In October of this year (1812) he had the pleasure of paying a visit to his native city, to unite in the consecration of the Rev. Theodore Dehon, D. D., for the Diocese of South-Carolina, being the second in its episcopate, and following after an interval of eleven years—the Right Reverend Robert Smith, its first bishop, having died in 1801. The consecration was held in Christ Church, Philadelphia, a church of many holy thoughts to one who had been. baptized, confirmed, and ordained within its sacred walls; and who was now engaged at the same altar in conferring upon another the apostolic office and benediction.

CHAPTER XII.

A. D. 1813-Et. 38.

Duties performed in 1813-Address to the Convention-Three leading Points of Policy, 1. Missionary Cause; 2. Observance of the Liturgy; 3. Ministerial Education-Letter to Mrs. S. on the Subject--Theological Grammar School-Objects-Failure-Letters--Col. TroupC. F. Mercer.

As this year (1813) may be considered the first in which Bishop Hobart was free to carry forward his views of Episcopal usefulness, it may be well to examine the evidences it affords of his labors and his policy. In the course of the year he extended Episcopal visitation to thirty-three parishes scattered over his extensive Diocese, travelling in it more than two thousand miles; held confirmation in twenty-three churches confirming eleven hundred persons, and ordaining seven.

In his address to the Convention, he urges mainly upon their consideration the three following points, which may be considered, in truth, as the pillars of his whole subsequent policy.

First. The necessity of missionary labor, as the only adequate means of meeting the spiritual wants of a scattered population. His previous exertions in this good cause have been already

mentioned. He now recommended to the Convention a higher course, the adoption of a canon, in place of his resolution of 1808, for the raising of funds for their support, thus making imperative upon all the churches of the Diocese, an annual collection for that specific purpose. This may be considered the foundation, humanly speaking, of the subsequently rapid extension of the Church through the northern and western parts of the State. The missionary cause was one which Bishop Hobart never ceased to urge, and with such success, that whereas, he found in the Diocese but two missionaries, he left in it, at his death, over fifty, and scarce a church throughout the country that was not indebted, either wholly or in part, to their labors.

The second point was the spiritual character of the Liturgy, its obligations, and its competency, in the hands of the faithful pastor, to meet all the wants of the awakened and the penitent in social prayer. He viewed it, in short, as a needful barrier, and the only adequate one, against that flood of fanaticism which was even then beginning to swell up in our country, and by which many denominations in it have since been almost desolated. At the time Bishop Hobart began these warnings, few believed him, for few foresaw the danger, and many, even within the Church, cried out 'shame' against

him, as needlessly tying up 'the liberty of prophesying.' We may leave it, now, even to his oppugners to say, whether the true prophetic spirit did not rather lie in the warning against it than in the exercise of it.

On this point Bishop Hobart was steady and uniform, never failing to urge it on all fit occasions, and the more earnestly as he saw the signs of the coming whirlwind. The following extract gives the picture of the missionary and his labors, and the blessing which attends the faithful use of the Liturgy.

We no longer perceive in his place in this Convention, our venerable brother the Rev. Davenport Phelps. He has gone to his rest. For many years he had been employed as a missionary in the western parts of the State. Having visited the extensive district in which he officiated, I am able to bear testimony to the high estimation in which he was held for his pious and exemplary character, and for the fidelity and prudent zeal with which he discharged his arduous and laborious duties. He is justly revered as the founder of the congregations in the most western counties of the State; whom he attached, not merely to his personal ministrations, but to the doctrines, the ministry, and the Liturgy of our Church. Indeed, it was highly gratifying to me to observe, in the congregations where he officiated, and in others, in the infant settlements of the State, which are still cherished by ministers equally faithful, the devotion and the decency with which the people performed their parts of the public service. It is an

evidence that whatever prejudices our Liturgy may have at first to encounter, among those who are unacquainted with it, a minister who will be diligent in explaining it, and enforcing its excellences, and who, in obedience to his ordination vows, will be faithful and devout in the use of it, will finally succeed, by the Divine blessing, in leading many to value it as their best help in the exercises of devotion, and, next to the Bible, their best guide to heaven.'*

To all tampering with the Liturgy Bishop Hobart was also, as is well known, strongly opposed. He loved the good old way, and to walk in the paths where his fathers had walked. The praise of it was, therefore, often on his tongue, dwelling much on its antiquity as well as beauty; showing how the greater part of it had been used in the Church for at least fifteen hundred years, and that in the Creed, and some, at least, of the devotional hymns, we were worshipping our GoD and Saviour in the very (translated) words in which the apostolic Church had worshipped when it strengthened itself in the days of heathen persecution. These were the high and holy associations which invested the Liturgy, in his mind, with a sacredness next to the Bible, making him turn with something like indignation, not only from all crude and undigested plans of change, but

* Journal of Convention, 1813, pp. 14, 15.