Parish lectures on the prayer-book

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PARISH LECTURES

ON THE PRAYER BOOK

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PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY

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FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE
REVEREND JESSE HALSEY, D.D.

Snively, William A. 1833-
Parish lectures on the
prayer-book

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Historical

Introductory 15

lecture 'Ei)irli»

The Daily Morning Prayer 27

lecture Jfourt^),

The Morning Prayer (continued) 39

lecture JFifit^,

The Morning Prayer (continued) 55

lecture <S>irti).

The Evening Prayer 73

lecture <S)ei)entJ),

The Litany 79

lecture Cigl)tl),

The Holy Communion (I) 91

PAGE

Ltctutt il5intl).

The Holy Communion (II) 107

The Holy Communion (III) 123

lecture QSWucntl),

The Holy Communion (IV) 141

lecture '^\atlft^.

The Holy Communion (V) 158

lecture ^ijirteentij.

Holy Baptism 175

lecture iFourteenti^,

Holy Baptism (continued) 187

lecture JFifteentij,

The Catechism 201

lecture "Sii;cteent!).

Confirmation 213

lecture «S)ei)enteenti),

The Marriage Service 221

lecture (Z5igi[)teenti)»

Visitation of the Sick 235

lecture I5ineteent}).

The Burial of the Dead 249

^

The purpose of these tenures is to present in
a simple and condensed form an explanation of
the services of the Church in their general struSf-
ure and their minor details. The author has
availed himself of the abundant Liturgical Lit-
erature of the Church, and has drawn freely
upon the works of Wheatley, Prober, Blunt,
Freeman, Scuddamore, Goulburn, and other
standard authorities, and makes no claim what-
ever for originality in the treatment of the suh-
je6l. Well-informed churchmen are already
familiar with the rationale of the offi,ces; hut to
the large number of persons who are seeking the
Communion of the Church, and to the younger
members of the Household of Faith who desire to

comprehend the system and worship of that branch
of the Church Catholic to which they belong, it is
hoped they maybe at once acceptable and edifying.
In response to the request of many who heard
them, they are now committed to the attention of
that wider audience which to-day is reached only
through the medium of the printed page, in the
earnest hope that they may illustrate the beauty
of Holiness in the Worship of the Church, and
so contribute to the §pread and triumph of the
Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

LECTURE FIRST

%tttmc fit^t

HISTORICAL

o understand fully the system
of our liturgical worship, we
must divest oui'selves at once
of the idea that a litm'gy is
merely a compilation of prayers
and lessons and hymns. For every true
liturgy is a growth, an arrangement of
devotional offices from which much has
been omitted because it failed to stand the
test of time and use; and to which, by
slow degrees, much has been added, as the
needs of the church for such additions
became manifest. That only which can
meet these conditions survives, and the
liturgy of a historic church is not a manual

4 Lecture First

of offices skillfully arranged by any one
council or synod or bishop of the chui'ch,
but rather the liturgical inheritance of all
the ages, whose root and origin are to be
found only in the life and period of the
apostolic church.

As the baptismal formula was the germ
of the apostles' creed, so the words of insti-
tution, in the celebration of the Holy Com-
munion, constituted the nucleus of the
liturgies of the early church. Around that
central act of worship all other devotions
gathered, and for its due observance the
prayers and the psalms, the scriptures and
the sermon, were but the preparation.

The apostles had scarcely passed to their
rest, and their influence was certainly still
a living power in the church, when there
grew up in the great centers of Christian
activity and life four principal liturgies,
strikingly alike in their essential features,
which have furnished the roots from which
all subsequent liturgies have grown. These
were:

1. Tlie Liturgy of St. James, which was
used at Jerusalem and Antioch, and from

Historical 5

which the present liturgy of the Greek
Church is derived.

2. The Liturgy of St. Mark, or the lit-
urgy of Alexandria, which was at once
the center of learning and piety, and from
which the present Hturgy of the Egyptian
Church is taken.

3. The Liturgy of St. Peter, which was
the origin of the Ambrosian liturgy of the
Church of Milan and of the present Roman
service.

And 4. The Liturgy of St. John, or the
Ephesine liturgy, from which the early
Grallican and British liturgies were de-
rived, and which is thus the legitimate
progenitor of our own.

It is an interesting fact to-day that the
early British services differed so much
from the Roman ritual then in use that
when St. Augustine came to preach the
Grospel and establish the church in England,
as he supposed, he found there a church
already existing, and a liturgy in general
use ; and he was wise enough to concede

6 Le£lure First

that while his own ritual might suit his
own converts, it would not be wise to en-
force its use upon the bishops, clergy, and
laity who still maintained their church
organization, which they had received, in
all probability, from St. Paul. And with
a prudence which has not always char-
acterized church authorities in questions
of ceremonial, it was decided to select
what was best in each, and thus make
a national liturgy for the entire British
Church.

From these early beginnings in the
course of history, the bishops arranged
and modified the services for their respect-
ive dioceses ; and these diocesan manuals
of devotion were called " The Use " of the
respective dioceses. The most conspicu-
ous and influential of them was " the Use
of Sarum," and from it, in the main, our
present book is derived.

As religious life in England became
monastic, its services naturally multiplied,
so that from the early custom of prayers
and praises morning and evening, there
gi'ew up a system of services for various
other times during the day and night.

Historical 7

These were called the canonical hours.
They began at midnight and continued at
intervals of about three hours during the
day until bed-time.

Of course, such an arrangement was en-
tirely unsuited to congregational or paro-
chial use, but it is interesting to know
something about them, as they have a very
close relation to our form of worship to-
day.

The first of these monastic offices was
the service of nocturns or matins, which
took place soon after midnight. The sec-
ond was lauds, which was said before day-
break. The third was lyrime, which was
a later and more formal service with fixed
psalms and lessons. Then came the mid-
day services, and in the evening at six
o'clock there were vespers, with canticles
and psalms ; and the devotions of the day
closed with compline, which was a brief
service before retiring for the night. In
restoring the worship of the church to the
use of the congi'egation, and in translat-
ing both it and the Word of God into a
language " understanded of the people,"
the manifold and constantly recurring

8 Lecture First

services of the monastic life were simply
accumulated into two principal services
of the day. The three morning services,
matins, lauds, and prime, are essentially
embodied in our order for daily morning
prayer ; and vespers and compline were
accumulated into our order for daily even-
ing prayer, which in the older English
books is called by the expressive and
beautiful name of even-song, while the
office for the Holy Communion is properly
the divine liturgy of the church, for whose
due celebration the morning prayer and
the litany are but the preparation.

At the time of the Reformation the serv-
ices of the church were purged -from the
absurd legends and superstitious rites by
which they had been overlaid and disfig-
ured, and the order of worship was re-
stored to its purity by a return to the
principles of the primitive church. This
was no easy task. For while the bishops
and doctors of the Anglican Church were
thoroughly acquainted with the rich litur-
gical treasures of Christian antiquity, and
while they sought to accomplish the work
of reformation in harmony with the prin-

Historical 9

ciples of an undivided Christendom, yet
the sympathy and help of the Continental
reformers were very desirable in their
common warfare against the usurpations
and errors of Rome. This distinction be-
tween the principles of the English Refor-
mation and the Continental must con-
stantly be kept in mind. The reformation
of the English Chui'ch was conducted step
by step by learned and devout men, whose
only object was to restore the church to
the purity and the order of its earliest
days, while that of the Continental was
practically, and indeed against the wish
of its most learned and thoughtful lead-
ers, the effort to construct a new chui'ch.
It thus lost the moderation which was the
characteristic of the English Church ; and
the influence of Continental ideas in shap-
ing the revision of the English Prayer-
Book was very great, but it never was
successful in eliminating from it its state-
ments of primitive and scriptural truth in
regard to the doctrine and worship of the
church.

To trace the history of the English
Prayer-Book through its long and varied

10 Ledliire First

conflict with the errors and obstinacy of
its opponents both within its pale and
without would be a tedious task and one
that is quite unnecessary to-day. It is
sufficient to recognize the fact that in all
the vicissitudes of its history God has
never left himself without a witness to
his truth. And although there have been
di-eary periods of English history when
the church was merely a machine of the
state and a martyred victim of fanatical
dissent, yet the Pray er-Book, like the Bible,
contains the indestructible seeds of God's
truth ; and however overborne by worldly
influences or frozen by the cold neglect of
those who should have been its guardians
and defenders, it yet, in God's own time,
asserts its vitality ; and the same form of
sound words in the worship of Almighty
God which was droned through in the
time of the Georges, guides the devotions
of the English Church to-day in the in-
tense activity of her life throughout the
world.

When the American revolution was
complete, certain changes were necessary
to adapt the Book of Common Prayer to

Historical 11

the uses of the American Church. At first
it was thought sufficient to make such
changes as the poUtical condition of the
country required ; but, unfortunately, the
American Church at that period, besides
being thoroughly congregational, by rea-
son of the lack of bishops, was also seri-
ously leavened with the Socinian heresy
which prevailed at the time. And both
the Prayer-Book and the Church passed
through a very perilous historical crisis
when the whole book was revised and al-
tered into what was called " The Proposed
Book." This book so compromised the
essential truths of the Grospel that the
English bishops, who were not at that
time notorious for their devotion to the
faith, would not entertain the thought of
consecrating a bishop for the United States
upon the basis of its doctrinal statements.
Another revision, therefore, was made,
and certain safe-guards of scriptural
truth were restored ; and in that form it
was adopted by the American Church, and
the apostolic episcopate of the Anglican
succession was in due time given to this
branch of the church catholic. These

12 tenure First

changes are barely alluded to in the pref-
ace to our Prayer-Book, which, next to
the title-page and the certificate of ratifi-
cation, claim our attention.

LECTUKE SECOND

2[ntrotiuctorp

^lecture ^ttovi}

INTRODUCTORY

HE title-page of a book, like
the face of a man, is an index
of the character and contents
within. From the title-page
we gather that there are four
departments in the Prayer-Book. It is the
Book of Common Prayer — of the Adminis-
tration of the Sacraments — of other rites
and ceremonies of the church — and the
Psalter, or Psalms of David. In fact, there
is also another department consisting of
the forms of ordination, consecration, and
institution which is simply the Ordinal of
the church.

If one word in this title-page is more

16 Ledliire Second

emphatic than another, it is that which
declares the worship of the church to be
an order of Common *Peayee ; that is, an
arrangement to be participated in audibly
by the people as well as the priest. This
conception of worship is so fundamental
to the system that there is not a single
service in the entire book in which the
presence and participation of the people
are not provided for. And the services of
the church reach their most impressive
rendering when the entire congregation
unites audibly and earnestly in every part
of the office.

The ratification of the Book of Common
Prayer is the certificate of its authority ;
and no copy is properly authorized unless
it has with this ratification the certificate
of a bishop that it has been duly compared
with the standard edition by a Presbyter
appointed for that purpose. The ratifi-
cation itself is the seal of the church's
approval, which makes it the appointed
Liturgy for her use in all the offices of
public worship.

The preface explains very briefly the
reasons which necessitated any change at

Introductory 17

all from the English book, and asserts
that, in these changes, " This church is far
from intending to depart from the Church
of England in any essential point of doc-
trine, discipline, or worship." The changes
themselves are really very few. The first
class are those which refer to civil rulers,
and which were made necessary by our
independent existence as a nation. They
are chiefly verbal, such as the use of the
words " president " and " congress " in-
stead of " king " and " parliament," with
some minor changes of ecclesiastical phra-
seology, such as " bishops and other min-
isters " for " bishops and curates." The
second class is composed of certain litur-
gical changes, chiefly in the way of abbre-
viations. The versicles are fewer in num-
ber, and the canticles, especially Venite and
Benedictus, are abbreviated by the omis-
sion of the closing verses ; shorter canti-
cles in the Evening Prayer are substituted
for the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and
certain obsolete or archaic forms and
words are either omitted or changed into
those more familiar to modern use ; the
oblation of the elements and the invoca-

18 Lecture Second

tion of the Holy Ghost in the Prayer of
Consecration in the communion office are
restored ; the absolution in the Visitation
of the Sick is changed to a prayer ; the
Athanasian creed is entirely omitted, and
there are certain verbal alterations in the
Te Deum and the Litany. There are also
Six Selections of Psalms, prefixed to the
Psalter, to be used instead of the regular
Psalms for the day. But with all these
minor changes the books are substantially
the same. And now, after the lapse of a
century, in the process of revision which
is reaching its completion in the American
Church, the omitted verses of the Venite
and Benedictus are inserted, the Magnifi-
cat and Nunc Dimittis are restored to their
place in the Evening Prayer, and the sub-
stantial identity of the two books is made
more complete than ever.

It is the glory of the English Church
that she gave the Holy Scriptures to the
people in their own tongue. And it is per-
fectly consistent with this proud position
that at the very threshold of her prayer-
book we should meet with directions " How

Introdiidory 19

the Holy Scriptures are appointed to be
read." These tables of lessons constitute
" The Lectionary " of the church, and they
comprehend three distinct though harmo-
nious series. First, we have the Table of
Lessons for the Sundays, which cover the
entire ground of the Old Testament, the
Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles
once and the Historical Grospels twice in
the coufse of the year. Second, we have
the Table for Holy Days, in which are selec-
tions appropriate to the day, part of which
are taken from the Apocryphal books, and
are read for instruction in life. And, third,
the Table of Lessons for. the Daily Service,
in which, if observed, the entire Old Testa-
ment will be read through once in the coirrse
of the year, and the New Testament twice.
The Lectionary has been revised in recent
years, with a view to improving the ar-
rangement of the lessons ; and appropri-
ate tables for the forty days of Lent, the
Ember and Rogation Days have also been
provided. Add to this the fact that at
every full morning service there are two
appointed portions of Holy Scripture, the
Epistle and the Holy Gospel, and we have

20 Le6lure Second

as the result this honorable distinction,
that no service of the church can be prop-
erly rendered without at least two lessons
from the Word of .Grod, and that in the
full morning service of Sunday, or festi-
val, there are really four lessons from the
Sacred Scriptures.

Next to the Lectionary comes the Table
of Feasts and Fasts. These are of two
classes, — the movable, which depend upon
the date of Easter Day in the year, and
the immovable, which always occur on the
same date.

It is needless to enter into the methods
for computing the date on which Easter
Day will fall, though none of us can tell
what labor and thought and study, what
astronomical knowledge and mathematical
skill, these dry tables of figures and rules
of computation cost. Practically we learn
it from the annual calendars, or we may
ascertain it from the simple table of the
dates on which Easter will fall in any
year, and whose understanding requires
no mathematical skill at all.

The immovable feasts are mainly the
festivals of the infancy of our Lord, and

Introditdory 21

of the Apostles and Martyrs ; besides two
for the Blessed Vn^gin Mary, one for All-
Saints, and one recently added to commem-
orate the Transfiguration.

There are but two fast days prescribed
by this church. They are Ash Wednes-
day and Grood Friday. Other days of ab-
stinence are set apart as times and seasons
when we are to assert our self-control and
find a wholesome discipline in doing so.
These are the forty days of Lent, the Em-
ber days of the four seasons, the Eogation
days and ah Fridays of the year, except
when a Friday coincides with Chiistmas
day. These are the wise prescriptions of a
loving mother who watches over the spirit-
ual health of her children, and cares for
them with the profoundest solicitude.
Many, doubtless, are wayward and capri-
cious in their obedience to her precepts.
There is an unfortunate spirit of antago-
nism to all church authority and an asser-
tion and exercise of individual judgment
which has made the rule of our self-denials
a very flexible and lenient one, and which
does not hesitate to omit any duty whose
performance might be inconvenient or

22 Lecture Second

mortifying to the flesh. And there is a
travesty also of penitential seasons and
acts which reduces the element of self-de-
nial to a minimum and feigns a sorrow
which it does not feel. As we study the
provision which the church has made for
our spiritual discipline, we cannot but
recognize the wide contrast there is in serv-
ice and festival and fast between the ideal
church of the Prayer-Book and the actual
church of our every-day history.

And yet it is safe to say that the Prayer-
Book is the echo of the Word of God. It
differs from the Bible only in this, that
the Bible is a mine of gold filled with un-
told and uncounted treasures, while the
Prayer-Book is the mint in which that gold
has been coined and the treasury in which
it is stored for our daily use in life. And
there is nothing which, in an age of con-
tradiction and doubt, would more surely
tend to elevate om- Christian life, both
personal and organic, to what it ought to
be, than a simple and sincere following of
its prescriptions and order entirely aside
from the precedents of English history or
the prejudices of our American life. The

Introdiidory 23

precedents of English history have often
been a paralysis to the working energy of
the church and to the devotional reality of
its "worship ; while the prejudices of Amer-
ican life are antagonistic alike to its histor-
ical claims and its conservative methods.
But this church is never more powerful
in her influence nor more successful in her
work than when she is consistently true to
her well-known principles and methods as
defined in the Book of Common Prayer.

LECTURE THIRD

Hectare €]&irti

THE DAILY MORNING PRAYER

HERE is a significant word in
the title of the Morning Prayer :
it is the word " daily " ; and it
clearly intimates the church's
idea as to the frequency with
which this service is intended to be used.
And yet in the broad liberty which the
church concedes to her childi^en, there have
been those who have argued that it had
no significance at all. The more common
use of a semi- weekly service on Litany
days, or of a Friday-evening service and
lecture in accordance with popular cus-
tom, seems to have obscured the idea that
the daily prayer is the church's rule where

28 Ledure Third

it is practicable. In many, if not most,
parishes it is almost impossible to observe
the maximum rule of services throughout
the year, partly for want of a sufficient
staff of clergy, and partly because the
people are so scattered that a congrega-
tion cannot be assembled. But where
such is the case it is a misfortune which
we ought to mourn over and apologize for
rather than glory in and defend. The law
of the English Church requires that every
priest shall say his Daily Offices, and that
where he cannot obtain a congregation,
however small, to unite with him in the
service of the church, he is to say them in
his own study at home, as part of his reg-
ular duty for the day. The daily service
is not congenial to the intense hurry and
bustle of our American life, and yet it
may be only the more needful on that ac-
count, and it is a growing custom that
where the daily prayer cannot be said, the
church door at least can stand open to
welcome.those who may turn aside to seek
a quiet moment of devotion in the house
of Grod. In reaching any conclusion on
the subject, two things must be remem-

The Morning Prayer 29

bered. First, we must not estimate a con-
gregation by the popular standard of an
audience, in which the chilhng effect of
empty pews upon a speaker must be taken
into the account. A praying congregation
is a very different assembly from the multi-
tude attracted by a popular speaker, and
our Lord has fixed the minimum of such
a congregation when he said : " Wliere
two or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of them."
Nor must we forget that the benefit of
such services of prayer cannot bo confined
to those who are able to be present and
participate in them. If we believe in the
efficacy of prayer and that God does hear
the intercessions of his peoj^le, we cannot
doubt that his blessing will descend upon
an entire parish, — upon men in their
counting-houses and shops and stores,
upon Christian women engaged in their
domestic duties, upon sufferers on sick-
beds, and upon aged and infirm mem-
bers of Christ who are prevented from
coming to the house of prayer, — in answer
to the petitions offered by the clergy
and people, even though they be but the

30 Lecture Third

two or three gathered together in Christ's
name.

In taking up the study of the entire of-
fice, it is natural to ask, first of all, is there
a reason for its arrangement I Why does
the Lord's Prayer come after the confes-
sion and absolution instead of going be-
fore them ? Why does the Creed always
follow the Lesson or the Holy Gospel in-
stead of preceding it ? Why is the Yenite
sung before the Psalter ? And why is the
Collect for the Day necessarily inserted in
the Morning Prayer when the office for
the Holy Communion is not used ? Each
of these questions has a rational answer.
For throughout the entire Book there is
a reason for every detail of the arrange-
ment, whether it be lesson, or canticle, or
creed, or collect. But this rationale of
the service will reveal itself to us as we
proceed with the study of its component
parts.

The service opens with one or more
sentences of Holy Scripture, which declare
God's willingness to hear the prayers of
his people, and which inspire them to
di'aw near to him. There is sufficient

The Morning Prayer 31

variety in the sentences to adapt them to
the various seasons of the Christian year,
and thus to give a key-note of penitence
or of joy to the service which is to follow.
Special sentences have been added for the
principal festivals of the year. The ex-
hortation is a comprehensive homily on
the uses of divine worship, as including
the offering of thanks for Grod's mercies,
the ascription of praise to him, the hear-
ing of his Holy Word, the utterance of our
united prayers for both bodily and spirit-
ual needs, and it lifts our minds to that
broad conception of worship which the
church seeks to make real in her service.
But at the very forefront of this elabo-
rate and harmonious act, we must first
draw near to him as sinners seeking his
mercy and forgiveness, and therefore the
first combined act of priest and people is
the general confession of our sins. This
confession is general, in the sense that it
is adapted to the use of an entire congre-
gation, and also that it does not enter into
specific details. It can be individualized
and made specific by any particular wor-
shiper who may choose to do so, but for

32 Le£lure Third

public use it must maintaiu its general
character. The absolution is equally gen-
eral— not confined to individual penitents
nor applying verbally to specific sins, but
comprehensive enough to include them
all ; and this declaration of Grod's forgive-
ness is the assurance to penitent and be-
lieving hearts of his pardoning mercy and
love. And then, with this assm'anee of
forgiveness, we are able to rise to a higher
plane of devotion, and as children of God
to take the sacred words, " Our Father,"
upon oui" lips.

This much of the service really consti-
tutes an invocation prayer, or a prelimi-
nary to the act of worship upon which we
now enter in offering our praises to God.
But even our highest songs would be life-
less and dull unless inspired by his Holy
Spirit, and therefore the act of praise is
preceded by a prayer for the divine aid:

" 0 Lord, open thou our lips ;

" And our mouth shall shew forth thy
praise."

We rise from our knees and strike the
key-note of all Christian worship in the
formula of the Gloria Patri, the constant

The Morning Prayer 33

recurrence of which throughout the serv-
ice reminds us that the great work of re-
demption is made known to us only in
connection with the revelation of the
adorable Trinity.

