ity of concentration at critical points, and The army of the Potomac had had a succession of able commanders. Time and again that army had moved out from Washington to meet the enemy between it and Richmond. A great battle followed, and then it came back to its intrenchments. Grant at last took command. He, too, marched against the enemy blocking his way to Richmond. The horrible battles of the Wilderness followed, with the advantage on the whole on the side of the Confederates. Af ter prolonged bloody and resultless fighting, Grant found it impossible to cut his way through. Did he return to Washington, or He simply moved off by the left flank, and continued his march towards Richmond. The enemy again blocked his way at Spottsylvania, and more terrible battles followed. Again, finding it impossible to make headway directly toward his goal, he moved off by the left flank, but drawing nearer to Richmond, "determined to fight it out on that line if it took all summer." North Anna then witnessed a drawn battle, and another movement by the left flank to Cold Harbor followed, where Grant was repulsed in a terrible assault. Still no retreat, but another advance across the James, and the siege of Richmond was begun. Petersburg was the key of Richmond, and to capture it was to possess the capital of the Confederacy. It did take all summer; it took all winter ; but Grant's hold was never relaxed. Maryland was invaded, and Washington threatened by the enemy, but all to no purpose; for the ponderous hammer was kept at its work. The army of the Potomac slowly beat down the barriers, and Petersburg was won. There is no such instance in history of tenacity and unflagging resolution. What must have been Lee's sensations as he saw his army gradually shrinking in numbers from the persistent and unceasing attacks of the Union forces! Sherman's vigorous campaign in the West prevented his being reinforced, and narrowed the source of his supplies. His enemy in front was determined to crush him at all hazards, and by steady, sledge hammer blows was crumbling his army to pieces. Desperation ruled the Confederates, from general to private, after the battle of the Wilderness. Grant's hand was on the throat of the rebellion, and with iron grip and relentless purpose he held on. When Lee's lines south of Petersburg were broken, and his troops were in full retreat for Richmond, Grant, as soon as he heard it, hastened to stop the pursuit. He had been fighting for almost a year for the possession of this city; now his troops, in hot pursuit of the beaten Confederates, could almost enter the city along with them. He refused to follow them into Richmond, but directed his generals to push with all possible expedition to the west along the Appomattox. It was the inspiration of genius. By following Lee he would have quickly captured Richmond, but the rebellion would not have been ended. Lee and his army would have escaped. The capture of cities amounted to little now, so long as armies of fighting men remained. But what other man than Grant would have forborne the pleasure of entering Richmond in triumph, or would have thought of stopping pursuit by his flushed and victorious troops and of sending them on a forced march across the country? The result was that he kept Lee from crossing to the south of the Appomattox, and by hard marching headed off his retreat and forced a surrender. Vicksburg campaign and the pursuit of Lee are as brilliant in conception and in execution as anything in military history. The great soldiers of the world have done nothing more brilliant. With the crushing of the rebellion, Grant did a work not only entitling him to the gratitude and veneration of the American people, but he did a work for civilization and the human race, which will entitle him to the love and respect of mankind to the remotest time. A country saved can afford to judge leniently the man who did so much to save it. A great general was necessary to our national salvation, and we found him. Now that he is dead, let us call to mind the hero of our The victories, and forget the faults of after years. Warren Olney. THE PICTURE OF BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. We are deceived by Time which hastens by; And on their joy, sweet nymphs attendance keep. Gay little satyrs on fair nymphs do spy, And snares within the caves and woods they build; Maidens and lovers young, let Bacchus live! Let those who seek delight, seek it ere long. Tomorrow may not come when this day dies. Laura M. Marquand. THE BUILDING OF A STATE:-VIII. EARLY DAYS OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN CALIFORNIA. AFTER the several interesting accounts of the circumstances surrounding religious teachers in the early days of California, already given by writers who were actors in those stirring times, which called out the force of a real Christian manhood, it would be superfluous, to say the least, for one of another generation to attempt to repeat from other sources what they have written so well from memory. On this account, then, with out further introduction, the writer of this sketch begs leave of the indulgent reader, to pass at once to the circumstances by force of which the Church was established in California. In the year 1848 a request from six of the leading members of the Church was forwarded from San Francisco, then a tiny village nestling on the borders of our noble bay, to the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, asking that a missionary be sent to them to minister