I

CHAPTER XIX.

BISHOP JOHNS.

AM sure that my readers will wish to hear something of Bishop John Johns, whom I knew well for nearly forty years, and who died just twenty-six years ago this Easter.day. I became acquainted with him first on a visit to Baltimore at some gathering or convention shortly after my coming, early in 1837. I remember hearing him preach and being deeply impressed with his powers as a preacher and orator. themselves first unto the Lord." I service with Miss Julia on his arm. wife.

His text was "They gave

saw him come out after He had just lost his first

Bishop Johns did not wish any of his manuscripts published, and no life of him has been written; so that much interesting material is lost to the Church. His life and recollections would have been of great value and interest on account of his gifts, his important work, and his wide influence and long life in the ministry. He was born in New Castle, Delaware, July 10, 1796, his father (Kensey Johns) being the first Chancellor of that diocese and a distinguished lawyer. The Chancellor's father was Captain Kensey Johns, of West River, Maryland, where he was a most prominent and useful man, being sheriff of Anne Arundel county, a large merchant, shipping tobacco direct to London and importing goods in return, and had a fine estate called Sudley, on which the house is still standing in good condition.

Bishop Johns inherited this estate through his father from an uncle, Captain John Johns, and he often spent part of his summers there, delighting in its magnificent oaks, which are among the finest I have ever seen-now, alas, all gone for ships. The place is now owned by his son, Dr. Kensey Johns, of Norfolk, of the fifth generation, and the third of that name, as far as I know. The house is said to be two hundred and fifty years old, and the parlor is wainscoted in large panels from floor to ceiling, and was in good preservation a few years ago when I visited it.

Chancellor Johns, with whom I travelled once from Philadelphia to New Castle, was ninety years old at the time of his death. I have heard the Bishop say that from the time of his

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BISHOP JOHNS' ANCESTRY.

parents' death there was never one day but he had thought of them, never a day he had not brought them up before his mind as they looked when he saw them last. There were seven children in the family, of whom Bishop Johns was the last survivor. His brother, Henry Van Dyke, succeeded him as rector of Christ Church, Baltimore, and died in 1859 while rector of Emmanuel Church. His name is a precious memory to those who knew him, and his piety and ability were eminent.

The Bishop's brother, Kensey Johns, Jr., was the second Chancellor of Delaware. One of his sisters married Mr. Stockton, and another married Dr. Stewart, and was the mother of Rev. Dr. Kensey J. Stewart, who entered our Seminary the year I came, and who died this year in Richmond.

The character of a man depends so much upon the circumstances of his birth and education that John Locke said "the difference to be found in the manners and abilities of men is owing more to their education than to anything else. I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine out of ten are what they are good or evil, useful or not-by their education." It is now generally held that environment is a stronger force than heredity. John Johns was undoubtedly, by his natural gifts, "fashioned to much honor," and was placed in the most favorable circumstances for his development, being brought up in the bosom of a refined and highly cultivated family.

Rev. Dr. Charles Hodge, of Princeton Seminary, his lifelong friend, wrote me a long letter at the time of the Bishop's death, from which I quote. "He was only eighteen months my senior, but yet his feeling towards me was always somewhat paternal. He used to say, that he brought me up, and if I did not behave he would bring me down.' If he approved of anything I had written, his usual way of expressing it was 'Charles, I think I wrote that.'"'

"There were two churches in New Castle, the one Episcopal, of which the Rev. Mr. Clay was the rector; the other Presbyterian, of which the Rev. John Latta was pastor. Each of these gentlemen had a country parish, and they so arranged it that they never officiated in the town on the same part of the day on Sunday. Hence the same congregation went in the morning to the one church and in the afternoon to the other; and the children were baptized in the one or the other, as happened to be convenient. In Chief-Justice Johns' family some of the children were

serve.

COLLEGE LIFE OF JOHNS.

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Presbyterians and others Episcopalians. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Bishop, in the early part of his preparatory course, was undecided as to the Church he should The late Rev. Dr. James P. Wilson, of Philadelphia, before he entered the ministry was a distinguished lawyer in Delaware, and an intimate friend of Judge Johns. It was under his advice that the Bishop decided to enter the service of the Episcopal Church. This decision, although neither of us at the time knew anything about it, determined my whole course in life. When Dr. Archibald Alexander was appointed Professor in Princeton Seminary, he had under his care the departments of Didactic, Polemic and Pastoral Theology, together with instruction in Hebrew. He soon found this was too burdensome, and therefore determined to select some young man on whom he might devolve the Hebrew Department. He selected Johns, and when he decided to enter the Episcopal Church he took up with me."

