ARTICLE LXXVII.

Churches in Western Virginia.-St. Paul's and St. John's, Brooke County.

WE introduce our notices of the churches in Western Virginia by the following passage from a sketch of Western Virginia, by the Rev. Dr. Doddridge, whose ministry will be duly noticed :

"The Episcopal Church, which ought to have been foremost in gathering their scattered flocks, have been the last and done the least of any Christian community in the evangelical work. Taking the Western country in its whole extent, at least one-half of its population was originally of Episcopalian parentage; but, for want of a ministry of their own, they have associated with other communities. They had no alternative but that of changing their profession or living and dying without the ordinances of religion. It can be no subject of regret that those ordinances were placed within their reach by other hands, whilst they were withheld by those by whom, as a matter of right and duty, they ought to have been given. One single chorepiscopus, or suffragan Bishop, of a faithful spirit, who, twenty years ago, should have ordained them elders in every place' where they were needed, would have been the instrument of forming Episcopal congregations over a great extent of country, and which, by this time, would have become large, numerous, and respectable; but the opportunity was neglected, and the consequent loss to this Church is irreparable.

"So total a neglect of the spiritual interests of so many valuable people, for so great a length of time, by a ministry so near at hand, is a singular and unprecedented fact in ecclesiastical history, the like of which never occurred before.

"It seems to me that if the twentieth part of their number of Christian people of any other community had been placed in Siberia, and dependent on any other ecclesiastical authority in this country, that that authority would have reached them many years ago with the ministration of the Gospel. With the earliest and most numerous Episcopacy in America, not one of the Eastern Bishops has yet crossed the Alleghany Mountains, although the dioceses of two of them comprehended large tracts of country on the western side of the mountains. It is hoped that the future diligence of this community will make up in some degree for the negligence of the past.

"There is still an immense void in this country, which it is their duty to fill up. From their respectability, on the ground of antiquity, among the Reformed Churches, the science of their patriarchs, who have been the lights of the world, from their number and great resources even in America, she ought to hasten to fulfil the just expectations of her own people as well as those of other communities, in contributing her full share to the science, piety, and civilization of our country.

"From the whole of our ecclesiastical history, it appears that, with the exception of the Episcopal Church, all our religious communities have done well for their country."

Without questioning the perfect sincerity and honest zeal of Dr. Doddridge in this severe criticism, or desiring to apologize for what was blameworthy in the Episcopal Church in regard to the West, we think that truth and justice require some modification of the sentence. We cannot assent to the fact that one-half of the Western population was originally of Episcopal parentage. We must remember that even Maryland had a large proportion of Romanists, as well as other Protestant denominations besides the Episcopal. North of this there was scarce any Episcopalians from the first settlement of the country. A short time before the war, Bishop White was the only Episcopal minister in Pennsylvania. The emigrants from all the Northern States, beginning with Pennsylvania, were not of Episcopal parentage. Although Episcopalians abounded from the first in Virginia and the Carolinas, yet it should be remembered that, of the emigrants to the West, immense numbers— far the larger part-had renounced the Episcopal Church before their removal, and only carried with them bitter hatred toward it. I am satisfied that not a tenth part of those who have left the Eastern for the Western States were Episcopalian at their removal: perhaps a much smaller proportion would be a correct estimate. Soon after the issue of Dr. Doddridge's book,-perhaps forty years ago, I prepared something on this subject and offered it for publication.

Owing to various circumstances in her history, the Episcopal Church may be regarded as the last of all the Churches in our land which began the work of evangelizing. Her race only commenced after the Revolution. All that was done before proved but a hinderance to her. All other denominations were in active operation long before, and were so prejudiced against her as not to be willing to have her as a co-worker with them. Instead, therefore, of the advantages possessed by the Episcopal Church for establishing herself in the West being greater than those of other Churches, they were less, whether we consider the Bishops and clergy at her command, or the difficulty of the work to be done, by reason of existing prejudices. Justice to the memory of our fathers requires this statement. That of Dr. Doddridge has often been quoted without due consideration.

