When Bishop Cheshire assumed the episcopal oversight of the Diocese of North Carolina, he felt little confidence in his ability to fulfill the duties of the office. He did feel that by sincere and diligent application he could accomplish much for the welfare of the church. When elected assistant bishop he was, in his own words, "constrained to accept the call, not from any sense of fitness in myself, but simply because such a call seems to me to carry with it an imperative obligation to accept, unless the hand of God should plainly point in another direction: a dispensation was laid upon me."[30] Notwithstanding his expressed views, Bishop Cheshire was, in the opinion of most churchmen, better fitted for his office by ability, temperament, and training than any other man in North Carolina.
Bishop Cheshire met his first diocesan convention in May, 1894, at St. Paul's Church, Winston. He opened his annual address by saying: "I cannot bring into any order or method in my own mind, much less can I put it into words, the feelings which this occasion calls up. To no one can it seem stranger than it does to myself that I should occupy this place, and thus address you from the chair of Ravenscroft, of Atkinson, and of him so lately taken from us." He made no recommendations for important changes in the policy or work of the church, since he wished to become more thoroughly acquainted with the problems and needs of the Diocese before doing so. The Bishop urged upon the clergy then, as he was to do many times in the future, the necessity of keeping their parochial records in proper order, and observed that no businessman would employ a clerk for a week if he kept his books as many of the parish registers were kept. In concluding his address, the Bishop touched on three subjects which were to be collectively the theme of his episcopate: namely, the importance of regarding the Diocese rather than the parish as the unit of the church; the necessity of supporting all diocesan institutions; and the great need for continuing and expanding the missionary work of the Diocese. Time and time again he drove home the spirit and essence of these subjects, until the clergy and laity alike caught some of the fire of his enthusiasm and translated his ideas into living reality.
One of the first diocesan projects Bishop Cheshire undertook was the revival of the old mission of Valle Crucis, established by Bishop Ives about fifty years before. At the same time he planned to revive the mission work along the Watauga River. For this difficult work the Bishop had one man in mind who he thought was eminently qualified—Rev. Milnor Jones. His first meeting with Jones had been at the convention of 1883. Shortly afterwards, Bishop Lyman had asked Cheshire if he would carry to Jones a sum of money which had been raised to aid him in erecting a church at Tryon. The Bishop had added that he hoped Cheshire would spend a few days with Jones to observe his work. Cheshire complied with the Bishop's request, and spent a few unforgettable days with Jones, driving with him over the hills and valleys of Polk County to visit his scattered missions. At the time, he had been greatly impressed with Jones' influence with the mountain people. When he began to plan the revival of Valle Crucis, he remembered his experience with the picturesque mountain missionary.
Milnor Jones, however, was in Oregon when the Bishop was ready to commence his mountain work. In January, 1894, Cheshire wrote asking him to return to North Carolina. In replying to Bishop Cheshire, Jones wrote this characteristically laconic letter: "Where do you want me to go? What do you wish me to do? And what salary will you give? Not that the amount of the salary makes any difference; I only wish to know just what I have to go on." The Bishop answered as concisely: "I want you to go to Valle Crucis, on the Watauga River. I want you to revive the old Valle Crucis Mission, as your special work; and I give you for your field of operations Watauga, Mitchell, and Ashe Counties, to do what you can in them. I will give you six hundred dollars a year, payable monthly."[31]
Milnor Jones was a rough, plain-spoken individual with a remarkable faculty for understanding and winning the confidence of the simple mountain folk. He had a deeply religious nature, and a complete fearlessness in preaching the Gospel as he understood it. Bishop Cheshire found him an unusually effective man in laying the foundations of missionary work, but from that point he seemed to lack the power to build further.
