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
Mr. Baldwin married Miss Clarissa Johnson of Guilford, a grand-
niece of his predecessor in Stratford, the Rev. Dr. Samuel
Johnson. She died childless many years before him, and he never
married again. He was in the full possession of his mental
faculties and blessed with a fair degree of health when he
resigned, in 1824, the Rectorship of Christ Church. For a time he
lingered in the neighborhood of Stratford, but could not be idle,
and was soon in charge of the parish in Meriden, and afterwards
officiated in several places, as Tashua, Wallingford, North Haven,
Oxford, and Quakers' Farms. Ten years were thus passed, doing what
he could for the Church which he had served so faithfully and
loved so much; but in 1834 failure of eyesight and other
infirmities obliged him to cease from all public service and go
into retirement. It was natural for him to dwell for the rest of
his days among or near his old parishioners, and for many years,
as it suited his convenience, he resided at New Haven, Bridgeport,
and Stratford. He was at the latter place in 1837, when he
addressed a letter to Bishop Brownell, taking an affectionate
leave of the Diocesan Convention then sitting in New Haven, and
resigning the only office of trust in its gift which he had
continued to hold.
The letter was characteristic of the man, chaste and beautiful in
its style, and pathetic in its allusions. The concluding paragraph
read:
"My dear Sir, when I first entered the Church her condition was
not very flattering. Surrounded by enemies on every side, and
opposed with much virulence, her safety and even her very
existence were at times somewhat questionable; but by the united
and zealous exertions of the clergy, attended by the blessings of
her great Founder, she has been preserved in safety through every
storm, and now presents herself with astonishment to every
beholder, not as a grain of mustard seed, but as a beautiful tree,
spreading its salubrious branches over our whole country. The
Church, by a strict adherence to its ancient landmarks, its
priesthood, its liturgy, and its government, has been preserved
from those schisms which seem to threaten the peace of a very
respectable body of Christians in our country. May the same
unanimity and zeal which animated our fathers, still be preserved
in the Church. My days of pilgrimage, I know, are almost closed,
and I can do no more than to be in readiness, by the grace of God,
to leave the Church militant in peace. May I be permitted, Sir, to
ask the prayers of my bishop and his clergy, that my last days may
be happy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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