O >>.^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) ,V4 J z 1.0 1.1 l^|2£ |2.5 ^ us, 12.0 2.2 IL25 i 1.4 iil 1.6 HiotDgraphic Sciences Corporation 23 WiST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 4. V ^ iV \\ ^v V"0 y. ^ ^^ CIHM Microfiche Series (Monograplis) ICn/IH Collection de microfiches (monographies) Canadian Institute for Historical Microraproductions / Institut Canadian da microraproductions historiquas Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur D I I Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagte Coven restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restauree et/ou pellicula D n Cover title missing/ Le titre de couvertu couverture manque I I Coloured maps/ Caites giographiques en couleur □ Coloured Encre de ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) □ Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur □ Boun Relie Bouncf with other material/ avec d'autres documents D D D Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serree peut causer de I 'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge interieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajouties lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela etait possible, ces pages n'ont pas ete filmees. Additional comments:/ Commentaires supplementaires: L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qw' "A Living Church : What It Needs. >> f: A SERMON lUKAciiMn hi.:foj;k tiik ^yr,od of tl^e Diode^e of fiui'oii AT ITS ANNUAL SESSION June 19th, 1877, liV Till-: REV. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D. Rector oi' Grace Church, New York. PuhUshed by Request of the Synod, LO.NDON, ONT.: IKKK I-iUXs IliJMlN,! AM> I'LBU.SIIING *O.MI-ANV. %e Chui'dVM Xeed^. m.ti^^^A^:'^X'S: ""' ""''''' ^^"^« ^°««^'- *<^ -'•Bider of thia AVhatever may l)e our various tlieories of Holy Orders we are all agreed, I presume, that the Apostles who are mentioned in these words. were thoroughly exceptional men. Whatever measure ot inspiration and o„iclance the Ch.irch and her priests and chief pastors have enjoyed in later days it can hardly be doubted that it has been in every wav inferior to theirs The men who laid the foun.lations of the Chnstian Church were men who had been girded for their work by rare and exceptional endowments. Whether we look at their personal cliaracters, or their official careers we feel mstinctively that we are in the presence of extraordinary and ^uTtol' ''''"' """• '''^^" ""'^ ""^'^^^ 1— ^- a And yet it is instructive to find that even these men did not dispense wjtli the help which comes from mutual counsel and conference. Called as they were bv exceptional experiences to an exceptional office— guided as they had a right to believe they would be, bv the especill manifestations of the Holy Spirit, they yet turned from the strain of separate and isolated responsibilities to the help and comfort to be found in fraternal intercourse and mutual counsel. Their work was vast and urgent and vital, but they unhesitatingly put it aside, and bid accustomed duties wait while they paused to confer with one another. They recoirnized the wisdom of mutual deliberutiou and oi combined action- ajad in this, one of the earliest of the Infant Church's councils ^ey have set an example for aU churches and for all times' We do weU, therefore, that we are here to-day to foUow it and that fVom the grave and urgent work of the Church in so mwiy and such various fields, this thoughtful body of clerev and laity~the representatives of the Church in this young but powerful Diocese—has come together to deUberate md confer anew. Through the kindly courtesy of youi- Bishop it is the province of a " stranger from across the border " to stand in this place and to give you this greeting. If he does so with aomething of diffidence, and something more of self-distrust he does so, nevertheless, with this inspiring consciousness that after aU, his work and yours are one ; tliat his most sacred faaditions and most venerable sanctions are drawn, as are yours from the same revered mother -that mother whoo John' Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts, writing in the sixteenth century, called, " Our dear mother the Church of England, to whom