And now the act of praise begins. First
there is an invitatory psalm, which is
a prelude to the Psalms for the Day, the
portion of the Psalter being the opening
hymn, and the Gloria Patri is added to
each psalm because by its presence there
it changes a Jewish psalm into a Christian
hymn. Having thus completed our open-
ing act of prayer and praise, we are ready
" to hear his most Holy Word." First, a
lesson from the Old Testament is read,
which is almost immediately followed by
a lesson from the New, to illustrate the
harmony of the law and the gospel, the
historical and theological unity of the
Word of God. These lessons are, how-
ever, separated by a hymn, for the church
never allows her children to be made
weary in their worship, and therefore, by
constant change of posture and by a har-
monious variety of thought, both mind
and body are kept from fatigue, and there

34 Le^nre Third

is no way by which the use of the service
will be more full of freshness and force
than by the participation of the worshiper
in attitude and voice as well as heart, in
all its parts. As we sit to listen to the les-
son from God's Word, which is the proper
attitude in which to receive instruction
in the church, so also we stand to sing a
hymn of praise, the Te Deum, or the Bene-
dicite, and then resume our seats to listen
to another lesson from Grod's truth, which
is followed by its appropriate canticle. It
is a familiar principle that " Faith cometh
by hearing and hearing by the Word of
God." It is logical and consistent, there-
fore, that after this twofold hearing of the
Word of God the next act should be the
profession of our faith, which is made by
repeating the creed. Of the two forms
here used, the Apostles' Creed is the older
and simpler, and is suitable for ordinary
occasions ; the Nicene is fuller in its state-
ment, and is appropriate when the celebra-
tion of the Holy Communion is to follow.
And now that we have asserted our uni-
versal priesthood in the offering of our
prayers and praises, — that we have de-

The Morning Prayer 35

clared our discipleship by listening to the
instructions of his Word, as scholars in the
school of Christ, — and having claimed
our membership in the household of faith
by the repetition of the creed, we are
ready to fall upon our knees in prayer
again to ask God for those things which
are requisite and necessary, "as well for
the body as the soul," which we next pro-
ceed to do in the prayers which follow, to
the end of the service.

It becomes evident that there is a litur-
gical reason for every particular and de-
tail in the arrangement of the Morning
Prayer ; that there is a scientific idea un-
derlying its order — that each separate act
comes just at its proper place, and that its
varied details constitute one united and
harmonious whole.

LECTURE FOUETH

Hcctiurc fmvctfy

THE MORNING PRAYEK

AVING explained the general
arrangement of the Morning
Prayer and the harmony of its
various parts as they blend
into a united whole, we next
proceed to study in detail the component
elements of which it is constructed. These
in the main are taken either from Holy
Scripture or from the Ancient Liturgies,
with here and there a homily that is the
product of the reformation period.

The Sentences with which the service
opens are suited to inspire an appropri-
ate reverence as we enter upon the solemn
act of worship, while there is a sufficient

40 Lecture Fourth

variety to adapt them to the different sea-
sons of the Christian year. Some are
general in their character, adapted to any
occasion of worship ; others are more es-
pecially suited to penitential seasons: —
some to the preparation for the Holy Com-
munion ; one particularly to the Epiphany,
and others, recently added, to other spe-
cial seasons of the church year ; but all
combine to remind us of the humility
and penitence with which, as sinners, we
are to draw near to God. It is left to the
discretion of the officiating minister to use
whichever may be specifically appropriate
to any particular occasion.

And now that we are reminded of the
solemnity and responsibility of our ap-
proach to Grod, there is a fuller statement
of its authority and object in

THE EXHORTATION,

which follows the sentences. This exhor-
tation finds its origin in the custom of the
Reformation period, when the Prayer-Book
was revised. The standard of learning
was very low among tiie clergy, and, there-

The Morning Prayer 41

fore, homilies were provided to take the
place of sermons, and when an exhorta-
tion was to be delivered to the congrega-
tion it was inserted in the Prayer-Book.
We have other instances of snch exhorta-
tion in the office for the Holy Communion,
in the address to the sponsors in Holy Bap-
tism, in the order for the visitation of the
sick, and for the setting apart of deacons,
priests, and bishops.

The exhortation in the Morning Prayer,
while its general object is to incite us to
a true confession and acknowledgment of
our sins, is particularly valuable to us as
defining the church's idea of the objects
and purposes of public worship. And its
constant repetition is an emphatic pro-
test against the idea that we are to go to
church merely to hear the sermon. It is
that erroneous notion which has made
so many assemblies of Christian people
mere auditors and spectators, which has
almost eliminated the element of worship
from the popular religion, and which has
elevated the demand of the itching ear
above the requirement of the penitent
heart.

42 Ledltire Fourth

Four essential elements are spoken of
as entering into public worship. These
are : (1) Rendering thanks for the great
benefits we have received ; (2) Setting
forth God's most worthy praise ; (3) Hear-
ing his most Holy Word, and (4) Asking
those things which are requisite and nec-
essary as well for the body as the soul.
In briefer words, they are thanksgiving,
praise, instruction, and prayer; and the
fitting prelude to them all is the humble
and penitent confession of our sin.

This is provided for in the

GENEKAL CONFESSION,

which is then to be said by the minister
and the congregation. For it must ever
be remembered that the ministry is taken
from among men, and that the heavenly
treasm*e of the grace of holy orders is
committed to earthen vessels, and that in
leading the devotions of the people the
saintliest and purest minister of Christ
must utter his deep acknowledgment of
sin as well as the weakest and most erring
member of his flock. This confession is

The Morning Prayer 43^

general, first because all are required to
make it; and it stands in contrast with
that personal and particular confession of
sin which was the custom at the time of
the Eeformation, and to supply the place
of which this general confession was put
into the service ; and it is general, further,
because it is expressed in terms so general
that it is suitable to all. Any more particu-
lar form would have been inadequate to
the uses of a miscellaneous congregation.
It would be impossible for each one to
specify audibly his own short-comings and
faults, but he can think of them and in-
clude them in the comprehensive language
which the church here provides. The
analysis of the prayer gives us two parts
beside the Introduction, which is the ad-
di'ess to Almighty Grod. They are : (1)
The Confession (a) of our sins of omis-
sion and (b) of our sins of commission,
and (2) The Supplication for (a) pardon for
the past and (b) grace for the future: It
thus includes all that an assembled con-
gregation need to acknowledge or to ask
for ; it could not be more comprehensive
than it is, and it need not be more par-

44 Le5ture Fourth

ticular, since it is to be said alike by all, and
is therefore adapted to the spiritual condi-
tion and needs of all.

The Confession is naturally followed by

THE DECLAKATION OF ABSOLUTION,

which is to be made by the priest alone,
as contrasted with the case of a deacon or
lay reader officiating in the service ; and it
is to be made by him standing as a token
that it is an authoritative declaration, in-
tended to convey the assurance of pardon
to penitent hearts, and not a mere platitude
which any one can repeat who chooses to
do so. There are two forms of the Abso-
lution : the first suited to a promiscuous
congregation ; the other especially adapted
to an assembly of the faithful. This sec-
ond one belongs properly to the Commun-
ion Office, and should be used only there.
The two are, however, but different forms
of the same thing, and they are alike in-
tended to guard against the groundless
trust in sacerdotal power which prevailed
at the time of the Reformation, as well
as against narrow views of Clod's mercy

The Morning Prayer 45

which had begun to find acceptance with-
in the church. The Absolution contains
four particulars : the declaration of God's
mercy to repentant sinners; the author-
ity of his ministers to pronounce pardon
to the penitent; the declaration of that
pardon on condition of true faith and
hearty repentance, and an admonition to
seek for the help of God's Holy Spiiit, that
the pardon pronounced in the church on
earth may be effectual to our eternal sal-
vation. To this solemn and authoritative
proclamation the people are to say, Amen.
This natui'ally leads us to notice the use
of the " Amen " in the services of the
church. In some places it is said by both
priest and people, as in the General Con-
fession, the Lord's Prayer, the Gloria
Patri, and the Creeds ; but in the Absolu-
tion, the Collects, and the Prayers it is said
by the people only, the significance of
which is, that by that act they add the ef-
ficacy and the faith of their own universal
priesthood to the single voice and minis-
terial act of the officiating priest. This
distinction is always recognized by the
type in which the Amens are printed,

46 Le5ture Fourth

those whicli are said iu common being in
the same type as the prayer, and those
which are responsive being printed in
italics.

The Lord's Peayee naturally follows
these preliminary acts, and it is to be said
by the minister and the people kneeling.
The English rubric expressly requires that
it be said in an audible voice. This refers
to the early use of the Lord's Prayer when
it was said silently by the priest, and the
audible ser\dce began with the versicle
following. But the more recent custom
allows the priest to use his own secretimi
or private prayer before each service, and
makes the Lord's Prayer more really the
prayer of the faithful, as the rubric re-
quires that both here and wheresoever it
is used in Divine Service it is to be said
by all as the children of God and the
members of his family. The only excep-
tion to this rule is in the o]3ening words of
the Communion Office, where the Lord's
Prayer and the Collect for purity consti-
tute the secreta of the priest and may be
said alone by him.

The Morning Prayer 47

It is to be noted that the version of the
Lord's Prayer in this service differs in
phraseology not only from that of the
English Prayer-Book, but also from the
forms of it given by St. Matthew (eh. 6 : 13)
and St. Luke (ch. 11 : 4). But as the Script-
ure vex'sions differ from each other, in one
of them the doxology being entirely omit-
ted, the version is sufficiently accurate for
devotional use.

The Veksicles which follow are taken
from Psalms 51 : 5, and have been used in
this particular place in the Liturgy since
the sixth century.

The Gloria Patei is one of the oldest
formularies of the Christian faith, and had
its origin, doubtless, in the baptismal for-
mula which our Lord gave to his apostles.
The revelation of the doctrine of the Trin-
ity is the key-note of our redemption ; and
the prophecies of the distant past, the
mystery of the Incarnation, and the bap-
tism of the Pentecost are all summed up
in this brief statement, which is at once a
creed, and a hymn, and a watchword of

48 tenure Fourth

Christian faith throughout the world and
through all time.

The act of praise begins with the Venite
Ex'iiUemus, which has been used as an in-
vitatory in the church's worship from the
very earliest period. The closing verses
were omitted in the first American revis-
ion, but have recently been restored, and
the entire psalm is to be used on the Sun-
days in Lent. On other days the abbre-
viated form may be used, except upon days
for which special anthems are appointed,
as Easter and Thanksgiving Day, or when
one of the selections is used instead of the
Psalms for the Day, and upon the 19th
day of the month when it occurs in the
regular course of the Psalter.

The invitatory is the natural prelude to
the Psalms for the Day. Our attention is
at once arrested by the fact that the Vek-
siON of the Psalms in the Prayer-Book dif-
fers from that of our ordinary bibles — a
fact which, when understood, is an honor
to the church, since it is the reminder that
our English Prayer-Book is older than the
popular version of the Holy Bible. The

The Morning Prayer 49

Psalter and all other scriptural portions of
the Prayer- Book were first taken from the
translation of Tyndale and Coverdale (A.
D. 1535), which was revised by Cranmer
in 1539, and the epistles and gospels were
not changed to their present form until
after the last revision of the Authorized
Version of the Scriptures in 1661. But by
this time the choirs and congregations
were so accustomed to the earlier version
of the Psalter, and its rhythm was so much
better adapted to a musical rendering than
the later version, that it was permitted to
remain as the arrangement for devotional
use. We gain a decided advantage to-day
by having two versions of this most in-
teresting and important portion of Holy
Scripture, since each has its advantages in
accuracy of translation, and both together
form a kind of philological stereoscope by
which we can, at the same time, get two
distinct views of the original.

It does not fall within the scope of these
Lectures to discuss the interpretation of
the Psalms or the occasions which gave
rise to their composition. That would in-
clude a broad field of exegesis, for the lit-
5

50 Lecture Fourth

erature of the Book of Psalms is an exten-
sive library in itself. Our concern with it in
the Liturgy requires that we take simply
the book itself as the wondrous provision
which Grod has made for the worship of the
universal church, the rich and inexhausti-
ble treasury of inspired poetry and sacred
song which has furnished to every age and
land, to every vicissitude of human life,
to penitence and faith, to sorrow and joy,
its most fitting and perfect expression.

The ARRANGEMENT of tMs book for de-
votional use, however, is worthy of notice;
for there have been many arrangements
of the Psalter in the history of the church.
Some have included the entire book in the
devotions of a single week; others have
had special fixed psalms for the Sundays
of the year; and thus some portions of the
Psalter are constantly repeated, while oth-
ers are scarcely known at all. But by the
monthly arrangement of the Psalter, and
the constant change of the day of the
month on which Sunday falls, the whole
book is brought into service, and its con-
tents are better known by its various por-
tions being used in turn. We may not

The Morning Prayer 51

hope to reach the familiarity with the
Psalms which was common in the early-
church, when they were "repeated so often
that the poorest Christian could say them
by heart, and used to say them at their
labor in their houses and in the fields."
(Proctor, p. 216.)

But they are still our precious heritage,
suitable alike for the highest worship of
the sanctuary, the sacred solitude of the
closet, or the patient suffering of the sick-
chamber, and in each and all adapting
themselves to the varying needs and sor-
rows of human hearts.

The question as to whether the Psalter
should be " said" or " sung," is one which
can have but one answer in theory, how-
ever it may vary in practice. It would be
considered an anomaly in worship to read
the uninspired hymns which are used, and
much more, therefore, should the inspired
hymns of the Holy Ghost be dignified by
a musical rendering. That they were in-
tended to be sung there can be no doubt,
but the incapacity of an infant church to
carry out this intention may be an excuse
for reading them. But in the hght of God's

D'Z

Le^ure Fourth

Word, where singers were always ap-
pointed for the sanctuary ; in the hearing
of the distant echo of psalm and canticle,
as they float down to us through the ages
from the Tabernacle and Temple serv-
ice ; in the memory of the Grreater Hallel
which was sung in the upper chamber at
Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago,
and whose chorus now fills the world;
in the distant song which broke the silence
of the Catacombs; in the unceasing an-
tiphon which from cathedral choir and
parish church now follows the sun in its
pathway around the world ; and in the
apocalyptic hints of the song that is ever
new, which is wafted to our ears to-day
across the sea of glass mingled with fire,
we must recognize the intention and pur-
pose of Grod that the Psalms should be
sung in his holy house, and this fulfillment
of the intention is growing more and more
general, as the musical culture and litur-
gical taste of the church are becoming
equal to its demand.

LECTURE FIFTH

€^t i^i^oming ^^mpct

%tttmt fiftl)

THE MORNING PRAYER

(From the Psalter to the end)

HE arrangement of the Lessons
from Holy Scripture has al-
ready been referred to in treat-
ing of the Lectionary, but it
is to be observed that it is
a striking illustration of the prominence
which this church gives to the reading of
Holy Scripture in public worship. The
threefold course of lessons throughout the
year, with the lessons for special seasons,
is the standard of the estimate which the
church places upon the Inspired Word.

We come now to another principle
which has always characterized the great

56 Lecture Fifth

liturgies of the churcli, — namely, that the
reading of Grod's Word in the public serv-
ice has always been interspersed with the
singing of hymns. Following this princi-
ple, the church has placed after the First
Lesson two hymns, which have occupied
their present position from time imme-
morial. The first of these is the Te Deum
Laudamus, or, as it is sometimes called,
the Canticle of St. Ambrose and St. Au-
gustine. Its origin is lost in the legend-
ary shadows of a venerable past, and its
authorship has been attributed to various
persons from A. D. 355 to A. D. 535. In
all probability it was a growth rather than
an inspiration, and for fifteen centuries
it has borne the praise of Grod from the
church on earth to the throne on high. It
is, doubtless, the most ancient Christian
hymn, with the exception of the Apostles'
Creed and the Grloria in Excelsis, and its
analysis would be a most interesting study.
It consists of three distinct parts : an Act
of Praise, a Creed, and a Prayer. In the
first it represents all creatures in heaven
and earth, angel and archangel, cherubim
and seraphim, apostles, prophets, and mar-

The Morning Prayer 57

tyrs, and the struggling children of God
throughout all the world, as bowing in
adoration before the Eternal Trinity ; and
in it the song of the church on earth
catches an echo of the song that is ever
new, the song not only of Moses, but of
the Lamb, and which tells not only of
Eden and Sinai, but of Calvary and
Heaven.

The second part is a confession of faith,
in which the great facts of the Incarna-
tion are more particularly detailed, the
great humility of our Lord in his birth
and death; his triumph over its sharp-
ness ; his session at the right hand of the
Father and his coming again to judg-
ment.

The third part is a prayer for all those
who worship and serve him, and for our-
selves, that we may be kept from future
sin, and find pardon because we trust in
him. It is the sublimest uninspired hymn
in human language, and its catholicity is
the index of its power, since it is sung
alike in Eoman and Protestant churches,
Greek and Anglican, East and West, every-
where throughout all the world.

58 Lecture Fifth

The Benedieite is the Song of tlie three
Hebrew children in the fiery furnace,
and is an enlarged paraphrase of Psalm
148. It is taken from the Greek addition
to the Book of Daniel, and while it is ju-
bilant in its tone of praise, it has, never-
theless, been used principally in Lent, be-
cause it was the song of God's children in
affliction. It is also specially appropriate
to any Sunday of the Cliiistian year when
the First Lesson refers to the act of crea-
tion.

It is susceptible of very complete analy-
sis, and a careful study of its contents re-
veals many beauties and harmonies which
the ordinary reading or singing does not
suggest. There is a natural procession of
thought in it which makes it but the more
significant and effective when properly un-
derstood, but the full explanation of its
contents belongs to the exegesis rather
than to liturgies.

The recent revision has added another
canticle, " Benedictus es," which is shorter
than the Te Deum or the Benedieite and
which may be convenient where the Daily
Office is said.

The Morning Prayer 59

The canticles which follow the Second
Lesson are the Benedictus and the Jubi-
late. Both have been used in an abbre-
viated form, but the full Benedictus has
been restored by the last American revis-
ion. It is especially appropriate during
Christmastide, or on the festivals of our
Blessed Lord, while the Jubilate is adapted
to the season of Epiphany. On other
Sundays they may be used indiscrimi-
nately. The Benedictus is a Grospel hymn
celebrating the goodness of Grod in redemp-
tion. The Jubilate is an older and better
form of the popular doxology, " Praise Grod
from whom all blessings flow."

The De Profundis has been added as
a third canticle after the Second Lesson,
and its use is appropriate during Lent and
other penitential seasons of the year. The
choice of the canticle at any particular
time gives the tone, either jubilant or pen-
itential, to the service, and thus provides
for a variety which adapts it more closely
to any special season.

Next in order comes the Ckeed, which
is the confession of our belief in the

60 Le£lure Fifth

faith once delivered to the saints. The
explanation of its contents belongs to the
study of theology, and would require a
volume to do justice to it. Our concern
in these instructions is simply with its
liturgical use. First, the position of the
Creed in the service demands our atten-
tion. Its place in the Morning and Even-
ing Prayer corresponds precisely with its
place in the Communion Office ; that is to
say, it follows a lesson from the Word of
God. The significance of this position is
explained by a statement of St. Paul which
has almost passed into an axiom, that
" Faith Cometh by hearing and hearing by
the Word of God." So that there is a
logical propriety in the Creed following
immediately after the lesson or the Holy
Gospel, as much as to say, that, having
heard the Word of God, we are now ready
to profess our faith which has come by that
hearing; and this we do by the repetition
of the ancient symbol in which the faith
once delivered to the saints has borne its
changeless testimony to the ages and gen-
erations of men. And no act of common
or public worship is complete without it.

The Morning Prayer 61

There are two minor ceremonial acts
connected with the repetition of the Creed
to which reference may be briefly made.
The first of these is the reverence at the
sacred name. The origin of the custom
undoubtedly roots itself in the early cent-
uries, when the divinity of our Lord Jesus
Christ was first called in question, and the
heresy in regard to that fundamental truth
began to assert itself in the churches. At
such a time it was an expressive testimony
of a true faith to make due and lowly rev-
erence at the sacred name, because it im-
plied that the man Christ Jesus was God
manifest in the flesh. To stand upright
at such a time with a bold and defiant air
was equivalent to identification with the
skepticism which doubted or the rational-
ism which refined upon and explained
away the divinity of our Lord; but to make
the reverence at the sacred name was to
acknowledge him to be God as well as
man. It would not be safe to say that
this distinction still adheres to the use of
the reverence or its omission ; but, in a
conspicuously and intentionally irreverent
age like the present, we do well to main-
6

62 Le£lure Fifth

tain a custom whose significance and an-
tiquity alike entitle it to respect. And the
significance of the reverence in the Creed
is enhanced by the fact that it is required
only there. In the older canons of the
English Church there is one which pro-
vides that " due and lowly reverence
should be made wherever the name of
Jesus occults in divine service." But the
reverence, like the sign of the cross, is apt
to lose its value by too frequent repetition,
and, therefore, it is confined to its use in
the Creed, as the cross is required only in
the reception of the candidate after Holy
Baptism, the presence of each respectively
in these particular acts of Christian life
and worship actually including all others.
Their use in other places is merely a mat-
ter of individual taste, not required nor
forbidden by general usage or canon law.
The reverent inclination of the head in the
Gloria Patri is an entirely different thing
from the reverence in the Creed, for it is
based simply upon the analogy that the
angels veil their faces in the eternal Tris-
agion of heaven. But the reverence at the
name of Jesus in the Grloria in Excelsis is

The Morning Prayer 63

identical with that iu the Creed, and though
not prescribed either by general custom or
law, it is the privilege of any Christian to
use it if his heart prompts him so to do.

The question is sometimes asked, " Why
not bow at the name of God, the Father,
or of God, the Holy Ghost ? " To which
the answer is, that the meaning of the
reverence lies in the fact that it is made at
the name Jesus, which is the human and
historical title of his manhood and which
belongs exclusively to his human nature.
So that by making the reverence at that
name we declare oui' belief in the Deity of
the man Christ Jesus. We need no such
outward act when we use the name Christ,
for that is his official name, and means that
he is "the Anointed of God"; but the
name "Jesus" is the designation of the
Babe of Bethlehem, the despised Nazarene;
the man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief, the victim of the Jewish mob at
Jerusalem, the silent and uncomplaining
captive before Pilate, the crucified man on
Calvary ; and by this token we silently de-
clare that to him we pay divine honors
and that he is our God.

64 Le£lure Fifth

There is another traditional custom con-
nected with the repetition of the Creed,
which is used chiefly, however, in cathe-
dral services, though sometimes adopted
in parish churches also: it is the custom
of " Orientation," or turning toward the
east during its recital. The attitude had
its origin in the ancient idea that the East
is the source of light and purity, while the
West is the abode of darkness and evil. In
the ancient church it was customary for
candidates for Holy Baptism to turn their
faces toward the west in renouncing the
devil and all his works, and to turn toward
the east in professing their belief in the
articles of the Christian Faith. The ob-
servance of the custom is rare in parish
churches, though general in England,
where no partisan significance is attached
to it. It is like the custom of chivalry
in which every knight laid his hand upon
the hilt of his sword when repeating
the Creed, to indicate that, if need be, he
would wield his weapon in its defense,
a custom which has passed away with
the chivalric spirit in which it had its
origin.

