Then, despite being offered a significant pay raise to remain in Frederick, he accepted a call to Christ Church in Baltimore on July 21, 1828.

Johns became known as a scholar, as well as for his active evangelism, which was strongly Calvinistic (their father's family was a mix of Presbyterians and Episcopalians).

He preached "a direct personal approach to Him, whose language is 'Come unto me'" and criticized Tractarians for exalting "the priest at the expense of the Saviour.

"[5] He attended many meetings of the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and also in 1840 delivered a lecture to the American Whig and Cliosophic Societies of his alma mater.

The next compromise candidate, Dr. Manton Eastburn of Massachusetts declined the election, as did missionary bishop Jackson Kemper.

Meade (a dedicated evangelist and low churchman like Johns) had helped found new Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), along with Francis Scott Key and others.

[9] From 1849 until 1854, in addition to his episcopal duties, Johns served as the fifteenth president of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

"[A]fter the death of President Dew (1846), the College experienced such a terrible conflict caused by a student delivering .

For almost a year and a half prior to Bishop Johns' selection, the college had been closed with the exception of one professor giving instructing students at his home.

he so diligently and wisely conducted the management of the College as to produce a regular increase of the number of students until they had nearly reached the maximum of former years, established a better discipline than perhaps ever before had prevailed.

[10] After Virginia seceded, Bishop Johns became active in the Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.

He participated in the only consecration by bishops in that church, of Richard Hooker Wilmer to the Diocese of Alabama, held on March 6, 1862, in Richmond.

"[11] Bishop Johns spent many long weeks riding through the battlefields and visiting the soldiers in camp—-baptizing, confirming, and preaching.

At the age of 70, Bishop Johns rode like a raider—with the great personal risk of his life—to reach the battlefields' wounded and dying.

Historians speculate as to whether or not Bishop Johns baptized and confirmed Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Kensey Johns Stewart, refused to mention the President of the United States when delivering Morning Prayer at St. Paul's Church in Alexandria, for which he was seized in the chancel and led off to prison in his vestments.

Wingfield (later Bishop of Northern California) was arrested, his property confiscated and he was sentenced without trial to three months hard labor as a street sweeper in Norfolk for refusing to take the oath of allegiance, which he only made after Union General Benjamin Butler supposedly threatened to expel his wife and children from Union-occupied territory without money, food or additional clothing.

[14] After General Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Bishop Johns issued a pastoral letter advising "prompt and honest obedience to the existing government" and the use of the old prayer for the President of the United States.

He also declined an offer from the national church's Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society to pay salaries to him and his impoverished clergy, saying they all preferred to suffer the same privations as their people.

Also, a Standing Committee on Colored Populations was created, and recently freed slaves, and other African Americans were permitted to elect their own vestries, wardens and ministers if they wished to form separate congregations.

First, he brought the diocese of war-wrecked Virginia "back into the fellowship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States," and second, "was in the years 1873-75 at the time when the .

radical element [formed] a Reformed Episcopal Church, [B]ecause of his influence the majority of the clergy and people would go with him .

He also listed "Romish errors" to be avoided, including use of incense, crucifix, candles, processional crosses, bowing and genuflections, permitting laymen to assist in Holy Communion, mixing water and wine, elevation of bread and wine, use of wafer bread, and the wearing of any vestments other than a black cassock, gown, bands and white surplice with black or white stole.

"[citation needed] Bishop Johns was interred in the newly established cemetery of the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.

One son, by his second wife, Dr. Arthur Schaaf Johns, also became an Episcopal priest and rector in Rockville, Maryland.

The other son, Dr. Kensey Johns (1825-1909) of Norfolk, Virginia, inherited the ancestral estate, Sudley, on the Delmarva Peninsula.

His daughter by his first wife (and named after her), Julianna Johns (1822-1883), never married but remained active in Episcopal Church affairs until her death six years later.