Jones entered with enthusiasm upon his work in the mountains of North Carolina. When the Bishop began his visitations to the western counties in June, 1895, he found that Jones had made a promising beginning. Bishop Cheshire spent several weeks with him, visiting one mission station after another in the counties of Mitchell, Watauga, and Ashe. They preached, baptized, and confirmed in the most out-of-the-way places and under the most varied conditions. When they first visited Bakersville they held services in the courthouse, but upon their return for a second service some time later, they were refused the use of the building on the grounds that the courthouse was not safe for large crowds. The local newspaper, however, gave as the reason for the refusal the fact that the Methodists and Baptists held that "the Episcopalians had been preaching uncomfortable doctrine." The Bishop and Jones were not to be daunted; they held their service on the street in front of the courthouse. A large congregation gathered for the service. When the Bishop began preaching he did not think his voice would reach the assemblage, but after a few minutes he felt as if he could make himself heard "a mile away." He afterwards declared that "I never spoke with more ease, freedom, and enjoyment, or with a greater sense of the high privilege of being a servant and ambassador of my Lord."[32]
Another interesting episode in Bishop Cheshire's mission work in the mountains took place at Beaver Creek, Ashe County, in the summer of 1896. Here the Bishop and Jones were maintaining a mission school with two teachers in a building which had been leased for two years. When the Bishop went to the schoolhouse to hold a service, he was met by a mob of more than fifty men who "forcibly prevented" him from entering. The mob declared that the reason they were preventing him from holding his service was that they did not like "Mr. Jones' doctrine" and they understood that he, the Bishop, taught the same doctrine. In reporting the incident to the convention of the Jurisdiction of Asheville, the Bishop described it as "an experience which I certainly had never thought a possibility in my native state of North Carolina."[33]
In reviving the old mission at Valle Crucis Bishop Cheshire did not intend to follow the plan of Bishop Ives, which had been to establish a boys' school and a training school for the clergy. His primary motive was to evangelize the people of the mountain counties. He wanted to make Valle Crucis "an associate mission from which preachers and teachers should go out and keep up the work of evangelizing, instructing, and educating wherever an opening might be found or made."[34]
Milnor Jones, carrying letters of introduction from his Bishop, in the fall of 1895 visited the northern states to raise funds for his mountain work. He was successful in his efforts and, with the money thus raised, mission schools were established at Valle Crucis and at Beaver Creek. In the course of 1896 and 1897 a mission home, consisting of an eight-room house, was erected at Valle Crucis at a cost of twelve hundred dollars. It was built to accommodate a missionary, a teacher, and several pupils attending the mission school. Shortly after this constructive beginning Milnor Jones gave up the work at Valle Crucis. He confined his efforts to the small mission stations scattered over Mitchell, Watauga, and Ashe counties. The Bishop placed Rev. Samuel F. Adams in charge of Valle Crucis, and under his guidance and that of his successors the work progressed steadily.
Milnor Jones left North Carolina towards the end of 1897. He, with the assistance and encouragement of Bishop Cheshire, had laid the foundations of a missionary work which was to be a credit to the church. Referring once to the character of Jones' work, the Bishop remarked: "If I had a wild mountain country full of moonshiners, I think I would like to have him, but for anything more civilized he is too savage."[35] With all of Jones' crudeness and faults, Bishop Cheshire believed him to be "really a more Godly man than many an one whose life is perfectly conventional and blameless." The Bishop often remarked that the visits he made to Milnor Jones in the mountains of North Carolina were among the most interesting experiences of his career.
Coinciding with Bishop Cheshire's efforts to expand and revive the missionary work of the church in the mountains, a movement was initiated to create a missionary district from the western counties of the Diocese of North Carolina. At the diocesan convention of 1894 a committee was appointed to study the advisability of requesting the General Convention to organize the western counties of the state into a missionary jurisdiction. It was felt by many that the present Diocese was too large to be adequately administered and supervised by one bishop. In his address to the convention of 1895 Bishop Cheshire substantiated this view when he reported that during the past year he had been able to devote only nine weeks to the western section of the state, which embraced nearly thirty counties.
