ii|{l,**i'ifti^>/lS)VJlltU't'.'i;^iWiU;-'tfifi'i?.*'--ii!.* 
 
 PARISH LECTURES 
 
 ON THE PRAYER BOOK 
 
 . SNJVELY. D.D 
 
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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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Copyright, 1888, 
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Content^. 
 
 nocture JFiwt, 
 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: 
 
 " 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 ( " 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, 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, 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 
 
 <^^t 2S>utial of tlje 2Dcati 
 
^i^is:^! 
 
 
 M 
 
 ?^!?^^Sj 
 
 Hccmrc l^mctccittf) 
 
 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. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
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