Trinity Church, which gave rise to several inflammatory pamphlets, and produced serious divisions among the clergy and laity of the Church in the diocese of New York. The controversy was not allayed by the election and consecration of Dr. Hobart to the episcopate in the year 1811. But as the diocese then had three Bishops, questions about the right of jurisdiction, arising out of attempts to exercise discipline upon the principal of one party, occasioned much diversity of opinion among distinguished members of the legal as well as clerical profession. . It is unnecessary to enter upon the merits of that controversy, which involved the power of a diocesan to divest himself of his office and its prerogatives by resignation, and other important points deeply affecting our ecclesiastical organization. Dr. Moore, in common with other distinguished gentlemen, clerical and lay, was of opinion that the senior bishop, Dr. Provoost, was, notwithstanding his resignation, (for which the Church had then made no provision,) still to be regarded as the rightful diocesan. He also sympathized with the minority as to the other points involved in that painful controversy. But it is a cause of gratitude that the differences between him and Bishop Hobart, arising out of it, were entirely healed by subsequent mutual explanations; and they ever afterwards shared each other's confidence and affection.

His ministry in New York was one of commanding influence and most important results. The popularity which he won in the early part of his rectorship in St. Stephen's continued to be enjoyed, without any interruption, till its close. His Church on the Lord's day, and the schoolhouses where he lectured during the week, were always crowded with solemn and attentive auditories. The pious of every name, delighted, occasionally, to attend upon his soul-stirring ministrations. To serious minded strangers

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MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF BISHOP MOORE.

visiting the city, St. Stephen's was one of the leading points of attraction, and many who were savingly benefited by casually listening to the Gospel which he preached, bore back with them a blessing, and became radiating points of spiritual illumination in the places of their respective abode. In his different excursions to New London, Saratoga, and other country towns, his preaching excited much interest and produced happy results. Wherever he went, he scattered "the good seed," and the extent of its fruitfulness, the great day alone can reveal. Within five years, his little band of twenty communicants had swelled to more than four hundred; and his thirty families to a congregation large as his Church could contain. Possessed of the respect and love of all his parishioners, he enjoyed as high a share of happiness as any parochial connexion can afford. He would have desired no greater measure of comfort, satisfaction, and pleasure, than to have spent the remainder of his days with that humble but devoted flock. The Lord, however, had a higher and more extensive field of usefulness for this favoured servant at his altar. As he had been employed in resuscitating a dead, and in repairing a decayed parish, he was now to be used as the honoured instrument of raising a decayed and prostrate Diocese from a state of desolation and ruin. His election and consecration to the Episcopate of Virginia, and his entrance upon the duties of that higher station, will demand our attention in the following chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

1814.

The early history of the Church in Virginia. Election of Dr. Griffith as Bishop, in 1786. Bishop Madison, the first Bishop of Virginia, consecrated in 1790. Deep depression of the Church, and its causes. Apostolic character and labours of the Rev. Devereux Jarratt. Dr. Bracken's election in 1812. New era in the Church under the auspices of a few young Clergymen. Erection of the Monumental Church in Richmondand efforts made to obtain Dr. Moore for its first Rector with a view to his election as Bishop. Correspondence on the subject—including letters from Judge Washington, Bishop Hobart, and others. Propriety and delicacy of Dr. Moore's course in respect to it. His election by the Convention and circumstances connected with his consecration in 1814. His removal to Richmond. Previous condition of the Episcopal community there. His great popularity and success. Fidelity in the pulpit and in pastoral visitation. Presentation to him of a splendid copy of the New Testament by his fellow citizens of all denominations. Summary view of his character and labours as Rector of the Monumental Church.

Ir will not be an inappropriate introduction to our account of the elevation of the subject of this memoir to the Episcopate of Virginia, to take a brief glance at the preceding history of the Church in that Diocese. The establishment of the Church and the propagation of the Gospel among the native tribes of the new world seem to have occupied a prominent place in the views of government and the designs of those who were instrumental in the founding of the first English colony in America. "As far back as 1588, when Sir Walter Raleigh made an assignment of his patent to Thomas Smith and others, he accompanied it with a donation of one hundred pounds for the propagation of the Christian religion in Virginia.' It was also en

joined by the King's instruction that the presidents, councils and the ministers, should provide that the true word and service of God be preached, planted, and used, not only in the said Colonies, but also as much as might be among the savages bordering upon them, according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of England.' And the first charter assigns as one of the reasons for the grant, that the contemplated undertaking was a work which may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of his divine majesty in propagating the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."*

In conformity with these pious designs, the Church was planted with the Colony, at Jamestown, in 1606, and the remains of the old Church tower is almost the only relic which indicates to the traveller the site of the original settlement. In a few years the Rev. Robert Hurst, pastor of Jamestown, was joined by the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, who established the Church at Henrico. By this gentleman, Pocahontas, the Indian princess, was baptized; and in consequence of his faithful evangelical labours he received the honourable title of " Apostle of Virginia." In the year 1619, by the first legislative assembly ever convened in the province, the Church of England was made the established religion of Virginia, and fixed provision was made by law for the decent support of the clergy. By the appropriating of glebes, the imposition of taxes, and the providing of funds for the establishment of schools and a university-liberal provision was made not only for sustaining the services of religion among the Colonists, but also for the extension of its benefits to the benighted Indian tribes

Burk's History of Virginia, Charter, Hazard's State papers, cited by Dr. Hawks.

by which they were surrounded. From this time the number of ministers and parishes increased as rapidly as could be expected in the infant Colony; and notwithstanding the neglect of the provincial government, the fierce assaults of sectaries, and the prevalence of irreligion and vice, incident to newly settled communities of adventurers, the Church continued to exist, though attended with various fortune until the war of the Revolution. That momentous struggle, deprived it of many of its clergy, and some of its warmest friends among the laity, who left the country from attachment to the royal cause, and the measures which resulted in the political independence of the Colonies, left the Church in a state of great feebleness and prostration. In Maryland and Virginia, where the Church, as the established religion, was sustained by a system of taxation, its hold upon the affections of the people was weaker, and it was more thoroughly crippled by the revolution, than it was in the other provinces, where its existence imposed no involuntary burdens upon the people. As the established religion of an oppressive government, it shared deeply in the odium attached to the royal power by which it had been imposed. Moreover, the character of the clergy who were brought into frequent collision with the provincial officers, and with their flocks, in the enforcement of their legal claims to support, became more secularized, and was less virtuous and exemplary than that of the clergy in the other provinces; who, as missionaries, were responsible for their good behaviour to the societies in whose service they laboured, and who depended for their support upon the Christian bounty of the mother country.

There was presented in the American Colonies the anomaly of an Episcopal Church, comprising hundreds of ministers and congregations, without a resident Bishop on