A Sermon Preached in Christ Church, Hartford, January 29th, 1865 In Commemoration of the Rt. Rev. Thomas Church Brownell, D. D., LL. D., Third Bishop of Connecticut, and Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States by his Assistant and Successor

PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.

BY HIS ASSISTANT AND SUCCESSOR.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE VESTRY OF CHRIST CHURCH.

HARTFORD: BROWN & GROSS. 1865.

SERMON.

PROVERBS, xi: 11.

BY THE BLESSING OF THE UPRIGHT THE CITY IS EXALTED.

It is a law of the Divine government of the world, that the temporal blessings granted to the righteous, and the temporal punishments sent upon the wicked, are shared in by others than the individuals specially concerned. We realize this perhaps, more distinctly, and it comes home to us more solemnly, in the latter case than in the former. For so it is, that the punishments of the Almighty always impress us more than his mercies. The occasional thunder-bolt awes us as the daily sunlight does not; the sweeping storm we wonder at as we do not at the gentle rain and dew; death is more solemn to us than the continued life. We feel God's hand in the first-named of all these things, we are apt to forget it in the last.

And yet the progress of the world gives us as many proofs that the blessings given to the righteous are shared in by others than themselves, as that the punishments sent to the wicked extend beyond those on whom, especially, they come. And God's word is as full of instances illustrating the one truth, as it is of those illustrating the other.

For if we find in Jerusalem, Samaria, Babylon and Egypt, the innocent suffering with, and because of the guilty, so too we find not Lot alone, but his family with him, rescued from the city of the plain; not Joseph only, but his brethren also, and even his Egyptian lord, blessed and prospered; not Elijah only, but the family of the widow of Sarepta, miraculously supported through the famine: not St. Paul alone, but "all in the ship, two hundred, three score and sixteen souls," preserved from wreck and destruction.[A]

[Footnote A: Bishop Heber.]

These instances, and there are many like them, illustrate and prove the law of God that the temporal blessings which are sent upon the righteous flow over, as one may say, upon others besides themselves. And, Beloved, do not the very instincts of our nature respond to, and recognise this law? Do we not rejoice in the presence among us of a godly man, even if our eyes rarely behold him; and is there not sorrow of heart and a more than ordinary feeling of vacancy when such an one is taken from us? And in either case, whether we joy or sorrow, is there not more in our hearts than a mere recognition of the value of example, counsel, guidance, which is given in the one case, and in the other is taken from us? Do we not on the one hand feel, that we have among us a herald and a pledge of the blessings from the Lord, blessings which shall light our pathway, as they have on his? or, on the other hand, is there not the feeling that such a herald, and such a pledge is gone, that an avenue of benediction has been closed, and that the world is darker than it was? And is the feeling of such loss ever deeper, or stronger than when a holy and a sanctified old age, around which gathered the gentlest ministries of earth, and the most precious ones of heaven, and which glowed in the high place where God had set it with the calm, mild glory of the evening star, has been taken away from us, transformed, though our eyes can not behold it, into the freshness of eternal youth?

My Brethren, it is with this feeling of vacancy, and loss, and bereavement pressing on my heart that I come to you to-day, to speak of our dear and honored Bishop and Father whom God has taken from us. I utter no idle word of ordinary custom when I say, that it entails a task from which, for reasons which you know without their statement, I shrink. Not least among these reasons is the feeling that it almost seems presumptuous to add one word to those so fitly spoken, so leaving nothing to be said or even wished, when the mourning multitude that gathered round our departed Father's bier, made an Abel-mizraim indeed, of this House of God. Still, duty has seemed to demand this service at my hands, and I have tried to nerve myself for its discharge. And here, surely, is where any such words should be spoken; here, where he once held pastoral charge;[B] here, where he came with the faithful to worship God; here, where all that remained on earth was brought, when life was ended. May God be with us all, that our communing here, may be for good!

[Footnote B: Bishop Brownell was Rector of Christ Church, Hartford, from Dec. 1819 to Dec. 1820.]

I will not weary and chill you, Brethren, with those ordinary biographical details with the chief of which you are already familiar, and which in another way and place will all be gathered and preserved. The thought that is uppermost in all our minds to-day, is that of the godly man whose serene old age has passed into the heavenly life; of the honored Prelate, oldest in consecration in all our now widely spread communion, who has laid down his earthly mitre, that he may receive "a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand."