The Morning Prayer 65

Following the Creed we have next the
Mutual Benediction of Priest and People,
as if in commendation of the spirits of
all to His care and strength who alone is
able to keep us from falling and enable us
to maintain our steadfastness unto the
end. And then, in the Veksicles which
follow, there is a double prayer expressed
in briefest words, but including in its pe-
tition the two great needs of the human
heart. They are pardon and purity. The
one refers to the actions of our hves, for
whose shortcoming and sinfulness we ever
need the mercy of God ; and the other re-
fers to the purity of our hearts, to effect
which we ever need the cleansing and
sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit.

The comprehensiveness of these Versi-
cles, standing thus at the commencement
of our prayers to Almighty God, is very
significant. They seem to strike the key-
note of all the spiritual blessings that we
need, the pardon of our actual sins, and
the purification of our nature; in one
word, the destruction of sin, both in its
guilt and power.

66 Leisure Fifth

Following this key-note of Christian
prayer we have next " The Collect for the
Day," a prayer which changes week after
week with the varying seasons of the
Christian year; which recalls every fact
in the Incarnation; which is a memorial
of the commemoration of saint and mar-
tyr ; and which is a constant reminder of
the Eucharistic Office to which it belongs.

The two permanent Collects which fol-
low are those for peace and grace. They
are suitable for every day of our earthly
life, as they invoke God's protection
against the assaults of all oui* enemies and
his guidance and governance in our daily
lives. Next in order comes the Prayer for
Rulers, and all in civil authority, which is
based upon the apostolic injunction to
pray for the powers that be as ordained of
God ; and then the Prayer for Clergy and
People, as a specific invocation of God's
blessing upon the officers and members of
his holy church. There is much that is
instructive suggested by this prayer, for it
opens up the entire subject of the church
as a divine corporation, with its sacred
brotherhood of the faithful and its author-

The Morning Prayer 67

ized and appointed officers in the clergy.
The very structure of the prayer impHes
a certain definition of the church and the
ministry. It places the Apostolic Epis-
copate at the head as the organic repre-
sentative of the authority of Chiist, and
it refers to the faithful people of God as
committed to their guidance and care. To
develop fully the meaning implied and in-
cluded in its phraseology would require us
to go into the whole doctrine of the minis-
try of the church.

There is one practical thought which it
forcibly suggests, — namely, the duty of
praying for the ministers of Christ. It is
quite possible for us to forget the impor-
tance of this duty, and it is much easier
to criticise them and find fault with them
than to pray for them. But we should
never forget that the treasure of the gos-
pel is administered through human chan-
nels, that the incumbents of the sacred
office have all the weaknesses and infirmi-
ties common to men, that their conspicu-
ous position necessarily magnifies their
defects and emphasizes their shortcom-
ings, and that it is a far better thing for

68 U6lure Fifth

us to invoke God's blessing and aid in the
discharge of their sacred office than to
weaken their influence and obstruct their
work by unfriendly comments upon their
failures and mistakes.

The next prayer in order is the compre-
hensive intercession for all sorts and con-
ditions of men, and it is followed by the
General Thanksgiving, which, even in its
present abbreviated form, is a very com-
prehensive expression of Christian grati-
tude for all the blessings, both temporal
and spiritual, which we enjoy.

It is a liturgical principle that, in the
order of devotional thought, we pass natu-
rally from the general to the particular.
The special prayers and special thanksgiv-
ings follow the general. This rule finds
at once its illustration and its authority
in the special prayers of Ash Wednesday,
which by rubrical direction are " to be
said immediately before the general thanks-
giving,"— that is, immediately after the
prayer for all conditions of men ; and the
rule for special thanksgiving is defined in
the Order of Service for Thanksgiving
Day, where the special thanksgiving is to

The Morning Prayer G9

be said after the general. These are minor
matters, it is true, but they are not un-
important, since nothing is unimportant
which is connected with the worship of
Ahnighty Grod. The closing prayer of the
Morning Service bears the name of St.
Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed Bishop
of Constantinople, at the close of the fifth
century. It is the fitting conclusion to a
service which has been common prayer
throughout ; and while it is addressed to
Christ, as God, it also pleads the promise
which he has given to united prayer, that
if two or three agree on earth as touching
anything they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of the Father which is in
heaven.

To seal the whole as a completed act of
worship, we conclude with the minor bene-
diction which is a devotional invocation
of the Trinity, and is thus the correlative
of the Gloria Patri at the beginning. It
is an inspired formula invoking upon us
the grace of Christ, the Son, the love of
God, the Father, and the fellowship of the
Holy Ghost, and it includes all the bless-

70 Lecture Fifth

ings, both temporal and spiritual, which
our hearts can desire or our necessities de-
mand.

To it, as to every other prayer, the peo-
ple are to say. Amen. And in the con-
stantly recurring response by which the
congregation unite with the prayer of the
priest, there is no better rubric than that
which Moses gave the children of Israel
(Deut. 27:26): "And let all the people say,
Amen."

The use of the word indicates our in-
ward assent to what has been uttered, and
by it we adopt each prayer and make
it our own. But the full effect of this
is reached only when " all the people say
Amen," — when they give audible voice to
the assent and desire of their hearts. And
the response is as universal as the idea of
common prayer. All the people are to say
it. Wherever a human soul bows down
in penitence and prayer, it may voice its
yearnings and utter its assent in the word
which has responded to the prayers of the
sanctuary for more than three thousand
years.

LECTUEE SIXTH

Hccturc i^ijctf)

EVENING PRAYER

HE order for daily Evening
Prayer follows closely the
method of that for the Morn-
ing Prayer in its general ar-
rangement. The sentences are
the same. The general exhortation may
be omitted, and a shorter substitute, " Let
us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty
God," may be used in its place. The Con-
fession, Absolution, and the Lord's Prayer,
Yersicles, and Grioria Patri occupy the
same relative positions as in the Morning
Prayer and for the same litm-gical reasons.
The Gloria in Excelsis is permitted to.be
used after the Psalter for the Day, but the

74 Ledure Sixth

permission is not availed of generally, as
it is properly a eucharistic hymn and be-
longs to the Office for the Holy Commun-
ion. The canticles for the past century
are the Cantate and Bonum Est after the
Fii'st Lesson, and the Deus Misereatur and
Benedic Anima Mea after the Second.
The enrichment of this service authorized
by the last revision consists in the restora-
tion of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimit-
tis to the position which they respectively
occupied before the American Prayer-
Book finally took its definite form after
the Revolution. There is a clear gain in
the use of these gospel hymns, though to
some minds there is an incongruity in
placing upon the lips of a worshiping
congregation the special utterances of the
Blessed Virgin. A similar objection might
be made to the use of the swan -like song
of the aged Simeon ; — but in both cases
the long-established usage of the English
Church seems to have sanctioned the pro-
priety of their use, and their restoration
has been heartily welcomed by the Ameri-
can Church. They give additional variety
to the service and materially assist in mak-

Evening Prayer 75

ing the Evening Prayer an " Even-song,"
especially where the Psalter is chanted, as
it always should be in the evening where
it is practicable.

The Versicles of the English Liturgy
have also been restored, with verbal
changes to adapt them to the changed po-
litical conditions under which they are
used in this country. The larger element
of antiphonal or responsive worship thus
introduced is a real gain and a valuable
enrichment.

A larger liberty still is granted in the
prayers which follow. The Collect for
the Day and the Collect for Peace occupy
their position as formerly ; the Prayer for
Aid against Perils has been changed to
its original form, " Lighten our darkness,"
etc. ; another form of Prayer for Rulers,
including not only the President of the
United States, but also the Governor of
the State, has been introduced ; and for
the remaining prayers the officiating min-
ister may select any he may choose from
the other parts of the Prayer-Book, or may
close the service at this point, omitting
entirely the prayers which follow and

76 Lecture Sixth

which are common alike to the Morning
and Evening Prayer.

After the thii'd collect, provision is made
for an anthem, where it is practicable,
which is another enrichment of the Even-
song.

A GREAT variety of special prayers and
thanksgivings has been added by the re-
cent revision. They sufficiently explain
themselves. Their use in the public wor-
ship of the church enables the officiating
minister to give a specific direction and
tone to the service. This is particularly
the case in the use of the Prayers for Em-
ber and Rogation Days, for the increase
of the ministry, for congress and meet-
ings of convention; while the needs of
individuals are expressed in the prayers for
the sick, for persons at sea, and those in
affliction, as well as in other vicissitudes
and needs of oui' mortal life.

LECTUKE SEVENTH

Hccttire .^etjottj)

THE LITANY

HE Litany is a connecting link
between the Morning Prayer
and the Office for the Holy
Communion. The word itseK
etymologically means an ear-
nest and continual supplication. Liturgi-
cally, it has a technical meaning as ap-
plied to a continued series of petitions and
responses which are said antiphonally by
the priest and the people. It is a very
ancient mode of prayer; and a form
strikingly similar to our own is found
in the Apostolic Constitutions, which is
one of the oldest Christian documents
extant.

80 Lecture Seventh

The ancient use of litanies was proces-
sional. They were recited npon the eve
of great battles, or in the midst of famine ;
they were used in case of drought or
flood; and they were specifically assigned
to the Eogation Days, when clergy and
people united in solemn procession to in-
voke Grod's blessing upon the coming crops
of the spring-time and harvest. They
constituted a considerable portion of the
monastic devotions, and many litanies
sprang up, disfigured, indeed, by invoca-
tions of saints and martyrs, but express-
ing, at the same time, the deep and ear-
nest yearning of devout hearts, which,
however mistaken in the forms of their
phraseology, were never lacking in the in-
tensity of an unwearied devotion.

OuE own Litany comes to us from the
purest sources of Christian antiquity, and
shorn of the excrescences which had gath-
ered upon it during the ages. In the
simplicity of its utterance, the compre-
hensiveness and variety of its petitions,
the deep and stirring eloquence of its
expression, and the perfection of its com-

The Litany 81

pleteness as an act of united prayer, it
stands unrivaled by any human compo-
sition, and is excelled only by the com-
prehensiveness and brevity of the Lord's
Prayer itself.

The present form of our Litany dates
from A. D. 1544, when it was derived by
Archbishop Cranmer from the older lita-
nies which were then well known. In the
Prayer-Book of 1519 it was ordered to be
said only on Wednesdays and Fridays;
but in the book of 1552 it was printed in
its present place and directed " to be used
on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,
after Morning Prayer." In the English
Church it was frequently said as a special
service, the notice for which was given by
the tolling of a bell; and to emphasize its
character as a general supplication of the
people, it was said or sung, not at the
prayer-desk in the choir, where the other
prayers were said, but " in the midst of
the church." Bishop Cosin, when arch-
deacon, made it one of the special inquir-
ies of his visitation, whether the Litany
was thus properly said ; and whether there
was in each parish church " a faldstool or

82 tenure Seventh

desk, with some decent carpet over it, in
tlie middle alley of the church, whereat
the Litany may be said after the manner
of the Injunction." (Blunt.) The sym-
bolism of such a use is very expressive, as
signifying the popular character of the
Litany as a united prayer of priest and
people, and its impressiveness is greatly
enhanced by such a rendering. Its recital,
according to the old English injunction, is
a reminder of the words of the prophet
Joel, which occur in the Epistle for Ash-
Wednesday, " Let the priests, the minis-
ters of the Lord, weep between the porch
and the altar : and let them say, Spare thy
people, O Lord, and give not thine herit-
age to reproach."

Wherever it may be said, it is always
the fitting prelude to the Holy Commun-
ion ; and although the Decalogue and its
responses constitute in themselves a Eu-
charistic Litany, yet it is stated on good
liturgical authority that the Litany should
always precede the midday celebration,
even when the Morning Prayer has been
said at an earlier hour.

Proceeding now to the analysis of the

The Litany 83

Litany, it naturally divides itself into two
general parts :

I. The Litany proper, which extends
from the opening invocation to the end of
the Kyrlc Eleison ( " Christ have mercy " ),
and

II. The minor Litany, which begins with
the Lord's Prayer and includes the remain-
ing portion to il\Q closing collect.

Each of these general parts contains a
number of subdivisions ; the first has six,
and the second four distinct parts. With-
out entering into any detailed interpreta-
tion of these minor parts, it is sufficient
simply to point them out. Their substance
is so perspicuous that it interprets itself,
but it may help us in saying it to know
how perfectly systematic its composition
and arrangement are, and how evidently,
as in the Morning and Evening Prayer,
a scientific method underlies what, to a
superficial observer, seems to be but a
miscellaneous collection of indiscriminate
prayers and responses.

The first subdivision of the greater Lit-
any consists of the Invocation, in which
the three persons of the Trinity are first

84 Lecture Seventh

addressed separately and then together, in
a petition for mercy upon us, miserable
sinners. There is a deep and fundamental
truth underlying these opening words, for
the mercy of God to man, as a sinner,
is only revealed to us in connection with
the doctrinal mystery of Father, Sou, and
Holy Ghost.

The second division consists of Depre-
cations, which are petitions against im-
pending evils. They are introduced by a
prayer for deliverance from our offenses
and the offenses of our forefathers, for it
is a law of nature as well as of revelation
that the sins of the fathers are visited
upon the children to the third and fourth
generation. In the details of these depre-
cations, mention is made of the various
adversities which may happen to the body,
as well as the evils which may assault and
hurt the soul, and to each of these is added
the deep and earnest response, "Good
Lord, deliver us." The specifications are
minute and particular, including not only
the various forms and phases of sin, but also
the providential calamities to which men
are exposed and the civil and ecclesiastical

The Litaiij^ 85

evils which lead astray the loyalty of
Christian men, and their natural conse-
quences, hardness of heart and contempt
of Grod's word and commandment, — from
all these, in the Deprecations, we pray to
be delivered.

Following these, in the third subdivis-
ion, are the Obsecrations, or prayers on ac-
count of something, — petitions by what
is most sacred in our estimation and
thought. The mystery of the Incarnation,
with its great events, and even its inci-
dental circumstances, together with the
coming of the Holy Ghost, — these are the
subhme and awful obsecrations by which
we give intensity to our earnest prayer ;
and the subdivision is concluded by a
prayer for deliverance in the great disci-
plines and crises of our being, in tribula-
tion and prosperity, in the hour of death,
and in the day of judgment.

The fourth subdivision consists of Inter-
cessions, which are prayers in behalf of
others. In these the church, by the exer-
cise of her universal priesthood, echoes
the perpetual prayer of her Grreat Head,
who ever liveth to make intercession for

86 Lecture Seventh

us. In this subdivision there is an evident
classification also, as we pray first for pub-
lic bodies and public persons, in church
and state, for all Grod's people, and for the
the unity, peace, and concord of all nations.
Next, in this classification, we pray for
spiritual mercies, and then for temporal
mercies, and the subdivision closes with
three miscellaneous intercessions, for the
forgiveness of our enemies, for the fruits
of the earth, and for true repentance and
grace to live according to God's Holy
Word.

The fifth subdivision includes the In-
vocation of the Son of G-od, closing with
the Agnus Dei ( " 0 Lamb of God " ), and
the sixth is the Kyrie Eleison ( " Christ
have mercy") of the Eastern Church,
which, in its antiphonal repetition thrice
over, forms the solemn close of the Litany
proper.

II. The second general division of the
Litany, called the minor Litany, is opened,
according to liturgical use, by the Lord's
Prayer. For the use of the Lord's Prayer
in the midst of any service always marks

The Litany 87

a change in the thought, introducing a new
line of devotion, or passing to a different
phase of worship. And its use here justi-
fies the title given it by the highest litur-
gical authority, as the Penitential Lord's
Prayer. This peculiar characteristic of it
at this place is indicated by the omission
of the Doxology at its close.

The second subdivision contains suppli-
cations in trouble and adversity, a prayer
in the form of a collect, and the Grloria
Patri as a petition rather than an ascrip-
tion.

The question is sometimes asked, why
the words " Let us pray " are used twice
in the minor Litany, when we are supposed
to have been praying all along. The an-
swer is, that the words simply mark a
change from the use of a suffrage to the
use of a collect, a suffrage being a brief
petition with its appropriate response, and
the collect being a longer and more formal
prayer, to which, ordinarily, the appropri-
ate response is the single word ^^Amen."

There is a third subdivision of the
minor Litany which contains supplications
appropriate to thickening calamity, and

88 Lecture Seventh

the fourth, which is introduced by the
words " Let us pray," is a comprehensive
prayer for rescue and for faith.

This is the end of the complete office, a
prayer so comprehensive that it includes
an enumeration of all the wants the hu-
man heart can know, and yet so concise
that it never can weary those who use it
with an earnest spirit and a fervent faith.

LECTURE EIGHTH

€fje Jpolp Communion

^tccturc oBigJjtJ)

THE HOLY COMMUNION

N entering upon the explanation
of " The Order for the Adminis-
tration of the Lord's Supper,
or Holy Communion," we must
confine ourselves to its liturgi-
cal aspects, and not attempt any discussion
of the mystery itself. That is no subject
either for theory or for definition. It was
given to us, not for critical analysis nor
even for reverent speculation, but for the
trustful acceptance of our faith. And we
may always be sure that if, in this highest
act of worship and nearest approach to
Christ, we do this in remembrance of him,
we shall certainly receive the benefit which

92 Le^iire Eighth

is promised us, and undoubtedly be par-
takers of his most precious body and
blood.

Nor will it be possible, in the limits we
propose to ourselves, to enter into the ex-
planation of the matter of this liturgical
office. Much of it is composed of the
words of Holy Scripture ; and as they re-
fer to the great fundamental verities of
our faith, their interpretation is the per-
manent work of the Christian pulpit. The
Decalogue is the lesson from the Old Tes-
tament which fixes the unchanging stand-
ard of character and duty, within whose
comprehensive limits all ethical instruc-
tion is included. The epistles and gospels,
varjdng throughout the year, constitute
the liturgical record of the Incarnation,
and furnish the fitting themes for sermons
upon the Sundays on which they are re-
spectively used. While the " comfortable
words " are the echo of the infinite love,
ever offering to weary and penitent souls
the pardon and peace which the Gospel re-
veals, and making that promise real to
faith in the sacramental mystery of the
body and blood of Christ. And all Chris-

The Holy Communion 93

tian preaching and teaching are at once
their commentary and then* echo.

The other parts of the office are made up
of ancient collects and hymns, whose words
have become sacred by the long use of the
centuries ; — and of exhortations and hom-
ilies of more recent origin, which are their
own explanation. And these all gather
around the words of institution, and the
symbolical nianual act accompanying them,
as the solemn consecration, which precedes
the partaking by the faithful of the cup
of blessing and the bread of life.

Our pm'pose, therefore, is limited to an
explanation of the rationale of the office,
a statement of the harmony and consist-
ency of its various parts. It will be our
object to ascertain why the Decalogue is
used at the commencement of the office,
and the Gloria in Excelsis at its close, in-
stead of a reverse order ; to observe how
carefully the church has provided for the
due reception of these holy mysteries ;
and to mark the gradual advance in in-
tensity and earnestness from the humble
petition for mercy and pardon up to
the triumphant and jubilant song of

94 Lecture Eighth

the angels which precedes the blessing of
peace.

Foe this highest act of worship there are
several distinct and expressive names. It
is called " The Euchakist," to signify that
this sacrament is especially one of thanks-
giving for the redemption of the world by
the death and passion of our Lord.

It is often called, by way of eminence,
" The Sacrament," not to depreciate the
other great sacrament of our religion, but
rather to express the original meaning of
this one as a renewed oath of fidelity to
the captain of our salvation, since the
sacramentum from which the name is de-
rived was the military oath of the Roman
soldier. And the secondary meaning of
the word, in which the idea of mystery is
prominent, suggests its incomprehensible
character as the ordinance of Christ in
which, by a penitent faith, we become
" partakers of his most blessed Body and
Blood."

It is called " The Loed's Suppee," with
reference, doubtless, to the Passover Meal
of the Jewish Church, out of which it

The Holy Commtmion 95

grew, and at the conclusion of whose cele-
bration it was first instituted. And it is
called " The Holy Communion," to express
the idea of communion with Christ and
with each other which it makes possible to
human hearts.

In the rubric which precedes the office,
there are two disqualifications mentioned
for participation in the ordinance. The
first is the case of open and notorious evil
livers, which excludes all who habitually
live in voluntary sin, whose presence and
partaking would be a sacrilege. The sec-
ond is the case of those between whom
malice and hatred exist, and who are
thereby disqualified until they are recon-
ciled or, at least, willing to be so. In this
most solemn approach to Christ, we are
reminded that if Grod, for Christ's sake,
has forgiven lis, we also ought to forgive
one another.

Concerning the arrangement and vessels
of the ordinance, the church has given but
simple directions, leaving the details to
the reverent love and care of those who
provide for the service of the sanctuary.

96 Lecture Eighth

It is required that the table at the com-
munion time be covered with a " fair linen
cloth," and an instinctive sense of propri-
ety at once suggests that it should be of
tlie finest material and scrupulously clean.
Indeed, for everything pertaining to Grod's
service, he has the right to expect the best
and costliest which we can give ; and, es-
pecially for this highest ordinance, it is
the natural prompting of a reverent heart
to provide instruments and vessels which
will comport with the dignity of the serv-
ice. The fair linen cloth may be enriched
with fine needle-work, which loving hearts
have made an offering to his service. The
paten and chalice should be of the purest
silver or gold, not cheaply made, but mass-
ive in construction ; in shape, ecclesiasti-
cal and distinguished from all common
and domestic uses ; and even, if the means
of the worshipers justify it, enriched with
jewels and gems. The bread, whether
loaf or wafer, should be made of the pur-
est wheaten flour, in the most careful man-
ner ; and the wine should be the most pure
and genuine which the ability of the par-
ish can command.

The Holy Communion 97

While these details are not universally-
obligatory, on account of the varying cir-
cumstances and ability of men, there is a
principle underlying them which is of uni-
versal obligation. It is this, that we should
give to God and his service the very best
we have. We have no right to be careful
about the texture of our table-linen at
home, and careless about that which is to
cover the table of the Lord. We have no
right to adorn our homes with costly orna-
ments, with silver and jewels, and then
leave the house of Grod to the bare require-
ments of necessity. We have no right to
be scrupulous about the wines we place
upon our own tables, to be careful that they
are costly and rare, and that their purity
is undoubted, and then to use at God's
board some cheap and common decoction
for his holy supper. Everything pertain-
ing to the Lord's table should correspond
with the dignity and sacredness of the or-
dinance ; even the vestments of the priest
and the reverent demeanor of the com-
municants should be in harmony with the
occasion and the office. And if we would
consider it a breach of good manners to
9

98 LeSlure Eighth

retire from the table of an earthly friend
the moment our repast is finished, and if
we would not excuse ourselves, except for
great and urgent cause, until all had fin-
ished their repast, neither should we, ex-
cept for the most urgent cause, retire from
the church until all have partaken and the
service is properly ended with the bless-
ing of peace.

