Try, Try Again

CHAPTER I Try, Try Again CoNNEcrrCUT had been who refused to pay were fined, jailed, and often founded by tough-minded roughly handled on the way to prison. Thus, Puritans who were determined what was labeled an "Act of Toleration" was the to build a new English Canaan law under which Anglicans were actually per from which Episcopacy was secute'd. Also, there were more subtle ways to to be forever excluded. And embarrass the Churchmen, for the numerous for a while it seemed as if the "public days of humiliation and prayer" fell by Congregationalist alliance be more than mere coincidence upon the great feast tween minister and magistrate days of the Christian Kalendar. Needless to say, would keep both Anglican and Anglican instruction- whether religious or secu Papist from ever gaining a lar- was discouraged. foothold in the "Land of Steady Habits." For over True, there were slight relaxations of the law half a century the Congregational Establishment during the century, but these hardly made first was not seriously challenged, but when opposi class citizens of the Anglicans. In 1727, the Angli tion finally came it was of such a nature as to cans were permitted by legislative act to pay bring violent reaction, the effects of which were the ecclesiastical taxes to the support of their own to be felt well into the nineteenth century. church. The act, however, specified that only such In 1707, the first Anglican mission was organ parishes as had a "resident minister" could claim ized in the colony, and during the next seventy the exemption and, as the S. P. G. missionaries years there was much missionary activity by the invariably served in a number of places, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in church of the missionary's town of residence alone Foreign Parts, the great Anglican missionary so seems to have benefited. ciety which had been incorporated in 1701. By Whatever may have been the official attitude, the outbreak of the American Revolution, there Anglicanism was attractive to many Connecticut were over forty missions, twenty clergy, and be people. The "Great Awakening," the great re tween 2,500 and 3,000 Church of England fam vival of religion which reached its high point in ilies.1 the winter of 1740-1741, had split the Congrega The growth of Episcopacy in Connecticut had tionalists into two mutually hostile factions: the been in spite of difficulties. 2 In 1708, the Connect New Lights who favored the emotionalism of the icut Assembly passed an "Act of Toleration," revival and the Old Lights who opposed it. Many which in many of its details resembled the Eng Congregationalists, wishing a plague o' both lish Act of 168g in that it gave much the same houses, found a more peaceful spiritual home immunities to non-Congregationalists as the Eng among the Anglicans.3 But the most compelling lish had given to non-Anglicans. Although they attraction was to those Congregational ministers recognized the legal existence of Anglicanism in who, having read deeply in Anglican History and the colony, the Connecticut authorities still were Theology, came to doubt the validity of their allowed to collect the ecclesiastical taxes for the orders and undertook the long sea voyage to support of meeting house and minister. Those England where they were ordained priests in the 3 T H E HISTORY 0 F TRINITY C 0 L L E G E Church of England and then returned to Con whetted the appetite of Cutler and the others for necticut to take up the missionary work of the Anglican learning were kept under lock and key, S.P.G. and in 1753 a stringent test was fixed by the Yale These "converts" were the backbone of the Corporation by which the president, tutors, and Church in Connecticut and, in attempting to all other officers were obliged to attest to the or justify their new position to their former minis thodoxy of their beliefs.7 Thus, Yale proclaimed terial brethren, they ably stated the special claims her understandable hostility to Episcopacy! And of the Church to which they had been led by in the hostility was not soon to abate. tellectual and rational processes. These "con Yet, a lack of enthusiasm for Yale College did verts" brought much to Connecticut Anglicanism not cause the Anglican clergy of Connecticut to and, having been brought up in a tradition of an return discourtesies. They could have hardly af educated ministry, it, too, soon became part of forded to, for where but to Yale could they send the Anglican attitude of Connecticut. theit own sons for collegiate education? In 1748, As Yale College was the institution which had there were at Yale ten candidates for degrees trained most of Connecticut's Congregational who were members of the Church of England. Of ministers, it is not difficult to understand that at these, one was the son of Samuel