"Johns was always first-first everywhere and first in everything. His success was largely due to his conscientious determination always to do his best. He was thoroughly prepared for every exercise in college and in the Seminary. Our class had to study Turretin's System of Theology in Latin. Sometimes a large number of pages would be given out for examination, and Johns was the only one of the class who could master them fully. He was always the best in the class. We entered Princeton College together in the fall of 1812, and graduated in 1815. Two of my college vacations of six weeks each I spent with him in his home. in New Castle, Delaware. We slept together, prayed together, and in social religious meetings told the people the little we knew of Christ, helping each other out. We entered the Theological Seminary together in 1816. He remained only two years, having decided to enter the ministry in the Episcopal Church.” Rev. Horace E. Hayden, a relative of the Bishop, asked Bishop Johns if he had entered the Church through Dr. Wilson's advice. He said "No, it is not true. You know that my father was an Episcopalian, a communicant and warden of the Episcopal Church, and that I was raised in that Church, and I entered her ministry because of my training and my preference, because I was convinced that it had the only form of Church Government revealed in the New Testament." At that time there was no Seminary of our Church to which Johns could go. He studied at Princeton under Drs. Alexander and Miller, to whom he said he owed much. Both

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CHARACTER OF BISHOP JOHNS.

Bishops Meade and Johns were graduates of Princeton College, which has a long roll of eminent men from the South as well as from the North.

Dr. Hodge goes on to say: "In the great day of sorrow predicted by the prophet, it is said 'every family shall mourn apart.' So, when such a man as Bishop Johns is taken away, the whole 'land mourneth '-his own household, his Church, the community, each apart. So I mourn alone. For nearly sixty-four years we were as intimate and confidential as though we had been born at one birth. In all this time, to the best of my recollection, there was never an angry word passed between us. I have my precious wife and my children as saplings around me. Nevertheless, now he is gone, I feel like the last tree of a forest. Alas,

alas! he is gone. You see, I cannot think or speak of him except as to what he was to me. What he was as a man, as a Christian, as a minister, as a bishop, others know as well or better than I do; but I only know what he was to me-so good, so kind, so loving, without a shadow of change for sixty-four years! Our last interview, in May last, was the most loving of our whole lives. I'mourn apart.' Their friendship was wonderful—like that of David and Jonathan.

John Johns was ordained deacon by Bishop White in St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, May 6, 1819, and priest the same year probably, as he is so entered in the Maryland Convention Journal of 1820. He was on a visit to Garrison Forest, near Baltimore, a few weeks after his ordination, and preached in old St. Thomas', intending to remain and preach there another Sunday, but Mr. Henshaw (afterwards Bishop) gave notice that he would preach the next Sunday in Frederick, Md. He did so and was called while deacon to that parish, where he stayed until 1829. There he brought into the Church and into its ministry Rev. J. T. Brooke, who was afterwards a distinguished minister in Cincinnati and elsewhere. He told me that when he took charge of his first parish, in Frederick, Md., he always began to write his sermon on Monday morning, got it done by Wednesday evening, and began to commit it to memory Thursday morning. This habit of memorizing his sermons he discontinued after a time, and instead wrote his sermon on his mind. To assist him in pursuing the same train of thought and language, he wrote down on a scrap of paper a catch-word in each sentence, which he carried with him into the pulpit but never appeared to use. I

DR. JOHNS AS PREACHER.

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found once in St. Paul's Church, Alexandria, after he had preached, a small slip of paper in his handwriting containing such disconnected catch-words of sentences.

While his mode of preparation could not be judiciously recommended to every one, no doubt it was best for him and contributed to his extraordinary readiness in thought and utterance on all occasions, in which I never knew any one in Congress or at the bar or in the pulpit to excel him. He never seemed to find any difficulty in expressing himself, and that, too, in the most apt and felicitous words, of which you would not like to change a single one. No difference in his style could be detected when called upon unexpectedly or when given time for preparation, so well trained was his mind and so great and available were his resources. Bishop Johns told me that he would be as embarassed with a manuscript as a person used to reading sermons would be without a manuscript. He told a student that preparing a sermon was uphill work and never got any easier. Of course, the art of composition gets more perfect and easy by practice, but the presentation of truth in the best way is always difficult.

God gives to his servants varying talents-five, two or oneaccording to the ability of each. To Bishop Johns, we may truly say, he gave five-a bright intellect, an emotional nature, natural earnestness, a melodious voice, and facility and felicity of speech. He was not like Moses, slow of speech and of a slow tongue. He possessed a combination of gifts rarely found in the same person. He avoided the usual faults of what is called extemporaneous preaching-its shallowness, dicursiveness and repetition-by a most thorough study and preparation of his subject and material. He had that most valuable gift, the methodic arrangement of his thoughts and words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing in every sentence the whole thought which he intended to communicate.

The foundation of his success as a preacher was laid in his thorough knowledge of theology. He had been, as we have seen, well trained at Princeton. While the learning of others might have been more extensive, it was not so accurate. What he knew he knew perfectly, and it was always at command. No one of our bishops, in my opinion, was so familiar with the writings of the old divines, not only of the Church of England, but of the Continent. I have sometimes thought that because his preaching was so simple that the common people heard him gladly, he was not esteemed a great theologian, as he truly was,