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
We have reached, at length, the consummation of this more than
knightly quest, this veritable pilgrimage, the story of which I
have tried to tell. When I began it last year, I asked you to go
with me, in thought, to a secluded inland village in our own
Diocese. Now I must ask you to go with me to a grey old city, the
capital of northern Scotland, which looks out upon the German
ocean. It is a place of old renown, for it had a name before one
civilized man had set foot on this northern continent. Did time
permit, much might be said about it; for it was once the home of
Hector Boethius, praised by the great Erasmus, and in far later
times the home, also, of Forbes of Corse and Henry Scougal; and
its clergy and people in 1639 refused the "solemn League and
Covenant" until it was forced upon them at the point of the sword,
and renounced it when the pressure was withdrawn. It is sometimes
called "the city of Bon-Accord," from the legend of its arms. And
that legend must always for us have a higher than any earthly
application, for it must always speak to us of "the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace." Nor ought another thing to be
forgotten to-day. The first place in which a clergyman in English
orders ever officiated in Connecticut--as a clergyman of the
Church of England--was here in New London, destined to be the home
of our first bishop; and that clergyman was the Rev. George Keith,
a native of Aberdeen. [Footnote: He was the guest of the Rev.
Gurdon Saltonstall, minister of the town, who afterwards presided
at the discussion in the Library of Yale College in 1722. The
service in New London was Sept. 13, 1702.]
Passing into the part of New Aberdeen known as the Long Acre, and
ascending to "a large upper room" in the house occupied by the
Coadjutor-Bishop of the Diocese, we find ourselves in the midst of
a large congregation of the clergy and the faithful and in the
presence of the three officiating prelates. Two [Footnote: Robert
Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen, and Arthur Petrie, Bishop of Moray. ]
are men far on in years; one [Footnote: John Skinner, Coadjutor of
Aberdeen.] is in the full maturity of his manhood, and to him is
committed the office of the preacher. As the sermon ends, we hear
the words of the concluding verses of the ninetieth Psalm, in the
version of Tate and Brady--the last two of which, as we read them
with the story of the succeeding century in mind, may also seem a
prophecy:
"To all Thy servants, Lord, let this Thy wondrous work be known;
And to our offspring yet unborn, Thy glorious power be shewn
"Let thy bright rays upon us shine, Give Thou our work success;
The glorious work we have in hand, Do Thou vouchsafe to bless,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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