Project Canterbury

 

Arthur Cleveland Coxe,

SECOND BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

+

MEMORIAL SERMON

BY THE RIGHT REV.

WILLIAM CROSWELL DOANE, D.D., LL.D.,

BISHOP OF ALBANY,

S. Paul’s Church, Buffalo, October 5, 1896.

 

BUFFALO, N.Y.:
PRINTED FOR THE COUNCIL.
1896.

 

  


MEMORIAL.

THE Right Reverend ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, D. D., LL. D., Second Bishop of Western New York, died at Clifton Springs, N. Y., at 3 o'clock P. M., Monday, July 20, 1896.

The Bishop had been evidently failing in health and strength for some months before his death. His Official Diary, printed in the Journal of the Annual Council of Western New York for 1896, indicates very plainly the illness and suffering gradually increasing since early in this year, while it shows also that he kept at work in and out of his Diocese with little intermission till the last. His last public duty out of the Diocese was that of presiding at the Alumni Dinner and Commencement of the General Theological Seminary in New York, May 25-7, 1896. His last ordination was at S. John's Church, Phelps, June 21. His last visitation was the opening of S. Jude's Mission Church, Buffalo, July 5; his last public duty, as Chaplain at the opening of the National Educational Convention in Buffalo, July 7; his last appointment—which he was unable to fulfil—to meet the Professors of the De Lancey Divinity School at the Rectory at Phelps, July 10; his last Confirmation, July 12, that of a sufferer in the Hospital at Clifton Springs, where he had been since July 7. He was preparing to return to Buffalo for a week, partly to complete his official records for publication in the Journal of the Council, when, almost without warning and without suffering, he rested from his labours.

His Burial was in accordance with his expressed wishes, in Trinity Church, Geneva, in which he was consecrated to the Episcopal office thirty-one years before.

A special meeting of the Standing Committee of the Diocese was held at Buffalo immediately on the announcement of the Bishop's death, and the following resolutions adopted:

By the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Western New York, convened to take action with reference to the decease of the Bishop of the Diocese:

Resolved, That the Committee has received with profound sorrow the intelligence of the death of the Right Reverend ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York.

[4] The Committee at this time can only express its deep sense of the loss which the Diocese and the Church have sustained.

Our departed Bishop and friend gave to the Church and the world an example of the highest quality of mind and character, devoted to the best interests of religion and humanity.

He died as he would have wished, in the midst of abundant labours, and the memory of his life and work will remain as a precious legacy to his Diocese, and to the Church at large.

Resolved, further, That a Sub-Committee, consisting of the Rev. Dr. North, the Rev. Mr. Wrigley, and Mr. William H. Walker, be appointed to take charge, on behalf of the Standing Committee, of the funeral of our Bishop.

Celebrations of the Holy Communion were held in Trinity Church, Geneva, where the Bishop's body had been placed, on the day of the burial, Friday, July 24, at 7 and 10.30 A. M. The Burial Service was said at 2 30 r. ss. The body, clad in the Episcopal robes in which the Bishop was consecrated, and laid in a plain coffin of oak, surmounted by a Pastoral Staff, and covered with a white and purple pall, was borne to the Chancel on the shoulders of eight of his Clergy: the Rev. George G. Ballard, the Rev. Charles A. Ricksecker, the Rev. Eugene J. Babcock, the Rev. William W. Rafter, the Rev. Edmund C. Bennett, the Rev. Charles H. Boynton, the Rev. John M'Kinney, and the Rev. Cuthbert O. S Kearton.

It was preceded by nearly all the Clergy of the Diocese in the reverse order of their ordination; the Archdeacons; the Faculty and Trustees of Hobart College, and of the De Lancey Divinity School; the Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity and S Peter's Churches, Geneva; the Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Registrar and Chancellor of the Diocese; the Clerical and Lay Members of the Standing Committee; the Bishops of Maine, Albany, Kentucky, Springfield, Pittsburgh, North Dakota, and Ohio. The Bishop's Pastoral Staff was borne by the Rev Edward P. Hart.

The opening sentences of the Burial Service were said by the Bishop of Pittsburgh; the Lesson was read by the Bishop of Springfield. The Committal was said by the Bishop of Albany, and the concluding Prayers by the Bishop of Maine.

The Bishop's body was laid in a spot long ago designated and consecrated by him, immediately under the present Altar window of Trinity Church. The extension of the Chancel soon to he made will bring the grave directly under the Altar.

[5] The Hymns sung during the service were

"My faith looks up to Thee."

“The strife is o'er, the battle done."

“Hark, the sound of holy voices."

“On the Resurrection morning."

“Peace, perfect peace."

“For all the Saints who from their labours rest."

The Vestments of the Church and of the Clergy were white, the Altar Rail and Episcopal Chair wreathed also with purple.

A meeting of the Clergy of the Diocese and others present was held in the Guild Room of Trinity Church immediately after the Service, the Rev. James Rankine, D. D., LL. D., the Senior Priest in attendance, presiding, and the Rev. Louis B. Van Dyck, D. D., acting as Secretary. The following minute was reported by a Committee consisting of the Rev. Drs. Anstice, Smith, Ashton and Potter, and the Rev. A. Sidney Dealey.

MINUTE.

It is with a profound sense of irreparable loss that we mourn beside the grave of our departed Bishop. A prince in Israel has fallen. With eye undimmed and natural force only somewhat abated, with mind and heart intent on the work, the Master's sudden call has caused him to lay down his pastoral staff, and he "rests from his labours, and his works do follow him."

He was "a burning and a shining light," and during these so fruitful one and thirty years of his Episcopate, we have "rejoiced in his light." But now the shadow of a great grief is upon us, and we would fain assuage it by affectionate review of his exalted worth, thus cherishing the blessed memory of the great character and rare achievements of him whom we have loved and lost.

Our Bishop's early years gave promise of the fruitage of his later life. His literary genius showed itself in authorship before he was of age, and the poetic efforts of his early manhood, including the immortal "Christian Ballads," revealed that power of gracefulness, chaste, and delicate expression which was so characteristic of his speech. Despite the arduous cares and duties of his Episcopal position, his facile pen found time to leave its clear-cut traces in the field of literature, while in the controversial sphere his sturdiest disputant found him "a foeman worthy of his steel:" His mind was richly stored, for "reading maketh a full man," while a retentive memory and singularly apt facility of utterance secured a general recognition of his broad scholarship and intellectual attainments. His was high literary and aesthetic culture.

