266 LIFE AND CORKLir^rONDENCE OF THE [iJSQ 



Feed ns then, O blessed God, we pray; feed us and nourish us more 

 and more, with this heavenly meat and drink daily ! and bring us at 

 last to feed and live upon it eternally ! And now, etc.. 



Better counsel, more necessary prayer, could no man offer, at 

 the opening of this the greatest council that the American Church 

 has held ! 



Dr. Griffith, on whom the other sermon was preached, was a 

 native of New York and born a. d. 1742. He was educated 

 chiefly in England and graduated in London as a student of med- 

 icine; a profession which, returning to America, he practised for 

 some time in the province of New York. In 1770 he entered the 

 ministry, being ordained by Bishop Terrick, then Bishop of Lon- 

 don. After a short residence in Gloucester, New Jersey, as 

 Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel — 

 where he succeeded the gifted young Nathaniel Evans, of whom 

 we have spoken so much in our former volume — he went to Vir- 

 ginia; and being highly recommended by the Governor of that 

 State, took charge of Shelburne Parish, Loudon county, Virginia. 

 Here he continued till May, 1776, when he entered the army as 

 Chaplain to the Third Virginia Regiment, and was at the battle 

 of Monmouth and I suppose at other battles. He remained in 

 the army till 1779. In 1780 he entered into the rectorship of 

 Christ Church, Alexandria, a church which is known as the one 

 in which Washington worshipped. This illustrious man was his 

 parishioner. In May, 1786, he was elected by the Convention of 

 Virginia to be Bishop of the Church of that State, and his testi- 

 monials h iving been signed by the General Convention at Wil- 

 mington, Djiiware, of the same year, it was expected both by the 

 English Bishops, and by Doctors White and Provoost that he 

 would proceed to England and be there consecrated ; so that there 

 should be three bishops in America deriving consecration through 

 the Anglican line. This, however, he was unable to do, and, soon 

 after, he resigned to the Virginia Convention the honor proffered 

 to him. He was a man of sincere piety, and of much usefulness 

 in the Church, and was in the General Conventions (as we may 

 call them to distinguish them from those of Virginia) of 1784, 

 1785, and 1786. He received his doctorate from the University 

 of Petmsylvania in the last-named year. He died, as we have 

 already said, in Philadelphia while attending the Convention of 



