For the Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness, Primus,
ROBERT A. EDEN, M. A., Commissary."
[Seal of the Primus attached.]
Before the synod proceeded to business, the Bishop of Aberdeen presented to the Bishop of Connecticut a Pastoral Staff, the gift of Scotch Churchmen to him and his successors in office, with these words: [Footnote: The Staff is of ebony, the upper part being of silver parcel gilt. The crook proper has for its central subject our Lord's charge to St Peter, who kneels at the Saviour's feet. The pierced side of our Lord is significantly seen, as the drapery falls open. A vine is growing up behind Him bearing grapes (expressed by precious stones), and gathered at His feet are sheep and lambs. The ornamental work of the crook takes the form of thistle-leaves—in allusion to the Scotch origin of the gift—and the bossy flowers are expressed by cut amethysts. The crook is hexagonal in plan; the tower which surmounts the canopied niches immediately below the crook also takes the same shape, and accommodates the six figures introduced. This hexagonal tower has Gothic tracery, with pinnacles, pillars, and canopies, enriched with cairngorms. The figures (St. John, St. Andrew, St. Ninian, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Primus Kilgour, and Bishop Seabury) represented in the niches, are intended to illustrate the main points in the Episcopal succession and the characteristics of the Scottish Church. The tower is supported upon a carved capital with six amethysts between repousse oak-leaves, and is jointed to a circular boss surrounded with four vertical bands enriched with cairngorms, while between the bands are carbuncles set off by filigree work. There are also silver bosses at the joints of the ebony portions of the staff.]
No words of mine can convey to you the feelings of gratitude which animated the hearts of all Scottish Churchmen when they heard of your remarkable kindness in coming to our shores at this time to celebrate with us our service of praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessing He has bestowed upon the work of our fathers. As a small testimony to their venerable father and to the Church of his diocese, they ask Bishop Williams to accept this pastoral staff. May I point out that there are portrayed on this staff figures which represent the history of the Church in this land, and therefore a great chapter in the history of the American Church. You will find on the staff the figure of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland; you will find also the figure of St. John, reminding you that Christianity reached Scotland from Eastern sources; you will find the figure of St. Ninian, uniting the Scottish succession and ministry with the Celtic Church; and you will find the figure of St. Augustine, signifying that act of brotherly love and communion which we received from the English Church, restoring to us the Episcopacy which in troublous times had been lost; you will also find the figure of that Primus of the Church who was the chief consecrating bishop of your venerable Seabury, and you will find also the figure of Seabury himself. In the head of this staff you will recognize the figure of the great Head of the Church giving His divine commission to St. Peter and to all others ordained and consecrated to the same sacred office: 'Feed my sheep; feed my lambs.' I will rejoice to think that this staff, which you and your successors will carry on your confirmations and visitations and other episcopal acts, by reminding you of the sanctuary where we have just now held our great service to God, and of the figure of the Good Shepherd which stands over its altar, will not only recall to you the pastoral work in which it is your high office and privilege ever to minister, but will encourage you to seek also the blessing and the favour of the chief Bishop and Pastor of souls. In now presenting you with this emblem of your sacred office, as I have the privilege of doing on behalf of the Scottish Church, I may mention that many of the offerings that have been given towards it have been the pence of the very poorest in the land.
Bishop Williams, in acknowledging the presentation, said:
There are times and things concerning which words utterly fail and must fail to give utterance to the feelings of the heart, and this, let me say, is one of those times—a day that I can never forget, a day for which—though most unworthy of what has been given me—I must always feel the devoutest thankfulness to Almighty God. A hundred years ago you gave my great predecessor here in Scotland the office of Bishop in the Church of God, and now this day, a hundred years after, in the fulness of your loving hearts and kindly remembrances of that great act, you give Bishop Seabury's successor the sacred symbol of the same high office in the Church. I only wish it were given to worthier hands; but I can pledge myself to this, that to my successors as they follow me year after year, and, if God so wills, century after century, the staff will be handed down as a most sacred deposit and memorial. It will drop from many a hand before another hundred years go by and another gathering takes place here in this place of sacred memories, but the office of which the staff is the symbol—that office, I thank God, never dies. Men pass away, the office lives on; and though many hands that shall have held this staff may by that time be folded in the sleep of death, I trust that when the hundred years come round again, my successor may come here, as I, Bishop Seabury's successor, have come, to offer to the Bishops of the Scottish Church, to its clergy, and its faithful laity, the assurance of his deep love and undying gratitude that they were bound together in one common bond of one holy faith, and in a common love of one living Lord and of each other. I trust that that day will show the whole world, as this day has done, "how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."
On the afternoon of the same day a conference was held in the Albert Hall, at which the Rev. Dr. Beardsley read the following paper:
SEABURY AS A BISHOP.
A great deal has been said within the last week—never too much, I trust—of that grand man who left the shores of America a century ago, and came to the mother country in quest of a spiritual gift which, for reasons of state, was refused him by the Bishops of the Church of England.
In the providence of God, and under instructions from the clergy of Connecticut, who selected and sent him over, he found his way to Aberdeen, and was here duly raised to the Apostolic office, and so became the head of an anxious and long-waiting body, as well as the first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.