Moore, Richard Channing, Dd

Moore, Richard Channing, D.D.

an early bishop of the Episcopal Church in America, was born in New York August 21, 1762; was educated at King's College, and then practiced medicine for four years, when he suddenly turned towards the ministry, and was ordained by bishop Provoost of New York in 1787. He preached at Rye, Westchester County, N.Y., and then at St. Andrew's, Richmond, Staten Island (the parish embracing the whole of the island), where he labored successfully for twenty-one years. In 1808 he represented the diocese of New York at the General Conference in Baltimore, and aided in making a selection of hymns for the Church. In 1809 he succeeded to St. Stephen's Church, New York; in 1814, to the rectorship of the Monumental Church at Richmond, and to the episcopate of Virginia, for which he proved himself preeminently qualified. "Bishop Hobart hesitated not to express the conviction of his thankful heart that the 'night of adversity had passed, and that a long and splendid day was dawning on the Church" (Anderson, Hist. Ch. of Engl. in the Colonies, 3:277). The efforts of bishop Moore were "unremittingly exerted to build up the nearly exhausted diocese committed to his care; and so well directed were his labors, and so beneficial his example and influence, that at the time of his death the number of the Episcopal clergymen in Virginia had increased to upwards of one hundred. During the last twelve years of his life his episcopal duties were shared by bishop Meade, who had been appointed his assistant, and who succeeded him in office. He was a prominent leader in the evangelical branch of the Church." He died November 11, 1841. He published many Charges: — A Sermon on "the Doctrines of the Church" (1820). A Memoir appeared shortly after his death, by Reverend J.P.K. Henshaw (1843, 8vo). See also Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, v, 367; Bishop Wilberforce, Hist. Am. Ch. pages 286, 293; Hawks, Eccl Hist. of Virginia, page 251-260. (J.H.W.)