we owe a long course of loving watchfulness and care" It IS true that the Church in Canada and the Church in the United States exist to-day amid veiy different civil conditions and under widely dif^similar political systems. But theirs, thank God, is a dearer bond than any begotten of the State and a closer sympathy than any that kindles at the sight of a flag. It is the sympathy begotten of a common faith a common language and Hturgy, and a common ministry and sacraments. As an American Churchman stands in some ancient EngUsh minster, awed by its majestic proportions and Its chastened and venerable beauty, he finds himself reminded of the legend of that young artist of Padua, who, standing before a master-piece of Eaphael's, cried out in irrepressible pnde, " and I too am a painter." For then it is the impulse of such a one, though he may stand upon English soil for the first time— yet remembering who are his ancestors, and from whence have come his literature and his religion— to cry out with equal warmth and pride, "I too am an Englishman." Even so when we, who live to the south and east of the lakfiS nnrl nf fl.o «f T- n ■, way north and west, as we gather in some such holy and beautiful edifice as this, witli brethren of the same scriptural faith and apostolic order, we too are tempted to exclaim, " Ours also is an Anglican mother and an English Prayer-Book; ours the blessed heritage through those pure and reformed standards of the one Lord, one Faith and one Baptism." And though, if you who are Canadian Churchmen should choose, with the men ot Israel of old, to protest, " We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye," we could not venture to gainsay you ; yet still I think you will not refuse to own the closeness of the tie that binds the two Churches together, nor upbraid me for here recalling it I confess that I do so with a motive. This oneness of sonship and lineage, of faith and order, is but a simile of that other identity of our circumstances and work. Your Church in Canada and ours in the United States are, each of them, conditioned by various accidental differences of circumstances and surroundings, which give them certain features of obvious unlikeness. But when you have made allowance for these, there remain other and substantial resemblances in those circumstances which are far more important and influential. Yours, for instance, like ours, is a new country and a comparatively virgin soil. The Christian civilizatio. ^hich you are contributing to rear in this Diocese is, like ours, embarrassed by no traditional influences of the people and the soil. On the other hand, yours, like ours, is a population gathered by immigration from many lands and widely different races. The German, the Irishman and the Negro jostle one another in your streets as they do in ours ; and with you, as with us, there is the same eager race for wealth ; the same too-common impatience with modest means and uneventful experiences. The same bracing breezes (dry, searching and exciting) that have made, as scientists tell us, of the phlegmatic Old Englander, the restless, nei-vous, interrogative New Englauder, blow across your hills and valleys that blow across ours — indeed, in their eastward progress from the great lakes mim and the Rocky Mountains thov road, vnn Hr.i r conditions unrlor which ChZ. . ^ ' ^" ''' ^^'°''''' ^''^ United States a,^ callc upr^l^ "^"'' '" ^'>« build up the ckn:LZi'^^:^^^^^ therefore, if I sneak- nn fi ^"^^^ ^''^ «'^»no. And needs, . .e Lvoii;". 'i:n:-:vr 7^ '-r '■"'"^''' own that they are no less CTl i ' ' """''' >'°'' '"» in thi, newer London. ''' °' ^''"' '"'™ '™™«l tl«m 1 would venture to name tl,n nl !i T ? """" P™^"^ o*"™) ministry. It is tW 1 '? ""^f" "''"="""' ■""' "'»"ghtfu that, wLe ahe' efnTt eZsTt r"" ?"-'">' ^land. phraseology, she yet bid, „!, . '"™'''''" "■"' to'-eliest %h tas^fwithCt^rrrnZtr'™''"'*^^ genuine scholarship in wWH, »i,l t ,' 'earning and a And it i, to-day her nre-en 1 i,, >■ ?