Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885 | Page 2

the first ordination held by him.
The Bishop having delivered an historical discourse at the opening of
the Convention of 1883, commemorative of the election of Bishop
Seabury, on motion of the Rev. Dr. Giesy, the thanks of the Convention
were tendered to him, and he was "respectfully and earnestly
requested" to preach a sermon at the next Convention in
commemoration of Bishop Seabury's Consecration. A like vote was
passed in 1884, desiring the Bishop "to supplement the sermons
delivered at this and the preceding Conventions with a third at the
Convention of 1885, necessary to the historical completion by the same
hand of the centenary commemoration of the Consecration of the Rev.

Samuel Seabury, D.D., as the first Bishop of Connecticut."
This volume contains a report of the Centenary Commemorative
Services held in accordance with the resolutions, and also the historical
sermons preached by the Bishop at the request of the Convention. In
the Appendix will be found Bishop Williams's sermon preached at the
commemoration in Aberdeen in October, 1884, with an account of the
part which the delegation from Connecticut took in that
commemoration, including the Rev. Dr. Beardsley's paper on "Seabury
as a Bishop."
"NOVI ORBIS APOSTOLI SIT NOMEN PERENNE."

CENTENARY COMMEMORATION
OF THE ELECTION OF BISHOP SEABURY.
1883.
THE REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. WAS ELECTED FIRST
BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT AT WOODBURY, MARCH 25, 1783.
The one-hundredth anniversary of the election of Bishop Seabury fell
on Easter-Day (being also the Festival of the Annunciation), 1883. In
accordance with the request of the Diocesan Convention, the Bishop set
forth the following special Thanksgiving to be used throughout the
Diocese, immediately after the General Thanksgiving at Morning and
Evening Prayer on that day:
ALMIGHTY GOD, Who by Thy Holy Spirit hast appointed divers
orders of ministers in Thy Church, we give unto Thee high praise and
hearty thanks, that Thou didst put it into the hearts of our fathers and
brethren to elect, on this day, to the work and ministry of a Bishop in
Thy Church, Thy servant, to whom the charge of this Diocese was first
committed; and that Thou didst so replenish him with the truth of Thy
doctrine and endue him with innocency of life, that he was enabled,
both by word and deed, faithfully to serve Thee in this office, to the
glory of Thy name, and the edifying and well-governing of Thy Church.
For this so great mercy, and for ail the blessings which, in Thy good
Providence, it brought to this portion of the flock of Christ, we offer
unto Thee our unfeigned thanks, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to

Whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world
without end. Amen.
On Tuesday in Easter-Week, March 27th (the day of the week on which
the Festival of the Annunciation fell in 1783), a commemorative
service was held in St. Paul's Church, Woodbury, at 11 o'clock A.M.
The Bishop began the Communion-service, the Rev. S. O. Seymour of
Litchfield reading the Epistle, and the Rev. E. E. Beardsley, D.D.,
LL.D., of New Haven reading the Gospel. After the Nicene Creed, a
part of the 99th hymn in the old Prayer-Book collection was sung; and
the Bishop then made an address based on the closing words of the
Epistle: "I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise
believe, though a man declare it unto you."
The Bishop spoke of the faith and the courage which inspired the
clergymen who met a hundred years ago in that quiet village to elect
the first bishop of Connecticut. They felt that they owed a sacred duty
to God; and, not stopping to speculate upon the needs of some
imaginary Church of the future, they did what was specially needed for
the welfare of the Church in their own day. At the beginning of the war
of independence there had been twenty missionaries of the mother
Church of England laboring in the colony. They were in great part
supported by the Venerable Society in England, and they were under
oaths of loyalty to the Crown; it was not strange, therefore, that their
sympathies were not on the popular side. They were obliged to suffer
great hardships; and the end of the war found the Church in
Connecticut in a very depressed condition, with the clergy and people
scattered and some of the parishes quite broken up. Fourteen clergymen
were left, and of these ten met in the study of the Rev. John Rutgers
Marshall on the Festival of the Annunciation in 1783, to take counsel
as to what was to be done. Peace had not been proclaimed, but it was
known that the war was at an end; and the circumstances of the times
were such that