Ordained a deacon on July 1, 1885, he was advanced to the priesthood on October 11, 1886, by
William E. McLaren,
Bishop of Chicago. After his diaconal ordination, he began teaching at Western Theological Seminary and in 1905 was appointed to a
professorship of
dogmatic theology. He was also registrar of the
Diocese of Chicago from 1894 to 1913 and was church counsel in the trial of
Algernon Sidney Crapsey in 1906. In 1913, General Theological Seminary elected him as its professor of dogmatic theology, a position he retained until his retirement in 1928. As a child he contracted
scarlet fever, which handicapped him by partial deafness. In a midlife
nervous breakdown, his deafness became total, but he continued to train more than a generation of future
Episcopal priests and bishops. In 1910 and in 1927, he was a delegate to the World Conferences on "Faith and Order". In 1923, he delivered an important paper at the Anglo-Catholic Conference in the interest of reunion, entitled "The Future of the Church".
Kenyon College awarded him an
Doctor of Divinity degree in 1898 and the General Theological Seminary awarded him an honorary
Doctor of Sacred Theology degree. ==Summer ministry==