Wilmer, Richard H.

[Cover Title] THE DUTY AND RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. A Part of the Annual Address of the Bishop to the Convention of the Diocese of Alabama

Published by Request of the Convention of Diocese of Alabama, 1884. Original Wrappers. Good binding. Item #6857

Octavo. 16 pp. First edition. As issued, in printed wrappers. Wrappers are moderately soiled but only lightly worn; vertical crease the entire pamphlet where it was folded; contents show light and occasional spotting otherwise clean.

Wilmer was born in Alexandria, VA. He graduated from Yale University in 1836 and then Union Theological Seminary in Richmond a few years later. He was ordained in Richmond and served throughout rural Virginia. In the midst of the Civil War, Wilmer was ordained Episcopal Bishop of Alabama. This present address is interesting in that it tangles with the racial complexity of Jim Crow south. On one hand Wilmer espouses "the genius of the mission of this out Church . . . to bind together in a common faith and discipline all races, orders, and conditions of men" (p. 2) with entrenched racial hierarchy of society, showing the condescension in descriptions like this: "Ethiopia is at our doors, in our homes, and stretches out her hands to us, and by her very ignorance, helplessness and low estate appeals to our hearts" (p. 2). An interesting glimpse into the post-Reconstruction Era South. This address is genuinely scarce with only a relatively few copies in institutional hands according to OCLC (11278994). Oxford American National Biography.

Price: $400.00