Story by Ian Caverny,
Special Correspondent for the Diocese of Missouri
The congregation of St. John’s Episcopal Church in the Tower Grove neighborhood of St. Louis is hosting a special service on July 21, 2024, in honor their first rector, the Rev. Whiting Griswold. This month marks the 175th anniversary of Griswold's death.
The Rev. Griswold is remembered as a hero of the faith who not only helped establish the congregation in its earliest years, but also served the broader St. Louis community through his commitments in the fledgling Diocese of Missouri and aided in founding the Episcopal Orphan Home in St. Louis. He is especially remembered for the pastoral, practical, and palliative care he provided during the cholera epidemic of 1849 from which he later succumbed.
The work of saints in the church is always a unique combination of ordinary means and extraordinary grace. When he died Griswold could easily have been just another number in the more than 5,000 other St. Louisans who died of cholera that year. Griswold, however, was recorded spending his days and nights during the epidemic working constantly amid the sick. Unfortunately, he too caught cholera and eventually died of the disease. It was reported by Bishop Cicero Stephens Hawks that during the final stages of the disease, Griswold would continue to pray the offices of the church – baptism, Eucharist, morning prayer – as the delirium that accompanies the final stages of cholera overtook him.
There have been attempts to add Griswold to the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints (published as A Great Cloud of Witnesses) through the Standing Liturgical Commission. The Diocese of Missouri sent a proposal to General Convention and the Standing Liturgical Commission. While he is currently honored locally, the members of St. John’s would love to see him added to the list of martyrs at the national level.
St. John’s plans include a commemorative service on Sunday, July 21 at 10:30 a.m., honoring the 175th anniversary of Rev. Griswold’s death. There will be a display that includes some of the historical information and a brief talk given by Phyllis Jacobson, a member of the congregation. Contact Phyllis if you have any questions regarding the Rev. Griswold, his life and his death, and the special service to commemorate him.
A minister from Philadelphia composed a poem in honor of the Rev. Griswold’s life of service:
And thou hast gone—the Archer's poison'd dart,
Hath sent the death-pang to thy noble heart,
Sepulchral stillness settles round thy form,
And that mild face, with generous feeling -warm,
No more beams out to light a kindred ray,
In eyes now doubly dimmed since thou hast pass'd away.Thine was a Martyr's transit—hallow'd zeal,
Bore thee right on in deeds of Christian love,
But soon did angel accents downward steal—
" The crown, the palm-branch, wait thee now above."
In that soft cadence pain was lulled to rest,
And the dread scourge, to thee, a Messenger, how blest!
When to the trumpet's clang the warrior hies,
His life-blood pledging to his native shore,
And struggling nobly, rattling hail defies,
Shouts mid his pangs, and triumphs stained with gore,
Then Freedom chants her eulogistic song,
And bids the distant age the swelling strain prolong.
And when in Duty's van the Christian falls,
Foremost and first mid pestilence and death,
Prompt to respond wherever suffering calls,
And mid his labors yielding back his breath,
Perish the thought that He should die unwept,
And have no sacred shrine in which his name is kept.
Soldier of Jesus, thou has served thy Lord,
With faith unshrinking to the latest hour,
Pass onward, upward, to thy bright reward,
The starry crown, the amaranthine bower;
Thine was the turmoil of the battle plain,
Now thine with Christ for aye a "King and Priest" to reign.