native state. To Philander Chase, then in his forty-second year, at the height of his physical manhood, this “call of the wild’’ was emphatically a call from God. He had behind him twenty years’ experience of remarkable success in the ministry and had proven himself to be extraordinarily capable, versatile and energetic. All the records of him now in the library at Kenyon College show him to have been a man of magnetic temperament, rare charm of manner and distinguished physical beauty—a born leader and at the same time a man who made bitter enemies because of quickness of temper and impatience of all opposition.
In what he did he felt himself called of God as directly as was Saul of Tarsus on his famous journey to Damascus. This was the man who in 1817 gave up a large and flourishing city parish and a life of ease, comfort and culture to go out to the tiny village of Worthington to take charge of the parish in that village and parishes newly established in Columbus, Delaware and Berkshire. In January, 1818, the Diocese of Ohio was organized and in June of that year Philander Chase was elected first Bishop of Ohio. With his customary energy Bishop Chase at once threw himself into the work of organizing his diocese. Scattered throughout the state were many little parishes where earnest churchmen held services under lay readers. There were no ordained ministers available and the supply in the states along the seaboard
was so small that men were reluctant to leave their work in establishing communities to brave the hardships of the wilderness. Bishop Chase felt that the only way to build up the church in the West was to secure the services of men brought up and educated in the West, and to accomplish this became the fixed purpose of his life. In his “Reminiscences” he tells of what first gave rise to Kenyon College and it is almost like a chapter in the Acts of the Apostles.
One night in June, 1823, he tells of how his son told him of an article which had been published in a number of the Philadelphia Record, containing an extract from an English review in the British Critic. In this review there was a lengthy account of the work of the Episcopal Church in America, and particularly in Ohio, with special admiration expressed for an address which Bishop Chase had made to the other Bishops appealing for help to found a college and theological seminary in the West. Raising himself from his couch, the Bishop says—“a thought has struck me from Heaven—I will appeal to England for assistance. If from what they have seen, they think kindly of us, when the whole truth is known they will help us.”
This was the real beginning of Kenyon College and the creation and upbuilding of what I have called “An Architectural Oasis.”
Once convinced of the righteousness of an idea,
MATHER SCIENCE HALL, KENYON COLLEGE—ABRAM GARFIELD, ARCHITECT
In what he did he felt himself called of God as directly as was Saul of Tarsus on his famous journey to Damascus. This was the man who in 1817 gave up a large and flourishing city parish and a life of ease, comfort and culture to go out to the tiny village of Worthington to take charge of the parish in that village and parishes newly established in Columbus, Delaware and Berkshire. In January, 1818, the Diocese of Ohio was organized and in June of that year Philander Chase was elected first Bishop of Ohio. With his customary energy Bishop Chase at once threw himself into the work of organizing his diocese. Scattered throughout the state were many little parishes where earnest churchmen held services under lay readers. There were no ordained ministers available and the supply in the states along the seaboard
was so small that men were reluctant to leave their work in establishing communities to brave the hardships of the wilderness. Bishop Chase felt that the only way to build up the church in the West was to secure the services of men brought up and educated in the West, and to accomplish this became the fixed purpose of his life. In his “Reminiscences” he tells of what first gave rise to Kenyon College and it is almost like a chapter in the Acts of the Apostles.
One night in June, 1823, he tells of how his son told him of an article which had been published in a number of the Philadelphia Record, containing an extract from an English review in the British Critic. In this review there was a lengthy account of the work of the Episcopal Church in America, and particularly in Ohio, with special admiration expressed for an address which Bishop Chase had made to the other Bishops appealing for help to found a college and theological seminary in the West. Raising himself from his couch, the Bishop says—“a thought has struck me from Heaven—I will appeal to England for assistance. If from what they have seen, they think kindly of us, when the whole truth is known they will help us.”
This was the real beginning of Kenyon College and the creation and upbuilding of what I have called “An Architectural Oasis.”
Once convinced of the righteousness of an idea,
MATHER SCIENCE HALL, KENYON COLLEGE—ABRAM GARFIELD, ARCHITECT