We must, however, do the justice to Dr. Doddridge to say that, if we had had many such laborious ministers as himself, the West would

have been far better supplied with Episcopal churches and ministrations than it has been. And yet truth requires us to admit, what will soon appear, that even his zealous labours have not been followed by all the results which we could desire, by reason of the numerous opposing influences with which he and the Church had to contend. Nothing that I could draw from any documents or record, or from living witnesses, could so interest the reader as the following sketch of Dr. Doddridge's life and labours, from the pen of a friend, and I therefore adopt it :

"The following article, with some slight alterations, was sent to me as a friend of the late Rev. Dr. Doddridge, by the Hon. Thomas Scott, of Chillicothe. The writer was among the early settlers of the Northwest Territory, was Secretary to the Convention which framed the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and has since held important and responsible offices under its government. He is now far advanced in life, and employs a still vigorous intellect in throwing together for publication his reminis cences of early associations and bygone days.

D.

"Reminiscences of the first Minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church who adventured into the Wilderness Regions of Western Virginia and Eastern Ohio, the late Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, of Wellsburg, Brooke County, Virginia.

Presuming that but few of the present members of the Episcopal Church in the now flourishing diocese in this State are aware that it was owing, in a great measure, to the early labours and indefatigable exertions of the individual above named that an Episcopate was obtained in Ohio, we feel persuaded that a few brief reminiscences connected with his self-denying and persevering efforts for the establishment in the West of the Church of his fathers will not be unacceptable at the present period: indeed, as the early and intimate friend of this pioneer-herald of the Cross in our Western borders, we deem it but a measure of justice to the memory of a man who, for a series of years, laboured in the good cause single-handed and almost without remuneration. We shall, however, only advert to his labours in general, not having at hand the data to enable us to do so in detail.

"My first acquaintance with the subject of this notice commenced in 1788, in Hampshire county, Virginia. He was then about nineteen years of age, and a successful and highly-esteemed labourer among the Wesleyan Methodists, in connection with whom he continued several years. Being recalled from his field of labour to the paternal mansion, in Western Pennsylvania, by the sudden decease of his father, in consequence of which event the younger members of the family-of whom he was the eldestwere placed in circumstances requiring for a time his personal supervision, the youthful itinerant felt it to be his duty to resign his charge, and, in conformity with the last wish of his deceased parent,-who had appointed him the executor of his will,-to apply himself to the settlement of his estate.

"This accomplished, he found himself in possession of sufficient means to enable him to prosecute his education, which as yet was limited,

owing to the few facilities for obtaining one afforded by their wilderness location.

"Accompanied by his younger and only brother, Philip,-who subsequently became eminent in Virginia as a lawyer and legislator, dying, while a member of Congress, in Washington City, in 1833,-he entered Jefferson Academy, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, they being among the first students at that pioneer literary institution, in what was at that period, in the transmontane States, denominated the Far West.'

"The Wesleyans having now laid aside the Prayer-Book or ritual enjoined to be used on occasions of public worship by the founder of their society, the Rev. John Wesley,-a formula which Dr. Doddridge's judg ment sanctioned as being not only beautifully appropriate but highly edifying, he did not therefore resume his connection with them after his return from college, but diligently applied himself to an examination of the claims of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which his parents had been members prior to their removal to the West. Suffice it to say, this examination resulted in a determination to offer himself a candidate for Orders in that Church. Early in the year 1792, he received ordination at the hands of the Right Rev. William White, of Philadelphia, soon after which he located temporarily in Western Pennsylvania, but in the course of a few years settled permanently in Charlestown, now Wellsburg, in Brooke county, Virginia.

