The way he would prance up and down the avenue, with the episcopal cloak floating in the wind and the tricornered university hat, brought from England, nodding to the measured time of the canter, was beautiful to behold. On the occasion of which I am speaking, the Bishop had taken his New York friend over the plantation. . . . As they ascended the hill leading into the main street of the town from the west, the Bishop, inspired by the magnificence of his schemes and the greatness of the work in which he was engaged and upon which he had been descanting with his usual eloquence, rose proudly in his stirrups, and with a lordly sweep of his hand, indicating the extent of the domain over which he presided, exclaimed: "They call me King of Gambierand so I am!' Yet that same King of Gambier I have seen, when prancing in right royal style along the avenue between the town and college, and meeting one of the little boys from the latter, raise his tricornered hat with a lordly grace, and with a most condescending inclination, sweep on as though he had saluted a prince of the blood royal."

We may add here another anecdote of Bishop Chase, derived from another source and not given in his published life. When the Bishop, then occupying the see of Illinois, returned to the East to preside, as senior Bishop, over the

General Convention, he met in the company a minister whom he had not seen for several years. In the meantime, the Reverend gentleman had published a book in which he advocated the opinion that the Virgin Mary had given birth to other sons after our Lord Jesus Christ. Bishop Chase refused to notice in any way his former friend, and when the latter pressed forward, offering his hand, the Bishop, drawing himself up to his full height, uttered with intense scorn, the words, "You beast!"

It is interesting to note in this connection that one of Bishop Chase's descendants became in after years a Catholic and a nun, Sister Mary F. de Sales of the Visitation order. Under the signature of Edselas, her contributions to various Catholic periodicals have been frequent up to the time of her death in recent years.

When the lad Henry Richards returned in the summer of 1830 to his home in Granville, he little imagined that the King of Gambier, whose greatness had so deeply impressed his boyish imagination, was soon to be ignominiously dethroned and to retire in discomfiture from his college and even his diocese. This was the result, in part at least, of those dissensions between High and Low Church parties, which were already beginning to tear asunder the Protestant Episcopal body, but of which

the future Ritualist and convert was still in happy ignorance. The history of this change, so far as it bore on Mr. Richards' future career, belongs to another chapter.

CHAPTER III

EARLY LIFE IN OHIO THE VILLAGE STORE- -RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES-THE TEMPER

ANCE MOVEMENT

1830-1832

On his return from college in the autumn of 1830, Henry Richards entered the store of his Uncle, Lucius D. Mower, as a clerk. As usual in country districts, all kinds of goods were sold in one establishment, a custom which curiously enough has recently been adopted by the largest city merchants, both wholesale and retail, in the enormous agglomerations now called in America department stores. But in those days, before the advent of railroads and the invention of the telegraph and the telephone, the methods of inland commerce were far more primitive, and perhaps more picturesque, than now. Twice a year, as Mr. Richards records, his Uncle made the journey, "over the mountains," to visit the eastern cities in order to lay in his summer or winter stock of goods. Traveling was usually performed in the stage coach, and the entire trip

consumed about six weeks. Sometimes, however, the merchants went on horseback, with a drove of cattle or hogs, animals which served not uncommonly as a circulating medium for the transaction of business. For this western traffic, the great highway was the National Military Road, authorized by Congress in 1796, and intended to extend from Baltimore to St. Louis, passing through the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. The great event in the village was the arrival of these goods in the spring or autumn. They were transported in immense Pennsylvania wagons, each drawn by six powerful horses. The wagons often went in caravans, those destined for towns or villages off the main highway dropping out of the line as they reached the crossroads leading to their respective destinations. The collar of every horse was surmounted by a chime of bells, suspended in a bow and jingling as he walked. Sweet and cheering was the sound of the bells to the ears of the expectant village folk. "The new goods have come! There are the bells! The new goods have come!" "Talk about your fashionable openings in modern times," writes Mr. Richards in high scorn, "where fastidious ladies in elaborate toilets visit some fashionable display of the latest styles, partly to indulge an idle curiosity, but partly also perhaps to display them