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' 5 ■■■' 
 
 SERMON * 
 
 IN EXPOSITION OF THE 
 
 SITUATION, WANTS AND PROSPECTS 
 
 €\m\ k % giws* 0f pr$ itollw 
 
 BY 
 REV. JARVIS BUXTON, 
 
 RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, ASHETIIXE, N. C. 
 
 POTT & AMERY, 
 5 & 13 COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE. 
 
 1867. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The resolution, under which the author of this Ser- 
 mon was appointed Agent by the Standing Committee 
 of the Diocese of North Carolina, was offered by him 
 in Convention ; but for the particular views here ex- 
 pressed, and for the mode of working, under it, sug- 
 gested, he solely is responsible. 
 
 The Sermon is sent, as a reminder of promised col- 
 lections, to many of the Clergy, whom he visited last 
 summer, and also to others whom he had no opportu- 
 nity of seeing, but whose interest in the contemplated 
 undertaking, he begs to solicit in the form of a collec- 
 tion in aid of it. 
 
 If, after reading the Sermon, they approve of the 
 views and plan suggested, and they know of any lay- 
 men, within their parishes, who would be likely to take 
 kindly interest in such a work, and be glad to help it 
 forward, they will please, for the sake of the cause, 
 give them an opportunity of reading and judging for 
 themselves. 
 
 Address, 
 
 Rev. J. Buxton, 
 
 Ashemlle, North Carolina. 
 
 5 
 
 r<k 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Nehemiah ii. 18 :— " Then 1 told them of the Land of my God, which 
 was good upon me : as also the King's words that he had spoken unto me. 
 And they said, let us rise up and build : so they strengthened their hands for 
 this good work.'''' 
 
 It was after surveying by night the ruined walls of 
 Jerusalem, and after the warmest sympathies of his 
 heart had been stirred by taking in the distress of the 
 land with his own eyes, that Nehemiah gave vent to 
 the good purpose which God had put in his heart, and 
 called on the people and their rulers to build and re- 
 pair the waste places of Zion. He did not fail to re- 
 count, for their encouragement and his own, what the 
 good hand and providence of God had already done 
 toward his design, presaging eventual success. The 
 history of his anxieties and fears, and sorrow of heart 
 and prayer to the God of Heaven, was indelibly re- 
 corded upon the memory of this man, who had come 
 from the palace of the King of Babylon, in which he 
 held an honorable office, to seek the welfare of his dis- 
 tressed brethren, the children of Israel. There he had 
 mourne 1 and fasted and prayed, and confessed his sins 
 and the sins of Israel. 
 
The views and feelings of this earnestly good man 
 fired the hearts and nerved to action the hands of those 
 who heard from his own lips the story of the good 
 hand and dealings of his God toward him, and with 
 one voice they cried out, " Let us rise up and build," 
 vigorously suiting their action to the word. 
 
 The history of the American Church, immediately 
 after the Revolution of 1776, exhibited scenes over 
 again of the times of Nehemiah — scenes of churches 
 fallen into decay and ruin, though in some parts of the 
 country more completely than in others. In none, per- 
 haps, more than in North. Carolina, were the fortunes 
 of the Church reduced lower by that shock and conflict 
 of arms. Its buildings were destroyed or desecrated, 
 its ministers dispersed, its people scattered like sheep 
 without a shepherd, its property appropriated by 
 strangers ; so that during the long night which suc- 
 ceeded, ruthless ruin seemed to seize upon this portion 
 of God's heritage for its prey ; and the first Bishop of 
 North Carolina, when, like Nehemiah, he came to seek 
 her welfare, and went out, as in the night time, to 
 make observations of the broken down walls of Zion, 
 found his pathway almost blocked by shapeless heaps 
 of obstruction. But, under the inspiring words and 
 example of Ravenscroft, and the good hand of God 
 which was upon him, the friends of the Church rose up 
 and builded, and they strengthened their hands for 
 that good work. 
 
 Ak'an while the population of the State had filled up 
 with a people either unacquainted with or j:>rejudiced 
 against what had been the old mother Church of the 
 Province of Carolina, and, as a consequence, the progress 
 
of the Church was extremely slow ; though that must 
 be attributed in part to the scarcity of clergy among 
 the people. Even up to this day, the clergy, for the 
 most part, have been able to occupy only the principal 
 centres of the State in its towns and cities. The 
 country, where the mass of the people live, they have 
 hardly yet reached. 
 