[6] His ministerial career extended over five and fifty years, embracing three important rectorates, in Hartford, Baltimore, New York, until in 1865, he came to be Assistant to the venerated De Lancey. As our revered Chief Shepherd, for thirty-one and one-half years, he has been "mindful of the flock," in single-hearted earnestness, self-sacrificing labours, tireless industry and unflagging zeal. And when the summons came to him, it was a toilworn spirit which laid the armour down. His energy and strength were overtaxed. He never spared himself when duty called. His self-forgetfulness and absolute devotion to the Master's work were signally conspicuous throughout his life.

Because he felt he ought to be in touch with the religious world at large, no "pent-up" Diocese "confined his powers." The Church's General Missions were very dear to him. Of Greece he was the sturdy champion, the friend of Dr. Hill, when friends were few and days were dark; the Haytian mission profited by his Episcopal labour and oversight; he was a staunch supporter of reform in Mexico; of the Anglo-Continental Society he was a chief promoter; and his deep interest in the Old Catholic reform and in Père Hyacinthe he made apparent everywhere. His trumpet never gave a sound uncertain; and his uncompromising steadfastness to principle; his fearless devotion to whatever he believed to be right or true, challenged the admiration of those who differed from him, yet could respect the courage of conviction.

But though a very Boanerges, when that character seemed most called for, his impulses were gentle and his spirit ever kindly. In private intercourse he charmed by his unfailing courtesy, his versatile and fruitful conversation, and that polished refinement of manner and geniality of bearing which revealed the instincts of a Christian gentleman.

Our Bishop lived a blameless and unsullied life. No breath of scandalous suspicion ever tarnished his fair name; no imputation of wrong motive ever was alleged against him. He "was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost." His knowledge of the oracles, and his keen insight into them, was more than the result of study and research; it was the Holy Spirit speaking in his docile soul, whereby he was so "mighty in the Scriptures," and fertile and instructive in his exposition of them. He was a holy man, and "walked with God," and like the saintly Enoch, “was not, for God took him." The Church, the world is poorer for his loss; but his will be an eternal crown.

We share the grief of those nearest and dearest to our loved Diocesan, to whom he was the ideal husband, father, relative and friend. We feel for them the deepest sympathy, and earnestly invoke for them the fullest, richest and most helpful consolation of our Heavenly Father's grace.

We turn now from the new made grave, “sorrowing most of all that we shall see his face no more," that beautiful, benignant, lovely face, that [6/7] personality so striking, so unique, whose native dignity and courtly grace clothed spiritual and moral power which flowed from him so richly to bless his fellow men. His presence was a benediction. Oh, may

“Our souls grow fine
With keen vibrations from the touch divine
Of noble natures gone."

It was ordered that the Churches of the Diocese be draped in mourning, and the special Prayers for the Family and the Diocese in affliction be said, during the following thirty days.

The proceedings were closed by a few words from the Bishops of Maine, Springfield and Ohio.

Besides the seven Bishops mentioned, there were present from other Dioceses, the Rev. Francis T. Russell, D. D., of Connecticut, formerly of Hobart College; the Rev. Walton W. Battershall, D. D., and the Rev. Leonard Woods Richardson, of Albany; the Rev. Anthony Schuyler, D. D., of Newark; the Rev. Joseph M. Clarke, D. D., the Rev. Robert M. Duff, D. D., the Rev. Alfred B. Goodrich, D. D., the Rev. Henry R. Lockwood, D. D., the Rev. George H. M'Knight, D. D., the Rev. W H. Casey, the Rev. A. C. Clarke, the Rev. William B. Clarke, and the Rev. W. H. Van Allen, of Central New York; the Rev. Edward W. Worthington, of Ohio; and, as above noted, most of the Clergy of the Diocese.

Services in loving commemoration of the Bishop were held in nearly all the churches of the Diocese on the Sunday following his death. In most cases the altar and chancel were wreathed in purple and white. The commemoration in Trinity Church, Geneva, will indicate nearly the general character of the services in the Diocese. The two hymns of the Hymnal written by the Bishop himself, were sung:

“Saviour, sprinkle many nations," and "O who like Thee, so calm, so bright."

Instead of a Sermon, the Rector read portions of the Address delivered in S. Paul's Church, Buffalo, by the Bishop of New York, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bishop's Consecration, in 1890, and the Sermon of Bishop Coxe on the following day, referring to the events of his election and consecration, and the Clergy of the Diocese associated with them. [The Address and Sermon are printed in full in the Journal of the Annual Council of 1890.] Then followed selections from the "Christian Ballads," in one of which "the then youthful poet sang with seemingly prophetic vision of his last resting place"—

[8] “I would sleep where the church bells aye ring out;
I would rise by the house of prayer,
And feel me a moment at home, on earth,
For the Christian's home is there."

After Evensong, the children, singing their recessional hymn, went out of the church, and round to the spot beneath the chancel-wall where the Bishop was laid to rest; and there, closely surrounding the grave, they sang the hymns

“The grave itself a garden is"

“The Saints of God; their conflict past "and "Light at even-time," fulfilling the familiar and beautiful "Dreamland" vision:

“In earth they laid the Dreamland man;
And then a chaunt was given,
So sweet, that I could well believe
I heard a voice from Heaven;
And singing children o'er the grave
Like cherub chaunters stood,
Pouring their angel lullabies,
To make its slumber good."

Numerous Minutes, Resolutions, and other tributes of respect and affection have been received either by the Bishop's family or the officers of the Diocese. They include among others, telegraphic messages or letters from a great number of the Bishops of the Church; Minutes of the Rectors, Wardens and Vestrymen of all the Parishes of which the Bishop had charge before his Consecration; of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Roman Catholic Clergymen of Buffalo; of the Diocesan Synod of Aberdeen, Scotland; of the Trustees of De Veaux College; of the Alpha Delta Phi, and other Literary and Historical Societies, etc., etc. Most of these have been published in the Church or secular papers, and, by the desire of the family of the Bishop, are not republished here.

The following memorandum follows simply the order of the notices of "Deceased Clergy of Western New York," published annually in the Journals of the Councils.

