THE CHURCH IN AMERICA HISTORY Every English ship that came early to this continent or to its borders had on board a Chaplain of the Church of England whose duty it was to perform Divine Service daily, according to the rules of that Church. Without doubt John Cabot in 1497 carried with him to America in his ship "The Matthew" some minister of the Church of England. In 1498 a priest going to New Foundland was granted a royal bounty. Early in the sixteenth century, a canon of St. Paul's, London, was at St. John's, New Foundland, for a while. But these were of the unreformed Church. In 1553 the explorers under Sir Hugh Willoughby had with them Master Richard Stafford, Minister of their three ships. This fleet was the first in America to have prayers and preaching under the reformed Church of England. The Chaplain of Frobisher's expedition performed Divine Service along the shores of Maine and the Provinces in 1577. On May 31, 1578, on the shores of Hudson's Bay, "Master Wolfall celebrated a Communion upon land" for the Captain and others. This worthy man was the first missionary priest of the Reformed Church of England who ministered on American shores and the ice fields of the North. On June 21, 1579, the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, Chaplain to Sir Francis Drake, landed where California now is and performed religious services for six weeks. He was the first clergyman who used the Book of Common Prayer in the territory now embraced in the United States. It was expressly stated in the first charter for an English Colony in America, which was granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, that the laws of the new settlement should not be "against the true Christian faith or religion now professed in the Church of England" and the first law enjoined on taking possession of St. John's Harbor, New Foundland, was that the Colony's religion should be "in public exercise according to the Church of England." In July, 1584, Raleigh's first expedition landed at Roanoke Island, North Carolina, where Divine Service was then performed. Sir Thomas Hariot labored in Virginia, (now North Carolina,) and records his use of the Prayer Book among "the poor infidels" in 1585. He was one of the "first lay readers in the American Church." The first baptisms in America occurred in Raleigh's second colony, under Governor White. Manteo, an Indian Chief, was baptized Aug. 13, 1587, at Roanoke Island, N. C., and seven days later Virginia Dare was baptized, the first white child born in America of English parents. In 1589, Raleigh assigned his patent to a company of merchants and gave them one hundred pounds sterling "in especial regard and zeal of planting the Christian religion in those barbarous countries." This donation was the first contribution directly for missionary work in America. In 1602 and 3, Gosnold and Pring commanded expeditions which landed on the New England coast. (Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard.) They had as lay reader one William Salterne, who was ordained shortly after his return to England. He was the first to use the Book of Common Prayer in what is now called New England. Bishop Perry says there is every reason to believe that "the prayers and praises of the Leyden settlers . were anticipated by the forms of the Church of England in the very locality where the Pilgrim fathers lived and died." In 1605, an expedition sailed from Bristol, Eng. under Captain Richard Weymouth, with the declared object of "promulgating of God's Holy Church by planting Christianity." They sailed up the Penobscot and erected a cross near Belfast, Me. The savages who attended their worship were much impressed. Some of these savages were taken to England and educated. The first service of a permanent Church in America was at Jamestown, where the Virginia Colony landed, May 13, 1607, with the Rev. Robert Hunt, M.A., as their Chaplain. A rustic |