Files
Download
Download Full Text (3.8 MB)
Description
Marriott updates Baury on the progress of the College, as well as the recent Irish Reformation.
Date
5-13-1828
City
London
Keywords
Bishop Chase, Legislature of Ohio, Kenyon College, Irish Reformation, Archbishop of Dublin, Irish Reformation, Lord Bexley
Recommended Citation
Marriott, G.W., "Letter to Reverend A. L. Baury" (1828). Philander Chase Letters. 564.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/564
Rights Statement
Transcript
Tuesday 13th May 1828
My dear Sir
Appearances are sadly against me as to the time of acknowledging your kind letter. But I feel conscious that I cannot intentionally neglect you. I sent it to my good Brother, thinking that it would interest him, as it did greatly, and intended answering it as soon as he should return it, and adding any commands from him. He has never returned it, though he thanked me for sending it, and the duty which thus lost it’s appropriate hour has been deferred longer than I ever designed, thro’ the pressure of my very large Correspondence. I will turn the delay to all the account I can by recent events which will interest you. The first that occurs to me is Mr Spencer’s arrival (at this season of the meeting of all Christian Societies) in London, and his enquiring affectionately after you. I had almost suggested your taking some opportunity of writing to him. If you do so, a letter put into an English Post under cover to his Father, “Earl Spencer, Althorpe, Northampton,” will be sure to find him, wherever he be at the moment, and free of postage. His address is “The Hon: and Reverend Geo: Spencer, Rectory, Brington, Northampton.” He is a consistent and earnest Christian Pastor, and “going on from strength to strength.” On Thursday I hope to introduce him to a Mr Allen a Clergyman from Philadelphia, with whom I have recently become acquainted. Mr Wilberforce has suggested to Mr Allen the idea of forming a Committee for collecting presents of books to Kenyon College, and his object in calling upon me was that business. But I soon found in his conversation abundant motive for wishing to improve his acquaintance while he may remain with us.
Bishop Chase has lately favored us with one copy of his address to the Legislature of Ohio, urging them to petition Congress for a grant of land to the College. It is in his best style of most telling and significant begging, and I wish many more copies were here. The purposes for which Mr West returned to this Country—[?]: those of gaining money for a Church at Gambier, and bringing back with him a Colony of Irish Settlers for the College lands, seem likely to be effected. The difficulty about the ministrations of Clergy with American Orders has not been felt on Ireland, where he has preached in the Archiepiscopal Cathedrals of Dublin and Cashel, and in other Cathedrals and Churches, and, I believe, very ably advocated his mission. The Archbishop of Dublin has expressed his joy for Ireland’s sake in the arrival of Mr West, and the result of his conferences with him, having been able to see his own way to certain measures which the critical state of the Irish Church suggested to his mind as now expedient—especially the licensing his Clergy, in some parts where the protestant population has of late greatly increased, to officiate in Methodist places of worship, and in other instances licensing buildings, originally built for secular purposes, to be used as Chapels. Mr W has long had a very considerable hand in redeeming the Methodists as a body from the line of avowed dissent, and has brought upon himself the hostility of those who sought a decided separation from the Church. I do not think it would have been easy to find, in the ranks of Ministers of any other denomination, a fitter subject for episcopal Ordination under your 17th Canon.
You will rejoice to hear that the Irish Reformation proceeds. I am authentically assured that the Priests are at their wits’ end. The state of things is the result, humanly speaking, of a long series of Christian labors, particularly in schools for the lower orders, and of a Class of persons called Bible-Readers, who have for many years been employed by the protestant societies to make known the word of God to the poor, benighted, and priest-ridden Papists in their own language. An enquiring, wakeful and protestantly disposed population has now succeeded to the besotted and prejudiced race which has for so long maintained the Popish Religion in that part of the United Kingdom. Protestant France too is somewhat more hopeful and interesting since the appointment of Bishop Luscombe, an event which seemed to me rather of doubtful presage in the first instance. It seems now, (according to my Correspondent Dr Jarvis of Boston, who has lately been at Paris, and is now, I believe, with his family at Florence) to work well, and the French Authorities pay much more deference to the Office than might have been expected. Mr Foster, the Chaplain of the English Embassy, is dead, and the Bishop is now officiating in that capacity, and report says will be appointed to fill the vacancy. I forgot to mention that Dr Jarvis, while in London, wrote to me on the subject of converting the Ohio Diocesan Seminary into a General Seminary for Western America, and I find the idea meets with approbation both from English and Americans, as far as I can collect. Mr Wiggin allows me to trouble him with letters to you, and you may request Spencer, if you write to him, to send his answer to me, who can forward it to Mr W. I cannot help transcribing part of a letter from Lord Bexley, on transmitting to me his subscription to Gambier Church, “I hope Kenyon College will flourish, and prove a bond of religious union between the Church of England, and her American offspring, however politically separated, though even in that point of view I hope that the cooperation in charitable and religious pursuits, which is now taking place, is drawing them nearer together.” Mr Allen says the constant language of Bishop Chase respecting England, mixing so generally as he does with his Countrymen, must of itself have this effect. How important the union of these two great Protestant Powers may be, if the predictions of some good men respecting a final struggle between the reformed and Romish Church be verified by the event, it is not very easy to calculate. Adieu! My dear Sir. I should rejoice to hear that it were probable you might again visit us. In the meantime I shall be most happy to hear occasionally of your welfare, and of that of your Church. With our united good wishes I am truly and affectionately yours, G.W. Marriott
The Lutterworth folk are at last, more than four centuries his death, erecting a statue to [Wicliffe]. It is to be placed in the Churchyard, and many persons unconnected with the place have sent contributions from a true feeling of protestant principle and zeal.