100. The Right Rev. ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, D. D., LL. D., son of the Rev. Samuel Hanson Coxe, D.D., LL. D., born in Mendham, N. J., May 10, 1818; educated in the City of New York; graduated at the University of the City of New York, 1838, and at the General Theological Seminary, 1841; [8/9] ordained Deacon, by Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk, in S. Paul's Chapel, New York, June 27, 1841, and Priest, by Bishop Brownell, in S. John's Church, Hartford, Sept. 25, 1842; Rector of S. Ann's Church, Morrisania, N. Y., 1841-2; S. John's, Hartford, Conn., 1842-54; Grace, Baltimore, 1854-63; Calvary, New York, 1863-5; elected in 1856 Bishop of the Diocese of Texas, which election he declined; in August, 1864, elected Assistant Bishop of Western New York, and consecrated to that Office, in Trinity Church, Geneva, January 4, 1865, by the Bishop of the Diocese, the Right Rev. William Heathcote De Lancey, D. D., LL. D., assisted by the Bishops of Vermont, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and the Missionary Bishop of the North-West (Talbot); on the death of Bishop De Lancey, April 5, 1865, succeeded as second Bishop of Western New York, including what is now the Diocese of Central New York, erected at the instance of Bishop Coxe in 1868.

No adequate summary of the Bishop's labours within and exterior to his Diocese, in every department of Christian life and work, in this country and in Europe, could possibly be given here. A mere outline of them is contained in his official "Record of Episcopal Work," published in the Journals of the Diocese from 1865 to 1896.

Bishop Coxe received the degree of S. T. D. from S. James' College, Md., in 1856, from Trinity in 1868, and from Durham, Eng., in 1888, and of LL. D. from Kenyon College in 1868. He was a Corresponding Member of the New York Historical Society, of the New York Academy of Design, of the Buffalo Historical Society, and various others.

He died at Clifton Springs, N. Y., June 20, 1896, and was buried at Trinity Church, Geneva.

The following (probably imperfect) list of Bishop Coxe's works, is taken chiefly from The American Episcopate:

THEOLOGY.

Absolution and Confession New Haven, 1850.

Sermons on Doctrine and Duty Philadelphia, 1855

Thoughts on the Services Baltimore, 1859.

(Eighteen editions published in the United States, and several in England.)

The Criterion New York, 1866, and Oxford, Eng.

Moral Reforms Buffalo, 1869:

Apollos, or the Way of God Buffalo, 1871; Oxford, 1874.

Lectures on Prophecy Buffalo, 1871.

Covenant Prayers Buffalo, 1875.

L'Episcopat de l'Occident Paris, 1874.

Elements of Ecclesiography (serial) Hartford, 1874.

The Penitential New York, 1882.

[10] TRANSLATIONS AND WORKS EDITED.

Bishop Wilberforce, “Eucharistica," adapted to the American Church. New York, 1842.

Hirscher, "Actual State of the Church," translated, with Introduction and Notes. Oxford, 1852.

Laborde (Abbe), “The Immaculate Conception," translated, with Notes. Philadelphia, 1855.

Caynon Meyrick, “Morals of Liguori," Ed. and Introd. Baltimore, 1856. Rev. Wm. Croswell, Poems, Ed. and Memoir. 186o.

Mrs. Sherwood's Stories on the Catechism, revised. Philadelphia, 1860. The Churchman's Calendar (annual), with a View of the Catholic Church. New York, 1861–6.

Abbé Guettée, “The Papacy," trans. New York, 1866.

Archbishop Leighton, “Moderate Episcopacy." New York, 1868. Poems of Bishop Burgess, with a critical Review. 1869.

The Ante-Nicene Fathers (reprint). Revised with Introd. and Notes. q vols. 8vo. Buffalo, 1885–7.

SERMONS.

The Household of Faith 1846.

Seventy Years Since 1848.

A City Not Forsaken 1849.

The Priesthood and the People Oxford, 1852.

The Faithful Witness 1852.

The New Dogma of Rome 1855

Counsels of Unity 1856.

Truth and Our Times 1863.

The Mocking of Ishmael 1863.

The Liturgy of Heaven 1864.

The Ministry 1864.

The Restoration of Unity 1865.

A Father in Christ. (Bishop De Lancey.) 1865.

Scriptural Bishoprics 1866.

The Choice of a Bishop 1868.

Practical Wisdom 1868.

The Death of Bishop Burgess 1869.

The Corporate Witness 1874

The Anglican Cathedral, Canada 1875.

The Russian War 1877.

(Besides a great number of Sermons, Addresses, Lectures, Letters, etc., published in the Churchman, the Diocesan papers, and other periodicals.)

[11] PAMPHLETS.

Revivalism in the Church 1843.

Letter to the Bishop of Arras. (French.) Oxford, 1856.

Apology for the English Bible. (Three Editions.) New York, 1857–8.

Mixed Societies in Principle and Practice New York, 1857

Fixed Principles 1859.

Three Tracts 1859.

Address of the Christian Unity Society 1864.

Letter to Pius IX 1869.

(Repub. in Europe, in French, German, Italian, Bohemian and modern Greek; afterwards twice repub. in England.)

Church Tracts of J. H. Parker Series, Oxford, Nos. XIV., XV., XVI. 1850. Catholics and Roman Catholics. 1874. (With many Episcopal Addresses, Charges, Pastoral Letters, Conferences, etc.)

GENERAL LITERATURE.

Impressions of England. (Serial in the first Vol. of The Church Journal, 1853; Collected and repub. N. Y. 1855, and again in various editions to the present time.)

Contributions to Periodical Literature; a great many papers from 1839 to 1890+, chiefly in The Repository, New York Review, Blackwood's Magazine (1847-9), Church Review (1849-53), The Churchman, etc.

POEMS.

Advent, a Mystery 1837.

Athwold. (Three Cantos.) 1838

(Republished 1877.)

Christian Ballads Hartford, 1840.

(Republished in England first in 1849, and frequently since then, being for near half a century, as the most eminent of English Church publishers has said, a household book with English Churchmen, as well as in America. Illustrated edition, New York, 1865, and innumerable others in this Country).

Athanasion, and other Poems 1840–42.

Halloween, and other Poems 1842–4.

The Ladye Chace 1877

The Paschal New York, 1891.

THE MEMORIAL SERVICE.

By appointment of the Standing Committee, a special Service in memory of the Bishop was held in S. Paul's Church, Buffalo, on the Eve of the Special Council, Monday, Oct. 5, 1896. The procession of clergy and choristers included the choirs of S. Paul's and the Ascension, about eighty of the Clergy of the Diocese, visiting Clergy, Diocesan Officers, clerical and lay, and the Bishop of Albany. The choral Evensong was said by the Rev. Dr. Doty, the Rev. Dr. Rankine reading the Special Lessons. Sir John Stainer's Service in E b was used, with the Anthem "What are these which are arrayed in white robes," also by Stainer. The processional hymns were "Hark, hark, my soul," and "Jerusalem the Golden," and the whole service was of most appropriate and impressive character. Most of the religious bodies of the city were represented by their ministers, in the great Congregation which filled the whole space of the church.

