Class _ Book.- Copyrights 1L__ • ""•;. COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE PARISH THE PARISH ITS LIFE, ITS ORGANIZATION, ITS TEACHING MISSION, AND ITS DIVINE CONTACTS A Handbook for the Clergy and Laity BY REV. WILLIAM A. R. GOODWIN, D.D., y Rector of St. Paul's Church, Rochester, New York With Introduction by Rt. Rev. Charles Henry Brent, D.D., LL.D. ^ MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS. 1921 COPYRIGHT BY MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. 1921 MAR 12 1321 ©CI.A608686 [si f DEDICATION / TO L The Rt. Rev. Arthur Selden Lloyd, D.D., who, through the years in which he served as the President of the Board of Missions, while helping to lead the Church into the more perfect organization which now exists, ever sought to develop loyalty and devotion to the Church as the Body of Christ, a living and life-giving organism, called and commis- sioned by the Incarnate One to give the revelation of the Father to all His Children, that they might find freedom and the more abundant life. INTRODUCTION By the Rt. Rev. Chaeles H. Brent, D.D., Bishop of Western New York Eeligious literature seems to mark out Jethro as the father of the group system. He saw that it was bad for the health of his son-in-law to continue to carry the burden of detail under which Moses was staggering in loyalty to his responsibility as a divinely appointed leader. Moreover, it was necessary for the welfare of the people that they should share in administrative responsibility. So Jethro proposed group organization, which Moses put into immediate effect with complete success. My friend Dr. Goodwin in this book plays the part of a modern Jethro to the clergy of to-day. The whole scheme of organization sketched by the author of this book is sound and practical. But the key to its effectiveness is the group system. Like all useful machinery it must be handled by a master mechanic who knows its construction. No rector of a parish can fail to get benefit from a close study of these vii The Parish pages. Of course he must recognize that machinery never takes care of itself, and where he has organized his parish, whether on these or similar lines, he must give it daily and careful oversight. It is necessary to utter this warning because parishes are sometimes devasted by ill-digested schemes that are left to run themselves. Of course the only running they can do is to run down. The main value of this book consists in two things. First, its tone and aim is moral and spiritual. Nothing is herein suggested which does not have as its conscious end the nurture, edification, and in- spiration of the parishioner. The mechanical ceases to be applied mathematics because of the temper and purpose pervading it. Phillips Brooks was once being- conducted over a parish house when such agencies were new to the Church. After an interesting in- spection of the building and its equipment, he said: "Soon I suppose we shall hear the creaking of machinery !" Machinery that is honestly dedicated to the Kingdom of God never creaks. In the second place, the author writes not as a doctrinaire but as a conscientious and experienced pastor. He has tried out what he recommends and it has not been found wanting. Like all Virginia Seminary men he counts the world as his field of operation, and never fails to relate the local to the universal. The comely proportions of his proposed organization, of worship, thought, and action, form the hallmark of its value. We must recognize in these days of multiform enterprises that organization well carried out is not a viii Introduction burden but a relief. It is a labor-saving device. This, however, does not mean that it is a means by which a lazy rector can shift personal responsibility from himself to a machine. It is not calculated to shorten his eight-hour day, but rather to enable him to use it to better advantage. Only the diligent can make effective use of organization. What is pro- posed in these pages is intended to aid men who are already bent on using their vitality up to the hilt, to use it effectively and economically. The author wisely emphasizes the teaching mission of the Church. We who have been taught from seminary days the truths of the Faith are easily blind to the fact that those whom we address from our pulpits have not had our advantages, and that what they need chiefly is not moral reflections or ardent exhortations but simple instruction in all that is vital to the religion of Jesus Christ. Both in pulpit and classroom the Church to-day has need of systematic, definite in- struction. The commissioned teacher has authority to say things with distinctness. His personal ex- perience equips h im to say repeatedly with St. John : "T know," "TTe know." Without this there can be no spiritual progress in a parish. Church schools are improving and week-day religious instruction for children is slowly gaining public approval. But adults are in danger of being left to starve. Dr. Goodwin sees all this clearly, and his book is designed to aid men who, in the loneliness and isolation of country cures or the weary bustle of the city parishes, need such a mentor and stimulus as this book provides. I thank him for giving it to us, The Parish and trust that it will have wide — I will not say "reading" but — study. 25 October, 1920. Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of Western New York. CONTENTS Page Introduction by the Rt. Rev. Charles H. Brent, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Western New York vii CHAPTER I The Church as a Living Organism 1 CHAPTER II The Organization of the Parish ----- 11 Diagram. The Parish Organization. The Parish as it is now Organized. The New Plan of Parish Organization. The Central or Parish Executive Council. The Coordinating Committee. The Church Service League. The Woman's Branch of the Church Service League. Young People's Church Service League. The Parish Group Organization. (a) The Group Organization for Instruction. (b) The Group Organization and Service. (c) Men's Units of the Group Organization. ( d ) Group Organization in the Country Parish. (e) Group Secretaries. (f) Representatives of United Offering and Little Helpers. (g) The Permanent Every-Member Canvass Com- mittee. xi The Parish (h) What can we give people to do? (i) Avoiding Group Isolation. CHAPTER in The Teaching Mission of the Church. A. The Divine Commission and the Church's Responsibility -------- 41 The Religious Education of the Young. Week-day Religious Education. The Young People's Service of Worship. The Extension of the Church Teaching System. When Part of the Parish Goes off to School. The Family Altar. Group Class Instruction. The Church Newspaper. B. Teaching the Fundamentals - - - - 56 Diagram. The Incarnation. Sacrifice. Eternal Life Now and Hereafter. The Holy Spirit and the Mission of the Church. C. The Great Essentials 63 Holy Baptism. The Holy Communion. The Approach. The Scripture Witness. The Holy Mystery. Holy Orders. The Holy Bible. (A contribution by the Rt. Rev. David L. Ferris, D.D., Suffragan Bishop of Western New York.) Faith. Prayer. Other Essentials. Holy Matrimony. xii Contents CHAPTEE IV Church Teaching and the Reconstruction Problem 87 The call for a radical application of conservative fundamental Truth. CHAPTER V The Pastor and His People 96 CHAPTER VI Parish Harmony Notes --------- 107 CHAPTER VII Worship and Service ---------- 112 Church Attendance and Loyalty. Nine Reasons for Attending Churchy by Theodore Roosevelt. The Catholic Liturgy and Catholic-mindedness. Service. Christian Stewardship. The Stewardship Account Book. In Conclusion. APPENDIX What the Congregation may expect of the Vestry. What the Vestry may expect of the Congregation. Subjects Suggested for the use of Group Classes. What the Department of Religious Education may ask of the Parish. What the Department of Social Service may ask of the Parish. What the Department of Missions may ask of the Parish. The Church Newspapers. (Subscription price and address.) Lists of Books Suggested for Reading. xiu CHAPTER I The Church as a Living Organism The Recorded Revelation Eph. 1 : 22, 23. The Church is His Body, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all. Eph. 5: 23. Christ is the Head of the Church. Col. 1: 18. Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church. Col. 2: 9, 10. In Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are com- plete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power. Eph. 1 : 10. That in the dispensation of the ful- ness of times he might gather to- gether in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him. Eph. 4: 11-13. He gave some, apostles, . . . for the building up of the body of Christ. Rom. 12: 5. So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. 1 Cor. 12: 27. Now ye are the body of Christ. 1 Cor. 6: 19. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? . . . therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God's. 1 The Parish St. John 15: 5. I am the vine, ye are the branches. Acts 1: 8. Ye shall be witnesses unto me. (Read Acts 1, 1-11.) St. Matt. 28: 18-20. And Jesus said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you alway, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE AGES. The Church as a Living Organism The Church is the body of Christ. When this is said we are not using a figure of speech. We are stating a fact. The Church exists because the Son of God came to earth on a mission which has not been completed. The method of His manifestation and ministry was, and still is, the Incarnation. He was "made man". In and through our nature He re- vealed God. He said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." The Gospels tell us what "He began to do and teach". It was but a beginning. He founded and commissioned His Church to carry on the mission for which he became and remains In- carnate. The Acts of the Apostles is the first book of Church history, and is also the continuation of the Gospel history of Jesus. He did not go away. He became invisible in His Church, and the Acts of the Apostles and the Christlike acts of all Christians are the acts of the invisible but ever present Christ, who lives and works in His Body, the Church, to continue what He "began to do and teach", that all men might come to see and know their Father. The Church as a Living Organism "God is Love." Because His love is universal, the Body in which He chooses to express and reveal His love must be a Catholic Body with a Catholic mission. It must be designed for and related to all men everywhere. The heart of God can not be satis- fied until the hand and voice of His Body reaches not only His nearest but His farthest child. The Father can not be fully known by any of His children until He is known by and revealed through all of them. To make Him known and loved everywhere that His will may be done upon earth as it is done in Heaven is the mission of the Church. The Christ, who is the Head of the Church, in calling us to be members of His Body reveals a divine love and an infinite patience. He knows what is in man. He knows the coldness of the human heart, the slowness of the human mind, and man's self- will. Xevertheless, He has chosen and called us to be the Body in which He dwells and upon which He depends. Because He loves us, He patiently works through us that we may share His Sonship and be- come partakers of the divine nature. Thus He brings "many sons into the glory of His perfect life". Because the Church is His Body it is a living organism. The Churchman should never let the or- ganization side of the Church's life make him forget this. The organization must serve the organism. It must have a corporate Christ consciousness. The members of every Church organization should ever remember that they are simply seeking to function through the organization as members of the organism which is Christ's living Body. The organizations in The Parish the Church can help make this truth vital and real by loyalty to the great fundamental teachings of the Church through individual and corporate obedience to the call of Christ to His Body to follow Him and share in His experiences. This call of the Father comes to us over and over again in the round of the Christian Year. (a) In Advent we are reminded that the Christ is ever coming more fully into His Body and into His Kingdom, and the voice that spoke to the Virgin speaks to us also, asking for our humanity for the incarnation of God. Every organization of women should observe the season by quiet hours and a corporate Communion. (b) Christmas calls us to Bethlehem, but it calls us also to a great consecration. There are palaces and homes still fast closed to Him who is ever seeking to be born in human hearts. Too often still "there is no room for Him". Organ- izations which repair the church and sew gar- ments, but which hear not the angel message and music all through the year calling life to adoration, may fill up time but fail to fulfill a worth-while purpose. They sometimes offer material and mechanical substitutes for that ser- vice and fellowship which would enrich the soul and build up the Body of Christ. (c) Epiphany calls for a continuous manifestation of His indwelling Presence. It reminds us that we are "His witnesses". It speaks to the human of a divine stewardship. It points to the tern- The Church as a Living Organism pies of the Holy Ghost and bids us keep the windows clean that the Light of the world may not be hidden by the darkness of self -indulgence. (d) Lent calls us to come apart into a solitary place. It seeks to make better known the truth that makes us free. It is the call of the Church to meditation, study, self-examination, and self- mastery, and asks of us the denial of self for the enrichment of self and the life of the world. It sometimes happens that the organizations in a parish are so blinded to the nature of the Church as an organism that even Lent makes no change in their formal mechanical programme; and, without study classes, and without cor- porate Communions, they go on serving and meeting ; doing things which add to the finances and the annual report but leave the spiritual life of the organization and the parish unenriched by any new vision and without the inspiration and power which comes from close and conscious communion with Christ in study, in prayer, and in Eucharist. (e) Good-Friday. This is the deepest and highest call of the Father to the heart of humanity. It is, however, the call to which man is most in- sensible and least responsive. The cross still "Towers o'er the wrecks of time", and the wreck- age has been much greater of late because of man's unsubdued selfishness and uncrucified "will to power". The home, the State, and in- ternational goodwill and world peace are all 5 The Parish cross-shadowed. They are not placed in right relation to this one supreme symbol of victory. Behind or at the foot of the cross are the gloom and despair and degradation of self-seeking and rebellion. Lifted up upon it they will catch the gleam and glory of the Life that conquered. They have not the faith for the great adventure. They have not the courage to follow their Master. Until the day dawns when a new- visioned faith will inspire in men the courage to hear and answer the call of the Father to follow after the Son of God in the path of life which leads over Calvary and through crucifixion to the more abundant life, there will be divorce and industrial discord, and international hatred, covetousness, greed, and war. The Cross marks the only road to peace. From the altar it seeks, too often in vain, to speak to the Church. When its meaning there is seen and its call answered, the organization becomes an organism, for through death Christ's Body still passes into new and higher manifestations of life. (f) Easter bears perennial witness to the Church that her Lord and Master is the Incarnate, Living Christ. It witnesses to the fact that "God hath already given unto us Eternal Life and that this Life is in His Son." As Christ- mas speaks of the mobilizing of the members into His Body, as Lent calls the mobilized body into the training camp, Easter points to the 6 The Church as a Living Organism heavenly armor, the panoply of the divine equipment. (g) Ascension Day points to the divine and vic- torious Leader who promises "all power" and an "Ever Presence". He is at the head of the army. It is His cause. It cannot fail. (h) Whitsuxday says to the mobilized, trained and equipped, and divinely led body, "Carry on". It points the way from victory unto victory to the destined day when "the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord". It points to martyrs and saints who have led the way through "peril, toil, and woe" and bids us follow in their train, and promises victory, not by human might or power, but "by My spirit, saith the Lord". It is because He, the living, personal, ever present Spirit, dwelleth in the Church and empowers its members that the or- ganization becomes and continues an organism: the Living Bodv of the Living and Incarnate Christ. (i) Trinity Sunday calls the Church to worship God revealed in Christ, and made known through His eternal Spirit, with reverence as becomes the finite approaching the Infinite One. Faith is not asked to understand but to worship Him who is the self-revealing and self-giving God, whose name is Father and whose nature is Love. The truth to which Trinity Sunday bears wit- ness is personified and communicated to the The Parish Church in the Holy Eucharist, that the Divine Life and sacrifice may be extended through the continuous Body of Christ in which Christ in- carnate continues to reveal the Father to His children and continues also to present the eternal divine sacrifice once forever offered on Calvary, but perpetually offered to and through His Living Body, the Church. Before the Church can vitally function as an organization, it must become and remain continuously conscious of itself as an organism, called and ordained to be the Living Body of the Living Christ to extend His Incarnation and to be His witness. KEY TO THE DIAGRAM "Plan of Parish Organization" The plan of parish organization outlined in the chart is designed to bring the organization of the parish into har- mony with the new plan of organization of the General Church, which plan is also being followed in many dioceses. The Rector and Vestry The position and authority of the rector and vestry is recognized by the canons of the Church. Other parochial organizations act with delegated power and under the su- pervision and direction of the rector and vestry. The vestry acts in the parish in lieu of the Department of Finance. The Parish Executive Council The parish Executive Council should be appointed by the vestry upon nomination of the rector, who will, doubt- less, consult with those who are interested in the work of the several departments before making his nominations. Each department of the Executive Council should be 8 t PLAN OF PARISH ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT A THE RECTOR AND VESTRY THE PARISH EXECUTIVE COUNCIL DEPARTMENT R. E. 5 MEMBERS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION DEPARTMENT S. S. 5 MEMBERS CHRISTIAN SOCIAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT M. 5 MEMBERS MISSIONS AND CHURCH EXTENSION "3, 15, 22, and 25 (All Missionary Education) DEPARTMENT P. 3 MEMBERS PUBLICITY * 24 AND 25 • EACH DEPARTMENT HAS OVERSIGHT OF THE SOCIETIES INDICATED BY THE NUMBERS COORDINATING COMMITTEE (COMPOSED OF ONE OR TWO REPRESENTATIVES FROM DEPARTMENTS R. E., S. S., AND M., THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF THE CHURCH SERVICE LEACUE AND THE MAJOR OF THE CROUP ORGANIZATION, TO COORDINATE PARISH PROCRAMME OF EDUCATION AND SERVICE) THE CHURCH SERVICE LEAGUE TO SERVE THE PARISH, THE COMMUNITY, THE DIOCESE, THE NATION, THE WORLD PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH SERVICE LEAGUE CHURCH SCHOOL BRANCH OF C.S.L. A DIRECTOR UNITS DEPT. 1 PARISH SCHOOL R E. 2. WEEK-DAY SCHOOL OF RELIC. EDUC. RE 3. SCHOOL OF EXPRES- SION RE. 4. JR. BROTHERHOOD RE 5. CANDIDATES' CLASS G. F. S. RE 6. BOY SCOUTS RE. 7. GIRL SCOUTS RE 8. BOYS' CHOIR RE 9. SOCIAL AND SERVICE CIRCLE (boys and girls between 16 and 21) RE NOTE. These are all related to the other departments in fulfillment of the five.fold responsibility, to the Parish, the Community, the Diocese, the Na- tion, and the World. MEN'S BRANCH OF C. S. L. A DIRECTOR • UNITS DEPT. 10. PARISH VESTRY A. 11. BRO. OF ST. ANDREW RE 12. MEN'S CLUB S. S. a. Motor Corps b. Hospital Visiting c. Hospital Quartette d. Usher and Hospitality Committee 13. MEN'S BIBLE CLASS R E WOMEN'S BRANCH OF C. S. L. A DIRECTRESS » UNITS DEPT. 14. ALTAR GUILD R E. 15. WOMAN'S AUXILIARY M. 16. DAUGHTERS OF KING R. E 17. GIRLS' FRIENDLY SOC. S. S. 18. S. BARNABAS' GUILD S. S. 19. MOTHERS' CLUB S. S. 20. PARISH AID COMM. A. 21. CH. PERIOD. CLUB S. S. 22. WOMAN'S C. S. L. AT LARGE (women not en- S. S. rolled in other organiza- & tions.) M. 23. THE PARENTS' LEAGUE, DEPT. R. E. 24. THE PARISH NEWSPAPER, Dept. P. " NOTE. These Utters indicate the Department of the Executive Council which has special oversight of the organization. PARISH GROUP BRANCH OF C. S. L. PARISH N.