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Description
Public letter: Bishop Hobart's desires create a Branch School in Ohio and assurance that it will not be met with opposition from the American Church at large.
Date
2-10-1824
City
London, England
Keywords
England voyage, Bp. Hobart, Ohio, college, General Theological Seminary
Recommended Citation
Marriott, George, "Letter to Philander Chase" (1824). Philander Chase Letters. 249.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/249
Rights Statement
Transcript
Queen’s Square 10th Feb. 1824
Right Rev. and dear Sir,
I have very great satisfaction in addressing you upon the subject of this letter. It is one upon which I have very strong feelings, and, although our communications have been hitherto very limited; I seem to myself able with some confidence to anticipate your sentiments. Mine having been recently expressed in a letter to a Friend, met the eye of Bishop Hobart, who, it appears, had previously called at your lodgings in the hope of proposing something of a similar kind, and with precisely the same object in view, for your consideration. Not finding you, nor hearing any decisive intelligence as to the time of your return to Town, the Bishop sought an interview with me, on which occasion I was authorized by him to make the present communication to you. If the share I have thus most willingly taken in a measure peculiarly interesting to my mind, (from the importance consequences to Religion with which I cannot but view it as intimately connected) shall have aided, in the least degree, its’ success, my reward will be great indeed.
The Bishop’s main object is, I am sure, equally dear to your feelings - [?] the preservation of Unity, and prevention of Schism and Discursion, at present and in future, in the American Church. He proposes that the Ohio Institution shall be a Branch one - he would then cooperate with you in your objects, provided one third of the collection were appropriated to the education of young men for the Ministry in the General Theological Seminary, with a view to their officiating in the destitute Settlements - the residue, two thirds, to be exclusively for the Benefit of the Branch School in Ohio. If the General Convention, and the Trustees of the General Seminary should not sanction and adopt the Branch School in Ohio, then the two thirds to be at its disposal as a Diocesan School. The Bishop says he will on these terms do all in his power to obtain those sanctions, and that the measure will thus probably not meet with opposition in the American Church at large, which it might otherwise have to encounter, but on the contrary will present itself with claims to countenance; and that his Brother of Ohio will have the satisfaction of accomplishing his object without any of the unpleasant feelings and consequences which may otherwise result from it.
I rely on my own judgment the less on account of my scanty means of information hitherto, but I felt, and expressed to the Bishop, a persuasion that these proposals would be in the main acceptable to you (from whom I had heard the most unqualified approbation of the General Seminary) as I now feel as undoubting assurance that the spirit of peace, in which they are tendered, will be in a very high degree. What you told me, however, on the subject of the peculiar circumstances of your Diocese, the distance of the General Seminary, and the differences in the method of Education which may be locally expedient, led me to suggest a hope that, in case of any objection presenting itself to the precise measure proposed by Bishop Hobart, any plan to be proposed by you which afforded absolute and indisputable security for the religious doctrines and discipline, which should be circulated and enforced in the proposed seminary for Ohio, might effect the desired object of union and cooperation. To this the Bishop assented as a general principle, but we did not go into any detail, further than my suggesting, as one ingredient in such a compact, that the Statues of the Institution might, in these respects, be those of the General Seminary, or be drawn up by the Trustees. I am persuaded that in this respect you will find the Bishop acting in the spirit of the good old Adage - in [necessarius] Unitas in [non-necessarius] Unitas.
I will only add my earnest wish that you may be able to return here very soon. I trust there is nothing upon which this most desirable negotiation is likely to be broken off, but if there be any point which requires discussion, and something of mutual concession, your presence must greatly facilitate a speedy settlement, and that is a point in which the welfare and credit of the American Church appears to me deeply interested. I shall think it right to send Bishop Hobart a copy of this letter.
I am, Right Rev. and dear Sir, with much respect, yours very faithfully
G. W. Marriott