Before the Sermon by the Bishop of Albany, a message of love and sympathy from Grace Church, Baltimore, Bishop Coxe's charge of forty years ago, was read by the Rector, the Rev. Arthur C. Powell. [This Tribute is published in the Official Paper of the Diocese, Our Church Work.]

THE SERMON.

I. CORINTHIANS, 4 AND 5.

I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in everything ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge.—XVIII. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, EPISTLE.

The highest act of Christian thanksgiving, which is suggested in the Greek word with which this passage opens, Eucaristw, sets the key note of unmixed joy with which we are to look back to-night upon the memory of the beloved Bishop, of whom I stand here

“My warrant sure, but doubting of my worth,"

to speak to you who knew him and loved him even better than I. Sad-hearted in the present, and anxious to a sense of hopelessness for the future, because of our consciousness of the empty place to-night, and because of our conviction that it cannot be filled as he filled it, there is neither sadness nor anxiousness as we look back; for we are looking back upon "the path of the righteous," "the path of the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." We thank our God on this and on every remembrance of him with joy, for the grace of God that was given him by Jesus Christ.

I need hardly say that the words of this passage, descriptive of that Church, which, more than any other, was endowed with a real coruscation of extraordinary splendour in its gifts, lie out before us in three lines of thought—richness, utterance, knowledge—and apply themselves in three salient features of the dead Bishop's character—”who [13/14] being dead, yet speaketh"—in the wealth of his spiritual and natural endowments, in the wide range and accuracy of his learning, and in the force and felicity of his speech.

I beg to state plainly at the outset my idea of what a memorial sermon ought to be. It can have but two legitimate objects; to preserve, while they are fresh in the intimate memories of men, the leading lineaments of a character, for their more complete fusing into the biographical element of the history which is to be written; and secondly, to recall, for the stimulus of the example, for the healing of personal bereavement, for the hallowing of God's Name as the Giver of all good gifts, the salient features, and prominent facts of the commemorated life; as the widows in Joppa "showed the coats and garments which Dorcas had made while she was yet with them."

Whatever may be the appearance, there can be no motive in it of mere personal praise. And surely, gathered as you are to-night, to go from the midst of the memories of two and thirty years of the close relation between a Bishop and his diocese, on to the solemn duty before God, of the choice of your leader for the years that are to come, you will find inspiration and help, consolation and uplifting, in a meditation upon the life whose labour is exchanged now for the unwearying service of his Lord.

You do not care to have me deal to-night with the dates and details of this life. That must be left for the larger and fuller record which some careful and skilful hand will make, I trust, ere long; in which, with due regard to the periods of the history of this Church through which he passed, to the men of those periods with whom he came in contact, and to the wonderful variety and versatility of his relations to them, this picturesque figure will be sketched in full. But so far as this preaching is concerned, I have to deal with general effects, and not with the sidelights or the shadows that fill in the finished outline. A man who walks [14/15] along a lovely road, bordered with beauty at every step, and tracing its way on and up to even fairer scenes, is not concerned with, and does not notice, the mere mile-stones which mark a distance that he does not feel, and measure intervals over which he is in no haste to pass.

One hardly can avoid the mention of the fact that the foundations of Bishop Coxe's deeply religious nature were laid among influences quite foreign, ecclesiastically and theologically, to those which reared and completed his final character. But the fact is that the attraction of the Church, to such a nature as Bishop Coxe had from his birth, was very strong. It was the magnet to the magnetized iron. Encouraged in his preference by his mother, it is a pleasure to know that, in spite of the natural reluctance and regret which such a separation involved, his father recognized the son's call, and consented to his entering the Ministry of the Church. As the editorial in the Hartfort Daily Courant put it: "Presbyterian born, he was never, even as a boy, at home or at ease in Presbyterianism. Prelacy and Prayer Book claimed him for their own, and their own he became."

A single boyish incident tells the story of the intensity of his feeling and the power of the attraction; for, on one occasion, going to morning service, during which a storm began, he preferred to remain in the building and allow himself to be locked up in the interval before the afternoon service, because he was afraid that if he went home he would not be allowed to return through the rain.

I do not care to speak of the flaws and specks which marred and held back from entire completeness my brother's character. There are motes in sunbeams. He was human—intensely—and possessed to an unusual degree with the unguardedness of those warm natures, which are concerned rather with what possesses their minds at the moment than with any mere personality of their own, or any thought of [15/16] effect. He was human, again I say, intensely, and till "the mortal puts on immortality," and the soul passes from strength to strength, the mortal elements may not be done away. But this much I may say of him, that his faults were the complements of his gifts. They were the noble faults of a nobler nature. It was among his noblest gifts that he was so hopeful as never to have "a lost cause," and yet he was led by this into clinging to positions which ceased to be tenable. His personal loyalty to those who once had his confidence blinded him at times to the betrayal of that confidence; and his eager longing to help on any movement that looked either to unity or to reform, committed him, with a certain rashness of expectation, to men and movements sure in the end to disappoint him.

Bishop Coxe was a genius, and the genius is not to be judged after the measurements of common men. Deliberateness belongs more to dulness than to the impetuous impulses that burst, like Northern lights, in pulsing flashes on the evening sky. The calm control of speech is rather theirs, who toil with patient pains to form a fitting phrase, than theirs whose words rush, like a geyser spring, in a column of crystal clearness, to the heavens. And while the slow ungainliness of the plodding tortoise through step-bystep details of dryness, may win some races in the path of administrative duty, the quick and graceful agileness of the hare has gone a good deal farther really, and seen more, and gathered more of the refreshment of brook, and tender leaf, and flower.

And meanwhile, where in such immeasurable degree the good exceeds the evil, we may well invert that almost unsound Shakespearean sentence, and let the evil be "interred with his bones," while the good that he has done "lives after him" in our remembrance and in our grateful commemoration.