-W. C. UNIT (25) A MAJOR CROUPS DEPT. GROUP No. 1 A Captain R E A Croup Secretary A Man Lieutenant S. S. A Woman Lieutenant M. A Boy Lieutenant & A Girl Lieutenant P. A Croup Class Leader CROUP No. 2, 3, 4, etc (from 15 to 25 families to a Group) THE VESTRY GROUP THE WOMAN'S AUX. CROUP THE C. F. S. CROUP (These may prefer to meet as organizations for study rather than in geographical groups.) GROUP NORMAL CLASS U this Chart is drawn on enlarged scale for Parish House use, the names of the members of the Departments and of the Coordinating Committee should be written In and th. names of all organizations which function in the parish be Inserted in the Church Service League. Plan of Parish Organization composed of from three to five members, with power to enlarge their number. It would be well to have the vestry represented in the membership of each department. Each department should have special oversight of the work done by the parish organizations indicated by the numbers. The work of many of the organizations should; however, express the ideals and help carry out the programme of all three departments. The School of Expression, for instance, is distinctly related to the departments of Missions and Social Service. It does the work formerly done by the Junior Auxiliary, but is more comprehensive in both its member- ship and its interests. The letters placed opposite each organization indicate the department of the Parish Council to which the organization is primarily responsible. Each department should make a complete survey of the needs of all parish organizations falling under its supervision and also survey and report all work in the "five-fold field of service" which the parish should undertake. The Coordinating Committee This committee should be composed of one or two mem- bers from each department and also of the president and directors of the Church Service League and the major of the group organization. It should coordinate the parish pro- gramme of education, not alone for the children of the Church but for its adult membership also. It should receive from the three departments their programmes of work and, in con- sultation with the Council of the Church Service League, apportion the work outlined by the three departments among the various organizations of the parish and receive reports as to the work assigned. This report should be made by the chairman of the Church Service League. The Church Service League This is an organization created by the General Conven- tion. It is designed to federate and coordinate all existing organizations in the parish and also to enlist the service and cooperation of the members of the parish not at present enrolled in any organization. It is composed of branches, The Parish as indicated in the chart. Each parish will federate in the Church Service League all organizations which exist in the parish and thus bring them into the closer unity of parish life. It cooperates with the three departments through the coordinating committee. Where the plan outlined is fol- lowed, each parish should have a large chart drawn in which the names of department members, of the coordinating com- mittee, and of the officers of the Church Service League should be written. The Council of the Church Service League should be composed of the directors of the different branches of the League and the heads of all parish organizations. The Parish Group Organization No parish can afford to be without this organization. No parish can fully carry out the Nation-wide Campaign programme of education and publicity without it. The method and purpose of the group organization is described in the text. In addition to group officers mentioned in the chart, each group should have a secretary to be responsible for keeping the parish census cards up to date, reporting any changes of address through the group major to the rector or parish secretary. The group organization is for fellowship, instruction, parish visiting, literature distribu- tion, social service, and census upkeep. It is also the re- cruiting agency of the Church Service League. The Nation-wide Campaign The Nation-wide Campaign is more permanent than its name implies. It is the organizing, coordinating, educating, and promoting agency of the Presiding Bishop and Council. The Presiding Bishop and Council, as well as the diocesan bishop and his Council, look to the parishes of the Church and depend upon them to fulfil the Church's one great mission. The rector and his Parish Council look to every Churchman for loyal cooperation. A complete plan of parish organization should enlist the service of the entire membership of the Church. 10 CHAPTER II The Organization of the Parish The necessity for thinking of the Church as a living organism has been first stated because it is of prime importance. Because, however, the Church is the human body of Christ, it must, of necessity, make use of human means for the accomplishment of its mission. Its work cannot be left to individuals work- ing separately. The Christ organized His apostles and His disciples and sent them forth in ordered ways and to ordered places. He also organized His own Incarnate life in the light of and in conformity to the established system. He went, "as He was wont", to worship at accustomed times and observed the national feast days of the Jewish Church, of which He was a member. It is necessary to organize the Church, and the organization should be made complete and perfect, that the Body may function without friction in the complete fulfilment of its divinely given mission. The human body is organized, but its organization is so perfectly arranged that when it is in healthy re- lation to its environment, and to the inner spirit of 11 The Parish its life, we are not conscious of its skeleton or of the nerves and muscles, or of the vessels through which pulse the blood of the living organism. The organ- ization of the Church is also most complete when it is least obtrusive. The effort to secure a more perfect organization is justified by the fact that when se- cured, and rightly used, it will make the Church a more vital and efficient organism. It should be the purpose of a parish so to organize its life, for in- struction, for worship, and service, that the whole mission of the Church should be made known to the whole membership and so that the inspiration and power of individual and corporate worship may be so communicated to all that the will to service may be at one with the Master's will concerning His Body. Organization thus perfected looks to the free and full expression of the mind of Christ in and through His Body the Church, which is the living organism in which He is Incarnate. The Parish Organization The diocese, with its bishop, is the unit in the national organization of the Church. The parish is vitally related to the diocese and to the national branch of the Church; and, because the national branch of the Church is but a part of the Church Catholic, the parish is related to the whole Catholic Church and to its whole mission. Thus the whole Church looks to and depends upon the parish. The whole mission of the Church embraces the in- dividual, the family, the community, the diocese, the state, the nation, and the world. It also embraces 12 The Organization of the Parish those who have been numbered with God's saints in glory everlasting, and, doubtless, others also. At present the work of the Church is done too largely in water-tight compartments ; and, as a result, the corporate unity of the Church and the life of fellowship are weakened. The curse of the national Church is diocesanism ; of the diocese, parochialism; of the parish, society ism; and of the whole Church individualism. The Parish as It Is Now Usually Organized At present most of the parishes in the Church are organized upon the water-tight compartment basis. Each organization is largely independent of the others, and between them there is scarcely any bond of union. It frequently happens in large parishes that members of certain organizations never even meet the members of other organizations, and few in the parish have any idea of the scope and purpose, the failures and suc- cesses, of the work being done by their fellow Church- men. At the first meeting of the newly organized Parish Council in a large parish, a layman who for many years had been one of the most generous sup- porters of the Church and a regular worshipper said that it was the first time he had ever known the scope and nature of the work of his parish. The New Plan of Parish Organization The diagram, inserted between pages 8 and 9, showing a suggested form of parish organization, illustrates how the Executive Council plan of the General Church, the group system developed through 13 The Parish the Nation-wide Campaign, and the newly organized Church Service League may be correlated and made to embrace, unify, and coordinate the parish, enabling it to fulfil its mission by enlisting the largest possible number of interested workers who, under the plan, will be called, trained, and directed in helping to realize a unified programme. The necessity for a new plan of organization grows out of the fact that the Church has a new con- ception of her mission and a new programme. It could not reasonably be expected that rectors would re-organize their parishes to conform to the needs of a "movement", but when it is understood that we face a new era with a new programme, the necessity for having every parish fall in line and keep step be- comes obvious. It should also be borne in mind that the programme of education and service of each suc- ceeding year will be based upon, and presuppose the fulfilment of, the programme of the years preceding. It will thus come to pass that the parish which fails to organize along the lines suggested by the General Church will soon find itself in the position of the student who is called to read Caesar, but who has neglected to master his Latin gramm **, syntax, and vocabulary. Such students are always a drag upon the class to which they belong. The Central or Parish Executive Council The rector and vestry are the canonically con- stituted authority in the parish, and under the law of the Church are related to the diocese and the General Church. In the Parish Council the rector is 14 The Organization of the Parish chairman, as the Presiding Bishop is the head of the National Church Council. The vestry acts in lieu of a Department of Finance, and may be considered an ex-officio branch of the Parish Council. The rector, after consultation with those in- terested and best competent to advise, nominates to the vestry the persons to be by the vestry appointed to membership in the Central or Executive Council of the parish. This Council is composed of three de- partments, namely: the Department of Keligious Education, the Department of Christian Social Ser- vice, and the Department of Missions. The depart- ments, though differently named, are, and should always be considered as expressing, in different aspects, the one mission of the Church. The Church has a unified and, therefore, undivided mission to educate, to serve, and to make disciples of all nations. Social Service rendered in the parish is as much the Mission of the Church as China is. Some parishes may also deem it wise to add a Department of Publicity. Each department is composed of, say, from five to six appointed members with power, as in the General Church, to enlarge its membership. (In smaller parishes the number may be two or three.) The members appointed, or elected, should be, as far as seems expedient, representative of the now existing organizations in the parish. The membership need not, however, be so determined or confined. The persons most competent for executive leadership should be placed on the Council. Every parish or- ganization should be listed as belonging to one of the 15 The Parish departments, and a decision should be reached as to the responsibility of each department for every branch of service in which the parish is, or should be, interested. In cases where it is deemed advisable by the vestry, the money placed in the budget or col- lected for work which falls under the direction of the department may be turned over to the treasurer of the department to be expended by order of the Executive Council upon recommendation of the de- partment interested. In this case the department treasurer makes monthly or quarterly reports to the Council and through the Council to the vestry. In a certain parish $1,000 is appropriated by the vestry for the work of the Church school and $2,800 for week-day Religious Education. This money is paid over upon requisition to the treasurer of the Department of Religious Education, who expends it under order of his department and accounts monthly to the vestry. In this same parish the Department of Missions receives, expends, and accounts for all funds contributed for Missions and Benevolences, in- cluding the contributions for the Nation-wide Cam- paign. These funds are kept in a separate bank from the one in which current expense funds are deposited. Each month a full accounting is made by each depart- ment treasurer to the parish vestry. In cases where the Church accounting is done in the parish house by a paid and expert accountant, the bookkeeping may be best done by the one person employed for the purpose. In organizing the Parish Council it would be well to have in the membership of each department at 16 The Organization of the Parish least one member of the parish vestry. This contact between the Council and the vestry will prove mutu- ally beneficial. The departments will have the benefit of the counsel and advice of the vestrymen members, and the vestry meetings will soon become concerned with the work of the Executive Council. In this way the vestry will find itself informed and interested in the vital work of the departments, and its meetings will cease to be concerned with the ma- terial side alone of the parish life. It has been found that appropriations are always most gladly made to enable the departments to carry on their work when the vestry knows from actual contact the nature and importance of the work which in their representative capacity they are asked to equip and maintain. In this way the needs of the departments find their pro- portionate place in the annual budget of the parish. The Coordinating Committee * From each department and from the several branches of the Church Service League there should be appointed representatives to serve on a Coordinat- ing Committee. Three of this committee, or one from * In the diocese of Western New York the Executive Council has appointed a Coordinating Committee of two each from the Departments of Religious Education, Social Service, and Mis- sions to coordinate the educational programme of the diocese. The programme, having been approved by each department, is passed up to the Department of Religious Education, which department assumes the responsibility for seeing it through, the two members on the Coordinating Committee from the Depart- ments of Missions and Social Service becoming ex-officio mem- bers of the Department of Religious Education. 