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BISHOP GRISWOLD 
 
SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 Alexander Viets Griswold 
 
 and the 
 
 Eastern Diocese 
 
 By Julia C. Emery 
 Childhood and Youth in Simsbuty 
 
 CHURCH MISSIONS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 45 CHURCH STREET. HARTFORD, CONN. 
 
See "Life of the Rt. Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold, D.D. Bishop 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Eastern Diocese," by John S. 
 Stone, D.D. Published by Hopkins, Bridgman & Co., Northampton, 
 1854. Also "A History of the Eastern Diocese," by Calvin R. Batch- 
 elder. Published by Church Printers, Claremont, N. H., 1876. These 
 volumes may be borrowed from the Library at the Church Missions 
 House, 281 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 
 
 AND THE 
 
 EASTERN DIOCESE 
 By Julia C. Emery 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN SIMSBURY 
 
 In 1633 William Holmes packed the framework of his 
 house on board a boat and sailed with it from Plymouth around 
 Cape Cod, past Narragansett Bay and up the Connecticut 
 River. There, at a point near the entrance of the Farmington, 
 he set up his home anew — the first house in the Connecticut 
 colony. Two years later, in 1635, sixty men, women and 
 children, members of the Rev. John Wareham's congregation 
 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, made their hard and tedious 
 journey overland through the Connecticut wilds and planted 
 at Windsor the first white settlement of the colony. "It was 
 an honorable company," the old histories say, and certainly 
 one full of intelligence and decision; for in 1638 the inhabi- 
 tants of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield drew up "the 
 oldest truly political constitution in America," known as "the 
 Fundamental Orders of Connecticut." 
 
 By 1640 Mr. Wareham had followed his pilgrim flock to 
 Windsor and had settled as first pastor of the congregation 
 there, and among that congregation was an Edward Griswold 
 whose descendant, Samuel, removed from Windsor to Simsbury 
 and bought a farm of 500 acres. There, on a beautiful height 
 sloping to a point in a bend of the Farmington River, he built 
 his house, backed by hilly woodlands and looking across acres 
 of rich meadows shaded by graceful elms to "this most lovely 
 stream just where it plunges into its wild mountain pass." 
 
 Upon Samuel's death this choice farm came into the pos- 
 session of his son Elisha, and became the home of his family 
 of eight children, among the younger of whom was Alexander 
 Viets Griswold, the subject of this sketch. 
 
 * "The first written Constitution known to history that created a 
 government": Fisher's Beginnings of New England, p. 127. 
 
4 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 The name Alexander Victs came from the mother's side of 
 the family, and takes us back again to 1634 when Dutch colon- 
 ists from New York disputed the Massachusetts settlement and 
 were defeated in their attempts to share it by order and action 
 of the British parliament. The fame of the goodly country 
 did not pass, however. When, a century later, copper mines 
 were discovered in Simsbury, Dr. i\lexander Viets threw up his 
 profitable practice in New York, disposed of his property there, 
 and bought the tract in which the mines lay. The venture 
 failed. Dr. Viets lost everything, resumed the practice of his 
 profession and died poor. He left a son John, however, as enter- 
 prising and more prosperous, who, notwithstanding her parents' 
 disapproval because of his lack of means, won "the daughter 
 of a respectable neighbor" for his wife, retrieved the fallen for- 
 tunes of the family, recovered the property about the mines, 
 and left a valuable farm to each of his sons. So, when his 
 daughter Eunice married Elisha Griswold, "two of the most 
 considerable families and estates in the town were brought 
 together." 
 
 The Massachusetts English Griswolds were Congrega- 
 tionalists, the New York Dutch Viets, Presbyterians. Eunice 
 had a brother Roger, a bookish boy, whom his father sent to 
 Yale, designing him for the Presbyterian ministry. He entered 
 college at thirteen — a mere child — • but the experience of his 
 few years there influenced not his life only, but that of his 
 family and friends and, in years to come, the Church life of 
 New England. For while in college on a certain Sunday he 
 was seized with the desire to attend service at the "English 
 Church," as the Episcopal church was then called. With 
 "great difficulty" he obtained the president's permission to g^ 
 once; but from that time he went again and again, procured 
 works on the Church from the college library, and finally declared 
 himself an Episcopalian, and wrote his father, asking permisson 
 to become a clergyman of the English Church. And, like 
 Philander Chase in later days, he not only overcame all opposi- 
 tion, but lived to see his father and all his family earnest members 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD O 
 
 of the Church to which they had been opposed. 
 
 After graduating from college Roger Viets ventured the 
 long and perilous voyage to England, and, in Priest's Orders, 
 returned, about 1766, to Simsbury. There had been a parish 
 there since 1740, for when, after Dr. Viets' failure, a Boston 
 company took the copper mines, their superintendent, Mr. 
 James Crozier, "a zealous Episcopalian," interested rich men in 
 Boston and Newport to give funds for a church and glebe. 
 The Rev. Mr. Gibbs came from Boston as the first rector, and 
 young Roger Viets succeeded him. For some years after his 
 return he lived in the house of his sister Eunice Griswold, and 
 it was in the year that he came there, on the twenty-second of 
 April, 1766, that his nephew Alexander Viets was born. 
 
 The child grew up from infancy in the atmosphere of a 
 religious, intelligent and strictly disciplined home. His mother 
 was the earliest teacher her children had, and she was gifted 
 with "a wonderful power of inspiring love for and fixing the 
 rudiments of knowledge in her children's minds." Later, while 
 they were still very young, she had a teacher come to the house 
 for them and for other children of the neighborhood, and later 
 still they went to a sort of parish school taught in the winter 
 season by their uncle Roger. 
 
 By the time Alexander was three years old he could read 
 fluently. At his mother's Sunday evening catechisings he was 
 distinguished above the other children by his love for and 
 understanding of the Holy Scriptures. From these earliest 
 years he was passionately fond of reading and study, and though 
 ready enough to join his brothers and sisters at their play, 
 would often slip off to enjoy some favorite book. 
 
 But this absorbing interest had many an interruption. If 
 Alexander had a passion for reading, his mother had a passion 
 equally strong for continuous industry. She would have her 
 children constantly btisy, and the little boy had to help in the 
 lighter work of the farm, as gathering fruits and nuts and "riding 
 horse" at ploughing. Nor, when these tasks were over, was 
 there any leisure. Of this time his grandmother said, "Eunice 
 
6 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 was too severe. There was Alexander, as good and amiable a 
 boy as ever lived ; and yet how severe she was with him ! Whip- 
 ping him for the most trifling transgressions, and keeping him 
 every moment when not otherwise employed, knitting, knitting, 
 knitting!" This knitting was of bone lace, "a kind of netting 
 composed of a great variety of stitches, and then very much in 
 use." Alexander began upon this work when not more than 
 five years old, and many gloves, caps, capes and aprons his 
 little fingers wrought. And the "transgressions" for which he 
 was so often punished were the occasional stealing away for a 
 game or a book. 
 
 Soon after the boy's tenth year his uncle Roger begged that 
 this favorite pupil of his might come to live with him, and during 
 much of the next nine years the parsonage at Simsbury was 
 his home. They were the troublous years of the war of the 
 Revolution, and during their course both Elisha Griswold and 
 Roger Viets, together with many other Churchmen, clerical 
 and lay, differing from most of their brethren in the South, 
 who were strongly Patriot, took the neutral ground, which 
 marked them as Tories among their countrymen, kept Mr. 
 Griswold confined within the limits of his farm, and sent Mr. 
 Viets to jail in Hartford for many months. But through these 
 years Alexander had the advantage not only of his uncle's schol- 
 arly help, but of the use of his library, one of the largest and best 
 in the neighborhood, and also of the parish library of considerable 
 value, which had been given by the founders of the parish. 
 
 His inborn love of reading thus had full scope. While 
 he farmed the parish glebe for his uncle, he would take his book 
 from his pocket and pore over it as he rode along the furrow. 
 "I recollect nothing in my childhood and youth more remark- 
 able," he wrote, "than the rapidity with which I learned the 
 lessons given me. ... In about three days after the 
 Greek grammar was first put into my hands I had, without any 
 other teaching, written, in Greek characters, the first chapter 
 of St. John's Gospel, interlined with a literal and verbal trans- 
 lation into Latin." Not only was his progress in Latin and 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 7 
 
 Greek remarkable, but he highly distinguished himself in mathe- 
 matics also. He read everything within reach, and when his 
 days were crowded with toil, from a very early age he would pass 
 the great part of the night in reading, while the rest of the 
 family slept. He delighted in works of the imagination, and in 
 plays. When seven years old, in an exhibition among the 
 neighborhood children, he took the part of the page in "Fair 
 Rosamond," and when fifteen, that of Zanga in Dr. Young's 
 "Revenge," to the delight of the Simsbury audience who declared 
 that no actor in the American Company, then performing in 
 Hartford, could compare with him. Also, in his later boyhood, 
 he wrote many a verse whose playful sarcasm reflected upon 
 his school companions. 
 
 In 1785 came changes which cut short all prospect of future 
 school or college training. The many taxes and fines of the 
 years of war had so straitened his father that he could not give 
 his son a full college course, and when, later, Alexander might 
 have entered the Senior class, other circumstances had inter- 
 vened. The times no doubt had dealt hardly also with the 
 Church's work in Simsbury. In 1774 the parish had stood 
 third in the State, in the number of its members, Newtown 
 having 1084, New Haven 942, and Simsbury 914; but now 
 after the conclusion of peace when the Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel offered its missionaries continued and in- 
 creased stipends if they would take work in the British domin- 
 ions, Mr. Viets was among those who accepted the offer, taking 
 a parish in Digby, Nova Scotia. He could not bear to leave 
 behind the nephew to whom he was so tenderly attached, and 
 begged him to accompany him. Alexander was only nineteen 
 years of age, but already he had engaged himself to Elizabeth 
 Mitchelson, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of one of his neigh- 
 bors. There were many delays and indecisions, but finally all 
 idea of college was abandoned, the marriage took place in the 
 latter part of 1785, and it was settled that the young couple 
 should accompany the uncle's family to Digby. In 1786 Mr. 
 Viets visited his new home, and the next year removed thither, 
 
8 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 with his family and a young sister of Alexander. But Alex- 
 ander himself did not go. His wife's parents had heard such 
 unfavorable reports of the climate of Nova Scotia as made them 
 seriously opposed to the move, and, as Alexander had only 
 consented, through regard 1o his uncle, to leave his native land 
 and the pleasant and fertile valleys of Connecticut for a new 
 settlement in a bleak and unpromising and foreign country, 
 he probably with the greater readiness gave up the idea. Once, 
 in 1789, he went with his uncle as far as Boston on his way to 
 Digby, and so for the first time visited the city in which his 
 latest years were to be spent. 
 
 CHOICE OF PROFESSION AND MINISTRY IN LITCHFIELD COUNTY 
 
 With his marriage and his uncle's departure from Simsbury 
 his boyhood closed. At nineteen he was a man, with a man's 
 responsibilities, but with a most uncertain outlook upon his 
 future. While living with his uncle, reading and studying 
 with him, going with him to visit his clerical neighbors, he had 
 naturally thought of the ministry as his calling. But now, 
 with a young and rapidly growing family to care for, his first 
 thought had to be given to their support. And, as to his final 
 destiny, his rich and varied gifts were such as to draw him 
 strongly in different directions. Though modest and retiring 
 beyond most men, he knew that such habits of industry and 
 economy as he possessed, if devoted to business pursuits, must 
 result in providing ample means, and for a while his mind lin- 
 gered on the possibility of a business career. But already he 
 felt such an indifference to wealth, that its acquisition could 
 not really hold his thoughts. A habit of arguing and debating 
 had given him the title of "lawyer" among his young companions, 
 and when, after his uncle's departure, he joined a debating club, 
 his quick wit, his keen perceptions and clear judgments led his 
 friends to urge him to make law his profession. For two or three 
 years he gave part of his time to that study, but the cultivation 
 of literature was his real delight. In his busiest years he found 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 9 
 
 or made time for reading, and he followed closely the rules of 
 Drexilius; "1. Begin the work early in life. 2. Do it con- 
 tinually. Read no book without marking. 3. Often read 
 over what you have written. 4. Always keep in view the end 
 of your studies." Long years afterwards a friend wrote of 
 him, "He was always a hard student, and one of the most perfect 
 and balanced scholars with whom I have ever been acquainted. 
 I could never CDUsult him on any question in any branch of 
 study, without finding him perfectly acquainted w4th it. In 
 languages and in history, as well as in the abstract sciences and 
 in theology, he was fully prepared for every occasion." 
 