The Christian altar is here called a table,
a name which was introduced into the
Prayer-Book in 1552. There has been
much unnecessary controversy in regard
to these names. The term altar is, un-
doubtedly, the more primitive, and for the
first three hundred years the Lord's table
is never spoken of by any other name.
When the word table was used, liturgi-
cally, it referred to the slab upon which
the holy mysteries were celebrated, and it
was even deemed necessary to explain that
by it was meant the Christian altar. The
substitution of the word table in the
Prayer-Book was intended "to disabuse
the minds of the people of the erroneous
superstitions connected with the ordinance

The Holy Communion 99

at that time, and also to bring more dis-
tinctly into view the gi'eat truth which
had been lost sight of, by the denial of the
cup to the laity, that in this ordinance
we are to feed upon the body and blood
of Christ." Properly understood, both of
these names, altar and table, are scriptural
and correct, and they are the complement
of each other. Before the altar we plead
in the eucharist the one great, completed
sacrifice of Christ. St. Paul has sanctioned
the use of the name in I. Cor., 9 : 13, " Do
ye not know that they who wait upon the
altar are partakers of the altar?" And
Heb., 1.3 : 10, " We have an altar, whereof
they have no right to eat who serve the tab-
ernacle." On the other hand, at the table
of the Lord we eat the Christian Passover
and keep the feast ; we come as the family
of God to the table in our father's house,
and the name presents a very distinct and
important aspect of the ordinance. The
words altar and table are thus different
names of the same thing in different as-
pects of its use; both are correct and
needful for a full and comprehensive ex-
pression of all that the ordinance means.

100 Le6lnre Eighth

There is no order of celebration pre-
scribed in Holy Scripture. The words of
institution connected with the breaking of
the bread and the blessing of the cup con-
stitute the germ of all the early litur-
gies, and to this consummation all that
precedes is preparatory. In the older lit-
ui'gies the service divided itself into two
principal divisions, — namely, the Liturgy
of the Catechumens, at which all might be
present, and which consisted of the col-
lect, epistle, gospel, creed, sermon, and
prayer for the church militant; and the
Liturgy of the Faithful, which included
the remaining portion of the office. A
relic of this division still exists in the de-
parture of the non-communicants from
the church after the prayer for the church
militant.

Preparatory, however, even to this Lit-
urgy of the Catechumens, we have an
introductory service, consisting of the
Lord's Prayer, the Collect for Purity, the
Ten Commandments and their responses,
and the Summary of the Law, as given by
om' Lord himself. The reason of this
preparatory service is evident to all who

The Holy Communion 101

are familiar with the history of the Eng-
lish Prayer-Book. As the General Confes-
sion and Absolution were placed at the
beginning of the Morning and Evening
Prayer to snpply the place of auricu-
lar confession and absolution, to which
the people had become habituated, so the
decalogue was put at the commencement
of the Communion Office to serve the same
purpose there. And its use in that posi-
tion enables us to try our lives by the stand-
ard — not of a fluctuating pubhc opinion,
nor even by the current moralities of the
day, but by the inflexible standard of
God's Law.

The Lord's Prayer and the Collect for
Purity, which precede the decalogue, were
originally intended to be the private devo-
tions of the officiating priest ; but as the
rubric in the Morning Prayer directs that
the Lord's Prayer should be said by the
people with the priest, "wheresoever it oc-
curs in divine service," it has become cus-
tomary to do so here. And certainly no
key-note could be more fitting, as the chil-
dren of God gather around his holy board,
than the united " Our Father," which he

102 Lecture Eighth

himself has taught us. Further than this
it stands here as the model of all the
prayers that follow. There is a use of the
Lord's Prayer which makes it the compen-
sation for all the defects and inaccuracies
of the prayers which have preceded it,
and which, therefore, always concludes an
act of devotion with it. This is quite cus-
tomary in certain forms of family prayer,
or of private devotion. But the church
never puts the Lord's Prayer at the end;
it always stands at the beginning of a
service or of a division of a service.
Originally, the Morning Prayer began with
the Lord's Prayer. The Confession and
Absolution which precede it were put there
afterward. It stands here at the begin-
ning of this office ; it marks the commence-
ment of the minor Litany; it introduces
the post-communion service ; and in each
place it is intended to be the model upon
which all the subsequent prayers are to be
made.

The Collect for Purity expresses what
ought to be the yearning of our hearts as
we enter upon so high a privilege, and it
reminds us of the sincerity and earnest-

The Holy Communion 103

ness with which, in this holy ordinance,
we should draw near to God. It teaches
us to seek, that even the thoughts of our
hearts may be cleansed by God's Holy
Spirit. And there is a ninefold repetition
of the same desire in the Eesponses to the
Commandments, in which we not only ask
for God's mercy, but also that he may in-
cline our hearts to keep his law. The
high spiritual character of this Eucharis-
tic Litany is emphasized by the Summary
of the Law, as given by our Lord, which
immediately follows, in which he declares
the principle of love to God and to our
neighbor to be the supreme command upon
which hang all the law and the prophets.
If it were possible for any one to be care-
less or formal in such a service as this, it
surely is not the church's fault. And we
need seek no higher standard, need ask for
no better help than the carefully adj Qsted
form of sound words by which she first
seeks to inspu'e and then enables us to
express the true devotion of our hearts as
we draw near to the table of the Lord.

LECTUEE NINTH

€j)e Ipolp Communion

II

Ecctiurc |i>mtjj

THE HOLY COMMUNION

II

HE collect, epistle, and gospel
constitute the variable portion
of the Office for the Holy Com-
munion. In this respect they
correspond to the Lessons in
the Morning and Evening Prayer, — that is,
they change for every Sunday and festival.
The general principle which underlies their
use is the commemoration of some great
fact or doctrine on every holy day ; and
by their arrangement the church provides
for a weekly and Saints' Day celebration
of the Holy Communion. If a more fre-
quent celebration is desired, it also is pro-
vided for by the direction of the rubric

108 Lecture Ninth

that the collect, epistle, and gospel for Sun-
day shall serve for every day thereafter
during the week.

It is also to be observed that where the
collect, epistle, and gospel are provided,
there the mind of the church contemplates
and its system proposes a celebration of
the Holy Communion. The modern prac-
tice of stopping midway the service, though
permitted by the rubric, was unknown to
the primitive church. It is, however, the
memento of a brave battle with foes on
either hand ; and it has had the effect of
putting the weekly celebration at an earlier
hour, which is more in accordance with
the spirit and practice of the early church.
It also relieves many earnest and faithful
Christians from the embarrassment which
the midday celebration brings when they
are unable to remain and unwilling to de-
part ; while it attracts to itself only those
who are willing to sacrifice the luxury of
the morning slumber for the higher privi-
lege of meeting their Lord in the Holy
Mystery which he has ordained.

The collects are taken mainly from the
ancient liturgies, and they have the flavor

The Holy Communion 109

and tone of the church's life in her best
and pm'est days. Their structure is re-
markable for comprehensiveness and brev-
ity, and in any comparison of ancient col-
lects with modern prayers, the former are
immeasurably superior. This may be ex-
plained upon the principle that the nearer
we get to the fountain the purer the stream
must be. As the prayers of the church,
like her hymns, are the expression of her
inner life, it is natural that the epochs of
martyrdom and the severe conflicts of the
faith should be productive of a richer fra-
grance of devotion than more peaceful
times. War songs are never written in
the luxury of a court; battle cries are un-
known to the arts of peace ; the phraseol-
ogy of heroism is a strange language in the
marts of commerce, the salons of fashion,
or the rural life of a country. It is only
when the shadow of impending disaster
rests upon a land or a people that the ex-
pression of its intensest desire is com-
pressed into words which, with an almost
inspired brevity, put a volume of meaning
into a single line. So these collects come
to us, not as the calm product of the
10

110 Lecture Ninth

scholar in his study, nor of the poet in his
seclusion, nor of the peaceful Christian
walking to the House of Grod in the undis-
turbed company of his friends ; but they
are the deep, intense expression of yearn-
ings, and hopes, and desires wrung from
the soul of the church in the days of her
severest conflict, and which, losing all
trace of historical period or local surround-
ing, have become, like the Psalms them-
selves, the fitting expression of earnest
hearts throughout the ages and throughout
the world.

There are certain peculiarities in the
structure of the collects which deserve a
moment's attention. After the Invoca-
tion there are usuaUy three parts, before
the closing phrase which connects them
with the Mediation and Intercession of
our Lord. First, there is stated either a
historical fact or a theological truth as the
basis of the prayer. In the collects of the
great festivals, — for example, the Nativity,
Easter Day,orWliitsuntide,— the historical
facts which are commemorated are made
the basis of our appeal to God. And each
one contains a prayer which is justified by

The Holy Commtmion 111

the particular aspect of the Incarnation
thus referred to. At other seasons of the
Christian year, some attribute of God,
some expression of his love and mercy to-
ward us, is made the basis of our prayer.
But both correspond in this, that in the
formal and definite approach to God in
the Collect for the Day, we come to him
on the ground of the assurance either of
some established fact or some revealed
truth which authorizes such an appeal from
sinful souls to an all-merciful God.

The second part of the collect is the Pe-
tition itself, which is usually the expres-
sion of the desu'e that the spiritual bene-
fit guaranteed to us by the fact or doctrine
may be oui's; that its purifying and en-
nobling effect may enter into our souls and
become a living force there ; and that we,
allying om-selves with the wonderful mys-
teries of the Incarnation and the divine
truths which it revealed to man, may be
lifted above our sordid human life into
that sphere of the supernatural, where
these facts and doctrines may become the
daily food of our souls.

The third division in the analysis of

112 Lecture Ninth

these brief but comprehensive collects is
the moral result to be obtained, the effect
upon hfe and conduct, upon our work here
and our destiny hereafter, which is to be
achieved by the answer to our prayer. As
the closing utterance, the word which fixes
it to the promise of God, there is the well-
known phrase, " in the name," or, " for the
sake," of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and his
relation to the Blessed Trinity. Thus, in
the long list of seventy collects provided
for the Sundays and Holy Days of the
Christian year, each one commemorates
some great fact of the Incarnation ; some
noble example of apostle or martyi*; or
some great truth in the Christian system ;
and upon this fact, or example, or truth
bases its special prayer to almighty Grod in
the service peculiar to the day.

The arrangement of epistles and gospels
insures us that there shall be at least two
appropriate lessons from Holy Scriptm^e,
as an integral part of the celebration. The
epistle was formerly called " The Apostle,"
because it contained the inspired words of
an apostolic servant of Christ, but the

The Holy Communion 113

Gospel is the record of either the words or
the acts of our Lord. It is for this reason
that we pay peculiar honor to the reading
of the Holy Grospel, by standing to hear it
read, and by the ascription " Glory he to
Thee, 0 Lord^'' when it is announced.

The Christian year naturally divides it-
self into two parts: The first, extending
from Advent to Trinity, commemorates in
succession the great facts of the Incarna-
tion ; the second, from Trinity to Advent,
presents us with the illustration and en-
forcement of duty. The first half of the
year is doctrinal, the second half is prac-
tical. The arrangement has the advantage
of bringing out the entire round of Chris-
tian doctrine and duty in the course of the
year, and of giving to each truth in the
Christian system its due position. With-
out such a safeguard both worship and
instruction are apt to run in certain famil-
iar channels and grooves and to become
one-sided and partial. But following the
order of the Christian year we have
brought before us every essential fact and
truth, and the sum total of the year's teach-

114 LeUiire Ninth

ings is a well-compacted and finished state-
ment of our holy religion.

The Creed follows the Gospel, unless it
has been said in the Morning Prayer im-
mediately preceding, and its position in
relation to the hearing of the word has
already been explained in the Morning
Prayer. There is, however, a peculiar fit-
ness in its use here, as being part of the
Baptismal Vow, and as thus defining, to a
certain extent, those who are to partici-
pate in this holy privilege. Standing mid-
way between the Scripture and the Sermon,
it becomes a connecting link between the
inspired oracle and the uninspired inter-
pretation. And when we remember that
the Creed in its earliest and simplest form
was repeated in the Christian assemblies
from the very beginning; that it ante-
dates the written records of Christianity,
by at least one generation, and was famil-
iar in Christian worship before the New
Testament Scriptures were written ; that
it has been repeated ever since, day by
day, and week by week, and year by year,
for more than eighteen centuries; and

The Holy Communion 115

that in all that time no sun has ever risen
in the east that has not been greeted by its
utterance, nor set in the west that has not
echoed its repetition, we may comprehend
the reverent honor in which this venerable
symbol is held. If not inspired itself, it
at least finds its origin so near the fount-
ain of inspiration that we regard it as
little less than inspired, and use it with a
reverence only less profound than that
which we pay to the Holy Scripture itself.

The Sermon follows as the uninspired in-
terpretation of what has preceded, and its
position implies that it is based upon Holy
Scripture and is in harmony with the Creed.
This is intended to fulfill the prescription of
St. Paul, that he who prophesies must do so
according to the proportion of the faith ;
that is, that all Christian teaching must
agree alike with the general tenor of
Scripture, and the comprehensive utter-
ances of the Creed, and thus avoid the
danger of making an entire system of
theology out of a single set of texts and
of ignoring all other doctrine as unim-
portant and subordinate. Such disregard

116 Lecture Ninth

of the analogy of the faith can never oc-
cur where the system of the church is
faithfully and loyally followed. For in it
every essential truth has its appropriate
place and must be systematically taught.

And we have here defined for us the true
position of the Sermon in Christian wor-
ship,— namely, that is part of the proper
celebration of the Holy Communion. It is
not to be set aside for the impressive and
solemn service which is to follow it, nor is
it to be magnified into such proportions
as to overshadow and exclude other ele-
ments and acts of worship.

When the Sermon is ended a new feature
of the Communion Office appears. The
priest returns to the holy table and begins
the Offertoky. The sentences to be used
dmnng the collection of the alms are of
various classes. Some are suitable to giv-
ing for the relief of the poor ; some to the
support of the ministry of the Word;
some are a fitting inspiration to mission-
ary gifts, and others to the care of the
sick ; and as the proper officers of the
church are gathering, throughout the con-

The Holy Communion 117

gregation, the gifts and offerings of the
people, these sentences are either said or
sung as the inspiration and warrant of
this part of the service. When the alms
are all collected, they are reverently
brought to the priest, who is then to
humbly present and place them upon the
holy table. There is a deep significance
in the act. It lifts the whole transaction
above the level of a mere collection, and
makes it an act of worship, and it empha-
sizes the truth that oui* giving to the
cause of Christ may be just as sacred as
the duty of prayer. There is high author-
ity for the assurance that " with such sac-
rifices, Grod is well pleased." And the
more fully we understand the meaning of
this rubric and the scriptural principle
which underlies it, the more certainly will
the offertory be lifted above the sordid
idea of collecting money from reluctant
contributors, into a sacred and willing of-
fering of grateful praise, in which each
one is to give as God hath prospered him,
and to make that gift an acceptable sacri-
fice to him. It is for this reason, also,
that the custom is becoming general for

118 Ledture Ninth

the wliole congregation to rise at the pres-
entation of the alms, — an act which is an
emphatic assertion of the universal priest-
hood of the people, and which enables
each giver — the rich man with his gener-
ous offering and the poor widow with her
mite — to take part in the service, which
makes their gifts an offering unto the
Lord. In connection with the alms, the
" other devotions " of the people are to be
presented also. This phrase includes any
offerings which may be made at the time
for other pious uses, for the support and
maintenance of the church ; for mission-
ary operations ; for the various depart-
ments of Christian activity ; in short, any
gift which passes through the offertory
and is consecrated to the work of Christ
in the world.

Then the priest is to place upon the holy
table the bread and wine required in the
service which is to follow. These are prop-
erly the oblations, and for a compliance
with the rubric a credence table is requi-
site. In all well-constructed chancels this
convenience is now an essential feature of
its architecture. The elements are to be

The Holy Communion 119

placed upon the holy table by the priest,
and this, with the congregation standing
and uniting in the act, is the key-note
of the spiritually sacrificial character of
the Holy Eucharist which is so distinctly
stated in the Prayer for the Church Mili-
tant and whose deep significance runs
throughout the entire service.

LECTURE TENTH

€f)e J^olp Comnnmion

III

11

%tctntc Ccmfj

THE HOLY COMMUNION

III

HE prayer for the whole state
of Christ's church militant is
the most comprehensive unin-
spired prayer in the entire lit-
urgy. Even the Litany forms
no exception to this statement, unless it
be found in the fact that this prayer makes
intercession only for those who are mem-
bers of the mystical Body of Christ. In
this respect it follows the example of the
Great High Priest himself, who, in the
intercessory prayer which preceded his
agony, said : " I pray, not for the world,
but for them which thou hast given me "
(St. John, 17 : 9).

124 Lecture Tenth

An intercessory prayer of this character
has always had a place in the liturgies of
the Church Catholic, though in the older
liturgies it stands nearer to the prayer of
consecration than in our own.

It includes three principal divisions,
each of which, again, includes a variety of
objects in detail. The general divisions
are : The Oblation, the Intercession, and
the Eucharistic Commemoration of the
Faithful Dead. The warrant of our ap-
proach to the throne of grace is stated
in the inspired teaching of St. Paul, and
with this we enter upon what is the real
substance of the prayer itself.

This word Oblation brings distinctly
before us the spiritually sacrificial charac-
ter of the entire office for the Holy Com-
munion; and the House of Bishops, in
defining the attitude of priest and people
during the celebration, assigns this as a
reason why, through the entire office, ex-
cept at the confession and the prayer of
humble access, the priest should stand.
There has been a vast amount of misun-
derstanding and controversy about this
word, sacrifice, and its cognate terms, priest

The Holy Communion 125

aud altar. The objection to them has
been a natural protest against medigeval
error and the erroneous theology which
attributes a projDitiatory value to the sacri-
ficial offering of the mass. But the fee-
blest way to avoid error is the very common
one of running into error on the opposite
extreme. The truer way of safety is to
follow closely the pathway marked out
in Grod's Word, without predilection and
without prejudice, and to accept its teach-
ing whether it indorses our preconceived
opinions or not. No error has ever yet
gained, to any extent, the confidence of
men which has not had an element of
truth in it to give it that power. When it
is asserted, on the one hand, that there is
a sacrificial aspect of the Holy Commun-
ion, we may accept the statement as true
in the light of Holy Scripture ; but when a
propitiatory value is attributed to it, we
may well pause and ask ourselves whether
this is not rather the reasoning of the
schoolmen than the teaching of God's
Word. On the other hand, while we deny
any propitiatory value in the offering, we
may recognize the spiritually sacrificial

126 Ledture Tenth

character of the Holy Communion, in per-
fect analogy to the sacrifices of the older
dispensations, of which it is expressly said
that "the blood of bulls and goats can
never take away sin." But it is quite pos-
sible for us to recognize what is true in
both of these partial theories, and while giv-
ing the strongest emphasis to the solitary
priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, to
recognize also and gratefully accept Grod's
merciful arrangement by which the eter-
nal priesthood of Christ has ever had its
shadow and its memorial upon the altars
of his earthly church.

In the oblation there is a threefold
offering : our alms and other devotions ;
the oblation of the bread and wine ; and our
prayers. Each of these has a sacrificial
character attributed to it in the Word of
Grod: "To do good and to communicate
forget not, for with such sacrifices God is
well pleased" (Heb. 13:16). "Let my
prayers be set before thee as incense ; and
the lifting up of my hands as the evening
sacrifice" (Psalm 141 : 2), and both of these
are combined in the message of the angel
to the Roman Centurion : " Cornelius, thy

The Holy Communion 127

prayers and thine alms are come up for a
memorial before God" (Acts, 10 : 4).

In the Prayer of Consecration, to which
the people give audible assent by the re-
sponsive Amen at its close, we use these
significant words : "We, thy humble serv-
ants, desire thy fatherly goodness merci-
fully to accept this our sacrifice of prayer
and thanksgiving." St. Paul uses almost
the same words, when he says : " By him,
therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise
to Grod continually ; that is, the first fruits
of our lips, giving thanks unto his name."
And the great vow of self -surrender which
we make not only echoes the spirit of the
apostle's teaching, but also incorporates his
very words: "And here we offer and present
unto thee, 0 Lord, ourselves, our souls, and
bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living
sacrifice unto thee." Our alms and prayers,
our praises and our self-consecration, are
all spoken of as a spiritual sacrifice in Holy
Scripture, and these acts constitute parts
of one elaborate whole in the highest ordi-
nance known to the church. This is the
true protest against the error which attrib-
utes a propitiatory value to the ordinance,

128 Lecture Tenth

as it also elevates and emphasizes the soli-
tary character of the one intrinsic and
essential sacrifice offered once for all for
the sins of the whole world.

It was this one and only sacrifice which
was prefigured by Jewish types, and every
lamb that ever was slain upon Jewish
altars derived its only significance and
value from its relation to the Lamb of God,
slain from the foundation of the world.
And it is this one and only sacrifice which is
commemorated in the ordinance which our
blessed Lord has instituted for that pur-
pose. It looks back upon the past and
shows forth the Lord's death as the sacri-
fices of the older dispensation looked to-
ward the future and trusted in one who
was to come. The commemoration of the
Lord's Supper is to memory what the Jew-
ish sacrifices were to hope, and each, in its
proper place, was a representation of the
one great fact by which alone a sinner can
draw near to God.

The Intercession, in the prayer for the
church militant, contains five different
specifications, which follow almost literally

The Holy Communion 129

the model given by St. Paul. The first is
for the general well-being, unity, and con-
cord of the universal church. Every word
of this petition is significant and ai)propri-
ate, as it echoes the intercession of our
Great High Priest, that all his people may
be one, — one in the truth, one in the deep,
fundamental verities of the faith, — one in
the personal consecration of heart and life
to Christ. And when we reach that unity
we may agree to differ on everything else ;
and the church of Christ will be as varied
in its individual details as the leaves and
trees, the lawns and streams, the skies and
clouds, but one in the unity and harmony
with which these varying elements blend
into a perfect landscape.

The second specification of the prayer is
in behalf of all Christian rulers, in which
we invoke Grod's blessing upon them in
three particulars : in the true and impar-
tial administration of justice, in the punish-
ment of wickedness and vice, and in the
maintenance of true religion and virtue.
The petition is based upon the scriptural
principle that " the powers that be are or-
dained of God." It recognizes the fact that

130 LeSiure Tenth

human government is a divine institution,
and the deeper truth that Grod is in his-
tory, directing and controlling the affairs
of men. When a nation is needed for a
special purpose, God creates that nation,
gives it its characteristics, its ambition,
and its government ; and when it has com-
pleted its task, or has proved false to its
mission, he wipes it out of existence and
creates another nation to carry out the
purposes of his will. In every age, whether
Jewish or Christian, it has been the cus-
tom of the church to pray for the rulers
of the people. In the synagogue and the
temple such a prayer formed part of its
constant liturgy, and the Church of the
Christian Dispensation has taken up the
same petition and repeats it from age to
age.

