, proclaiming 
 that will as it has always been received by the historic 
 Church, and conveying God's grace to men by the pledges 
 which God Himself has ordained. 
 
 They all imply the existence of a body called the Church, 
 the society of which the ministry is a constituent part, 
 which Christ Himself ordained, and to which He has 
 promised His presence, even unto the end of the world — 
 the society to which His Word was given, by which the 
 Faith was declared, and in which the Sacraments are duly 
 administered by the authorized messengers of God. 
 
 It seems to us that these four institutions stand or fall 
 together. Take any one of them away and the others are 
 irretrievably weakened. The city must stand " foursquare," 
 in order to be solid and permanent. Moreover, each of 
 these principles includes all the rest ; for the Word of God 
 certainly witnesses to the true Faith, to the Holy Sacra- 
 ments, and to the authorized Ministry. . The Faith is 
 witnessed to by the Holy Scriptures, and maintained in the 
 Sacraments, and proclaimed by the Clergy. The Sacra- 
 ments would be of no meaning unless they proclaimed the 
 true doctrines, which are emphasized in the Holy Scriptures, 
 and formulated in the Creed, and are administered by those 
 holding Christ's commission. And surely the Ministry 
 would have no basis to stand upon, were it not that Creed, 
 and Scripture, and Sacraments all cry out for the personal 
 witnesses who alone can make them effective in the world, 
 from generation to generation. 
 
 These things, then, it seems to us, are the things which 
 cannot be shaken ; these the things for which witness has 
 been borne in this parish for the last two hundred years. 
 How is it possible to conceive of a permanent system of 
 
Bi- Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia, 97 
 
 Christianity that should leave any one of them out? 
 Such a system would be certainly cut-oflF from connection 
 with the past ; and would be an entirely new thing, and 
 because new, false. The rapid disintegration of the various 
 denominations during the comparatively short time since 
 the Reformation, should cause their adherents to ask most 
 diligently what that element of disintegration is. Some- 
 thing is lacking in their constituent qualities, else it is 
 impossible that they should so easily and so frequently be 
 " shaken.'''' For it must never be forgotten that co7itinuity 
 of life is as necessary to identity of life in the Church, as 
 in human experience. If to the Church at the beginning, 
 Christ gave His promise of presence and blessing even 
 unto the end of the world., it is clear that there must be 
 continuity of actual fact, or else the Church of the nine- 
 teenth century can have no right to its claim to be the 
 Church of Christ which started out in the first century. 
 
 Whatever were the features of the infant, must be, how- 
 ever modified by circumstances, and by time, still the same 
 features in the man. Whatever contour the Church had 
 at the beginning, it ought to have, however ennobled and 
 developed, at maturity. If heart and lungs and various 
 senses were necessary for perfection at the outset, the same 
 organs are necessary for perfection later on. The constant 
 references in the Scriptures, to a body, and to life in the 
 body, give us a strong claim on the attention of those to 
 whom we come, urging the identity of the Church of the 
 nineteenth century, with that which started out on the first 
 Easter Day, with the glorious commission to claim the 
 world for Christ. Who shall gainsay the assertion that the 
 Word of God in its fullest and freest sense, not merely as 
 written words, but as held and believed and taught, was the 
 possession of the Church at the very earliest movement? 
 Who shall deny that in the same way, a certain divine 
 
98 Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 faith was formulated and held, even on that first great 
 occasion when thousands were baptized into the Name 
 of and therefore into the belief in, the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost ? Who can fail to understand that 
 from the very outset the great sacraments of Baptism, 
 and of the Lord's Supper, were constantly observed? 
 Nothing is clearer than that certain men, commissioned 
 with their high ambassadorship, went hither and thither 
 into all the known world, preaching the Gospel and the 
 things that they had learned, conveying them to others 
 that they might teach and preach the same. 
 