 These perplexing questions as to his course in life lay like an 
 under current through the constant daily toil of some ten years, 
 during which he worked a small farm, which was his property 
 at this time and for many years thereafter. Meanwhile parish 
 affairs and interests still occupied him. When twenty years of 
 age he became a communicant, and was among those confirmed 
 by Bishop Seabury on his first visit to Simsbury. A Mr. Todd 
 had succeeded Mr. Viets as rector, and he often turned for 
 counsel and help to the young man who knew people and place 
 so well. When the parish was vacant or the minister absent 
 Mr. Griswold would help in the services, and he says of himself, 
 "My knowledge of music and practice of Psalmody — as there 
 were then very few organs in thq country — made me of use 
 both in teaching and leading the choir." 
 
 Thus it was not strange that before long Mr. Todd and other 
 friends began to urge upon young Griswold that he should again 
 consider entering the ministry. The plea was made just at a 
 time when he had begun to think of "rising in the world," and 
 when it was difficult to give up those hopes of temporal honors 
 and advancement which had not loomed in the far off horizon 
 of his uncle's day. 
 
 The decision cost him a painful struggle, but it was finally 
 made, and in June, 1794, he offered himself as a candidate for 
 Holy Orders to the convention of the diocese assembled in New 
 Haven. He was received, and, according to the prevailing 
 
10 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 custom in Connecticut, began at once to officiate in a small 
 parish twelve miles from his home. For the candidate of those 
 days was expected to have the qualifications — literary, scien- 
 tific, theological, moral and religious — of the deacon of today, 
 and was licensed to preach his own sermons and was open to 
 election as minister of a parish. 
 
 That was an over-full year between his reception as a candi- 
 date and his ordination to the diaconate. Mr. Griswold spent 
 it in daily work upon his farm, while at night his hearth was his 
 seminary. Unable to afford adequate lights, there he stretched 
 himself before the fire, and, "with his books before him, by the 
 light of pine knots, as they blazed in the chimney corner, pursued 
 his studies for hours after his wife and children were asleep." 
 
 During this year also he had to decide where his first settled 
 ministerial work should be. Waterbury, one of the best parishes 
 in the state, called him, promising him a new church building 
 and a larger salary than was offered from elsewhere. Reading, 
 in Fairfield County, also sent a call. But he declined both these 
 in favor of the three parishes of St. Matthew's, East Plymouth, 
 St. Mark's, Harwinton, and Trinity, Northfield, in Litchfield 
 County, which were nearer to his home and the farm which still 
 needed his oversight. 
 
 In June, 1795, during the meeting of diocesan convention, 
 at Stratford, he was ordered deacon, and in October of the same 
 year, when the bishop and some of his brother clergy were with 
 him at Plymouth for the consecration of a new church, the 
 clergy suddenly suggested to the bishop and to him that the 
 opportunity be taken to advance him to the priesthood. So, 
 without previous thought or expectation of such an event, the 
 ordination took place — a year and a half from the time when 
 he first resolved upon the work of the ministry. This ordina- 
 tion was the last which Bishop Seabury held. 
 
 For ten years Mr. Griswold served in Litchfield County. 
 His salary was £100, practically $300, one hundred from each of 
 his three parishes. He had chosen the work which offered least 
 money and, in one sense, most labor, though he seems to have 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 11 
 
 been free from some of the heaviest burdens of a spiritual father, 
 since he testifies that his people "were mostly religious and all 
 comparatively free from vice." Constant visiting, Sunday 
 services, "preaching lectures" in private houses during the week, 
 funerals, continual horseback riding over hilly country and bad 
 roads, where carriages were "scarce thought of," and "the small 
 wagon, since so constant in New England, had not come into 
 use." would seem to have been sufficient to fill his days. But to 
 these must be added, in addition to the occasional training of a 
 young man for the ministry, the duties of a district school 
 teacher in winter, of a day laborer in summer, and of fisherman 
 at night. One of his parishioners, who for five years lived in his 
 house in Plymouth, said of him, "The parson and myself have 
 often worked out together as hired men in harvest time at 
 seventy-five cents per day. He was among the best day laborers 
 in town, and one day's work of his was worth as much as that of 
 two common men." 
 
 This same person also said, "I have labored for many of the 
 neighboring farmers, as well as for others who are not farmers, 
 and have partaken at their board as one of the household, but I 
 have never lived with any family at which the daily, habitual 
 fare was so poor and coarse as that on Mr. Griswold's table." 
 And yet among his parishioners their parson was remarkable 
 as given to hospitality, and one sgiys of him, "I have seen our 
 minister when a negro asked charity, after ordering the table 
 set with such cheer as was at command, though it was not his 
 usual meal hour, sit down and partake with him, lest the poor 
 African should feel himself slighted." 
 
 To loan his horse to a Congregational neighbor and walk 
 himself to his day's duty; to ride through terrible storm and 
 drifting snow to hold service, and, returning at midnight, to go 
 supperless to bed rather than disturb his sleeping family; to 
 spring into a swollen stream, weighted with his winter clothing, 
 to rescue a drowning boy; in his best suit to jump over a garden 
 fence in order to lend his "almost herculean" strength to raise a 
 rock which had defied the united efforts of several men, are among 
 
12 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 the stories which have come down to us of the years spent in 
 Litchfield County. 
 
 They were years in which party spirit in the country was 
 running high. Beveridge, in his "Life of John Marshall," re- 
 cords of them. "Actual secession of the Northern and Eastern 
 States had not been openly suggested . . . but now one 
 of the boldest and frankest of their number (the Federalists) 
 broadly hinted it to be the Federalist purpose, should the Repub- 
 licans persist in carrying out their purpose of demolishing the 
 national courts. . . . 'There are states in this Union,' 
 Roger Griswold of Connecticut exclaimed, 'who will never con- 
 sent and are not doomed to become the humble provinces of 
 Virginia.' " 
 
 Alexander had a brother R.oger, but there is nothing in his 
 memoirs to show that he was this zealous partizan, and through 
 life, both as priest and bishop, Alexander was remarkable in his 
 abstinence from any share in the political controversies of the 
 day. While many ministers of the Gospel took an active part 
 in politics, his parishioners could not tell which side he held. 
 At last one of them determined to make him state his opinions, 
 and after using every indirect method without effect, put the 
 direct question. "To which side in politics do you belong?" To 
 which, "My Kingdom is not of this world," was the mild and 
 only reply. 
 
 Yet while so reticent in the expression of his political views, 
 Mr. Griswold was influenced by the practice of his brothers in 
 the ministry in preaching on sectarian divisions. The Church 
 during long years in New England had left in "every step she 
 took the track of a hunted thing!'' In Connecticut there had 
 long been a "deep rooted and violent opposition to Episcopacy." 
 A spirit of sectarianism and controversy was rife long after 
 Bishop Seabury's consecration, and it bred among Church people 
 themselves a "proud contempt of the Puritans" and a strong 
 prejudice against their doctrines. From the beginning of his 
 ministry Mr. Griswold began the "never-remitted habit" of 
 sermon writing, and these sermons, often prepared in hours 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 13 
 
 Stolen from needed sleep, were, he declared later, "too frequently 
 in defence of the distinctive principles of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church, to the great neglect of the essential doctrines of 
 Christ and of the necessary duties of Christians " 
 
 For five years Mr. Griswold and his family lived in East 
 Plymouth, and he gave half his time there and a quarter to 
 Northfield and Harwinton each. In 1800 he removed to Har- 
 winton where a parsonage had been provided, and from that 
 time on divided his time equally among the three parishes. 
 Occasionally also he would cross the Massachusetts border to 
 visit and minister to the few church folk in the little town of 
 Blanford. 
 
 So ten quiet years passed on. The parishes all gradually 
 increased until they numbered 220 communicants. There was 
 never any contention or "unkind dispute" between pastor and 
 people. All were "exceedingly kind" to him and his. "He was 
 the idol of all the little children of his parishes." A country 
 farmer said of him, "He was an uncommonly perfect man. You 
 could find no fault in him, no way." 
 
 In 1803 Mr. Griswold took the first real holiday of his life. 
 A friend invited him to visit Bristol, Rhode Island, and he passed 
 a fortnight there, preaching each Sunday in St. Michael's 
 Church. The parish at that time was over eighty years old, 
 and was then without a rector, and before Mr. Griswold's visit 
 ended, he was urgently asked to take the charge. He declined, 
 but in the fall, and again in the winter, men made the long 
 journey from Bristol to Harwinton to beg him to reconsider, 
 and at last he accepted the repeated call. This was with the 
 consent of Bishop Jarvis, who, however, said that, after a few 
 years' absence, he should expect him to return to Connecticut. 
 
 The reasons for Mr. Griswold's final decision are not fully 
 known; but he had made himself responsible for a third part of 
 the £500 paid for the glebe and parsonage at Harwinton; he 
 had become involved in business enterprises made, against his 
 judgment, by his brother Roger; an annual $300 could not 
 both support his family and free him from debt ; he had already 
 
14 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 thought of removing to some milder climate and less arduous 
 work; the call thrice made from Bristol came at last to mean to 
 him a Providential leading; and when his parish released him 
 from his contract with them and took the glebe engagement off 
 his hands, he left them with all the deeper sorrow but with a 
 free mind and heart 
 
 EARLY MINISTRY IN BRISTOL 
 
 In the spring of 1804 John D'Wolf of Bristol, who had once 
 rounded the northwest coast of the continent, and so was known 
 to his townsmen as "Northwest John," fitted out one of his 
 coasting vessels, and, like William Holmes 170 years before, 
 sailed through Long Island Sound and up the Connecticut River 
 to Hartford. There leaving his boat, he travelled by hired team 
 the twenty miles and more farther on in search of the new rector 
 of St. Michael's, whom, with his family and his belongings, he 
 was to take back with him to Bristol. 
 
 With surprise Captain D'Wolf found Mr. Griswold at his 
 plough; "a farmer in the field, under a broad brimmed hat, 
 with patched short clothes, coarse stockings and heavy shoes." 
 But this was the last time he was to appear in such a garb. His 
 new home and parish were a great change from Litchfield County 
 and its mountain missions. The fine old town on Narragansett 
 Bay had a style of its own. Its people had interests across the 
 seas and especially with the West Indies. The retired captains 
 built large, substantial mansions crowned with the "captain's 
 bridge," on which their owners paced to and fro on many a starry 
 night, watching the heavens and the waters of the bay; their 
 wives and daughters had a town air and fashion different from 
 the quiet, diligent habit of the Connecticut farming families. 
 
 The parish had been organized in 1719, but when Mr. 
 Griswold became rector, there were but twenty-five families 
 connected with it, and about twenty communicants. An endow- 
 ment brought in a salary of $600, and the people seemed to feel 
 this sufficient, and made no effort to increase the amount, so 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 15 
 
 again Mr. Griswold had to find other means by which to add 
 to his income, and for that purpose opened a select school. 
 
 If, among his hopes in changing his parish, was the idea 
 that he would have time to resume some of his favorite studies, 
 that hope had to be abandoned. On entering the ministry he 
 had written, "I found that my hopes of leisure for much reading 
 were not to be realized without a neglect of the very duties to 
 which I was pledged. ... I was constrained to relinquish 
 some studies in which I had very much delighted; especially 
 music and mathematics, natural philosophy and chemistry," 
 and now he had cause to repeat the words. At the same time, 
 however, came a fresh impetus to enter more deeply than ever 
 before into the study of those things peculiar to his sacred calling. 
 For he found in Bristol a new need among his people, and at 
 the same time a new spirit seemed to awaken within himself — 
 a new softening of heart called forth not only by his people's 
 need, but by the first of those visitations of the dread disease, 
 consumption, which was to take from him in rapidly succeeding 
 years, ten of the twelve children who were the fruit of his early 
 marriage. 
 
