Report of Commemorative Services with the Sermons and Addresses at the Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885.

Excerpt

In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1881, Bishop Williams suggested the appointment of a committee to provide for the appropriate commemoration of the centenary of the election of the first Bishop of Connecticut in the last week of March, 1783. On motion of the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, this suggestion was referred to a committee of three clergymen and two laymen, with the Bishop as chairman. The Bishop appointed on the committee the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, the Rev. Samuel F. Jarvis, the Rev. Samuel Hart, the Hon. F. J. Kingsbury, and the Hon, H. B. Harrison.

At the Convention of 1882, on recommendation of this committee, the following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, That the Bishop be requested to set forth a special thanksgiving to be used throughout the Diocese on the one- hundredth anniversary of the election of Bishop Seabury, March 25th, 1883, being Easter-Day and also the Festival of the Annunciation. Resolved, That a memorial service, with addresses, be held in St. Paul's Church, Woodbury, on Tuesday in Easter-week, March 27th, 1883, for which the Bishop be desired to make the necessary arrangements.

Resolved, That the Bishop be further requested to provide for a commemorative service with an historical discourse at the opening of the Annual Convention of 1883.

It was also, on motion of the Rev. S. F. Jarvis,

Resolved, That a committee consisting of the Bishop, three priests, and two laymen be appointed,…..to present to the Diocesan Conventions of 1883 and 1884, if they shall deem it expedient, a detailed plan or plans for the further special observances as a Diocese of the centenary commemoration of Dr. Seabury's Consecration, of the first Convocation summoned by him, of the first Ordination on this continent, and of any ecclesiastical events which are specially and historically connected with this Diocese and which it may be deemed desirable to celebrate.

The committee appointed under this resolution was the same as that appointed in 1882. In accordance with resolutions recommended by this committee in 1883 and 1884, the Convention requested the Bishop to make arrangements for commemorative services on the fourteenth day of November, 1884, the hundredth anniversary of the Consecration of Bishop Seabury, and on the third day of August, 1885, the hundredth anniversary of the first ordination held by him.

The Bishop having delivered an historical discourse at the opening of the Convention of 1883, commemorative of the election of Bishop Seabury, on motion of the Rev. Dr. Giesy, the thanks of the Convention were tendered to him, and he was "respectfully and earnestly requested" to preach a sermon at the next Convention in commemoration of Bishop Seabury's Consecration. A like vote was passed in 1884, desiring the Bishop "to supplement the sermons delivered at this and the preceding Conventions with a third at the Convention of 1885, necessary to the historical completion by the same hand of the centenary commemoration of the Consecration of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., as the first Bishop of Connecticut."

This volume contains a report of the Centenary Commemorative Services held in accordance with the resolutions, and also the historical sermons preached by the Bishop at the request of the Convention. In the Appendix will be found Bishop Williams's sermon preached at the commemoration in Aberdeen in October, 1884, with an account of the part which the delegation from Connecticut took in that commemoration, including the Rev. Dr. Beardsley's paper on "Seabury as a Bishop."

"NOVI ORBIS APOSTOLI SIT NOMEN PERENNE."

CENTENARY COMMEMORATION

OF THE ELECTION OF BISHOP SEABURY....