A History of American ChristianityBacon, Leonard Woolsey
Religion
A History of American Christianity
Bacon, Leonard Woolsey
United States -- Church history; United States -- Religion
address themselves to the task of reorganization to suit the changed
political conditions. These were the Episcopalians, the Catholics, and
the Methodists.
In one respect all the various orders of churches were alike. They had
all suffered from the waste and damage of war. Pastors and missionaries
had been driven from their cures, congregations had been scattered,
houses of worship had been desecrated or destroyed. The Episcopalian and
Methodist ministers were generally Tories, and their churches, and in
some instances their persons, were not spared by the patriots. The
Friends and the Moravians, principled against taking active part in
warfare, were exposed to aggressions from both sides. All other sects
were safely presumed to be in earnest sympathy with the cause of
independence, which many of their pastors actively served as chaplains
or as combatants, or in other ways; wherever the British troops held the
ground, their churches were the object of spite. Nor were these the
chief losses by the war. More grievous still were the death of the
strong men and the young men of the churches, the demoralization of camp
life, and, as the war advanced, the infection of the current fashions of
unbelief from the officers both of the French and of the British armies.
The prevalent diathesis of the American church in all its sects was one
of spiritual torpor, from which, however, it soon began to be aroused
as the grave exigencies of the situation disclosed themselves.
Perhaps no one of the Christian organizations of America came out of the
war in a more forlorn condition than the Episcopalians. This condition
was thus described by Bishop White, in an official charge to his clergy
at Philadelphia in 1832:
"The congregations of our communion throughout the United
States were approaching annihilation. Although within this
city three Episcopal clergymen were resident and officiating,
the churches over the rest of the State had become deprived of
their clergy during the war, either by death or by departure
for England. In the Eastern States, with two or three
exceptions, there was a cessation of the exercises of the
pulpit, owing to the necessary disuse of the prayers for the
former civil rulers. In Maryland and Virginia, where the
church had enjoyed civil establishments, on the ceasing of
these, the incumbents of the parishes, almost without
exception, ceased to officiate. Farther south the condition of
the church was not better, to say the least."[210:1]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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