 The eastern part of the State had been the seat of 
 the Colonial Church. The western was, at that time, an 
 almost unexplored wilderness, particularly that region 
 west of the Blue Bidge, which has since filled up with 
 a population, to most of whom, outside of the villages, 
 this Church has not yet been made known, even by oc- 
 casional ministrations. It is in the midst of this Blue 
 Ridge region, of unrivalled natural beauty and gran- 
 deur, that the Diocese of North Carolina proposes to 
 found an Associated Mission, to serve, among its other 
 uses of preaching the Gospel through that region from 
 a central spot, as a Training School also, for rearing up 
 a native ministry upon her own soil. This blended 
 missionary and ministerial educational enterprise 
 within the Diocese is not of yesterday's origin, but 
 dates back to the year 1855, when a tract of land, 
 eleven and a half acres, situated in the village of Ashe- 
 ville, and with a large brick building upon it, was 
 bought and deeded to the Diocese for those purposes. 
 The first cost of the whole purchase, together with im- 
 provements since put upon it, has been about $7,000. 
 
 The Diocese now finds itself in possession of this val- 
 uable property, with an utter inability to use it for its 
 purposes ; while at the same time the imperious neces- 
 sity, ever more and more pressing, of devising some 
 
8 
 
 means for drawing forth from its own soil, and educa- 
 ting a native ministry, compel her to put forth some 
 effort for her relief. There seemed no possibility of ob- 
 taining needed funds at home in the present impover- 
 ished condition of her people. In this emergency the 
 Convention of 1866 adopted the following Resolution : 
 " Whereas, it is highly important for the interests of 
 " the Church in this Diocese, at this time in particular, 
 " that preparations be making in order to use with 
 " effect and without delay, the Church property at 
 " Asheville for the purposes of a Divinity School, in 
 " connection with an Associated Mission : Therefore, 
 " Resolved, That an agent be sent abroad by the 
 " Standing Committee, in the absence of the Bishop, to 
 " solicit funds for carrying these purposes into effect, 
 " (with the aid, if possible, of the General Domestic 
 " Committee,) and that he be commended by this Con- 
 " vention to the Christian attentions and charities of 
 " the members and ministers of this Church." 
 
 This movement of the Convention the Bishop of the 
 Diocese, on returning from abroad, sanctioned, by send- 
 ing a commendatory letter to the agent that had been 
 appointed. 
 
 Under this appointment of the Ecclesiastical authori- 
 ties of North Carolina, your speaker appears before 
 you, by kind permission, to present an appeal on be- 
 half of the Associated Missionary and Ministerial Edu- 
 cational Work, in which that Diocese is about to en- 
 gage. 
 
 He desires to impart to you some idea of the situa- 
 tion, wants and prospects of the Church in North 
 Carolina. Fully aware, as he is, of the frequent claims 
 
for Parish help that have been made of late from the 
 South, nothing but the consideration of the importance 
 of the proposed undertaking to the future of a whole 
 Diocese, would have induced him, for the purpose of 
 helping it forward, to quit the retirement of his own 
 Parish, far away beneath " the Black Dome " of the 
 Alleghanies. It is his deep conviction that noio is the 
 time, brought about by God's providence, for estab- 
 lishing a centralized Working and Educational Mission 
 and Seminary in North Carolina. These two purposes, 
 he apprehends, must be blended together, in order to 
 meet the pressing wants of our situation. An Associate 
 Mission, banded together for systematic work of the 
 ministry, among the people, it is conceived will be the 
 best nursery of the class of Ministers such as the times 
 demand ; not that are underrated at all the advantages 
 of purely theological seminaries, whose requirements 
 for admission shall be " full literary qualifications," 
 and whose course of study shall be an elaborate curri- 
 culum of Theology, within learned cloisters. The 
 Church already has these Institutions iii her older and 
 more popular Dioceses. They are eminently necessary 
 in this age, and thither indeed would naturally tend all, 
 ;■ or most all, of the extraordinary talent that should be 
 elicited in any seminary, of lower theological standard 
 and of more immediate practical aims. What we need 
 in our Southern Dioceses (to speak for our own, at 
 least) is a ministry taken from among the people and 
 returned to them again, with sufficiency of sound 
 learning, drilled in all the offices of the ministry, under 
 clergy who are themselves active Evangelists of the 
 Word ; a ministry of great preaching power, burning 
 