The third specification is the prayer for
bishops and other ministers ; that they may
both, by life and doctrine, set forth Grod's
holy word, and rightly and duly admin-
ister his Holy Sacraments. There are two
couplets of intercession here which deserve
our notice. The first and most suggestive
is that the church teaches us to recognize

The Holy Comnmnion 131

the double function of the clergy as minis-
ters, both of the Word and of the Sacra-
ments. The prophetic and priestly offices
are both united in his official character.
The Christian minister is not merely a
preacher, his sermons are not merely lect-
ures on religious topics : the pulpit is not
a platform, nor is the church assembly a
lyceum ; but he is an ambassador for God,
in Christ's stead beseeching men to be rec-
onciled to him, and finding the sum and
substance of his teaching in the sacred
oracles of God.

Nor is he, upon the other hand, merely
a liturgical functionary. He has some-
thing more to do than to perform the
rites and conduct the ceremonies of the
church. As a Christian priest he is to be
a steward of the mysteries, and to stand
in the holy place as the administrator of
the sacraments which Christ has ordained.
Both of these aspects of his function are
recognized here, when we invoke God's
blessing upon the ministry of the Word
and the Sacraments, thus putting side by
side the two great means of grace which
God has established in his church.

132 Ledture Tenth

The other couplet is the prayer that to
the spoken word the minister of Christ
may add the emphasis of his example. It is
an easy thing to find fault with a minister and
to criticise him, to comment upon his pecu-
liarities of style and manner, or to condemn
his shortcomings. But it is far better to
remember that the ministers of Christ are
but men, with the infirmities common to
our nature, and that it is our duty to help
them by our prayers rather than to hinder
them by our criticism.

The intercession for the people, that
they may, with meek heart and due rever-
ence, hear and receive God's Holy Word,
is but a continuation of the same idea.
"When St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,
he congratulated them that when they re-
ceived his apostolic word they received it,
"not as the word of men, but as it is in
truth, the Word of Grod, which effectually
worketh in them that believe." There is a
prevalent idea in the popular mind that
the purpose of the sermon may be to en-
tertain and even to amuse rather than to
edify the hearer. Or it may be considered

The Holy Commimion 133

as merely a literary production which dis-
cusses in thoughtful mood the current
topics of the day. But this prayer pre-
sents a very different conception of the
work of Christian preaching, as it implies
that even the most ordinary sermon is a
message from God, and that if we listen
to it earnestly and meekly, it will either
teach us something we did not know, or
remind us of some duty which we have
not performed. And the spiritual effect
of a sermon depends quite as much upon
the congregation as upon the preacher.
The most earnest message of the Gospel
may be chilled by empty pews and inat-
tentive hearers ; but the simplest presenta-
tion of truth is quickened into life by the
responsive thrill which passes from the
reverent heart of the hearer to the trem-
bling mortal who stands in God's name to
speak the word of life to his fellow-men.

The next special prayer is for all who
are in distress, and by it we are lifted to
the broad level of our common humanity,
to the philanthropic sentiment which such
a thought inspires, and to the tender sym-
pathy for the sorrows of human hearts
12

134 Le6lure Tenth

everywhere, which here, before the altar
of God and as a prelude to the commemo-
ration of the Saviour's death, remembers
" all those who, in this transitory life, are
in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any
other adversity." There is a condensed
and concentrated pathos in these words
which it would require a volume adequately
to express. Every anxiety of life, every
shadow of grief, every phase of poverty,
every sick-bed, and whatever of adversity
or woe this sin-stricken world of ours may
contain, is here commended to God's com-
fort and help, as our fullest benediction
and his most blessed boon.

The third general division of the prayer
is, in some respects, the most pathetic
and touching of all, in which, before the
altar and in the immediate presence of the
memorial of the Saviour's death, we make
the thankful commemoration of the faith-
ful dead. It is natural that at such a mo-
ment, when we draw near to^ the deep
mysteries of our faith, we should also
think of the deep mystery of the dead in
Christ, who rest in him, awaiting their
final completion in the Eesurrection. If

The Holy Communion 135

we may not follow tliem into the peace-
ful rest of Paradise whither they are gone,
we may at least offer a thanksgiving for
their good example, in the consciousness
that we are drawing nearer to them as we
draw nearer to Christ, with whom they
are. The friends of earth who have passed
on before us ; saintly characters who once
walked by our side in life or sat by us
in the pew which is vacant to-day ; loved
names, once the common music of our
home, now touched and stilled, and ren-
dered sacred forever by death, — of these
and their peaceful victory, we are permitted
to think at such a moment, to remember
their patient faith and godly fear, and
then, in Christian hope, to look forward
to the hour when we, with them, shall be
partakers of the heavenly kingdom. In
the creed we profess our faith in the com-
munion of saints, in the brotherhood of
souls which overleaps the centuries and
spans the chasm of death, and in whose
loving embrace the past, the present, and
the future are one. And in this prayer
we make that faith real to our deep-
est consciousness, and recognize and re-

13G Leaure Tenth

joice in the fact that the separation which
death makes is only temporary and ap-
parent. The faithful followers of Christ
are one, whether in the burden of the
flesh or in the rest of Paradise.

" One family we dwell in Him,
One Cliurcli, above, beneath,
Though now divided by the stream.
The narrow stream of death."

The people of antiquity looked to a
future bounded by the grave. Friends
and brothers separated at the gates of
death, and the only reunion they dared to
hope for was that kindi^ed ashes might
mingle in one common urn. But Chris-
tianity has placed man upon the plains
of hope; and the voice which once, to a
bereaved heart in Bethany, said " Thy
brother shall live again" has sounded
throughout creation and wrested the scep-
ter from the king of terrors. And the
brightness of his triumph gilds the rest-
ing-places of the departed in the Lord, il-
luminates their memory, and makes their
peaceful existence in Paradise real to our
faith.

The Holy Coinmunion 137

The conceit of purgatorial fires and
prayers for the dead has travestied this
truth on the one hand. On the other, un-
belief has taken this natui'al yearning of
bereaved hearts and trafficked in it, by the
absurdities of so-called spiritualism; but
notwithstanding the caricature, the scrip-
tural truth is ours, alike for consolation
and hope, that death cannot destroy the
link which binds together souls that are
one in Christ. The church on earth is
compassed about with a great cloud of
witnesses. The glorious company of the
apostles, the goodly fellowship of the
prophets, the noble army of martyrs, — all
are there. And names nearer to us, and
dearer by their nearness, are also in that
blessed company ; and we can draw fresh
courage for the struggle of life, by remem-
bering their patience and thanking Grod
for their victory.

The elect of God are "knit together in one
communion and fellowship, in the mysti-
cal body of his Son, Christ, our Lord," and
it is our privilege so to " follow his blessed
saints in all virtuous and godly living, that
we may come to those unspeakable joys

138 Lecture Tenth

which he has prepared for those who love
him." And, in this thankful commemora-
tion of the faithful dead, we look forward
with every confidence to the hour when
"we, with all those who have departed in
the true faith of his holy name, shall have
our perfect consummation of bliss, both in
body and soul, in his eternal and everlast-
ing glory."

LECTUKE ELEVENTH

€l^c j^olp Communion

IV

Hcctiirc €lct)cnt{j

THE HOLY COMMUNION

IV

HE end of the prayer for the
whole state of Christ's church
militant is the conclusion of the
Liturgy of the Catechumens.
In all the older liturgies the
non-communicants retired from the church
at this point, and the remaining portion
of the service was called the Liturgy of
the Faithful, in which the communicants
remained for the celebration of the Holy
Mysteries.

This usage is still preserved, not so
much for the reason that non-communi-
cants are not permitted to witness the cele-
bration, as because so large a proportion
of modern congregations are impatient of

142 Le^ure Eleventh

the length of the service, and find their in-
terest chiefly in the sermon. They there-
fore retu'e, and then the Faithful are shut
in with Christ and, as of old, he is "made
known to them in the breaking of bread."

Preceding the ancient Liturgy of the
Faitliful, which properly begins at the
" Sursum Corda " (" lift up your hearts "),
there are several preparatory acts of devo-
tion, as if the church would provide her
children with repeated opportunities of
self-examination and confession of sin.
Already in the Morning Prayer, which or-
dinarily precedes the office, there is a con-
fession and absolution ; but these are both
repeated here with deeper intensity and
more pointed directness ; and even before
this our hearts are stirred up by the ex-
hortation which begins this part of the
office.

This exhortation is nothing more nor less
than a homily on self-examination, and a
caution against anything like a heedless
or irreverent participation in this holy or-
dinance. It is an enlarged and repeated
echo of the words of St. Paul : " Let a
man examine himself and so let him eat

The Holy Communion 143

of that bread and drink of that cup." It
is intended to throw the responsibility of
preparation upon the communicant him-
self. For, while the church is ever ready
to comfort those who desire " to open their
grief " to the minister of God's Word, " by
such Grodly counsel and advice as may
tend to the quieting of the conscience and
the removing of all scruple and doubtful-
ness," yet she never prescribes an auricu-
lar confession as a necessity, nor does she
presume to decide for the communicant
the question of his own fitness. Nor does
she require an examination as to the de-
tails of doctrinal behef or technical expe-
rience as a condition precedent to partak-
ing. She leaves all this precisely where
God's Word leaves it, with the individual
conscience and heart, repeating simply the
inspired injunction of self-examination and
a truly penitent heart.

The invitation which follows prescribes,
in greater detail, the scriptural terms upon
which the faithful are to come to the par-
ticipation of this holy mystery. They
are: (1) A true and earnest repentance
for sin; (2) Love and charity to our

144 LeSlure Eleventh

neighbors ; (3) An intention to lead a new
life ; and (4) kxi approach to the mystery
with faith. These terms express with all
simplicity and clearness the disposition of
mind and heart with which we are to come
to the table of the Lord. They urge our
coming, not as self-satisfied religionists,
but as penitent sinners. They recognize
the brotherhood of which each member of
the mystical body forms a part, and the
sentiment of mutual love and charity
which must pervade that brotherhood.
They remind us that it is not the achieved
perfection of moral conduct in the past,
but the earnest resolution of fidelity in
the future that is to warrant our coming ;
they insist upon a living faith, as the hand
with which we are to reach out and re-
ceive the heavenly food, — as the vision of
the soul by which we are to discern, in the
ordinance, the body and blood of Christ,
and to see him, evidently set forth, as cru-
cified for us.

And now, with this distinct and com-
prehensive statement of our own spiritual
preparation, we are called to a confession
of our sins, which is the deepest and most

The Holy Communion 145

heart-searching in the entire liturgy. To
appreciate its intensity, we have only to
compare it with the General Confession in
the Morning and Evening Prayer, and we
shall find that it expresses a self-abasement
and penitence of soul, as much deeper
than that as the service in which we are
engaged is more sacred. It acknowledges
and bewails the manifold sins and wick-
edness of our lives, and it extends that
acknowledgment to the thoughts of our
hearts as well as to the words of our lips
and the actions of our lives ; it recognizes
the justice of Grod's wrath, and declares
the burden of our sin intolerable. And
from the depth of such a self-abasement
it utters a Be Profmidis which has sounded
all along the centuries, a Kyrie Eleison which
has echoed from penitent hearts in every
age, as it seeks forgiveness for the past
and grace to lead a better life in time to
come.

Then the assurance of that pardon is
given in the Ahsolution, which is the au-
thoritative declaration of Grod's forgive-
ness to penitent souls. The form which
is used here is much more direct and spe-
13

146 Lecture Eleventh

cifie than the larger form which is used in
the Morning and Evening Prayer. It is
suited to a congregation of behevers as
the other is to a miscellaneous congrega-
tion, and it is intended at once to express
and to convey the comfortable assurance
of God's forgiving love.

And yet, to accept that assurance with
an humble faith is not an easy thing. The
native infidelity of the human heart is so
strong, and we are so disposed to measure
the authority and the love of Grod by the
standard of earthly authority and human
love, that it seems to us almost incredible
that Grod should pardon and forgive our
sins. To meet that timid, shrinking faith,
the declaration of absolution is followed
by the comfortable words in which there
is a condensed epitome of the Gospel, an
assurance that because we are sinners we
belong to the class which Christ came to
save ; and if the suggestion of an earnest
self-reproach should remind us that ever
since we have heard the message of his
love we have wandered from him, even
this need not drive us to despair, since we
have an advocate with the Father; and

The Holy Communion 147

the repeated and manifold declaration of
Ms pardoning love becomes a sure source
of comfort and strength to trembling
hearts' seeking their consolation beneath
the shadow of the cross.

And now the tone of the service changes
to one of triumphant joy. We take up the
ancient canon in the liturgy of the faith-
ful in the Siirsum Corda (" Up hearts ! "),
as it has been used since the early ages of
the church. These versicles are the be-
ginning of the eucharistic office proper.
We enter upon the thankful commemora-
tion, and the key-note of our praise is
struck in the Ter Sancf/us, in whose exalted
strain the worship of the church on earth
mingles with the worship of the church
in heaven. This Trisagion is an abbrevi-
ated Te Deum, — a condensed Gloria in
Excelsis, one of the highest strains of
sacred praise ever set to uninspired words.

To make the great facts of the Incarna-
tion more prominent to our faith in the
eucharistic commemoration, proper pref-
aces are provided for the five great festi-

148 Lecture Eleventh

vals of the Christian year. The birth, the
resurrection and the ascension of our
Lord, the descent of the Holy Ghost, and
the doctrine of the Trinity are the special
themes of eucharistic remembrance upon
their respective festival days.

In this angelic hymn, the triumphant
joy of the Eucharist finds its culminating
point; it is not merely the echo of, but
the participation in, the song of heaven,
and higher than this no earthly chant can
lift us.

But the sigh of penitence must mingle
with our most exultant strains, and from
the echo of the song of the angels we re-
turn to the expression of our deep sense
of unworthiness, in the prayer of humble
access, which precedes the consecration.
This prayer is said by the priest, kneeling,
in the name of all who shall be partakers
of the holy table. It contains three dis-
tinct parts. The first expresses the humil-
ity of our conscious unworthiness. As if
there might be in our hearts some linger-
ing trace of self -righteousness, we disclaim
any thought of such a thing, and declare

The Holy Communion 149

that so far from any trust in ourselves our
only trust is in tlie great and manifold
mercy of God. There is an impressive
lesson of encom^agement and hope in these
words, for the greatest hindrance in the
way of many sincere Christians is the
deep sense of their own unworthiness.
And taking counsel of their fears rather
than their faith, they shrink from their
privilege at the table of the Lord ; while
that very sense of unworthiness is the evi-
dence that their approach is no rash or
irreverent act. Indeed, anything like a
sense of personal worthiness would be a
disqualification for our participation in
the holy feast ; and the timidity which in
its conscious unworthiness shrinks from
the awful mystery is the true attitude of
mind and heart which enables us to make
these words in the prayer of humble ac-
cess our own.

The second part of the prayer expresses
an implicit faith in the participation of the
Body and Blood of Christ. And for this
we need no theories and no definitions.
For a theory of the mode of this great
mystery is a process of reasoning, and a

150 tenure Eleventh

definition of it is an attempt to philoso-
phize, but neither reason nor philosophy
can explore its depths or express its mean-
ing. It must be accepted simply by faith.
We need not ask ourselves the old question
of Jewish doubt, ^^How can this man give us
his flesh to eat ? " Our better way is sim-
ply to rest content with the assurance that
if, in this holy ordinance, we faithfully
obey the command of Christ, we shall un-
doubtedly receive the grace it is intended
to convey. The participation, on our part,
will be responded to by our Heavenly
Father, on his part, without the necessity
of any explanation to reason or sense.
And we may rest assured that when we
duly receive these holy mysteries, God
does vouchsafe to feed us with the spirit-
ual food of the most blessed Body and
Blood of his Son, our Saviour, Jesus
Christ. Less than this would not fulfill the
promise of his Word, and further than
this we need give ourselves no concern to
inquire.

The last thought in the prayer is an ex-
ceedingly important one. It is nothing
less than the participation of our bodies

The Holy Communion 151

in the benefits of the redemption in Christ.
We are taught in Holy Scripture that not
only is the body to be glorified in the res-
urrection of the last day, but also, that
even in the burden of the flesh it may be-
come the temple and share the sanctifying
influences of the Holy Grhost. And this
fact is distinctly recognized here. Further
on in the service, we make the eucharistic
consecration of ourselves, our souls, and
bodies as a reasonable, holy, and living
sacrifice to Grod; and in the yearning
thought of this prayer there is a hint, at
least, of the great truth that these mortal
bodies of ours are related to the One Hu-
man Body, which has passed through the
grave and which is now seated at the right
hand of God. The words of our Lord
connect the faithful reception of the Lord's
Supper with the resurrection of the body,
when he says: "Whoso eateth my flesh
and drinketh my blood hath eternal life ;
and I will raise him up at the last day"
(St. John, 6 : 54). This is, undoubtedly, the
doctrinal significance of this part of the
prayer, and the service would be incom-
plete without it. It brings before us, at

152 Le£iure Eleventh

this solemn moment, the fact that the body
shares in the benefits of redemption, and
that it is this fact which makes its being
a temple of the Holy Ghost possible in
the present, or its resni'rection possible in
the future. It is the resurrection of the
body which makes the difference between
the peaceful rest of the souls of the faith-
ful dead in Paradise, and the perfect bless-
edness of the beatific vision, when the re-
deemed soul, united to the resurrection
body, shall enter upon its perfect fruition
in the rest that remaineth for the people
of God.

By what mysterious link the participa-
tion of the Lord's Supper is connected
with the immortality of the body we can-
not tell, except in the comprehensive
thought that the perfect sacrifice of Christ
touches and ennobles every phase and de-
partment of our being, alike in its present
experience and its futm^e destiny. But
this, at least, is certain, that this faith in
immortality, which is the boon of our
earthly pilgrimage, which sustains the dy-
ing Christian as he passes through the
valley of the shadow of death, and which

The Holy Communion 153

for us to-day kindles the lamp of hope in
the sepulchers of our departed, finds at
once its prophecy and pledge in that sacred
ordinance; and that "all those who are
departed in the true faith of his holy
name shall have their perfect consum-
mation, both in body and soul, in his eter-
nal and everlasting glory."

LECTUEE TWELFTH

€{)e J^olp Communion

%atutc €turiftt)

THE HOLY COMMUNION

HE Eucliaristic and Memorial
Prayer, commonly called the
Prayer of Consecration, is the
culmination of the Office for the
Holy Communion. It contains
within itself the germ of the entire office.
The sacred words of institution and the
symbolical acts which accompany them,
together with the command of our Lord,
" Do this in remembrance of Me," consti-
tute the nucleus of the whole service and,
indeed, of the entire liturgy. They are the
germ of all Christian worship, as the bap-
tismal formula is the germ of the Creed.
And as from the words used at the appli-
14

158 Le£iiire Twelfth

cation of the water in Holy Baptism the
whole service of prayer and gospel, of ex-
hortation and vow, of the benediction of
the water and the thanksgiving for regen-
eration naturally grew, so the words used
at the institution of the Supper, with the
breaking of the bread and the consecra-
tion of the wine, have gathered around
themselves the elaborate service of prepa-
ration which precedes and the thanksgiv-
ing which follows them. These are the
outer vestm^e of the sacred acts of conse-
cration and partaking; and when they
are all complete, we are lifted again in the
Post-Communion to the Song of the Angels
in the greater Doxology, and then depart
with the blessing of peace.

Befoee making the actual celebration,
however, the authority for doing so is first
recited. It is the command of our blessed
Lord, who " did institute, and in his Holy
Grospel command us to continue, a perpet-
ual memory of that his precious death
and sacrifice until his coming again." The
terms in which this preliminary announce-
ment is made are carefully chosen and

The Holy Communion 159

theologically accurate, and they are in-
tended to guard the sacred mystery from
error. It has been claimed that the sacri-
fice of Christ may be repeated in its pro-
pitiatory character upon the altars of his
church. This preface refers to it, in the
exact terms of Holy Scripture, in its com-
pleteness and perfection as offered once
for all. It has been asserted, on the other
hand, that the real value of the death of
Chiist is to be found in his teaching and
example, and that his death was only that
of a hero or martyr. This preface dis-
tinctly echoes the teaching of Holy Script-
ure, that it was a sacrifice, oblation, and
satisfaction for the sins of the whole
world. There is a false conception of
God which represents him as a relentless
tyrant upon the throne of the universe,
from whose wrath men could only be res-
cued by the death of his Son. This pref-
ace breathes a higher strain and expresses
a truer conception of the character of
God, when it addresses him as the Infinite
Father, who, of his tender mercy, did give
his only son to die upon the cross for our
redemption. Every word is the memento

IGO tenure Twelfth

of a battle for the truth. The solitary and
imrepeated sacrifice of Christ, its atoning
value, its vindication of law in the gov-
ernment of Grod are all distinctly asserted
and hedged about; and as we study its
analysis, the only wonder is that so much
meaning could have been crowded into so
few uninspired words.

And then, as in this ordinance, we are
to " shew forth the Lord's death until his
coming again " ; this limit, also, is recog-
nized, for the use of the sacrament is
found for the church only in her earthly
pilgrimage. And it will be needless when
the glorified Christ shall be reunited to his
people. The memento of an absent friend
is very precious when that friend is in
distant lands beyond the sea, but the por-
trait which we cherished while he was gone
loses its value when he returns, because
the loved original is better than any pict-
ure. So, in this sacred ordinance, we show
forth the death of Christ, but we are to do
so only until his coming again. There is
a point in the future when its celebration
shall cease, when the last hour of time
shall be numbered, and the faithful serv-

The Holy Communion 161

ants of Christ shall be gathered into the
upper sanctuary, and then and there this
memorial will be needless, for in the midst
of the throne is the Lamb, as it had been
slain, before which the multitude, which
no man can number, sing the ceaseless
song that is ever new ; — and that is the
eternal Eucharist of heaven.

The celebration of the Lord's Supper, if
duly appreciated, thus lifts us to a point
above the fleeting years of time, and clasps
together in its embrace the eternal past
and the eternal future. It roots itself in
the purposes of God, conceived in the si-
lence of his bygone eternity before the
foundation of the world; and it antici-
pates the fulfillment of his purposes in the
distant ages of an eternity yet to dawn ;
and between these two it makes the Cross
of Calvary the central point and summit
alike of the economy of Grod and the re-
demption of man. All that is precious to
memory or inspiring to hope meets and
centers in the sacrifice of the Son of God
aad in the sacred memorial by which it is
perpetuated throughout all ages in his holy
church.

