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weak and presumptuous;' those 'voluntary dictates,' as Hooker terms them, which proceed from man's extemporal wit.' Certainly, however, nothing offensive was meant, yet in the following number of the 'Christian's Magazine,' edited by Dr. Mason, the notice of this part of the discourse is as follows;- Then comes the Liturgy. Five mass books, viz. the Roman Missals of Sarum, York, Hereford, Bangor, and Lincoln, are the sources from which it was collected by Cranmer, and a few others, and presented to the King. If we are not mistaken, Dr. Hobart will find the best authority for the Liturgy of his Church, not in the Bible, but in the Statutes of the house of Tudor ".'

As member of the Board of Trustees of Columbia College, his duties about this time were not without anxiety, and seldom was his influence put to so nice a proof. That influence in the Board had been gradually and slowly acquired, and proved but just sufficient to stay, at the very moment of its execution, a project which would probably have proved fatal to the best interests of the College.

Upon the prospective vacancy in the station of President, arising from Bishop Moore's increasing infirmities, in the year 1810, the conspicuous talents of Dr. Mason, and his long connection with the institution, naturally pointed him out both to the Trustees and to the public as the most prominent candidate for that office. His admirers went even so far as to maintain that he was the only man capable of raising the College out of that depressed condition into which, from many causes, as already referred to, it had sunk. Under Bishop Moore, whose duties as President had been confined to official occasions, discipline had necessarily become relaxed, and it was now urged, as the only means of re

n Vol. iii. p. 635,

storing it, the appointment of a resident and working President, with high and almost dictatorial powers; one who, with an ample salary, and unlimited authority, might devote to its duties his undivided time and talents, and thus be enabled to stamp upon the institution the impress of his own high character. None doubted of the correctness of this reasoning; few, of the individual best fitted to carry it into effect. All eyes, in short, were turned to Dr. Mason, who, at this time, stood more than ordinarily prominent in the affairs of the Board, by an able and eloquent report, which, as chairman of a committee, he had recently brought before the Trustees, detailing the evils into which the College had fallen, and pointing out the only means by which they were to be met and remedied.

But to the elevation of Dr. Mason, however desirable or desired, there existed an impediment apparently insurmountable. The legal condition on which the College held its property from Trinity Church was, that the President should be an Episcopalian. With a view to the avoidance of this annoying restriction, various schemes were suggested and canvassed. The bolder members of the Board were for breaking through and disregarding it; the more prudent for applying to the Legislature to amend it; while others again were for bribing Trinity Church with a portion of their own gift to release them from it.

All these schemes Mr. Hobart thought were pregnant with evil; he therefore opposed them all; he protested against a breach of the condition; he dreaded the interference of the Legislature, and had the credit of defeating their application for it; he deprecated the division of the property, though he still looked to this movement as his last resource; but above all, he opposed, because he more than doubted, the fitness of the individual whom all were struggling to advance to this high station. In the mean time a majority of members stood ready to force the way if Mr. Hobart did not recede, and at any hazard to make Dr. Mason president.

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Agitated by these contending evils, Mr. Hobart was driven almost to despair: the day of election approached, and no remedy was found. Lying sleepless and restless, as he himself stated to the writer, the greater part of the night preceding that eventful day, as he revolved within himself how the evil might yet be avoided, or which was the least to choose, suddenly the idea came into his mind of the creation of a new and temporary office in the government of the College, to be termed the Provostship,' into which Dr. Mason might be elected, with whatever salary and measure of power his friends might see fit to give. This, he thought, would probably satisfy both them and him, and permit the experiment to be tried of his government of the College, while it would leave the charter and property untouched, the condition being complied with, by means of a nominal President of the Episcopal communion.

The plans of Mr. Hobart, once matured, never slept. He accordingly arose before day, and crossing the river to Long-Island, drove twelve miles to the seat of Mr. Rufus King, at Jamaica, whose influence in the Board was among the first; satisfied him during breakfast, of the feasibleness and prudence of the scheme, returned instantly to the city, called upon Mr. Oliver Wolcott, before he had left his house in the morning, and having convinced this gentleman also, whose opinions had the same weight with the Presbyterian, as Mr. King's had with the Episcopal members of the Board, before the hour of meeting had succeeded in further uniting so many leading voices in its favour, that, upon the opening of the business, when the Board met, the matter assumed that shape, and was carried in that form by an almost unanimous vote. Dr. Mason being elected 'Provost,' with an ample salary, and still ampler powers, and the Rev. Dr. Harris elected President, with but little provision for either. The result of this experiment we shall have occasion to notice hereafter.

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CHAPTER IX.

A. D. 1810. Et. 35.

Canonical Condition of the Diocese-Bishop Provoost-Character and Policy Resignation-Decision of the House of BishopsExamination of that Decision-Bishop Moore-CharacterInfluence-Election of Bishop Hobart-Difficulties attending the consecration-Bishop White's Feelings toward him.

BUT the period was now fast approaching when the voice of the Church called Mr. Hobart to higher duties, and more anxious cares. The episcopate of the Diocese of New-York was at this time (1810) in a condition perhaps not canonical, certainly not favourable to Christian peace. It had within it two bishops, both consecrated to the government of the same Church, and both physically capable of exercising the duties of their office. The explanation of this anomaly requires a short review of preceding events.

The Church in New-York received its first bishop, as already stated, on Easter-Sunday, April 8, 1787. The individual who had been selected by the clergy and laity for this high station was the Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost, who, both before and subsequently to the Revolution, had been connected with Trinity parish, at first as assistant minister, but after the war as its rector. Upon the archbishops and bishops of England consenting to confer episcopal consecration on such as might be recommended by the Church at large, in the now independent States, Dr. Provoost became the choice of New-York, and Dr. White of Pennsylvania, and both received episcopal consecration on the same day, (4th of February, 1787,) in the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth.

Bishop Provoost possessed many fitting qualifications for the high office on which he now entered: he was learned, benevolent, and pious. He had, too, peculiar claims on public, or rather, perhaps, on popular confidence. His political attachments had, from the first, been with the 'Whigs,' and his conduct during the revolutionary contest, in refusing all church living under British or Tory influence, preferring to live retired on his small farm in Dutchess county, which he did for fourteen years, from 1770 to 1784, in straitened circumstances, if not in actual poverty, had given to him the reputation, with the dominant party, of a patriot clergyman, and almost of a martyr.

But there were other traits which were less fitted for rule, at least in troublous times. He loved not labour for labour's sake, and perhaps sometimes avoided it at the sacrifice of his rightful influence. Whether from nature or education, for he was of an English university, he had about him a certain aristocratic love of ease which was far removed from that working talent which the condition of the Church demanded, and which was most congenial to the habits of the rising republic.

Added to this, he was not a popular preacher, either in manner or in doctrine; both might be termed cold: his delivery was in that monotonous and unimpassioned tone which English preachers of the last age studiously sought, as separating them most widely from all suspicion of fanaticism; and his teaching dwelt so much on Christian morals, under the sanction of the same models, as more than once to have required on his part the vindication of his scriptural faith..

This we find to have been the case as early as (1770) the year of his retirement to the country, and doubtless was an operating cause in leading him to take that injudicious step. Writing, about that period, to his Cambridge tutor, Dr. John Jebb, he says:

'I made it a point to preach the doctrines of morality in the manner I found them enforced by the most eminent divines of the

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