The Bishop was "in sentiment" strongly opposed to a division of his Diocese, for he disliked seeing the church in North Carolina divided further. Also, he had become deeply interested in his mountain missions and was loath to relinquish them. He realized, however, the impossibility of properly serving such a large territory. Moreover, he was determined not to make the mistake which he thought Bishop Atkinson, in 1877, and Bishop Lyman, in 1882, had made when they opposed the formation of a new diocese. In his opinion, a bishop "makes a mistake, when he opposes the well-settled convictions of his clergy and people upon a matter affecting the development of the Diocese."[36]
When the diocesan convention met in May, 1895, the Committee on the Proposed Missionary Jurisdiction recommended that the General Convention be requested to set apart the western section of the Diocese of North Carolina as a missionary jurisdiction. It was further recommended that the line of division should be the eastern boundaries of the counties of Alleghany, Wilkes, Alexander, Catawba, Lincoln and Gaston. Bishop Cheshire had suggested to the committee this territorial division. Although it meant a great loss of strength to his own Diocese, the Bishop believed that the missionary jurisdiction should be made large enough to be of importance, and that it should be created with the view of its becoming a diocese at some future date. The convention adopted the committee's recommendations, and instructed its deputies to present them to the General Convention.
When this body met in the fall of 1895, Bishop Cheshire presented in the House of Bishops the memorial of the Diocese of North Carolina requesting the erection of a missionary jurisdiction. The memorial was referred to the Committee on Domestic Missions. A few days later the Bishop of Florida, chairman of the committee, reported the memorial unfavorably, stating that his committee did not believe the reasons set forth were sufficient to justify an affirmative action. He further reported that the legal and constitutional requirements had not been properly provided for. Bishop Cheshire then introduced a resolution calling for the erection of a missionary district and providing that it should be under the limited jurisdiction of the Bishop and Convention of the Diocese of North Carolina until such constitutional amendments could be adopted to remove the objections advanced by the Bishop of Florida. The House of Bishops adopted the resolution with little discussion, and two days later it was approved by the House of Deputies. Following this action Bishop Cheshire moved that the House of Bishops should proceed to the election of a missionary bishop for the newly created district. His motion met with opposition and was postponed to a future meeting of the House of Bishops. The district, which was to be known as the Jurisdiction of Asheville, was temporarily placed under the episcopal care of Bishop Cheshire.
Only a few weeks after the close of the General Convention, Bishop Cheshire, on November 12, 1895, met the first convention of the Missionary Jurisdiction of Asheville. He outlined to the clergy and laity what would be expected of them as a missionary jurisdiction, and gave much helpful advice on setting up the machinery for carrying on their work. The Bishop called to their attention the almost incalculable opportunities for extending the influence of the church in the mountain counties. The next year he greatly expanded this idea in a charge to the clergy of the Jurisdiction. The Bishop pointed out that nine-tenths of the work in the Jurisdiction of Asheville was to evangelize people who were almost wholly ignorant of the church. Such material aids as rectories, schoolhouses, and even churches, while undoubtedly helpful, were not necessary adjuncts to the primary object of the church: "to catch men." He urged the clergy to know the people, to preach to them in words they could understand, and to make religion an integral part of their lives.
After completing his first year in charge of the Jurisdiction of Asheville, and after a careful study of the manifold problems peculiar to it, Bishop Cheshire was convinced that the erection of the missionary jurisdiction was "an act of wise and prudent statesmanship." He thought that a missionary who had the oversight of three or four counties sorely needed regular visitations from the bishop, and in his opinion the work could be more effectively carried on if the bishop were able to remain a week or more with each missionary. He pressed these points upon the members of the House of Bishops in strongly advocating the election of a bishop for the Jurisdiction. Finally, in the fall of 1898, the House of Bishops elected the Rev. Junius Moore Horner, a native North Carolinian, as missionary bishop of the Jurisdiction of Asheville. He was consecrated on December 28, 1898, in Trinity Church, Asheville, with Bishop Cheshire as the consecrator. After this service Bishop Cheshire formally turned over to Bishop Horner the full administration of the Jurisdiction.
Turning now to a wholly different phase of Bishop Cheshire's work, we take up one of the most important achievements of his long episcopate, the establishment of St. Mary's School for girls as a church institution. This school had been founded in Raleigh by Dr. Aldert Smedes in 1842, and had been nurtured and maintained, through good and hard times, by its founder and his son and successor, Dr. Bennett Smedes. St. Mary's was not a church school, but its two rectors had been Episcopal clergymen, and thus the institution had been under the exclusive influence of the Episcopal Church. By 1896 Dr. Bennett Smedes was finding it very difficult to compete with publicly supported and privately endowed schools. At this time he made it known that he could no longer continue St. Mary's as a private school.
