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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.
Description
Cornerstone paper; altar; wearing vestaments in procession
Date
4-20-1863
Keywords
letter, McIlvaine, Bedell
Recommended Citation
McIlvaine, Charles Pettit, "Letter to Bishop Bedell" (1863). Charles Pettit McIlvaine Letters. 331.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/mcilvaine_letters/331
Rights Statement
Transcript
River between Marietta & Wheeling. Boat shaky & hence the writing.
Monday Ap. 20, 1863
Dear Bishop-
I suppose if you went to Chicago, you will be home when this reaches Gambier. I have been unable to get to Gallipolis & [Pomeroy]. I staid three days at [Ironton] waiting for a boat & then had to go back to [Portsmouth] & take the R.R. to [Marietta] or lose my appointment there. I spent Saturday & Sunday there. Fortunately a transient boat has come to-day which will enable me to get to Steubenville in time. I have consented to [?] in [?] [Brooke Co] [?], & would have done so in Wheeling had the [Rector] & [?] [requested]. As I have in manner of doubt that Bp. Wh[?] has cut himself off from them by forsaking the Church to which they belong, & [is in more there Bishop] than is the Bp. of Oxford. I have declined going to the corner [stoning] at [Warren]. The [Fast] day makes it impossible to do so before the Sunday, when I am to be in St. W[?] Cleavland May 3 & to do it the following week when the [Convocation] is called would too much delay me on my way to N.Y. for which I have but just time enough. I hope you will go. Abbott wrote to know if he should request the clergy to bring their [surplices]; for a procession [11] I wrote in such a way as would stop such folly were he to expect us. What may be done when he does not expect us I know not, but such [parades] we must not allow, where we [preside]. I should not wear my Episcopal robes, partly because I don’t think they should ever be seen in the streets, & partly because I avoid such such display whenever I can because to lay a corner stone is not an episcopal function or even exclusively clerical. A lay man can do it as rightfully as a minister. The Architect of the new Ch. drew an altar. Not supposing such to have been actually done, but thinking it well to preoccupy. I wrote Abbott saying if the Architect should do it put your veto in it, supposing that would be enough. He wrote [evidently] [?] (in a good spirit however) that his mind & [taste] are that way & that had I not been there beforehand, he would have had an altar & there would have been trouble. My only fear now is that something will be adopted so neutral that it can not well be made a point of, & yet an [?] & uncandid endeavour to evade my objection & get something as [near] an altar & as [unlike] a [table] as can be allowed. I want you to use influence as to that.
I saw at Marietta the last Western Episcopalian & have telegraphed to [Edmonson] to change the last direction in the Fast Day Service which being all taken from that of the [late] [Gen.] [Conv.], when there was no sermon, contains three words [calculated] to [mislead]. By omitting the words “[Then] shall follow,” it will be all right. I wish you would see that the change is made in the paper & in the pamphlet [form], if the copies have not been already sent out. The Editorial in that [number] in Butler’s Analogy as introduced by an extract from the L[?] Record alarms me. I cannot imagine who could have written it. I don’t like it because of its unjust depreciations of the Analogy, because of its evident leaning to German [states] of [mind] in theology & philosophy ([mental]) in [preference] to the English, in other words to deductive “subjectivity” ([barbarous] word) in [preference] to inductive “objectivity” which means to German speculation in [preference] to the Newtonian or Baconian induction. Kant [professed?] to Reid. I don’t like the praise given to Kant & Coleridge as religious philosoph[isers], over such so called “realism” as that of Butler & the English school of divinity in general. Much of the writers’ meaning I do not profess to see, but what I do see & what I suppose to be intended when I do not see, [savours] very disagreeably to my taste of precisely that [form] of German philosophy which makes the basis of their rationalism; which his at the root of the scepticism of the [Essays & Reviews], & prepares the way for the rejection of all these “objective” evidences of Christianity on which our Lord so prominently rested his claim to be believed.
But the [?] [?] of such articles, articles on such subjects in a paper intended for our parishes to be a [practiced] paper of edification for ordinary religious readers, is my question. I [wish] such discussions were wholly excluded. What can the reader of the W. Ep. 99 out of 100 make of such an article? I think there has been enough of [Colenso] in the paper. [?] [?] Dr. [?], Dr., as Editor, (I forget his name) will he come? I expect to get home next Friday. Yours Mc. C. P.
Did [Muenscher] write that Article? He has always had a tendency that way. Don’t mention what I say.