The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-07

1876. These facts have an interesting connec-
ton with the locality where his subsequent
ecclesiastical life for the most part passed,
and which is forever associated with his name
as the Bishop OF Indiana. Indiana, you re-
member, was once accounted part Of Virginia;
IN transition ii erected into Territory. and
! in the very wear of the Rishop's birth 1916 it
was organized and admitted into the Union a
State. That a son of Virginia, therefore, should
become Bishop of Indiana a beautiful coin
cidence-lJ brought together once more in
latiOnship, natural and spiritual, the mother and
daughter. The native of the Old Dominion was
invested with the ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of
the young and thriving State.
/ THINGS TEMPORAL AND THINGS SPIRITUAL.
Ana the additional fact that the Bishop and the
State were born in the year united them
still more closely in the solemn experience of
maturing and growing old together. sixty-six
years and more have gone since Bishop and
State were ushered into being. The Bishop,
as men say, is dead; the State survives, and will
live on, we trust and believe, while the world
lasts SO the prOverb runs, "men die, States
live" But there is another view, my brethren,
rot inconsistent with this adage, but the pro-
founder and more comprehensive estimate of
the relative duration and permanence of the in
dividual human being and the associations
whi"h he forms They st the best are of the
earth earthly, they have souls; they are crea-
lures of time, and are, must be limited by the
conditions of time, Even home the most per-
manent of this worlds institutions. must vanish
away ere that estate is reached where they
neither marry nor are given in marriage. But
man lives on he has a soul: what we call death
is but an incident in his existence 1t associates
him from all the organizations into which he
has entered here, save one, the church of the
| living God. In that other world, whittier our
brother has gone, there are, there will be the
souls and ultimately the clarified bodies Of men,
but there will be no husbands and wives, no
Americans or EnRltshmen, no citizens of indiana
or Illinois. These distinctions will have passed
| away because the organizations out of
which they grew, be they families, or States
| or nations, will have ceased to be, while
| the human beings, who were their ever-chang-
| ing MEMBERS will live on, and If members OF
Christ and the children of God here will be such
there, and more, they will have entered into
the possession and enjoyment of their everlnst-
ing home as inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.
| 1t seems almost bewildefing to think that man
| as man is more enduring than the institutions
which he organizes; that the individual be he
who ne may, with the weaknesses of the flesh
and the limitations as to continuance here of
threescore years and ten fourscOre. is greater,
grander and more enduring than the nation
with all ITS pOmp and show, OF circumstance and
power and permanence. MEN die" says the
worlds prOverb, Estates live" Let us, admit
ting the qualified truth OF the saying, state the
more comprehensive truth in the church's
proverb: "Man is for time and eternity; earthly
institutions are for tune alone" So come
back to our departed brother, mated in birth
with this great Common wealth over which, as
a diocese, he presided, and we are prepared to
recognize that his life aud labors devoted
to the planting and developing of that~4Aiyine
and blessed economy called so often by our Lord
in the gospel 1.-THE Kingdom of God" which
viii alone survive the kingdoms of this world
and secure its loyal subjects citizenship in para
use and In heaven Tor ever and ever.
THE MAN AND HIS WORK.
In estimating DR.. Talbut's career as a bishop,
we must recall the fact that the sacred
ministry was not at the outset nor for
many years the aim of his life. Hence
he did not prepare himself in the aceus-
toned way by collegiate and theological course
for holy orders. The time which is usually de-
voted in such cases TO severe and systematic
study, was by him employed in mercantile and
banking pursuits, in which he was so far sue
cessful as to amass an ample, if Lot "A large for
tune. In the midst of his engrosslng occupa-
lions he determined to become a clergyman, and
under the guidance and with the help OF the
p esent venerable presiding bishop he read
theology, and was ordained deacon IN 1916, and
priest In the following year. This Is not the
time or place to discuss the advantages which
a thorough systemaIic course IN the curriculum
of arts gives the clery man. who has prOtited by
such instruction over one, who Is not college
graduate. The question Is merely raised to
poiut out that whatever those advantages may
be, Bishop Talbot did not enjoy them. He came
as hoy to LO1isvlile- XIV, in 1880, ana very
soon, ere he had reached incipenJ manhood, was
engaged IN trade, and then he TOOK up the vo-
cation of banker. While he brought TO the
ministry therefore s, practical knowedge
student cannot possess, on the other hand he
lacked that special training of the intellect and
the acquired treasures OF learning which the re.
tentive memory of youth enables one SO easily
| TO grasp and hold. Under such circumstances,
the eminent and uninterrupted success which
| DR. Talbot achieved as parOchal minister, both
| in Louisville ana IN this city Qndanapollsl, in
the pulpit ahd in his intercourse with his people,
: s..
of great force and strength of intellect, and of
rare perseverance for who had been rear d
in business in reading and study. That he I'M
pressed not only his own immediate friends and
acquaintances as combining we'll the push and
energy and worldly wisdom of the business man
with the sanctlfied learning of the priest of God,
whose lips should keep knowledge, IL shown by
! the eonclusive fact that the bishops and the
| clerical and iay representatives in the general
convention of 1859 selected HIM as the bishop of
| the missionary jurisdiction of the Northwest.
| A more important and responsible position than
| this can scarcely be imagined. The choice indi-
Gates at once the ability and worth of DR.. Talbot
and the discernment of those who recognized his
| excellent qualities and gave him their con-
fdence. In his own parish church (Christl, in
this city, he was cOnsecrated. on Wednesday,
| Feb 10, 1860. as "A bishop in the church
of Cod and soon after went forth to his labors in
the vast 1ed over which he had been made an
oyerseer. OF his in these almost iilimita-
bic wilds, we snail not stop TO speak.
HIS CAREER IN INDIANA.
| The diocese of Indiana showed her appreciation
Ofthe merits of her late presbyter, the missionary
bishop Of the Northwest, by electng him to as
sist the venerable Bishop Uphold now in the de-
cline of life and ncapactated from active duty
by incurable and painful dis ease, and the gem
eral church gave her consent to his promotion.
He came AT your bidding. and began here in In
diana, in 1865, the last chapter of his eventful
and chequered LIE which has so recently been
closed among you by the hand of God, when
He babe His weary servant rest from h is labors
and anxietiss, and summoned him to go IN
higher to the peace and bliss of paradise. The
episcOpate of Bishop Talbot in this diocese ex-
tends overa period of more than seventeen years.
During the first seven of these the exercise of his
jurisdiction was limited ny his subordination, in
accordance with the provisions of the canon, as
assistant to the venerable and excellent Bishop
Uphold, who had been consecrated in 1919.
Whatever may have peen the necessity for as
slstant bishops in the earlier of our history
| as n branch of Christ's church, the question may
now fairly be raised in our present condition
OF increased wealth and numbers, without
rejecting in the slightest degree npun
KNOWS W.
the whole subject should not be reconsidered,
and radical changes made in providing relief for
the diocese, whose bishop, through age or in
trinity can no longer discharge the active duties
of his Office. The system is by many held to he
vicious in principle. 1t is embarrassed with
difficulties and incon venlences under even the
most favorable circumstances. He who does