The Alumnae Association of St. Mary's at once took action to preserve the school for the church. It sent a memorial to the diocesan convention of 1896, in which it appealed to the Episcopal Church in North Carolina "either to endow the School, or to erect for it suitable buildings in Raleigh or elsewhere, and thus relieve it of one great drain, its heavy rent." The appeal met with sympathetic attention from Bishop Cheshire. Only the year before, he had remarked to the convention: "I have been, from earliest childhood, brought up to look upon St. Mary's School, at Raleigh, as the most valuable of all our church institutions or agencies in North Carolina.... I cannot too highly recommend this school to the confidence of all the people of North Carolina."
After careful consideration of the St. Mary's Alumnae memorial, the convention adopted a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee of six, to include the Bishop, with the authority to buy suitable buildings for a girls' school or to purchase land and erect new buildings. In direct reply to the memorialists, Bishop Cheshire offered a resolution, which the convention adopted, assuring the alumnae that the church in North Carolina "will do all in its power to place St. Mary's School upon a permanent foundation as an institution under the charge and patronage of the Church throughout the entire State...."
At the convention of 1897 the special committee on a diocesan school for girls reported that it had procured a charter of incorporation for the Board of Trustees of St. Mary's School from the state legislature, and had turned over to this corporation all further negotiations. The newly constituted Board of Trustees, of which Bishop Cheshire was chairman, then made its report. It recommended that not less than one hundred thousand dollars be raised for the purchase of a location, the erection of buildings, and an endowment of St. Mary's School. The Board announced that it had contracted to purchase for fifty thousand dollars a site known as the St. Mary's Tract. The convention adopted the report as it was made.
During the past year, at the request of the Trustees, Bishop Cheshire had spent a month visiting many towns throughout the state in an attempt to interest the people of the church in the needs and potentialities of St. Mary's School. His efforts met with gratifying success. He appealed to the women of the state, and especially to the alumnae of St. Mary's, to raise fifty thousand dollars for an endowment which should be known as "The St. Mary's Alumnae Association Fund." To stimulate the interest and increase the activity of the women in this plan, Bishop Cheshire organized the "Order of the Patrons and Daughters of St. Mary's." He proposed to find fifty women who would give five hundred dollars each towards the endowment, and two hundred and fifty others who would each contribute one hundred dollars. He reported to the convention of 1897 that he had raised a substantial amount in this way.
Thus, St. Mary's was established as the official school of the Episcopal Church in North Carolina. The Diocese of East Carolina and the Jurisdiction of Asheville had agreed to contribute to the maintenance of the school and were given representation on the Board of Trustees. Dr. Bennett Smedes was retained as rector of the school and continued in this position until his death in 1899. The first year the school was under the control of the church the number of boarding students increased fifty per cent. To a great extent the enlarged enrollment was due to the renewed interest which Bishop Cheshire had aroused.
In the course of his negotiations to establish St. Mary's as a church school, the Bishop discovered that the churchmen of South Carolina had been for some time loyal and generous supporters of the school. After reflection upon this fact, he determined to ask the Diocese of South Carolina to co-operate in the maintenance and management of St. Mary's. When he discussed the subject with the Board of Trustees, it was decided to appoint a committee of the Board to meet at Saluda to confer with representatives from South Carolina. The conference was held in August, 1898. After a friendly and constructive discussion, the conference resolved that St. Mary's School should be placed under the "control and patronage of all the Carolina Dioceses."
Bishop Cheshire met with the convention of the Diocese of South Carolina in the spring of 1899 and presented the advantages and possibilities of St. Mary's as a church institution. The resolution of the Saluda conference was reported to the convention and was unanimously adopted. Bishop Capers, two clergymen, and two laymen were appointed to the Board of Trustees to represent South Carolina. After patient and diligent work Bishop Cheshire was able to unite the church of the two states in the support of one church school for girls. In a comparatively short time it was to become the largest Episcopal school for girls in the United States.
In the winter of 1897 Bishop Cheshire suffered an irreparable loss in the death of his wife. Their married life of twenty-two years had been remarkably happy. Mrs. Cheshire had been a great help to him in his work as deacon and priest and later as bishop of the Diocese. She gave him encouragement, devotion, and the benefit of her sound common sense. The Bishop often spoke of how much she meant to him in his work, and of their happy life together.