I think I may be forgiven if I speak at all of my personal [16/17] relations to the Bishop, because I put it here among the first words which will soonest be forgotten. Plainly and perpetually he lives in my memory, from my young boyhood to my last sight of him, as a rare and remarkable man. He filled the imagination of my early years in Riverside, my dear father's Burlington home, with all the poetry of the purpose of that proposed mission, in the establishment of which he had no actual part, but which hands down the name of Breck to-day, among the pioneers of missionary enterprise in America; and whose impression on his own life finds utterance in his verses on Nashotah and S. Silvan's Bell. I can remember the thrill which years and years and years ago stirred me with admiration, at the exquisite delicacy of his poetic interpretation, and application to the power of the press in safe and careful hands, of the words "Naphtali is a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words," in a sermon preached before the old Church Book Society. And still more I remember the fervour of something deeper and better than admiration, when I wondered at the boldness of his figure, of our young Church sending its mission to Greece, based upon the Luxembourg picture of a young daughter nursing from her full breast through the bars of his cell, her old father, exhausted with hunger and imprisonment. And as I look back upon the dear days of my priestly work in S. John's, Hartford, I recall the lasting vividness of the impression made by his sermons, and still more by his pastoral work, which overlaid and almost overbore the recollection of his brilliant successor who preceded me. And it is among the proud and grateful memories of my life, that, for the last twenty years, in letters of affectionate confidence and sympathy, in our often accord and association on committees, in the entire freedom and considerateness of our sometimes antagonisms in debates in the House of Bishops, and in every personal utterance of kindness, he made me feel by his gallant and generous courtesy, that, to a degree at least, in his estimation, I had outgrown the [17/18] unripeness for the office of a Bishop, which, not without cause, he feared at the time of my election.

You will forgive me if I speak of your late Bishop, more in his larger relation to the whole Church than in his relation as your Diocesan. His estimate of his office was, in my judgment, the rightful one. He was consecrated "a Bishop in the Church of God." The field of his personal and immediate duty was, of course, in the Diocese which he first shared with the great De Lancey, and then succeeded him in its full care. But the Diocesan Bishop is, first of all, a Bishop in the Church of God. No detail of visitation, of administration, of travel, may be neglected, therefor; but he had no sympathy—and I have none—with the measurement of Episcopal service by the number of miles travelled, or the number of parishes visited, or the number of persons confirmed. Like the mint and anise and cummin of the Pharisees, all these things are to be done, and he did them patiently, faithfully, and most acceptably; but there are weightier matters than these; and I plead with the clergy and people to-day for the older Bishops upon whom increasing responsibilities for general duty continually come, and for the younger Bishops who are in training for the heavier and larger cares of the apostleship, that more reasonableness of judgment may be meted out to us; that all days not set down as spent in railways, or in the welcome and delightful work of visitation, shall not be considered as dies non; and that some recognition may be made, first, of the absolute duty, for his people's sake, that a Bishop may have leisure for meditation and study and the nurture of his spiritual life; and secondly, that he may be helped, by the prayers and consideration of his people, to do his duty to the Church at large; and thirdly, that the great work of strengthening centres may be realized at its full value, which is all involved in that old Catholic idea of the Cathedra, not a big building necessarily, but a central point, a place of sitting down, to make the centre strong enough to [18/19] sweep the whole circumference of the circle. And so the great heart of your Bishop reached out to the struggling little Church in Hayti, whose cradling days he nursed and tended; beat with a far higher and truer than Byronic enthusiasm for the ancient Church of Greece; honoured and loved and longed for closer communion with the Mother Church of England; did valiant battle more than once at Lambeth and in the councils of our own Church by speech and by letter for the rights of the old Catholics in Germany and Switzerland; prayed and laboured and contended for the restoration of the liberties and loyalties to primitive truth and order of the old Gallican Church; stood with unquenchable zeal, even when some of the idols were rudely shattered, for the movement in Mexico for interior reform; and laboured and longed to break the barriers down which part us from our brothers in other Christian bodies. I have wished often, and could wish now, that some of my brother's fulminations against. Roman error had been less papal in their violence; but the burning words were kindled by the fervour of a zeal for the Lord's House which consumed him. His pen was never dipped in the gall of bitterness of human anger, but both pen and tongue were sharpened by a sense of what he felt to be outraged truth, violated history, dishonoured catholicity, broken unity, intruded authority, unlawful terms of communion, novelties under the cloak of antiquity, denials under the name of developments of the primitive deposit of the faith. And I believe that the Master will approve, for the love of Him which inspired them, these scourgings with small cords, with which he sought to drive from His temple the profaners of its Sanctuary. It was the disciple whom Jesus loved whom He surnamed Son of Thunder.

I am sure that I ought to emphasize as partly the reason for his unceasing and unsparing efforts to arouse his countrymen in regard to the dangers of the Roman intrusion, the intense love, which always, from a boy, had filled his soul [19/20] for his own native land. One very near and dear to him, standing for a moment beside his open coffin, during the night watch of the vigil of his burial, said, as he turned away: "What a splendid American he was!" And it was in no small degree his splendid Americanism that led him to fear, and to protest against the political intrigues of the Roman power. He knew history too well, not to know what grievous wrong and harm it had wrought in other lands, and he loved America too well not to lift up his voice in urgent warning against what seemed to him the blindness and indifference of the people, and the unscrupulousness of party leaders in dealing with the political side of Rome.

It was partly the versatility of the Bishop's mind, and partly the variety of the lines of his learning, that gave him so strong an interest in all things that pertained to the organic law of this Church. Knowing the dignity and orderliness and simplicity and directness of the older Canon law, he was impatient, and had been for years, of the clumsiness and confusion of our so-called Constitution and Canons, which are the accretion, by gradual additions of many years, to a body, which, in its original shape, was fairly consistent; but was reduced to inconsistency by the irregular way in which it grew. Many times during his active membership of the House of Bishops, he tried to induce the General Convention to recast the form and better the language of its Canon law. Twenty-five years ago, at least, he moved first in the matter, but his words fell on idle and unwilling ears. By and by the Church came up to his way of thinking. The happy outcome of the movement for the revision of the Book of Common Prayer encouraged the Church to feel that this other measure, second only in importance to that, could safely be undertaken. And I am glad that he lived at least to see somewhat realized, in its inception, what he had so long dreamed of and desired. He was himself a member of the Commission which reported, last October, the result of its deliberations. And while of [20/21] the great mass of matter which came before the two Houses, little was finally dealt with; in his own House he saw the passage of the whole amended form of "Constitutions" in whose preparation he took an important part, and had the pleasure of knowing that in rearrangement, in terminology, and in clearness, the body of Canons, as presented by that Commission, was at least a great improvement upon that which it was intended to supersede. He was greatly disappointed that the secular name “General Convention" was retained, and the failure to deal with the Canon on Marriage and Divorce was pain and grief to him, as he declared in burning words to his Council in his last Address. But the movement was begun, which was conceived, really, in his mind, and which had the advantage in its first shaping of what I think I may call not only his thorough knowledge, but his intellectual taste.

