Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885 | Page 4

did not necessarily produce tranquillity and happiness at
home. Mischiefs and jealousies still lingered with those who had
contended for liberty, and the chief Protestant sects, which have all
erected their banners and had their camping-ground in the Church of
England, were ready to welcome her weakness and overthrow because
her priests and her people, for the most part, had been on the side of the
Crown during the long struggle for independence. But it is not possible
to destroy what God holds in His hand. The passions of men work vast

evil till, in calmer moments, they subside and a better light shines
through their principles and their actions.
The outcome of the meeting at Woodbury, after many hindrances and
perplexities, was the consecration by the non-juring Bishops of the
Church of Scotland of the Rev. SAMUEL SEABURY as the first
Bishop of Connecticut and of the Episcopal Church in the United States.
We owe to this consecration some of the best features of our Book of
Common Prayer. We owe to it the compactness and unity of our great
American Communion, and surely it was well to have what we used on
Sunday last--a form of thanksgiving for this our hundredth anniversary
of the election of Bishop Seabury that God did "so replenish him with
the truth of His doctrine and endue him with innocency of life that he
was enabled, both by word and deed, faithfully to serve Him in the
office of a bishop to the glory of His name and the edifying and
well-governing of His Church."
The Bishop then proceeded with the office of the Holy Communion,
being assisted in the service by the Rev. Professor Hart of Trinity
College, and in the administration to the clergy and a large number of
the laity by the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, the Rev. T. B. Fogg of Brooklyn,
and the Rev. J. F. George, rector of the parish. Before the benediction,
the Bishop read the special thanksgiving set forth for Easter-Day.
After the service the clergy and other visitors were hospitably
entertained by the ladies of St. Paul's parish in the house in which the
Rev. J. R. Marshall lived in 1783, and in the very room in which the ten
clergymen met to elect the first Bishop of Connecticut.
The following is a list of the clergymen who were present:
The Rt. Rev. the Bishop; the Rev. Dr. E. E. Beardsley, New Haven; the
Rev. Messrs. H. A. Adams, Wethersfield; R. R. M. Converse,
Waterbury; W. C. Cooley, Roxbury; T. B. Fogg, Brooklyn; J. F.
George, Woodbury; Prof. Samuel Hart, Hartford; J. G. Jacocks, New
Haven; E. S. Lines, New Haven; R. W. Micou, Waterbury; S. O.
Seymour, Litchfield; James Stoddard, Watertown; Hiram Stone,
Bantam Falls; Elisha Whittlesey, Hartford; Alex. Mackay-Smith, New
York City.
On the twelfth day of June, 1883, the annual Convention of the Diocese
met in Trinity Church, New Haven. The opening service was made a
formal commemoration of the election of Bishop Seabury.

Morning Prayer was begun by the Rev. Samuel Fermor Jarvis, Rector
of Trinity Church, Brooklyn, grandson of the Rev. Abraham Jarvis who
was Secretary of the Convention in 1783 and afterwards the second
Bishop of the Diocese; the First Lesson (Isaiah lxi.) was read by the
Rev. George Dowdall Johnson, of the Diocese of New York,
great-grandson of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, "the Father of
Episcopacy in Connecticut"; the Second Lesson (Ephesians iv. to verse
17), by the Rev. Thomas Brinley Fogg of Brooklyn, grandson of the
Rev. Daniel Fogg who was one of the electors of Bishop Seabury; and
the Nicene Creed and the Prayers, including a special Thanksgiving, by
the Rev. Samuel Hart, Seabury Professor in Trinity College,
great-great-great-grandson of one of the five who with Johnson and
Cutler signed the paper touching their ordination, which was presented
to the "Fathers and Brethren" in the Library of Yale College on the
thirteenth day of September, 1722. The Bishop began the office of the
Holy Communion, using the Collect for St. Simon and St. Jude's Day;
the Epistle (that for St. Matthew's Day) was read by the Rev. Edwin
Harwood, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, and the Gospel (that for St.
Barnabas's Day), by the Rev. E. E. Beardsley, D.D., LL.D., Rector of
St. Thomas's Church, New Haven, Historian of the Diocese and
Biographer of its first Bishop. The Sermon was preached by Bishop
Williams, as follows:
MEN FOR THE TIMES. I. CHRON. xii. 32.
Men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to
do.
I know no better words than these to give direction to our thoughts in
the service of this day. It is a service of deepest thankfulness and of
most sacred memories. It takes us back over the years of