 In beginning his new ministry he found that those sermons 
 which had been most applauded in Connecticut gave offense to 
 the Rhode Island people, and drove from the Church some of 
 the "most pious of her members" .to attend meetings held by 
 Methodists who had lately settled in the town. In order to 
 meet this problem Mr. Griswold destroyed many hundreds of 
 the sermons he had prepared so carefully and under such diffi- 
 culties, and bent his energies of heart and mind to the prepara- 
 tion of others. After much persuasion he prevailed upon his 
 vestry to allow the church to be opened for a third service, on 
 Sunday evening, when it was soon found that more came to that 
 service than came to the two others, some of them attending 
 that only. For thirty years — so long as he had a parish under 
 his care — Mr. Griswold continued this practice, which he was 
 the first of our clergy in New England to adopt. It was a method 
 "exceedingly disliked" by many of our Church people, and the 
 
16 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 bishop of Connecticut had once said, "night preaching and pulpit 
 praying are two things which I abhor." That Mr. Griswold 
 decided upon the practice so speedily after realizing the need of 
 some unusual means to hold his people and to strengthen his 
 parish evidenced to the firmness of character that was often to 
 be shown when, under trying circumstances, he did what he 
 judged to be right. 
 
 For five years he continued the course he had undertaken, 
 in sole charge of a large school during the week, preaching three 
 times each Sunday, and preparing occasional lectures in Lent. 
 At the close of this period he started on a second vacation, this 
 time going from Rhode Island to Connecticut instead of from 
 Connecticut to Rhode Island. 
 
 It was in the heat of summer, the journey by chaise was 
 tedious and very fatiguing; before he reached its end he was 
 taken ill, and arrived at his mother's house in Simsbury in such 
 a condition that there was no hope of his life being spared. He 
 recovered, however, but by slow degrees, and in his enfeebled 
 health returned home, to find his school and parish work beyond 
 his strength. The recollection of Bishop Jarvis' words returned 
 to him, that he would spare him to Bristol for a few years only, 
 and he went back to Connecticut, evidently thinking that, should 
 the way open, he would settle there again. The opening came 
 in a call to St. Michael's, Litchfield, near his old cures of North- 
 field and Harwinton. He decided to accept, and arranged the 
 time for his return, but, as in the case of Digby twenty-four 
 years earlier, the change was never made. For, in the year 
 1809 came the great call which bound the remainder of his life 
 with that solitary experiment in the American Church — the 
 Eastern Diocese. 
 
 When Mr. Griswold came to Rhode Island, that diocese was 
 without a bishop. On November 18, 1790, its infant conven- 
 tion — of two clerical and five lay delegates — had declared 
 Bishop Seabury of Connecticut to be their bishop. Two years 
 after his death, in 1798, they elected Bishop Bass of Massachu- 
 setts. After his death, in 1803, three years passed, during 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 17 
 
 which no effort was made to secure a successor. By that time 
 Mr. Griswold had been added to the list of clergy, and was 
 chairman of the committee appointed by the convention of 
 1806 to ask Bishop Moore of New York to take the churches 
 of the diocese under his care. How few were the bishops, and 
 how slowly the growing need was met, are shown in Bishop 
 Moore's reply. South Carolina also had just called him to 
 care for that diocese ; the duties of his own diocese were so many 
 and so pressing, he could not add to them the charge of these 
 others. 
 
 THE EASTERN DIOCESE AND ELECTION OF BISHOP 
 
 It was at this time that Bishop Parker, who had succeeded 
 Bishop Bass in Massachusetts, after an eight months' episcopate 
 with no episcopal acts, was nearing his death, and the movement 
 now began, which resulted in the formation of the Eastern 
 Diocese. Apart from Connecticut the territory of New England 
 was composed of four so-called dioceses, without bishops and in 
 sad need of episcopal leadership and supervision, yet each one 
 of them so weak as to feel unable to support a bishop of its own. 
 Massachusetts, indeed, had had two bishops, and Vermont had 
 made two ineffectual attempts to secure one, but even in Massa- 
 chusetts, where the Church was strongest, the bishops had been 
 obliged to retain their parishes in order to receive adequate 
 support. That state naturally took the lead in suggesting a 
 diocesan union and in the convention of 1805 it first recom- 
 mended that this union be made with Rhode Island and New 
 Hampshire. The convention of 1801 requested its president 
 to correspond with the clergy of those states upon the subject, 
 but it was not until 1809 that, at an informal meeting of some 
 of the principal clergymen of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 
 the plan of the Eastern Diocese was discussed and formulated. 
 The Rev. William Montague of Christ Church. Dedham, Massa- 
 chusetts, seems to have been a chief mover in this enterprise. 
 It was he who called this meeting and who, before the diocesan 
 
18 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 convention upon May 30, rode a thousand miles, visiting the 
 clergy and pressing the subject upon them. 
 
 The Massachusetts conventions of May and August adopted 
 the plan and sent invitations to New Hampshire, Rhode Island 
 and Vermont to a joint convention to be held in Boston on May 
 29, 1810. The Rhode Island convention of June 7, 1809, ap- 
 pointed Mr. Griswold chairman of the committee of corres- 
 pondence upon this matter, which appointment must have been 
 made just before his trip to Connecticut and the serious illness 
 which determined him to remove thither. By the spring of 
 1810 his plans were so far made, that he was about starting for 
 Litchfield to complete them, when the illness of his travelling 
 companion delayed the journey. 
 
 This accidental "happening" changed the whole current 
 of Mr. Griswold's life. As he had expected to have no personal 
 connection with the proposed new diocese, he had not thought of 
 attending the convention that had been called; but as this time 
 was now left free he decided to take the opportunity to visit 
 Boston and have the pleasure of meeting such an unusual number 
 of his fellow Churchmen, almost all of whom were strangers to 
 him. 
 
 As he purstied his way, his mind turned to the purpose for 
 which these men were gathering, and the importance of the 
 meeting impressed him more and more. We can easily picture 
 him — a solitary traveller, entering Boston for the first time 
 since his youth — absorbed in prayer that God would guide the 
 convention to a right choice. His thoughts fixed on John 
 Henry Hobart of New York, the young and ardent rector of 
 Trinity Parish, through his writings and activities the most 
 widely known parish clergyman in the Church. But on reaching 
 Boston he was told that Mr. Hobart had already been approached 
 and had declined to have his name mentioned. The Rev. John 
 S. J. Gardiner, then Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, the 
 leading church within the limits of the proposed new diocese, 
 was opposed to having any one from outside elected, as the new 
 episcopal head. He himself would have been the natural choice, 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 19 
 
 but he would not consider an election, and described the kind 
 of man who he thought should be chosen in such a way as to 
 show that he felt the position one far from ease and honor. 
 They should choose some one, he said, of middle age and "cap- 
 able of enduring the fatigues of travelling, and of patiently sub- 
 mitting to the hardships and mortifications incident to the 
 office in such an extended territory and under such unpromising 
 circumstances." 
 
 Six clerical and sixteen lay delegates from Massachusetts, 
 two clerical and two lay from Rhode Island, one clerical and two 
 lay from New Hampshire, one clerical and three lay from Ver- 
 mont, came together for this joint convention, and on the day 
 preceding it two of the lay delegates, Mr. Chipman from Ver- 
 mont and Mr. Halsey from Rhode Island, decided upon Mr. 
 Griswold as their choice. On the evening of this day some of the 
 delegates met informally together, and when Mr. Gardiner 
 described the kind of man needed for their new bishop, the 
 Rev. N. B. Crocker of St. John's Church, Providence, proposed 
 Mr. Griswold. The Rev. Abraham Bronson, the only clerical 
 delegate from Vermont, who had known him in Connecticut, 
 was in hearty accord with the proposal, and with Mr. Crocker 
 sought out the Rev. Daniel Barber, the sole clerical delegate 
 from New Hampshire. He had known Mr. Griswold from 
 childhood, and warmly approved the nomination. 
 
 On Tuesday. May 29, 1810, the convention met. Mr. 
 Bronson and Mr. Griswold were appointed on a committee to 
 draw up a constitution for the new diocese, which committee 
 was to report on Thursday. As their work ended, Mr. Griswold 
 asked Mr. Bronson if he had heard any one named for the 
 bishopric. Mr. Bronson asked if he had heard of their choice, 
 Mr. Griswold said "No," when Mr. Bronson rejoined, "Then let 
 me tell you, thou art the man." 
 
 This announcement came to Mr. Griswold not only as a 
 complete surprise, but as a great shock. That he was present 
 at the convention at all was unexpected. His mind had been 
 fully made up to leave Rhode Island and return to the quiet 
 
20 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 hill country of Connecticut; his thoughts had already settled in 
 a region of pleasantness and peace and comparative leisure. 
 And here was opened before him an untried and difficult future, 
 with ever growing responsibilities and cares. For a moment he 
 was thrown into "wild agitation," and then, collecting himself, 
 he declared to Mr. Bronson that he was unfit for the office and 
 that they must choose another man. "Sir," said Mr. Bronson, 
 "you must be the candidate, or we shall have no election." 
 
 On Thursday, May 31, the convention re-assembled. The 
 constitution for the new diocese was adopted, and the bishop 
 elected. In the proceedings the delegates from the four states 
 had an equal vote and secured for the Church in each state equal 
 rights ; but while the delegates were appointed by the conventions 
 of the separate states, the Eastern Diocese itself was considered 
 not "a confederation of distinct and independent dioceses," 
 but as "one proper diocese, with a convention from the Churches 
 of the four several states." And for this new diocese, unprece- 
 dented in the history of the Church, by the vote of every mem- 
 ber save one of the convention, Mr. Griswold was chosen bishop. 
 
 Through the day he had been sitting, absorbed in thought 
 and heedless of what passed on around him. When the votes 
 were declared, his first feeling was "that the Lord in displeasure 
 had suffered such an election." Greatly moved, he rose and 
 declined the honor. He wanted no time for consideration, he 
 could make his decision there and then. But the convention 
 adjourned for three months, and when the first emotion had 
 passed, he began to consider the Providential guidance which 
 had led him to this unlooked for task, and to consult old friends 
 in Connecticut upon the matter. In June, 1810, Bishop Jarvis 
 sent him a letter of congratulation in behalf of the convocation 
 of his clergy; Mr. Bronson wrote from Vermont and Mr. Barber 
 from New Hampshire, urging him to reconsider and accept; 
 the one dissenting vote was withdrawn, and on September 12 
 he gave his acceptance, and on the 25th the adjourned meeting 
 of the preliminary convention was held and the letter of ac- 
 ceptance read. This convention then dissolved, and on the 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 21 
 
 succeeding day the first convention of the Eastern Diocese 
 opened and Mr. Griswold preached the sermon. 
 
 Up to that time he had hardly spoken save in the home 
 church in Simsbury, in the three country churches in Litchfield 
 County, in the Blanford schoolhouse and in his parish church 
 of vSt. Michael's, Bristol. Now in Trinity Church, Boston, 
 on the threshold of his new office, before a congregation of 
 strangers, he preached from II Timothy iv. 1-3, "Preach the 
 word; be instant, in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, 
 exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine." "Who is the 
 preacher?" asked a leading Congregational minister of Boston, 
 and when told it was the bishop-elect of the Eastern Diocese, 
 he exclaimed, "I can only say that if such is the general character 
 of his preaching, he is worthy to be made ardx-bishop of Christen- 
 dom." 
 
 But though so unanimously chosen and so greatly needed 
 by his diocese, it was May 29, 1811, before Mr. Griswold's 
 consecration took place. General Convention met in New 
 Haven from May 21 to 24, and his testimonials and those of 
 Dr. Hobart, as assistant in the Diocese of New York, were 
 signed and their consecration expected. But of the six bishops 
 who then composed the House of Bishops, only Bishop White 
 of Pennsylvania and Bishop Jarvis attended the convention, 
 and it was ordered that the bishops-elect should proceed to 
 New York, in the hope that Bishop Provoost of that diocese 
 might be able to join with the others in the consecration. 
 
 The day was set. May 29, the place. Trinity Church; Bishop 
 Provoost, not fully recovered from a recent illness, was pre- 
 vailed upon to make the effort to attend, and the consecration 
 took place. What must have been a pleasure to Bishop Hobart 
 must have been a disappointment to Bishop Griswold. The 
 former was elevated to this high office in his own church, among 
 his own people, by his diocesan and by the presiding bishop 
 who had baptized and confirmed him; while the latter, who 
 might naturally have looked forward with pleasure to his con- 
 secration in the state of his birth and among friends and relatives, 
 
22 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 received it in a strange place and among strangers. Perhaps the 
 lonehness of his position reacted on his serious and reflective 
 mind, and made him dwell more than otherwise he would have 
 done upon two circumstances attendant upon the service. 
 