Nearer to his heart even than this, because it satisfied the strongest and warmest impulses of his nature, was the work to which he gave, with all his soul, time and thought and effort and prayer, as Chairman of the Commission which is known as the Commission on Ecclesiastical Relations. The drift, of course, was to the restoration of the unity of Christendom. His hope about this matter never failed; his courage never flagged; no disappointment of the moment discouraged him. No man held more tenaciously than he to the great central truths of the Catholic faith and the Primitive Order; and with all his warm-hearted hopefulness of finding some common meeting-place with the Protestant bodies, he never flinched or faltered from his position of loyal allegiance to the Church. But his kindliness of nature, the instinctive and inbred courteousness of his character, which went far deeper down than the courtly manner which expressed it, fitted him for the delicate duty, to which he gave himself with great earnestness and enthusiasm in the later years of his life, of so discerning and accepting all that any one else held of the truth, and of so presenting [21/22] and urging what they did not hold, as to find some common ground on which to stand together within disputed lines. With the staunch and tenacious orthodoxy of the Presbyterian Church he found and felt much sympathy, and worked, in great expectation of some nearer drawing together of the two bodies. Whatever in the future may be the outcome of the establishment of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Relations—and much more may come than is apparent now—will be due in large measure, under God, to him. With an almost boyish exuberance and satisfaction, he introduced his venerable friend, Dr. Smith, the Chairman of the Committee of the Presbyterian Assembly, to the Bishops in their house last October, not technically in session, but remaining together in their seats to receive the Deputation; and the bearing of those two men, each loyal to his own position, each loving the other, each longing for closer and more real unity, each thoroughly respecting the difficulties and differences of the other, and each filled absolutely in the transparent sincerity of their souls with a burning zeal of love for their common Master, made an impression, as we saw them together only last October, which will not soon fade away. This was by no means the Bishop's first, or only, effort in this direction of ecclesiastical unity. As a member of the Committee on Relations with Eastern churches, many years ago, he laboured to promote a friendly understanding, which the years as they go on, thank God, are making more distinct, with the Russo-Greek branch of the Church. I believe that the formation of the Anglo Continental Society was due, in no slight degree, to his suggestion and influence, with the one hope of making the Church of England known in Europe to such members of the Roman Communion as were at heart more Catholic than Roman. And his whole intense interest in every Old Catholic movement, whether in the restoration of the liberties in France, or in the organizations in Germany and Switzerland and Austria, was from this same burning zeal [22/23] for unity, which he knew could never be realized until, somehow, Catholic Christians could be brought to see the purer and older form of Catholicity, without the modern corruptions and additions of the Church of Rome. His familiarity with the modern foreign tongues gave him great advantage in dealing with all these European questions, and while I would do all honour to the serious and incessant labour which he gave in his last years, to what Prof. Nash well calls "the colossal work" of editing the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I believe that his love for the Fathers of the English Church, his careful study and thorough knowledge of Andrews, and Beveridge, and Bramhall, and Cosin, and Bull, too little read in our day, had much to do with the deep founding, the strong convictions, and the absolute soundness of his faith. I look upon these two men, the one of whom, thank God, still lives as our Presiding Bishop, as splendid illustrations of the character of mind, the clearness of faith, and the thorough arming for the defence of that faith, which grew out of what I earnestly commend to the younger Clergy, the mastery of the works of the Anglo-Catholic writers. Such is the skeleton record of your Bishop's larger service to the Church of God.

Let me go back to these seed words of the text, as they bloomed and fruited, in the character of Bishop Coxe: Richness, Utterance, Knowledge.

“Enriched!" Is not this first a thought of soils; not those which years of cost and toil have reclaimed into a partial fertileness from dryness of sand, or hardness of rock, or shallowness of earth; but just a natural bit of ground, a virgin soil of inexhaustible depth, which answers instantly to every seed that falls from wing of passing breeze or flying bird, or from the careless flinging of the sower's hand; and answers to every drop of rain, and every beam of sunshine, and every pearl of dew, with the quick response of instant greenness, that grows faster even than the seasons fly, into the golden glory of an early harvest; so that the [23/24] "treader of grapes overtakes him that soweth the seed," and, with prompt readiness for the aftermath, "the ploughman overtakes the reaper." He had that rare responsiveness in his nature which kept his eye and ear awake, and opened every pore of his whole being, to receive the influence of the place, the moment, the surrounding. Sensitive as a strung harp to every breath of wind, to every lightest finger touch, and catching as the mirror of a still woodland lake, every tree leaf, every folding of the mountains, every fleeciest cloud, to reproduce it in reflection; and ready to move in instant ripples with the least breath or wind that ruffled its surface. It was this that made his pastoral power so great, by his quick sympathy, his ability to enter into, and share in, whatever interested the person with whom he dealt. And while on the one hand, in the exuberant overflow of utterance, this gave sometimes the appearance of something almost violent to his speech, it was so marked an element of his nature, so full of that enthusiasm which carries, after all, the greatest influence with men, that one was ready to forgive the now and then errors in judgment or extremes in speaking, for the value of the power when it ran—as it did almost always—instinctively, in the right and wise way.

“Knowledge!" First among the natural and the spiritual endowments of your Bishop wherewith he was most "enriched in knowledge," I should count, speaking not of physical and external characteristics, which were abundantly bestowed on him, the unusual eagerness of acquiring, the accurate thoroughness of retaining, and the instantaneous readiness of recalling, which marked the operation of his mind. His knowledge of the Holy Scriptures was deep and devout. His spirit, so in accord with the Holy Spirit of God, caught their inner meaning with a quickness which opened new revelations to his soul; and his own poetic gifts were perpetually flashing sparks of light from some new kindling of a passage of God's Word. "Mighty in the [24/25] Scriptures" he certainly was. One of the class of minds, with whom, as they walk, sad, oftentimes, in twilight meditations, the Master joins Himself, as to the two at Emmaus, and opens the Scripture to their eyes, and their eyes to the Scripture, till they see Him. As a student of Patristic Theology, he had few equals in America, and his familiarity with the Fathers not only made him a difficult and dangerous antagonist in theological controversy, but enabled him to do great service to English students by his work in connection with the editing of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. And what he did not know about the Petrine claims and the Roman assumptions, in Scripture, Council and History, was not worth knowing. His knowledge in Liturgics was very thorough and full, and his ear was quick to catch the perfect rhythm of phrase and word, which so absolutely marks off, plainly as poetry is marked off from prose, the language of a Liturgy from the pompous verbosity of most modern prayers.

He was an expert in the domain of Ecclesiastical History. The story of the Church from the beginning, and the story of the Churches, whether in France, or Spain, or England, or in the older East, he knew as an intelligent patriot knows the story of his own country—and for the same reason, namely, the patriotism and intelligence of his citizenship of the Civitas Dei.