Johnson and an the close of the American Revolution more than other was Samuel Seabury, Jr., who was later to two-thirds of the fourteen Anglican clergy in Con become t4e lirst Bishop of Connecticut. a At Yale, necticut were Yale graduates.4 Nor, in view of the situation just described, should there be any difficulty in understanding that these men had little aHection for Alma Mater. But Yale College had a major, albeit acciden tal, role in the early successes of Episcopacy in Connecticut. In the early 172o's, several members of the Yale community were introduced to Angli can theology through a collection of books which had recently been gathered for the college by Jeremy Dummer and Sir John Davie. Rector Timothy Cutler, Tutor Daniel Browne, and Sam uel Johnson and James Wetmore, Congregational pastors at West Haven and North Haven, respec tively, had met together to discuss the writings of the Anglican divines and had been led to de clare for the Church of England. Each was dis missed from his post and the four went to Eng land where, early in 1723, they were priested by the Bishop of Norwich. Although Johnson was 5 the only one to return to Connecticut, the "Yale Samuel Seabury defection," as it was called, "shook," as a Congre gationalist writer put it, "Congregationalism the instruction was from an orthodox Congrega throughout New England like an earthquake, tionalist point of view and attendance at the wor and filled its friends with terror and apprehen ship of the Congregational meeting house was sion."6 In language less dramatic, it may be said obligatory, but these disadvantages were small that the "defection" caused the Congregational compared with any practical alternative. The authorities at Yale to exercise a new vigilance English universities were 3,ooo miles away, and lest the disaster be repeated. The books that had the expense of sending a son to Oxford or Cam- 4 T R Y , T R Y A G A I N bridge was too great for a missionary who was serious thought given to the establishment of an trying to make financial ends meet on the modest Episcopalian college in Connecticut. By 1788, salary granted by the S. P. G. The College of Wil however, Bishop Seabury was able to write to liam and Mary in Virginia, although an Anglican the Bishop of Edinburgh that plans were under establishment, was also too distant to be of real way to raise £ 1,400 or £ 1,500 so that by the sum service to Connecticut Churchmen, and King's mer of 1789 an academy could be established in College (now Columbia) in New York, also an Connecticut "for the education of our own clergy Anglican institution from its founding in 1754, ... and for fitting young gentlemen for the vari had remained quite small and appealed chiefly ous occupations of life."13 Although a committee to a local clientel. was appointed by Bishop Seabury to outline a With the possibilities for a distinctly Anglican curriculum and to devise a plan for the school's education on the collegiate level thus precluded, government and, although a subscription list had the clergy of Connecticut made the most of their been opened, 14 the pledges fell far short of the opportunities to offer instruction with an Angli goal and the project was, for the time being, can "slant" at both the pre-college and post-col abandoned. Bishop Seabury and his clergy con lege levels. Many clergymen followed the Con tinued to agitate for an Episcopalian school and gregationalist practice (one learned from their to point up the uncongenial atmosphere at Yale.l5 own experience) of preparing some of the more While the promoters of an Episcopal institution promising boys from the parish for college. In like of the higher learning invariably referred to their fashion, the ordained clergy directed the theo objective as an "academy," the real plan was to logical training of candidates for Holy Orders establish a "college" which would offer prepara for a period of time before their going to Eng tory, collegiate, and theological education.16 land for ordination9 and, although the course of In 1792, the matter of an "academy" was again study was perhaps more-or-less perfunctory and brought to the attention of the Church when on often a matter of only several weeks or, at best, February 15 the Convention at East Haddam ap several months, the candidate was at least ex pointed a committee to consider plans for estab posed to some of the Anglican classics and en lishing such an institution.H This committee joyed a close association with a priest of both never functioned, but a new committee- this learning and conviction.10 time made up of some of the most ardent pro Before the Revolution there were parish moters of an academy- was appointed on June 4, schools at Stratford,11 North Groton, and Fair 1794.

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