Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.Episcopal Church. Diocese of Connecticut
Religion
Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.
Episcopal Church. Diocese of Connecticut
Seabury, Samuel, 1729-1796
Bishop Seabury received from the British Government 50 pounds per
annum half-pay as a chaplain in the King's American regiment during
the War of the Revolution; and a few of his fast friends in England--
among them Dr. Horne, then Dean of Canterbury, Rev. Jonathan
Boucher, and William Stevens, Esq.--associated themselves together
and engaged to send him annually 50 pounds from the date of his arrival
in Connecticut. This engagement was faithfully kept to the day of
his death, and was an equivalent for the stipend which had been
withdrawn by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
His preparations for returning to America were now completed, and
early in March, 1785, he embarked in a ship commanded by Captain
Dawson, which sailed from London for Halifax. His main object in
going by the way of Nova Scotia was to see the situation of that
part of his family then resident in that neighborhood. He is
recorded as officiating at Annapolis Royal, April, 1785, and was,
therefore, the first bishop of our Church who preached in the
Dominion of Canada. Mention is also made of his preaching several
Sundays in St. John, New Brunswick, where a daughter with her
husband was living at the time.
He landed at Newport, Rhode Island, after a voyage of three
months, including his stay in Canada, Monday, June 2Oth; and the
next Sunday he preached in Trinity Church in that place, the first
sermon of an American bishop in the United States, from the text
(Hebrews xii. I, 2): "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the
Author and Finisher of our faith."
More than half a century prior to this, a great dignitary of the
Church of England, Dean Berkeley, after a voyage of nearly five
months from Gravesend, arrived at the same port, and preached many
times in the same church, which is still standing. The missions of
these men had many points of resemblance; but while one, after a
trial of more than two years and a half, failed to accomplish his
heroic object, and returned to the land of his birth to be honored
with a mitre in the see of Cloyne, the other was blessed in his
work, and lived to behold the Church in America united in the
adoption of a revised liturgy, and settled upon the old
"foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself
being the chief corner-stone."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account