10 
 
 with zeal and love for the souls for whom Christ died, 
 with the full consciousness of their mission from the 
 Head of the Church, and ready to be spent for His 
 sake, even unto the sacrifice of life. So long as the 
 Church's efforts were chiefly directed toward the cul- 
 tivated classes of the community, in towns and cities, 
 under parochial organizations, was it necessary for her 
 ministry, as a whole, to be educated up to the highest 
 point of the education of those classes ; for the ranks 
 of the ministry, however spiritually adorned, can never 
 safely fall behind any class in mental cultivation and 
 accomplishments within the sphere of its exercise ; 
 but, beside general elevation, should largely contain 
 representative men of the age, in science and learning. 
 It is but one aspect of the principle referred to which 
 makes a moderate degree only of cultivation needed 
 for efficient ministration among the mass of the people, 
 provided the all-important call of office and gifts of 
 grace be not wanting. The mass of the people are 
 but moderately cultivated, and are likely to remain so 
 under the*imposed law of living by their own labor ; 
 so that it may justly be doubted whether a thorough 
 scholastic training, with the mental habits necessarily 
 contracted in the course of it, 'bating particular excep- 
 tions, may not be considered an encumbrance, like 
 Saul's armor, rather than a help to Missionary and 
 aggressive warfare among the people. In the progress 
 of time, however, the elevation or mental improvement 
 of the people at large, to which nothing, indeed, con- 
 duces so much as a preached Gospel, would create the 
 necessity of corresponding elevation in the attainments 
 of their ministry. Any other theory of ministerial edu- 
 
11 
 
 cation, however speculatively perfect, will fail in prac- 
 tice ; in point of fact, the ministers of any Church 
 cannot be required to be all learned men, without the 
 sacrifice of the people, so far as they are concerned^ to 
 entire ignorance of the Gospel : either they never reach 
 the ear of the people at all, by reason of their small 
 number, or their very education, conducted irrespec- 
 tively of the wants of the masses, has, in all proba- 
 bility, disqualified them for the most edifying exercise 
 of their office. Meanwhile, some master eye catches 
 the necessity of the situation, proceeds to organize, in 
 spite of all opposition on the side whence should have 
 come the welcome of " God speed," an efficient arm of 
 service in lightly equipped bands of men, who, having 
 first given themselves to Christ, are ready, at the word, 
 for scaling the mountain side, or penetrating the lone 
 valley, or, still harder task, diving into the huddled- 
 up masses of manufacturing towns. The end is, that 
 whole classes of the community become united in re- 
 ligious societies of their own, and know not the Church 
 for their Mother. Too late is seen the folly of relying 
 solely upon learned Universities for meeting the life 
 and death wants of a whole people, and upon petty 
 parochial cures, which ought to succeed, not precede 
 the labors of Evangelists, and become, in turn, living 
 centres of the extension of the Gospel. 
 
 If the situation and wants of a Southern Diocese, 
 before the late civil war, indicated the need of a more 
 popularized ministry, much more does the present 
 crisis of the Church there imperatively demand such 
 a ministry for her people. Never, in the history of the 
 Church in North Carolina, were the prospects more 
 
12 
 
 favorable for doing her part toward nationalizing this 
 Church something more than in name. The overruling 
 providence of God is continually vindicating its su- 
 premacy by educing good out of evil ; light out of 
 darkness. While the soil of a whole people is being 
 driven through and broken up by the rough plough- 
 share of war, and watered with blood and tears, this 
 evil of man's devising is often the chosen preparation, 
 in the wisdom of God, for breaking up old strifes and 
 errors and prejudices, and for renewing and purifying 
 the life and spirit of a nation for a more exalted future 
 in the designs of Providence. In this light, chiefly, are 
 we concerned to interpret the sorrowful past of late 
 years. In any other view considered than as advancing 
 the interests of the Kingdom of Christ, by preparing 
 the way before Him, " let the dead bury their dead." 
 The war of 1V76, out of whose throes the happy and 
 more perfect Union of the States was born, had 
 through the Southern country ruptured the ties which 
 bound together clergy and people. The ministers of 
 tha Church of England, as they then were, sided with 
 the crown of England ; and, for the most part, either 
 suspended the exercise of their functions altogether or 
 else quit the country. The whole burden of popular 
 odium fell upon this Church and crushed it to the dust, 
 in Virginia and the Carolinas. A remarkably different 
 result ensued at the end of the late civil war, in these 
 States. The clergy, as a whole, with a few noted 
 exceptions, had confined themselves to the proper 
 duties of their office, such as burying the dead, tending 
 the sick and wounded, preaching at home repentance 
 and humiliation as the duties of the hour, making mis- 
 