to their spiritual necessities. In answer to this request, the Board of Missions sent out the Reverend L. Ver Mehr, who, with his wife and little children, undertook the long voyage around Cape Horn, reaching San Francisco September 8th, 1849. Meanwhile, the Reverend Flavel S. Mines had arrived by the shorter route of Panama, and had already organized Trinity Parish. On the arrival of Doctor Ver Mehr it was deemed best to organize Grace Parish, and steps were taken to provide suitable buildings for Divine worship. The congregations at first used the parlors of private residences placed at their disposal-Trinity congregation worshiping in the house of J. H. Merrill, Esq., and Grace congregation in that of Frank Ward, Esq. street. In these simple buildings began the parochial history of the mother churches of the Diocese of California; and at the sound of their bells, calling men away from the wild life of those early days to the quiet and calm of the sanctuary, came many a roughclad miner to listen to the dear, familiar words of the Church service, and found peace to the restless heart, beating high in the excitement of the time; and as psalm and lesson, creed and collect, were offered, the mind went back, over the long journeỹ, to the home parish, and the wanderer bowed once more before the altar of the village church, and with the dear ones far away prayed in the same words, and felt that wondrous bond which exists so strongly among the people of our Church, making each one with the other when the priest stands at the altar, and we acknowledge our faith in the Communion of Saints. To these modest temples came the gold seekers, and let us believe that many there found that treasure which moth and rust cannot corrupt, which the thief cannot steal. The labors of the two earnest clergymen were blessed so abundantly that the chapels soon gave way to churches. Grace Parish erected a well planned edifice on the corner of Powell and John streets. The building still stands, but is no longer in the possession of its original owners, having been sold many years ago to a congregation of colored Christians. Trinity Parish, toward the close of the same year, erected a church building of corrugated iron on Pine street near Kearny, on a site now covered by the California Market. The devoted Rector Flavel S. Mines lived but to see his beloved church prosper in its It was not long, however, before the two new location, and then was called up highcongregations were able to erect modest er. His mortal remains were reverently chapels; which, by the necessities of the case, laid beneath the chancel, and when the preswere not far from each other, on Powell ent church was built, the loving hands of 204 Early Days of the Protestant Episcopal Church in California. [Aug. those to whom he had ministered in holy things tenderly bore his ashes to the new Trinity Church, and beneath that chancel the first Rector of the Parish awaits the sound of "The high trump that wakes the dead." He was succeeded by the late Reverend C. B. Wyatt, so well known and so much respected by many of our fellow citizens for his virtues and successful work. During these years, however, other clergy came to the coast, and the services of the Church were established in Sacramento during 1849. St. John's Parish, Stockton, was founded in 1850, and services were held in Marysville by Reverend Augustus Fitch, who was obliged to leave there in 1852. But the difficulties in the way of establishing regular services were very great; and often were the bright hopes of the faithful clouded with grave disappointment; so that in 1853 we find the standing committee confessing very little progress; that the work was standing still; and that the deaths of devoted clergymen, and the departure of others—and what was infinitely worse, the disciplining of others still had contracted the number of the clergy very materially. In order to properly understand the attitude of the Church, it will be necessary to explain that a Convention had been called, and met on the evening of July 24th, 1850; the result of which was a body of canons, a standing committee, and the election of Bishop Southgate to the office of Bishop of the Diocese of California, an offer which he promptly declined. This disappointment was very great, and as the general Church took no steps to supply a Bishop to the struggling little Church in the far West, the churchmen were much disheartened; and as Doctor Ver Mehr relates, it was gravely proposed by one of the members of the late Convention to apply to the Russo-Greek Church; a step which, of course, was never seriously considered. The Convention did not meet again until 1853; on May 4th of that year the Convention re-assembled in Trinity church; Doctor Ver Mehr, in the absence of a Bishop, was elected President, and Major E. D. Townsend was chosen Secretary. Only three clergymen were entitled to seats : Reverend Messrs. Ver Mehr, Wyatt, and Chaplain Jonas Reynolds, U. S. A. Four parishes were rep resented, Sacramento, Stockton, and two from San Francisco. The principal work of the Convention was the alteration and amending of the canons of 1850; and strenuous efforts towards obtaining, at least, an Episcopal visitation, were made by the members, both clerical and lay. The following year, however, saw all these difficulties as to the Episcopate solved by the arrival of a missionary bishop for Califor nia. The Right Reverend William Ingraham Kip, D.D., L.L.D., had been consecrated to his high office on the Festival