17 The Parish each department, should be appointed for the purpose of coordinating the educational programme of the parish. In this way the Church school course, the group meeting instruction in subjects suggested from the three departments, and all other educational work planned in the parish for informing the people as to the one Mission of the Church, will be included in the parish programme of education. This Coordinating Committee should also be the medium of information and contact between the Executive Council, the Church Service League, and the group organization. The representatives from the Department of Social Service voice the needs of this department. They report, for instance, that the Department of Social Service needs a certain number of cars for taking out convalescents from hospital wards ; two hundred garments for an orphan home ; three hundred garments for social settlement work in the city; and certain garments for the parish poor. They report that a certain number of hospital visitors are needed, that entertainments are desired at certain institutions, and that a certain number of persons are needed for friendly visiting in industrial centers. The Social Service Department studies the needs of the social service agencies of the city or village and through its representatives on the Coordinating Com- mittee voices the need for workers or material as- sistance. In this way it may be possible to reestablish a point of contact between organized charity and the source of spiritual inspiration. The other departments do likewise. The two rep- resentatives from the Department of Missions ascer- 18 The Organization of the Parish tain from diocesan headquarters, or elsewhere, what box assignments will be made to the parish and just what sewing will be required. All these needs are considered by the Coordinating Committee and are passed on in written report to the Executive Council and by it reported to the Church Service League, whose representative should be in the membership of the Council. Thus what needs to be done is ascer- tained and every department is represented in the report and voices its complete requirements. The Church Service League This League is now a part of the national organ- ization of the General Church. In the parish system it stands definitely related to the Parish Council. The League is composed of all the organizations in the parish which are federated in its membership, and is designed to enlist their interest and cooperation in the five fields of service outlined by the Service League Chart. The young people of the parish are embraced in what is officially known as the Church School Ser- vice League. In the average parish it will, doubtless. be found wise to extend the scope of this branch of the League. It will include as units the Church school, the week-day religious school, what was the Junior Auxiliary, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Junior Brotherhood, the boys' choir, and the girls' Candidates Class. The Junior branch of the League should be represented in the Council and the Council should see that it is supervised and coordi- nated and that all its units are at times brought to- gether and cooperate as a branch unit of the League. 19 The Parish The Woman's Branch of the Church Service League * should federate all woman's organizations. Ulti- mately some of them will lose their separate identity in the League. The existing and federated organiza- tions compose the units of the organization. In ad- dition there will be found many women who have resisted all appeals to affiliate with now existing organizations who may be led to respond to an invi- tation to enroll in the woman's branch of the League as "members at large'', and who will come on Thurs- days, or some other day, to sew for the requirements of the Social Service or Missionary Department, or do hospital, Sunday school, or district visiting. In this way, all the women of various societies will meet for a common purpose and serve together for a common cause. The Church Service League of a live parish will, of course, have its "men's units" also. The men's club, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and the vestry should be enrolled as units and compose the men's branch of the Church Service League. Miss Eva D. Corey, chairman of the Massachu- setts Council of the Church Service League, writes relative to the League as follows : * It would be well if uniform nomenclature could be used in connection with the League, (a) The organization is offi- cially known as "The Church Service League", (b) While the organization embraces all who are federated under it, age and sex make natural groupings indispensable within the League. These should be designated as "Branches", namely, the Church School Branch of the Church Service League, the Woman's Branch, and the Men's Branch. (c) Federated organizations should be called "Units" of the League, i. e., the Girls' Friendly Unit. etc. 20 The Organization of the Parish THE FIVE FIELDS OF SERVICE 21 The Parish "It should be clearly understood that a parish unit of the Service League should include every organiza- tion that exists in the parish. It is not necessary to have any of the national organizations to form the League. You form it out of what exists. If you have one or two branches of the national organiza- tions, it is not necessary to try to produce the total number. "The point is that there are just three funda- mental principles of the League and you apply them to local conditions. " ( 1 ) Get-together method ; a parish council where all interests are represented. "(2) A parish programme putting the whole strength of the parish on the whole work of the Church. That means covering the five fields of par- ish, community, diocese, nation, and world. "(3) Enlisting every woman (and man) in some form of service through the Church. Service should be interpreted in the widest sense; working, giving, praying, etc." Thus constituted, the Church Service League stands ready to answer the call of the Executive Council. The Coordinating Committee has reported to the Executive Council the specific needs of each department. Through the Coordinating Committee these needs are taken to the officers of the Church Service League. The Junior branch of the League is assigned part of the work. It is asked to make scrap- books for the children's wards in the local hospital or doll dresses and doll beds and tables, etc., for the missionary box. The various units of the woman's 22 The Organization of the Parish branch of the League are asked by the Coordinating Committee, through the officers of the League, to assume responsibility for certain definite garment making, or the woman's branch of the League as a whole assumes the responsibility and distributes the work. The executive chairman of the League should be a woman of high ability who has the capacity for winning cooperation and for seeing things through. The men's units of the League will find opportunity to share in the coordinated service. In one parish the Social Service Department dur- ing the past year secured from men in the parish over 1,500 visits to the wards of hospitals and furnished numerous entertainments in institutions, besides fur- nishing cars through its motor corps for several out- ings to inmates of the Church Home and orphan asylums. The Young People's Service League Experience has shown the need for some organiza- tion in every parish to enlist the interest of the young people at and beyond the age when they generally leave the parish Sunday school. This need has been recognized and provided for in such organizations out- side of the Episcopal Church as the Ep worth League. It has been found that this interest can be secured through an organization in which the young people of both sexes meet together for entertainment and for the fulfilment of some definite programme of service. Entertainment alone will not prove sufficient. The Church cannot successfully compete with the theater, the moving picture show, and the entertainments pro- 23 The Parish vided in social life; and it is inexpedient to ask the young people of the Church to leave one form of amusement for another, simply because it is the Church that provides the entertainment. On the other hand, youth can be appealed to by the challenge to service, and where a parish programme calling for hospital or community visiting (which should be done under expert direction) and other clearly defined forms of service is presented it has been found that the young people of the Church will make glad and willing response. It is exceedingly important that they should be made to feel that the Church has need of them and makes provision for them in its life and its programme of service. If it be said that this programme is suited to a large parish alone, the writer, who has had experience in two comparatively small parishes, would urge a revision of this opinion, being convinced that the pro- gramme can be adapted to the small parish and village where, in many particulars, it is more vitally needed by reason of the paucity of civic provision for meeting human needs. In one parish in a country district the plan is being tried of having the vestry the unit basis of the Executive Council and parish group system. In this case the vestry acts in its official capacity in matters where its responsibilities are distinctive, but meets with others as a Parish Council to consider the larger parish needs and plan their fulfilment. The group organization plan and the Parish Council organized in a country parish would do a great deal to overcome the isolation which often exists 24 The Organization of the Parish and would bring neighborhood groups together under a central executive leadership. In this way the people in Trinity Church would be thinking and working in cooperation with the people in Christ Church, ten or fifteen miles away, inspired by a common ideal and purpose. Occasional meetings of the Parish Council in the country parish would bring Churchmen to- gether who otherwise might never know each other. It will be interesting to see the local adaptations of the new principle of coordination. It is, after all, the principle and its purpose which is of vital im- portance and which should be applied in every parish in order that the whole Church may know and help fulfil the Church's whole mission. It would be un- wise to seek to superimpose upon parishes working under certain conditions the exact details of a plan suited to other conditions. It will, however, be found that every parish of any size can and should fall in line and seek to find the unity of plan and purpose and the cooperation which comes from an Executive Council and a Service League and the group organ- ization system. The Parish Group Organization This idea is a contribution of the Nation-wide Campaign to the Church and must surely be con- served. We know of no parish where the "group" plan was faithfully followed where the Campaign failed of success. Indeed under this plan failure would seem to be almost impossible. It is not, how- ever, in relation to the Nation-wide Campaign alone that we speak of the group organization plan. It 25 The Parish needs to be made permanent in the life of the Church. It is a system of organization definitely related to all that has hitherto been outlined and is essential to the full use of Executive Council and Church Service League plan of organization. A bishop of the Church, who until recently had been the rector of a splendidly organized parish, said of a Nation-wide Campaign conference that if he were still a parish priest and had to select one from among all the paro- chial organizations to survive he would, without hesitation, keep the parish group organization. The reason is obvious to all who have had experience with the group plan; it would create out of itself every other needed organization because it is essentially the whole parish at school and at work. The plan of parish organization here outlined and diagrammed on the chart is the result of experience in the Nation-wide Campaign endeavor, together with changes and amendments which this experience sug- gested. It embodies suggestions made by members of twenty-one groups who met together to compare notes and make suggestions for the organization. The opinion unanimously expressed was that it would be a tremendous loss to the parish if the group organ- ization were allowed to fall to pieces. Out of this experience, it is suggested that the parish be divided into a certain number of groups, each group containing fifteen, twenty-five, or fifty contiguous families. A map should be made showing the group lines, and lists prepared for the captains of the families embraced in each group. Over the group organization as a whole, a major should be 26 The Organization of the Parish appointed — or, if the military terminology is not pre- ferred, a group director. He should be the best or- ganizer and most efficient man in the parish. In each group there should be a captain or officer directly responsible to the major or director. Under the captain there should be four lieutenants — a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl. These are all responsible to the captain or group executive, who may be either a man or a woman. In addition to these officers there should be a group secretary and two leaders, if possi- ble, for each group. For organization purposes this is the personnel of the staff. Literature for distribu- tion passes from major to captains, and from captains to lieutenants, and by the lieutenants and their assis- tants is personally delivered to the group members. The group organization is also the best possible plan for creating fellowship. Not only does it pro- duce a consciousness of unity in a common purpose, but it also serves admirably in the upbuilding of the parish. The lieutenants or group members report to the captain the coming of a new family into the parish. The captain calls and ascertains the Church affiliation or preference of the new family. The captain reports to others, asking that the family be called on. Just here becomes apparent the value of a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl lieutenant. Mrs. Smith calls on Mrs. Brown, the newcomer, invites her to church, and introduces her to the Church Service League. But Mr. Brown needs attention also. The man lieutenant is requested to call on him and bring him in touch with some unit of the men's branch of the Church Service League. Tommy Brown is called 27 The Parish on by the boy lieutenant and introduced to a boy's unit of the League, the Church school, and Scout Troop ; while the girls in the Brown family, who would not be impressed by the visit of Mrs. Smith to their mother, will be deeply impressed by a visit from the seven- teen-year-old girl lieutenant, who offers to introduce them to the girls of her Church school class, to take them into the Girls' Friendly Society, or into some other unit of the League. The Browns were lonely when they arrived. They will begin to feel at home when the group organization into which they have moved has done its hospitality and fellowship work. The Church will thus avoid the possibility, which now is too often an actual experience, of having the stranger come to church and remain a stranger. Those who have moved from the genial atmosphere of an old home parish into the midst of strangers, and gone unknown and unnoticed for weeks to a strange church, will bear testimony to the need in the Epis- copal Church of a plan that will cure the evil of leaving the rector alone to find the newcomers and give them welcome. The rector has many things to do and there is a chance that he will never find them ; and, even if he does, the newcomers want something more neighborly and, one may say, more human, than a pastoral call. One of the bishops of the Church once remarked in passing comment on a passage in the early part of the Acts of the Apostles, that the Episcopal Church was very strong on the "Apostles' doctrine", on the "breaking of bread and prayers", but was powerfully weak on "fellowship". The par- ish group organization gives promise of correcting 28 The Organization of the Parish this weakness. In some parishes it would produce a transformation corresponding to the thawing of the foundations of the North Pole. The Group Organization for Instruction The parish group organization furnishes an ad- mirable unit and system for instruction. The staff officers are responsible for the attendance at "group classes". The classes are conducted by group leaders. The staff officers should be resident in the group which they serve. The class or group leaders need not live within the group. In many instances it is best that they should not. The best leaders in the parish should be selected and trained. A leaders' normal class should be formed. The method of group in- struction should be the discussion rather than the lecture method. It would be well to have for each group two leaders, one to lead the group lesson and one to help guide the discussion. Both should attend the normal class. In some instances it may be found wise to make an organization such as the Girls' Friendly Society or Woman's Auxiliary a group unit for instruction, leav- ing the members free to attend or not their district group meeting. It will be often found that they will attend both classes. The group unit for instruction has been officially chosen as the method to be followed by one diocese in all mission study and social service instruction. The subjects for instruction at the group meetings may be determined upon by the Committee on Co- ordination in consultation with the group officers. 