13 
 
 sionary excursions to the camps, where they were ever 
 welcome, or serving as chaplains at posts, in the field 
 or in hospitals. Even public opinion required the 
 clergy, as a class, to confine themselves to duties such 
 as these, and the very few of our own Church who, 
 from their pulpits, tuned the peaceful Trump of the 
 Gospel into martial strains, soon felt themselves re- 
 buked into moderation or into silence. A conclusive 
 proof of the public sentiment of the day is the fact, that 
 the officiating ministry of all religious denominations, 
 during the whole war, from beginning to end, and in 
 every exigency, was expressly exempted from conscrip- 
 tion; and, moreover, persons in the ranks were or- 
 dained, under their proper testimonials, and forthwith 
 assigned to chaplain duties. As a consequence of the 
 clergy (I speak for our own) thus throwing themselves, 
 as a body, into the spiritual duties of their office, and 
 remaining faithful to all the humanities, they retained 
 the good will and affection of their flocks all through 
 the war, however variant, as they were in some cases, 
 their political sympathies might be from the dominant 
 ones of the hour. With the end of the war, the clergy, 
 with their flocks, were ready, as a matter of course, 
 to return back into their old relations, which nothing 
 but a state of war had interrupted — the Diocese of 
 North Carolina leading the goodly van, and the good 
 providence of God furnishing the public occasion at 
 the last General Convention. But it is not deemed 
 overstated as the abiding impression of all thoughtful 
 men at the South, that had not the reunion been 
 inaugurated, at that particular time, by the attend- 
 ance and influence of the Bishop and Delegates of 
 
14 
 
 North Carolina, as well as by the wise moderation and 
 warm fraternal spirit in which they were met by that 
 august body, the legislative union of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in this country, in all human proba- 
 bility, would have been numbered among the things 
 that were. The same " dreary sea" of broken friend- 
 ship would have flowed between as now sunders other 
 Protestant bodies — 
 
 " That stand aloof, the scars remaining, 
 Like cliffs which had been rent asunder. 
 A dreary sea now flows between : 
 But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 
 Shall wholly do away, I ween, 
 The marks of that which once hath been." 
 
 The rapid glance we have taken of late events may 
 help to understand the present situation of the Church 
 in North Carolina, as regards, in general, the disposi- 
 tion of the people. At this moment she stands on 
 higher vantage ground for fulfilling her mission than 
 she ever before occupied in her whole history. In the 
 fiery crucible of war, prejudices of long standing have 
 been softened or quite melted down ; the commingling 
 of the people of the State from border to border, their 
 forced withdrawal from home, and submission to strange 
 experiences of life, have tended to liberate their minds 
 from the routine and thraldom of custom and long 
 inherited feelings and opinions, and to open the avenue 
 to new convictions ; while the moral force of the posi- 
 tion of this Church, as an integral part of the Church 
 of the Union, and not merely so in name but in heart, 
 is apparent to all. Equally apparent there also are the 
 symptoms of disintegration, already begun in the pre- 
 
15 
 
 vailing religious denominations, under the growing 
 introduction of schismatic elements from abroad, as 
 well as rising in their own midst. It is not in man to 
 stop these beginnings and seeds of changes. None can 
 say : " Thus far, and no farther." None ought to say : 
 " Let us see, that we may know." But the signs of a 
 higher life, in which all the good are destined to bear 
 a moulding part, and to find the realization of all their 
 longings, will be sure to develop side by side with these 
 changes. The theatre of this development is plainly 
 enough indicated by the great fact of its re-union, as 
 well as by its accordance with the genius of our civil 
 institutions, to be our own Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church, the Church co-extensive with the Republic. 
 We see no other hope on the horizon of the future. 
 
 But the crying want of our Church at home, if it is 
 ever to be popularized, in the best sense of that word, 
 is the want of a native ministry, fresh from their own 
 soil. Even before late events, the Diocese comprised 
 within its limits 900,000 people over a surface of 48,000 
 square miles, yet numbered upon its list of clergy only 
 some four or five above fifty ! the greater part of these 
 living in the eastern portion of the State ; while to 
 whole counties and clusters of counties our ministry 
 was unknown face to face. That men of wealth, when 
 they had the means in their power given them of God, 
 failed to meet their duty toward the Church of God in 
 the supply of her want of ministers, is lamentably true. 
 They neither gave their sons, nor redeemed them by 
 substitutes or by offerings, for this work of the Lord. 
 The bitter moral of the past may be read in the 
 avenging turn of human affairs, which has made our 
 