of SS. Simon and Jude, Oct. 28th, 1853; and sailing very soon after his consecration, he reached San Francisco January 29th, 1854, on a Sunday morning. The Bishop began his ministry that day, attending divine service both morning and evening at Trinity Church, then under the rectorship of Rev. C. B. Wyatt. Bishop, notwithstanding the fatigue of a perilous voyage, preached twice that day. The The arrival of a Diocesan soon placed the Church upon its scriptural and historical basis, and its future was assured and began at once to brighten. In his first address, delivered to the Convention of 1854, which met three months after his arrival, the Bishop, in referring to his new relation, laments the small number of his fellow-laborers; but the next report shows that the body of clergy had increased to one Bishop and nine priests, while the two or three parishes of the previous year had increased to eight. Certainly, the work began to look more encouraging, and it is very touching to read these early convention reports, and learn how the Bishop and his clergy went from point to point, over great distances, journeying by land and by sea to reach the scattered flock, going fifty miles to visit the dying bed of a sick man, and administer the consolations of religion to one who craved the Church's privileges; and again, a little later, making a like journey to lay away, with the glorious words of hope, the mortal remains of the pilgrim who had finished the journey of life. It would be unjust not to notice the help given by faithful laymen to the efforts of the clergy. Again and again does the Bishop narrate, in his annual reports, the fact that in some remote place an earnest lay reader is keeping the Church together by reading service on the Lord's day to such as he can gather; and many a record can be found in these early journals of Convention of the efficient service done in this way by the officers of the regular army, who, remembering that greater army in which, too, they were soldiers, would act as lay readers here and there, where necessary. The strange state of society in which the work of the Church had to be done no doubt interfered very much with any permanent establishment in many places, at one time populous; and in one of the early reports we find the complaint that among the many difficulties of settling a clergyman was that of making sure of a congregation. Often and again it would happen that a town would lose one-half or two-thirds of its population within a few days or weeks, and the clergyman, who, after a long correspondence, had undertaken the tiresome and expensive journey from the East, would find a very different state of affairs, upon his arrival, from what he had been led to expect; would feel much discouraged, and desirous of getting back to a settled community. Again, fire and flood would undo the labor and dishearten the congregation; not unfrequently would the fire fiend burst out in the inflammable little towns, and the church would share the general ruin; or, in the river towns, the levee would give way, and water would ruin what it did not sweep away. Stranger than the circumstances were the characters who followed the great rush of gold-seekers to the coast. Men who had not succeeded came hither in hopes of meet ing, by some bold stroke of fortune, a success upon these distant shores; and as with other professions, so with the clerical. Eccentricity, and even worse, had to be met by the ecclesiastical authorities, and firmly repressed; and many were the difficulties of this sort, which rendered the Episcopal vestments decidedly warm. For example, in the way of eccentricity, it is related that one clergyman had the somewhat personal habit of making a very pointed gesture with his prayer-book, when reading the commandments, at such of the congregation as he thought the especial commandment might have some bearing upon; the effect was quite striking, to say the least, and by the victims considered unpleasant. But the Church did not neglect educational work during those unsettled days, and we find that Doctor J. L. Ver Mehr and the Reverend J. Avery Shepherd conducted large and successful girls' schools, from both of which came some of the loveliest girls of the young State, who now are matrons whose praise is in all the churches. The Reverend Mr. Chittenden, during several years, assisted by Mr. Lowndes, conducted the San Francisco College for boys, with great success. Thus were the foundations of the Church laid upon this coast. With much self-denial and personal self-sacrifice has our Bishop labored to build up the Diocese to which he came in the flush of early manhood one-andthirty years ago. Under his care the Church has slowly but surely made its way; ever a haven of rest for the weary, she has never permitted the sound of political strife to mar the harmony of her services, but faithful to her Lord, has proclaimed the everlasting gospel, and that alone, from the Sierras to the sea. Many of those who were his fellowworkers have gone to their long rest, while some still, even in this State, serve the God who has led them all these years. And now another generation has grown up, and men of that new generation are standing about the Bishop, and when Convention meets from year to year in Trinity Church, and through the long lines of white-robed priests and deacons, the now venerable Bishop passes to his seat near the altar, we may well believe that old faces, seen through the mist of years gone by, look upon him, and voices now |