 In the laying on of hands Bishop White, as he says in his 
 Memoir <, "inadvertently" omitted the words "In the Name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This led 
 to much discussion and questioning as to the validity of the 
 orders conferred, but with regard to Bishop Hobart only — 
 Bishop Griswold being so unknown and unconsidered by New 
 York Churchmen, that seemingly they were indifferent as to 
 how this same oversight might affect him. Nor did this criti- 
 cism die away until Bishop White had shown that the words 
 did not occur, in that place, in the Church of England until the 
 time of Charles II, and that they were "not to be found in the 
 liturgies of the Primitive Church or in the Roman Pontificial 
 of today." 
 
 The other circumstance which Bishop Griswold records 
 in his autobiography was, that, although his election had pre- 
 ceded Dr. Hobart's by nearly a year, and he had been elected 
 bishop of a diocese while Dr. Hobart had been chosen as assis- 
 tant bishop only, Bishop White had laid his hands in conse- 
 cration first upon Dr. Hobart, with the result that in the order 
 of the episcopate Bishop Hobart always outranked him, and, 
 but for his death, earlier than that of Bishop White, would have 
 become the presiding bishop of the Church. 
 
 Bishop Griswold was not an ambitious man. He was 
 silent, reserved and shy, modest and self-contained; but he was 
 essentially clear minded and just. He disliked position and 
 publicity, and when Bishop Hobart's early death led to his 
 holding for seven years the place of presiding bishop, it was only 
 his strong sense of duty that made him consent to preside in the 
 House of Bishops. But if the precedency given to Bishop 
 Hobart should have been his, he felt that this should have been 
 admitted; and it is evident that his judgment could not yield 
 to Bishop White's explanation that he laid his hands first on Dr. 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 23 
 
 Hobart because of his degree, precedency in England being given 
 according to priority of date in university degrees. It is possible 
 that this occurrence which, in Bishop Griswold's mind, marred 
 the complete harmony of his consecration day, on occasion had 
 no little influence in his future attitude; but his chief comrrient 
 at the time was, "The whole business has been much blessed to 
 me in the subduing of a proud heart." 
 
 The honors lacking at the date of his consecration soon 
 came to the new bishop. In October. 1811, the College of 
 New Jersey, at Princeton, conferred on him the degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity, and in the same year he received that degree from 
 Brown University, Providence, which in 1812 made him a Fellow 
 and in 1815 its Chancellor. 
 
 Meanwhile Bishop Griswold had returned from New York 
 to review the field of his Vv'ork and to enter upon its duties. 
 
 In the four states which made up his diocese — Massachu- 
 setts, then including Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire 
 and Vermont — there were twenty-two parishes and sixteen 
 officiating clergymen. Trinity, Boston, St. John's, Providence, 
 and Trinity, Newport, were the onl}^ really strong parishes; 
 Christ Church, Boston, St. Paul's, Newburyport, St. Michael's, 
 Bristol, St. Paul's, Narragansett County, St. John's, Portsmouth, 
 and St. James' Great Barrington, all ante-dated the Revolution 
 and supported their rectors, but could do little towards the 
 endowment of the episcopate. Some of the clergy had grown 
 lax, but most of them rallied to their bishop and gave him and 
 their work a faithful and diligent service. And to them his 
 heart opened with a tender warmth. He had felt them to be 
 his brethren and friends; they now became his children. 
 
 PAROCHIAL AND EPISCOPAL CARES 
 
 Heavy family griefs doubtless increased this feeling. A 
 daughter twenty years of age had lately died; his oldest son 
 and daughter were both slowly fading away. Sorrowful but 
 calm and uncomplaining he went out to meet the spiritual needs 
 
24 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 of the larger family which the Church had given to his care. 
 A strong sense was growing upon him that he was an instrument 
 for his people's good. And what he felt for all his people came 
 home to him with peculiar force for the people of his parish. 
 
 In the six years in which he had ministered in Bristol the 
 number of communicants had increased from twenty to forty 
 only. Now with redoubled intensity he labored in their behalf. 
 Working his garden by day and writing his sermons by night, 
 to his three services on Sunday he added a Wednesday evening 
 sermon and soon noticed an increased seriousness in his congre- 
 gations. Some of them began to come to him expressing their 
 awakened consciousness, and once or twice a week their bishop- 
 rector met them for special prayer. The interest spread through- 
 out the town. There was a veritable revival. Forty-four 
 adults were baptized and a hundred were added to the number of 
 communicants, more than half of whom had been attending 
 worship elsewhere or not at all. 
 
 For nineteen years longer he continticd to be the rector of 
 St. Michael's. In 1809 the Massachusetts convention had voted 
 that a fund be raised for the support of a bishop, and an incorpor- 
 ation, known as "Trustees of Donations to the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church" was established. The objects of this incorp- 
 oration were the support of the bishop of the Eastern Diocese 
 and the care of such funds or property as might be entrusted to 
 it for the benefit of churches or church institutions within the 
 diocese. Subscriptions for the bishop's fund were opened in 
 September, 1810, after Mr. Griswold had accepted his election, 
 and it had gained the amount of some $15,000, which gave the 
 bishop a yearly income of about $900. This amount, however 
 inadequate for the purpose, came almost entirely from Massa- 
 chusetts, and it was natural that appeals should soon come from 
 that diocese that the bishop should settle there. He was living 
 too far from Boston- — "the centre"; the clergy in Portland 
 felt themselves too remote from his help and influence and 
 begged him to move to some point nearer them; the parish of 
 St. Peter's, Salem, weary of a succession of "cold and uninter- 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 25 
 
 esting readers" who could "not administer the necessary rites 
 of the Church," sent him repeated calls. In 1816 another effort 
 was made. The feeling continued and increased that their 
 bishop should be in closer touch with his people and freer for 
 diocesan duties. He was urgently called to Cambridge, and, 
 in addition to other reasons, the personal advantages were set 
 before him of the use of "the large and valuable library of the 
 imiversity" and the society of "learned and amiable men em- 
 ployed in the government and instruction of that institution." 
 
 On both occasions Bishop Griswold took months for con- 
 sideration and both times in the end sadly disappointed his 
 petitioners. He could not make up his mind that the advantages 
 to the diocese would outweigh family and parish claims, and he 
 felt that as long as the bishop could not be supported by the 
 diocese in a manner befitting his office and position, the more 
 retired the situation he occupied the better. No doubt his 
 disposition and the quiet tenor of his life made him shrink from 
 the proposed change; in any case he found it "difficult if not 
 impossible" to leave Bristol, where he was bound to his parish- 
 ioners "by years of most perfect harmony, with ties of gratitude 
 and affection," where he had managed to acquire a house and 
 garden for his family, and where, perhaps strongest claim of all, 
 the graves in the churchyard held him with a compelling force. 
 
 So, from 1811 to 1830, with ttie cares and labors of the 
 diocese and the general Church increasing yearly upon him, 
 he continued to pour out that constant flow of instruction to the 
 people of his parish and community, which he enumerates in his 
 autobiography — a course of eighty or ninety lectures on the 
 four Gospels, "in the way of harmony." a series of thirty-three 
 discourses on the Acts of the Apostles, twelve on the Catholic 
 Doctrine of the Trinity, ten on the Ten Commandments with 
 five on Our Lord's summary of the Decalogue, several on the 
 Catechism and the Apostles' Creed, one on the Book of the 
 Revelation of St. John considered chapter by chapter, and 
 seventy upon the Pentateuch. All of these lectures were de- 
 livered on Sunday evenings — that practice so "abhorred" by 
 
26 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 the Bishop of Connecticut, and were considered by Bishop 
 Griswold as "among the most efficacious of (his) pulpit labors." 
 And all this was in addition to the sermons, of which he had on 
 hand, after destroying twelve or fourteen hundred, more than 
 he could ever use in the future. The Rev. John Bristed, his 
 successor in St. Michael's, who had lived in his house and studied 
 under him, and who was himself an author and an accomplished 
 critic, wrote of the Bishop's preaching, "To a very high order of 
 human talent he joins the profoundest and most comprehensive 
 acquaintance with Scriptural Doctrine. I have heard some of 
 the greatest preachers on either side of the Atlantic 
 but I never sat under a minister from whom I received so 
 much and so varied instruction in the Word of God." And 
 a parishioner testified that his life responded to his teachings. 
 "It was a remark often made (in Bristol) respecting him ," she 
 wrote, "that there was one specimen of perfection in the world". 
 
 With such service as this as a parish priest Bishop Griswold 
 combined the duties of his episcopate. Even before his conse- 
 cration a call had come to him to visit Lanesborough, Massachu- 
 setts, not only to confirm but to remain "a number of days, not 
 less than four," in order to settle serious parish difficulties. The 
 month after his consecration, in June, 1811, he started on his 
 first visitation, resi^onding to this call and going to Lenox and 
 Great Barrington also, in the valley of the Housatonic. No 
 bishop had ever visited these parishes, and he found the whole 
 body of communicants and many not already communicants 
 awaiting confirmation. Other parishes which Bishop Bass had 
 visited had been for eight years without episcopal visitation, 
 and in these he was equally needed and equally welcome. It 
 was not strange that when, in 1812, he was approached on the 
 subject of adding to his present office that of coadjutor to 
 Bishop Jarvis of Connecticut, with the prospect of becoming 
 bishop of that diocese, he could not consider such a proposition. 
 His lot was cast with that of the Eastern Diocese. 
 
 And so began that long succession of journeys made imder 
 conditions that would tax the strongest frame and most deter- 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 27 
 
 mined will. They included not only the usual visits to parishes 
 and attendance upon conventions of his diocese — biennial up 
 to 1820, and annual from that time on — but also upon the 
 annual conventions of the four separate dioceses — five, after 
 the organization of Maine, in 1820, contained within the bounds 
 of the Eastern Diocese, as well as upon the sessions of General 
 Conventions held in either New York or Philadelphia, from 1814 
 to 1841 inclusive. He never failed in keeping appointments, 
 again and again hazarding health and even life to do so. He 
 would respond to what seem to have been unreasonable and 
 inconsiderate appeals, as from a candidate and lay reader in 
 Guilford, Vermont, to come to that parish in the winter of 1818 
 to consecrate the church. The bishop on December 16 had just 
 finished his visitations, but if the matter were of sufficient im- 
 portance and would help in the upbuilding of the Church in 
 Guilford he "would not hesitate at all"; though travelling in 
 stages, when the weather was cold and the nights were long, was 
 "inconvenient to people advanced in life," and he had meant to 
 spend the winter in his study and the duties of his parish. Also 
 the expenses of the year, to the amount of some hundreds of 
 dollars had outrun his scanty income, and it would be difficult 
 immediately to get the means of meeting those for a new journey. 
 Still, he "particularly desired that no regard to (his) convenience 
 should induce any dereliction of the interests of religion"; and 
 accordingly to Guilford he went. So again and again, "fearful 
 lest any interest should suffer through his neglect," he would 
 let "neither distance of place, inclemency of season, enfeebled 
 strength, exhausted purse, fondness for home or love of study" 
 keep him from the work which claimed a bishop's care. 
 
 On one occasion a violent storm prevented the regular 
 ferry boat making its eight-mile trip across Narragansett Bay, 
 and he bribed a boatman to take him in his open boat. Midway 
 the boatman declared they could go no farther. "If she carried 
 more ballast," he said, "she might perhaps live through the 
 bay." "Would it help," asked the bishop, "were I to lie down 
 in the boat?" "No better ballast than that could she have," 
 
28 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 said the boatman ; and the bishop cast himself on his face, and the 
 weight of his strong frame — "much heavier than that of common 
 men" — proved sufficient for the need. So, wet and encrusted 
 with gray brine, he arrived scarcely recognizable among his 
 waiting flock. 
 
 Or again the bishop would travel uncomfortably rather than 
 inconvenience others. In a journal of 1818 he wrote of a trip to 
 Rutland, Vermont, "In order to save trouble to my friends 
 take a seat in a wagon, going by night. May I ever imitate St. 
 Paul, and, as far as is practicable, avoid being burthensome to 
 the Churches, and the giving of pain, trouble or expense to my 
 people." 
 
