Samuel Seabury

THE life of Bishop Seabury published by Dr. Beardsley in 1881, gives the only extended account of him which has yet appeared; although there have been very many commemorations of him in casual, and therefore in some sense ephemeral publications, some of which, nevertheless, have been of great and permanent value. Notwithstanding, however, the undoubted excellence and faithfulness of Dr. Beardsley's book, it has seemed to many that it was not in all respects such as to preclude the usefulness of another treatment of the subject; for which, indeed, there has of late been all the greater need from the fact that Dr. Beardsley's book has been long since out of print. These considerations, and the urgency of some whose wishes could not be other than influential with me, have led me to undertake the present Memoir. Now that it is completed I am conscious that the Memoir has not accomplished all that I could have wished, nor all that is due to the subject of it. In the marshalling of the materials at my disposal I have often been deeply impressed with the value of what I could not possibly use without extending the book beyond readable limits; and I confess that what I have proposed to myself has been above all to give such an account of Bishop Seabury as should at least be readable, and thus tend to promote the more general knowledge of a man really worth knowing. How to do this, and at the same time to treat fully and fairly those grave topics and important principles without the understanding of which the subject of the Memoir could not be understood, has been the problem which I have tried to solve. Whether I have succeeded in this effort the reader will, of course, judge for himself, but my aim has been to keep the life of the man always in view, so that the story might have a personal interest which would add some zest to the treatment of the more abstract matters which were necessary to be considered. My many obligations to various writers are, of course, noted in the text; but I ought, I think, to express my particular sense of the benefit of having had Dr. Beardsley's treatment of the subject before me; and of having had also the knowledge of those invaluable Memoirs, for which the Church in this country is profoundly indebted to the venerable Bishop White. No one can know the history of that Church without knowing Bishop White's Memoirs; and to the knowledge of Bishop Seabury they largely contribute, describing him and his position not only with great fairness, but with an affectionate appreciation which is truly gratifying.