Address at the Centenary of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, Conn.

t Jackson Kemper was born December 24th, 1789, at Pleasant Valley, near Poughkeepsie, N. Y. His parents were transient residentsof that place, their home being in New York City, to which their young son was taken for baptism by Bishop Moore. He was afterward sent to a school taught by one of the Fitch family, of Darien, and subsequently to Cheshire, where his predecessor at- St. Paul’s, Dr. Wm. Smith, was principal. He then studied, as did also Bishop Benj. T. Onderdonk, and Judge Hoffman, with Dr. Barry: and the doctor’s three pupils entered Columbia College together and graduated in 1809. Mr. Kemper read theology under the direction of the clergy of Trin- ity Church. In the spring of 1811 he was ready for deacon’s orders, and as Bishop Moore lay stricken with paralysis, and Bishop Hobart was not yet consecrated, he was ordained by Bishop White in St. Peter’s Church, Phil- adelphia, on March 11th, 1811. He was almost at once called to the united parishes of St. Peter and St. James, of which Bishop White had been rec- tor. He was admitted to priest’s orders by Bishop White and continued his Philadelphia connection until 1831. During a portion of the time he spent in Pennsylvania he was in ill-health, and consequently took long journeys, usually on horseback. In one of these trips he went as far west as Ohio, visiting and officiating in Canfield and Boardmans, and Poland, in that diocese. In 1814 he was called to the assistantship of St. Paul’s Church (Dr. Kemp’s), Baltimore. He refused it and the parish was oflered to his friend, the late Dr. Wyatt, who there continued until the end of his life. In 1816 he was married to Miss Jerusha Lyman, a daughter of General William Lyman, of Northampton, Mass., a lady of rare intellect and superior character. She died, in 1818, and in 1821 he married Miss Ann Relf, of Philadelphia, who was the mother of his three children — Elizabeth (Mrs. William Adams), Louis, one of the noblest sons of the church, and Samuel, residing in Wisconsin. Mrs. Ann Kemper was fifteen years younger than her husband, and was a very remarkable and very beautiful woman, and although a resident of Norwalk for only two months, was cherished and beloved by our people. It was the desire on the part of her husband for a rural parish that secured for St. Paul’s this happy rectorship, to an appreciation of which the people at once rose. The vestry of the parish went on the evening ot the doctor’s arrival in June, 1831, to Old Well, and after the steamer Fairfield was made fast to the pier, and the doctor and his family descended the plank, extended to them a true welcome. They were at once driven to Hezekiah Jarvis’s house and the “Squire” and his wife, and his daughters Lavinia and Sarah and Amelia and Mary received them, and (until their goods arrived) made them at home. A bright and happy summer followed: the pas- tor and his partner both throwing themselves with great zest into country parish life. Dr. Kemper spent a great deal of his time with his people. In a letter of Mrs. Kemper written at that time is penned that he “had every evening a service in some of the outlying hamlets.” It was his custom, after the second service in the early afternoon on Sunday, to visit some of the parishioners who through age or infirmity had been kept away from church, 19 above all tlie saintliness of the rector from 1831 to 1835 are among the holy memories of this people. His look was benignant, and his manner full of grace, and his nature of sweetness, and his religion was the even flow of the peaceful meadow stream. . “The Lord is in His Holy Temple” and no man in liis performance of the service, beginning thus, seemed more fully to realize that the object of worship was everything and he nothing, than did Doctor Kemper. His sermons were full of wise words, his private counsels were pre- cious, he was an angel of compassion to the afflicted, and his minis- trations were a benediction descending from Heaven. He was called in 1835 to the missionary bishopric of the northwest, and left a sor- rowing flock, committing to their tender keeping the dust of his beloved wife. He died in 1870, and rests on the banks of the Nashota lakes,* close by the mound raised over the remains of his earnest and indefatigable old Sunday school officer’s son, the Rev. LeGrand Finney, of this parish, f After the resignation, in 1835, of Dr. Kemper, the parish called and the setting Lord’s day usually found him at old Mrs. William St. John’s and elsewhere, reading to his aged communicants and praying with them. In May, 1832, Mrs. Kemper died, and the parsonage and parish were in deep affliction. Dr. Kemper remained, rendering faithful service until his elec- tion in 1835 to the Episcopate, and Consecration on Sept. 25, that year, in the same church (St. Peter’s, Philadelphia), and by the same prelate where and by whom he had twenty-four years before been admitted to the