672 



EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



PURCELL, JOHN B. 



A large number of applications for loans and 

 gifts was received, and to the extent of ability 

 help was granted. The treasurer reports (from 

 Jan. 1, 1881, to Sept. 1, 1883) that loans were 

 made to eight churches, amounting to $8,400, 

 and gifts amounting to $415.20. Receipts dur- 

 ing the same period, $50,471.77. 



The Society for promoting Christianity 

 among the Jews (auxiliary to the Board of Mis- 

 sions) reports steady though not rapid prog- 

 ress. During the year eight new missionaries 

 were appointed, and three new missionary 

 schools and five new industrial schools were 

 established. Three new mission-houses have 

 been secured. Aid has been given to the par- 

 ish clergy of towns and villages in local work 

 among the Jews, through thirty-six 'dioceses 

 and ten missionary jurisdictions. Total num- 

 ber of workers has been 223, the Jews being 

 reached in 202 cities and towns. 



Receipts, etc. (from April 1, 1882, to Sept. 1, 1833). $29,909 20 



Expenditures for schools, salaries, etc 27,380 67 



Balance to new account 2,528 53 



Total $29,909 20 



General Condition of Chnrch Affairs. During the 

 year 1883 two bishops have died, viz., Bishops 

 Talbot and Pinkney (see OBITTJAEIES, AMEKI- 

 CAN), also sixty others of the clergy. Five 

 of the clergy have been raised to the Episco- 

 pate, viz., H. M. Thompson, Assistant Bishop 

 of Mississippi ; D. B. Knickerbacker, Bishop of 

 Indiana; H. C. Potter, Assistant Bishop of New 

 York; A. M. Randolph, Assistant Bishop of 

 Virginia; and W. D. Walker, Missionary Bishop 

 for Northern Dakota. The Committee of the 

 General Convention on the State of the Church 

 note the great deficiency in numbers of candi- 

 dates for orders, and attribute this deficiency 

 to various causes, such as the length of time 

 required and the great expense incurred in se- 

 curing proper education for the ministry ; the 

 frequent parochial changes ; and the lack of 

 provision for old age and infirmity. 



The Church Temperance Society is spoken of 

 in high terms, and earnest hope is expressed 

 that it may be an efficient helper in " checking 

 the ravages of that sin which, while not so 

 general in America as in some localities abroad, 

 has, it can be averred without extravagance of 

 speech, consigned more to premature graves 

 than war, pestilence, and famine combined." 



As illustrating the present spirit of the 

 Church, the committee's report calls attention 

 to the fact that "cathedrals, church schools 

 and colleges, hospitals and homes, have grown 

 apace in number and efficiency. Dioceses have 

 been subdivided into districts for more effective 

 missionary work in their own borders, bring- 

 ing clergy and laity of common centers into 

 more frequent counsel as fellow-helpers. Dea- 

 conesses and sisterhoods have been multiplied, 

 to do what only holy women with a distinctive 

 dress and under diocesan direction can do. 

 Guilds, in many leading parishes, have set all 

 their membership to active parochial work. 

 Church music has made progress; so that what 



was ostentatious and unseemly in the house of 

 God has given place to that which is classical, 

 dignified, and churchly. And whereas, only 

 forty years ago, there was but a single parish 

 in all the land which had the Eucharist week- 

 ly, there are now some three hundred parishes 

 where it is celebrated as the central act of di- 

 vine worship, at least on every Lord's day. 

 The enriched Book of Common Prayer, with 

 the new Lectionary, is hailed with general de- 

 light, as not the least among the increased in- 

 strumentalities for pulling down the strong- 

 holds of sin, Satan, and death, and as com- 

 mending our branch of the kingdom of our 

 blessed Lord as pre-eminently adapted to the 

 composite character of the American people." 



PURCELL, John Baptist, a Roman Catholic 

 prelate in the United States, born in Mallow, 

 Ireland, Feb. 26, 1800; died in the Ursuline 

 Convent at St. Martin's, Ohio, July 4, 1883. 

 He received a fair education, and in his eight- 

 eenth year came to America. On examina- 

 tion by the faculty of Asbury College, Balti- 

 more, he was granted a certificate, and he 

 soon after obtained a place as private teacher 

 in a family in Queen Anne county. In June, 

 1820, he entered Mount St. Mary's College at 

 Emmittsburg, Md., and prosecuted his studies 

 there for three years. 



In the autumn of 1823 he received from 

 Archbishop Marechal, of Baltimore, the four 

 minor orders of the Roman Catholic Church. 

 Early in 1824 Mr. Purcell sailed for France, 

 to complete his studies in the seminary of St. 

 Sulpice, at Paris and Issy. He was raised to 

 the priesthood, in Notre Dame Church, with 

 three hundred others, on May 21, 1826. On 

 his return to the United States, the next year, 

 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philoso- 

 phy in Mount St. Mary's College. He also 

 aided Dr. Brut6 in teaching theology, and at 

 the same time attended to the. regular duties 

 of priest in the neighboring congregation. In 

 1829 he became president of the college, which 

 office he held for four years. 



Father Purcell had been a priest for little 

 more than seven years, when, by pontifical 

 bull, in May, 1833, he was appointed Bishop 

 of Cincinnati. He was consecrated to this 

 office in Baltimore Cathedral, October 13th, 

 and installed in the Cathedral Church in Cin- 

 cinnati, Nov. 14, 1833. At this date there was 

 only one church of his denomination in Cin- 

 cinnati, and his diocese covered the whole 

 State of Ohio. His labors, consequently, were 

 arduous and incessant. He obtained relief as 

 to episcopal work proper by having Cleveland 

 diocese set off in 1847, and the diocese of 

 Columbus in 1868. He was very active and 

 industrious in founding churches in nearly 

 every considerable town in the State, as well 

 as in establishing an ecclesiastical seminary, 

 orphan asylums, protectories, colleges, gymna- 

 siums, convents, houses of education and re- 

 ligious houses, hospitals and free schools, and 

 various religious orders. In Cincinnati and its 