29 The Parish The Survey and the text book on the Survey by Dr. Sturgis are on the official programme. Other subjects suggest themselves. In one instance the following written suggestions came from group classes: Church History, Americanization, the Prayer Book, the Life of Christ, the Industrial Problem, the New Church Organization, What the new Church Organ- ization Seeks to Accomplish, the World Challenge to the Church. There is no reason why the classes should be con- fined to Lent. Advent and Epiphany offer oppor- tunities equally as good, and the early fall affords an excellent time for classes dealing with local prob- lems and the parish responsibilities. One group meeting in October and November, four in Advent, and meetings once a month from Epiphany to Lent, with weekly meetings during Lent, would furnish scope for developing an interesting scheme of education. It has been found that the group instruction classes greatly stimulate church attendance. One subject for discussion might well be, fr Why people should attend church and why they do not." It has been suggested that one lesson might be given in ever} 7 group in the early fall, outlining the Church school programme of education for the fol- lowing session. For this lesson the teachers in the Church school would make good leaders and, as a result of having this instruction given simultaneously in every group, the parents might be brought into closer touch and cooperation with the work of their children in the parish school. The opportunities for 30 The Organization of the Parish using the group organization for instruction are al- most limitless and the need for it is also. The Group Organization and Service The group organization is closely related to the Church Service League. If workers are needed to make response to the needs of the departments of the Executive Council, as ascertained by the Committee on Coordination, the group captains should be asked to voice the need to their groups. Indeed, the group staff should be the recruiting agents in their group for each and every unit of the Church Service League. In the early fall and late spring and at other times also, if advisable, the Executive Council, the Church Service League officers, and group leaders should hold a conference and arrange for a mass meeting of Council, League, and group members for a reception. for the unfolding of the parish programme, and. finally, for the annual reports. The final meeting might well be of the whole parish. Men's Units of Group Organization It is often found difficult, if not impossible, to get the men in representative numbers to attend the group meeting classes. It can be done if a good man captain or lieutenant keeps constantly on the job. "Where attempts meet with failure, it would be well to constitute the parish vestry into a group organization class and arrange a series of "round table conferences'"' for men where smoking would be allowed and in- 31 The Parish formal conference could be held. The plan has been tried with good success, of getting ten men in a parish to give a men's dinner, each of the ten inviting from eight to ten other men to his home, the dinner being followed by a round-the-fire. well directed discussion of a selected topic. Groups of this nature should also be organized among the young men of the parish. The Group Organization in the Country Parish The question has been raised as to whether the group organization was adaptable to the conditions of a country parish. The writer is convinced that there are no conditions under which it is more needed. or where it can serve a more useful purpose. Having spent seventeen years in a country parish where the three churches were from ten to twenty-five miles apart, where there was practically no intercourse be- tween the far-scattered communicants and no oppor- tunity for comparison of methods and interchange of ideas, the writer is convinced that if the group organization plan had been in operation the life and administration of this parish would have been far more vital and effective. In order to confirm this view, a letter wa^ written to Mr. Lewis B. Franklin. Treasurer of the Xational Executive Council, asking for information on this subject which had grown out of his experience. Mr. Franklin has sent the following letter from the rec- tor of a large country parish, which is so illuminating and contains so many good suggestions that it is eiven in full : 32 The Organization of the Parish "My dear Mr. Franklin: "The group organization system has been tried out in this parish for a little over a year and already has shown beyond a doubt that such organization is of decided practical value . The parish, with about ninety communicants, covers a territory of approxi- mately thirty square miles, serving a hundred fam- ilies and responding to calls for ministrations over an indefinite territory. In a central group, called the Parish Committee, are men and women who have been assigned as captains in the several districts to assist the rector in keeping in touch with all parts of the parish. These captains notify him of sickness, of new families, and of any need for immediate visiting. With such organization the rector has found it far easier to make his scattered work count. "The several captains are also responsible for transportation to the services and special meetings, social or spiritual, of anyone who asks for such trans- portation. They make sure that everyone in their district knows of such services and meetings. At intervals they visit their families in order to keep them in touch with the affairs of the parish. In short, they perform all the duties which such a group organization is supposed to cover, whether the parish is rural or urban. Already results are showing in the addition of new families to the parish lists, a larger Sunday school, better church attendance, and a better spirit throughout the parish. "The members of the parish committee are teach- ing in the Sunday school : one is the superintendent. Three have licenses for lay-reading and have gone 33 The Parish out at the request of the rector to hold mission ser- vices. They are on duty at the church, and stand ready to keep the machine^ going, and begin the Morning Prayer should the rector be late in return- ing from his mission service eight miles to the south. In consequence there is a feeling of sureness in the mind of the rector that things are going as they should as he hurries back to the parish church. Har- rowed feelings are not conducive to proper leading of the services. "The budget system has been put into operation. The rector's salary has been raised, assistance from the Archdeacon is no longer needed. In two every- member canvasses conducted entirely by the com- mittee the income of the parish has been raised from $800 to about $2,000. All bills have been met; ap- portionments paid, needed repairs made; a fund is well under way for a new organ; plans are being drawn up for a parish room extension. These re- sults can beyond question be traced to the group organization system. "The distinct advantage that this system has in a rural parish can be seen from the following faets. Rural parishes have been too prone to rely upon the efforts of the rector for all things pertaining to spirit- ual and temporal welfare. The rural rector must be a man of finance, a carpenter, a sexton, a jack of all trades. He must be everywhere at once. He must be interested in every town and community move- ment. All this is in addition to the calling and spiritual side of his work. The rural parson is but human and often cannot measure up to all these 34 The Organization of the Parish opportunities, especially since our younger men no longer seem to consider country work a true measure of their abilities. So much depends therefore on the personality of the rector that the parish tends to rise and fall with him. The common sense and prac- tical value of building up a sense of personal respon- sibility among the men and women of the rural parish can not be denied. This sense of responsibility must be strengthened so that there is built up in the parish an abiding and solid organization which can at least make the parish more sure of weathering in- efficiency on the part of its rector. Furthermore, there are often long periods in a rural parish when no resident rector can be had, and still the parish organization must be kept up. Too often a year without a rector leaves the rural parish feeble and discouraged and scattered, and the new rector must begin all over again to pick up the scattered threads, wasting precious months, not knowing his people, ignorant of the extent of his parish, till he sometimes becomes weary of well doing and decides to try an- other cure. Let him come into a parish where the group organization has kept the parish together, and he can go ahead gladly and enthusiastically to conquer new ground with a people who can say truly and honestly 'Our parish'. "Just let me add one bit of evidence. The f most skeptical parishioner' was asked the question as to whether he thought the group system was valuable in the city and not in the rural parish. i Valuable? Why, I think it is essential for every rural parish.' This remark comes from a man who opposed the 35 The Parish plan a year ago, and has seen but one year of operation. „ gigned _ „ At a recent Nation-wide Campaign regional con- ference it was suggested that the group captains and executive councils of neighboring country parishes might sometimes meet together for conference. The Group Secretaries In each group there should be a group secretary. This position demands persons with a deep sense of responsibility. The group secretary calls the roll at the group meeting and reports back to the group major, on cards prepared for the purpose, the names of those present at each group instruction class. The group secretary also reports to the parish secretary all changes of addresses, and twice a year visits every home in the group and corrects or verifies the parish census cards. In this way there comes to the rector, at least twice a year, a complete verification of the whole census record of the parish. Representatives of United Offering and the Little Helpers in Each Group The United Offering would become much better known and be more largely supported if in each group there was an appointed representative, who might well be a member of the parish branch of the Woman's Auxiliary. A representative in each group of the Little Helper's branch of the Auxiliary will be found most valuable. If the parish has a large membership, or is scattered over a wide extent of territory, one person can do little more than take 36 The Organization of the Parish the mite boxes around and make annual collections. There should be a more vital interest shown. The group representative should come to know the mother and the child. She should take an interest in its surroundings and its health, and, in consultation with experts in child welfare work, should see that when occasion requires the mother is wisely guided to take steps to bring the child in touch with those competent to correct any abnormality which may be discovered. It is the child rather than the mite box in which the Church should be most vitally interested. The Permanent Every-Member Canvass Committee If two laymen of experience are appointed in each group as permanent representatives of the every- member canvass, new persons coming into the parish will be brought immediately to share in the system- atic offering of the Church. The family is reported to the office of the Church by the group secretary and the group finance committee is notified. They call and explain the financial system of the Church, the items in the budget, and take the subscription for current expenses and the Nation- wide Campaign. Once each year it would be well for these representa- tives of the vestry to report to each group relative to the existing status of the Church finances, and as to the fulfilment of the Nation-wide Campaign obligation of the parish. What Can We Give the Parishioner to Do? Is it not true that many who are confirmed after- wards lapse into indifference because no worthy and 37 The Parish vital service is provided for them in the parish? Is it not also true that at times it has been found diffi- cult to find a sufficient number of really vital oppor- tunities for service to go around? The parish group organization goes far to solve this problem. In a recent confirmation class of sixteen adults, at least one half of the class were immediately assigned to service in a parish group organization. The extent to which the organization in a large parish lends it- self to this purpose is readily seen. Number of groups 17 Major of group organization 1 Captain of each, group 17 Men Lieutenants 17 Women Lieutenants 17 Boy Lieutenants 17 Girl Lieutenants 17 Group Secretaries 17 Representatives of United Offering 17 Representatives of standing committee on every-member canvass 34 Total number of workers 171 In a parish where the group organization has been made the unit of a large social service programme in a down town district, the number of group workers has been increased, as it will be in every instance where the group organization is used, as it should be, to help carry forward any parish endeavor which may be undertaken. Avoiding Group Isolation Care needs to be taken to prevent the parish groups from becoming isolated units. This can be 38 The Organization of the Parish avoided by having neighboring groups meet together occasionally in instruction classes, and by having in the parish, at least twice a year, some meeting for which all the groups are responsible and which all are asked to attend. It would also be well to have occasional meetings of the group captains and group leaders to compare notes and exchange experiences. At least once a year they should be invited to a corporate Communion. The Organization and the Organism As we began with the expression of conviction that the purpose of the organization of a parish should be to enrich and vitalize the Body of Christ, which is a living organism, being the revealing Body to-day of the Divine Life Incarnate, so we close this chapter with a harking back to this thought, which should be held as a principle of loyalty to Christ, with whose Church we are dealing. Surely the creation of a deeper fellowship, the education of the will to loyalty to His mission by the instruction method, which seeks to reach every home in the parish, all tend to minister to the building up of His Body according to His will. That this purpose may be still further fulfilled, it would be well to introduce from time to time into the group meeting classes the discussion of such subjects as "The Need for Eebuilding the Family Altar", fr Best Methods of Cultivating the Devotional Life", "The Meaning and Power of Prayer", "The Call of the Altar and Why the Call is Neglected". * These * A list of subjects suggested from group instruction classes is given in appendix, page 125. 39 The Parish subjects inay not be in the programme of study issued from headquarters, but there is vital need for their consideration and there is no question but that a serious corporate consideration of subjects which touch the springs of the human will and move it to a response to the call of the Christ will be the best possible contribution to the carrying on of any pro- gramme which may come from 281 Fourth avenue, provided place is made, as loyalty demands there should be, for the study of the official programme also by those who are called by the Church to fulfill the Mission of the Incarnate One. 40 CHAPTER III The Teaching Mission of the Church Note. — The following chapters may serve as helps in con- ducting group instruction classes dealing with the subjects men- tioned. The normal class for leaders should be taught by the parish priest, or by some person selected, appointed, and in- structed by him. A. The Divine Commission and the Church'* Responsibility "Go teach" was the commission given by the ascending Christ to His Church in which He was about to become invisibly present. There is great need to-day to revive and extend the teaching mission of the Church. The Incarnate One is asking for a voice through which to speak His Word of Authority to a world in chaos. Society is coming to realize that secular education, divorced from religious instruction, is a menace to civilization. In one of the large cities of our country the municipal Board of Education, without suggestion from the Church, recently issued a statement to the effect that the Board had come to realize that week-day secular education, divorced from week-day religious education, was failing to produce the character-development essential to good citizen- 41 The Parish ship, and offered to make provision of time for week- day religious instruction, provided the Churches would make adequate provision for high grade re- ligious week-day education in connection with the work of the public schools of the city. Babson's Statistical Eeports have, during the past year, reiterated the call to consider the need for a revival of religion. "What the country needs is not more politics, not more business, not more money, but more religion", is the closing statement contained in one of these financial reports. A recent issue of the Manufacturers' Record also contained an appeal for the revival of vital religion as a necessary safeguard to the American home, Amer- ican business, and American civilization. It must be evident, to anyone who seriously thinks, that this appeal cannot be adequately an- swered by the Church if she is content to follow now- existing methods. They may be good methods as far as they go, but they do not go far enough. Just be- cause the Church holds in trust a treasure of divinely revealed truth which she has correlated and unified in her Creeds, in the teaching system of the Christian year, in the book of Common Prayer, and in her or- dered courses for religious instruction; just because of all this there rests upon her a grave and com- pelling responsibility to "go teach" far beyond the limits of her present endeavor. The sermon on Sun- day, which is too often an ethical discourse or an his- torical essay, or an uncorrelated exhortation to goodness; the parish (Sunday) school with its one- half hour a week teaching period; an occasional 42 The Teaching Mission of the Church week-day mission study or Bible class, composed of a limited and generally comparatively small number of people, represents the average norm of religious education now being given by the Church in the average parish. The rest of the time people spend learning from other teachers. In private they may supplement the instruction given by the Church by their devotional reading and by the weekly reading of a Church newspaper or a worth-while book, but the fact remains that the rest of the time is given to learning most largely from teachers who are in the service of the world, the flesh, or the devil. The superficial and sensational magazine and novel liter- ature; New Thought books whose authors' appeal is too often addressed to the license-loving impulses of those who are already disposed to break away from the forms and institutions which create liberty by educating the will to self-restraint; the average mov- ing picture and cheap vaudeville show, the current maxims of business life born of the spirit of greed and covetousness, newspapers which applaud the pleas for selfish and self-centered nationalism, and the inane and purposeless gossip and chatter of the average pink tea or club house conversation : these and other such contributions to culture and education constitute at least a large portion of the learning to which the mind and soul of the people of our com- munities and even of our parishes are exposed during the major portion of life's waking hours. What is the result? It is life as we see it. It is inevitable. One does not speak as a pessimist. One is aware of many saving influences and welcomes certain hopeful 43 The Parish signs of a better day. One of the most encouraging symptoms is a growing spirit of noble discontent with conditions as they now exist. The Religious Education of the Young The Church Sunday school has worked under serious handicaps. It has been unable to secure the discipline which is demanded in the public schools. It has had to rely upon voluntary teaching and has not been able to require the attendance of teachers upon normal classes and has had to bring its teaching within the compass of about one-half hour a week. Then, too, in most instances it has been found almost impossible to secure the cooperation of parents in the effort to get thorough home preparation work done by the pupils. To those who, under these conditions, have patiently continued to serve as officers and teach- ers in our Church schools the Church and society owe a lasting debt of gratitude. Something additional, however, must be done to solve the problem. Week-day Religious Education Wherever the opportunity offers, the Church should take advantage of the opening to introduce week-day religious education in cooperation with the