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XIII

ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA *

1. THE PILGRIM FATHERS †

Published 1845

WELL worthy to be magnified are they

Who, with sad hearts, of friends and country took
A last farewell, their loved abodes forsook,
And hallowed ground in which their fathers lay;
Then to the new-found World explored their way,
That so a Church, unforced, uncalled to brook
Ritual restraints, within some sheltering nook
Her Lord might worship and his word obey

In freedom. Men they were who could not bend;
Blest Pilgrims, surely, as they took for guide
A will by sovereign Conscience sanctified;
Blest while their Spirits from the woods ascend
Along a Galaxy that knows no end,

But in His glory who for Sinners died.

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* In a letter to Professor Henry Reed, dated March 1, 1842, Wordsworth wrote:-"I have sent you three sonnets upon certain 'Aspects of Christianity in America,' having, as you will see, a reference to the subject upon which you wished me to write. I wish they had been more worthy of the subject: I hope, however, you will not disapprove of the connection which I have thought myself warranted in tracing between the Puritan fugitives and Episcopacy."-ED.

American episcopacy, in union with the church in England, strictly belongs to the general subject; and I here make my acknowledgments to my American friends, Bishop Doane, and Mr. Henry Reed of Philadelphia, for having suggested to me the propriety of adverting to it, and pointed out the virtues and intellectual qualities of Bishop White, which so eminently fitted him for the great work he undertook. Bishop White was consecrated at Lambeth, Feb. 4, 1787, by Archbishop Moore; and before his long life was closed, twenty-six bishops had been consecrated in America, by himself. For his character and opinions, see his own numerous Works, and a "Sermon in commemoration of him, by George Washington Doane, Bishop of New Jersey."-W. W. 1845.

ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA

85

XIV

II. CONTINUED

Published 1845

FROM Rite and Ordinance abused they fled
To Wilds where both were utterly unknown;
But not to them had Providence foreshown
What benefits are missed, what evils bred,
In worship neither raised nor limited
Save by Self-will.

Lo! from that distant shore,
For Rite and Ordinance, Piety is led
Back to the Land those Pilgrims left of yore,
Led by her own free choice.* So Truth and Love
By Conscience governed do their steps retrace.—
Fathers! your Virtues, such the power of grace,
Their spirit, in your Children, thus approve.
Transcendent over time, unbound by place,
Concord and Charity in circles move.

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XV

III. CONCLUDED.-AMERICAN EPISCOPACY

Published 1845

PATRIOTS informed with Apostolic light

Were they, who, when their Country had been freed, Bowing with reverence to the ancient creed,

Fixed on the frame of England's Church their sight,†

* The Book of Common Prayer of the American Episcopal Church was avowedly derived from that of England, and substantially agrees with it.-ED.

"I hope you will not disapprove of the connection which I have. thought myself warranted in tracing between the Puritan fugitives and Episcopacy." (Wordsworth to Henry Reed, March 1, 1842.)—ED.

And strove in filial love to reunite

What force had severed. Thence they fetched the seed Of Christian unity, and won a meed

Of praise from Heaven. To Thee, O saintly WHITE,*
Patriarch of a wide-spreading family,

Remotest lands and unborn times shall turn,
Whether they would restore or build-to Thee,
As one who rightly taught how zeal should burn,
As one who drew from out Faith's holiest urn
The purest stream of patient Energy.

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XVI

“BISHOPS AND PRIESTS, BLESSÈD ARE YE,

IF DEEP"

Published 1845

BISHOPS and Priests, blessèd are ye, if deep

(As yours above all offices is high)

Deep in your hearts the sense of duty lie;
Charged as ye are by Christ to feed and keep
From wolves your portion of his chosen sheep:
Labouring as ever in your Master's sight,
Making your hardest task your best delight,
What perfect glory ye in Heaven shall reap!-
But, in the solemn Office which ye sought
And undertook premonished, if unsound
Your practice prove, faithless though but in thought,
Bishops and Priests, think what a gulf profound
Awaits you then, if they were rightly taught

Who framed the Ordinance by your lives disowned!

