49° HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



Training School, and other flourishing Church schools, manifest his 

 power of organization and maintenance, and his success in rallying aid 

 by means of the confidence which his personal and official character in- 

 spired, he never neglected the General Institutions of the Church. Not 

 only in General Convention was he one of the strong men of the Upper 

 House ; but in the Board of Missions, in the Church Book Society, in 

 the General Theological Seminary, he has been among the foremost, 

 sometimes the one of all others to lead the way at critical moments, and 

 to sound the call to which others were glad to rally. His clear-sighted- 

 ness, indeed, sometimes made him a little in advance of his time ; and 

 no truer proof of wisdom could be given by a tenacious man than the 

 promptness with which he dropped a subject when satisfied that it was 

 not yet ripe for action. One case of this kind was in regard to the Gen- 

 eral Theological Seminary, which he foresaw must sooner or later change 

 its form from a general to a local institution ; and about twenty years 

 ago he proposed it in the Board. The proposal failed, and was not re- 

 newed. The time for that change is much nearer now than it was then, 

 and the shape which it will take, will probably be different in some im- 

 portant respects from Bishop de Lancey's ideas at that time. But his 

 foresight as to the coming change will continue on record. Another 

 and still more important subject was also introduced first by him into 

 General Convention — the adoption of the Provincial System. Bishop 

 White, indeed, had sketched out the plan long before, and he had taken 

 it from the universal system of the Church in all ages and countries ; 

 but Bishop de Lancey was the first to propose it, formally, to the Legis- 

 lature of the Church. The time had not come ; and the Bishop wisely 

 let it sleep thereafter ; but here, as before, the proof of his foresight as 

 to the approaching and certain needs of the Church is written in the 

 records of her institutions. Bishops of more brilliance in some depart- 

 ments, of more moving eloquence, of more sympathetic temperaments, 

 of more personal popularity, of more rapid visible success, we may be- 

 hold ; but a Bishop more sagacious, more steady, more true, in laying 

 the foundations of the Church, like a wise master-builder, we never ex- 

 pect to see." 



John Peter De Lancey by will (dated 28th of January, 1823) 

 devised his property in this town to Thomas James De Lancey, the only 

 child of his deceased son Thomas James, and to his son William Heath- 

 cote De Lancey the Bishop of Western New York (except a portion of 

 the western end of De Lancey's Neck which he had conveyed in his life 

 time to his deceased son Thomas James, who had devised the same to 

 his only child Thomas James the younger). All the property of Thomas 



