He was quite human, this old parson, and liked his glass of “Fyal” or Madeira, but he knew when to stop, and he feared not to rebuke the rich and great among his parishioners when he saw them making too merry. He enters in his journal the date of a call on one of his leading families, when he found the father absent at a cock-fight. The rector adds the significant memorandum: “Suffer it no more!”
In spite of a few bright exceptions like this, it is idle to deny that the relations between parish and clergy in the Southern church ill bore comparison with those of the Puritan and his minister; and this not because of doctrine, but chiefly because the Puritan minister represented the free choice of the people, who supported him willingly, and looked upon him with reverence, as the messenger of the Lord. In South Carolina, where the clergy were chosen by the vestries, the same harmony and good-will existed, but the church in Virginia writhed under the injustice of taxation without representation.
The parishioners were expected to receive and maintain the clergyman appointed them without criticism or question. How any attempt on the part of these vestries to discipline or dismiss the minister they supported was received, we may judge from this letter, sent by Governor Spotswood to the churchwardens and vestry of South Farnham parish in 1716:
“Gentlemen: I’m not a little surprised at the sight of an order of yours, wherein you take upon you to suspend from his office a clergyman who for near sixteen years has served as your minister.... As no vestry in England has ever pretended to set themselves up as judges over their ministers, so I know no law of this country that has given such authority to the vestry here. If a clergyman transgresses against the canons of the church, he is to be tried before a proper judicature, and though in this country there be no bishops to apply to, yet there is a substitute for a bishop in your diocesan.... In case of the misbehavior of your clergyman, you may be his accusers, but in no case his judges; but much less are you empowered to turn him out without showing cause.”
This haughty language recalls the messages of Charles the First to his parliament. Yet in spite of his support of the priest against the parish, the Governor never dreamed of recognizing him as his own equal. Some years later, when the stately old aristocrat was in his grave, a member of the clergy sued for the hand of his widow, Lady Spotswood. The reverend suitor writes after a very humble and apologetic fashion: “Madam,” he begins, “by diligently perusing your letter I perceive there is a material argument—upon which your strongest objection against completing my happiness would seem to depend, viz.: That you would incur ye censure of ye world for marrying a person in ye station of my station and character. By which I understand that you think it a diminution of your honour and ye dignity of your family to marry a person in ye station of a clergyman. Now, if I can make it appear that ye ministerial office is an employment in its nature ye most honorable and in its effects ye most beneficial to mankind, I hope your objections will immediately vanish—that you will keep me no longer in suspense and misery, but consummate my happiness.” After a long enumeration of the dignities, spiritual rather than social, appertaining to the clergy, he closes thus: “And, therefore, if a gentleman of this sacred and honourable character should be married to a lady, though of ye greatest extraction and most excellent personal qualities (which I am sensible you are endowed with), it can be no disgrace to her or her family; nor draw the censures of ye world upon them for such an action.” Such language is in curious contrast with the attitude of New England, where the praise bestowed on a woman by Cotton Mather as the highest possible compliment was, that she was worthy to be the wife of a priest.
The chief cause of irritation between parson and parish in the colonial church was from the beginning the question of the ministers’ salaries. In some places these were very small. It appears, for instance, in the record book of the church at Edenton, in North Carolina, that Parson Garzia in the year 1736, was paid only £5 for holding divine service. But in Maryland and Virginia the salaries were frequently higher than those paid in New England. In each Virginia borough a hundred acres were set off as a glebe, or parsonage farm. Besides this and the salary, there were fees of twenty shillings for a wedding by license and five shillings for every wedding by banns, beside forty shillings for a funeral sermon. It is easier to understand the fulsomeness of these old funeral discourses when we learn how well they were paid for, and realize that, in common honesty, the minister was bound to render a forty-shilling certificate of character to the deceased.
As time went on, the salary question became a burning issue. The plantations being so widely separated, quarrels often arose as to the portion of the parish on which the chief burden of the minister’s support should fall. In the records of the very early Virginia church history, we come upon an instance of this in the proceedings in Lower Norfolk County, at a court held 25th May, 1640.
“Whereas the inhabitants of this parrishe beinge this day conevented for the providinge of themselves an able minister to instruct them concerning their soules’ health, mr. Thomas Harrison tharto hath tendered his service to god and the said inhabitants in that behalf wch his said tender is well liked of, with the genall approbacon of the said Inhabitants, the parishoners of the parishe church at mr. Sewell’s Point who to testifie their zeale and willingness to p’mote gods service doe hereby p’mise (and the court now sittinge doth likewise order and establish the same) to pay one hundreth pounds starling yearely to the sd mr. Harrison, soe Longe as hee shall continue a minister to the said Parishe in recompence of his paynes.”
This arrangement apparently did not long prove satisfactory, for the record goes on to state that
“Whereas there is a difference amongst the Inhabitants of the fforesaid Pishe, concerninge the imployinge of a minister beinge now entertayned to live amongst them, The Inhabitants from Danyell Tanner’s Creek and upward the three branches of Elizabeth river (in respect they are the greatest number of tithable persons) not thinknge it fitt nor equall that they shall pay the greatest pte of one hundred pownds wh is by the ffore sd order allotted for the ministers annuall stipend, unlesse the sd minister may teach and Instruct them as often as he shall teach at ye Pishe church siytuate at mr. Sewell’s Pointe. It is therefore agreed amongst the sd Inhabitants that the sd minister shall teach evie other Sunday amongst the Inhabitants of Elizabeth River at the house of Robert Glasscocke untill a convenyent church be built and Erected there for gods service wh is agreed to bee finished at the charge of the Inhabitants of Elizabeth River before the first day of May next ensueinge.”