development of the truths which Bishop Hobart, first in Amer ica, had fully developed and demonstrated. The principles restored and recalled by the writers of the Oxford Tracts, had caught my Father's eye, and won his heart, and claimed his voice to assert and defend them, before that movement began. And when it came, he welcomed it, and stood up for it, and defended it, from the suspicions of the timid, and the attacks of the unfriendly. And God used him largely, among the instru ments, through which, these Catholic truths have been proclaimed and established in the American Church. His views of the authority and ministry of the Church are as full and plain in 1830, as in 1859. The plan of Systematic Charity is alluded to, in his primary charge. Originated and urged by him, its adoption spread throughout the Diocese with most admirable results, and widely, through the country; and the newspapers, as they proclaimed it from time to time, announced it as Bishop Doane's plan of offerings. The weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and its true estimate in doctrine and in use, the daily public worship of the Church, the due observ ance of the Holy Days, and a full and fearless proclamation of the distinctive features of the Catholic Faith, prevail throughout the Diocese, not as he would, nor as they might, but to a degree that attests, even to a cold and careless eye, the fervour and earnestness of his faith and work, and the power of it, for influence. It is true of all these things, as one has said of his educational plans: "his noblest service to the Diocese of New Jersey is, that he has imbued it with the same spirit." This was well put by one of our laymen, not long ago, to whom the statement was made, that of late my Father's views had lowered very much, "Not at all," he said, "he took, years ago, a high stand, far beyond the time, and he has drawn us all up to him." And the truth of this is strikingly evident, in the unvary ing consistency of my Father's teaching and work; and the unity of purpose in his whole life. He died for the same things, that he had lived for, all his life. The whole of his long pilgrimage, was an undeviating progress in the road, on which he learned to walk. And his voice, was lifted up, in the full strength of manhood and in the weakness of approaching death, to witness to the same forgotten and neglected truths, which he had proclaimed in the fresh fearlessness of his youth. In many points, my Father's interest was quite remarkable. Ordinarily, the mind matures and moulds itself in early life, to certain points, and looks, with indifference and caution and little interest, upon points that may arise afterward. Old men, not often, have sympathy with the views and feelings of young men. And more than all, episcopal responsibility adds to the cautiousness and reserve of age. My Father was strangely free from it. Church Architecture was in its newest infancy, when his tastes and principles were forming. But he waked up to it, in later life; felt great interest in the English and American Ecclesiological Societies, and upheld the hands of those, who were most immediately engaged in them. And it was so, with Church music. Unmusical himself, and innocent entirely of Gregorian and monotone and services, yet, he supported the advanced movement in Church music; enjoyed it always, entered with the most intense feeling into the deep and searching devotion of the chanted litany, and with no timidity or hesitation, maintained the propriety and authority and beauty of the Choral Service. In these things, he was ever fresh and young; and real earnestness in any right direction, though upon a path he had not tried himself, awoke in him an answering enthusiasm; won ever from his lips, a cordial "God speed. CHAPTER IX. TRIALS, AND TRIUMPH. cannot It has pleased God, "in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." My Father was a soldier of the Cross, a follower in the footsteps of Him who bore it. And in the development of his character, in God's ordering of his life, the main and marked feature is suffering. There is no pen to paint the trials, or the triumphs of his life, for the one reaches down into a depth, few men enter, and the other up to a height which our eyes see. That God's mercies, and His means of grace were mingled, with these orderings of affliction, is graciously and fully true. The uncarved human soul lies before His great hand, and from its mere, rough, natural strength, he carves, and moulds, and fashions, and softens it into form. And the severe instruments of suffering, the softening influences of mercy, the transforming power of divine means of grace, come all in, in various degrees. But when the block is solid, and the beauty to be complete, the shape and polish must be gained, only by the severity, that cuts and breaks, and smoothes, with the roughest things. For his soul, there was a baptism of suffering, a baptism of tears; for him, the instruments of the Passion, the bearing about in the body, the marks of the Lord Jesus. It began in early life. It grew with his strength, into more severity. It mingled with his cup of highest human pleasure. It was the shadow, that all the sunshine of his life cast over it. And the complement, joy answering sorrow, and peace suc ceeding peace, made up the record of the days of the years of his pilgrimage. In mid-life, out of the deep