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Description
Ward discusses Chase's break with Kenyon College and includes a number of letters regarding this and other topics.
Date
11-5-1835
Keywords
Bishop of Sodor and Man, Lady Rosse, Lord Lorton, Lady Lorton, Bishop Chase, Bp. Bedell, Kilmore, Michigan, Diocese of Illinois, Castle Mona, Mr. Carpenter, Bp. Wilson, Mr. Howell
Recommended Citation
Ward, William, "Letter to Lady Isabella King" (1835). Philander Chase Letters. 1006.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/1006
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Transcript
Bishops Court - Isle of Mann
Nov. 5 - 1835
Copy of letter from the Bp. of S. & M. to Lady Isabella King
My dear Lady Isabella
I hope this will still find you on the English side of the water, & that you will remain there till you revisit the Isle of Mann. Nothing but necessity should make anyone cross the Channel at this season of the year, & as promoting the comfort of others is the chief comfort of your own life, Lady Rosse requires your company much more than Lord & Lady Lorton. I send your Ladyship a parcel of Bp. Chase’s letters in which I am sure Lady Rosse will feel interested. They will give her Ladyship a sketch of the persecutions & sufferings as well as of the persevering labours in the cause of the Church of God which that man of God has undergone during the last five years in all wh. The hand of Providence has been visible in bringing good out of evil by making him more extensively useful. His life will make a very interesting volume of Episcopal Biography – and like the life of the sainted Bedell, Bp. of [Kilmore] in the days of Catholic [murder] & rebellion. His sufferings when he was obliged to resign his Bishopric & his darling College, & his migration into the Michigan territory – his selecting a spot in the woods, to erect his log cabin upon, his working with but own hands to raise bread out of the ground for himself & his family, his planning & providing for a new Church & Theological Seminary on his own grounds, & his immediately falling to work on that great object – his constant attention at the same time to his spiritual duties, in visiting over a long current of that newly colonized Country his present call to the Diocese of Illinois, his restoration to the honour & approbation of the House of Bishops & his now again visiting old England, make altogether a curious & interesting & essential narrative of one fine of a Bp’s life. We stationary Bishops should bow before him, cheer his spirits & take him by the hand. It will be greatly to our honour in the eyes of our Daughter Church of the United States if we do so. But the grievous pest of all is the destroying of the Protestant Episcopal character of Kenyon College & [?] the Theological Seminary in the common College, & giving the whole a republican character. [Poor] dear man! He gave the original constitution too much of the republican character, which cannot hear a superior instead of keeping the deference power in his own hands subjecting himself only to the House of Bishops. Your Ladyship will be so kind as to take care of the letters till a convenient opportunity. I am sure they will interest dear Lady Rosse, & that is my chief object in sending them, as I am not sure whether your Ladyship has ever had any personal knowledge of Bishop Chase.
Castle Mona Chapel is uppermost in my mind, & very near my heart. & I have good hopes that with God’s blessing I shall be able to accomplish it & commence it in the spring. Mr Hutcheson has sold Castle Mona and all the gounds, but he has received the spot on the ground for the Church. They are building a new town all over the grounds about the Castle, so that there will shortly be a large Congregation there out of all practicable distance of any Church & having no room in any of the Churches within their reach. And if we do not soon make haste, the Methodists & [?] will preoccupy the ground. We have great encouragement to build this Church from the success of St. Barnabas & the blessing attending the ministry of Mr Carpenter. He is giving quite a new character to the people of Douglas under God. Tell dear Lady Rosse that her Ladyship’s £40 & your £10 are well bestowed, as it has procured him the help of a very efficient Curate, & served another worthy man. I have just lost a most worthy old Clergyman – a distinguished divine, & author of the life of Bp. Wilson – Mr Howell – who during the last three days of his life preached a more impressive & solemn discourse in broken fragments on his death bed to all around him than ever he did in the course of his eloquent & evangelical ministry. I send my Episcopal blessing to Lady Rosse. May God forever bless her & remember her in the Church triumphant in Heaven, as she has remembered him in the Church militant on earth and may you be blessed with her
Prays your ever affec’te Friend
Signed W. S.&M.