diaconate. * Bishop Kemper’s monument is thus inscribed : — Here rests in hope The body of JACKSON KEMPER, Born Dec 24, 1789 Died May 24, 1870. To live is Christ, To die is gain. The sides of the tomb are thus lettered : — First Missionary Bishop of the American Church 1835—1859 First Bishop of the Diocese of Wisconsin 1854—1870 tThe Sunday school officer here referred to is James Finney, Esq., who lacked but a few months of fifty years’ service as librarian and superintend- ent of St. Paul’s school. His son LeGrand, a devoted young clergyman of the church, was for some time rector of the parish in Plainfield, New Jersey, after which he removed to the West, where he died. A discourse commemorative of his former Sunday school pupil, LeGrand Finney, was preached by the late Dr. Mead, from the text, “So he giveth his beloved sleep.’’ Concerning Mr. Finney at the time of his ordination. Dr. Mead in his sermon, July 7th, 1861, remarked : “It has also been a cheering event in my ministry here that one of those whom I baptized in infancy, and presented for confirmation in his youth, and to whom I gave his first communion, has been presented by me to the bishop to be admitted to the first grade in the Christian ministry, and that I have the real gratification of seeing him begin his public ministry with such indications of talent and zeal, and such tokens of devotion to his sacred calling, as to encourage the belief that he will in due time take rank among the ablest and most useful ministers of the church.” to the rectorship the Rev. William Croswell, rector of Christ Church, Boston, and son of the Rev. Dr. Harry Croswell, of Trin- ity Church, New Haven. He was Bishop-elect Kemper’s nominee and was commended by Bishops Brownell and Doane, and the action of the parish in without delay extending its invitation to one of so much promise was highly complimentary to it. But Mr. Croswell declined the call, saying to his father in a letter of Sept. 19, 1835, that he had never been to Norwalk and was ignorant of the strength of its claims to consideration. The next choice fell upon the Rev. Mr. Cummins, and a commit- tee visited New York City for the purpose of waiting upon him, but the errand was fruitless. On the 12tli of October,' 1835, a call was extended to the Rev. James C. Richmond, of Philadelphia, who shortly afterwards ac- cepted and entered upon the work. On July 1st, 1836, the follow- ing letter was read in a meeting held that day: To the Parishioners of St. Paul 's Church , Norwalk: Gentlemen: — With the most heartfelt regret I am under the necessity of respectfully requesting your acceptance of my resigna- tion of the rectorship of this church. Having received an invita- tion which my duty to the church and my family does not leave me at liberty to refuse, I trust you will grant this request with a full and candid consideration of my case. Since the early dissolution of the endearing relation between pastor and flock is unpleasant in itself, I beg that an entry be made on your records that this request is presented by me at a time when your harmony as a Christian so- ciety and your kindness to me as your pastor add unfeigned sorrow to the sentiments to which I subscribe such a petition. Yours respectfully and affectionately in Christ, James C. Richmond. The meeting accepted the resignation of Mr. Richmond,* and *The rectorship of Rev. James Cook Richmond was brief, but his fervor and fidelity are not forgotten by his former parishionex-s. He was born in Provi- dence, R. I., and although but 27 years of age, when in Norwalk, it was evi- dent that his gifts and powers were extraordinary. He was educated at Har- vard, and afterward at Gottingen, and Halle, and ordained deacon in 1832, and priest in 1833 by Bishop Griswold, and he died in 1866. The following are extracts from a speech delivered in Milwaukee by U. S. Senator Carpenter upon the occasion of his death : “He was a gi’eat man measured by any standard you please to select. No man ever assailed his orthodoxy. The divinity of Jesus he believed to be the corner stone of the faith. He reasoned, argued, declaimed with the wax-mest zeal against all doubt on this cardinal point. There was nothing that so oc- cupied his thoughts as this; and we, who so often heard him, can never for- get his zeal and the very great ability with which he always treated his grand and lofty theme. He had great contempt for mere rhetoric, and held it alto- gether unsuitable to the pulpit. Religious belief and faith must be bottomed upon facts, truths: the hearer must not only be induced to yield assent; he must be convinced. The first ten minutes of his sermon were occupied with short sentences; the foundations of his arguments were slowly and care- fully laid, and the structure of his theory arose upon it as regularly, and 21 before adjourning voted that Stephen Mott, Benjamin Isaacs, Wil- liam J. Street and Stephen Smith be a committee empowered to call the Rev. William Cooper Mead, D. D. , * of Philadelphia; which call