•"' "'™^' ^""^ "> ^ch. of the litemry Wof he T '''''"'«"<'■' that the product, to stimulate L .eC. s;7:::':r vr,- r influences put toffetl.or a ""^' ^'^*" ^" other of the n,oft inS: «=ltL:7od"' ''""" °' °- States said to n,e not long ago m '"t""' ^"'"^ 'to what living literatnm ? ™ ^ ^"^ "^ked not hesitate to sa^t~nture of" tr^, '""''""''■ ' 0° there is nothing like it in^ "'""''' "' England"; there is notMng iL j " WheT " '"'''"""' »'-" A-«i I*otu.3 Of LildonVthe wlTf T, "" "^^'P'"" volumes which I mieht nL. < ^I , ^'°^' *"=• "ther nobler evidence cou7f?hecI«h of "L V"" ™'' ""'" is, as of old, the friend of ill ! ""* K"™ "= 'hat she mother of teachers and t "^ "'"' "^ ''""«<' m»-the attainments ::d:itt' hS:"' ^Tf °' ■'^°«'™-' all this come ? It has come fi™!; .u "* '""" """'t has system which a^ toTe. ^ ttiriT™'™' ? ■•'' opportunities foi study and for Son » ^ • ™ """^ "'' Chief dange. In this^ed a^Xr ^th-^^^: i false spirit of economy, or from a mistaken estimate of the veal value ofsurli a miiii.stiy.Hliu will so ul»ri(lj,'«' tlioir oppoitunitios and so increase tlu; demantls upon thoui, as to make such distinction in learning and tiioughtfulnes.s no longer possible to her clergy. Says Dr. Farrar, Canon f.f Westminster, and lately head-master of Marlboro, in a recent King's College lecture on Jeremy Taylor: "To the acquisition of such a learning as was Jeremy Taylor's, this age— hard, exacting, jealous, without concentration, without self - recollection, without leisure ; utiliiarian, mistaking a superficial activity and a worrying multiplicity of details for true, deep jnogress, quite content with vapid shihboleth.s, archaic ritualism, or emotional enaptiness, jealous of a labor which, because it is retired, is mistaken for idleness, and robbing everyone it can of all means for the exliaustive pursuit of learning— is wholly untavorable. Two hundred years iiavo passed since the publication of the ' Liberty of Prophesying '—and we are still quarreling about copes and chasubles, and making it a matter of importance whether the sacramental bread should be cut round or square. When men are alisorbed in such controversies, and, above all, in the grinding littleness of endless and elaborate agencies, often wholly disproi^rtionate in number and in the toll they involve, to any possible good which they can achieve, there is little possibility of a learned clergy— there is indeed a fatal certainty that such will not v.e produced." Yet, in spite of such an indictment, there a: . still in the Church of England some quiet nooks, some calm retreats, where one may read and digest and think. But how is it among ourselves, whether in towns or out of them ? How manifold and how engrossing are the cares which are bound upon the clergy, over and above their distinctly ministerial duties ? How often is the whole financial system of a parish made to rest upon the clergy ?— Who beg or bon-ovv the money that builds our churclies ? Who superintend their construction and erection, and care for the " fabric " after it has been reared ? Who train our choirs and organize and largely vitalize our schemes of parish work ? Who drudge, often with hand as well as brain, in the discharge of a forbi,! that I ^J, '; , ':;a;::'''™"' '"■■ -""■■« '^"^n aoi experie„ce of the aZ^^Z^Tj' "" ' "P''^"' '" "'" tliem the sense tlmt ttV! ""' "f""' «"» to cou„tl„,a »e a i,^ ^ ™;; ';;"""«;'->y "■- >ivo» upon the t«.,ks to «-hich V t .;> T "'"""' "' '""""« from wouM he aanohji t:r:t™ ;'T:jr:„::7:7 '^'^ ■" in our day who «n,l<, it ,•„,..„ •, , ' ""'^ * "lawman week in L .u^'^t " tT' "kT T"', "" '"""' """» others, «„,! y„t in an 1 T,, "1 ' \? *""'=''°' "'"' «'»<•'= to gone before it, chal J ^S t ' ctri: "e" °"^ "'"" """' '"" beat weapons and thdr ZZ^—! """'f'"" "' '"'" himwlf goins i„t„ .he d„ f """"S"' - ««=1' » one find. string of common plats a ™ °»^f"""'y ■""■'"ing with « it Win be said t at' rc, r la Jlte "" 'T'™'- ' "''<"' -t;:rn^!^~?c:ts^h^^ Whom Christ die. ■ B ft , rihe" ci: ,""" """" '""'■' '" awakened and deepened e L she ! """" '™'^ ™"'' besides. To .-ivo fee in^ (.f " !, '" """'^"'ina more profound contwon S t tie! LT " 'T' "^' "'""" profound it must rest in t„rl conviction may be foundations. Th re i a " " t ?°" r^""""" »"d intelligent earnestness in tt p, pit w, T •"''''''r^'^ ^-^ """^^'ive than all other th/corindfc-, ''"■'"''" '""■" ""?'"'''« that he who speakf i at, 1 1;, h ^"'' ^™ *« impression and authority 'oftat^t "lair X:?'''' "'"'^'"'^ be so penetrated with tha r. / ^'^^'^®^- ^"^ one ran never has sa'arched":;' tT^L tcr 'vLTdi i:r r^ Earnestness of feelins is, verily not S \ . 