16 
 
 rich men poor, and our poor men poorer; but still the 
 cry for a ministry growing out of our own soil con- 
 tinues, and waxes louder and louder. And while the 
 demand becomes more imperious, the prospects of re- 
 munerated labor in the harvest of souls have grown, 
 by the marvellous workings of Providence, manifold 
 times more encouraging. It may be truly said, that 
 were the same prospects of usefulness and extension 
 opened before the Church of Rome, in North Carolina, 
 as now spread before our own Church, the Roman 
 Church would send there, at a word, $1 00,000, or any 
 other needed sum, for establishing her Missions and 
 her Training Schools for her rising clergy. But that 
 is a soil peculiarly unfriendly to Romanism, and only 
 the more so, after all the changes of life during late 
 years. Our people long for a Church, which, while 
 Catholic and National, is yet Protestant. They find a 
 witness for that Church already among them, in the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, and 
 a refuge for them when the assault of Romanism shall 
 have begun in their midst, with the setting in South- 
 ward of the tide of foreign emigration. The friends 
 and members of this Church are earnestly invited to 
 rally to her help in this, her time of need, and yet of 
 hope. While thanking her brethren for the fellowship 
 of their, charity, in relieving the temporal wants of 
 many of her clergy, (not to mention other large chari- 
 ties, in which the people of the State, aye, of the whole 
 South, are your debtors,) her appeal now made, in the 
 interest of the Word of God, is — Will you help us by 
 the means which God has blessed you with, and not 
 taken away from you, as he has from us, to establish 
 
17 
 
 an Institution that shall afford a permanent supply of 
 ministers, on our own soil, qualified to exercise the 
 duties of an Evangelizing ministry to the glory of God 
 and the profit of souls ? 
 
 We need an Institution where an evangelizing clergy 
 may be reared in the very bosom of the work itself 
 going on among the people of the country, outside of 
 Parishes, and in revival of the old itinerant work of the 
 Church of England, in the then Province of the Caro- 
 linas, through large circuits, long before the era of 
 Methodism ; these having a common centre, to which 
 the clergy may return and refresh themselves, by study 
 and rest, for the never-ceasing round of duty in the 
 missionary field ; where their families, too, (if any,) 
 shall have a secure home during their absence, and their 
 children, while growing up, not be without paternal 
 care. That such a plan of association is practicable 
 as shall attain all these ends, cannot be reasonably 
 doubted ; neither can it be doubted that means used, 
 with prayer, for eliciting that particular kind of evan- 
 gelic talent that lies latent as yet, because unsought 
 and unprayed for, would be signally blessed by the 
 Lord of the Harvest. It is believed that the sum of 
 $25,000, judiciously expended and invested in part at 
 this time, together with what has been already done, 
 and may farther be expected to be done, at home, with 
 returning means, will enable the Diocese to set the pro- 
 posed enterprise on a firm footing under an efficient 
 head. In any event, as this is her first appeal for help, 
 as a Diocese abroad, it will undoubtedly be her last. 
 
 The reason why that new and urgent class of needs 
 that have sprung up in the Southern country — the 
 
18 
 
 needs, I mean, of the Freedmen — has not been pre- 
 sented to you, in connection with this Institution, is 
 the fact, that within a few months past, $50,000 have 
 been contributed from two sources, both outside the 
 Diocese, for founding a Normal School for the educa- 
 tion of colored teachers of both sexes, including a Theo- 
 logical Department, to be located at Raleigh, under 
 the auspices of our Church, The late Convention of 
 the Diocese had before unanimously recommended the 
 establishment of Church schools for the colored people, 
 as well as sanctioned the ordination of qualified col- 
 ored persons " as spiritual teachers and pastors of their 
 race." 
 
 The appeal before you, brethren, the agent hopes to 
 present also in other Atlantic cities during the present 
 and coming month. Whatever sums may be raised, 
 can all be advantageously used, should they be more 
 than what is asked for. But he seeks not to burden 
 any. His appeal, from the magnitude of the work, is 
 necessarily addressed, in a more especial manner, to 
 men of large means and equally large hearts. Small 
 sums given are not expected to make up the amount 
 required. These, when gathered diligently and syste- 
 matically by individuals, are found adequate to relieve 
 small parishes from debt, or build and repair small 
 Churches, or assist parochial charities, but they can- 
 not reach the want of a whole Diocese in an undertak- 
 ing like the present, without an amount of time and 
 labor in their collection to which no one agent is ade- 
 quate. 
 