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* Dr. Seabury was consecrated Bishop of Connecticut by Scottish Bishops at Aberdeen, in November 1784. Dr. White was consecrated Bishop of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Provoost, Bishop of New York, at Lambeth, in February 1787. It was Wordsworth's intention, in 1841, to add a sonnet to his "Ecclesiastical Series ""On the union of the two Episcopal Churches of England and America."-ED.

PASTORAL CHARACTER

87

XVII

PLACES OF WORSHIP

As star that shines dependent upon star
Is to the sky while we look up in love;

As to the deep fair ships which though they move
Seem fixed, to eyes that watch them from afar ;
As to the sandy desert fountains are,
With palm-groves shaded at wide intervals,
Whose fruit around the sun-burnt Native falls
Of roving tired or desultory war-

Such to this British Isle her christian Fanes,
Each linked to each for kindred services;

Her Spires, her Steeple-towers with glittering vanes
Far-kenned, her Chapels lurking among trees,
Where a few villagers on bended knees
Find solace which a busy world disdains.

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*

XVIII

PASTORAL CHARACTER

A GENIAL hearth, a hospitable board,
And a refined rusticity, belong t

* Compare The Excursion, book vi. ll. 17-29 (vol. v. p. 236).—ED.

Among the benefits arising, as Mr. Coleridge has well observed, from a Church establishment of endowments corresponding with the wealth of the country to which it belongs, may be reckoned as eminently important, the examples of civility and refinement which the Clergy stationed at intervals, afford to the whole people. The established clergy in many parts of England have long been, as they continue to be, the principal bulwark against barbarism, and the link which unites the sequestered peasantry with the intellectual advancement of the age. Nor is it below the dignity of the subject to observe, that their taste, as acting upon rural residences and scenery, often furnishes models which country gentlemen, who are more at liberty to follow the caprices of fashion, might profit by. The precincts of an old residence must be treated by ecclesiastics with respect, both from prudence and necessity. I remember being much pleased, some years ago, at Rose Castle, the rural seat of the See of Carlisle, with a style of garden and architecture which, if the place had belonged to a wealthy layman,

To the neat mansion, where, his flock among,
The learned Pastor dwells, their watchful Lord.*
Though meek and patient as a sheathed sword;
Though pride's least lurking thought appear a wrong
To human kind; though peace be on his tongue,
Gentleness in his heart-can earth afford
Such genuine state, pre-eminence so free,
As when, arrayed in Christ's authority,
He from the pulpit lifts his awful hand;
Conjures, implores, and labours all he can
For re-subjecting to divine command
The stubborn spirit of rebellious man?

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XIX

THE LITURGY

YES, if the intensities of hope and fear
Attract us still, and passionate exercise
Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies
Distinct with signs, through which in set career,1

1 1837.

fixed career,

1822.

would no doubt have been swept away. A parsonage-house generally stands not far from the church; this proximity imposes favourable restraints, and sometimes suggests an affecting union of the accommodations and elegancies of life with the outward signs of piety and mortality. With pleasure I recall to mind a happy instance of this in the residence of an old and much-valued Friend in Oxfordshire. The house and church stand parallel to each other, at a small distance; a circular lawn or rather grass-plot, spreads between them; shrubs and trees curve from each side of the dwelling, veiling, but not hiding, the church. From the front of this dwelling, no part of the burial-ground is seen; but as you wind by the side of the shrubs towards the steeple-end of the church, the eye catches a single, small, low, monumental headstone, moss-grown, sinking into, and gently inclining towards the earth. Advance, and the churchyard, populous and gay with glittering tombstones, opens upon the view. This humble, and beautiful parsonage called forth a tribute which will not be out of its place here.-W. W. 1822.

He then quotes the seventh of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets," Part III. (see vol. vi. p. 217).-ED.

* Compare the sonnet, On the sight of a Manse in the South of Scotland, belonging to the Tour in the year 1831.-ED.

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