7 ''«■"• erstrrirex;: ^^r'T*" ''-t'-^ u«_i^ piovoke. vVe may wish that we were Imck in those simpler days when learning was the property of a class, and wlien the people took tlie teaching that was given them with simple and unquestioning faith. But wishing will never bring those days back again ; and meanwhile our business is rather to readjust ourselves to the new conditions amid which tiie (.'hurcli finds her nlf. If it is said that she must meet the too-common tendency to a relaxed faith merely by a louder reassertion of her ancient symbols, I answer that this is to repeat the error of Home in the decrees of the Vatican Council, without the splendid discipline and consistent traditions of tlie Church of Rome to warrant it. Oura is a Church which stands as a witness to the freedom of the right of enquiry, and we sliall never successfully stifle that enquiry by despising or ignoring it. On the contrary, the Church nmst meet living questions with an intelligent and generous candor, and must answer the assaults of unbelief with a might and learning at least equal to theirs by whom such assaults are made. Tt may be that we suppose the critical and scientific skepticism of our time to be unknown to the great mass of those to whom in this land tlie Church is called to minister; but if we do, it is because we do not take the trouble to read the books and look into the magazines, which are bought and read nowadays by everybody. Do we lurget that one man of genius in our day has written a novel to prove the moral identity of our own race with that of the races below it ? Do we forget that one of the cleverest serial stories of our day is aimed obviously against a theology which, though I do not hold it, has had more than one eminent and learned disciple in our Mother Church, and yours as well as ours ? Do we realize that girls and boys read and ponder such teachings just at an age when their minds are most susceptible and most alert ? And meantime, what are too many of us doing, but heating the old broth over again, or firing blank cartridges at the ghosts of errors which are alike dead and forgotten ! Surely it must be owned that something else is callc' for in our day, and tust somehow trie v^hurcb irrust ntect so obvious and pressing a want. How shall it be done? How shall we lO United States ahke, the Church has no venerable endowments aLTlnTM^VT'^' "" ■"— y-lOi-'g -holarshiCr but h?.f h 'f"^' f' '""'^^ clergy-nothing, usually, L" „d ofTrd ' r "" *^' "'°'^^' P^'^o-'^ee, and an endless Jrae if ^^ ^'"\^^y and often irre^darly paid. It is trae. It mil be said, that upon the clergy are imposed deMlv^lf'^r."'"'™"'''' by engagements and fretted by detaUs which make it simply impossible for them to obey the injunction of their Bishop at their ordination, to "di^w all do Z'lr T:' '""" ™^'" ^"' ''-• '' "" ^ -ket a at aU by borrowing the wisdom of those who are about us Tba wisdom, as it has iUustratod its«lf in the history of almost numerous and well organized, consists in developins and utilizing the effective co-opemtioi: of the lai y An! tWs day of which I would speak this morning. II. It has been said somewhere that we in our n:S:Vrr*" '^^'^^ « 'f- orders of them Lt^ and falsify t by being content with two. And, unfortunately the charge IS true. We have bishops and prie;ts in o«TS^' but we have no deacons ; or if we do have them, they are no7S 2 s-^nse the representatives of a distinct offlc , pirnSng a distinct function, and ordained for a particular wo^ h„t Sirtri" dt"^^^^ -r- -'''-^4:ti:nt't„t aavanced to that good degree of the priesthood which is not ^ways quite consistent with theii. having earned i Saira learned and venerable pastor in my hearing not long ago -We have no longer any deacons in the American Church They forj,f- T " '^'^"^ "'"'' °™ '''^'"'y- "»<' «" scanty a resnecl for autnonty, that I have reached the conclusion that they II . must all be archdeaccns." And the worst of such a sarcasm is that with us it is so often and so largely true. The pressure of new fields, the frequent disposition of parishes to prefer young men, whose energy is not