And outside of all this he had the most perfect familiarity with English history and English literature, which lent great beauty to his own choice language, gave charm and variety to his conversation, and the power of illustration and quotation ready and apt, which flavoured his speech with treasures of fact and expression. And all these things, which he had easily acquired and accurately remembered, were at his instant command. Whatever may be said or thought of his prepared sermons, his unprepared, unexpected, sudden, and spontaneous speeches sparkled with a brilliancy that caught every colour of the rainbow, and [25/26] bristled with an array of facts and references which commanded the attention and admiration of all who heard him. I have never heard from any man such an array of precedents and authorities, of Scriptural quotations, references to Canon Law, old and new, of judicial decisions, of historical instances, all uttered in words that burned and glowed with tenderness and intensity, as the Bishops will remember, in a speech of his which had not a moment for preparation, in council at Minneapolis last October, during the session of the General Convention; at which meeting he seemed to me fresher and brighter and clearer than he had for several years before, as though his very sorrows had sublimated his spiritual powers, and the lamp was leaping to a brighter flame before it flickered to its fading spark.

“Utterance!" The current that set most strongly through the natural temperament of the Bishop was the poetic current, in the best sense of that word, and it had its spring and rise neither in Arethusa or Castaly, but in "Siloa's brook, which flows fast by the oracle of God." Now the poetic nature is not only creative, and not chiefly imaginative. It is intensely the gift of the Seer. Standing, as Elijah did, before the marvellous sight of the taking away of his master from his head, the question whether the double portion of that master's spirit should come on him, turned on the single point, if he could see him when he was taken away. And he did see him, and therefore the mantle of the prophet fell on him. And it is always so. The seer, the man who sees what is invisible to coarser eyes, is prophet, too. For sight not only discovers the things which are near and unseen to others, but widens all horizons, lifts them, enlarges them, carries them out and on. And when the seer speaks, he not only reveals, but prophesies. Eminently Bishop Coxe had this gift, for he was a true poet. And when he wrote "Dreamland," fifty years ago, he was seeing and prophesying. Whatever dreams he dreamed, were, like Jacob's, in a sleep that was pillowed upon stone, [26/27] in much hardness and loneliness, in the sense of Divine presence, and with the full realization of the old Homeric thought.

"The dream is from God."

We forget, who have fallen into the easy heritage of religious truths accepted, of ecclesiastical privileges assured, of the glory of Catholic theology acknowledged, and of Catholic worship adopted, we forget the farsight and the foresight, the clearness of wisdom and the courage of utterance, which belonged to the leaders of fifty years ago. A thousand familiar and undisputed things to-day were not only disputed, but denied, then; and in that line of men, of whom Seabury and Hobart were the first, and my father and Bishop Whittingham their successors in the older generation, Bishop Williams and Bishop Coxe were easily leaders in the next. Suspected, discredited, counted disloyal to the Church, denounced as Romans in disguise, these men were in the advance guard; they were of the hope that seemed at times forlorn. They were pioneers, who found and cleared the way; and we, who come after them along a smooth and open path, forget the risk and pain and labour with which they won our liberties. Constantly it has happened that the leaders of one generation become the holdbacks and drags of the next; and the Bishop in his later days was playing, to a degree, the role of the men who distrusted him. But the Priest who wrote "Dreamland," the Priest who was filled with the beauty of holiness of the worship and reverence due to God's House (into whose sanctuary I believe he never entered, when he could avoid it, without taking the shoes of outdoor use from off his feet); the Priest who helped to restore the disused Matins and Evensong, who was among the first to recognize the Holy Eucharist as the chief act of worship, to be used at least on every Lord's Day, who as Bishop said in his last charge to his clergy: "The New Testament tells us clearly to hallow [27/28] the Lord's Day by the Lord's Supper. This is our law and our rubric, and to this reformation I call you all in God's name;" the Priest who was by nature strict in the observance of all the niceties and proprieties and dignities of Divine Service, and all this, not recently, but fifty years ago, is a man whom we ought to honour for his prophetic power of insight and utterance, for the courage of his maintained positions in the far advance of the first rank to which the. host has since come up. As an illustration of the difference between his earlier and later experiences, the Bishop was fond of telling a story of his walking in his boyhood, to old S. Luke's Church, New York, by a path which led across open fields, on a Christmas morning, being especially drawn there in order that he might hear sung for the first time Dr. Muhlenberg's Christmas carol:

“Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing,
Jerusalem triumphs, Messiah is King!"

Counting it as it undoubtedly was then, a rich addition to the very scant and poor collection of Christmas hymns. And while he was somewhat caustic and severe in his condemnation of our present Hymnal, chiefly because the General Convention decided to put it between the same covers with the Book of Common Prayer, he not only rejoiced, but took no little part in the first enlargement of our hymnology, from which, with most positive determination, he absolutely excluded every hymn of his own. I am quite clear that the last Committee has been wiser than he in this behalf, in that we have given to the Church for use in its treasures of sacred song some hymns of his composing. One of them, at least, "Saviour, Sprinkle many Nations," is among the first of our Christian lyrics, and among the most stirring of our missionary hymns. One turns over page after page of his collection of Christian Ballads, struck by the true, prophetic insight of his inspiration, as well as by the sonorous metre and rhythm of his [28/29] verse. He certainly was enriched in all utterance, both of the eloquence which means outspeaking, and the brilliant powers of an orator, and enriched in the utterance of true poetic gifts.

I have spoken of the felicity of his utterance. And it will not, I think, seem unnatural if I seek to set some of his own jewelled words in the crown of honour, some fadeless bay from his laureate brow, in the fading leaves of this wreath of brotherly affection, which I am here to lay upon his tomb.

As a specimen of poetical interpretation of poetry, of appreciative knowledge of nature and its consecration, in his view of it, to the service of God, and of keen sympathy, almost to realism, with the idea and feeling of the seasons of the Christian Year, nothing can be finer than his "Carol" whose text is the passage in the Song of Songs, “My Beloved has gone down into His Garden," that garden being

"The alleys broad
Of the Church of God,
Where Nature is green for aye."

He describes the complete banishment of winter from the Church's seasons, when the flowing Font

"Still will gush
In a free full flush,
At the cry of a little child."

And it is a bold thought, that comes to him when the hues, through the coloured windows, tint it with "ruby stain,"

“Of Moses's rod, And the rocks of God,
That flushed into ruddy wine."

Really the Church's year seems more actual to him than the seasons of the outdoor world.

"The gales through the woodland aisles"

to his ear

“Like the Lord's own organ blow."