His early life was full with the promise of the later; the youth was the fair pledge of the coming manhood. Two things, as it seems to me, stand out from these early years with a prominence that challenges attention. There was, first, the same gentle, thoughtful kindness, smoothing difficulties and restoring harmony and peace, that developed into so marked an element of the later character. He was known among his fellows, even then, as a peacemaker; and the very appellation which boyish affection, with the keen instinct that it often shows, bestowed upon him, marks the way in which this characteristic forced itself on the attention.

But there was, besides, that capacity for rapid and ready acquirement and adaptation, which we trace so clearly in after years. At the age of fifteen, when as yet he had received no other education than that afforded by a common country school, he took charge of a school himself, and as he says,--with characteristic modesty--"succeeded in securing the respect of his former schoolmates." Who can doubt that the same marked qualities, the same wonderful balance, that made his Episcopate all it was, worked the same result in this so difficult and so contracted field of duty? Who does not believe that he might have spoken of affection as well as of respect? Who does not see the foreshadowing of the man in this little picture of the boy's every day life? It was not till he had nearly reached his majority that he decided to enter on a collegiate life. And then his preparation was all made in less than two years' time. Nor could it have been a hasty, patched-up preparation; for he held his place as a leader still, and when his college life was ended, stood first among his fellows. Such were the marks of his early years; how full of promise for, how exactly answered by, his future ones.

The years of preparation ended, the choice of the life work came next, and this was to be the work of the Ministry; for to that his heart and purpose had long been turning. Had his earliest plans been carried out, he would, probably, have lived and labored in another Communion than our own, and his honored name and fragrant memory could never have been ours.

But now began a train of circumstances, so manifestly ordered by the Providence of God, that we can scarcely refuse to see in them, nay rather, that we may rejoice to see in them, the divinely arranged training for the great work for which God had appointed him.

While yet in his course of preparatory study, he found himself brought face to face with that question which has met so many men, and almost always, when pursued, with one result, the question as to the organization and framework of the Church of Christ. He paused upon it with his wonted carefulness. The result of his enquiry I give in his own words. "It unfolded to me a new aspect of Christianity. The discovery afforded me unspeakable relief; but it was necessarily attended with many regrets. I had no relative, and no intimate friend connected with the Episcopal Church, and I seemed to be left alone in the world, in regard to my religious sympathies." It was a cross, but he did not shrink from it. He determined to take time for a final decision.

Just then--it was in 1805--he was called to undertake the duties of collegiate instruction, and the call came in such a form that he would not refuse it. He could not have dreamed of all its bearings then, but we can see that this was another step by which he was led on towards a goal, how invisible then to him, how bright and glorious now to us!

In his academic life, we trace the same great notes of character that I paused on in his youth. How many are there who remember yet, the gentle ways in which he won the turbulent and the perverse, to better things; the even gentler ways, in which he led on those whose steps were ordered rightly; the many whom he lifted up when they were down, and cheered when they desponded. And here too, in a broader field and with a wider range, his powers of acquirement and adaptation gained fresh triumphs. In three different departments of instruction, not different merely, but diverse also, he labored, and he labored well. He filled a large place beyond the College walls. In many lines of activity and labor, where we, who knew him only as an ecclesiastic, can hardly fancy him, he gained respect and confidence. And all this made him a many sided man; gave him a varied culture; adorned and fitted him with diversified acquirements; was, in short, a noble earthly preparation for what was to be his real life work.

And now, as we stand by him amidst these accumulated labors and these gathering honors, we are fain to ask, have we not found that life work? So we should think. So, perhaps, he thought. Yet it was not so.

His convictions, as has already been said, pointed him to our own Church, as the home of his rest; but he had never yet come in contact with it, nor had it been presented to him as a living reality. At last, in God's providence, after years had gone by, an event occurred which brought him into relations with those to whom, as yet, he had been a stranger. That event was his marriage in 1811.

As I utter these words, there comes, I am sure, to your minds as there does to mine, the picture of that domestic life which for more than half a century brought to our departed Father, a happiness that rarely falls to the lot of man; that affection of wife and children which gladdened his manhood, and watched with such lavish wealth of tenderness over his declining years. We all saw it living in and lighting up the household, and meeting love with answering love; and I saw it as it watched the dying bed, and showered such constant ministries, that it seemed to almost anticipate on earth the reunion of those homes in heaven, where death and pain may never come, and where God wipes away all tears forever. But I may not dwell on this--enough, too much, perhaps, to touch it--and I return to other things.