 Now our Church, and the whole Anglican Communion, 
 assembled by its representative Bishops, in the Lambeth 
 Conference, has clearly announced its firm belief in the en- 
 during nature of these four institutions, and in the great 
 truths for which they stand. And what is more, the whole 
 Christian world can hardly fail to accept in due time that 
 testimony, because it is in harmony with the testimony 
 well-nigh unbroken of all the Christian centuries. The 
 more thought and discussion there are given these four 
 points, the more certainly shall all intelligent and well 
 instructed Christian people give their adherence to them. 
 These things which cannot be shaken, will remain. They 
 form the backbone, or rather the warp and woof of Christ- 
 ian teaching, as regards Christianity as an Institution ; and 
 all other things, however important, are, after all, second- 
 ary to these. And it will become more and more mani- 
 festly absurd for sober Christian men and women to remain 
 divided in various sects and denominations, when, concern- 
 ing fundamental principles, the immense majority of all the 
 past and of the present as well, are so thoroughly at one. 
 
 How insignificant appear controversies and misunder- 
 standings about organs, and robes, and adornments, and 
 confessions, when we look with unprejudiced eyes at the 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 99 
 
 noble grandeur of such things as those of which we have 
 been speaking. Let us remember that many of the things 
 which now engage our attention, will seem in the great 
 day of the Lord, utterly unworthy of a moment's consider- 
 ation. 
 
 Two or three things ought to be especially emphasized 
 as the duty of intelligent Christian people in these days : 
 First, ought we not to try and school our minds to discrimi- 
 nate between the essential and the accidental, between that 
 which is necessary, and that which is proper, or beautiful, 
 or expedient? There is as much mental strabismus and 
 astigmatism as physical ; probably more. We forget that 
 we all see spiritual things as in a glass, darkly, and there- 
 fore it behooves us to be the more careful in forming our 
 estimate, and not to be too hasty in judgment, or partial 
 or prejudiced in our ultimate view of things. Secondly, 
 and as a part of that of which we have been speaking, 
 ought we not to educate ourselves in good nature., looking 
 with good-humored charity and tolerance upon the things, 
 most of them non-essential and secondary, in which our 
 brother differs from us ? If he must sing Psalms, let us not 
 revile him for it If he cares for lights and vestments, let 
 us be equally indulgent. If he worships God in one fashion 
 and we in another, let us not magnify his peculiarities, and 
 esteem him the less because of them. Let us look with 
 kindly eyes on mankind in general, and not at ourselves in 
 particular. The superciliousness that disdains one's neigh- 
 bor, simply because he differs (although such supercilious- 
 ness is often found as a characteristic of those who profess 
 to be broad-minded), is totally opposed to the spirit of 
 Christianity. Do you not remember how our Lord was 
 circumcised, not for Himself, but for others, and because it 
 was, by others, considered proper and right ? Was He not 
 baptized, not for Himself, but " to fulfill all righteousness," 
 
lOO Bi-Ceiitennial of Christ Churchy Philadelphia. 
 
 and to adapt Himself to the prejudices simply of those 
 among whom He came ? Did He not say to Peter : — " I^est 
 we should displease them, let us pay tribute ? " How un- 
 like His loving temper is that which separates from another, 
 simply because he differs ; the temper that is slow to make 
 allowance. 
 
 But all this has to do with our treatment of our brethren 
 individually^ as fellow-disciples of our common Lord. 
 When we come to our attitude towards the essentials of the 
 Faith, the Christian Church as an Institution, a vessel to 
 convey the knowledge of God and the grace of God to the 
 successive generations of men, then we must heed the 
 exhortation : " Be watchful, and strengthen the things 
 which remain." We must see to it that we, for our part, 
 build up ourselves in the most holy Faith, growing stronger 
 every day in our appreciation of that which is indeed the 
 truth, " earnestly contending for the faith which was once 
 for all delivered to the saints" — seeking that grace by 
 which alone our lives can be brought into conformity with 
 that truth, and daily making progress in the divine life, 
 and "growing up unto Him in all things, which is the 
 Head, even Christ." 
 
 Here, the truest tolerance is that which, while it con- 
 fesses the liberty of all, nevertheless, holds fast most firmly 
 to its own heritage of faith, holding nothing dearer than 
 loyalty to that truth which God has revealed to itself. 
 Then when at the last, all the scaffolding shall drop away, 
 when all that which has been secondary shall take its 
 proper place, that which " cannot be shaken^'' shall indeed 
 "remain," the assurance and promise to us that we have 
 built upon the true foundation. Though the winds and 
 waves may beat upon the structure which has been reared, 
 it shall not fall, for it is founded upon the rock. 
 
