Address panel with postmark and traces of a seal to "The Rev. Jno: H. Hopkins / Cambridge, Mss."
Docketed on verso.
Part of a 12-volume collection of Autographs and Manuscripts of Bishops of The Protestant Episcopal Church (MA 364-375). The arrangement of the collection is by Bishops in the order of their consecration and chronological within their portion of the collection. Letters in this collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
Concerning the "informal overture" to him from Vermont; offering advice derived from his five years in Vermont; outlining his reasons for thinking the offer of this position a good one; saying "All over the State, the leading new young merchants, physicians & lawyers of the best talent & education are absolutely rife for attaching themselves to any denomination sufficiently genteel, which they think less strict (alas! by this they generally mean less religious) than the old standing order. They would as soon perhaps become Unitarians or Universalists (sometimes far sooner) as Episcopalians were not the church fairly & very favorably before them;" saying "This is greatly aided by the Yankee passion for good churches which is no where paid for as liberally according to their means as in Vermont;" adding "But the grand element, especially in your favorite line, is the number of young men, training, or who may be trained, with blessed promise of usefulness for the sacred ministry;" saying that he has filled the letter so far with the reasons in favor of Vermont but must share the "trying peculiarities of the field: They are to be found, mainly in the poverty and narrow views of the laity and the little repulsions amongst the clergy, which as you know act always in an inverse proportion to the distance & scarcity of ministers. For many years, if you go to Vermont, you will be stung & vexed with these things, as by the torment of gnats......Great will be the sacrifice of pecuniary interest & refined plan, and feelings of you and yours, if you go to Vermont. But great, I dare predict will be the hallowed, humbling, elevating influence of this self-sacrificing spirit, should you go."