public schools, and every effort should be made to create the opportunity in every community. Where the opening is offered, it presents a high challenge to the Church, and there are certain definite things which the Church should consider when called to face the situation. (1) Adequate funds should be provided, and it should be realized that money could scarcely any- 44 The Teaching Mission of the Church where be used for a better and more vitally important cause. It has been found that this object is most appealing and that people stand ready and willing to give to it generous financial support. (2) A high-grade teacher should be secured. The teacher selected should, in ability and person- ality, rank equal with the best teachers in the public school. It will prove disastrous to the cause to have the children forced to note a striking contrast to the serious disadvantage of the Church. (3) An essential part of week-day religious edu- cation is the school of expression in which the boys and girls sew and make toys and scrap books, etc., for others. (4) The equipment should be adequate and the school-room made attractive by the use of pictures and appropriate decorations. (5) The Church should take under immediate consideration the preparation of courses of study, or the revision of now existing courses, made suitable for week-day religious schools. Attention should be given to the importance of judicious "labeling" and the wise use of terminology. It will be found that many children, not of the Church, will be attracted to the school, and it should be made possible to teach them essential truth as the Church holds it in trust without arousing suspicion and opposition by the use of terms which, until their content is understood and appreciated, would tend to arouse needless opposition. It is what is in the can and not the label on the can that nourishes life. Having grown accustomed to the content of teaching, there will cease to exist prej- 45 The Parish udice against the nomenclature which expresses it. Parents, however, with a background of erroneous conception would be led to withdraw their children from the school or withhold them from attendance if the text books contained expressions which aroused suspicion. What the Church needs to do is to give Catholic teaching, unaltered in its essential truth, but do it with the wisdom that perceives an opportunity and exercises discretion and common sense in mak- ing use of it. The need for definite teaching which will tend to link the life of youth with what is per- manent and essential in religion is imperative. The week-day school of religious education with its public school discipline and continuity of attendance will aiford a vital opportunity for constructive teaching that will build into the life of childhood strength of character, strength of conviction, and high concep- tions of true Churchmanship and citizenship. The Young People s Service of Worship The Prayer Book service of Morning Prayer was not compiled for the use of children. Parts of it came from monasteries where the life and laughter of childhood were unknown. It is a deadly process to subject the children of the Church, in mass, to this service as their introduction to the public worship. It has been often tried, but seldom with good success. The children grow restless and the grown folks impatient and critical. It has been found feasible to provide for the young people a regular service in the church edifice, preced- ing the meeting of the Church school, with a chil- 46 The Teaching Mission of the Church dreirs vested choir, a service suited to their stage of development, and an address appropriate to the ser- vice. The clergy are vested, the boys take the offering, and the congregation of scholars is trained to sing, to respond, to attention, and to reverence. Through this service the children are made familiar with the service of the Church and form the habit of Church atten- dance which follows them through after years. The service can be brought within from thirty to thirty- five minutes. On the third Sunday morning, it would be well to have the service of the Holy Communion. In a school of over 450 members, this plan has been tried for a year. At first there was serious question among the teachers as to the advisability of the experiment. At a final teachers' meeting with forty-eight officers and teachers present, the question of continuing the service was raised by the rector and the vote in favor of continuing it was enthusiastically unanimous. The General Convention might well appoint a commission to provide a special service, or services, for the use of the young people of the Church. The Extension of the Church Teaching System The organization of the parish in the group sys- tem plan outlined in the previous chapter furnishes an excellent opportunity of extending the teaching system of the Church. If the rector teaches the group normal class and prepares a syllabus for the use of the leaders, or secures adequate text books for their guidance, the teaching system becomes extended through the entire parish, provided the group officers 47 The Parish are faithful and constant in promoting attendance at the group classes. When a Part of the Parish Goes Off to School The Rev. Paul Micou, College Secretary of the Department of Religious Education, has pointed out in his book. The Church at Work in College and University, that the home parish has a vital respon- sibility for its students. He suggests that the rector should write to the rector of the Church in the col- lege town of the coming of one of his young people to the college. It is further suggested that the rector should talk with the student before leaving home, and keep personally in touch with him during the time when he is in college. Chapter XI of this book is worthy of the careful attention of every rector, and acquaintance with the whole subject, as outlined by Mr. Micou, will enable the rector to deal more ade- quately with his responsibility to those of his parish who go off to school. When it is considered that these are the years when youth changes an inherited belief for a personal faith, or for skepticism, the need for preserving this contact becomes still more compelling. These are the years, also, when decisions are formed as to life work, and when the call and claims of the sacred ministry should, through personal interviews or by correspon- dence, be presented to young men. The writer well recalls the words spoken by the rector of his boyhood : 'Do not forget while you are planning your life work that the Lord has need of men for His ministry. Let Him help you decide what you will do." 48 The Teaching Mission of the Church The Family Altar The altar where the ancient patriarchs worshipped God and offered sacrifice is the earliest symbol of institutional religion. It was a family altar. The patriarch was the priest of his own household. The later development of religion into tabernacle, tem- ple, and synagogue worship and the subsequent estab- lishment of the Christian Church were not intended to supersede this obligation of the father of the family to be the priest of his own household, or to abolish the worship bond of union between the family, which is the unit of society, and our Father God. The demands of the modern world upon time and energy, the insistent emphasis upon materialism and pleasure seeking, resulting in blinding the vision of the soul, have perhaps done nowhere a more deadly and destructive work than in their overthrow of the family altar. The removal of worship from the home has, doubtless, been the most potent element in the reduction of candidates for the ministry. The weakening of sense of responsibility and loyalty to the Church, the menace to the family through the ravages of divorce, and the noticeable disposition of young married people to withdraw from regular attendance upon the services of the Church are other effects. There has been, of late, a disposition to shift the emphasis in education from the almost exclusive training of the intellect to the necessity for educat- ing the emotions and cultivating the desires in view of their controlling influence upon the will. It is a move in the right direction, but just at this point it is to be noted that an insidious effort is now being 49 The Parish made to lay for future character building an emo- tional and affectional foundation of slush and sand. Books from the modern press and pictures from the screen are constantly appealing to the sensual nature of men and women and urging the right to give nature a more unrestricted freedom. The foundations of home life are attacked by specious arguments which appeal to the selfish and self-indulgent desires of the physical nature, while it is contended that love and life would find a fuller joy in a larger freedom from conventional restraints. The claim is advanced that the desires and will should rebel against the chains which delimit and confine what are called the natural human instincts, and in one form or an- other a reign of free love is advocated in the name of freedom. Marriage is attacked as a restraint upon liberty, unless it be allowed that it be regarded as an institution founded upon the fickle fancies of those who enter into it, to whom should be given, it is claimed, perfect freedom to change partners if stronger attractions are subsequently offered. The right of children to be born is denied when their coming would limit the opportunities for social free- dom or personal pleasure. Thus a perverted emotion- alism, a slush programme of licensed sensuality, and a debased and selfish lower love life are proposed as the future foundations of character building and home life. The fact should be faced that strong counteract- ing influences must be put into operation to safe- guard the home and society. The rebuilding of the family altar would be the strongest and surest bul- 50 The Teaching Mission of the Church wark of defense against the menacing forces which are seeking to undermine the foundations. It will be found difficult to find a time in the modern home when "f amily prayers" can be held,, and it will, doubtless, require a certain measure of re- construction to provide a time when the whole family can be together for this purpose. The father has to hurry away to business and the children to school, and often the lady of the house has breakfast in bed. Difficulties also present themselves at the other end of the day. The difficulties are not, however, in- surmountable ; and if the Church can establish in the minds of her members the heartfelt desire to re- store the family altar then the family altar will be restored. The families where the family altar ha? survived give evidence that it can be restored. In some families the practice is followed of standing in the morning when "Grace" is said before break- fast, and also at the evening meal; and the family repeat together the Lord's Prayer and the collect. "Direct us, Lord*', or some other familiar prayer. The collect for the preceding Sunday might well be used during each week and the Saints' Day collects also as they occur throughout the year. The daily recognition by the family that God is our Father and that we are dependent upon Him for guidance and help in our daily life is needed, above all else, to safe- guard and preserve the nation. A nation-wide campaign for rebuilding the family altar, if successfully prosecuted, would solve manv other nation-wide problems ; and perhaps no "League" could be formed that could be devoted to a more 51 The Parish needful and worthy purpose than a national, a dioc- esan, and a parochial league for the restoration of the "family altar". It would do more than anything else to create a continuity of God consciousness; and. as life passed on from boyhood and girlhood into manhood and womanhood and family ties became severed, memory would enshrine the altar and its associations and create a sanctuary in the soul which would often be visited by forms and faces which had vanished from human sight into realms made real to consciousness from the daily kneeling together in the long-ago home around the Throne of Grace. Group Class Instruction The group organization affords, as has been pointed out, a most excellent plan for Church teach- ing extension work. In the appendix is printed a suggested list of subjects for group class instruction. The suggestion is further made that selected books should be read and discussed at group meetings. Many parishes could well afford to purchase twenty copies of a book to be given for two weeks to the membership of a group for reading and subsequent discussion, and then passed on to other groups in succession. A list of suggested books is given in the appendix. The list has been compiled by correspon- dence with a number of leaders of Church life and thought. m7 ^ 7 _ „ The Church Newspaper Few homes are without a daily newspaper and comparatively few take a weekly Church paper. There is no better monthly review than the Spirit of Missions. The illustrations alone are worth more 52 The Teaching Mission of the Church than the annual subscription. Those who have in- vested in the Xation-wide Campaign would do well to invest further in the Spirit of Missions. It has recently been decided to enlarge the scope of its purview and make it the official magazine of all three departments of the Presiding Bishop and Council. It will thus report on the work being done in the field of Eeligious Education and Christian Social Service, as well as in the field of Missions and Church Extension, which seek, as has been said, to express the One Mission of the Church. It is to be expected that contributors to the Campaign will naturally turn to this monthly magazine to follow the progress of the work which they are helping to support and for which they have been taught to pray. In the appen- dix a list is given of the leading Church papers with price quotations, and the suggestion is made that every Church family establish this point of contact between the home and the General Church. The writer remembers taking dinner on one oc- casion with a bishop of the Church who was the proud possessor of twelve children and of one Church news- paper. During the dinner a contention arose as to which one should first have access to the Southern Churchman. The discussion finally resulted in an authoritative pronouncement of precedence in the coveted privilege. Since that Sunday, four of the family have entered the ministry of the Church and one the episcopate ; which, while perhaps not entirely due to the Church newspaper, is an interesting fact to which the information and inspiration of the paper doubtless made contribution. 53 The Parish z o H > ti ti O CO H ID H < H 2 < Q Z D ti ti O D O ti ti X H z o < ti H K o ti K o Q Z < ■ < o s e "This is My Body". "That He may dwell in us and we in Him." Proper preface for Christmas. "Made there by His one oblation of Himself once offered a full, perfect, and suffi- cient sacrifice," etc. S "By the mystery of Thy Holy In- carnation," etc., "Good Lord, de- liver us." "By Thy Fasting and Temptation ; by Thine Agony a nil B loo d y Sweat; by Thy Cross mid Pus slon ; by Thy precious Death nnd Burial . . . "Good Lord, de- liver us." 3 p S a S 5 "Thine adorable, true, and only Son . . . "Thou art the King of Glory, o Christ. • . • When Thou took- est upon Thee to deliver man. T boil didst humble Thyself to be born of a Virgin." c ~ x — — z S i «- i. — ~S- _ —c -r-a^-o A r x S |*g"gS a * « - S a . c j=- x a r •"*; M 4j z - > ? - = ~ -~> Z~ r o » Is Advent- preparation. Christmas Epiphany Expression. Preparation. Septuageslma to Ash Wednesday. LENT Good Friday a °§ z "I believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things", etc. . . . "And In one Lord J e s u s Christ . . ." through the words, "and was made man". "And was cruel- lied also for us tinder Pontius Pilate; lie suf lered mid was buried". s J es < z tf s — 3 Z B 3 Ss ft The Incarnation Baptimn The mobiliza- tion of the Body or Army Of Christ. II Sacrifice The Training of I tody or Army mobilized. 54 The Teaching Mission of the Church "We bless Thy holy name for all Thy servants de- parted." "Exalt us to ev- erlasting life." Proper prefaces for Easter and Ascension Day. Proper preface for Whitsunday. "That we may do all such good works as Thou hast prepared for us to walk in." "By Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension . . . "Good Lord, de- liver us." "By the coming of the Holy Ghost . . . "We beseech Thee to rule and govern Thy Holy Church universal "Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all be- lievers. . . . "Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory. "Thou sittest at the right hand of God in glory" "T h e glorious company of the Apostles praise Thee. "The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowle dge Thee; "The Father . . . Son . . . and Holy Ghost". Preparation, Lent and Easter-Eve. Easter Ascension Day Sundays after Easter and As- cension. Whitsunday Expression, Sun- days after Trin- ity. "And the third day He rose . . . ascended into heaven, and sit- teth on the right hand of the Father : And He shall come again . . . to judge. . . . And I look for the resurrec- tion of the dead : and the life of the world to come." "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life . . . and I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church . . . and I ac- knowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins". Ill Eternal Life Divine equipment and Leadership of Body or Army mobil- ized. The Mission of the Church To carry on. 55 The Parish Key To Diagram The Four Great Fundamentals of divine revelation and of Church teaching are: ( 1 ) The Incarnation. (2) The Divine Sacrifice. (3) The Revelation of Eternal Life. (4) The Mission of the Church as the Body of Christ. To these four fundamentals the Nicene Creed bears witness and is, therefore, a complete and sufficient statement of Christian Faith. The Christian year is devoted to setting forth and inculcating these fundamental truths, each great truth being commemorated by an outstanding day in the Chris- tian year, each of these days being preceded by a season of preparation and followed by a season of contemplation; as, for example, Christmas, which bears perennial witness to the Divine Incarnation, is preceded by the Advent Season, which seeks to prepare the Church for the Christ- mas message, and is followed by the Sundays after Christ- mas and the Epiphany Season, which call upon life to give expression to the Truth received. The last three columns in the chart show how these four great fundamental truths inspire the worship of the Church in Te Deum, Litany, and Eucharist. The reader would do well to note also how these four fundamental truths inspire and find expression in the whole of the litur- gical worship of the Church. B. Teaching the Fundamentals The individual Churchman would do well to re- member that the Church is a wise and experienced teacher of truth. She has passed through many ex- periences. Before a word of the New Testament was written, she was the constant companion and friend of Jesus of Nazareth. She listened to His teachings, 56 The Teaching Mission of the Church witnessed His miracles. His temptations, and His victories; she followed Him to the Mount where He was transfigured, went with Him as a witness into Gethsemane, stood "afar off'"" as they crucified Him, walked with Him after His resurrection, and heard Him speak "of the things concerning the Kingdom of God". She stood with Him upon the Mount of Ascension and received His blessing and His final commission. "Go teach."'" He said, but He also said. "I will teach you. 77 I will be your authority. My truth-teaching and life-giving Spirit will be given to you, and "He will guide you into all truth. 