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On Sunday last in the morning the new church in this town was consecrated by the Right Rev. Dr. Claggett and formally dedicated to Almighty God, by the name of Christ Church, in Easton, in the parish of St. Peter's, Talbot County, in the presence of a number of the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church and a crowded congregation. Also in the afternoon of the same day, the apostolic rite of confirmation, and the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper were both administered by the bishop to a considerable number of persons, who were mostly advanced in years, and every way greatly respectable.

There were present of the clergy upon this occasion, besides the rector, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Price of St. Michael's parish, Mr. Barclay, principal of the Easton Academy, and Mr. Contee of Charles County. On Wednesday, the 20th of the same month the bishop consecrated the old parish church at White Marsh, and also the surrounding burial ground—a dedication which they had never before formally received. The same clergyman named above, were present and a large number of persons were confirmed.

The church building at Easton was not completed for some years after this date—it was incomplete at least as late as 1807—but it was used for service, and continued to be used until abandoned in or about the year 1845, when the stone church was occupied by the congregation. This old church is still standing. It is now substantially built of brick, plain in its style of architecture but having some pretensions to ornamentation. The entrance is from Harrison street by two arched doors in the east end, on which is a large window. Each of the sides is pierced by three oval headed windows. The chancel, which is within the body of the church is between the doors. A gallery, before a floor had been constructed over the whole church, occupied the west end in which at one time was an organ. Since its abandonment as the place for the public religious services it has been used as a room for the Sunday School of Christ Church. It has also been used for private week day schools, an upper floor converting it into two apartments, one for boys and the other for girls. The sale of this old building is now contemplated, that the proceeds may be devoted to the erection of a Sunday School and lecture room in the rear of the parish church. It was later on sold to the Baptists.

The following are the names of the clergymen who as rectors officiated in this old Church: Joseph Jackson from to 1811; Thomas Bayne, from 1813 to 1835; John Wiley, from 1836 to 1837; Henry M. Mason, from 1837 to

METHODISM IN TALBOT

The man whose home is in the country, and who, in his struggle for life, is brought face to face with nature, both in her benignant and maleficent moods, is more apt to cherish a belief in a superintending power that controls the world, than the dweller in the towns, where the contest for existence is with man himself, or the laws which man has made. The countryman, whose life is poor and barren as compared with the full rich life of his neighbor of the city, is prone to think that beyond the present there is another state of existence where some compensation will be rendered to him for his privations here, and where there shall be a realization of those pleasures which exist for him only in imagination. Our people of Talbot have always been a rural people. The towns of the county have always been small and few. As a consequence our people have always been a peculiarly religious people. Whatever may be the conception of the nature of religion—whether as a body of opinions, upon matters of the highest import, or as an inspiration of feeling or sentiment elevating man in his lowliness and cheering him in his despondency, or finally as a code of duty guiding and directing his steps amid a moral darkness, or through a wilderness of error—with us, it has been held as our highest philosophy, our most ennobling impulse, and our wisest rule of action. By it, more than by any other immaterial influence, has our life been fashioned and formed, and from it our society has derived its hue and impress. More completely segregated from the great world than most rural populations; our peninsular situation, hemmed in by two great bays and the wide ocean; more largely cut off from intercourse with each other than people occupying a compact country, by our water courses which permeate this county in every direction, and often widely divide even the nearest neighbors; the services of the church or meeting, calling those together from distant parts, who else would seldom or never have met, served to keep alive the feeling of sociability, which is the very foundation of all civility, but which, though instinctive, may actually perish through lack of opportunity for its due gratification. Thus it was that religion resisted the barbarizing influences of social isolation, and maintained the vitality, early as well as late in our history, of those seeds of civilization, which, brought from our old home, might else have been blighted in their growth under new and unfavorable environments. The clergy, apart from their office of interpreters of

the mysteries, of enforcers of the requirements, and of ministers of the consolations of religion, have always been held in honor and veneration because they have been the repositories, as it were, of much of whatever culture has existed among us, and they have been the mediums of communication between the common intelligence and the highest and best thought of the time. The sphere that is so completely filled by the press, at the present, was once held by the pulpit; and it is no contradiction of this assertion that the pulpit chiefly exercised itself in enforcing ritual observances or the moral law. It was to be expected that at a time when and in places where eternal interests occupied men's minds more than now, the ministers of religion should dwell upon other than temporal themes. It had not yet been discovered how nearly correlated are the material and spiritual conditions of any people. Very early in our history, too, religion connected itself with education, that second great instrument of moral influence upon society. Our very first teachers may not have been clergymen, but one of the first movements in this county towards supplying free instruction to the common people was inaugurated by a most enlightened priest of the established church, and seconded by those who were affected by his counsel or example. Finally, up to the time of our revolutionary war, religion made a part of our political system, and thereby it aroused an interest separate and distinct from that which sprang from the exercise of its spiritual offices. The union of church and state, which for a long time subsisted among us, was thought to be, and may have been, as necessary as the connection, at the present, between the schools and the state. How far the moral character of our people and their national prosperity was improved by this union, and how far legislative action or state politics was chastened and restrained by this connection, which now seems so unnatural, this is not the place to discuss; but of this there is certainty, the making the religion of the state a part of the political system of the state was calculated to arouse antagonism to the former, which in the end terminated in hostility. But notwithstanding this hostility the fact that the union of church and state was maintained for so many years is evidence that the people of the province regarded religion as of such moment, that it deserved the support of the government, and that it was the part of political wisdom to uphold that union. The historians of the state have not determined to what extent opposition to the method of appointing ministers to parishes, and to the levying money for their support, conduced to the great revolution of 1776. But the fact that ministers were appointed by the Governor and council, and that they received their stipends from the

