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The Charles P. McIlvaine letters were written in the 18th and 19th century and therefore may contain language that we understand today as harmful or offensive. You may encounter paternalist descriptions of Native Americans, racial slurs, or sexism. For more information, see our policy page.
Date
4-4-1868
Keywords
letter, Washburn, McIlvaine
Recommended Citation
Washburn, A. H., "Letter to Charles Petit McIlvaine" (1868). Charles Pettit McIlvaine Letters. 218.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/mcilvaine_letters/218
Rights Statement
Transcript
87 Prospect Street,
Cleveland, 4 April, 1868.
My dear Bishop:
Mr. [Fayella] having made known to me the result of his application to you, I take the liberty of writing to you again without waiting for an answer to my former letter.
Will you pardon me if I represent his case to you in a light which may possibly have escaped your notice? [Fayella] goes to another diocese, [?] - to another church. There he will endeavor, as he has done here, by a consistent & faithful Christian life, to win confidence. If he makes application to the Bp. of Toronto, he will be asked whether he has applied to you. The question will arise, Why was he not admitted to the exercise of his ministry, by the Bp. of Ohio. He will truly answer that it was not for any fault, or on account of any charge brought against him. But it may still further be urged, the Bp. of Ohio does not rest his refusal on any grounds different from those which were in his possession eighteen months before, and (the natural thought will be) some new development [must] have appeared, or the Bishop would have refused at the first, for these same reasons, to have entertained your application at all. If he had refused you then, you might have come to us, as you did to him, with clean papers. Now you come with nothing from him for your long probation.
Thus it seems to me, Sir, that he will go under suspicion, which he surely does not deserve. A year & a half of the prime of his life is sacrificed; but this he can endure provided his good conduct can be acknowledged elsewhere.
I therefore write to request that you will give him some testimonial, which will be equivalent in effect to a transfer of him, as a probationer, from Ohio to Toronto. I say ‘in effect’ because I suppose there is no way in which the thing can formally be done.
If any Protestant clergyman should apply to the Roman Church, he would, undoubtedly, be received with open arms. But if any Romanist, priest or layman, should hereafter come to us, I should be afraid to recite to him the manner in which we have received this priest.
I beg you, my dear Sir, to send to [Fayella] something which shall help him to become a probationer elsewhere, without having a cloud of suspicion resting upon him from his probation here. And I do this with all the more earnestness - yet I am sure respectfully - because I cannot endure to think that we, in any sense, bar the doors of the Church against [Romanisty], and also because I believe I am pleading in the cause of justice.
I am, Sir,
Faithfully, your presbyter,
A. H. Washburn
The Rt. Rev. Dr. McIlvaine.
[A.B.] If you send anything for [Fayella], please enclose it to me, and I will forward it.
A.H.W.