It was a fortunate coincidence that the Lambeth Conference came in the summer of 1897, for it enabled him to have a complete change, removing him from those associations which reminded him so strongly of his wife. The Lambeth Conference, which convenes approximately every ten years at Lambeth Palace, London, is composed of all the bishops of the Episcopal Church throughout the world. Bishop Cheshire decided to attend, believing it would be broadening and an exceedingly worth-while experience. The object of the Conference was to discuss religious questions of world-wide interest. In the course of its sessions it would be divided into groups which would discuss problems relating to particular countries.
The Bishop sailed from New York on June 2, arriving in England six days later. Since the Conference did not commence until July 1, he spent the intervening time sight-seeing. This was the summer of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, giving an additional interest to his trip. He attended the Jubilee service at St. Paul's, and remarked that the Bishop of London preached "a good sermon" for the occasion.
The Lambeth Conference was formally opened at Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was to preside over its sessions. There were present for the Conference one hundred and ninety-four bishops from all parts of the world. Forty-nine of these represented the Episcopal Church of the United States. The sessions of the Conference continued through July 31. Bishop Cheshire was a member of the committee on church unity, and, as far as his journal reveals, this was the only committee on which he served. Reporting upon the Lambeth Conference to his diocesan convention the following year, Bishop Cheshire said: "The first message which we bring home from the Lambeth Conference of 1897 is that God in His Providence is opening the world to us; and to prepare us for the work we are to do, He is drawing all parts of the world-possessing Anglo-Saxon race into a closer union of common interest and sympathies, and of mutual confidence." He declared that the American bishops, while receiving much benefit from the Conference, had also contributed constructively to its work.
Shortly after the Conference closed, Bishop Cheshire visited the Archbishop of York for a few days. Upon leaving York he spent about a month traveling in England, Scotland, the Orkneys, and Ireland. In early September he left England for the Continent, where he visited in succession Antwerp, Brussels, and Cologne. Of his reactions to the cathedrals of these three cities, the Bishop observed that they "do not seem to me to be really so full of interest and beauty as even the inferior English cathedrals. They do not so abound with evidences and symbols of their connection with the life and history of the country and people, and so in spite of all their ornamentation they have a barren look."[37] The Bishop did some further sight-seeing in Germany, Switzerland, and France. While in Switzerland he saw the famous Lion of Lucerne, which he thought possessed "a dignity, nobleness, and beauty about it which exceeds anything of the kind I have ever seen before." Leaving from Southampton, he arrived in New York on September 24, feeling much refreshed and ready to return to the work of his Diocese.
Two years after his visit to England Bishop Cheshire married Miss Elizabeth Lansdale Mitchell, of Beltsville, Maryland. She was the daughter of Rev. Walter A. Mitchell, an Episcopal clergyman. The marriage proved to be happy and successful in every way. Mrs. Cheshire was a splendid mother to the Bishop's children, and they all became devoted to her.
When a friend heard that Bishop Cheshire was to be married, he remarked to the Bishop that with his large family he needed a wife. With his characteristic honesty the Bishop replied: "I don't need any such thing. My daughters take the best care of me and want me to have the best of everything. I don't need a wife; I am marrying again just because I want to."[38]
From the General Convention of 1895 to that of 1931, Bishop Cheshire attended every triennial meeting of this body. In the first three or four conventions, he did not take an active part in the discussions of the House of Bishops. For that matter, he never participated as prominently in its deliberations as some of the other bishops. At the 1895 convention he was appointed to the committees on the Admission of New Dioceses and on the Consecration of Bishops, and at the next triennial meeting he was made a member of the Joint Commission on the Revision of the Constitution and Canons. This last appointment pleased him, since it was the kind of work for which he was well prepared. His legal training influenced his partiality for this type of work. In 1904 he was appointed to the Committee on Canons, on which he served for almost every convention until his death. As a member of this committee he made his most important contribution to the work of the General Convention. It will be recalled that it was in this capacity that he had done his best work in the diocesan conventions. From time to time he was made a member of other regular and special committees.
