Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-07-03
Rev. Moses Strong Royce.

church of the Holy TRINITY. Inc
death of this son of Rutland, who died
a martyr to duty and the calls OF his
holy ministry, is deserving of something
more than a passing notice; and we
have delayed all attempts to pay our
humble tribute to his memory, awaiting
the particulars of his last work IN the
State of his adoption; the want being,
in part, supplied, we compile from the
materials at hand this notice.
Moses Strong Royce, son of Rodney
c. and Betsey [Strongl Royce, and
grandson of Hon. Moses Strong, was born
in Rutland, July 10, 1925. His father
died when he was eleven years old, and,
in the mountains of his native State,
under mothers care, of whom he al
ways spoke with the most tender atfec-
ton, and through the influence OF the
Rev. JohnA Hicks, DID,, first rector OF
Trinity church, and the Right Rev.
John Henry Hopkins, Bishop OF Yer
mont, whom he respected and revered,
were sown those seeds which matured
and ripened into glorious fruit in the
humble parish of the Holy Trinity, and
in the neglected suburbs of Slade Town,
Tennessee.
He graduated at the University OF
Vermont in 1874, and after pursuing his
theological studies for a time with the
Rev. DR.. Hicks, he removed to Greene
vile, Tennessee, the 10th of September,
1947. and there established st. Pau1s,
the first Protestant Episcopal church of
that place. In September Of 1849, he
left Greeneville to assist MIR. Donald
Mcleod, as teacher, in the RaVenscroft
College, at Columbia, Tennessee, and
there passed his examination, Rev.
Messrs. Towes and Cressey being pres
ent. and was ordained deacon, July 7,
1850, AMI consecrated priest the same
year by the Right Rev. James Otey,
Bishop of Tennessee On the 14th of
July he preached his first sermon at
Greenevllle, Tennessee, and on the 10th
of the same month was married to Miss
Martha Ann Broyles, daughter of DR..
James T. Broyles, a prominent and we'll
known citizen of Greene county.
After his marriage Mr.. Royce return
ed to Nashville, and for year and
half preached and held service in a little
white chapel on summer street. This
was the beginning Of the parish of the
Holy Trinity there, called the mission Of
st. Paul. and, afterwards, under Mr..
Towes, developed into the present par
ish and church of the Holy Trinity.
In 1852 Mr.. Royce accepted the pro-
fessorship of Belles-lettres and mathe-
matics in the military college at Nor
WITCH. Vermont. In December, 1858, he
received call to the parish of st. Pauls,
Franklin. Tenn, and in order to make
a competent support, in addition to his
parish work as rector, discharged the
duties of boOkkeeper and general ticket
agent for the Tennessee and Alabama
railroad. In this double capacity he re-
NAMED until 1862 At the close of the
war Mr.. Royce returned to Franklin, a
part of the time in charge Of st. Pauls,
and a part of the time conducting a
boarding school for young ladies, where
he remained until called to the field Of
his recent martyrdom and glorious death
in the parish of the Holy Trinity.
1t was here, says his friend and par
ishlOner, Gen. Kirby Smln that his
Christian character displayed itself in
the highest perfection. The rector of
struggling parish, without means, his
was purely a work of love-quiet, pa
tient, accomplishing, his life exhibited a
continued sacrifice of self and an untir-
ing devotion of mind and energies in the
doing of good-denying himself the
very necessaries of life, he literally full
| flied the Masters injunction, clothing
the naked and feeding the poor and
hungered. From the little frame shed
next the church, which he had erected
from the fruits of his own labor, and at
| his own cost, and where he lived in the
most rigid simplicity, and which was, at
| the same time his school room and his
| bed chamber, where he taught, labored,
| prayed and slept, he issued forth daily
on errands of mercy, and labored with
untiring energy, and, in childhke faith
of success, in his work of raising the
humble and poor in the scale of intelli-
gence and social comfort and in feeding
them with the blessed crumbs from his
Masters table.
With slight frame and no physique,
we often looked in wonder and admira-
ton at the fatigue which that man under
went and the work he accomplished
Always laboring for the good and adj
vancement of his fellows, his work was
essentially charitable and benevolent.
He established night school where he
instructed mechanics and laboring men
He organized building association, of
which he was president, where small
savings could be safely and advantage
ously invested, and where the industrious
poor man could reasonably hope, one day,
to sit around his own hearthstone and
be sheltered by his own roof. He held
service in the Edgefeld bend several
hiliCS 1IOlh tnC City5 dlll "dIhCu W IuS
scene of his ministry. He established
st. Paul's in Slade Town, and how he
worked and taught and prayed for this
mission of his love. He kept school by
day and with all this discharged faith
fully his duties as Rector of the HOLY
Trinity. The buildings going up in
South Nashville and the pretty little
chapel just being rooted in on Wharf
Avenue, are monuments to his useful
ness as a citizen and his faithfulness as a
Christian worker in the vineyard of his
Master"
The epidemic found Mr.. Royce at the
sick bed, administering both to the phys
ical comfort and spiritual wants of the
afflicted. He sacrificed himself in this
work of love and mercy, and, like a good
soldier, fell on the field of his labors, in
full armOr, sword in hand. a victor even