77 The Churchman should remember that all along the way from ancient Pentecost until to-day He, "The Spirit of Truth 77 , has been a living, guiding, and inspiring Presence in the Church; that the truth she holds has been sifted out and considered by the great Ecu- menical Councils : that it has met and contended with the great philosophies of the ages, and has helped to interpret and make real the truth that is in them, and thrown a guiding light upon the path of human thought; that the Church, though often the misguided adversary to scientific investigation, has finally yielded to the truly scientific spirit, has come to welcome the investigation of all reverent science, and has reached the conviction that there can be no conflict between true science and true theology. The Churchman should realize that the truth held by the Church Corporate is a thousand times more apt to be true than the Xew Thought cults of our modern day, and that it is better balanced than the systems of religion which are currently taught, divorced from 57 The Parish their continuity and their place in what we might call the family of truth. It would require a book on theology, or indeed several books, to set forth these fundamental truths in their completeness. Such books are available and should be better known than they are by the average American Churchman. Attention is here only called to the fact that the Churchman has, and should hold to, this heritage, and that he holds most closely to it who most completely hands it on to others. The diagram given shows the truths that the Church holds to be fundamental, in their relation to the faith and worship of the Church. A few notes are appended in explanation. The diagram, as an outline of in- struction, has been used in conducting a class on Christian Fundamentals at one of the Summer Schools for Church Workers. It is given with the hope that it may be of use to other teachers in Church schools or group classes, and with the further hope that it may help fix in the minds of Churchmen the richness of their heritage, and its relation not alone to their faith and worship but to their vocation as character builders also. The four fundamental truths of revealed religion and of Church teaching given in the diagram are the four fundamentals of the Christian faith, as contained in the Nicene Creed. The Incarnation The doctrine of the Incarnation is the Church's expression of her faith in God. It should be noted that the section of the Creed which expresses our faith 58 The Teaching Mission of the Church in God begins with the words. "I believe in God", and extends through the words, "'and was made man." This is the first fundamental and most distinctive truth of the Christian religion. It differentiates Christianity from the ethnic religions and from all un-Christian systems. It is the declaration of the fact that Christ was not simply the incarnation of the Gos- pel which He taught, but of God — being, as the Creed expresses it. "of one substance with the Father*, "God of God and Light of Light"'. Being the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, we are taught that He is still God and man. Thus our nature and life and destiny are inseparably united with God, and God is inseparably united with man, sharing his pain and participating in his sorrow and grief and lifting him through struggle into the fellowship of the divine life. The Incarnation is the revelation of God's self-giving and self-revealing nature, and the revela- tion is through our nature — and, therefore, in terms that we can understand. But it is not yet complete and will not be until the Father is known by and revealed through all His children. This process of continued revelation is committed to the Church, which is a divinely constituted and divinely commis- sioned Body in which Christ continues to incarnate Himself, and which is. therefore, called in scripture the "'Body of Christ"'*. Of this Body we who have been baptized into His nature are members. Out of this fact grows our responsibility and from it flows our life and conquering power. "We are His wit- nesses ; His revealers. The ^Mission of the Church is His Mission. TVe are His Missioners. The Gos- 59 The Parish pels give us the record of what Jesus "began to do and teach until the day in which He was taken up". His Body, the Church, has been continuing the history of His life, for as Prophet, Priest, and King, and Head of His Church, His life and leadership have been continuous. Each generation writes a new chapter in the history of the life of Christ, and to the chapter now being written every member of Hi? Body is called to make contribution. The Gospel of the Incarnation which is most read and best under- stood of men is the Gospel according to us. "Ye are my witnesses." The chart indicates how the fundamentals are the basis of the faith of the Church expressed in the Creed, and of the worship of the Church voiced in the Litany and Te Deum. The service of the Holy Com- munion is a continuous expression and application of these four fundamental truths. There is not space in the diagram to indicate this fact in full, which is self-evident throughout the Communion Ser- vice. The teacher of the fundamental truths should analyze the Communion Service and point out how the Incarnation, the doctrine of sacrifice, the gift and presence of eternal life, and the Mission of the Church to "do all such good works as Thou hast prepared for us to walk in" run like golden threads through the whole Eucharistic Service of the Church. 60 The Teaching Mission of the Church Sacrifice As the Incarnation is God's continuous call for the * mobilization of humanity into the Body of Christ, which is often described in the Bible as an army, so the second fundamental, "Sacrifice", is the Training Camp for the mobilized army. Into it Christ entered and subjected Himself to continuous discipline; and learned obedience through the things which He suffered. The Cross has been the symbol of His life through all eternity. He has been "the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world". He is still. And as such we shall behold Him at the last. The Cross is the symbol of our most holy religion. Its message has ever been the hardest Gospel message for man to receive. It challenges and develops the faith of the Church. It points to the only way which God has opened into the endless vistas of eternal life. St. Paul is constantly voicing the appeal to the Church to live through the experiences of Christ, and the Christ Himself said, "If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me." It is only as we "are crucified with Him" that we are raised into the fellowship of His risen and ascended life. As we lose our life in service, we find it in the fulness of salvation. * The writer is aware of the fact that this comparison was used in the outline of the Christian Tear in Chapter 1. The Creed is the faith expression of the Church, based on the teach- ing given in the Christian Tear. The repetition is for the purpose of reenforcement of the thought taught by the Church in Creed, in Christian Year, in Te Deum, Litany, and Eucharist. 61 The Parish Eternal Life Now and Hereafter The third fundamental, the revelation of "Eter- nal Life", is the divine panoply and equipment for the mobilized and disciplined army of Christ. We do not have to die to reach and win eternal life, for "God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son, and He that hath the Son of God hath eternal life" now. It is the power in which we conquer temptations, overcome obstacles, win the vic- tory, and triumph over death. "There is no death; what seems so is but transition." The Holy Spirit and the Mission of the Church The fourth fundamental is the revealed "Mission of the Church". The Body, or Army, mobilized, trained, and equipped, must "carry on". This is the "expression" * side of our faith. We cannot know truth until we live it and give it to others. In giv- ing the revelation to others the light of revelation glows more brightly in the self-giving life. The Glory of God Himself is revealed in His continual and bounteous self-giving. This is the philosophy of the divine life. A denial of faith in the Mission of the Church is a confession of ignorance as to the very nature of God Himself. When the Christ said, "Go ye", in giving His commission to His Church, He was pointing not alone to the path of duty but to the way of life for the souls of men, for * Modern pedagogy reiterates the maxim : "Every im- pression demands an expression," which is but a restatement of the teaching of Jesus : "Not every one that saith ... but he that doeth the will of My Father shall enter into the King- dom of Heaven." 62 The Teaching Mission of the Church knowledge of God comes ever through obedience and through the expression of His life incarnate in His Body, of which we are members. C. The Great Essentials As the living water from the hidden mountain sources makes and uses channels through which to flow as it fulfils its mission in its journey back to the sea, even so the Divine Life has chosen and makes use of channels by which it communicates itself to man. These essential channels are all, like the In- carnation itself, divinely appointed means for re- vealing and imparting the Life of God to the children of God that they may have life more abundantly. Being divinely ordained, they are generally necessary to human salvation, for salvation is the divine process of enabling man to become all that God purposes that he should be. These great essentials of the Christian religion are, therefore, of vital concern to human life and cannot be neglected without jeopardizing the life of the soul. Their rightful use unites the life of man with the Life of God and imparts to him the richness of his inheritance revealed and pledged through the Divine Incarnation, the Divine Sacrifice, the Divine Gift of Eternal Life, and the divine and human act by which man is incorporated and sus- tained, in the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Holy Baptism The divinely instituted means through which hu- man life is incorporated into the Body of Christ is 63 The Parish the sacrament of Holy Baptism. The teaching of the Church is that baptism is the beginning of a con- tinuous process which brings and keeps the life of man in contact and correspondence with the vital and divine environment of the soul. It is into the very life and nature of Christ, the divine and ever-living Son of God, that human life is baptized. The soul thus enters into its inheritance. In the service the will of the Father, His Xew Testament, is read to the child in the presence of witnesses and sponsors. The child is made a party to a covenant and is sealed, as the covenant is sealed, with the Sign of the Cross. in token that it will share in and express the corporate life of the Church which is divinely imparted to that Body of which the person baptized is now made a member. The sponsors are charged to see that the channels of communication between God and the soul of the child are kept open and that the child be taught to believe, and to obey, and then be brought to the bishop to be confirmed in the holy faith. In con- firmation a developed and personal faith is divinely blessed and strengthened; and. because the obliga- tions of renunciation, of faith and obedience, become more intimately personal, a more intimate and per- sonal contact with the Source of life and power is offered to the child of God. The door is opened to the Sacrament of Sustentation. The soul is admitted into fellowship with Christ through the sacred mys* tery of His Life imparted to His Body, the Church, through the Communion of His Body and Blood. The sacred obligation of sponsors in baptism is 64 The Teaching Mission of the Church too often lightly regarded or entirely forgotten. If all who have become sponsors and if all who have come as parents with children to the Font were mind- ful of their trust, the whole life of the Church would be enriched and empowered. They would be mindful of the compelling power of example and would see that the standards of loyalty were maintained. As it now is, every parish priest is aware of the fact that the insurmountable handicap which he faces in his endeavor to inculcate loyalty in the lives of the younger members of the Church and in the newly confirmed lies in the laxness and disloyalty of older people to their covenanted obligations. The young look about them and, being keenly observant, copy the example set them by parents, sponsors, and others whom the young regard as representative of what a Churchman is expected to do in fulfilment of con- firmation vows and other Church obligations and privileges. No lesson taught from pulpit, in con- firmation class, or in the Church school can possibly overcome this baneful influence of a disloyal example set before the younger members of Christ's Holy Church. If, when the question arose (and it forms the evil habit of arising), "Shall I go to church to- day?" the Churchman would decide it, not in the light of personal impulse or desire but in the light of his responsibility as a witness to his faith and in view of his responsibility to set an example to the young of loyalty to Christ and His Church, there would soon come a marked improvement in the wit- ness-bearing power of the whole Church. The priest- hood cannot teach the right way and the people, by 65 The Parish their example, the wrong way, with the expectation that the young will follow the teaching of the priest rather than the example of the grown people, espec- ially the example of negligent parents and sponsors. The Holy Communion The Approach Once in the long ago, centuries longer than most of us imagine, the earth was covered for the first time with the myriad-hued beauty of the flowers and the air was filled with their fragrance. Had they bloomed for one brief summer and then gone away forever, and had there been left as a memorial of them naught save a book on botany and bottled es- sence of their perfume, could we have ever known the loveliness of the flowers or the sweetness of their fragrance? But God did not make the flowers to die and to be made known to future ages in that way. He ordained that they should have life in them- selves and, as the centuries come and go, at each glad spring time He sends the flowers themselves, that we may see and know their loveliness and bend over them and breathe into our lives the sweetness of their fragrance. He gives continuity and perennial life to the flowers and speaks through them of the hidden beauty of invisible color wrapped in the mystic wonder of the sunbeams which enter into their life, making the flowers witnesses of the hidden glory of light; so that the violet tells us of the purple sunlight's ray, the rose of its crimson color, while the sunflower speaks of the hidden golden glow which lies latent in 66 The Teaching Mission of the Church a beam of light. If thus, through the centuries, God brings to us the continuity of the revelation of the sunshine glory through the loveliness of the liv- ing flowers, what should we expect as to the method through which He would give the revelation of Him- self? Would we expect to find it in a book alone? Would we look for an Incarnate revelation that would last upon earth for a few brief years and then van- ish, leaving the Gospel record alone as the witness of the altogether loveliness, of the matchless beauty, of the perfect life and glory of the Incarnate One? No ! We would expect Him who made the flowers to live through the centuries, and who sends them to us in the beauty of perennial loveliness, to give continu- ity also to the revelation of the Divine Life and Love. Yet how few there are who live in the glow and gladness of His continuous revelation of Himself with the appreciation which is manifested towards the flowers and other revelations of nature. We who would not turn to books on botany to know the beauty of flowers, but go to revel in the glory of their color in the gardens and fields of nature, too often turn to the Bible as the almost exclusive revelation of the living and ever present God. He does not live in books or creeds which bear witness to Him and record His acts of goodness to the children of men. He comes to us through living channels of divine ap- pointment, and when He finds human life in an atti- tude of receptivity He enters in and incarnates Him- self there. Then, as the flowers tell us of the myriad colors enfolded in a white ray of light, giving through their color the revelation of the sunshine enfolded 67 The Parish in them, so we also are called to be the witnesses of the Incarnate Christ. In the sacred service of which we are about to speak, in ways wonderful and mystical the Living Christ incarnates His glorified human and divine life in the life of His Body, the Church. Having imparted His Living Presence, He bids us remember that we are to Him as the flowers are to the sunshine. Many who do not read the Bible record of His revela- tion will read the witness which human life gives of the Divine Presence, and, having been impressed by the revelation of God embodied and expressed through the human, will turn to the Book as men turn from flower gardens to books on botany. This approach has been chosen to the consideration of the Euchar- ist, because it is suggestive of the continuity of rev- elation through life. God's thought and life com- municated through the Holy Communion does not invite a logical but rather the biological approach to its apprehension. The supreme mysteries of life call rather for the exercise of reverence and faith and for an atmosphere which transcends the formal processes of syllogistic reasoning. The Scripture Witness The reader is asked to note the two explicit state- ments that are made in scripture and quoted here, relative to the "Body of Christ". St. Matthew 26:26 ") St. Mark 14:22 ')■ "THIS IS MY BODY." St. Luke 22 : 19 J t n° T ' ll'nt \ "YE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST." I Cor. 12:27 j 68 The Teaching Mission of the Church Phil. 3:21 -The Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall change our vile body, that- it may be fashioned like unto his glor- ious body,, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." St. John 15:5 "I am the vine,, ye are the branches." St. John 6:53-56 "Then Jesus said unto them. Verily, verily I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man. and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day. "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. •"He that i iteth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me. and I in him," Col. 1:24 "Fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church." (Read also verses 25 and 26. St. John 12:32 "And I. if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." I Cor. 11:26 ""For as often as ye eat this bread. and drink this cup. ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.'-* The Holy Mystery There is no teaching office of the Church more potent than the Holy Communion, or so personal. In this act of divine worship the Divine Teacher im- parts to His Body, the Church, all fundamental truth. because He imparts Himself, who is the Truth to which the Catholic Creeds bear witness. Truth can 69 The Parish never be fully known until it is received into life and becomes a part of life's experience. Discourses and treatises on life cannot create life, nor can they im- part it. It must be communicated and lived to be experienced and known. This is why Christ did not confine His teaching to the inspiration of a Book, but chose the Incarnation method of self-revelation and continues to use this method of communicating Truth. He organized a living body for His contin- uous and progressive incarnation, that our life might be the witness of His life. Then, in order that we might have His life to witness to, through our life, He communicates Himself to His Body, the Church. The power of words to portray the mystic wonder of this service is almost impotent. Divine truth is transcendent. All that is witnessed to in the Catholic Creeds and taught in Advent, at Christmas, in Lent, on Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, and Trinity Sunday is communicated here. These are witnesses and summaries of fundamental truth: but He who said, "This is my Body", is Himself the Fundamental, Living, and Incarnate Truth. Take Me, He says, into your life that I may illumine it, glorify it, transfigure it, and shine through it to be the Light of the World. Thus the Holy Com- munion imparts the Living Truth, to which the Christian year bears witness, to the living Church for the creation of Christian life and character; to enable us to be living witnesses to the Christ, who incarnates Himself in His Body, the Church. It is not an organization that is called to come to the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, 70 The Teaching Mission of the Church but an organism, the Corporate Body of Christ. We come making symbolic gifts. ( 1 ) The congregation offers and presents through the priest the elements of bread and wine for the consecration. (2) The congregation offers and presents through the priest the offertory which represents the stored-up personality of the worshippers; and this alone, to- gether with the Book which contains the compiled faith and devotion of the Church and the Word of God, and the Elements to be consecrated, is allowed by the Law of the Church to be placed on the altar. (3) Then the "Body of Christ" says, "Here we offer and present unto Thee, Lord, ourselves, our «ouls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee/"' This, then, is our offering and oblation. The Christ offers Himself in the real and glori- fied fulness of His Divine and human Presence. The glorified and ascended Body of Christ is communicated to His militant, pilgrim, and witness-giving Body. Thus the Incarnation is extended. The real and eternally glorious cr Body of Christ", spoken of at the altar, is communicated to the real and militant "Body of Christ' 7 kneeling at the altar rail, thus extending His Incarnation and also extending the Divine Sac- rifice. If the Churchman will accept by faith these two statements of our most holy faith and make them both real in his own life, the teaching power and the vital call of the Holy Communion will be made known to him. There are many who insist upon the reality of the words spoken at the altar when the 71 The Parish priest says, "This is my Body", and there are many others who insist that the words, "The Church is His Body", are not a figure of speech but the ex- pression of a reality also. Why not take both asser- tions as being equally real? They represent the "Body of Christ" in different stages of manifestation, but they are both words of divine revelation and are, therefore, both words of reality and truth. The Holy Communion was given that the two realities might be made one. The Communion does not alter or change the glorified "Body of Christ". It does seek to alter and change the militant and pilgrim "Body of Christ". It seeks to make an at-one-ment between the two. He who believes the Nicene Creedal state- ment of the Divine Incarnation in the sinful nature of man should find this thought of the continued and real incarnation, through communion, a thought full of real significance and truth, for thus "He who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven and was incarnate" continues to come down to become real flesh and blood, actually and visibly present in the world in and through His Body, the Church. The vine does not cease to be the vine when its life passes into the branches "that they may bring forth more fruit", nor does His body cease to be "His Body" when it becomes embodied in the living organism, the Church, which is His continuous Body, called and thus empowered to make His Incarnation and sacrifice continuously real and visible to the life of the world. Thus He who is unchangeably incarnate in His glorified humanity becomes continuously and progressively incarnate in 72 The Teaching Mission of the Church His pilgrim Body, which is thus destined to be also "a glorious Body without spot or wrinkle or any such thing". There is a natural disposition of mind and rever- ence to associate the Presence of Christ with the altar covered with pure linem illumined and cross crowned. The natural dis230sition to adoration tends to fix and exclusively localize Him there. The thought of His coming down into "His Body"'" kneeling at the altar rail, and entering into that Body, at first seems anti-climactic. Our thought and faith are challenged, as was the thought of Xeo-Platonic philosophy. This philosophy could not bring itself to accept the idea of a personal incarnation of God in human nature. It said. An idea, a thought, can become incarnate, but God Himself could not. for human nature is sinful and the sinless Christ could not assume it. This erroneous conception of applied Xeo-Platonic phi- losophy was responsible for creating more than one heresy in the Christian Church, and persists in its subtle hold upon human thought. The Christian revelation, to the contrary, is that Christ, without sin. did and does dwell in sin-cursed human nature and sinlessly incarnates Himself in it that He may "make us sons of God"' and "'exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before"". A: first — when the thought is presented of Christ's Body passing in sacramental mystery from the pure whiteness of the altar into the mottled and sin-stained life of humanity at the altar rail — at first one shrinks back as though one was losing something, as though there was a lowering of the idea and concept of 73 The Parish Christ's Exalted Presence. A certain fear of a van- ishing Christ possesses the thought. It seems at first a lowering of that which inspired adoration, for we, with our consciousness of sin and unworthiness, are kneeling at the altar rail. Think further into a still deeper faith and adoration. What takes place is the revelation of Christ's continuous condescen- sion, of His continuous coming down from the throne to the manger. This is the glory of Divine Love. It is continuously self -giving, self-incarnating. This further thought should, therefore, increase rather than detract from the feeling of awe and adoration with which we approach Him who condescends to approach and enter into us that we may become the extended Body of His divine and continuous con- descension, and incarnation, and revelation. A comparison may help to the fuller realization of this truth. Electricity is enfolded and embodied in visible matter. When matter is thrown into the crucible and purified, electricity is released and sub- limated and passes into realms of invisibility, from which it returns to pulse through the wires which carry the telegraph and telephone message, or comes in the power current that runs the car or illumines the home. Even so, in ways more vital and more mystical, the Christ, who was visibly and perfectly incarnate, passed through crucifixion into the sub- limated and glorified life of His resurrected and ascended Body, in which He returns in Holy Sac- rament and by other channels of His choosing and appointment, to quicken and empower His Body, the Church, to transmit through this Body of His 74 The Teaching Mission of the Church continuous incarnation the messages of His revela- tion and to pulse His power through His visible human Body that it may do His will and be His witness. Therefore the communicant should, with a vision of the joy which is set before him also, say. as we are called to say in the service of the Holy Communion, "Here we offer and present unto Thee, Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reason- able, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee — that we may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ — and be made one body with Him, that He may dwell in us, and we in Him." Then when "His Body" is communicated to His Body, the Church, His Church is forthwith sent, or rather led, by Him whither He Himself led the first fruits of our humanity, in which He became incarnate that, His incarnation being continuous. His sacrifice and service may be continuous also. The thought which is here presented is not gen- erally perceived and its challenge to the Church is, therefore, not generally appreciated. It is, however, of vital concern that it should be. The act of gazing upon the mysteries present on the altar with an in- ward awe and with adoration is not a complete and sufficient act of worship in the Holy Eucharist, The act of reception does not complete the service or begin to measure the Churchman's responsibility. Where Christ communicates His Glorified Body to His militant Body, the Church, He says, "And I, if 1 be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Take up your cross and follow Me. Fill up, through the sacrifice of My pilgrim Body, that which was 75 The Parish extensively lacking in My perfect and complete sacri- fice offered upon Calvary *. Just what does He mean? Why, He means just what He says. He means that on Calvary the first fruits, the earnest of our humanity, were lifted in perfect and complete self-giving on the cross into the glory of an endless life; but He means also that His whole Body must die with Him that it may also live with Him. Now, if we accustom ourselves to think of the Church as the real and true Body of Christ for the extension of His incarnation, so that the "first fruits" may be extended to embrace God's whole harvest field of human life, then the thought of the continuous living sacrifice constantly made, through the real and true offering of His Body, the Church, will become real to us also. His Body, the Church, cannot, how- ever, make this continuous oblation and sacrifice of itself unless He who took bread and brake it and gave it to them saying, "This is my Body", communicates His glorified Body to His militant, pilgrim Body, the Church, and Himself leads it into Gethsemane and up to Calvary. He cannot, however, sacrifice His pilgrim Body without the consent of its own will. He, there- fore, who passed into Gethsemane and there won the victory of Calvary as He prayed, fr N~ot my will, but thine, be done," calls His Church to follow Him. In our Gethsemanes He stands with us. He says again, "If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me." You are My Body, He says to His Church, but * Col. 1 : 24. 76 The Teaching Mission of the Church you have a will that must be crucified before My Body can be lifted up. "Will you will My will and offer yourselves as I offered Myself? If so. then in My power, communicated to you, lift My Church, which is My Body, to the cross. Make My sacrifice a living, continuous, and compelling sacrifice, and draw men unto Me through self-giving made in the power of My communicated life to My continuous Body, the Church. In this sense we dare use the word and say. He calls us to •'•transubstantiate''', to con- vert His Body, communicated into the very flesh and blood of His living Body, the Church, that *'\His Body"' may turn from the altar rail to be lifted up in continued sacrifice in factories, in homes, among the poor, and in every place, and His life outpoured for the redemption of the world. Thus by every cross that is lifted up upon which His Body, the Church, is '•'crucified with Christ", will men be drawn unto Him. To-day as of old the world cries, '''Come down from the Cross*', but to-day He who continued to hang there calls to His Body, the Church, to follow Him through crucifixion into the fulness of life eternal. This is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus voiced in every service of the Holy Communion. It is a sacred Eucharist because He who there calls His Body to continuous self-giving, and to death with Him upon the Cross, continues there to impart His glorified Body to His Body in its pilgrimage that it may be empowered to give the continuous revela- tion of His Presence and of His continuous will to sacrifice. The continuous living sacrifice is made 77 The Parish possible by the continuous incarnation. The cross on the altar; the glorified Christ present in His Body there and then communicated to His Body at the altar rail, and after that the crosses set up along the way of life's pilgrimage, point and lead the way to the victory that overcometh the world. Holy Orders If the reader has become imbued with the con- sciousness that the Church is the living Body of the Christ whose Presence is thus made continuous and whose life is thus continuously communicated, then the truth which the Church holds and teaches relative to Holy Orders will be not only easy to accept but will appear, as it is, of necessary consequence. The first truth relative to Holy Orders is that the ministry of the Church is of divine appointment. As life and truth come down from above, so also must come the authority by which they are communicated to and covenanted with man. Therefore, we take not the office and orders of the Holy Ministry upon ourselves, but are called and chosen and set apart under the authority vested by Christ in His Church, and be- come, as the scriptures say, the ambassadors of Christ. This fact is clearly stated in the Ordinal which pre- faces the Services of Ordination and is found on page 509 of the Book of Common Prayer and should not only be read by but known by every Churchman. It should also be remembered that for over half a century before any book of the Xew Testament had been written the ministry was in existence and was engaged in communicating to the Body of Christ the 78 The Teaching Mission of the Church things which, after His resurrection, He taught "con- cerning the Kingdom of God". By reason of the fact that the Church, as the Body of Christ, is called to offer itself continuously that through His Body He may continue to be lifted up, it was divinely ordained that congregations of Christian people, as well as ordered bishops, should take part in setting men aside through ordination to the priesthood. What the priest says and does in pre- senting and representing Christ to the people must be by Christ's order and appointment; but when he voices the offering of the people, as the Body of Christ, when through the priest they say, "Here we offer and present unto Thee, Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee", then he must of necessity speak with the consent of and by the vested authority of the people. This is why the laity are associated with the bishops in setting apart the men called into the priest- hood of the Church, and this is why the congrega- tion, through its vestry, gives assent to the ordination of men from its membership and also shares with the bishop the responsibility of giving them a cure over souls through the call extended to the rectorship of a parish. The second truth relative to Holy Orders which should also be self-evident to all who have accepted the truth that the Church is the continuous Body of Christ, is that in the ministry there must be an unbroken continuity of succession. We are not here concerned with the controversial theories and discus- sions which arise relative to this truth in its appli- 79 The Parish cation and its implications. The Catholic Church has always held and taught the fact of the succession of order and of life in and through its ordained minis- try. It is a witness to the continuity of the Body of Christ and a continuous witness also to the truth committed by Christ to His Church when He com- missioned her to preach His Gospel, make disciples, and minister to men the sacraments of life. The Holy Bible The writer has asked the Rt. Rev. David L. Ferris, formerly rector of Christ Church, Rochester, N". Y., now Suffragan Bishop of Western 2sew York, to write the following contribution on "The Devotional Use of the Bible". Bishop Ferris has for a number of years been the teacher of one of the largest men's Bible classes in the Church. He has been exception- ally successful in training his congregation in system- atic Bible reading and has for some time been fur- nishing, at the request of The Living Church, the suggested outline of daily Bible readings which through this paper have been given to the Church. "The Devotional Use of the Bible" By the Rt. Rev. David L. Ferris, D.D. Bishop Suffragan of Western Xew York "We yield our assent to the inspired Source of the Bible, and of its great value in the devotional life; but comparatively few of us can truly say with the Psalmist: Lord, what love have I unto Thy law: all the day long is my study in it. The persistent, habitual use of the Bible in daily devotions is very 80 The Teaching Mission of the Church rare. The explanation is simple. The people are not taught general!