When Bishop Cheshire assumed the office of bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina, he felt it his duty to exercise the full authority of that office. In deciding upon this course of action he did not intend to be arbitrary or despotic in administering the Diocese, although at times some clergymen and laymen seemed to think so. But when they became better acquainted with him and his methods, they admired and respected him the more. The Bishop had a forthright, and sometimes decidedly blunt, manner of speaking, which, to those who did not know him so well, seemed arbitrary or overbearing. He had disagreements with his clergymen, but they felt that they could always count upon receiving a fair hearing from him. When the Bishop realized he was in error upon any point, no one was quicker than he to admit it.
In 1895 Bishop Cheshire, for the first time in the history of the Diocese, issued to the clergy "Visitation Articles," as called for by a canon of the church. After employing them for a year he found they were useful and "calculated to make the visitations of the Bishop of more real value to the Clergy and to the people. The Bishop has for so long a time ceased to exert any real influence or control in the ordinary life and work of the parish in all parts of the United States, that the assertion of that authority, which in theory our Bishops are supposed to possess, is perhaps impracticable at present."[39] He thought that if the bishop would make himself acquainted with the affairs of each congregation during his visitation, it would strengthen the influence of the episcopate, and would go far towards the "breaking up of our present congregational parochialism." One of Bishop Cheshire's customs which endeared him to his people was that of calling upon the members of a congregation during his visitation. Of this practice he once remarked: "People like the attention and it makes Bishop and people feel nearer together, but in most cases they do not want very long visits."[40] The Bishop's keen understanding of human nature was one of his most notable qualities.
Bishop Cheshire thought that southern bishops had a great deal to be thankful for, particularly that in the South "as much as anywhere in the world, I believe, the Bishop may still be in some real and personal sense, the pastor of his flock, can live in familiar and confidential relations with his people." He deplored the tendency, which seemed to be growing in some quarters, of making the bishop simply an administrator of ecclesiastical affairs.
While Bishop Cheshire was in no sense a ritualist, or what is commonly known as high church, he believed in a strict adherence to the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. He had a great reverence and admiration for the services of the Prayer Book, and consequently little patience with those clergymen who attempted to alter their order or length. He was not a dogmatic formalist, but was thoroughly convinced that the canons and rubrics of the church should be obeyed and not disregarded by those individuals who might take exception to them.
In a charge to his clergy on the subject of Public Worship, Bishop Cheshire pointed out that the church was established and is sustained by Christ for two purposes: "first, to be the depository and source of spiritual Truth and Power; and second, to bring men into living contact with that spiritual Truth and Power." The Prayer Book is a means by which the church can diffuse and extend the truth, and it is also a means of developing and conserving the influence of the church. In his opinion, extemporary methods of worship had a tendency to weaken and finally destroy the concept of common public worship. The public worship of the Episcopal Church was not left to individual whim or judgment, but was definitely prescribed. He maintained that the participation of the congregation in the services and sacraments of the church is its principal means of cultivating its oneness with Christ. The Bishop enjoined the clergy to follow the services as they were set down in the Prayer Book, and warned them that they would gain nothing, but rather would injure the church by seeking to make their services more attractive through short cuts or innovations.
In a Pastoral Letter to the clergy and laity of the Diocese, Bishop Cheshire further developed the subject of public worship and the use of the Prayer Book. He gave much sound instruction as to how the minister and congregation should conduct themselves in any of the church's services, particularly emphasizing the importance of correct kneeling and audible and intelligent responses. He stressed the value which the clergy and laity would receive from a regular observance of the feast days and fast days. The Bishop expressed his strong disapproval of decorating the church for any purpose other than "for God's honor." The sacred character of the church should not be sacrificed to gratify the vanity of men and women. He referred particularly to the extravagant excesses often indulged in when decorating the church for weddings.
This Pastoral Letter is just as applicable to churchmen today and is worthy of as much consideration from them as when it was first issued in 1912. It would be of great value to them to hear it read annually in the churches of the Diocese.
Bishop Cheshire never went to extremes in anything. In spiritual as well as in material matters he believed in preserving a sense of proportion. He advised his clergy to use practical judgment in the observance of Lenten services. Very few clergymen were capable of preaching good sermons for forty or more consecutive days and, in his opinion, few congregations desired them. Even in those cases where a preaching Lent had been successful, he thought that a change would have a salutary effect upon the people.