162 Lecture Twelfth

The Service of Consecration includes
three distinct acts. The first is the re-
hearsal of the history of its institution,
and it carries us back to the solemn scenes
of that last Jewish and first Christian Pass-
over in the upper chamber at Jerusalem,
when in the night in which he was be-
trayed he ordained the memorial of his
death. The second is the repetition of the
words of our Lord and the reverent imita-
tion of his holy act in the breaking of the
bread and the blessing of the wine.

In these simple but significant manual
acts there is no superstition and no magic,
but a sincere and careful following of the
consecratory act of our Lord, as the priest
first takes the bread, and then breaks it,
and then lays his hand upon the holy loaf
while he repeats the words, " This is My
Body which is given for you " ; and after-
ward, taking the cup and laying his hand
upon it, he repeats the words, " This is My
Blood"; and to both of the ceremonial
acts adds the repetition of the command
of Christ, " Do this in remembrance of
Me."

Around these brief words and simple

The Holy Communion 163

but significant acts the intensest thought
of the church has gathered in every age.
Tlie libraries of the world are filled with
the controversies they have inspired ; with
the devotional books they have suggested ;
with the lessons of gratitude and duty
they have taught ; with the volumes of ex-
planation they have suggested; and the
literature of the Holy Eucharist has been
the testimony of its estimated value even
though the profoundest reasoning has ever
failed to explain the mystery.

That perpetual failure defines for us our
true position and duty. It is simply to do
what Christ commands and leave the rest
to him. No curious questioning concern-
ing the mode of the mystery can increase
its benefit to our souls: it will prove rather
an obstacle to our true partaking of him;
while the humble faith that kneels in un-
questioning and implicit trust before the
Altar and the Cross will surely feed upon
heavenly food.

And, therefore, the celebrant is required
by the further words of the succeeding
prayer to take precisely this position, as,
by Christ's command and acting for the

164 Ledture Twelfth

people, lie proceeds to make the oblation
of the consecrated elements, to invoke
upon them the benediction of the Holy
Grhost, and then to offer the sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving, which includes
the personal consecration of ourselves, our
souls, and bodies to his service, and the
prayer that, by the participation of this
Holy Communion, we may be worthy re-
cipients of his most blessed Body and
Blood.

To this entire act of consecration the
people are to say, ^^Amen," thus making it
their own, by the exercise of their uni-
versal priesthood, and giving audible as-
sent and approval to all that the official
celebrant has said in their name.

The singing of a hymn at this point of
the service is peculiar to the American
Liturgy, the older custom being for the
organ to play in a subdued tone during
the administration.

And now follows a very essential part
of the Eucharistic Office which is the com-
plement of the Prayer of Consecration. It
is the participation by the faithful of the

The Holy Communion 165

consecrated bread and wine. In this con-
nection two things are to be observed:
First, that no Sacramental Eucharist is
complete which is not administered to the
people in both kinds. The denial of the
cup to the laity is an outrage of medisBval
tyranny, and no refinement of metaphys-
ical reasoning that the Body necessarily
includes the Blood can justify the admin-
istration of the Lord's Supper in the muti-
lated form which withholds the cup from
the people. It is without warrant, either
in reason or Holy Scripture, and it sug-
gests a serious question whether such a
half -obedience to the command of Christ
constitutes any sacrament at all.

It is also to be observed that the com-
mand of Christ implies that all who are
present should partake of the consecrated
bread and wine. There is a theory which
permits attendance upon the sacred mys-
teries without partaking, but it is to be
seriously doubted whether such attendance
is a full compliance with the dying com-
mand of our Lord.

It is true there is a sacramentum in voto,
a spiritual feeding upon the Body and

166 Lecture Twelfth

Blood without the actual partaking of the
consecrated bread and wine. It is recog-
nized in the rubric, in the Communion of
the Sick, and it is a consolatory truth to
those who, by reason of extremity of sick-
ness or any other cause, are unable to
receive the Sacrament of the Body and
Blood. But it is a provision which does
not at all apply to those who are able to
be present in the church and take their
part in the services. To each and all the
command of Christ says, " Do this in re-
membrance of Me," and to stop short, in
our obedience, at the point of partaking
would seem to be a positive disobedience
to the command of the Lord.

The words of administration are fitly
and carefully chosen, to express at once
the great objective reality of the Eucharist
and the subjective faith by which it is to
be received. Both of these aspects of the
mystery must be recognized. We may
emphasize the objective reality to such an
extent as to undervalue the spiritual dis-
cerning of the Body and Blood. On the
other hand, the spiritual and subjective

The Holy Communion 167

character of the ordinance may be dwelt
upon until the outward and material con-
secration shall be undervalued or lost sight
of entirely. Each theory contains a half
truth in what it asserts, but each by its
negation destroys the nature of the sacra-
ment,— the one by reducing it to a magical
and superstitious ceremony ; the other by
emasculating it of all objective character
and quality, and making it, as Jeremy
Taylor says, " The untrue memorial of an
absent Christ."

Both of these errors are discountenanced
and both of these truths are asserted in
the Words of Administration, the first
half of each sentence expressing the ob-
jective reality of the sacrament, and the
latter haK expressing the faith and grati-
tude with which we are to partake. If
there were any doubt in regard to the rec-
ognition of the objective reality of the
sacrament, it would be set at rest by three
incidental instructions which occur in the
rubrics at this point. If the consecrated
bread and wine be spent before all have
communicated, the priest is directed to
consecrate more according to the form

168 LeSture Twelfth

prescribed. The question naturally arises,
Why consecrate more ? If consecration
effects nothing, why consecrate at all if the
faith of the recipient alone can make the
partaking of bread and wine a sacramental
communication of Christ ? When all have
communicated, the minister is directed to
return to the Lord's table and " reverently
to place upon it what remains of the con-
secrated elements, covering the same with
a fair linen cloth." This reverent care and
tender respect can only signify and assert
a sacredness in those consecrated elements
which ordinary bread and wine do not
possess.

And when the service is over, the conse-
crated elements which remain are not to
be remanded to any ordinary use, nor to
be subjected to the possibility of any
superstitious regard, but by explicit direc-
tion of the rubric the minister and other
communicants are to reverently consume
the same.

The church thus carefully guards and
defends both the outward ceremonial and
the spiritual reality ; she asserts both the
objective and subjective aspects of the or-

The Holy Communion 169

dinance, and, without any attempt to ex-
plain or to theorize, helps us to obey the
command of our Lord and by so doing to
obtain the blessing which he has promised,
— leaving the mystery to faith and the re-
sult to Grod.

All that follows the administration is
liturgically called the Post-Communion
Service. It consists of a prayer of thanks-
giving, an act of praise, and the blessing
of peace. It is introduced by the Lord's
Prayer, which, whether for prayer or
praise, is the fitting key-note of every act
of worship.

The prayer of thanksgiving recognizes
the blessings which have been imparted
to those who have duly received the holy
mysteries and does not admit of the
shadow of a doubt that their due re-
ception is the vehicle by which they are
conveyed to the soul. Of course the due
reception implies the earnestness and sin-
cerity of our hearts, the genuineness of our
repentance, and the implicit confidence of
our faith, and, upon this supposition, the
benefits accruing are distinctly and fear-
15

170 Le£liire Twelfth

lessly named. And with this recognition
of the blessings received there is a closing
prayer that we may continue in the holy
fellowship of his mystical Body, and do all
such good works as he has prepared for us
to walk in.

A better epitome of sacramental doc-
trine has never been put in fewer words,
nor written in uninspired words, whether
few or many, and with this thankful rec-
ognition of the refreshment of our souls
we are ready to go to the daily path of our
pilgi'image and duty again.

But before we do so there is a touching
memorial of an incident which occurred,
not accidentally but by divine arrange-
ment, on the night of the Institution of the
Supper. The evangelist records the facts
of the Passover, the words and symbolical
acts of the institution, and when all was
over and the agony about to begin he
makes the simple record, "And when they
had sung an hymn, they went to the Mount
of Olives." The hymn was, doubtless, the
greater Hallel which was sung at the close
of the Passover Supper; and from that
day to this it has been the custom of the

The Holy Communion 171

universal church to conclude its solemn
celebration with the singing of a hymn.
The Gloria in Excelsis which is used here
is one of the oldest of Christian hymns.
Its authorship roots itself in the most
venerable Christian antiquity. It was the
familiar song of martyi's and confessors in
the ages of fire and blood. Its mingled
strain of triumphant joy and penitential
sorrow was never drowned by aU the
clangor of early persecutions ; and its
sweet reverberations have sounded along
the ages until they have found theii* fitting
resting-place near to the liturgical shrine
of our holy faith.

For generations and centuries it has
been exclusively a eucharistic hymn, and
while the rubric permits the alternate use
of a selection in its stead, yet that permis-
sion is intelligently used only during the
celebrations of Lent and Holy Week, when
by long custom the tones of the Gloria in
Excelsis are silent for the time being, that
they may burst forth in richer harmony
amid the rejoicings of Easter Day.

The entire service concludes with the

172 Le£lure Twelfth

Invocation of the Peace of God and the
Benediction of the Blessed Trinity, and it
expresses at once the desire and the pledge
that that peace shall keep both our hearts
and minds in the knowledge and love of
God. It is an echo of the words of Christ
himself, when he said, " My peace I leave
with you," and however the surface of our
lives may be rent and broken by the
storms of trial and conflict, in the deep
recesses of the Christian soul that peace
dwells for evermore.

It is the fitting conclusion of a service
whose object is to bring us near to the
cross that we may find that peace ; which
has been the consolation of unnumbered
faithful now in the Paradise of God;
which is the highest boon to earthly pil-
grims as they tread life's weary pathway ;
and which shall be the consolation of gen-
erations yet unborn, even until the end
shall come.

LECTURE THIRTEENTH

Hccturc €!)irtcciitl)

HOLY BAPTISM

HE occasional offices in the
Book of Common Prayer il-
lustrate with peculiar distinct-
ness the care which the church
has taken to provide for every
want of our spiritual nature and every
contingency of our mortal life. Their ar-
rangement implies that the ordinances of
the Christian church are intimately con-
nected with the duties of the Christian
home, and that the sanctions and conso-
lations of religion are blended with the
great events and crises of human life, —
with birth and holy baptism, with confir-
mation and marriage; with the time of

176 Le6lure Thirteenth

sickness and the hour of death, — and that
the church and the home are linked to-
gether by the daily sacrifice of praise and
prayer at the family altar.

Taking these up in the order of the
Prayer-Book, which is also the usual order
of life, we are to study first the Office for
the Administration of Holy Baptism. It
does not fall within the limits of our pur-
pose to discuss the doctrinal bearings of
the office. We shall confine ourselves
rather to its liturgical aspects, with espe-
cial reference to its connection with the
life of the family and the responsibility of
parents and sponsors connected with it.

The position of the office in the Book of
Common Prayer indicates its importance.
It stands first among the occasional offices,
as it is the first to meet us at the threshold
of life. When Grod, in his providence,
sends a new life into a Christian home,
and a tender infant comes out of the great
unknown to the embrace of parental arms,
the first concern of an earnest faith will
be to consecrate that new life to Grod, and,
in the sacred ordinance which Christ has

Holy Baptism 111

established, to recognize the fact that it
belongs to him. And the almost universal
care of Christian parents to bring their
children to holy baptism is the expression
of a concern for their souls which the
most common suggestions of parental in-
stinct demand for tlieu' bodies. The physi-
cal life of a child is guarded, and watched,
and nurtured with the unceasing care of
scientific skill and domestic tenderness.
Its food, its clothing, the atmosphere
which it breathes, and its protection from
every harm demand and receive the most
assiduous and unwearied attention.

And the office and the fact of holy bap-
tism suggest the complementary truth
that the soul of a little child, as well as
its body, must be the object of unweary-
ing watchfulness and care ; that it " must
be born again, of Water and of the Spirit,"
and that after this second birth there is
needed for the soul — as after the natural
birth there is needed for the body — the
most constant and careful nurture, that it
may grow up into a healthy and mature
Christian life.

The Office of Holy Baptism thus be-

178 tenure Thirteenth

comes a connecting link between the
Christian church and the Christian home,
a perpetual reminder of the obligation and
claim which Almighty Grod lays upon
every human life for his love and service,
and a constant inspiration to faithful duty
in training up the children of our house-
holds in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord.

The authority for Christian baptism is
distinctly stated in the great commission
of oui' Lord to his apostles : " Go ye there-
fore and teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Grhost." Its scope and
comprehensiveness are suggested by the
rite of circumcision which preceded it as
the ceremony of initiation into the Jewish
Church. And as the children of the Jew-
ish household were always included in the
covenant of mercy and were entitled to
its seal in the appointed rite of circum-
cision, so the childi-en of Christian house-
holds are included in the covenant of the
Gospel and are entitled to its seal in the
sacrament of Holy Baptism.

It is needless to enter into any detailed

Holy Baptism 179

account of the various ceremonies which
from time to time have been connected
with its administration. They are not of
the essence of the ordinance. And it will
be sufficient for us simply to follow the
order of our own service and the require-
ments of the rubric, which carefully guard
against all irreverence and impropriety in
its administration, and which at the same
time surround it with the calm and digni-
fied beauty which is inherent in all the
offices of the Book of Common Prayer.

The rubrical requirements which pre-
cede the office are simple and appropriate.
The first defines the proper occasions on
which the ordinance may be administered,
and is intended to apply, as far as practi-
cable, the ancient rule to the necessities of
modern life. In the primitive church the
stated times for baptism were Easter and
"Whitsuntide ; the preparation of the cate-
chumens taking place throughout the year,
and culminating in the spiritual harvest
which was gathered at these great festivals.
In our own day, however, it may be ad-
ministered on any Sunday or holy day, or
on any other prayer day, so that it be

180 Lecture Thirteenth

done publicly in the churcli, as an open
transaction in admitting a candidate to
the covenant of Grod's mercy and to the
fellowship of the congregation of Christ's
flock.

The second rubric makes provision for
sponsors, the object of which is to insure
the subsequent education and training in
Christian truth and duty which is neces-
sary to the full benefit of the grace con-
ferred in this holy sacrament. Formerly,
parents were not admitted as sponsors,
since they are sponsors in fact and by nat-
ure, and therefore no vow can increase
their obligation of duty to the child. But
while the church prefers that there should
be three sponsors for every child, in addi-
tion to the parents, in order to insure by
a fivefold promise the future guardian-
ship of the infant soul, she yet permits
parents to stand as sponsors in order to
accommodate every variety of circum-
stance and need, and to save the office of
sponsor from ever being merely a formal
or perfunctory thing. And this require-
ment will remind us of the real and ob-
ligatory character of such a proxy. Its

Holy Baptism 181

importance and solemnity are not generally
appreciated at their true worth. It seems
to be thought, at times, that sponsors are
needful only to complete the tableau of
the font, as bridesmaids are in the mar-
riage ceremony, and that their duty is as
quickly performed. And thoughtless and
worldly persons are at times permitted
to assume responsibilities and take vows
for the infant candidate, which they have
never sincerely sought to meet and per-
form for themselves. And we cannot too
clearly recognize nor too constantly prac-
tice the higher idea of the chui'ch, that
sponsors should themselves be earnest
Christian men and women, who will add
the force of theii* example to their theo-
retical and doctrinal instruction ; and who
will not consider their duty performed to
their god-children until they have brought
them to the rite of confii-mation where
they may take their vows upon themselves.
The third rubric defines the point in the
service and the place in the church at
which the ordinance is to be administered ;
namely, " after the second lesson," and " at
the font." A literal adhesion to the ad-
16

182 Lecture Thirteenth

ministration after the Second Lesson is
required only as a general rule ; there may
be exceptions to this, provided the bap-
tism take place in the church. Its ad-
ministration in private houses is permitted
only in cases of sickness, or for some
other great and reasonable excuse. The
rite of circumcision was always performed
in the temple : the Infant Saviour himself
was taken there upon the eighth day for
that purpose; and his fulfillment of all
righteousness, in this respect, has fij^ed
forever the standard of what is proper
and dutiful for the Christian child.

And now, preceding the entire service,
there stands a question upon its very
threshold whose deep significance we are
apt to forget, — "Hath this child been al-
ready baptized, or no ? " For although
the officiating minister may be himself
wen assured of the fact, yet this public
and formal statement of it is placed here
as the church's protest against the repe-
tition of this holy ordinance. As there is
one Lord and one faith, so there is one
baptism ; and the implied meaning of the
church is the echo of the Nicene Creed,

Holy Baptism 183

which is itself the echo of Holy Scripture,
when it says, "I acknowledge One Bap-
tism for the remission of Sins." And as
the formal and public statement of this
truth and the verification of this require-
ment, it must always be asked by the of-
ficiating minister, whether he is privately
aware of the answer or not.

The general analysis of the entire office
corresponds precisely with the threefold
service of the early church. The first, or
introductory, part corresponds with the
order for the admission of catechumens ;
the second is the baptismal vow and its
suffrages; the third is the baptism itself,
preceded by the benediction of the water,
and followed by the signing of the cross ;
and the whole service is concluded with the
post-baptismal thanksgiving, with the ex-
hortation and admonition to the sponsors.

LECTUEE FOUKTEENTH

Hectute f outtccntl^

HOLY BAPTISM — (Continued)

HE first general division begins
with an exhortation, which
states the necessity and author-
ity of the divine ordinance
about to be celebrated; and
which is also an invitation to prayer on
behalf of the candidates presented, that
the benediction of the heavenly washing
may accompany the ordinance of the
chm'ch. In compliance with this exhorta-
tion, two forms of prayer are provided,
either of which may be said by the min-
ister. The first is the one generally used,
as being more appropriate to the baptism
of infants.

188 Lecture Fourteenth

Following this immediately is the Holy
Gospel (taken from St. Mark, 13 : 10), which
declares the good-will of Christ to little
children; the tender care with which he
took them up in his arms, put his hands
upon them, and blessed them, and his dis-
pleasure with those who would forbid
them to come. And although the children
spoken of in this gospel were not brought
to our Lord for holy baptism, yet the
propriety of its use in this connection is
found in the fact that it declares the mind
of Christ toward little children, and his
desire that they be brought unto him. And
there is no surer way in which they may
be brought to Christ than in this holy or-
dinance which he has established for this
purpose.

A brief homily follows the reading of
the gospel, whose object is to emphasize
and apply the teaching of the words of
our Lord ; and, upon the application of its
divine promise to the candidate present,
both the minister and people unite in a
thanksgiving for the grace and knowledge
vouchsafed to us in Christ and a prayer
that the fullness of this blessing may de-

Holy Baptism 189

scend upon the child now presented. This
much of the service is introductory and
corresponds with the ancient ceremony
for the admission of a catechumen, and
the instructions and prayers are alike pre-
paratory to the subsequent portions of the
office.

The second part of the service is The
Baptismal Vow, which is vicariously made
by the sponsors in behalf of the child. It
is introduced by a brief exhortation which
asserts the strong confidence we may have
in the promise of Grod, and which, upon
the basis of that confidence, ui^ges an
equal fidelity on the part of those who
represent the child. The covenant nature
of the transaction is thus distinctly recog-
nized. The two parties to the sacred com-
pact are Grod and a little child. Each of
these appears by a representative, the min-
ister as the ambassador of Christ repre-
senting his divine master, and the spon-
sors, in their voluntary action, representing
the little child. And the representative
character of both parties in the transac-
tion, with the remembrance of its covenant

190 Lecture Fourteenth

character, woiild dispel many a doubt and
misapprehension concerning this sacred
rite. It has often been assailed, upon the
one hand, as if children had no place in
the covenant of God's mercy to men — an
error which is repugnant to every idea of
redemption which the Scriptui*es authorize,
and to the practice of every dispensation
of grace by which that redemption has
been made known to men.

And it has been assailed, on the other
hand, as if it were a magical performance,
in which the sprinkling or pouring of some
drops of water upon an infant's face, in
connection with the Triune Name, were to
effect a supernatural change in the soul.
But both of these ideas are defective, be-
cause they do not take into account all
the elements in the case. This last one,
especially, ignores the underlying fact
that the regeneration of the child does
not depend upon the virtue of the conse-
crated water, but upon the promise of Al-
mighty Grod. And it ignores, also, the
prayers in answer to which that promise
is fulfilled ; and the vows by which its ful-
fillment is claimed ; and the blessed words

Holy Baptism 191

of Christ, that the Father iu heaven is
more ready to give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask him than earthly parents
are to give good gifts to their children.

The Baptismal Vow represents man's
part and duty in this covenant of grace.
It includes, as the catechism carefully
teaches, three particulars: The Vow of
Renunciation, of Faith, and of Obedience.
The renunciation was anciently made fac-
ing the west, and the other two facing
the east, to correspond with the conven-
tional ideas of the origin of evil and of
good prevalent at the time. The Vow of
Renunciation includes the threefold form
of evil, which, as Christians, we are to re-
sist and overcome, — namely, the world, with
its vain pomp and glory ; the flesh, with
its sinful desires; and the devil and all
his works. And it is the distinct and per-
sonal repudiation of these as dominant
and controlling forces in our lives. Turn-
ing from the negative to the positive, we
have next the Vow of Faith, which is the
promise of belief, not in any doctrinal
system, nor in any theory of the Atone-

192 Le6lure Fourteenth

ment, but in the great fundamental and
essential articles of the Christian faith, as
contained in its most venerable symbol,
the Apostles' Creed.

The Vow of Obedience is equally com-
prehensive. Its law of duty is simply
God's holy will and commandments, as in-
terpreted ])y an enlightened conscience
and the teachings of his holy church. It
does not attempt the impossible effort of
constructing a system of casuistry for
every man's life. Nor does it prescribe what
particulars of conduct each one must fol-
low. It does not enter into the details of
moral duty, but gives us as the law of our
action only what the Holy Scriptm-es sanc-
tion, and the principles which the Gospel
reveals, leaving the application of those
principles to the ever-varying exigencies
of life, precisely where the Scriptures leave
them, to the intelligent conscience and the
earnest heart.

The moral law of the Gospel is the sim-
plest utterance of Christ, and yet it points
out the way of duty in every possible con-
tingency of life. To love God with all our
heart, and soul, and mind, and our neigh-

Holy Baptism 193

bor as oui'selves — these are the two uni-
versal principles of duty upon which the
law and the prophets hang, and within
them all systems of morality and all codes
of moral action are included. To apply
them daily and hourly to the circumstances
and demands of om- mortal life is the un-
ceasing duty of the Christian in the war-
fare and pilgrimage of this mortal life.

