unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why hast Thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?... Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine. It is cut down. . . . Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, upon the son of man whom Thou madest strong for Thyself. . . . Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name." And the prayer was heard. So soon as it was remembered that the source of vitality was not the State, but the Christ, "I am the vine, ye are the branches," the life-current began to flow, and "the vine revived like the corn, grew like the barley; its scent was as of the wine of Lebanon, to say nothing of occasional feasts upon the clusters of Eshcol.'

To drop this long-drawn figure, and come down to plain prose, let me say, that, as our Church no longer leans upon the secular arm, but is self-supporting, clothed only with the armor of God, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, with her feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, — we may humbly hope that she, as a part of the sacramental host of God's elect, may win victories against the rulers of the darkness of this world, if not upon so grand a scale, yet like those which the primitive Church won on the fields of Europe, Asia, and Africa, when she first was free.

Fifteen hundred years of civil and religious despotism, and one hundred years of liberty, have prepared our weak eyes for the new transfiguration, when, as the sun, as he rises, draws up the vapors till they hide his face, and at noon scatters them, revealing the landscape

in its beauty, so the "fulness of the Godhead" in Jesus shall blaze through the veil of flesh, chase away the vapors with which the passions of men have clouded His face, and He shall be recognized as the central Sun of the universe, before whom all creatures in heaven and earth shall bow, and "every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA FROM 1785

TO THE DEATH OF BISHOP MEADE.

ADDRESS BY REV. T. G. DASHIELL.

THIS narrative must of necessity include events within the memory of some who are now living. It is a history which brings before us what some might call the romance, and which all should regard as the heroism, of religious annals.

No proper idea can be formed of such a history of our Church, unless we can have, to some extent, an adequate statement of its circumstances at the date when the narrative begins.

The war of the Revolution had been practically concluded about two years when the Convention of 1785 assembled.

It was a Convention without a head, representing a Diocese without organization, and laboring under a pressure of poverty, of disheartening distress, and of opposition, which compels one to present a mournful picture of our beloved Church as she was then, in her struggles.

No class of citizens had to feel the desolations of war as severely as those who composed our Episcopal congregations. As a matter of necessity, no church

emerged from that war as much demoralized as our own. No church was so stripped of the means of material support. Our church edifices were dismantled, most of the congregations dispersed, and many of the clergy were reduced to the hard alternative of starving in their abundant fields, or of themselves becoming deserters of our altars. This poverty, this material wretchedness, was bad enough; but worse than this was the poverty in religious principle, the scant appearances of piety, the feeble, flickering flame of devotion, the symptoms of approaching death of reverence and godliness. All history tells how the desolations of war are more sadly and more plainly left upon a people in this respect than in any other. Fields that have been wasted can soon be made to rejoice with a teeming harvest; homes and towns demolished may speedily be renewed: but the waste of character, the destruction of morality, how slowly is such a loss repaired! In addition to this formidable negative evil, the destruction of religious character was the more formidable positive evil of opposition to Christianity.

Let the garden alone, and not only will the flowers die out, but weeds will grow apace. Let religious culture alone, and not only will the Church become enfeebled, but sin will be vitalized. Not only will the garden of the Lord fail to bring forth the fruits of righteousness, but the fair fields will be overrun with the noxious growth of indifference, of profligacy, of infidelity.

We cannot fully describe the condition of things when, in May, 1785, the Convention met to re-organize this Diocese. But let a few facts be stated, facts which, perhaps, can be easily remembered. When Virginia

committed herself to the war of the Revolution in 1776, the Diocese had ninety-five parishes, one hundred and sixty-four churches and chapels, and ninety-one clergymen. At the time I speak of, she found many of her churches utterly destroyed, or so injured as to render the work of repair entirely impracticable. This destruction or irreparable damage might have been expected as a consequence of the seven-years' war, but in some cases there was no such excuse admissible. Besides this loss of church property, she found twentythree out of ninety-five parishes out of existence. They were extinct, their organization gone. Of the remaining seventy-two parishes, thirty-four were without ministerial supply. Of her ninety-one clergymen, only twenty-eight remained. As to these twenty-eight, there was such a feeling of bitterness toward some of them, that thirteen had to leave the parishes which they had served, and seek employment and support in some of the vacant fields. This left only fifteen in the cure of the parishes which they held during the war. Eight others came in, which increased the total number of the clergy to thirty-six. This was the exact number that, with seventy-one laymen, made up the Convention of 1785.

What a work they undertook! To build up a Diocese upon ground absolutely vacant, may necessitate hard toil; but how much more difficult where there must first be cleared away the débris occasioned by material destruction, by intellectual and moral confusion! To reconstruct, any one can see how far that may exceed the labor and discouragement of any effort at first construc