of his heart, he cried unto the Lord, in the secret silence of his private journal, which has such entries scattered through it, as this: My steadfast trust is that it is but for a time, and that though by thy permission darkness may endure for a night, joy will come in the morning. Grant it to me gracious Father, for Thy mercies' sake in Jesus Christ; or-or-prepare me for Thy will and mercifully sustain me under it. A very rainy day, a pond by the road-side agitated like a little sea, a fit emblem of our life. The fading foliage and the rustling path were in unison with my feelings. As I observed the light of noon, breaking through the naked trees, I felt how bereavement opens the way for the divine illumination, to cheer and guide the soul. To-day, the pond so stormy yesterday and rough, was calm and pure and peaceful as an infant's smile. So can the favour of the Lord subdue our stormy sorrows, and His grace soothe and tranquillize our rough and passionate hearts. Grant, Lord, that in me, both may be realized. Keeping an unbroken vigil, by an anxious bedside,* he writes: "God who slumberest not, nor sleepest, But eternal vigil keepest, Be about her gracious bed; Soothe her heart and guard her head; Bid Thy Holy Spirit stay, May we stand before Thy throne." Another trial that I know not how to bear. Lord Thou knowest. May I be able to endure, as seeing Him Who is invisible. A morning like May, all bright without, and, but for confidence in Him, all dark within. The Lord is my light, whom then ought I to fear. Yet the heart is but a heart. Come Holy Spirit with Thy renewing and consoling grace. Make it all thine and then it can neither faint nor fear. A new year. The past, with much of joy and comfort, has had more of sorrow and sadness than my whole life. Turn our captivity, O Lord, as the rivers in the South. Send again prosperity, if it please Thee, and till it does, send patience. Thou canst make light our darkness and wipe off our tears. We bow before Thee in submission and desire to say "Father Thy will be done." This has been a varied but not a happy day. In part not my fault, in part my error. I was right in principle but injudicious in asserting it. I was not kindly dealt with, but I have yielded all and made full and complete acknowledgments, and feel happy in having humbled * My mother's; who, after a beautiful life of charity and purity; weary with many a sorrow; wearied out, with the sorrow of a second widowhood, entered into rest, on the 10th of November, of this year, at Florence, in Italy, exactly six months from the day on which she received the tidings of her bereavement. "They are in peace." myself to make peace, when in strictness I was right. may not be again. I am resolved with His help to Patience, meekness, faith. Spirit of consolation, our Sanctifier, may these be our portion. God grant this avoid the like. Comforter and And the last unfinished record, as though the pencil broke, in such unutterable sorrow: A day of wretchedness not to be described. These are transcripts of his inner life, that may not be detailed in their minutiæ. The first heating of the furnace was but to prepare him, for the sevenfold heat. To the depth of sorrow, there was a corresponding height of faith. The triumph of this trial, was in a victory over impatience; a nerv ing of the shrinking soul, to bear, and brave, and be still; and in the breaking of the sunlight, through the clouds. As he went on, God used the hearts and hands and tongues of men, to do this same refining, moulding work of his life. Before his consecration, he was exposed to a bitter and violent persecution, whose aim fell not short of destroying his character, and defeating his consecration. It failed, of course. The first men in Boston hastened to New York, with most determined interest, and fullest evidences of exculpation: and without his action, as it had gone on without his knowledge, Bishop White's firm and decided tone crushed the effort. And he forgot it, and forgave it. I pass it by, as he did, save this allusion to the next step, in the gradual perfection of his character. It had its triumph too. The friends that clustered to him, were far more numerous, and far more earnest in their love, than the fierceness and littleness of his foes. Then came a resting time. In it there were opposition and attack. But they only spurred him on, to more determined efforts. It was impossible that such a spirit, so uncompromising, so fearless, so unsparing of self in the carrying out of principles and plans, should not provoke enmity and dislike, from those, whose prejudices and principles he encountered and overthrew. But these broken, varying years, during which, twice, the burden of care and work and service, brought him to the verge of the grave, were the fitful weather that precedes a storm. And in 1849, it broke out with its first mutterings, which grew and gathered about his head, for five most suffering years. I utterly repudiate all thought of vindictiveness, all purpose to excuse or apologize, in what must be said of this. To omit it, from a review of his life, would be unfair, unwise, unjust, impossible. It comes in here, simply as a part of that providence of suffering and pain, through which it pleased God to chasten and perfect one whom He loved. With utmost tenderness, for the fair fame of one who has given me the proudest heritage of earth, to bear his |