These three things, therefore, — the re-
nunciation of the world, the flesh, and the
devil; the behef in the articles of the
Christian faith ; and the promise to obey
Grod's holy will and commandments and to
walk in the same all the days of our life, —
constitute the human side of this sacred
compact, as the promise of salvation and
eternal life constitute the divine side.

That it is solemnly entered into by rep-
resentatives of both parties is only anal-
agous to what is constantly taking place
in behalf of children in every other de-
partment of their being. The selection of
the schools which they shall attend; the
matter of their food and clothing; the
companions with whom they may associ-
ciate; and the management of their in-
17

194 Lecture Fourteenth

herited estates, all lie within the decision
of those to whose care they are committed,
either as parents or guardians; and if, in
every phase of secular, and physical, and
social life, the infant will lies within the
sphere of the parental will; and if, in the
case of orphans, the act of the guardian
is legally the act of the child, it would be
a monstrous exception if the same repre-
sentative action were impossible in the
concerns of its eternal destiny, and in the
vastly more important concern of the nur-
ture and care of its soul.

And now, as if to consecrate this solemn
compact before it is finally sealed, there
are specific prayers that this present child
and all who are dedicated to God by the
office and ministry of his earthly priest-
hood may become the children of the sec-
ond Adam and members of that new and
redeemed race which he has purchased
with his precious blood.

The longer prayer which follows these
suffrages is taken from the ancient serv-
ice for the benedictioD of the waters, which
was used once a month ; and its insertion
here complies with the requirement of the

Holy Baptism 195

rubric that at each Administration of Holy
Baptism the font shall be filled with pure
water.

And now, after all this careful and elab-
orate preparation, the sacramental seal is
to be attached to the covenant, that its
mutual stipulations and promises may at
once become effective. The minister, in
Christ's name and following the signifi-
cant action of his master, takes the little
one in his arms, and, with the application
of the consecrated water, breathes over
its unconscious head the mysterious name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Grhost. That is all that is essential,
because it is all that Christ has com-
manded.

The ceremony of signing with the cross
and of reception into the congregation is
not a part of the baptismal act ; but it is
a beautiful and significant recognition of
the reality of the transaction which has
just taken place. As the candidate has
been consecrated to the service of Christ
and admitted to his sacred fold, it is fitting
that his mark should be placed upon him ;

196 Ledure Fourteenth

and, as by baptism he becomes a member
of the mystical Body, which is his church,
it is appropriate that upon his entrance
he should be formally received into the
congregation of the faithful. And this
is done with the earnest prayer that he
may never be ashamed to confess the faith
of Christ crucified, but "continue his
faithful soldier and servant unto his life's
end."

The Post-Baptismal Service recognizes
still further the profound reality of this
sacred covenant, and gives thanks to Al-
mighty God for these great benefits, with
an earnest prayer that the young Christian
just born into the kingdom of God may
prove to be his faithful servant here, and
an inheritor of his everlasting kingdom
hereafter.

And that no human instrumentality and
care may be wanting to accomplish this
result, it concludes with an exhortation
to the god-parents and an admonition to
them to complete the task they have as-
sumed by bringing, at the proper time, the
child to the bishop, to be confirmed by

Holy Baptism 197

him, upon the assumption of the personal
responsibility of his vows.

The sacrament of Holy Baptism is thus
the solemn ratification to the individual of
the great privilege and promise of the Gos-
pel. On the part of the recipient it is the
expression of penitence, and faith, and
the determination to lead a new life ; while
upon the part of God, it is the assurance
and pledge of his help and grace by which
the resolution shall be brought to good
effect. And when its conditions are faith-
fully complied with, and its obligations as
well as its privileges recognized as reali-
ties, its legitimate result is the growth of
Christian character and the performance
of Christian duty in this world, and in
the world to come, life everlasting.

LECTUKE FIFTEENTH

%tttmt f iftccntfj

THE CATECHISM

HE word "catechism" is itself
significant of the church's
method and idea of teaching
Christian truth. It implies a
system of questions and an-
swers by which the truth taught is "echoed"
back again, and in this respect it places
the teacher and the taught in their proper
mutual relations.

There are methods of Christian teach-
ing prevalent to-day which, unconsciously
and unintentionally, furnish a preliminary
training for subsequent skepticism and
doubt; young persons are frequently called
upon to give their original views of the

202 Leaiire Fifteenth

interpretation of some obscure or difficult
passage of ScrijDtiire, and the habit thus
formed, with the self-confidence it inspires,
comes in maturer life to tamper with the
most sacred and unquestioned verities of
the Word of Grod. But the church does
not esteem very highly the immature pre-
cocity which presumes to decide theolog-
ical questions without knowing anything
about theology, or which enters the diffi-
cult arena of biblical criticism without a
bibhcal training and apparatus. She rather
assumes her true position as "witness and
keeper of the truth," and bids us hearken
to her words of wisdom, that, thus humbly
hstening, we may hear some echo of the
voice of God.

The catechism is a condensed system of
Christian truth. The instructions of the
church, as stated in the exhortation to
sponsors in the baptismal office, are
grouped around the three great symbols
of Christianity: the Creed, the Lord's
Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. But
in' the systematic arrangement of these
they are both preceded and followed by
other instructions which are needful to

The Catechism 203

give completeness to the entire statement.
The general analysis of the catechism will
therefore include five principal di\T.sions.
These are :

I. The Christian covenant.
II. The symbol of our faith.

III. The symbol of our duty.

IV. The symbol of our devotion.

V. The seals of the Covenant, which
are the two great Sacraments of the
Chui'ch.

The statement of the Christian cove-
nant is introduced by the question, "What
is your name ! " referring to the universal
usage of giving a name to the candidate
in holy baptism. But the Name we bear
has a deeper significance here, as it be-
comes the signatiu'e to the comxDact
between Grod and a human soul. The an-
swer, "NorM" (name or names), includes
only what is known as our Christian name.
The family name we inherit by oui* natu-
ral birth ; but the Christian name which
is given to us in holy baptism becomes
the distinctive appellation of the individ-
ual as a member of the flock of Christ. In

204 Led lire Fifteenth

the delineation of our Lord as the Grood
Shepherd, there is no more touching
thought than the fact that in his omnis-
cient pastorate of souls, which gathers its
flock out of many centuries and from
every land, "He calleth them all by
name." There is an intimacy of personal
knowledge and relationship implied in the
fact, which reminds us that the great Head
of the Church watches over us and loves
us, not in crowds and multitudes alone,
nor even in the aggregated whole of his
organic church, but in the individual dis-
tinctness of our personal character and
name. Even in the ordinary relationships
of life, there is a sacred ness in the names
of men which is often forgotten. For they
are the distinctive titles which distinguish
one man from another ; and even human
law recognizes that sacredness when it
pronounces the signing of another man's
name to be a high crime and attaches
severe penalties to its commission. What
must be the deeper sacredness of our
Christian names, therefore, when we are
told that the Lord Jesus Christ knows us
by them, and that in the records of eter-

The Catechism 205

nity the name of every faithful Chris-
tian is written in the Lamb's Book of
Life.

In the old Hebrew nomenclatm*e every
name was significant. It recorded some
cii'cumstance connected with the birth of
an individual, or it was the permanent
memorial of some great hope, or sorrow,
or consolation, and in many cases it em-
balmed almost an entire biography in a
single word. The old Roman names were
ponderous in their dignity, but beautiful
in their systematic and significant order,
and full of music in their stately rhythm.
But the Christian names we bear have
reached a significance which neither He-
brew nor Eoman names ever knew, since
by their conferring in the sacred act and
moment of baptism, they become at once
our individual signature to the solemn
covenant then entered into between the
human soul and God ; and for all our sub-
sequent life it is the perpetual memorial
of our privilege, and the constant reminder
of our duty in the Church of Christ. The
family name, as we have seen, we inherit
by nature — it is the necessary patronymic

206 Leditre Fifteenth

of our birth; but the Christian name we
receive, by immemorial usage, at our sec-
ond birth, and it is by this name that the
church addresses her children ever after
in the offices which she provides for the
subsequent Christian life. Recognizing,
therefore, the Christian name as the sig-
nature, and the sacrament of holy baptism
as the seal, of Grod's covenant of mercy,
we are brought face to face with that sol-
emn transaction in which, as postulants
for the freedom wherewith Christ hath
made us free, we are admitted to the priv-
ileges and responsibilities of our covenant
relation to him. These are stated to be
threefold, on both sides :

I. The Christian covenant.

(1) The divine side of that covenant
is declared to consist of the three great
Christian privileges which are offered to
us in the Grospel. They are:

a. Membership in Christ.
h. Being made the children of God.
c. An inheritance of the kingdom of
heaven.

But the privileges of the one side im-

The Catechism 207

ply also the duties of the other. And
therefore

(2) The human side of this covenant in-
cludes the three Christian vows ; which are

(1) The Vow of Eenunciation :

a. Of the devil and all his works.

h. The pomps and vanities of the world.

c. The sinful desires of the flesh.

(2) The Vow of Faith, in which we
pledge ourselves to believe all the articles
of the Christian Creed ; and

(3) The Vow of Obedience, in which
we promise to " keep God's holy will and
commandments and to walk in the same
all the days of our life." Both of these are
subsequently enlarged by the incorpora-
tion of the Creed and the Ten Command-
ments. But immediately following the
statement of the covenant there is a

(4) Practical application of the truths
taught, in which the children of the church
are impressed with

a. The binding nature of Christian vows ;
and

h. The need of Grod's grace to help us in
keeping them.

208 Le£lure Fifteenth

The Second Division of the Catechism
contains

II. The symbol of om* faith, which is
the Apostles' Creed, and this is immedi-
ately followed by a brief exposition, as
teaching the doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
and the relations which the three Persons
of the Grodhead sustain to us; as, the Crea-
tor of the world, the Redeemer of all man-
kind, and the Sanctifier of the people of
aod:

III. The symbol of duty is found in the
Ten Commandments, the two tables of
which define

(1) Om' duty toward God, and

(2) Our duty toward our neighbor ; and
the expository words which follow the
rehearsal of them constitute a condensed
system of morality in themselves.

IV. The symbol of devotion is the Lord's
Prayer, which is the model of all our
prayers; and the explanation which fol-
lows gives us a glimpse of its comprehen-
siveness.

The Catechism 209

V. The seals of the covenant are the
sacraments which Christ has ordained.
Following closely the divine authority of
our Lord, the church recognizes but two
sacraments as "generally necessary to
salvation" —

(1) Holy Baptism, in which there are
a. The outward sign ;

h. The inward grace;

c. The prerequisites of repentance and
faith ; to which also is added

d. The binding nature of sponsorial and
parental vows.

The teaching of the church culminates
in the simplest possible statement of the
great mystery of

(2) The Lord's Supper ; in which, with-
out defining the mode of the mystery,
either of the presence or the participation,
the essential features are declared to be

a. The outward sign ;
h. The inward grace ;

c. The spiritual effect; and

d. The prerequisites demanded of those
who would approach the table of the Lord;
which are

210 Ledure Fifteenth

(1) Self-examination;

(2) Repentance;

(3) Pui'pose to lead a new life ;

(4) Faith in God's mercy through Christ;

(5) Thankful remembrance of his death ;
and

(6) Charity with all men.

From this general analysis of the cate-
chism, it will be evident that it is a con-
densed but comprehensive body of divinity
which the church j^rovides for her chil-
dren ; a sum of dogmatic teaching which
she thinks fit for them to learn ; an orderly
arrangement of truth which all children
may commit to memory, since all Chris-
tians believe it ; and which, while it is not
intended to make theologians of all who
learn it, is yet designed and calculated
to enforce Grod's own combination of the
spiritual verities of the Christian life with
the outward ordinances of his church; and
which, while emphasizing both of these,
will enable every one to give a reason for
the hope that is in him.

LECTUEE SIXTEENTH

Confirmation

%tctntc ^ixtcmti^

CONFIRMATION

HE apostolic rite of Confirmation
is the natural and necessary
complement of infant baptism;
though by apostolic usage and
the rule of the church every-
where and always, until modern times, it
is applied to adults also. The fact that
the vows in holy baptism when adminis-
tered in infancy are made by proxy implies
a future occasion when their responsibility
may be voluntarily assumed. And this is
done in connection with the laying on of
hands and the precatory benediction of the
bishop, together with the invocation of
the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Ghost. It

214 Lecture Sixteenth

has constant reference to the baptismal
vow, to the promises then made, and the
system of Christian instruction then pre-
scribed ; and it looks forward to the admis-
sion of the candidate to his full privilege,
as a member of Christ, in the Holy Com-
munion.

A twofold preparation is needful to ob-
tain fully the blessings it conveys : There
must be a preparation of mind, which im-
plies an intelligent perception of the prin-
ciples of faith and duty : and there must
be a preparation of heart, by which the
spmtual nature shall be made ready to re-
ceive the manifold gifts of grace. Both of
these processes are presumed to continue
from the first intelligent days of childhood
to the hour when the catechumen becomes
a communicant. The intellectual prepara-
tion is that which is prescribed in holy
baptism, — the knowledge of the great
truths of our holy religion as embodied
in the three great syml^ols of faith, devo-
tion, and duty, together with such other
instructions as are in the short catechism
contained. And the preparation of heart
implies that devout and prayerful habit

Confirmation 215

of thought which is cultivated through all
the years of a Christian childhood, and
which is, in its truest sense, that script-
ural conversion which is the process of
our whole mortal life. While this general
preparation is the work of all the early
years of a human life, there is a special
interest connected with the administration
of the apostolic rite, and it is customary
for the parish priest to meet the class of
candidates, in anticipation of the visitation
of the bishop, for instruction in regard to
the Christian life, and especially with refer-
ence to their first communion.

The " Order of Confirmation " states very
distinctly the outline of truth and duty
which the church prescribes. It includes
three distinct and yet closely related par-
ticulars : (1) The knowledge of the Creed,
the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments,
and the Catechism; (2) The ratification of
the promises made by sponsors in baptism ;
and (3) The promise of obedience in the
future and the " endeavor to observe such
things as by their confession they have
assented unto." The rubric at the close
of the office defines the relation which the

216 Lecture Sixteenth

rite of Confirmation bears to the Holy
Commnnion.

The service throughout is simple and
almost interprets itself. The occasion of its
use is always an interesting one in the
parish, as the gathered harvest of the
parochial year. It is the form by which
those who have come to years of discretion
are enabled to make their good confession
of Christ before the world, and to be en-
rolled among the number of his acknowl-
edged disciples, by the personal ratification
of their baptismal vow. The versicles
which follow this ratification recognize
the truth that all our spiritual strength
must come from God ; and the prayer which
is then used refers alike to the blessings
conferred in holy baptism and the mani-
fold gifts of grace needful in the subsequent
warfare of the Christian life. The "laying
on of hands " is accompanied by a bene-
diction which states both the irrevocable
character of the Christian vow and the
progressive nature of the Christian life. It
asks that the person confirmed may con-
tinue to be the Lord's forever, by the de-
fense of his heavenly grace ; and that he

Confirmation 217

may daily increase in the Holy Spirit more
and more through all the disciplines of
this life until he come to the everlasting
kingdom. The idea of a progressive sanc-
tification of heart and life here expressed
is almost the echo of the apostolic injunc-
tion, "grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Saviom^ Jesus Christ."
And it conceives of our earthly probation
as a constant advance in holiness and duty
until its consummation is reached in the
diviner life to come.

The succeeding prayers imply the same
conception of the Christian life, and the
service concludes with the blessing of the
Holy Trinity upon the person confirmed.

The use of the word " Confirmation " in
two different senses, in connection with
this office, has created some confusion of
thought concerning the nature of the rite.
The candidate does " ratify and confirm "
his baptismal vow; but also he is confirmed
and strengthened in his religious life. It
is this latter sense which gives the name
to the rite. " The laying on of hands " is a
significant and essential act. It corresponds
to the manual act in the ordination of the
19

218 Lecture Sixteenth

clergy to their sacred office ; and its signifi-
cance here as apphed to the laity implies
an ordination to the universal priesthood
of believers, in which we are to offer not
only the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiv-
ing to Grod, in the ritual worship of his
church, but also the more comprehensive
and permanent sacrifice of a consecrated
life.

LECTUEE SEVENTEENTH

Hcctutc ^ebentccntfj

THE MAKEIAGE SERVICE

HE first thing that strikes our
attention in the " Form of Sol-
emnization of Matrimony" is
the emphasis which the church
places upon the necessity of
publicity in the celebration of this rite.
This is based upon the sacred character
and the intrinsic nature of the marriage
bond, which is a union of two hearts and
two lives in one, and which can properly
be separated only by death. The mutual
consent of the parties to be married is the
fact which underlies the marriage cere-
mony. And this fact is based upon that
mutual affection which renders a man and

222 Le^ure Se'centeenth

a woman essential to each other's happi-
ness ; in the fulfillment of which they are
ready to take each other for better or for
worse, for sickness or for health, and to
pledge to each other their faithful promise
to share all the vicissitudes and contin-
gencies of an unknown future. And the
idea of the marriage service is the placing
of the benediction of Grod and his holy
church upon this mutual union, together
with the public proclamation of it before
the world. While, in the sense of mutual
honor and faithful love, the parties may
be said to belong to each other from the
moment of what we call their "engage-
ment," yet, for the protection of society,
it is needful that this private union of
mutual affection should be formally and
publicly recognized and declared. And
this is done in connection with the bene-
diction of the church and solemn prayer
for Grod's blessing upon the union. Any-
thing like a clandestine ceremony is, there-
fore, contrary to the idea of marriage
itself, and finds no sanction whatever in
the office of the church for its solemniza-
tion. It is the more important for us to

The Marriage Service 223

observe this principle because the ease
with which young people enter into this
solemn compact, and the secrecy which so
frequently attends its solemnization, in
the popular usage of the day, is one of
the crying sins of our time, and has be-
come the prohfic source of domestic un-
happiness, of infidelity to the marriage
vow, and of the shameful frequency of di-
vorce, which blots and disgraces our civili-
zation. In the hurry and excitement of
our American life, there are thousands
who marry in haste only to repent at lei-
sure; who marry in private only to be
disgraced in public ; and it is quite worth
our while to observe how the church, like
a careful mother, guards and shields her
children from the possible results of youth-
ful impulsiveness and impetuosity.

In the church of England the old cus-
tom of " publishing the banns " for three
Sundays preceding the ceremony was a
perpetual safeguard against hasty and ill-
assorted unions. And it is no improve-
ment on the old churchly way that we
have substituted for this, the requirement
of a license, in some States (which is

224 Lecture Seventeenth

usually only a revenue law at best), or, in
others, the lower requirement still of a
report of the marriage, after it has taken
place, to the board of health, for statisti-
cal purposes. The fact is, the more public
and solemn the marriage rite is made, the
more careful will persons be in entering
into its irrevocable vows; and there is
nothing which more thoroughly undermines
the foundations of society than looseness
of practice in this matter, and the ease
with which divorces are obtained to-day.
The publication of banns has gone out of
use, as a general thing, and it is much to
be regretted that it is so. The formal an-
nouncement of an engagement takes its
place in society to some extent, but it fails
in this respect, that such formal announce-
ments are common only in spheres of so-
cial life which least need it as a safeguard,
and leave the great mass of people with-
out the protection of even such a custom.
The necessity for a public and open
ceremony, in the church's idea, is further
recognized and emphasized by the fact
that it is to take place, either in the body
of the church or in some proper house,

The Marriage Service 225

in the presence of the friends and neighbors
of the parties to be married. Of course, the
church is always the better place, as it is
for all the public rites and offices ; but
when special circumstances justify or even
require that the ceremony should be in a
private house, then that house must be,
for the time being, transformed into a
chm'ch, and the congregation must be rep-
resented by a sufficient number of friends
and neighbors to make the ceremony a
public act.

With these preliminaries all properly
settled, the marriage service proceeds to
its benediction with every care to discover
any real obstacle in the way of the pro-
posed union, and to provide, as far as pos-
sible, against any future cause of regret
for the irrevocable step about to be taken.
It commences with a double challenge,
first to the witnesses of the transaction
and next to the parties themselves. This
challenge to the witnesses contains also
the statement of the honorable and sacred
character of this holy estate: the fact
that it is commended in Holy Scripture to
be honorable among all men, and that it

226 Lediire Seventeenth

is to be entered into " reverently, discreetly,
advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God."
With this reference to the scriptural au-
thority and sacred character of the insti-
tution of marriage, the challenge proceeds
to demand any objection which may pos-
sibly be offered, and although it is usually
only a form, yet it is valuable as the for-
mula of a great truth. A similar challenge
is addressed to the parties about to be mar-
ried, and it warns them that unless their
union be such as is in every way proper, the
benediction of God cannot rest upon it. The
next thing is to ascertain the willingness
of the parties themselves to enter into this
life-long contract, and this is done by taking
their mutual consent, in order to certify to
the church and the world that they enter
into this compact freely and voluntarily,
and without any compulsion whatever.

It is difficult for us in this country to
appreciate the value and the importance
of this part of the service. But we shall be
assisted in our appreciation if we remem-
ber that in European countries, in the past,
marriages were frequently arranged by the
parents of the parties for reasons of family

The Marriage Service 227

influence or estate, or by the representa-
tives of governments for political or dip-
lomatic reasons, and that thus the family
pride, or the avaricious cupidity, or the
political ambition of men has degraded
the holy estate of matrimony by uniting
together, in the solemn compact of an in-
dissoluble bond, parties who were not
drawn together by mutual affection at all.
It is quite probable that in the hasty and
ill-assorted unions which occur in our own
day, this form of taking the mutual consent
might be powerless to arrest a great wrong
upon the threshold of its consummation,
but if it be so, it is not the church's fault.
She has done what she could to prevent
such a result.

After the assurance of mutual consent
follows what is usually known as "the
giving away of the bride." And there is a
deep significance in this. It is introduced
by the question of the minister, "Who giv-
eth this woman to be married to this man ? "
and it implies that no young woman has a
right to become a bride without the con-
sent of her parents or those who represent
them ; and that her future husband receives

228 Le^iirc Seventeenth

his bride as a sacred trust from her father
through the medium and by the hand of the
holy church. The principle applies specifi-
cally to the bride who, in the early morning
of her womanhood, is led forth from the safe
protection of her father's house " to share
her cloven half of destiny with another " ;
but even where the bride is a person of
mature age, the question is still asked and
answered, in recognition of the fact that a
woman entering into this holy relationship
should do so with the approval and sanc-
tion of her natural protectors and friends.
The proper form of giving away the bride
is for the father of the bride (or the friend
who represents him on the occasion) to
take the right hand of the bride and place
it in the right hand of the officiating min-
ister. He thus surrenders her to the church
to be transferred by the minister to her
future husband by placing her right hand
in his, with the right hands of both parties
clasping each other. Then the solemn vow
of marriage is taken and the mutual troth
is plighted. The words in which this com-
pact is expressed are comprehensive and
carefully chosen. They mean precisely

The Marriage Service 229

what they say, and they embody a truth
which lies at the foundation of all social
order, of all domestic happiness, and of
every Christian family and home. It is a
union which is to be irrevocable; which
no vicissitudes of fortune can sunder; a
tie which neither sickness nor adversity
nor the ills of life can sever, but which is
to last through the whole period of this
mortal life. The mutual vow is identical
on both sides, with the single exception
that on the part of the woman she also
promises obedience to her husband as well
as love and honor. This is simply the rec-
ognition of the scriptural relation of the
wife to the husband, and can never be un-
just or degrading where the union is based
upon mutual esteem, respect, and love.

