Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire: His Life and Work

by Lawrence Foushee London

Bishop Cheshire lost no time in forwarding to every church conference or synod, meeting prior to January, 1905, the resolutions of his diocesan convention. Favorable action was taken on the resolutions by the Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Methodist Protestant churches. The Bishop attended the Presbyterian Synod and the Conference of the Methodist Church, and was cordially received.

When the General Assembly met in 1905, Governor Robert B. Glenn recommended that the divorce laws be restored to the form as found in the code of 1883. After a close consideration of the memorial of the North Carolina churches, the legislature enacted a law which embodied in substance the request of the memorialists.

Bishop Cheshire once more concerned himself with the divorce problem when the legislature of 1931 was considering several bills for modifying the conditions for granting divorces. At the time the bills were under discussion he was visiting his daughter in Louisiana. In order to place his views on the subject before the legislature, the Bishop addressed a letter to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. It was published in the News and Observer of February 12.

He again attacked the practice of enacting special laws for particular persons, and asserted that in some incidents the laws were unconstitutional. He reviewed the efforts which he and many other citizens had made about twenty-five years before to restrict the causes for granting divorce. With public opinion behind them, their efforts had been successful, but since that time many of the old abuses had reappeared. The Bishop declared that from his knowledge of public opinion in North Carolina, sentiment against relaxing the divorce laws was as strong then as it had been twenty-five years before. In his letter he confined himself to one principal idea, "the will of the people of the State against personal influence in behalf of individual parties," believing that it would produce a greater effect than if he merely reiterated the usual moral and social arguments.

It cannot be said with certainty how much effect the Bishop's letter had on the members of the legislature, but coming from a man whose character and opinions were held in such high regard by North Carolinians, it must have had some influence upon the outcome. The proposed measures were defeated by large majorities in the General Assembly.

On one of the most controversial questions of the twentieth century, national prohibition, Bishop Cheshire held very definite views. He believed that each state should be allowed to decide the question for itself, and that a federal prohibition law would breed more evil than good.

Several years before the passage of the national prohibition law, Bishop Cheshire attended a meeting in Raleigh which was considering various aspects of social welfare work. He was present as an invited guest. The business of the meeting was moving along smoothly, when someone introduced a resolution to the effect that the meeting should memorialize Congress with a demand that the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages be made illegal in the United States. The resolution was received with much enthusiasm. Many speeches were made advocating its passage and all were applauded. After the enthusiasm had somewhat subsided and the question was about to be put, Bishop Cheshire asked permission to say a few words. He stated that he deplored excessive drinking and its evil consequences, suffered as much if not more by the innocent as well as the drinker. He sympathized with the purpose of the resolution to achieve more widespread temperance, but, he reminded them, good intentions unless intelligently directed often did more harm than good. Under the American system each state or community had the authority to outlaw liquor, as had already been done in North Carolina. So long as the prohibition of liquor was confined to those states whose public opinion was behind it, he believed it could be enforced. He did not think, however, that a federal law could be enforced in those states where public opinion and the state authorities were in opposition. He maintained that what had already been accomplished in some states in behalf of temperance would be jeopardized if an attempt was made to impose prohibition upon those states which were not yet ready for it.

Upon the conclusion of the Bishop's remarks, there was for a few moments complete silence. It was as if someone had thrown cold water over the entire meeting. When a member moved that the resolution be laid on the table, not a voice was raised in opposition to the motion, and the subject was dropped. The Bishop was never one to allow his intelligence to be overruled by emotionalism, and in stating his views on national prohibition he not only displayed his sound judgment but also proved himself a very good prophet.

Bishop Cheshire exercised a remarkable influence upon the people of his Diocese. One aspect of the effect of his character upon them is seen in the ready co-operation and assistance they gave him in his work for the church. The inspiration they caught from him was not a transient enthusiasm, but one which carried over from one endeavor to another. Above all, the Episcopalians of the Diocese loved their Bishop as a man—a vital, interesting personality who possessed none of the unctuous pompousness of the commonplace ecclesiastic. Miss Nell Battle Lewis once aptly characterized the Bishop as "much more than a Churchman, able Churchman though he is. Foremost, he is a man—a gentleman—of the most unswerving honesty, conviction, courage, kindness, humor, and charm."[42]

Throughout almost all of his Episcopate Bishop Cheshire had no secretary. By choice he attended to his correspondence himself, writing all of his letters in longhand. Towards the end of his life he employed a secretary for a short time, but soon found that he preferred to do the work himself. He kept letter-books in which he entered a record of every letter he wrote, giving the name of the person written to, the date, and the place he was writing from. According to his own records, he wrote during his Episcopate 66,778 letters. The Bishop never liked any help in doing something which he felt he was able to do for himself.