On the subject of church music he tried to preserve an equilibrium of opinion. The Bishop was very fond of good ecclesiastical music and thoroughly enjoyed singing himself. While his standards of church music were high, he did not at all approve of too elaborate arrangements of the old chants and hymns. He wanted them sung properly, but also in such a way that at least a part of the congregation would be able to join in with the choir. On several occasions he was known to have stopped the organist and choir in the middle of a hymn or chant because the tune was either too difficult or too decorative.
Bishop Cheshire's interest in domestic missionary work was by no means limited to the zeal which he had displayed when working in the mountains of North Carolina. In his report on missionary work to the convention of 1898, he made a strong appeal for domestic missions and missionaries. He called to the attention of the convention the fact that the growth of the church in the Diocese was chiefly through its missions. Since there were no large city parishes, its strength lay in the towns, villages, and country districts. "In these," said he, "has been our growth, and in these is our hope and strength for the future." The missionary clergymen had presented for confirmation during the past year more than half of the total number of persons confirmed. He concluded these remarks with an urgent plea for adequate salaries for the missionaries.
Up to 1901 the administration of the diocesan missions was in the hands of the Bishop and the Executive Missionary Committee of the convention. Bishop Cheshire reported that under this system the missionary work usually showed an annual deficit of from four to five hundred dollars, even after he had used funds for it which should have been reserved for special work. With the advice and approbation of Bishop Cheshire, the convention of 1901 divided the missionary work of the Diocese into three divisions—the Convocation of Raleigh, the Convocation of Charlotte, and the Convocation for Colored Work. These convocations, each with an archdeacon at its head, were given full control of diocesan missions. The archdeacons, under the supervision of the bishop, had the direction and control of the missionaries in their respective convocations. Under this new organization the diocesan missions progressed steadily, and the treasurers of the convocations seldom reported a deficit. Some fifteen years after this plan was inaugurated, Bishop Cheshire declared that the missionary work had been "prosecuted with greater vigor and system than ever before in my knowledge of the Diocese."
At the close of the first decade of Bishop Cheshire's episcopate, a large number of clergy and laity gathered at Good Shepherd Church, Raleigh, on the evening of October 14, 1903, to celebrate the occasion. At this service the Bishop made an address in which he reviewed his work for the period. During the decade he had held more than 4,000 services, preached 1,400 sermons, delivered 500 addresses, confirmed 4,400 persons, consecrated 27 churches and chapels, and ordained 27 clergymen. To him the greatest achievement of the past ten years was the acquisition of St. Mary's and its establishment as the church school of all the Carolina dioceses. In 1897 his Diocese had assumed in behalf of St. Mary's an obligation of fifty thousand dollars to be paid in twenty years. At the end of six years only eighteen thousand dollars of the debt remained, and in addition ten thousand dollars had been spent upon permanent equipment for the school. Since the Diocese took over St. Mary's, the number of boarding pupils had increased threefold. In conclusion, he declared that they should not look too much to the past but should press on to the future with the work of the church.
Representatives of the clergy and laity congratulated the Bishop upon his tenth anniversary, pledging their loyalty and devotion to him, and expressing the appreciation of their respective bodies for his splendid work. Mr. Richard H. Battle, in behalf of a number of the Bishop's friends, presented him with a beautiful pectoral cross and a silk cassock. In acknowledging the kind expressions and gifts, the Bishop remarked: "I have one single desire, it is to serve God in this Diocese. It was the interest that I took in the work here that brought me into the ministry, and I have no desire to labor elsewhere. I love my people, and I appreciate the kindness, sympathy and aid that has been given me...."[41]
The following day the colored clergy and laity honored the Bishop in a service at St. Ambrose Church, Raleigh. Resolutions expressing the confidence and affection of the colored churchmen were presented to Bishop Cheshire by Rev. Henry B. Delany. Rev. Primus P. Alston, on behalf of the colored clergy, gave the Bishop a handsome stole, accompanying it with an address expressing the gratitude of the colored people for his work among them. Afterwards, the Bishop observed that nothing during the past ten years had been more gratifying to him than "the unvarying respect, courtesy and loyal support" which he had received at the hands of his colored clergy and laity.