As a seal of this indissoluble union, the
ceremony of the ring is next performed.
For this there is the precedent of a remote
antiquity. The ring is the symbol of eter-
nity, and it implies constancy and integ-
rity as well. And its use, at this particular
moment, implies the enduring character
of the union thus entered into. In olden
times, it was accompanied with the gift of
20

230 Lecture Seventeenth

gold and silver, but this is equally effected
by the declaration of the man in which he
endows his wife with all his worldly goods,
and thereby asserts that for the future
their interests, their life, and even their
property are one and undivided.

The prayer of benediction then follows,
in which there is incorporated a reference
to the romantic union of Isaac and Rebecca,
whose propriety and significance is to be
found in the fact that their marriage un-
ion was the first recorded instance in the
patriarchal age of one man and one woman
united in this holy estate. The sentence
of marriage which follows consummates
the union, as the minister, joining their
right hands, unites them in the sacred
bond which death alone can sever. There
are no more solemn words in the Prayer-
Book than these. They assert, and for
ages have asserted, the vicarious function
of the priesthood in the church, and, with
unfaltering accent, they place upon this act
the seal of the impressive words, " Those
whom Grod hath joined together, let no
man put asunder." It is thus recognized
as Grod's transaction ; the voice of the

The Marriage Service 231

minister is the audible echo of God's voice :

and his act, thus performed, in Grod's name,
becomes the act of him whose representa-
tive and minister he is.

The proclamation of this completed
compact is then made to the witnesses,
and through them to the world. And
henceforth, among the families of men,
and in the social life of the community,
these two persons are recognized as one,
united in the oldest and most sacred of
human relationships. The final benedic-
tion of the Holy Trinity is then given to
the kneeling couple, and, with this in-
vocation of God's blessing, they go from
his altar to be ushered into the realities
of life by the congratulations of friends,
by the timely gifts and tokens of affection
with which loving hearts express their
best wishes for the future happiness of the
newly married couple ; and by the domes-
tic and social festivities which, in one
shape or another, usually accompany the
bride in her transition from the years of
maidenhood to the fuller and more sacred
womanhood of a true and loving wife.

The lesson of the Marriage Service, in

232 Leclnre Seventeenth

this day of loose and irreverent notions
upon this subject, ought never to be for-
gotten. In contrast with the low and un-
worthy idea of a temporary compact, based
upon transient affinities and to be abro-
gated when those affinities cease, it is rec-
ognized as an ordinance of Grod as old as
the race itself. It is a perpetual parable
of the mystical union between Christ and
the Chui'ch; its celebration was adorned
and beautified by the presence and first
miracle of the Incarnate Christ at Cana of
Galilee; it was instituted in the time of
man's innocency, and the union of two
loving and faithful hearts in the fidehty
of the marriage vow and the blessings of a
Christian home is as near as we may ever
hope to realize on earth the blessedness of
our first parents in the Garden of Eden
before the Fall.

LECTURE EIGHTEENTH

ai^imtion of t^t J>icfe

Hcctiire o^igljtecnt^

VISITATION OF THE SICK

N providing for all the contin-
gencies of this mortal life, the
church places next to the mar-
riage service the office for the
Visitation of the Sick. Its object
is to bring the consolations and helps of
the church to those who are unable to en-
joy them in the sanctuary, and thus to
afford, at the time they are most needed,
the means of grace, by the aid of which
the ills of this life may be patiently en-
dured and sanctified to the health and
comfort of the soul. The office includes
all the provisions needful for the most
complete and edifying visitation of a sick

236 Ledure Eighteenth

person; and yet, from the suffrages and
collects, the exhortations and psalms which
it contains, a shorter service may be selected
by the officiating minister, adapted to the
varying necessities of the special cases
which come under his care. The full office
should be used at least once during every
serious illness, though for the occasional
visits of a pastor, during a brief attack of
sickness, or even during the tedious prog-
ress of a long disease, the shorter service
may be sufficient.

The rubric which precedes the order for
the visitation of the sick contains the state-
ment of a forgotten duty which, if prop-
erly attended to, would often save much
embarrassment to the pastor and many
complaints on the part of the parishioner.
It is this, " When any person is sick, no-
tice shall be given to the minister of the
parish." This rubric is the echo of the
apostolic precept of St. James: "Is any
among you sick ? let him send for the eld-
ers of the church." In many instances,
the neglect of this prescription of the Holy
Scriptures and the church creates a feeling
of injured innocence on the part of the

Visitation of the Sick 237

sick and of unperformed duty on the part
of the pastor, which has no foundation at
all in fact. Too frequently it is left for
the minister of the parish to hear of the
sickness of the members of his flock by
casual chances of conversation with other
parishioners; and then, after hastening,
upon his first information, to perform his
pastoral duty, he is met with the reproach
that the sick person has been ill for a fort-
night and he has never been to see him.
And there is an implied charge of neglect
here that is very painful to the heart of
any faithful parish priest. The actual
neglect rests with the sick person and his
friends, and not with the pastor at all. The
family physician is not expected to know
of the sickness of his patients, and of their
desire to have his attendance, unless he is
informed of the fact ; and no more has the
pastor a right either to know of the sick-
ness or to be assured that his visits are
desired and would be acceptable. He has
no attribute of omniscience by which he
can tell of the bodily health or illness of
those committed to his care. In a large
congregation, it is impossible for him to

238 Le£litre Eighteenth

detect the absence of this or that member
of his charge ; and even if it were, he has
other things to think of during divine serv-
ice than making a mental memorandum
of the calls to be made during the week,
and he is compelled, therefore, to rely
upon the compliance of his people with the
rule of the Scripture and the church. Other-
wise he is not amenable to the charge of
a neglect of duty, when any member of his
flock endures, day after day and week after
week, the sickness which God sends, with-
out the consolations of the church.

But no sick-room is fit for a Christian
unless its very atmosphere is hallowed by
prayer. For this, there is ample provision
in this office, and its construction admits
of any degree of flexibility in its use and
of adaptation to any particular circum-
stance or case.

The service opens with a benediction of
peace upon the house, and is followed by
appropriate introductory prayers, which
may be abbreviated if necessity so require.
For the aid of those who are unskilled in
the consolation and instruction of the sick,
forms of exhortation follow, in which the

Visitation of the Sick 239

ministry of sickness is fully explained, that
it may be sanctified to the health of the
soul. This homily upon the use and office
of God's providence in sickness is divided
into two parts in order that it may be bet-
ter adapted to the strength and condition
of the patient. Following this there is an
examination of the faith of the sick man,
which is needful only in case he be a
stranger, though proper in every case as
a rehearsal of Chi'istian belief. And the
rubric then directs that, in case of dan-
gerous illness, the minister shall admonish
him to forgive, from the bottom of his
heart, all that have offended him; to seek
forgiveness of those whom he has offended;
that so he may die at peace with God and
in charity with all the world ; and then he
is to move the sick man to arrange the
settlement of his estate, and to make proper
disposition of his earthly goods, not forget-
ting, in their distribution, the necessities
of the poor, and we may add, also, the
requirements and needs of the church.
The liberality to the poor, which the rubric
prescribes, is best exercised by bequests
to charitable institutions, to hospitals, and

2-iO Letliire Eighteenth

orphan houses, by which the apocalyptic
benediction of the faithful dead may be
most specifically and permanently realized:
"They rest from their labors and their
works do follow them." Nor should the
needs and the sacred work of the parish
be forgotten. There is always some special
way in which the steward of Grod's bounty
may recognize his goodness, in the parish
life itself. In the completion of an unfin-
ished building, or the erection of a tower
or belfry provided for in the plan of the
church edifice, but never completed; in
the provision for a memorial window, in
which the name of the departed may be
associated with the services of Grod's house
rather than be the subject of some marble
extravagance in the cemetery; in a per-
manent fund, whose income shall be appro-
priated to some charitable object or some
needy class, — in a hundred ways, if he
choose to think of it, the devout church-
man may make his works follow him, long
after he himself has passed to his rest.

There is a noticeable difference at this
point between our service and that of the
English Prayer-Book. It is the substitution

Visitation of the Sick 241

of a prayer for pardon instead of a sentence
of absolution. And, considering the con-
troversy which the judicial form has caused
in the English Church, and remembering
also the fact that there is such a thing as
the absolution of penitents provided for
by our Lord, it is no matter of gi^eat im-
portance, since in every serious case of ill-
ness there will be the administration of
the Holy Communion, which contains an
absolution sufficiently direct and authori-
tative to quiet the anxieties and dispel the
fears of any truly penitent heart.

Two forms of benediction follow, either
or both of which may be used as circum-
stances require, and the remaining por-
tion of the office is made up of special
prayers to be used as occasion may demand.
Two of these are among the most precious
formularies of the church's devotions, and
are associated with the most solemn crises
and events of human life. One is the com-
mendatory prayer "to be said for a sick
person at the point of departure," and
whose solemn words have so often been
used in the impressive hour when the soul
is passing from the burden of the flesh to
21

242 Leaiire Eighteenth

the realities of the invisible world. And
the other is the prayer for all present at
the visitation, whose associations are almost
equally solemn and impressive, since it is
so frequently used in the burial service, on
account of its recognition of the shortness
of human life and the great blessing of
a peaceful Christian death. A form of
thanksgiving is added for the beginning
of a recovery, which, when said, is usually
one of the heartiest prayers which ever
ascends to God, as it recognizes the near-
ness with which He comes to us in sick-
ness and accepts, with a gratitude which
words can but feebly express, the return-
ing signs of health as the gift of his mer-
ciful hand.

Peoviding for all contingencies, how-
ever, the church next arranges in her
services for The Communion of the Sick.
And this provision contemplates not
merely the possibility of death, in which
it becomes the Viaticum of the faithful
Christian, but also and equally its use in
any sudden or long-continued illness, by
which a member of Christ is deprived of

Visitation of the Sick 243

the refreshment of his soul in the partak-
ing of his Body and Blood. The service
is necessarily an abbreviated form, since a
prayer of consecration is requii'ed upon
every occasion of administration. It was
thought needful in the arrangement of
the English book to forbid the reservation
of the consecrated elements — a prohibi-
tion which, however needless now, for the
reasons upon which it was originally
based must nevertheless be obeyed. And
therefore, to make the service possible
without injury to the weakened condition
of the sick, it is sufficiently abbreviated to
make it entirely practicable even in cases
of severe and dangerous illness. It begins
with the Collect, omitting the Decalogue
and its responses ; the Epistle and Gospel
are the shortest possible, each consisting
of but a single verse, and the service then
passes to the invitation beginning, "Ye
who do truly and earnestly repent you of
your sins." And of all the ministrations
possible at the bedside of the sick, none is
so helpful and consoling as this.

There are foui* rubrical directions con-
nected with this service, two of which

244 Le£ture Eighteenth

refer to incidental matters and two of
which assert fundamental iDrinciples of
the church's system. The incidental ar-
rangements are that in the administration
the minister shall fij'st receive, then those
who are present, and, finally, the sick
person — which is a prudential safeguard
against the risk of infection, as well as a
suggestion of propriety; and the second
is that when the Visitation Office is used
in connection with the Lord's Supper,
only the earlier part of it is required. But
the first of the fundamental principles is
that there must always be others to com-
mune with the sick person, where it is
possible. And the meaning of the require-
ment is that in this church the Holy
Communion is never to be celebrated as a
solitary mass. Like every other service,
it requires a congregation of at least two
or three gathered together in order to
render it complete and the more confi-
dently to claim the promised presence of
Christ in their midst. There must be a
communion as well as a consecration;
a feast as well as a sacrifice. And this
is everywhere in her system recognized

yisitation of the Sick 245

as necessary, except only when circum-
stances render it impossible.

The other important principle is the
statement of the possibility of a Spiritual
Communion, where the outward ordinance
cannot, for any just impediment, be ob-
served. But the Spiritual Communion,
without the Sacrament, is as exceptional
as the solitary one is intended to be. By
due care neither of these contingencies
need ever occur, and it is the privilege of
every Christian to enjoy in the fullness
of its benediction the highest ordinance of
the church ; and, if he need it constantly
in the pathway and struggle of his daily
life, much more does he need it in the
time of sickness or in the prospect of the
hour of death.

Taken together, these two services, the
Visitation and the Communion of the Sick,
are intended to interpret, and by God's
blessing to sanctify, the dispensations of
his providence in our mortal life. They
are calculated to lift the soul in its depres-
sion ; to strengthen faith in its weakness ;
and to cheer the sinking heart when the
waves and the storms go over it. And,

246 Lecture Eighteenth

by that interpretation and help, these light
afflictions, which last but for a moment,
are made to work out for us a far more ex-
ceeding and eternal weight of glory, while
we look, not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen.

LECTURE NINETEENTH

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THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

HE funeral rites of any people
are naturally the expression of
their faith and hope concern-
ing the departed. The service
which the church provides for
her children is at once an appropriate con-
solation for the grief of the living and a
fitting tribute of respect for the dead. The
various forms of the office used in dif-
ferent periods have always borne its testi-
mony to the share which the body has in
the redemption by our Lord; to the fact
that our bodies are the temples of the Holy
Ghost ; that the Body and Blood of Christ
are to preserve both the body and soul of

250 Le£twe 'Nineteenth

the faithful Christian unto everlasting life ;
that the day is coming when the power of
Christ shall " change our ^dle bodies, and
make them like unto his own glorious
body, according to the mighty working
whereby he is able to subdue all things
unto himself"; that, as the light of his
resurrection rests upon the tombs of the
faithful departed, it reveals the grave to be
but the guardian of their dust and the
treasuiy of the skies; and that ever through
the long ages which elapse between death
and the resurrection

'* God, the Redeemer, lives,
And ever from the skies
Looks down and watches o'er their dust,
TiU he shaU bid it rise."

The burial service of the church, both
in its general structure and in the require-
ments of its rubrics, is conceived and ar-
ranged for use in the ideal parish church or
village chapel, where the edifice stands in
the midst of the graveyard, where the sleep-
ing faithful lie who in life have worshiped
within its walls. The intimate association
which is thus recognized between the

The Burial of the Dead 251

church militant here on earth and the
departed who rest in Paradise is ahnost
impossible in large cities, where the ceme-
tery lies miles away from the parish
church, and to which the remains of the
deceased must be borne, oftentimes with
unseemly haste, through crowded streets to
their final resting-place.

The rubric directs the service to begin
at the entrance to the churchyard or the
door of the church. And while there is a
certain propriety in some cases in holding
the final service in the late residence of the
deceased, there are always inconveniences
and improprieties connected with funerals
in private houses which might easily be
avoided by having the public service in
the church. This is especially the case
where the deceased person has been promi-
nent in the community, or in any instance
where the number of friends is greater
than the capacity of the house. It is alto-
gether inconvenient and awkward to con-
duct a funeral service when the parlor is
crowded with the acquaintances of the de-
ceased, the immediate relatives and friends
necessarily confined to an upper room, and

252 Lecture Nineteenth

the minister placed half-way up a flight
of stairs, attempting the difficult feat of
making his voice audible to the scattered
assembly; while other friends who have
come to show their respect and express
their sympathy are compelled to do so by
shivering or sweltering on the pavement
in front of the house. All of these incon-
veniences are obviated by simply following
the arrangement which the church pre-
scribes.

As we study the simple and reverent
form of service by which the church lays
her children to rest, we are met at once
by the fact that it is distinctively an of-
fice for Christian bmial. There are three
classes of persons who are not entitled to
the use of this office at their burial. These
are: (1) Unbaptized adults; (2) Any who die
excommunicate; and (3) Any who have laid
violent hands upon themselves. Concern-
ing the first of these classes, it is only
necessary to remark that any baptism, how-
ever irregularly performed, is supposed to
confer a title to its use. On the other
hand, it is only fair to reason that if a
man has spent his lifetime in indifference

The Burial of the Dead 253

and unconcern in regard to the offices of
tlie church, he is certainly not entitled to
them after his death. If he disregards in
life the simplest and most fundamental
distinction between a Christian and a
heathen, it would be a strange and un-
reasonable demand that the distinctive
office of baptized Christians should be ac-
corded him when his life on earth is ended.
It would be as incongruous as to have
a military funeral for a civilian ; or the
peculiar rites and ceremonies of a frater-
nal order for one who had never been a
member of that order in life. The diffi-
culty may easily be obviated by using a
service composed for the occasion, and
there are abundant selections of psalms
and lessons which are appropriate; but
this service is to be reserved for use only
at the burial of those who have been made
by holy baptism members of the mystical
body of Christ.

The second class includes those who are
under the bann of the greater excommuni-
cation, which, in the absence of church
discipline to-day, is a thing almost un-
known. Indeed, neither the major nor the
22

254 Lecture 'Nineteenth

minor excommunication has any great ter-
rors now, since, in our day, self -excom-
munication in most instances saves all
trouble to the authorities of the church.
To refuse the use of the office on the
ground of excommunication, therefore,
would only be justifiable in a case where
the sentence had been formally pronounced
and recorded, and then ratified by the
bishop.

The case of suicide presents a more diffi-
cult question for decision. The plea of
insanity is so constantly urged as an ex-
cuse, or at least as a palliation of every
desperate crime, that we have come to look
with a strange degree of leniency upon
every such violation of God's law. There
is but one rule for the parish priest to
follow in regard to suicides, and that is to
abide by the verdict of the coroner's in-
quest. And for the consolation of surviv-
ing relatives, it is quite feasible to arrange
a service specially adapted to the occasion,
and so to meet the requirements of the
case and the obligation of the rubric.

In regard to all of these excluded classes,
it is to be observed that it can make but

The Burial of the Dead 255

little diiference to the dead man himself
what services may be used at his funeral,
though it is a matter of concern to his
surviving friends. But this aspect of the
case is relieved by the fact that it is only
this authorized service of the church that
is prohibited. Another psalm may be used
for the anthem and another chapter for
the lesson, and any other form may be
used at the gi'ave, provided no part of this
service be used at all.

Turning away from these exceptional
cases to the constant rule and practice of
the church, we find that the real consola-
tions for mourning hearts begin with the
opening words of the service and end only
with its final prayer. As the sad proces-
sion enters the church there are three an-
thems which may be said or sung. They
are the expression of faith, of patience,
and of thanksgiving. The anthem of
faith is the word of consolation which
came from the lips of our Lord to a sor-
rowing heart in Bethany before the miracle
at the grave of Lazarus; the anthem of
patience is an echo from the patriarch Job,
which has floated down to us over many

256 Le5liire Nineteenth

centuries, and which has been uttered in
the presence of unnumbered Christian
dead ; and the anthem of thanksgiving is
the fitting formula of an uncomplaining
submission to the will of God, which is
made by clasping together the words of
St. Paul and of the patriarch Job, and
which from the depths of sorrow can yet
smile through tears and say, " The Lord
gave and the Lord hath taken away :
blessed be the name of the Lord." These
opening sentences correspond in place and
use to the opening sentences of the Morn-
ing and Evening Prayer; and when the
coffin is placed before the altar, facing the
east, and the congregation is composed for
the further solemnities, the service proper
begins with the burial anthem, which is
made up of parts of the xxxixth and xcth
Psalms. The first of these psalms was
composed by David after the death of
Absalom. The second was composed by
Moses while the children of Israel were
dying in the wilderness ; and together they
constitute a most fitting expression of hu-
man sorrow as well as a recognition of the
shortness and uncertainty of human life.

The Burial of the Dead 257

The lesson is the subUme argument on
the resurrection in the xvth chapter of
First Corinthians. It is sometimes called
St. Paul's Gospel, because it contains the
fullest account of the resurrection of our
Lord, and the strongest argument in proof
of it to be found in Holy Scripture. It is
so full of consolation and hope, of strong
faith and well-grounded expectation of the
immortal life beyond the grave, that no
other words of instruction or consolation
are needed ; and therefore no provision is
made for what is commonly known as a
funeral sermon. The idea of such a ser-
mon is foreign to the church's entire
system, and a devout churchman would
far rather have his remains laid to rest
with the simple and adequate words of the
church's service, which she uses alike for
the rich and the poor, the high and the
low, the king from his throne, and the
poor man's child. For in death there is an
equality which is nowhere so completely
recognized as in this service, and which
goes beneath the outward and tempo-
rary distinctions of life to the immortal
spirit which is enfolded alike in the

258 Lecture Nineteenth

robes of royalty and the rags of the
beggar.

The service at the grave begins with
the translation of a mediaeval hymn which
is to be said as a meditation while the
preparations are going on for laying the
body in its final resting-place. This hymn
{In media Vitm) dates its origin as far back
as the ninth century, and the reason of the
strong language used in its petitions is the
fact that it was written at a time when the
faith of the Christian was often tested by
the courage of his life, and the realities of
the invisible world and the danger of falling
away were constantly recognized amid the
shadows and the struggle of this mortal life.
In the Middle Ages it was sung as a dirge ;
soldiers chanted it as a battle song upon
the eve of a conflict ; but as an anthem in
the burial service, its use is peculiar to the
Anglican branch of the Church Catholic.

The form of committal to the grave is
accompanied by the threefold casting of
earth upon the coffin, a custom which was
common among the Romans, and which is
referred to by Horace, though, of course,
without its scriptural accompaniment of

The Burial of the Dead 259

" Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust."

The hope of future blessedness is
strengthened and confirmed by an anthem
from the Apocalypse, which pronounces
the benediction of " the dead who die in
the Lord," and the prayers which follow
are a thanksgiving for the good example
of the faithful departed, and a petition
that we may be found acceptable to God
in the general resurrection of the last day.

In the entire service, the church pro-
nounces no verdict upon the life of the
departed ; has no word either of eulogy or
condemnation upon a career whose mortal
period is closed; but with simple words
and appropriate ceremonies lays the body
to rest, and leaves the spirit in the care
and to the mercy of our God and Saviour.

" Our mother, the Church, hath never a child,

To honor before the rest,
But she singeth the same for mighty kings,

And the veriest babe on her breast.
And the bishop goes down to his narrow bed

As the ploughman's child is laid.
And alike she blesseth the dark-browed serf

And the chief, in his robes arrayed.

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