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Description
Bp. Ward assures Chase of his continuing support and admiration for his Ohio cause. He hopes that he can create a legacy similar to Chase's as he lays the foundation for a new college on the Isle of Man. Ward also provides Chase with a few general updates.
Date
1827
Keywords
Bishop Wilson, Wilson School, Ohio, Cambridge, Charlotte, Ohio College, Isle of Man, Bishop Barrow, King of Scotland, Queen's Square, Marriott, Mr. Bates, Mary Ohio, Mr. West, Gt. Horkesley, Rector, Bishop of Sodor and Man, Colchester
Recommended Citation
Ward, Bishop W., "Letter to Philander Chase" (1827). Philander Chase Letters. 757.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/757
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Transcript
My very dear ever remembered Brother Bishop & dearly beloved in the Lord.
I fear you have thought that changes & chances & length of time have worn you out of our minds but let me assure you that you live in our hearts & that your person & works are as conspicuous & present to our mind as your picture which is still here with us, is to our bodily eyes. Let this stand as an apology for at least as a palliation of long silence. I am sure you can readily make allowance for tardy correspondence. You entered in a Bishoprick in its infancy. & had much to do to rear it, & nourish it in its slow & gradual growth. I have entered on one that has been rapidly languishing & well nigh dead since it had arrived at its full maturity in the days of the Apostolic Bishop Wilson. I have had the [lot] to of meeting on the threshold of my Diocese another Hubbub, just as you had under much more forlorn circumstances on the shores of old England, & if like you I labour & hold up my head & my heart & trust in the Lord I may hope to share your fate & awe my Episcopal spiritual prosperity to my temporal troubles in the hand of my great Lord & Maker. During the last, more than the last half century this once flourishing Church has been falling into decay not only in its houses of prayer, but in spirit & in truth population in that time has nearly [tribbled]. While the poor old Churches became like Barnes & no new ones raised. The consequence of which is that sects & schisms, have crept in, & more than that there are thousands of the poor who have never been able to get a foot within the walls of a house of workshop of any kind, but have been left without ever hearing the sound of the Blessed Gospel & live without God in the World. This as you may suppose brought the circumstances of Bishop Chase & example before my eyes, & & [sic] without delay I turned my thoughts & make known my case to the friends of Ohio, and it is very remarkable at that very time the death of my darling Son at Cambridge the image of Charlotte who loved you & [hung] on your [own] & presented you with a pocket book in the streets of Colchester brought me to England. After I had laid him along side of his once blooming sister in the same vault where I had deposited her just nine months before my kind & noble friends came down to attend the funeral with me at Horkesley, took me to London, & to divert mind from sorrow by the most appropriate & effectual diversion, they [?] my Appeal in behalf of the poor [?] Church. & in one month’s time they subscribed €1000, & now at the end of six months my subscriptions is between 3 & 4000€, & is still in progress. If I can I will send you my list & the lithograph of my churches.
In addition to this I have just laid the foundation of another Ohio College in the Isle of Man. We have a foundation fund of €600 a year bequeathed by one of my excellent Predecessors. Bishop Barrow in 1666. This together with what we can raise in the Isle & the [?] opulent shores may under this preset beautiful & salubrious sea girt Isle what it was celebrated for in ancient times, the nursery of religion & learning. The Kings of Scotland used to send their sons to the Isle of Man to be educated, & a finer seat of learning there is not in the King’s dominions, in point of climate pure air pure water, mountain breezes, sea bathing, cheap living central position & seclusion from vice & temptations of youth, there is no place equal to it in all these essential points. These are the pursuits which occupy my time & absorb my thoughts & present my writing as often as I would wish to my dear absent friends. Hubbub tho’ is a sad interruption to my time & thoughts, but the Bishop’s Champion of Queen’s Square London has espoused my cause, & taken the settlement of it into his own hands, a wonderful relief to my mind. When the law & the Gospel meet in the same man as they do in a very eminent degree in our kind friend Marriott, he is a wonderful blessing in a wicked world where the wicked never cease to trouble. I am indebted to you for his acquaintance & friendship. & we are both indebted to Divine Providence for such a friend raised up for us in our time of need.
I am writing this by scratches. I have been interrupted over & over again, but I am determined to get thro’ it before I drop my pen. And what shall I say of your prosperity, Kind providence raised up by Mr. Bates the greatest benefactor you have yet met with among all the benevolent friends that have been raised up for you & your most interesting cause. Be assured as long as I live I shall rejoice & be happy to have a helping hand in the prosperity of Kenyon College. The Church of Christ is as dear to me in Ohio, as in [home], the only difference is that [home] is the plot of the Vineyard which the Lord of the Vineyard has allotted to my cultivation. Most sincerely do I felicitate you on the marvellous success with which it has pleased God to crown your undertaking. You have a considerable number of the [names] scattered over your Diocese. I wish you would enquire after them in your visitations, & shew them spiritual kindness, they emigrated to Ohio about five or six years ago. The [?] are a steady race, all Churchmen of the Wilson School. They are proverbial for well-doing, when they have their little Isle to push their fortune in the world. Are your College trusties [sic] sufficiently [streked] with cultivators, if you are not fully supplied. I think I could send you a few with a few hundreds in their pockets & good [?] men, should you wish for such, write such a letter as I could shew them holding forth their prospects, & what honest industrious man with a little money to set out with might reasonably expect I might be able to send you out some very eligible subjects [?] for your Mary Ohio. I have never thanked you on paper tho’ I have in my heart for the plot of ground the 100 acres with which you wish to commemorate her love for the Bishop of Ohio, recording her name in the designation of the spot, calling it “Maryview,” or Mary something, so Mr. West informs us. I am not rich, but the very reverse. I was rolling in riches as a Rector of Gt. Horkesley compared with my circumstances as Bishop of Sodor & Man, but poor as I am I will send you €100 as soon as you invest Mary with her title to her estate. When you have done that & tell me that you wish to have an eligible occupier on it of any [?] or calling that you may prefer. Shall not fail to ship him off to you. Only let me have such a letter as I can show to induce good subjects that are inclined to emigrate to settle in Ohio. There is a great spirit of emigration in these dominions, the Population is overflowing, & standing in each other’s way, & the agricultural society are at a low ebb. We are loaded with [trees] a vast proportion of which fall on the land & the produce far below a remunerating price in the market. The farmers are therefore stoping [sic] short before they lose all collecting together their little capitals & emigrating to various parts with a good breed, if you have friends here to choose & recommend. You may be sure I would be very particular & nice in the choice of a tenant in the immediate vicinity of the College.
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