 The bishop's "almost numberless journeys," though so 
 arduous and trying to his health, were made without accident, 
 and seemed sometimes, by "the counter-irritant of motion and 
 toil," to wear out disease; though "no frame of less iron hardi- 
 ness than his could, with any safety, have hazarded the perils 
 of his frequent extreme exposure," and in the last five years of 
 his life he suffered during his journeyings, and with increasing 
 frequency, very dangerous attacks of illness. But his constitu- 
 tion was such that as these atttacks yielded, he was "straightway 
 on his feet again, apparently as well as ever." In a letter written 
 on August 25, 1842, he mentions for the first and only time taking 
 "the railroad cars" from Westfield to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 
 "What months of tedious travel," his biographer writes, "in 
 storm and flood; over rough roads, and rugged mountains; in 
 piercing cold, and melting heat; by public stage, and in open 
 wagon; with his mind stretching forward, while his body dragged 
 behind, would have been saved him. had the . . . system 
 of railroads, which now spreads from Boston through almost the 
 whole of what was once the Eastern Diocese, been in existence 
 and operation, when he first began his two and thirty years of 
 perilous and exhausting journeyings!" 
 
 But these journeys, so taxing to his physical strength, were 
 by no means the most painful trials that beset the bishop in his 
 course. His episcopate began as the War of 1812 was drawing 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 29 
 
 near. That war had an evil effect upon the seaport towns de- 
 pendent upon foreign trade. They were almost depopulated, 
 and felt lonely and deserted and morally and religiously depressed. 
 These influences spread into the interior country, and factional 
 spirit ran high. In the old parish in Great Barrington this 
 spirit caused such dissension between the people and their 
 rector — a brother of the bishop — as was ended only after eight 
 weary years in Mr. Griswold's withdrawing from the active 
 duties of the ministry to the old home in Simsbury, leaving a 
 wrecked parish behind him. 
 
 Bishop Griswold's report to his first convention, made in 
 1812, was a brief record of the work done during the sixteen 
 months since his consecration. He did not touch on those things 
 already burdening his mind — parishes "at their last gasp" or 
 already "perished," the great prejudice against lay readers and 
 the great lack of clergy; candidates for Holy Orders asking 
 permission to read their own sermons or for Ordination before 
 reaching the age of twenty-one; the offer of a Congregational 
 minister to hold services in a vacant parish, the discipline neces- 
 sary to be enforced upon two of his scanty band of clergy. 
 
 The convention endorsed the project of a diocesan library, 
 which never materialized, and a plan of annual collections for 
 the feeble parishes of the diocese. The bishop appointed Easter 
 Day as the time for these collections, and the practice endured 
 throughout the life of the diocese, although with small results. 
 
 MISSIONARY INTERESTS 
 
 Two years previous to this convention in 1810 the Con- 
 gregationalists had organized in Boston the American Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and Bishop Griswold 
 doubtless had this in mind when, in sending out a circular letter 
 urging the Easter collections, he wrote, "Whilst (so much to the 
 honor of the Christian name) a liberal spirit of piety and zeal for 
 distributing the Holy Scriptures and for diffusing the light of 
 the Gospel to the remotest nations of the earth, pervades the 
 Christian world; it may reasonably be expected that the state 
 
30 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 and exigencies of the Church in this Diocese will not, by its 
 friends, be forgotten or neglected." 
 
 The bishop recognized also what these Christians of other 
 names were doing within the limits of the diocese itself. He 
 could recall the early days of his own ministry, and the move- 
 ments, in 1798, of the "associated (Congregational) pastors of 
 Connecticut" to form a missionary society, which, beginning 
 there, should work out into neighboring states and make its 
 farther way "to christianize the heathen in North America, and 
 to support and promote Christian knowledge in the new settle- 
 ments within the United States." So. while he gladly visited 
 the new parish of St. James', Greenfield, "where Episcopalians 
 were never known before," and where "if he would come, very 
 many of other denominations would flock to it as an ark of 
 safety from the threatening deluge of Socinianism," in travelling 
 through the western portion of his field, he pointed out to his 
 companion the many houses of worship belonging to the "ortho- 
 dox Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists; but not one 
 belonging to Episcopalians," on the way. "As we have passed 
 along," he said, "I have been thinking what the people of our 
 State would do, if they could not find religion except by seeking 
 it in our Church." 
 
 Bishop Griswold returned from the General Convention 
 of 1814 to the Biennial Convention of his diocese with a charge 
 to his clergy which he afterwards sent out, together with a 
 pastoral letter, to all his people. These papers doubtless were 
 influenced by his recent intercourse with his brother bishops 
 and with the Church at large. After calling for thanks for peace 
 and prosperity in the Church, and noting duties still undone 
 and opportunities neglected, the bishop went on to make a direct 
 missionary plea. "In all those noble efforts which are daily 
 making, to diffuse the light of the holy Scriptures and the knowl- 
 edge of salvation to the remotest parts of the earth 
 shall our Church only take no part? . . . Far from send- 
 ing the Gospel to distant regions, we neglect to promulgate it 
 among ourselves. . . . This is an era of Gospel light sur- 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 31 
 
 passed only by that of its first propagation. . . May it 
 
 tend to unite all Christians in faith and affection, in doctrine 
 and practice." 
 
 The bishop went on to say that no "greater stigma" was 
 attached to the established Church of England than "her apathy 
 in regard to propagating her faith"; that while her children 
 abound in "all manner of charities," in "this work of evange- 
 lists, they were unaccountably deficient"; that in but few 
 British colonies till very lately had Episcopacy been "completely 
 organized," that "in these states, before the Revolution, while 
 other denominations of Christians enjoyed the full establishment 
 of their respective systems, the Episcopal Churches were not 
 permitted to have a Bishop." But now the Church of England 
 was "awaking from this lethargy and arising in her strength," 
 while " 'our portion' of Christ's Church" remained "delinquent" 
 still — "even the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United 
 States." Yet in several other States efforts to spread the Gospel 
 were being made. "Where then shall we find a Christian com- 
 munity, so little engaged in extending its faith as ours of the 
 Eastern Diocese?" The Church of Rome had too justly censured 
 Protestants who had left to them the propagation of the Gospel. 
 The Moravians had been a solitary exception. The time had 
 come for the Church in the Eastern Diocese to act. 
 
 "Let us do the work of evangelists," said the bishop to his 
 clergy. "Let the work begin in our hearts, and in our families; 
 let it extend to our friends and neighbors, and to the humblest 
 cottages of our respective parishes; nor let it cease till it per- 
 vades our country, and all the ends of the world have seen the 
 salvation of our God." 
 
 A man of like spirit with Bishop Griswold, whose alert and 
 active mind was absorbed in the effort to bring Christ to the 
 heathen world, was the Rev. Josiah Pratt, then Secretary of the 
 Church Missionary Society of England. Peace between Great 
 Britain and the United States was declared in December, 1814, 
 and in the following August Mr. Pratt sent a letter in behalf of 
 foreign missions to "several of the leading members of the 
 
32 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 Episcopal Church in the United States." Bishop Griswold was 
 the first to reply. In July, 1816, he sent a warm-hearted, 
 sjrmpathetic response, together with a copy of his charge and 
 pastoral letter of 1814. "Most gladly would we unite with 
 you," he wrote, "in sending missions to Africa and the East, 
 and hope that the time is not far distant when some of our 
 pious young men will be zealously disposed to engage in that 
 interesting work. At present, however, we have not funds nor 
 other means of doing much in any missionary labor; not even 
 of supplying the wants of our own country. It would never be 
 credited on your side of the water, what multitudes there are in 
 these United States destitute of the Gospel ministrations." 
 
 In November of the same year Bishop Griswold wrote 
 again, at which time he probably suggested the Rev. Joseph R. 
 Andrus, one of his deacons of 1815 and just ordained priest, as 
 a missionary candidate. Mr. Pratt printed the bishop's first 
 letter with extracts from his charge and pastoral in The Mis- 
 sionary Register of 1816, and in 1817 told of the Society's plan 
 to open four mission stations in Ceylon. For these three Church 
 of England clergymen had been found, and if a fourth did not 
 offer, the Society might send Mr. Andrus. The quota was 
 made good from England, however, and Mr. Pratt wrote that it 
 would be much more likely to awaken missionary zeal in the 
 United States if the Church there could have a missionary 
 society of its own, and the Church Missionary Society offered 
 to give £200 to encourage such an undertaking. 
 
 It was November, 1820, before Bishop Griswold again wrote 
 to Mr. Pratt, but though long delayed the letter brought the 
 good news that in May of that year a society "for Foreign and 
 Domestic Missions" had been formed. "In compliance with the 
 wishes of some individuals," the bishop added, Domestic Mis- 
 sion- are embraced; but the main object of its promoters is the 
 propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." No doubt he was 
 among those who in the following year were disappointed when 
 the revised constitution of the Society was finally adopted, 
 with the name of the "Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society." 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 33 
 
 Mr. Andrus never went as a missionary in connection with 
 either the English Society or our own. This was the time of 
 the formation of the American Colonization Society, and Bishop 
 Griswold wrote Mr. Pratt in no hopeful vein of the conditions 
 that had led to it. The advance of Christ's Kingdom is "not a 
 little impeded," he said, "by the prevalence of unsound doc- 
 trine in one part of these States, and of slavery in the other. The 
 latter evil is evidently increasing." Mr. Andrus went to West 
 Africa as one of the earliest agents of the Colonization Society, 
 and his bishop hoped he might be able to co-operate with the 
 English missionaries already settled there. The bishop's in- 
 terest continued a potent force in behalf of Foreign Missions 
 from that time on. He ordained the Rev. J. J. Robertson who 
 sailed from Boston on January 1, 1829, to pioneer in Greece, 
 and the Rev. Horatio Southgate who adventured to Turkey and 
 Persia in 1835. It was one of his laymen, Mr. E. A. Newton of 
 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who, in 1834, moved in the Board of 
 Missions that a mission should be opened in China, and one of 
 his own Massachusetts students, the Rev. S. H. Tyng, ordained 
 by him in 1821, who in 1835 came from his Philadelphia parish 
 to New York to see the first China missionaries start upon their 
 way. It was a man ordained by him, and who succeeded him in 
 St. Peter's parish, Salem, the Rev. J. A. Vaughan, who, from 
 1836 to 1841, served as Secretary r)f the Foreign Committee of 
 the Board of Missions, and in the great missionary year, 1835, 
 the bishop himself wrote the hymn still retained in the Church's 
 Hymnal, "Holy Father, Great Creator," whose closing stanza 
 reads • 
 
 "God the Lord, through every nation 
 Let Thy wondrous mercies shine ! 
 In the song of Thy salvation 
 Every tongue and race combine ' 
 Great Jehovah, 
 Form our hearts and make them Thine." 
 
 Along with his interest in missions ran Bishop Griswold 's 
 keen sense of the need of a consecrated and well trained clergy. 
 
34 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 Directly upon his consecration he had described the kind of men 
 needed — of ApostoHc zeal, willing to plant before they reaped, 
 to go into the spiritual wilderness and cultivate it, to spend and 
 be spent for God's glory and the salvation of men, to seek first 
 the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. "One such," he 
 said, "is worth twenty drones in the Sacred Ministry." There- 
 fore, when, in 1817, the General Convention established a 
 General Theological Seminary, he was fully in accord with 
 the plan. No doubt he seconded Bishop Brownell's efforts 
 that it should be conducted in New Haven, and shared his 
 disappointment when, after a two years' trial, it was returned 
 to New York, He recognized that New York Churchmen were 
 the largest contributors to the expenses of the school and that 
 it was only reasonable that the institution should be in that city ; 
 but the distance was great, the cost of travel was large, his 
 candidates were poor, and underneath all else must have been 
 the feeling, that for work in New England the best training could 
 be given on New England soil. So many candidates for the 
 ministry in the Eastern Diocese read under one or another 
 of the parish clergy, or were trained under the direct care of the 
 bishop himself. 
 