always, however, a sufficient compensation for the blunders of their inexperience — the spirit of our age, impatient of subordination, and too eager to rule to be willing to learn how by consenting to serve— all these have conspired to make the Diaconate, at least in our branch of the Church, only a hurried novitiate, hurriedly entered and quickly terminated. As we turn back the pages of ecclesiastical history, we read that at the time of the Council of Chalcedon there were some forty deacons in P:dessa alone, and that Constantinople had over one hu. :ed. We read of them as a permanent and distinct office, sometimes combining the exercise of their ministry with some secular calling in which they.were engaged ; and because of their closer contact with the people, acting as guides to the presbyters in the ministration of relief to the sick and destitute, and in the exercise of discipline toward the profane and irreligious. And as we read of such things in other days, it is impossible not to wish that we might reproduce them in our own. How invaluable, especially in fields in which the ministrations of the presbyters are more or less itinerant, to have a resident deacon who could maintain the services, visit the sick, look up the wandering, and like the first seven, have charge of those collections made for the charitable ministrations to widows and others. Indeed the difficulty is, not to see how such an officer in the Church might be usefully employed, nor how a perpetual Diaconate might increase the efficiency of her ministry — but rather to avoid such exaggerated demands upon the office as shall lead to its practical extinction. Of course, if we will persist in laying upon the Diaconate all the burdens' of the Priesthood, there can be no reason why it should not take the rank and responsibilities of the Priesthood. The problem is how to develop a class of devout and earnest men who shall be clothed with restricted powers and authority, and set to do a restricted work ; and how, when necessary, to unite such an 12 Office with a secular calling. If it is sairl fhof i. , • accomplished by persons clotheTl Ii T^ '"'^^^^ "^^^ ^« But if we can not have if, ar,^ „ seem to i„p,y that ^e Zl J^nT^ZtT'' that thing ^Mch i3 nearest to it I Tnean 1 cordial and a more general snirit of L, """"^ present it would seem^hat h/ "VL but »f f T-' ^' perform, and that is the function oftnib'lw ttrml's" Our Sunday-schools, our parochial societies elWt it L^r^ accepted that just when a layman has reachldhr"" ° ^ years and experience which'hts Mm totlet IXcZ '^ others, he ordinarily ceases to do so »P™\»r • ] undeflled," declares the Apostle "is this f„.l>,^Z """^ «n. ,*«.„•„ .MV«^«4' as weu Ts o t» o^t sJf "unspotted from the world." Is this only a L "J f cle^ ? Is all oth„r activity, save activity in ones week d!" busmeas, excluded from the New T^.t.l » "^"^ Christian liv.-no! w . Testament conception of are nofJir ^L ''°' '^''^ """" '^^'^^d some gift? and are not men bidden to " minister the same one to anotheTi" exercise. In other davs, whnn the nri-^fl- ni^-. i .. J --1- L-!H j)nv;Stij Class was the only ^3 . ; learned one, it was fit and natural that to them should be confined the missionary work of the Church; but in our time, when learning and books are the equal inheritance of the laity as well, there is a definite lesponsibility that goes along with them. Who can speak to one immersed in business with such directness and efficacy as some companion wlio, from practical experience, has touched tlie core of the same temptations? Not long ago, you will remember, there was a proposition looking to the admission, under certain restrictions, of laymen in the Church of England, to its pulpits. I confess, for one, I can not but feel tliat the dangers of such a plan, if dangers there are, would be far more than counter-balanced by its advantages. But if this should be otherwise, there is no layman among us who may not wisely remember that it does not need a pulpit in which to serve Christ and His Church. The Church calls for many varieties of service from her loyal laity, some of which are directly in the line of their secular training. To relieve the clergy of anxiety for the financial administration of their parishes ; to give personal lielp to the due order and decent maintenance of the Church's services ; to visit the destitute, and gather in the stragglers and instruct the ignorant— all these are tasks which are within the reach of the most modest and letiring. And sufter me to say that it will not be until we have elicited such a spirit of co-operation that the vast arrears of the Church's work can at all be overtaken. That conception of the Church which regards the clergy as called to do her work, and the laity as called to sit and watch them do it, is not more false than it is impotent. Above all this passive theory of the Christian life, which makes the individual disciple a sponge to absorb sermons and services and pastoral visits, an ecclesiastical leech, crying " give, give " and yielding nothing back— this is a theory which means, to the soul tliat acquiesces in it, only spiritual dyspepsia or paralysis. It is an open question whether there is not too nmch preaching and ministering, in view of the meagi-e outcome of answering endeavor and activity. To be continually listening to arguments and exhortations which lead to no fruitage of Christian activity ^4 this is not merely negatively but positively evil Onf nf •. there comes, sooner or lflf»v n .^^ ^ ^ ^"^ °^it prisciHa,, whose ,„vi„;^r.s::,,:^dtt:.''' ^"""-^ --^ and elLt\nt:a:;:i:f',;-':,r^ '' ^ '"'-' ""-^y "»-' come to them wirtlThufe. if "" '^™«reg»tio,«, when we part of the lai y „ ,e !T , '?'■""""' "'■■"'"'y °» *« true and if if i« f ^"(loiibtcclly, of many persons this is after' ^"<^j.J^z^^jt:rrr *"" "■"'°" '^ .in-„y«, !i;ii Ours fa an aj, "rf !I\~ t.^tCr, "-^ "T especially of organM activtty. C Jta oh nT (' ^^ .eri;:eX-e::;.::.:, tr:;:^^^^^^^^^^ celehr.lonsofttrSZ-kr::^^^^^^^^^^^ ^x^:^:;::rtoJ:;s^ti5;S so" ht 'rT"*"T"""^^ °^ ^™'-- o "0^2 ^"«i:i so, behind all our other needs as Churchmen and rhri«'? d.sc.ples, there stand,-l am sure there is no one of ^s "«" consoioua of >t-the need of deepening the spiritual life t„ come closer nto the presence of that llrd whi r'^ts; t^ serve. untU, bte her who grasped the hem of His gL' ^f wi h 15 her timid but trustful touch, virtue from Him shall quicken and awaken us. You remember that legend of Leonardo di Vici, which is told in connection with his painting of the Last Supper. As I recall it now, it runs that when the wall of the convent in Milan, on wliich he had painted it, was first exposed to view, the monks gathered round the picture, eager to criticize its details au'^ to admire and applaud its most insignificant accessories. There were loud voices and fierce disputes, until it was with one consent agreed that, if there was one thing better than another about the picture, it was tliu drawing and coloring ut the table-cloth. The impatient painter listened with flushed cheek and flasliing eye until the last of the order had spoken, and then seizing his brush, with one dash of color blotted every admired detail of the table-cloth out. He had brought them to look upon tlie face and figure of Christ, and they could be so absorbed upon so paltry a thing as the painting of a bit of cloth ! Even so, I think, in these days of restlessness without devotion, of bustle without faith, we are absorbed in a thousand small details, well enough in themselves it may be, but oh! how far removed from the central fact of that religion of which we claim to be disciples. And all the while the Master is looking calmly down upon us, waiting until we shall consent to withdraw our eyes from these and lift them to Himself. For then liow surely shall it come to pass that, drawing our inspiration straight froni Him, our work, our duty, our shortcomings, will all alike stand forth in a new and clearer light. If we are the pastors of His flock, we shall, as we lift our eyes to Him, find ourselves moved to feed them more diligently, and lead them more prudently than we have ever done before ; and, whether clergy or laity, looking to Him we shall catch the spirit of Him who said, " I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is called to-day,: the night cometh when no man can work !" Show us, therefore, thou mighty One, first of all Thyself, and so arouse us to the work which Thou hast given us to do !