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Description
Ward assures Chase that he is continuing to spread positive word about him in England. He also praises the work of Bishop Ravenscroft and laments the prevalence of enemies of the Church in the House of Commons.
Date
11-5-1834
Keywords
Bishop Ravenscroft, Episcopal Church, Catholicism, Parliament, Bishop Wilson, Oxford University, Mary Caroline Ward, Lord Ripon
Recommended Citation
Ward, Bp. W., "Letter to Philander Chase" (1834). Philander Chase Letters. 965.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/965
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Transcript
Bishop’s Court
Nov. 5, 1834
My very dear Brother and never to be forgotten Friend
I fear you have been expecting and longing to hear from me before this in reply to your last interesting packet. I did not however delay to follow your directions, and make your case generally known to your Friends. I will enclose notes from two of them who always have your person and your cause warmly at heart. All that I can promise is that I shall not drop your cause nor fail to mention it, wherever I find I can be serviceable to you. In the mean time you will be so good as to let me hear from you from time to time, as always when I hear from you I make use of your letter to renew the subject: Your persevering struggles to serve your Great Master and win Souls to Him in your adversity as well as your prosperity, must interest every follower of the Saviour in your favour. But whatever may be your adversity or tribulation here, if you make [sure] of a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, you will join the society of the noble Army of Martyrs of whom the world was not worthy.
I have been reading and re-reading and reading again, the two Volumes of Bp. Ravenscroft. Pray tell me how they are received and esteemed in your Episcopal Church and your other Republican Community. He has revived a subject which I have often lamented has been too much lost sight of and almost totally neglected in our Schools and Pulpits and firesides. I mean the distinctive character of our Church - its Apostolical descent, Commission and authority, its unity, antiquity, universality, its Sacraments and order. The consequence of this has been that our people have grown up without seeing the difference between the meeting and our Church. And many think they have both the same origin and divine authority.
Our Zion at present is surrounded by a host of enemies, full of bitter hostility, and I know not which of the two are the more bitter and formidable, [Papists] or Dissenters. Our house of Commons is full of them both, and we have only the great Head of the Church for preservation and protection. They are both gaining ground, and drawing off the members of our Church, and all this because our people are not sufficiently instructed in Bishop Ravenscroft’s Church doctrine. But I am endeavouring to follow your example, in building up the Church; and with God’s blessing, will continue to do so during the short remnant of my day. I hope to have 10 or 12 new Churches built before the end of the next year. The 8th, Bp. Wilson’s, is just finished. My only Son has lately taken his degree at Oxford, and will shortly enter into his Father’s profession of which, I pray God, he may be more worthy than his Father. _ You will be glad to hear that the rest are all spared. Mary Gilead is still at Lord Ripon’s, a wonderful attachment having taken place between My Lady and her. The two young Irishmen that you were so good as to say you would patronize, have demurred about leaving their native soil, at [least] for a season. There is an Irishman at Cambridge, whose name I forget, who has been with you in Ohio, and concerned, I believe, in the College; and gives a true history of your case, much to your honour, and to the disgrace of two or three miservant traitors that you have left in it behind you. The love & blessing of all my house attend you and your house, and
I remain your ever affecte. & faithful Brother
W. Sodor & Mann