 Therefore, at the close of two centuries of steadfast 
 
Bi-Centennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. lOi 
 
 witness-bearing, this venerable parish still feels the pulsing 
 of her vigorous life, still maintains her courage, still holds 
 aloft with steady arm and undaunted heart the banner of 
 the ancient faith, knowing that it shall surely conquer in 
 the end ; and to her the exhortation comes : " Be watchful, 
 and strengthen the things that remain." 
 
 Brethren, you may well remember the words which 
 immediately follow our text, " Wherefore, we receiving a 
 kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby 
 we may serve God acceptably with reverence and o'odly 
 fear." 
 
 This connects the past with the future, it enjoins in the 
 centuries to come like fidelity to that displayed in the 
 centuries past. Your predecessors preserved the true 
 principles of the Catholic religion unshaken. Ours they 
 are to-day. 
 
 " Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be 
 shaken, let us have grace whereby in all the coming years 
 we may offer service acceptable to God with reverence and 
 godly fear." 
 
 And if you ask me, what can we do this very day ? I 
 answer, surely, on this and every occasion when the Holy 
 Communion is celebrated you can pray as you never have 
 done heretofore, in some such words as are commended to 
 us in the two hundred and thirtieth hymn : 
 
 " For all Thy Church, O Lord, we intercede ; 
 Make Thou our sad divisions soon to cease ; 
 Draw us the nearer each to each, we plead, 
 By drawing all to Thee, O Prince of Peace ; 
 Thus may we all one Bread, one Body be 
 Through this blest Sacrament of Unity. 
 
 "We pray Thee, too, for wanderers from Thy fold ; 
 
 Oh, bring them back, Good Shepherd of the sheep, 
 Back to the faith which saints believed of old, 
 Back to the Church which still that faith doth keep ; 
 Soon may we all one Bread, one Body be. 
 Through this blest Sacrament of Unity. 
 
I 
 
 N,' 
 
 caoo- 
 
 1 02 Bi-Cetitennial of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 " So, Lord, at length when Sacraments shall cease, 
 May we be one with all Thy Church above, 
 One with Thy saints in one unbroken peace, 
 One with Thy saints in one unbounded love ; 
 More blessed still, in peace and love to be 
 One with the Trinity in Unity." 
 
 On the afternoon of Sunda)', November 24th, a patriotic 
 service was held under the auspices of the Society of 
 Colonial Wars, of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
 with the presence of representatives of the Society of the 
 Cincinnati, the Sons of the Revolution, the Colonial Dames 
 of America, the Daughters of the American Revolution, 
 the Society of the War of 181 2, the Military' Order of 
 Foreign Wars of the United States, the Naval Order of the 
 United States, etc. His Excellency, General Daniel H. 
 Hastings, Governor of Pennsylvania, and other State 
 officials ; His Honor, Charles F. War^vick, Mayor of Phila- 
 delphia, Major-General George R. Snowden, Commander- 
 in-Chief of the State troops, and members of his staff, in 
 uniform, occupied the Washington Pew, and the Penn 
 Family Pew. The church was decorated throughout with 
 the American national colors, and above the altar were 
 draped the English and American flags. The music was 
 rendered by members of the Eurydice and Orpheus Societies 
 of Philadelphia, accompanied by organ and instrumental 
 pieces, under the direction of Mr. Michael H. Cross, choir- 
 master of the Church of the Holy Trinity. The Service 
 was conducted by the Rev. C. Ellis Stevens, I/Iy.D., D.C.Iv., 
 Rector of the church, as Chaplain-General of the national 
 Society of Colonial Wars, and of the Military Order of 
 F'oreigu Wars of the United States. The sermon was 
 preached by the Rt. Rev. William Stevens Perry, D.D., 
 IvIy.D., D.C.L,., Bishop of Iowa, as Chaplain-General of 
 the Naval Order of the United States, and of the Society 
 of the Cincinnati.