 In 1830, in answer to a renewed call from St. Peter's, Salem, 
 endorsed by nineteen of the clergy of Massachusetts, the Bishop 
 at last gave up his Bristol parish and removed to Salem. He 
 then asked his convention to establish a theological school for 
 the Eastern Diocese, and in 1832 repeated the request. The 
 Rev. Geo. W. Doane, at that time rector of Trinity Church, 
 Boston, wrote the bishop that the Rev. John Henry Hopkins 
 might take the combined duty of assistant in that parish and 
 professor in the proposed school. This arrangement was made. 
 Mr. Hopkins came, three students entered the school, and the 
 work began. But the same year Mr. Doane was elected and 
 consecrated Bishop for New Jersey and Mr. Hopkins for Ver- 
 mont, and the school was dissolved. In 1834-1835 a fund of 
 $104,000 was raised towards its re-establishment, and the Rev. 
 Alonzo Potter was urged to return from Schenectady, whither he 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 35 
 
 had gone in 1831, to take charge; but he declined, and the 
 project was again abandoned. It was then that one of the 
 clergy said, "The best theological seminary which the Eastern 
 Diocese ever had — perhaps the best any diocese will ever have — 
 was in Bishop Griswold's own house and parish at Bristol." 
 
 There among his students were J. P. K. Henshaw who 
 succeeded him as bishop in Rhode Island, John Bristed, his 
 successor in St. Michael's Parish, James W. Eastburn, brother of 
 the Rev. Manton Eastburn consecrated his assistant bishop, 
 Stephen H. Tyng, Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Phila- 
 delphia, and, later, of St. George's Church, New York. Mr. 
 Tyng has left an account of Bishop Griswold's practical method 
 of instruction in Pastoral Theology; 
 
 "When I had been in Bristol about a week," he writes, 
 "the Bishop observed, 'I wish you to attend a meeting with me 
 in the country this evening, and I will call for you after tea.' 
 He came accordingly, and we walked about a mile to a neigh- 
 borhood called 'The Neck,' where the rooms of a farmhouse were 
 entirely filled with people waiting his arrival. He sat down 
 among them at a little table, and, after singing and prayer, 
 expounded to them a chapter in the Epistle to the Romans. 
 I cannot describe the impression which this occasion 
 made on me. The condescension and meekness with which he 
 thus familiarly walked out with a youth like me; the perfectly 
 unassuming manner in which he appeared among the rustic 
 congregation . . . the simplicity and tenderness of his 
 discourse; the tremulous sweetness of his voice, as he raised 
 the tune in singing; were all such new and striking facts to me, 
 that I was surprised as well as delighted with the whole occasion. 
 The Bishop opened the service with a selection of prayers from the 
 Liturgy, and closed it with an extemporaneous prayer, in which 
 duty he excelled almost all whom I have ever heard. 
 
 "His weekly meetings were generally of this social and 
 private character. There were sometimes two or more such 
 meetings each week. . . . When he was at home he 
 attended them himself; though, even then he required of his 
 
36 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 theological students frequent addresses and exhortations to 
 the people assembled; so that his ministry was not only a con- 
 tinued example and source of instruction, but also in the oppor- 
 tunity for practical exercise in the duties of their future ministry 
 which he gave them, of the greatest service in perfecting their 
 qualifications, and in forming their habits for future usefulness." 
 
 But his recruits for the ministry were not always gained 
 without difficulty. Two cases of especial interest occurred dur- 
 ing Bishop Griswold's episcopate, one of which drew the atten- 
 tion of the entire Church. A New York physician had been 
 moved to give up his profession in order to devote himself to the 
 work of the ministry, and had been received in his diocese as a 
 candidate for Holy Orders. Later, because of his use of intem- 
 perate language against a fellow Churchman of prominence in 
 New York, Bishop Hobart refused to ordain him, and notified 
 his brother bishops of his action. After some delay, in 1823, 
 the rejected candidate applied for admission in the Eastern 
 Diocese. This application brought out two interesting points. 
 It was the first time since the organization of the Church in the 
 United States that a candidate refused in one diocese had ap- 
 plied in another; could the second diocese grant the request? 
 And, while the candidate offered for the Eastern Diocese, it was 
 the Standing Committee of a Diocese within the limits of the 
 Eastern Diocese (Rhode Island) which acted upon the matter. 
 
 For a year a correspondence was carried on between Bishop 
 Griswold and Bishop Hobart, the latter furnishing the former a 
 long argument from Bishop White also, but not in such terms as 
 Bishop Griswold understood to include this particular case. 
 The Rector of St. Paul's Chufch, Boston, and St. George's 
 Church, New York, wrote warmly in behalf of the candidate, 
 while on the other hand there came to Bishop Griswold from 
 "a weak member of our Zion" in Beaufort, South Carolina, this 
 earnest remonstrance: "That you would willingly give any 
 cause of offence to a brother Bishop is not for a moment to be 
 conceived. Or that you would deliberately degrade or lessen 
 authority is not to be believed. But in fact will you not do both 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 37 
 
 by giving Orders to Dr. ? . . . Who will be the first 
 
 to break the golden chain of harmony which has existed among 
 the American Bishops? And what would be the consequences 
 if this should take place? . . . Suppose the individual 
 be an injured man, is it not better that one man should suffer 
 than that such a bold adventure should be made?" 
 
 Bishop Griswold was not the man to be influenced by this 
 appeal. He could not yield the point that in every instance 
 one bishop must abide by the judgment of another. "A Bishop's 
 authority, we know," he wrote Bishop Hobart on July 9, 1823, 
 "is confined to his own Diocese. It is decidedly my opinion 
 that a candidate's being rejected by one Bishop does not, in 
 itself, debar him of the right of applying to, and being received 
 by another ; for such a rule might sanction the most intolerable . 
 oppression." 
 
 From this decision he did not waver. On July 25, 1823, 
 the candidate was received by the Standing Committee of Rhode 
 Island. In February, 1824, the fellow Churchman who had been 
 abused declared his belief that there was no malignity in the 
 attack but that its heat had been aroused through the misrepre- 
 sentation of others; that he should be "extremely sorry if the 
 occurrence should either retard the advancement or afifect the 
 usefulness" of his opponent. "Indeed," he added, "I do not 
 think it ought." And on August 15, 1824,, in St. Michael's, 
 Bristol, the ordination took place. 
 
 Meanwhile a similar case was also going on. A lawyer of 
 high standing, a man of fine talents and splendid scholarship, 
 of "unquestionable piety and unimpeachable morals" wrote to 
 Bishop Hobart of his intention of giving up his profession in 
 order to study for the ministry. The Bishop discouraged the 
 idea, but feeling himself led by a Divine call, the lawyer removed 
 his residence from the Diocese of New York to that of Rhode 
 Island and began his studies under Bishop Griswold. But the 
 Standing Committee which had just accepted one candidate, 
 without the same cause for indecision — but possibly perplexed 
 and uncertain as to the propriety of its course — acted unfav- 
 
38 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 orably upon this second request, and it was only after "pro- 
 tracted, most tedious and most unreasonable delays," that this 
 candidate was finally received by the Diocese of Vermont. 
 
 In Massachusetts a greater disturbance arose when, in 
 1832, the Standing Committee of that Diocese acted upon the 
 canon of the General Convention of 1826. and refused to the 
 students of its newly established theological school its consent 
 to a dispensation from the full three years of study required by 
 that canon, which dispensation Bishop Griswold had advised and 
 allowed. Those conducting the school were anxious no doubt 
 that its requirements should equal those called for in the General 
 Theological Seminary; but feeling in the diocese was such as 
 to result in the election of a new set of members to the Standing 
 Committee and of new delegates to the approaching General 
 Convention, who were in harmony with the views of Bishop 
 Griswold. But this was a matter of personal influence only. 
 Bishop Griswold 's position in the territory over which he presided 
 as bishop was unique. He would attend the annual conventions 
 of the Dioceses of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New 
 Hampshire and Maine, preside, and listen to their proceedings 
 and give his counsel; but he saved all his authoritative and 
 official addresses for the conventions of the Eastern Diocese. 
 He urged the few matters that held the Church people of that 
 diocese together by a slender thread — the support of the 
 episcopate, the spread of missions, the formation of a missionary 
 society in every parish, the distribution of Prayer Books, the 
 development of Sunday Schools — but he had to watch with a 
 certain aloofness the growing under current of restlessness 
 tending to independence in each separate diocese within his 
 own, and to guide with an unselfish and generous devotion all 
 steps towards that division which was urged in 1822 and again in 
 1827, when he claimed that as soon as possible Vermont should 
 have a bishop. 
 
 And his cautious, unaggressive methods could not always 
 save him from reproach. When, in 1825, trouble arose between 
 the rector and people of St. Paul's Parish, Boston, and he was 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 39 
 
 called upon to preside over a council of the Massachusetts clergy- 
 concerning the matter, the rector accused him of "an unwarrant- 
 able stretch of power, or episcopal prerogative." An attack 
 could hardly have been less deserved. The convention of 
 Massachusetts completely exonerated him, declaring that he 
 was always discreet, meek, faithful and modest. The bishop 
 himself had said, "I wish that our bishops might always be poor 
 and have no more power than is necessary for the discharge of 
 the proper duties of their office. . . . If it is only a place 
 of labor and usefulness, without the reward of worldly honors 
 and emolument, there will be little danger of any one seeking it, 
 or accepting it, but from desire to do good." 
 
 DIFFERENCES AND GROWTH 
 
 It was now fourteen years since he had been consecrated, 
 and they were years in which differences of conviction and 
 practice had sprung up, deepened and spread. During their 
 course, in 1823, Bishop Hobart had visited England and had 
 won the heart of the young curate, Walter Farquhar Hook, 
 later the noted Vicar of Leeds. The young man who was long- 
 ing at this time to be "dabbling in High Churchery," was de- 
 lighted with the Apostolic Church in America, and hoped that 
 the American Bishop's visit would cause "episcopacy to be 
 better understood in England." In the next twenty years Dean 
 Hook himself, as he kept his steady middle course, watched 
 friends and associates pass by him, as the leaders in the Oxford 
 Movement and the Tracts for the Times created a strong tide 
 which swept English Churchmen to and fro, and had a marked 
 effect upon the Church in America as well, and on no part of 
 that Church more marked than in the Eastern Diocese. 
 
 Church papers, fanning the varying tempers of the time, 
 rapidly increased and multiplied. The Churchman's Reposi- 
 tory for the Eastern Diocese, which appeared in 1820, in New- 
 buryport, was soon removed to Boston, and renamed The 
 Gospel Advocate. Bishop Griswold commended it to his conven- 
 
40 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 tion. It was his "decided opinion" that "to do much good and 
 obtain the patronage of the pious" the paper must have for its 
 chief object "the glory of God in the salvation of men." "Let 
 us also," he said, "be careful to manifest a spirit of candor, 
 charity and Christian love. . . We had never more 
 
 occasion for the exercise of forbearance." 
 
 But the paper did not preserve this standard. In September. 
 1822, an attack was made on the prayer meetings, so dear to the 
 bishop's heart and which he had been first to introduce into the 
 diocese. Controversial articles appeared from time to time, 
 and when at last, in 1825, the bishop himself took up the cause 
 his articles were refused by The Gospel Advocate, and were later 
 printed in The Episcopal Register of Vermont. 
 
 This was perhaps the first decided and most public expres- 
 sion of a divergence of views between the bishop and some 
 among his clergy, and it kindled a flame in which his biographer 
 says, his "patient love of peace . . . burnt, martyr-like, 
 for more than twenty of the last years of his life." 
 
 The General Convention of 1826 suggested changes in the 
 Prayer Book, which were referred back to the different dioceses 
 for action. Bishop Griswold objected to the particular changes 
 proposed, which had to do with the Preface to the Confirmation 
 Office and in the rubric immediately following the Office of the 
 Holy Communion. "My wish," the bishop wrote, "is to make 
 none, or to make all that are needed." He was accused of having 
 shown a want of attachment to the Liturgy and the Church, 
 and in 1827 defended himself before his own convention. "I 
 am well aware," he said, "of the delicacy and difficulties of this 
 subject, and how necessary it is, if we would be accounted 
 Churchmen to eulogize the Liturgy, and to deprecate as sacrilege 
 even the least alteration. But on this point I have little anxiety. 
 Nursed, as I have been, from earliest infancy, in the bosom of 
 this Church, having passed my whole life among Episcopalians, 
 as much so perhaps as any man of my age in this country living, 
 and having been above forty years a member of its communion, 
 I have long since imbibed a deep prepossession (not to say 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 41 
 
 prejudice) in its favor. . . . For many years I have 
 endeavored impartially to examine the claims of our Church 
 to Scriptural orthodoxy and primitive order, and the exami- 
 nation has confirmed me in the belief that her claims are well 
 founded. ... I humbly trust that I have also, in some 
 small degree imbibed that truly liberal spirit of forbearance 
 and charity, which our Church, more than any other Christian 
 community on earth, inculcates, and which is not the least 
 among the many proofs that she is, indeed, the Church of Christ." 
 
