Revelation 7:9-17,
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
Sermon by R Christopher Heying on the Occasion of the Coles Window Blessing, Sunday 2 November 2014.
This All Saints’ Sunday we have John’s vision of “a great multitude no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” who have come through “the great ordeal,” with robes made white in the Lamb’s blood and now sing God’s eternal praise. (Revelation 7), a vision wholly consonant with the Letter to the Hebrews which refers to a “great a cloud of witnesses” who now watch us “run the race that is set before us” (12.1).
As we give thanks this day “for all the saints, who from their labors rest” we remember those whom we knew and loved but see no longer, who in their day gave to us a glimpse of God’s love. These are they who have now joined that “great cloud” to encourage us and remind us we are never alone but are part of one great communion and fellowship.
This fellowship includes others, others we may not have known directly but who in their own day and according to their circumstances, were, as the Book of Common Prayer says, “an example of righteousness” and “the lights of the world in their generation.”
We remember their light, ultimately Christ’s own light, light that still shines to overcome the darkness if we but look with the eyes of faith.
These luminaries include bishops such as William Meade, John Johns, A.M. Randolph; priests such as the Rev. Dr. George Washington Dame and the Rev. Dr. Clevius Orlando Pruden; faithful lay persons such as Walter Coles and Lettice Carrington Coles, who were among the founders of this church and in whose honor and memory we bless and rededicate a stained glass window this morning; and it includes always at least one or two outside “our group,” however we may define it!
We remember these men and women not just for their worldly accomplishments—and there were many of those—but for their lively faith, their leadership and their concern for others in this county, and, for what we will see, in the case of Walter and Lettice Carrington Coles, their gracious hospitality reminiscent of the admonition our holy father, Saint Benedict, to welcome the stranger even as we would welcome Jesus Christ.
We remember these who in the nineteenth century laid the cornerstone here, who poured the foundation and built up the church in Pittsylvania County in such a way that still has power to nurture and to strengthen to give a light that shines brightly even in the darkest night.
The journals of the annual councils of the Diocese of Virginia tell us a lot about what life was like here in Pittsylvania County. At the time of Emmanuel’s founding in the 1840s, the Diocese of Virginia was an expansive territory that included all of what is currently the dioceses of West Virginia, Southern Virginia, and Southwestern Virginia in addition to the current diocese of Virginia in the north. Throughout the nineteenth century Virginia was served by a diocesan bishop and an assistant bishop, who in time usually became diocesan.
Such was Bishop John Johns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Johns) who started as an assistant but over succeeding decades became president of William and Mary, the diocesan bishop, and toward the end of his long life, professor and president of Virginia Theological Seminary. He also was the one who would confirm Robert E. Lee, reportedly with a beautiful daughter on each arm.
In his address to the 1843 council (http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/WWW/CMS/files/Journals/1843-Diocese%20Journal.PDF, see pages 13 and 14), Bishop Johns says that after his consecration as bishop in October of the preceding year, he went immediately to Lynchburg where he preached in the morning and evening, then to Campbell County where he preached and confirmed, and then to St. Andrew’s (later St. John’s), Mt. Airy, where he observes, and I quote:
. . . [W]e [were] joined by the Rev. Mr. Dame who has the charge of this congregation, in connexion with those at Competition [later, Chatham] and Danville. [He] is alone in his ministrations in this extensive county. He is constrained to officiate under the disadvantage of being encumbered by the duties of an academy [a girls’ school in Danville] from which, mainly, he derives his support. Could he be sustained so as to devote his whole time to the work of the Church, the fruit, judging from the measure of success with which has been blessed, would be gathered more rapidly and abundantly.
Bishop John’s then says that on that Tuesday afternoon:
. . . we proceeded the residence of Mr. Coles, where, at night, I had the opportunity of conducting religious services, administering the communion to the aged and excellent surviving parent [presumably Walter I’s mother] of the extensive family bearing that name.
The next morning, Bishop Johns preached at the Court House at Competition and that afternoon “baptized a child of the Hon. Walter Coles” before preaching again that night.
Bishop Johns on Thursday, 21 October 1842, says he:
. . . preached in the house of worship occupied by the Methodists and confirmed five persons. The services at Competition were attended with considerable interest. Before I left the town, a subscription paper for the erection of a church, was prepared and circulated by a pious lady, not in our communion [i.e., that is not an Episcopalian!], and I was informed that in a few hours a sum was secured sufficient to ensure the accomplishment of the object.