 Your speaker and agent of the Diocese of North 
 Carolina earnestly invites those of you who are blessed 
 
19 
 
 with means, and in whose hearts God may have stirred 
 up kindly interest in the subject of this mission, to 
 judge with the lights before them, whether the cause 
 be not worthy of their hundreds, aye, of their thou- 
 sands. If the expenditure of thousands and millions 
 be not deemed too costly a sacrifice for the maintenance 
 of the Union, is it too much to ask, even of patriotism, 
 that it lend a helping hand to that Church in her hour 
 of need, which survives the sole representative of the 
 Church of the Union, and, we believe, can do more, 
 while fulfilling her own proper work, for re-knitting the 
 Union of the States in the hearts of the people, than all 
 other agencies put together. 
 
 Before concluding, suffer me to introduce you to the 
 seat of the proposed Mission House and Divinity 
 School of North Carolina, which lies among surround- 
 ing scenes of unsurpassed beauty, in the village of 
 Asheville, 14 miles west of the Blue Ridge, and near 
 the junction of the Swananoa and French Broad Rivers. 
 This region west of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina 
 embraces about 100,000 inhabitants, scattered over 14 
 counties, or a seventh part of the surface of the State. 
 The mountains, covered with rich soil up to the very 
 tops, are crowned, as yet, with the virgin growth of 
 nature, overtopped all by " the Black Dome,"* the 
 royal diadem of the dark-browed Alleghanies. " The 
 stones are iron, and out of the hills thou may'st dig 
 brass." The land is intersected with rivers that run 
 among the hills in rich valleys. No rail-road has ever 
 yet penetrated this region, though several thither either 
 
 • * Height, 6,707 feet. 
 
20 
 
 have been designed or are in process of construction. 
 Not a single manufactory is known within its limits. 
 Hither painters, after having traversed foreign climes, 
 resort for themes of the pencil, confessing that they 
 had left behind at home scenes that far surpassed them 
 all in picturesque beauty, if not in grandeur. 
 
 The wealthy citizens of the South in times gone by 
 had not been insensible to the charms of this region, 
 nor to its advantages of climate during the hot sum- 
 mer months ; for in spite of its difficulty of access, they 
 had been accustomed to resort to its springs, or had 
 built them villas in the valleys or on the mountain 
 sides. Asheville is its most important village, contain- 
 ing about 1,000 inhabitants. It is, as we have said, the 
 seat of the projected Mission and School. For twenty 
 years past your speaker has been almost the only as 
 he was the first representative of the ministry of the 
 Church living in that region. During those years, a 
 Church has been built from the ground, and its con- 
 gregation gathered in, beside his travelling from one 
 end to the other, at different times, on missionary duty 
 and officiating statedly in the adjoining country. The 
 Parish and its minister were instrumental in procuring 
 for the Diocese the property before described, which 
 is entirely freed from debt. But whatever has been 
 done in the course of his ministry, is referred to only 
 as serving to explain how the way is prepared in this 
 region for the establishment of an Associate Mission 
 and Training School for a rising Clergy. The fruits 
 of past labor are springing to view, at this very time, 
 under the zealous co-operation of two licensed lay read- 
 ers, who, with other helps from the congregation, go out 
 
21 
 
 from Asheville, each Sunday, to a distance of from three 
 to eleven miles, for the purpose of teaching Sunday 
 Schools and assisting in ministering the Word. At 
 one of these stations, a building that serves the double 
 purpose of school-room and chapel, has been erected 
 by the people of the settlement within the last six 
 months. Twenty-eight men, women and children were 
 baptized there, and eleven confirmed by the Bishop at 
 his late visitation. At the farthest station is the seat 
 of a Collegiate Institute, with a liberal patronage 
 through adjoining counties, which the Trustees have 
 offered to convey to us as representing the Church, on 
 the payment of a small balance of debt due on it. 
 
 Applications also for services have been made from 
 other points in the neighborhood, which it has been 
 found impossible to comply with. 
 
 Brethren, the appeal of the Diocese of North Caro- 
 lina is before you, through her accredited agent. The 
 reasons and grounds of it have been presented to you. 
 May He, in whose hands are the hearts of His people, 
 inspire you with the determination " to strengthen our 
 hands for this good work." 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00034004489 
 
 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION 
 
 Form No. A-368, Rev. 8/95