 But forbearance and charity were not at that time the 
 Church's distinguishing characteristics. From July, 1828, to 
 August. 1829, Bishop Griswold printed in The Episcopal Register 
 a series of articles upon Prayer Book changes and his views of 
 rendering the service, and these were strongly assailed by The 
 Gospel Messenger of Western New York. 
 
 The five years' rectorate of the Rev. Alonzo Potter in St. 
 Paul's Church, Boston did something to harmonize discordant 
 elements. He came from the Diocese of New York in 1826, 
 and for the first time Bishop Griswold held the Institution 
 office and Bishop Hobart preached the sermon. In 1828 Mr. 
 Potter voiced to Bishop Griswold the wish of some of the clergy 
 that they might meet more often for informal conference. In 
 his convention address of that year the bishop congratulated 
 his diocese on "the reverence which clergy and people now 
 generally have for the order and worship of the Church and for 
 the General Convention," and was thankful to have "a body of 
 clergy so decidedly attached to the Episcopal Church and so 
 zealous in support of its distinctive principles without any 
 leaning to Popery or abandonment of Protestant principles or 
 neglect of Evangelical truth." He urged them to a greater 
 interest in the general missionary work and referred to the 
 rivalry existing between the Domestic and Foreign Committees 
 which then represented to a marked degree the differing parties 
 within the Church. "Some we may fear " said the bishop, 
 "who pass for pious, zealous Christians, had rather that man- 
 kind should remain in their sins than that those, whom they 
 
42 . SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 dislike, should be the instruments of changing their hearts and 
 bringing them to Christ." 
 
 "Even different sects," he added, "should not view each 
 other as rivals, still less as opponents; but as all laboring in the 
 same good work, each according to his knowledge, faith and 
 sense of duty." 
 
 And again, of tendencies within ourselves he said — • in this 
 showing his kinship to Dean Hook — "There are two extremes 
 in which we naturally and too often err. . . . The one is, 
 undue reliance upon religious rites, and . . . the other is 
 too little reverence for the sacraments and other institutions 
 of Christ and his Apostles. These are the Scylla and Charybdis 
 of religious life. They are perils to which we of the Episcopal 
 Church, with all our best intentions to steer a middle cotirse, are 
 much exposed." 
 
 The bishop seemed to be happy in the thought that the 
 clergy of his diocese as a whole were keeping to this middle course, 
 but when, in 1832, the Rev. James S. Stone came to Boston as 
 Rector of St. Paul's, the convention of the Massachusetts Dio- 
 cese revealed to him that "he had approached a mountain which 
 from a distance had seemed quiet and beautiful," only to find it 
 "covered with a somewhat large proportion of the lava and 
 ashes to be thrown up by its sudden volcanic explosion." 
 
 It was in this convention that the new delegation to General 
 Convention was chosen. Vermont had just withdrawn from the 
 Eastern Diocese and elected Mr. Hopkins as Bishop. At the 
 same time Bishop Chase had resigned Ohio and the Rev. Charles 
 P. Mcllvaine had been elected in his stead. The question of the 
 right of a bishop to give up his diocese came up in General 
 Convention, and it was the influence of Bishop Griswold upon 
 the new Massachusetts delegation which gave the deciding vote 
 in these mooted questions. 
 
 Indeed it was affection for their bishop and respect for his 
 character that held his diocese together. In withdrawing, the 
 Convention of Vermont had sent him the message that "this 
 crisis has indeed been delayed through an extreme unwillingness 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 43 
 
 to deprive ourselves of the ministrations of a Bishop, whom we 
 so truly revere and love." When New Hampshire withdrew 
 in 1838 and Maine in 1839, the withdrawal was but nominal; 
 they still remained under Bishop Griswold's care. 
 
 In 1832 the Rev. Theodore Edson of St. Ann's Church, 
 Lowell, again brought forward the convocation plan. It had 
 been adopted with good results in Rhode Island, and, in a lesser 
 degree, in the eastern part of Massachusetts. In the western 
 part the clergy had formed an association of a somewhat dif- 
 ferent kind. The bishop commended both; the meeting, and 
 not the method of meeting, for mutual helpfulness, was the 
 important point. New missionary interest resulted from these 
 convocations, and in 1836 the Massachusetts Convention sub- 
 stituted for its Episcopal Missionary Society, a Board of Mis- 
 sions. 
 
 PRESIDING BISHOP 
 
 In 1835 Bishop Griswold was finally persuaded to give up 
 parochial ties and to confine himself to the duties of the diocese. 
 He removed to Boston and there made his home for the remainder 
 of his life. On July 17, 1836, Bishop White of Pennsylvania 
 died, and according to the rule adopted in 1832 by the House of 
 Bishops, Bishop Griswold becarne Presiding Bishop of the 
 Church. He had opposed the suggestion of Primus, made by 
 some of his brother bishops, and now that this position which 
 had been authorized by the Church became his, he shrank from 
 it and its responsibilities. What he must do he would do to the 
 best of his abilities, but if he could avoid office, he would do so, 
 especially if "he had any reason for believing that he was not 
 wanted, or was not welcome." 
 
 In response to a letter from Bishop Onderdonk of New York, 
 he wrote, on December 22, 1836, "I doubt the wisdom of making 
 the oldest of our body the presiding Bishop. . . . By this 
 rule (his duties) will frequently, as in the present instance, fall 
 upon one who resides far from the center; rendering the dis- 
 charge of them less convenient to him and to the Churches 
 
44 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 generally. I would prefer that he should be the Bishop of New 
 York or Philadelphia. And (as in the present instance) these 
 duties will often, if not always, fall upon one who, by reason of 
 old age, is least capable of performing them." "But," he con- 
 tinued, "we must take things as they are. Whatever may be 
 my feelings, I desire, far as I am able, to perform every duty, 
 which may not as well, or better, be done by another person." 
 
 Bishop Griswold accepted conditionally the invitations 
 contained in Bishop Onderdonk's letter to attend approaching 
 meetings of the Board of Missions and the Trustees of the 
 General Theological Seminary, but suggested that considering 
 "his very advanced age" and his possible inability to attend, a 
 substitute be appointed to preach the missionary sermon and to 
 address the students. He then went on to a mention of the 
 Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops, which for many suc- 
 ceeding General Conventions had been prepared by Bishop 
 White. "Surely," he wrote, "this will not henceforth be con- 
 sidered as the duty, ex -officio, of the senior Bishop. For several 
 good reasons I shall decline it." And he proposed that the 
 House of Bishops appoint a committee for the purpose, to 
 prepare and present the letter of 1838. 
 
 This proposal was not acted upon. The new Presiding 
 Bishop prepared that Pastoral, and the one also presented in 
 1841, at the last General Convention held before his death. 
 This convention occurred at a time when party spirit was 
 running high. The heat of controversy in the American Church 
 surpassed what was experienced in England. The most fervent 
 of the Evangelicals looked to Bishop Griswold for a sharply 
 defined presentation of the views which seemed to them vitally 
 important. But he was not the man to use his office of Pre- 
 siding Bishop for the upholding of a party standard. He took 
 for his subject, "The Doctrine of our Church on the Article of 
 Justification by Faith, in connection with that on the necessity 
 and place of Good Works." and won such "an expression of 
 universal approbation" as led him to fear he had not clearly 
 expressed his views. 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 45 
 
 Between the years 1838 and 1841 Bishop Griswold carried 
 on correspondence with the Archbishops of Canterbury and 
 York, the Primus of Scotland, and the Bishops of Montreal, 
 Nova Scotia, Jamaica and the Barbadoes, with regard to estab- 
 lishing terms of intercommunion with the Church in the United 
 States. In 1840 he added to the letter from the Foreign Com- 
 mittee one of introduction and instructions to Dr. Robertson 
 and Mr. Southgate, going out for the second time to the East. 
 In this letter he described the double labors before them "among 
 a people of whom a part are already Christians, organized in 
 regular ancient Churches, btit somewhat divided into separate 
 denominations," again among others, and they the dominant 
 part of the people, who are "very hostile to Christianity." He 
 hopes that among pagans and Mahomedans, the missionaries 
 may win a greater respect for our religion and more toleration 
 for it; and would explain to the bishops or other ecclesiastical 
 authorities that we would "scrupulously avoid all offensive in- 
 trusion into the jurisdiction of our Episcopal brethren, nor 
 intermeddle with their Church affairs." The bishop goes on 
 to urge the position of the Protestant Episcopal Church as 
 standing between the Protestants "opposed to Episcopacy, 
 Confirmation and the use of Liturgies" on the one hand, and the 
 Church of Rome on the other, and adds, "Under such circum- 
 stances, our thoughts and affections are particularly directed and 
 strongly drawn to our brethren of the Eastern Churches, who, 
 we believe, agree with us in what is most essential. 
 To their bishops and other clergy would we gladly extend the 
 right hand of fellowship, and impart to them some portion of 
 those good things which God, in his bounteous mercy, does on 
 us bestow." 
 
 Twice in connection with interests in the East Bishop 
 Griswold aroused criticism. 
 
 A clergyman who had lived in his house, studied under him, 
 and been ordained by him both Deacon and Priest, becoming 
 greatly exercised over conditions in that part of the world, asked 
 the House of Bishops to consecrate him and allow him to go 
 
46 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 at his own charges as a missionary bishop to the Turks. The 
 appeal was refused, and the young man resolved to visit England 
 and make a trial there. He brought to Bishop Griswold a 
 letter of introduction to "the Bishops and Clergy and faithful 
 in foreign lands" which he himself had written, and begged his 
 signature. The letter was not at all to the bishop's taste; he 
 had already advised against the plan, had told his young friend 
 that he would probably injure himself without giving much 
 help to the Turks, and that there was little or no probability of 
 his obtaining Episcopal Orders for such a mission from any 
 source. But the young man was importunate, the bishop 
 found it hard to resist one of his own boys, he drew his pen 
 through certain objectionable parts of the letter, signed his name, 
 and finally under renewed pressure, at the last moment, added 
 Bishop to the signature and let it go. He was bound to regret 
 such an unwonted lack of caution. The Churchman accused 
 him of assuming an aspect of Archepiscopal authority and the 
 bishop felt it necessary to reply, "I never put my name to any- 
 thing with less willingness, having from my youth disliked any 
 unnecessary appearance before the public." 
 
 Again, in 1841, he received letters from Dr. Robertson and 
 Mr. Southgate, introducing Mar Yohanna, the Nestorian Bishop 
 of Ooroomiah in Persia. Mar Yohanna came to Boston, met 
 Bishop Griswold in private and public, attended service in 
 Grace Church, and joined the bishop and others in the Holy 
 Communion. For this last circumstance in some quarters the 
 Bishop was severely blamed. One letter in criticism came 
 even from Scotland, and the old bishop sent a very warm and 
 trenchant letter in response to the Vermont clergyman who had 
 forwarded it to him. Excusing a delay by reason of other engage- 
 ments, he continued: "I freely acknowledge that I scarcely have 
 patience to consider (the subject of this letter) at any time. That 
 so much ado should be made about my communing with one 
 who is said to be a Nestorian Bishop sickens me at heart . 
 I believe from conversation had with him that he is a pious, 
 good man and a sincere believer in Jesus Christ; and with such 
 
 _, 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 47 
 
 I am ever willing to commune. Clergymen, or ministers, of 
 various denominations have come to the Lord's Supper when I 
 administered it, but it never entered my mind that any one 
 would be so absurd as to suppose that it: was uniting with their 
 denomination or acknowledging the validity of their orders, 
 or the soundness of the faith, or the orthodoxy of the Churches, 
 to which they respectively belonged. I know not of any Bishops 
 of any Church, whom, as such, I would reject from communion; 
 no, not even Popish Bishops, whom I consider as, of all who 
 claim the title, the most heretical." 
 