public purse, gave them a consequence with those who had no reverence for their sacred character, and placed little value upon their intellectual and moral worth.

Therefore, in preparing the local annals of this county an account of religion, as it existed among us from the beginning, must occupy a conspicuous prominence. The changes of religious opinion; the rise and decline of new sects or societies; their influence on current thought and conduct; the succession of the ministers; the lives of their influential members; the formation of their vestries, visiting committees, boards of stewards and charitable associations; the building of their houses of worship and other ecclesiastical structures; their glebes and endowments; the territorial limits of their parishes, quarterly and yearly meetings, their circuits, dioceses and conferences; their controversies and contests; even their follies, extravagancies, vagaries and weaknesses; all are fit subjects for the pen of the humble annalist.

Although Maryland was settled under Roman Catholic patronage, it does not appear that at any time in Talbot, this communion was very strong in numbers. There are probably more members of that church now within the county than ever before. The prejudices which it had incurred in the old country were transmitted to this, and in the legal disabilities the provincial legislature imposed, it imitated the parent state. Hence the Roman Church was kept in a condition of suspended vitality, from which it has but recently aroused to new vigor in our midst.

There were Quakers in Maryland as early as 1660 or 1661, and probably in Talbot, for here, at Betty's cove, was one of the earliest of the stated meetings of the society. In 1672 Fox preached at the meeting house at "the Cove," and found a large society already formed. This religious body continued to increase in number and influence up to about the time of the revolutionary war, when either from a subsidence of its earlier enthusiasm, or on account of its testimony against slavery, it began to decline. Its influence upon religious thought and feeling in the county has been out of all proportion to its numbers. It does not appear from any extant record that Puritanism, in any of its organized forms, ever acquired any foothold in Talbot; but the puritanical spirit, which has existed at all times and in all religions, found its satisfaction, first, in the holy fervor, the self denying simplicity and rigorous rule of the peaceful Friends, and afterwards, in the iconoclastic and conquering impulse of the more militant Methodists.

The ministers of the Reformed Church of England from the earliest

In

dates of the country's history had cures within our limits; and this long before the Church of England became the established church of the province. It is positively certain that the first settlers in Talbot were under protestant influence, and employed protestant ministers as their spiritual directors. In the years 1692 and 1702 those Acts were passed that made the Church of England the established church of the province, which it continued to be until 1776. In 1785 the Protestant Episcopal church, as the successor to the Church of England, was established. or about the year 1774 the Methodists of Talbot began to be distinguished from the other members of the establishment by their earnest piety, and their fellowship in a separate society. They, as is well known, maintained a nominal connection with the old church until 1784, when the Methodist Episcopal church was formed. This was before the Protestant Episcopal church as a distinct ecclesiastical body had formally organized. There is an interesting minute in the Vestry Record of St. Michael's parish for the year 1780, which indicates the harmony and good feeling between those who were distinctively Methodists, and those who gave their entire allegiance to the church. This a copy of a subscription of money, tobacco and wheat, for the support of the minister, the Rev. Mr. John Gordon. Certain of the subscribers are named as the Society of Methodists, and the very first of these was that of Joseph Hartly who had previously been imprisoned in the Easton jail, as is mentioned in the sketch that is to follow. Another of these was Thomas Harrison, who before and after that date acted as vestryman of the parish.

The causes of the rapid spread of Methodism throughout this peninsula, and in Talbot, as an integral part of that peninsula, are very numerous, but can hardly be called obscure. They may be thus summarized: First, A growing hostility to the establishment on account of the compulsory payment of church rates, and of the methods of appointment to parishes. Second, The increase of the democratic spirit, and its antagonism to royalty and aristocracy, which the church was thought to favor. Third, The opposition of many of the ministers of the church on the Eastern Shore, and of some of the members to the patriotic cause, by which the church was thought to be identified with toryism. Fourth, The ill repute in which certain of the clergy were properly held, but which was improperly transferred to many who were not deserving of any imputation of bad morals. Fifth, The repression which the observance of religious forms in public service placed upon the expression of religious emotion. Sixth, The fervid oratory of the preachers as contrasted with

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