"At this early period of the settlement of the country, the greater portion of the population of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania consisted of emigrants from Maryland and Virginia, where many of them had been attached to the Mother-Church; hence the advent of a preacher of their own denomination was hailed by them as an auspicious event, filling their hearts with gladness. He was everywhere greeted with kindness, cheered and encouraged in his labours by the presence of large and attentive congregations; albeit in most places where they assembled for public worship their only canopy was the umbrageous trees of the unbroken forest, whose solemn silence was, for the time-being, rendered vocal by their devotions. "During the year 1793, I occasionally attended the ministrations of this zealous advocate for the cause of Christ, at West Liberty, then the seat of justice for Ohio county, Virginia, and the residence of many respectable and influential families. At this place divine service was held in the court-house. Although still a young man, Dr. Doddridge was an able minister of the New Covenant. When preaching, there was nothing either in his language or manner that savoured of pedantry or awkwardness; yet he did not possess that easy graceful action which is often met with in speakers in every other respect his inferiors; but this apparent defect was more than compensated by the arrangement of his subject, the purity of his style, the selection and appropriateness of his figures, and the substance of his discourses. He was always listened to with pleasure and edification, commanding the attention of his hearers not so much by brilliant flights of imagination and rhetorical flourishes, as by the solidity of his arguments and his lucid exhibition of the important truths which he presented for their deliberate consideration.

"In person he was tall and well proportioned, walking very erect. He possessed fine colloquial powers, was social, an agreeable companion, and highly esteemed by those who knew him on account of his plain, unostentatious manners, courteous demeanour, and rigid devotion to duty.

"The first Episcopal church in Western Virginia, if I remember rightly,

called St. John's, was erected in 1792-93, in a country parish, a few miles distant from the residence of Dr. Doddridge, whose pastoral connections with it, I have been informed, continued for nearly thirty years, when declining health compelled him to dissolve it. At no great distance from St. John's, and occupied by the same pastor, another edifice, also in Virginia, was erected at a very early period, the name of which I cannot now recollect.

"In the course of a few years after he took up his abode in Virginia, many families reared in the Episcopal Church removed from the older States and settled west of the Ohio River, where they were as sheep in a wilderness without a shepherd. To those of them within a convenient distance from his residence he made frequent visitations, holding service in temples not made with hands but by the Great Architect of nature.

"We have been credibly informed that Dr. Doddridge was the first Christian minister who proclaimed the Gospel of salvation in the now flourishing town of Steubenville, in this State, and that some years previous to the close of the last century he officiated there monthly, the place at that time containing but a few log cabins and a portion of Fort Steuben.'

"The parish of St. James, on Cross Creek, in Jefferson county, was early formed by him, and was for many years under his pastoral charge. At St. Clairsville, Belmont county, he had a congregation and church, the pulpit of which he occupied from time to time until another pastor could be obtained. Occasionally his missionary excursions included Morristown, Cambridge, and Zanesville.

"In the autumn of 1815, this untiring apostle of the Church, with a view of preparing the way for future missionaries, made a tour through part of Ohio, coming as far west as this city,-Chillicothe, preaching in the intermediate towns and ascertaining where Episcopal services would be acceptable. He was, I think, the first regularly-ordained clergyman of that Church who officiated in our place, which he did several times during his stay among us.

"In Virginia at a very early period he held religious services at Charlestown, Grave Creek, and Wheeling. At the latter place was quite a number of Episcopalians, whom he frequently visited, keeping them together until the arrival of that pious and devoted servant of God, the Rev. John Armstrong, their first resident pastor.

"From the time of his ordination, he made it a practice to visit and preach wherever he could find a few who desired to be instructed in the faith of their fathers. These efforts to collect and keep within the fold of the Church the scattered sheep of the flock imposed upon him the necessity of traversing a wide extent of country, which, being but sparsely settled, was poorly provided with roads; consequently, all his journeys had to be performed on horseback.

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"In labours this Christian minister was most abundant, sustained under their performance by the approbation of his own conscience and the longdeferred hope that the time was not far distant when Episcopalians in the Atlantic States-to whom, through letters to several of their Bishops and otherwise, he made request and earnest appeals in behalf of a field already white for the harvest-would awake from their apathy to a lively consciousness of the imperative duty of making the long-neglected West a Cheatre for missionary exertion.

"Some years subsequent to his entrance into the ministry of the Pro