 CLOSING YEARS 
 
 But though his charity was thus embrasive Bishop Griswold 
 found it hard to tolerate, much less to welcome, changes of 
 practice within certain parishes of his diocese. The tide of 
 feeling, which had subsided after 1832, by 1838 had risen to 
 even greater heights, and the bishop felt that, as he had refused 
 the sale of Church property to Congregationalists and had 
 forbidden a Congregational minister to preach in a Church 
 pulpit, so now, in order to "steer his middle course," he must 
 express his disapproval of matters which showed a leaning 
 towards the other extreme. To read what he wrote in 1841 
 and 1842, in view of what is the commonplace in the Church 
 in 1921, shows how quickly history works its changes. 
 
 Writing of two parish churches lately renovated the bishop 
 said: "I was pained and mortified at the strange derangement 
 of the reading-desk and the communion table, and at the other 
 exhibitions within the chancel. ... In regard to this, 
 their house is now in a worse state than any other Protestant 
 church that I ever beheld. . . . There was then (formerly) 
 a very convenient reading desk. . . . Then also there 
 was a communion taHe, very suitable and in sight of the whole 
 congregation. Since, I have seen instead an edifice, like a 
 Popish altar, above a flight of many steps very inconvenient 
 for ministrations at the Lord's table. ... I saw also a 
 
48 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 picture standing at the back of the altar such as the Papists 
 avowedly and very much worship. . . . Before the 
 Madonna, and on what should he the communion table, I saw 
 flowers strewn; and there too stood candles in the day time; 
 whether they are ever lighted in the day time I did not inquire. 
 Formerly the railing of the chancel was clear for 
 many to kneel at communion and confirmation, but, in my last 
 visit, it was exceedingly encumbered. The stool, or place for 
 the minister in preaching, is far the most awkward and incon- 
 venient that I ever beheld. That, and something like a reading 
 desk, and a bridge or platform leading from the chancel to a 
 place where baptism was performed, occupied so much of the 
 chancel that . . . the convenience for administering con- 
 firmation and the other Christian ordinances is very much 
 diminished. Your minister wore such a dress as I had never 
 seen before . . . And never did I see a minister go without 
 the railings of the chancel to administer Baptism." 
 
 So wrote Bishop Griswold when seventy-six years of age, 
 who had been trained from infancy in the Episcopal Church 
 and who had served in her ministry for forty-seven years. 
 Thus we have from his long experience a picture of the outward 
 aspect of the Church in New England during that nearly half 
 century of time. The quickly coming change was, as it were, 
 awaiting his death. 
 
 At the next convention of the Eastern Diocese after the 
 bishop's serious illness in 1837 he called for an assistant. The 
 question at once arose, would this assistant be an assistant for 
 the Eastern Diocese? That is. was the Eastern Diocese to be 
 continued? Could this be done? Opinion was divided, and in 
 1838 the bishop declared himself in favor of elections in the 
 different State conventions, and the Massachusetts convention 
 proceeded to elect Dr. Alonzo Potter, who declined. In Sep- 
 tember, 1842, this convention made another choice equally 
 dear to Bishop Griswold's heart. This was of the Rev. Manton 
 Eastburn. Rector of the Church of the Ascension, New York, 
 who came to Massachusetts to fill the double office of assistant 
 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 49 
 
 bishop and Rector of Trinity Church, Boston. On December 
 29, 1842, Dr. Eastburn was consecrated in that church by- 
 Bishop Oris wold. It was the last ordaining act of the bishop's 
 life. On February 11, 1843, he went out from home to call 
 upon his new assistant, and as he reached the house, fell at the 
 door and died upon the threshold. 
 
 This sudden end came as the culmination of many serious 
 illnesses. For years the bishop had lived in the daily presence 
 of death. On this last morning at family prayers he had read, 
 "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live in the 
 flesh, this is the fruit of my labour; yet what I shall choose I 
 wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to 
 depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." And so 
 he arose and departed thence. 
 
 During Bishop Griswold's episcopate of 32 years, he assisted 
 in the consecration of 6 bishops, and, as presiding bishop, was 
 chief consecrator of 6 others. At the time of his own conse- 
 cration there were 19 clergymen within the limits of the Eastern 
 Diocese. He ordained 202 men to the ministry, of whom 12* 
 became bishops, instituted 53 rectors into their parishes, conse- 
 crated 71 churches, and confirmed 11,299 persons. The dis- 
 trict which he administered is now presided over by 8 bishops 
 and served by 531 clergymen in 575 parishes and missions, 
 numbering 113,085 communicants. 
 
 Born ten years before the outbreak of the War of the Revo- 
 lution Bishop Griswold personally knew the "deep-rooted and 
 violent opposition to Episcopacy" then cherished in New Eng- 
 land by the Congregationalists, who "considered themselves as 
 'the standing order' (or 'established religion') to whom the 
 ground of right belonged." Their "abhorrence" and "the fear 
 of offending them" had been chief reasons why the British 
 
 * Benjamin B. Smith of Kentucky; John P. K. Henshaw of Rhode 
 Island; Carlton Chase of New Hampshire; Horatio Southgate of Con- 
 stantinople; George Burgess of Maine; Jonathan M. Wainwright of 
 New York; Henry W. Lee of Iowa; Thomas M. Clark of Rhode Island; 
 Thomas H. Vail of Kansas; George M. Randall of Colorado; Mark A.' 
 DeW. Howe of Central Pennsylvania; Alexander Burgess of Quincy. 
 
^0 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 Government would not allow bishops in these colonies. The 
 extent of this "abhorrence" can hardly be believed, but Bishop 
 Griswold relates a story told him of a "very intelligent and pious 
 young man" in Boston, "a member of the Rev. Mr. Eliot's 
 church." On reading an English extract in the newspaper, to 
 the effect that the Rev. Dr. was about to sail in his maj- 
 esty's ship , "to go out as the first bishop of New England." 
 
 this youth exclaimed to his companion, " Then, M , I am a 
 
 dead man! For, if this announcement prove true, the moment 
 
 Dr. sets his foot on Long Wharf. Boston, as Bishop of New 
 
 England, / will shoot him! And the next moment I will surrender 
 myself into the hands of justice with the certainty of being 
 hanged! I feel that, by such a deed, I should be doing God 
 service." 
 
 Such a state of mind was possible in Boston in 1785. In 
 the change effected by 1843 a powerful force was working. In 
 1805 Henry Ware, Professor of Divinity in Harvard College, was 
 drawing a clear-cut line between the strict Orthodox Congre- 
 gationalism of the past and "liberal" Unitarianism. In 1819 
 William Ellery Channing preached the sermon which became 
 famous as the Unitarian "Declaration of Independence." In 
 the following year nearly one hundred and fifty Congregational 
 Churches in New England declared their adhesion to his posi- 
 tion. In 1825 representatives of those congregations united 
 in the American Unitarian Association. From many of these 
 congregations enlisted under this new banner individuals cling- 
 ing to their Orthodox belief drifted off, and looking elsewhere 
 for an anchorage to their faith found i^" in the Church they had 
 once feared and despised, built up in their midst under the 
 holy and diligent shepherding of the first and only Bishop of the 
 Eastern Diocese. 
 
 With the close of Bishop Griswold 's life that diocese ceased 
 to be, but in its anomolous structure the student of the Church's 
 history cannot fail to trace a connection with the system of 
 missionary districts originating in 1835 and of provinces estab- 
 lished in 1907. 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 51 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 As to Bishop Griswold himself, his life speaks for him. The 
 wife of his early years died in 1817, and ten years later he married 
 again. He was the father of fourteen children, three only of 
 whom outlived him. He was tender and devoted to them, 
 and their voices and play in his study, unless there was some 
 sound of discord, never disturbed him. But his incessant cares 
 and toils withdrew him from them, and he became "by degrees 
 habitually reserved and distant in his intercourse with them." 
 He combined with the colossal industry which was, perhaps, 
 his most outstanding characteristic, a "deathless passion for 
 literature and science." Upon the publication of La Place's 
 Mechanique Celeste, notwithstanding the comment of an English 
 reviewer that few men in England read the book, a Boston 
 bookseller ventured to import a single copy. One day "a 
 venerable, white-haired man" came into the store, picked up the 
 volume, became absorbed in its contents, bought it and carried 
 it away. The purchaser was Bishop Griswold, and when a 
 friend asked him if this were true and if he read La Place. "Yes," 
 he answered, "I have sometimes amused myself that way; but 
 of late, finding mathematics in danger of interfering with my 
 other duties, I have laid them aside." 
 
 He was an extraordinarily silent man. Living profoundly 
 within himself, when brought into contact with others who 
 differed from him in opinion or practice, the sensitive pride that 
 lay beneath his acquired grace of Christian humility was often 
 stirred and kept him back from frank and free intercourse and 
 discussion. 
 
 In 1818 when Philander Chase begged him to come to 
 Philadelphia to support him in solving difficulties as to his 
 consecration and to take part in the service, if held, he excused 
 himself, adding, "I see no reason for my going thither. Bishop 
 White, with the assistance of others in his vicinity, has invariably 
 now for many years performed our consecrations. A deviation 
 from this usage in your case would have a novel appearance. 
 
52 SOLDIER AND SERVANT SERIES 
 
 There are, indeed, some reasons of serious consideration, why I 
 should not be present." 
 
 In 1823 when a committee of his diocese upon Sunday School 
 instruction reported to the bishop the preparation of a system 
 in connection with a Connecticut committee, there is an infer- 
 ence of the Bishop's satisfaction that this never became general, 
 the system of the Church's General Sunday School Union — in 
 many cases combined with the American Sunday School Union — 
 taking its place. 
 
 In 1839, the bishop wrote of a book of prayers which he had 
 issued some years before. "How extensively the prayers which 
 I have published are used in my Diocese I do not exactly know. 
 By many of our clergy, those by Bishop Hobart. in Sunday 
 Schools especially, are used in preference." And in commenting 
 on the opinion that none but Prayer Book prayers should be used 
 in "social worship," he wrote. "If, in all cases we adhere to the 
 strict literal sense (of Canon 45, of 1832) how can the Gospel, 
 by us be ever preached to the heathen? They who have at- 
 tended the meetings of our General Board of Missions must 
 have seen what common sense has taught our Bishops and 
 clergy respecting the occasional use (in the church even) of 
 other prayers beside those in the Prayer Book." 
 
 As early as 1820 Bishop Griswold had written his English 
 correspondent, Mr. Pratt, "The pertinacity with which so large 
 a part of our citizens adhere to the slave-holding interest pre- 
 cludes the hope of this country's soon becoming what it is so 
 often and so absurdly called, a land of freedom." Yet in 1842 
 at a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of Plymouth County 
 he was attacked on the ground that he had lately received prop- 
 erty from a son's estate in Cuba (presumably, in the minds of 
 the accusers, from the sale of a plantation and slaves). The 
 bishop contented himself with the simple explanation that the 
 property, however acquired, was not his but administered to 
 him by his son in trust for his brothers and sisters and their 
 children. 
 
 At the time of making this explanation the bishop was 
 
ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD 53 
 
 within a year of his own death, and in deepest grief over the 
 death of his youngest and greatly loved son ; but he did not fail 
 to write to correct the censure bestowed. It was one more evi- 
 dence of that unwavering steadiness of character which, having 
 adopted rules in early life, caused him to follow them not as 
 rules but, as his biographer says, "a sort of living thing," which, 
 having adopted, "his life became but their embodied spirit." 
 These rules were as follows: 
 
 1. "Never to ask another to do for me what I can as well 
 do for myself. 
 
 2. "When censured, or accused, to correct, not justify, 
 my error. 
 
 3. "From a child, in reading anything applicable to the 
 improvement of the mind, or to the conduct of life, to consider 
 first and chiefly how it may be applied to myself. 
 
 4. "In all clashing claims, where rights are equal, and one 
 must yield, to do it myself. 
 
 5. "To have a trust that, in all events and exigencies of 
 life, if I strictly do my duty and walk according to the Christian 
 rule, however I may seem to suffer, what is really best for me the 
 Lord will give." 
 
 That Bishop Griswold's life was the embodiment of these 
 rules this story may have made clear. But if one questions the 
 partiality of an over enthusiastic biographer, the sober testimony 
 of a daughter rings too true to admit of doubt. During the 
 whole of his episcopate the bishop's house was a home for the 
 clergy, and this daughter said that she had often been pained 
 to notice in them things "not perfectly consistent with their 
 high and holy character and office; that she had never seen but 
 one, in whom no such inconsistency was observable, and that 
 this was the one whom she had known longest and observed most 
 closely, her own revered father." 
 

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