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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
Still concerned about "Hill" leaving Youngstown for Newark. Comments on impropriety of word "call." Ought to be referred to as "invitation."
Date
2-1863
Keywords
letter, McIlvaine, Bedell
Recommended Citation
McIlvaine, Charles Pettit, "Letter to Bishop Bedell" (1863). Charles Pettit McIlvaine Letters. 354.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/mcilvaine_letters/354
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Transcript
Saturday Ev.
My dear Bishop,
Yours of the 4th just rec’d. I did not consider the increased cost of paper. Probably it would be best, instead of printing the Letter in pamphlets - to confine it to the W. Ep. and print copies of that enough to send to one to every Clergyman [who enters] or not. But if it shall be put on pamphlets, 90 copies will be enough - 5 for me. Why should Hill leave Youngstown for Newark? I agree as to Newton for [St. Pauls] Cleveland, if [?] does not call him, of which I hear nothing - Indeed I have heard nothing about any thing there since I wrote before. We have been [embargoed] out here with snow. I should propose getting [?] back to St. Paul’s even to having Newton go there. Finke is a great worker of [?] - regulant, unscrupulous. But he and Starkey are so uncongenial to one another that I have not much fear of any common scheme between them. Starkey, like others [complain] that [F], goes [into] his parish & [enters] [?] to his. Besides the one is a gentleman and the other is not. Finke is very much disturbed even by good and gentle McCarter. I don’t know any thing about [?] - but if you do that is enough. You ask me if this periodical d[?] of things has been my experience all the while [of] my [?]. The periodicity I can not speak of but often & often the same phase has appeared. The truth is as soon as we in the poor West get a man of promise, at once he is enticed away to some Eastern [?] - They [?] supposed that such men are much more needed there than here- that about any thing will do out here, comparatively - & work still [our] men of [promise] identify an [eastern] & [city] congregations with a larger field of [?]ness & consider [vestry]-calls [three] times made, of course as coming from above. I wish we could lay aside the world call - It sounds so big, so imperative, so like duty - when so often it is only such a selfish thing as Newark call to Hill - Invitation is better.
As to [Dyer’s] letter, as I did not see [in] [it] what we did not know before, I did not send it - but I now enclose it. I do not see why a President can not be found as well by correspondence as by going personally. A personal acquaintance made for the occasion is a [null] [basis] of [judgment].