his new enterprise with his accustomed energy, and during the continuance of the war accomplished much. Peace came in 1815, but with it no protection of woolens. He sustained the whole establishment with immense losses, until 1820, when, all hope from government failing, the factories at Worthington and Steubenville were crushed."

Colonel Kilbourne's first wife, the grandmother of Cynthia Cowles, was Lucy Fitch, the only daughter of John Fitch, inventor and builder of the first steamboat in America.

CHAPTER VII

THE MINISTRY-HIGH CHURCH TENDENCIES-THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW CHURCH PARTIES CONVENTION OF 1844-REBAPTISM

Arriving in Columbus to take charge of the new parish that he was expected to build up, the Reverend Mr. Richards found only the basement of the little church in existence; but it was roofed over, and equipped for services. On the first day of December, 1842, the parish was formally organized according to the rules of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, with twenty-one communicants. The Sunday School numbered fifty scholars. Mr. Richards held the first full and regular services on the first Sunday of Advent of that year.

The young couple took up their quarters for a time at the house of an aunt of the bride, named Harriet Buttles. The two families to which the organization of the new mission was chiefly due were those of Aurora Buttles and Isaac N. Whiting, two gentlemen who had married sisters, Harriet and Orrel Kilbourne. They were grave, conscientious men, each after his own manner, highly respectable and of great

weight in the community. "Aunt Buttles" was a woman of remarkable ability, very sound in her views, as soundness was then estimated, and with an unusual facility of explaining and advocating her convictions. She possessed a masculine mind with feminine tenderness; she was well balanced and very wise and prudent. "Aunt Whiting" was equally large hearted, but not so staid and conservative as her elder sister. She was enthusiastic, excitable, and impulsive, but capable of great and sustained labor in any good cause. She entered heartily into all plans of parish effort and enterprise, was fertile in expedients, and supplied abundant enthusiasm to inspire the most languid workers and to surmount the most formidable obstacles. So great was her ascendancy that the church was sometimes facetiously known as St. Orrell's. The two families were influential, and around them gathered a few other people of standing. They gave tone to the congregation and settled the shade of teaching and ritual which would prove acceptable. As it happened, the preference of these families, in contrast with the great majority of the Trinity congregation, was for the High Church variety, though it was too early as yet for the extremely advanced practices that afterward became comOne chief motive for the foundation of the new mission was to preach the gospel ac

mon.

cording to the Episcopal doctrine as understood by high churchmen to the poor of the lower district of the city. It was no doubt due in part to this intention that from the beginning it was stipulated by the founders that the church should be free, i. e., that no charge should be made for sittings.

To spiritual work for the poor, Mr. Richards was by nature particularly well adapted. Himself endowed with an unaffected dignity and refinement of manner and a bright, kindly, good humor that made him the centre of every gathering at which he was present, he was yet extremely democratic in his views and sympathies. Never throughout life did he show the slightest trace of social ambition or of that esteem for mere wealth that infests so much of modern society. Not only did he sympathize keenly with the poor in their sufferings and trials, but in his dealings with them there was no element of condescension or patronage. They were his equals, his suffering brothers in Christ, and he felt it to be a privilege as well as his plain duty to spend himself and be spent in their service. With his active, energetic nature and his intense piety, born of his strict religious training and his practice of frequent and fervent prayer, it may easily be imagined that he threw himself into the duties of his new position with the most ardent zeal and enthusi

asm. In one instance, his zeal in the service of the poor may perhaps be judged to have been excessive. There were a few respectable persons of this class in the limits of the parish, among whom, as Mr. Richards remarks, a certain Mrs. Morningstar shone resplendent. Her memory constituted a bright spot in his recollections throughout life. She was a widow with one son, a mere boy, and quite without means of support. To this dear and gentle old lady someone had given a load of slabs, the refuse of the sawmill, to be used as firewood. But there was no one to saw them to proper lengths for use; so the minister shouldered his saw and buck, marched to her little house, and performed the laborious task. In this there was not only no ostentation, but he was not even conscious of making an act of extraordinary mortification or self-conquest. He simply saw that the poor woman needed the work done and that there was no one to do it but himself, and to him it seemed natural and proper that he should undertake it. This was by no means the only occasion on which he showed himself singularly free from human respect. But the same view of their minister's action seems not to have been taken by all his parishioners. Unfavorable remarks were made; and Mr. Richards was led to think that it might perhaps have been wiser, on the whole,