Indeed in his 1845 address to council (http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/WWW/CMS/files/Journals/1845-Diocese%20Journal.PDF, see page 8) Bishop William Meade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Meade) reported that immediately after the 1844 council held in Lynchburg, he spent three days in Pittsylvania County, where he consecrated Emmanuel on 25 May 1844, confirmed three persons, and ordained a deacon. (He consecrated Epiphany, Danville, a week later!)
Bishop Johns then tells the 1846 council (http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/WWW/CMS/files/Journals/1846-Diocese%20Journal.PDF, pages 23 and 24) that on Friday, 10 October 1845, he crossed the Staunton River to be met by a “driving rain” which made roads “very heavy” and “swelled the streams to a degree which made it difficult to ford.” In his own words, Bishop Johns says:
By these cause we were so retarded that we were overtaken by the night, and a very dark one it was, before we reached the place of our destination. A cordial welcome at the residence of Mr. Coles soon made us forget our fatigue, and the Christian fellowship which we enjoyed in the camber of the venerable mother of the household, to whom I was once more permitted to administer the Lord’s Supper, [which] more than compensated for the exposure of the day.
On Sunday, Bishop Johns went with the Rev. George W. Dame, to “a humble dwelling” where he “confirmed two of the flock” before preaching here at Emmanuel and confirming three.
In her 1944 centennial history of Emmanuel, Maud Carter Clement explains that the congregation decided in 1878 (Clement, page Nine) to tear down that original church for which funds had been so quickly gathered (see Bishop John’s comments above), and Bishop Whittle (with a brother in Chatham) consecrated the new Emmanuel in 1861 .
But that original frame church, built by the Coles and others, was not simply discarded. Maud Carter Clement explains it was rebuilt out in the country as Christ Church (its relation to the current Christ Church unclear).
During the 33-year fruitful rectorship of the Rev. Dr. Clevius O. Pruden, that former Emmanuel Church-turn-Christ Church was consecrated in 1890 by Bishop A.M. Randolph (Clement, page Ten), with the very man that Lettice Carrington Coles had met here on Main Street, preaching, the Rev. Dr. George Washington Dame, now in his 50th year of being the rector of Epiphany Church, Danville, and having started churches all over the county and beyond (http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/WWW/CMS/files/Journals/1890-Diocese%20Journal.pdf, page 50).
At the final council of an undivided Virginia and Southern Virginia diocese which met at Epiphany, Danville in May 1892, Bishop Randolph (Assistant Bishop of Virginia but next year the first Bishop of Southern Virginia) reported (http://www.thediocese.net/Customer-Content/WWW/CMS/files/Journals/1892-Diocese%20Journal.pdf, page 40) that on Saturday, 22 November 1891, he confirmed 22 persons at Christ Church, Pittsylvania County, in the morning and 14 at Emmanuel, Chatham, in the evening.
That thirty-seven people who on that November Saturday in Pittsylvania County were strengthened by the laying on of hands by an Episcopal bishop and who, whether they knew it or not, were inextricably connected to that great fellowship of saints that include the faithful shepherds like Bishops Meade and Johns; indefatigable pastors like priests George Washington Dame and Clevius Orlando Pruden; faithful lay persons who gave of their money, time, energy, never failing to show gracious hospitality, such as Walter Coles and Lettice Carrington Coles.
And, yes, let us never forget that this great fellowship includes at least an occasional “pious lady not in communion with this church” who dares to encourage us to do what we ought to do to build and strengthen the church of God.
So on this holy day we rightly remember, O Lord our God, that in the multitude of your saints you have indeed surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses, that we might rejoice in their fellowship and now run with endurance the race that is set before us; so that, together with them, we may receive the crown of glory that never fades away.
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Note that the Journals of the Diocese of Virginia, http://www.thediocese.net/Governance/Council/Journals/, include many interesting “tidbits” such as the parochial reports of Camden Parish, Banister Parish, Pruden Parish, and/or Pittsylvania County generally. In the 1840s—which one I cannot immediately find—was an excellent overview of the Church in England from its beginning to the present. The council ordered that 2000 copies of that portion of the Bishop’s address be printed and distributed.)