trustees was called. Was this a modern Pentecost? So Worth said; so
Cummings thought. A great meeting was held for consultation and the
people were publicly invited. Everyone declared a church should be
organized. The bishop was in favor of this, and at the proper time one
hundred and eighteen persons presented themselves as candidates for
confirmation. Up to this time what was known as Monastery was simply a
scientific and theological seminary. Its faculty was composed of educated
clergymen. It was a college with a bishop as president, supported by the
church at large and the products of the farm, having a board of trustees
to hold and manage the estate according to the laws of the commonwealth.
Now it was to become an organized parish church and, in addition, the
center of a diocese. The bishop was to assume the duties of the rector,
with the members of the faculty as his assistants, and the trustees were
incorporated as the "Board of Trustees of Monastery Church and College,"
according to law. This was a new regime for Bishop Albertson, who, years
before, had been rector of a small parish in Virginia. Even at that time
he was a rigid churchman and a profound scholar, and because of these and
other qualifications he had unexpectedly been elevated to the episcopal
office. Soon after this well-merited promotion he had been earnestly
requested to take this young seminary under his care and
superintendence, and had cheerfully accepted this added responsibility.
From that time he had made Monastery his home and the headquarters of his
diocese. It continued to be "a school of the prophets" during ten years,
when it was granted a university charter and it became a school of
classics as well as theology. No one ever felt disappointed at this
appointment of Bishop Albertson to the presidency of the institution,
which under his care had grown from a small seminary with seventeen
students to its present proportions and standing in the state. Now there
were seventy-two theological students and two hundred and forty-five in
the classical and scientific courses. This had been done under the