[30] And "The bush in the winter time in his greenwood walk" is

“Surpliced with snows, like the bending Priest
That kneels in the church to pray."

He describes a Christian child in the Church's care in these words:

"Planted by the Altar's pale,
The Church with catechising art,
Trains to the chancel's trellised rail,
The wandering tendrils of the heart."

His visit to Iona, which he called "A Patmos of the frozen North," stirs in him the memory of Seabury,

“Whose hand the rod of David's stem
The furthest Westward bore."

—"Who crossed the seas
And brought from distant Aberdeen
Gifts of the old Culdees";

and "The Blessed Island" inspires the play on names, with a world of truth in it,

"Columbia from Columba claims,
More than great Colon brought."

There are phrases of his verse which are really epigrammatic in their power. His description of an old-time New England meeting-house, as

—“A pine wood parody Of Parthenon or Pnyx,"
—”A hippogriff of art;
By crude Genevan rites begot,
Half temple, and half mart.

—”A type of changing shifts,
A hall low-roofed and tinned,
On which a wooden Babel lifts
Its weather-cock to wind."

Or, in a more serious vein in his description of containing

[31] “The cells where sages have been bred,
And human lore baptized."

What he himself described in his dedication to Dr. Hobart of the "Christian Ballads" as

“The glistening dews of a Christian boyhood"

never dried upon his brow. The freshness of his spirit was perennial. Within an hour of his death he was so absorbed in what his companion called "an illuminating conversation" on the Resurrection of the Dead that he lost all sense of time and trains and of the needed nourishment of food. And to the very end, what he called the "glow of his early vow" rested upon him like a halo, in all its warmth and brightness.

I have not spoken of some rich utterances of the Bishop in the volumes which he published from time to time. I have been concerned more with the poetry of his younger days, which he called himself "Hymns of my Boyhood," than with the ripe beauty of the poems in his last volume called "The Paschal," because the earlier verses had in them the poetic element of prophecy. And I have omitted all mention of his "Thoughts on the Services" and of "Apollos," not from lack of appreciation, but from lack of space and time; gladly acknowledging the debt that very many people owe to them, as introductions, the one to a knowledge of the Book of Common Prayer, and the other to a recognition of the place in Christendom which is filled by this Church, as being the hope and opportunity of Christian unity in the Catholicity of its Protestantism and the Protestantism of its Catholicity. But the very lovely memory of that grey summer day in Geneva last July, almost forces me to recall what I am sure was in all our hearts and ears at the simple and beautiful service of his burial, when we laid him

[32] “To sleep where the church bells aye ring out."

“Our mother, the Church, hath never a child
To honour before the rest;
But she singeth the same for mighty kings
And the veriest babe on her breast.
And the Bishop goes down to his narrow bed
As the ploughman's child is laid;
And alike she blesseth the dark browed serf
And the chief in his robe arrayed.

“She sprinkles the drops of the bright new-birth
The same on the low and high;
And christens their bodies with dust to dust,
When earth with its earth must lie.

"And wise is he in the glow of health
Who weaveth his shroud of rest,
And graveth it plain on his coffin-plate,
That the dead in Christ are blessed."

I suppose I shall seem to have laid myself open in the cold judgment of some people at least—the sort of bedchamber valets, to whom no man is a hero—to the charge of having fallen into the false fulsomeness of a writer of epitaphs. There were times and occasions, there are memories and experiences, in which the traits of Bishop Coxe's nature seemed less lovely than the picture of him which I have outlined here; but I have been dealing with general effects, with the ultima ratio, with the combined results, and not with this or that word or act or element of character. The very many-sidedness of the man, some sides seen by themselves of course less beautiful than others, makes very difficult his characterization. The philosophy of his life, I think, might well be described as holding in solution almost antagonistic elements, which sometimes came apart. For instance, while he was himself more than precise and punctilious in the details of Divine service, certain phases, perhaps I may say fads, of what is called ritualism, irritated him extremely. While he was absolutely inclusive in his tolerant spirit, of all sorts and shades of religious thinking [32/33] and opinion, there was at times in him an outbreak of absolute intolerance, toward those who differed from his strong convictions. And while there was in him a real broadness of thought, of inclusion, of sympathy,—much broader, in my judgment, than a certain phase of thought which is so labelled,—he was essentially and intensely an ecclesiastic; and, not content only, but constrained, to hold fast by all the limitations of so-called liberty, and all the definitions of positive truth, which the Church lays down. I believe that the near view of those who knew most intimately his daily life, and the far view which men will have of him in the years to come, justify the portrait which I have, however poorly, painted, and the positions which, with careful guardedness of language, I have assigned to him in the American Church.

When S. Paul writes down his Eucharistic remembrance, his thankful recollection of "the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the Bishops and Deacons," and "their apostle Epaphroditus," he breaks out in the fervour of his feelings with precisely the language of the text.

Eucaristw tw qew mou . . . meta caraV

He thanks his God with joy upon every remembrance of them. And here to-day I join with the Church in this city and diocese—the saints in Christ Jesus, and the Bishops and Deacons (the Laity and the Clergy in two orders) to re-echo this Eucharist of their Apostle who

“Wielded awhile in grey-haired might,
The Pastoral staff, the keys of Heaven";

to thank our God on this and on every remembrance of him with joy; for his rule over you as Bishop and Shepherd of your souls; for his pre-eminence of place and power among us his brothers in the Episcopate; for the beauty of his soul; for the tenderness of his heart; for the nobleness of his mind; for the dignity of his character; for the courtesy of his person; for the grace of his manners; for the charm [33/34] of his conversation; for the courage of his convictions; for the thoroughness of his learning; for the loyalty of his Churchmanship; for the depth and devoutness of his piety; for the holiness and masterfulness of his faith; for the praise of him "in all the Churches;" for the consecrated service of his life; for the "happy opportunity of his death"; for his entrance into Paradise and his intercession for us there; for his "reasonable and religious hope" of a "good answer at the dreadful and fearful Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ."

When we celebrated the Holy Eucharist with its own Scriptures yesterday, the words of the text were on our lips and in our hearts and ears. They are set for our celebrations every day this week. You will hear them when you gather at the Altar to-morrow, for the offering and the Communion of your Council. You will think them—I am sure you have thought them as I have felt and thought them--a striking description of the man and of the Bishop. And I am sure that he would have been the first to say—while he deprecated any thought of the wealth of his gifts—that whatever they were, he was enriched in them by Him, yes, in Him, who made this man "a choice vessel of His grace in our generation"; and made the vessel choice—a vas electionis and a vas electum, in every lineament of the natural, the intellectual, the spiritual man.


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