} 7 how to use the Bible to their own spiritual refreshment. Such knowledge is either assumed or overlooked. I have been privileged to demonstrate that men and women will read their Bible devotionally if intelligently guided. The Bible is too large a book, its themes too diverse, its literary forms too varied, for one reasonably to expect that it will continue to be read with interest and devotion without some definite guidance in method. "There are various ways in which we may profit- ably read the Bible with sincere and persistent appli- cation. One may profitably select one particular book, such as one of the Gospels, studying it through for the time to the exclusion of all others. One may study its great characters both for inspiration and warning; or one may trace its manifold themes through different books. For some time I have fol- lowed the last method. Beginning with Advent 1916, I have published without break in my parish calendar 'Daily Bible Readings', in harmony with teachings of the Christian Year. On the following Sunday my Sermon has generally been based upon the Readings which priest and people were following during the week. This demanded expository preaching, the most difficult method there is and one of the most blessed. If only our clergy knew how valuable it is for them as well as for those committed to their care, I am confident there would be more consecrated effort in that direction. "In the appointed Scriptures for each Sunday of the year are outstanding lessons bound to those pre- 81 The Parish ceding and to those following by the continuity of Church teaching. Other portions of Scripture may readily be found to illustrate these lessons, and when these are week after week presented to the congrega- tion, with a thoughtful summary in the Sunday morn- ing sermon, the habit will be formed in the lives of many devout persons of systematic Bible reading, changing from the sense of obligation into that of joy. Thus will the Christian garner daily strength for his day's needs, as the Israelites gathered the daily supply of manna. I am permitted to know that such a plan can be made to succeed: that gradually the members of a congregation will adopt the method of daily reading when they are assured of weekly help and teaching, and only as some such method is adopted in the individual parish can the entire Church in time be reached. The subject appears of sufficient importance to justify the hope that the Presiding Bishop and Council may be guided to prepare daily Bible readings and publish them in such quantities that they will be within the reach of the entire Church." D. L. F. Faith Faith is personal trust and Christian faith is the personal trust of the soul of man in God revealed in the Incarnation. It is the bond of union between man and God by which we win the victory that over- cometh the world. It is radically different from in- tellectual belief which asks "how" and "why" and is constantly changing. Intellectual belief asks how God made the world and has given many answers to 82 The Teaching Mission of the Church the question. Faith believes "in God the Father Al- mighty, Maker of heaven and earth", and leaves Him to make the world as it pleases Him and leaves the mind of man free to investigate and find out the method of His creation. Faith is rooted in person- ality and the four great fundamentals are all the revelation of the personal God. Prayer Prayer is also rooted in personality and is instinc- tively born out of our personal relation with God. It is communion. It is also cooperation. God in His use of the Incarnation finds the human at its highest when the human prays. Why may not prayer be the association of the divine presence and power with the sublimated human in and through which God goes forth to help and heal and comfort? Thus He may use human love and friendship and the heart that cares, reaching the one for whom inter- cession is made by the human touch; making that one conscious of friend or mother; stirring some for- gotten resolution ; awakening some slumbering aspira- tion created in the soul by the intercourse and com- panionship of other days, for "it is God who worketh in us both to will and perform His good pleasure". And we believe He thus works through the prayer life of His Church. Other Essentials The public worship of the Church is essential to Christian nurture and the Christian witness. This subject is considered in another chapter. 83 The Parish Holy Matrimony Right conceptions of and a high regard for Holy Matrimony are surely essential to the creation and preservation of the home as the divinely appointed unit of society. The corrective for the evils of divorce and the divorce evil, as well as the essential safeguards to personal and social purity, can be found nowhere save in the application of the truths of the Incarna- tion, the call to sacrifice, and the far perspective of the truth of eternal life and eternal love to these problems by the teaching Church. Love cannot last through married life unless it is divine love to start with. This love entering into the human meets con- stantly much in the human man and woman which must be overcome, or else the love itself will be over- come. It is essential, therefore, that married love be constantly sustained by divine contacts. Quarrels and differences can and should be made to vanish in the perspective which opens down love's long vis- tas when these vistas are daily illumined by bed- side prayers. Selfishness and self-will can be con- quered and made to give place to love's greater rich- ness and beauty through sacraments and devotions participated in by man and wife. If from the altar in the Church the newly married would turn to the altar in the home and keep the lights ever burning there, then the currents of love divine would keep fresh and beautiful love's dream, love's hope, and love's fruition. Surely one of the divinely appointed means for the education and enrichment of life is the child in the midst. The mother bending over the cradle is the 84 The Teaching Mission of the Church constant reproduction of the Bethlehem picture of the Madonna and her child. No education received at college and university gives to life the enrichment and to character the depth of training which comes to those who consecrate themselves to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Sacrifice here arises into realms of devotion and the gladsomeness of God's great love is revealed to the soul in the music of childhood's rippling laughter. The meaning and understanding of the Divine Fath- erhood is apprehended through the human relation- ship which is established when from afar there comes the child. Then if perchance, having come, it stays but a little while and turns back home again, even then the word "home" finds a deeper meaning and life a new-found treasure, for then God's Paradise comes to be a nearer and a dearer place because of life's treasures there, for where life's treasures go the heart turns also. Thus through sacraments, through the word of His revelation, through the ministry of divine ap- pointment, by faith and prayer, by love's revelation in human relationship, and by the worship which lifts the heart up to God, the life and destiny of man are linked by golden chains and living channels into the life of the Eternal Father through Jesus Christ our Lord. These are the things men live by. In the quest for reality in religion the Churchman should seek to make vital in his own life the relation of his soul to these fundamentals of divine truth. Let not the inability to understand the mystery by which they 85 The Parish are enfolded hinder the quest of the soul. We are not asked fully to understand. Religion transcends the intellect: it is a life and a living process. We find the reality of truth through experience, and exchange a second-hand, or inherited, belief for a vital faith as we walk with God along the way of life. Just because we see and know the glory, love, and beauty of His life, we instinctively stretch out the helping hand and give heart and treasure and life to give others also the chance of knowing and serving Him. Some day we shall know. To-day we see through a darkened glass and trust and worship and serve. The light shines upon the path that leads us home and, even when it is dark, the darkness increases our faith by making us know that we cannot find the way or walk alone. Thus out of the dark- ness rises the prayer which ever deepens human faith, the prayer which pleads, "Lead Thou me on." To-day, perhaps, the Christ within us hears this cry from some child of God out in the darkness. His impulse is to go to the rescue, but He depends on us who are the hands and feet of His Body. The cry of the world from out of the darkness will be answered when His Body is responsive to His Will. 86 CHAPTER IV Church Teaching and the Reconstruction Problem Never, perhaps, in the whole course of her his- tory has the Church been faced by more vital and important problems than those which now challenge her thought and her will to sacrifice and to serve. The platitudes of ultra-conservatism will not help the situation. Eadical pronouncements which seek to throw overboard compass and chart and run the ship by new theory devices to Eldorado lands and Utopian destinations are apt to land the ship on the rocks. Being passengers on the ship, whose captain seems to have been left ashore, we may well take part in the council which is concerned with the vital problem of navigation. Somebody is going to run the ship. It may be the agent of the devil and the deep sea, or it may be the Pilot who knows the haven where He would have us be and also the way to reach it. The Church is called into the council of decision. There are certain principles of navigation which should guide us in fixing the chart by which the sail- 87 The Parish ing through the troubled seas must be done. There are conservatives and radicals aboard. The conserva- tives would anchor the ship and await the passing of the storm. The radicals would throw the anchor overboard and strike ahead without compass or chart because they say the storm has just begun and no anchor will hold the craft. At present most of those aboard are seasick or panic stricken. Between the counsels of the conservatives and the radicals, on which side must the Church and the Churchman stand? In this case, as in most cases where it is sought to throw choice on either one or the other of two horns of a dilemma, the place of wisest choice, doubtless, lies on neither one horn nor the other. Truth is not pivoted on points. It is com- posite and reconciling. It is essentially atoning. It takes from each sharp horn of a dilemma the ele- ments of truth pivoted there and blends the seem- ingly conflicting into essential unity. This is not a compromise method but a synchronizing process. When truth has done this, what is left on the horns of the dilemma are opposing errors from which truth has been extracted. Truth seekers follow truth sep- arated from opposing errors. Fanatics and vision- aries still climb to the truth-barren horns of the di- lemma and preach and harangue and shout from them to the world false philosophies and schemes of re- construction usually born of self-interest. The radical and conservative dispositions of mind run all through human life and manifest themselves in music, in art, in poetry, in dress, in social relations, in politics, in religion, and in public opinion. Radi- 88 Church Teaching and the Reconstruction Problem calism is impatient (generally with the impatience of youth) with the existing order and is prone to cut loose from the past. Conservatism is suspicions of change and looks askance at new ideas, or even at old ones in a new programme. Conservatism ever seeks to guard the ancient bridges which unite the present with the past and demands that, if the exist- ing order is to be changed, progress should be made with prudence. Radicalism demands progress with courage and without caution. Thus the emphasis of mind is differently placed. Where there is real and honest disposition to serve the public welfare rather than the selfish interest, the chances are that the honest conservative and the honest radical will both have contributions to make to the real cause of truth. Acquiescence in industrial and other conditions which now exist or which existed prior to the war may spring from an ignoble content born of ultra-con- servatism, while even an unwise programme of ultra- radicalism may spring from a noble discontent. The mission of the Church is to point and lead the way to a solution of industrial problems and world prob- lems also, which is in accord with the Spirit of the Mind of Christ. In a recent editorial in a Church weekly, the question is hopefully asked, "Can Christianity fur- nish the vision and the spiritual power to save the social order from its present chaos of materialism and make possible in practical affairs the outworking of the Spirit of Jesus?" The divine origin of the Church gives assurance that it can. It demands, however, the cooperation of the human. The Church 89 The Parish member, rather than the truth, calls for the question mark. In the search for the truth which holds the sure promise of ultimate success in the solution of these vexed problems, the Churchman does not have to look beyond the great fundamental truths of revelation to which the Catholic Creeds bear witness. He does, however, need to look more deeply into their meaning and implications. A radical departure from these truths will only increase the chaos of the situation. What is needed is a radical application of conserva- tive truth to present conditions. So-called "new truth" is generally error in so far as it is new. iSTew revelations and new applications of old truth are ever called for by the evolution of life, and each genera- tion brings to the Church the challenge to prove the divinity of the revelation, which is continuous and progressive in her life, by showing that it is indeed adequate to meet and solve the new problems which come with each new age. The Churchman should remember that the funda- mental truths to which the Catholic Creeds bear wit- ness are not maxims of ethics or dogmas of theology, but rather the expression of the Church's faith in the living Christ continuously incarnate in His Body, the Church; continuously seeking, in cooperation with the human will, to make, through and in His Church, the sacrifices which will make peace through the power of the continuous cross; offering eternal life and the spirit of eternal love to heal the wounded, to bind up the broken-hearted, and to give release to those who are bound in captivity through oppression ; 90 Church Teaching and the Reconstruction Problem and constantly calling His Church to be His witness and the means of His expression and continuous reve- lation. The statement by Archbishop Benson that "our century and decade are the times of Christ and we are His contemporaries" is true of every age. It is because the Churchman has not attained the faith to see the vision of a living, present Christ, seeking in cooperation with man to carry on and bring to completion the great unfinished work and revelation of God, or else because he has not the courage of a conquering conviction, that he gives heed to the nostrums of short-cut reformers and fails himself, too often, to develop a deep sense of personal responsibility which would impel him to offer and consecrate to Christ the fulness of his own nature, that through him the word and will of the living and ever present Christ may be expressed in the social order. In calling the Churchman to a loyal expression of the fundamentals of his faith as the most helpful contribution he can make to the solution of the prob- lems of the present, the Church gives a call and challenge which it is not easy to follow. Eadical application of conservative truth means, first of all, the deep cutting into the sensitive centers of one's own soul and of one's own interests. It means prob- ing to the bottom of life's motives with an honest and unrelenting willingness to know the truth, cost what it may. It means accepting for one's own life the revelation and implication of the Incarnation, and this means, among other things, the ability to put oneself in the other man's place in determining what 91 The Parish is right for the other man. It is the duty of the Church to ask that Churchmen do this. The condi- tions under which men work and live, the natural love, hope, and aspirations which men should have for home and loved ones, and the disposition of a man to give those loved ones the best that life holds for them, are matters which should be judged in the light of how the Churchman would feel and think in like circumstances. The cant and unsympathetic comment often heard in protest against high wages, to the effect that the workingman has a victrola, a piano, or seven children, and wants to have enough to enjoy them and then save money, is at least not made from the view point of the Incarnation. It does not manifest the spirit of a real human sympathy or the fellowship of interest involved in Christian brotherhood. The fact that with increased wages there has often come decreased production is a just and compelling cause for indignation and complaint. The radical application of conservative funda- mental truth means also the personal acceptance of the implications of the Cross. Christ's cross is the only one that stands for self-crucifixion. All other crosses have been and are being set up for the cruci- fixion of other men for selfish ends. The Cross of Christ calls for the crucifixion in self and in one's own business of injustice and greed and covetousness, and for the crucifixion also of the willingness to acquire personal wealth under conditions which put other men and women on the cross of poverty and anguish and despair. It means, for instance, that the man who makes excessive profit in handling coal 92 Church Teaching and the Reconstruction Problem at any stage in its passage from the mine to the furnace has got to crucify his will to greed or be held humanly, as he is held divinely, responsible for the pneumonia and death which come to the families of the poor who cannot pay extortionate prices and adequately heat their houses. It means, also, that the workman who reduces production, while he re- ceives a wage which implies a contract for an honest day's work, has got to crucify in himself the dis- position to steal what he does not earn or be ranked with other robbers as the oppressor and sometimes the murderer of the unfortunate. And it means still further, but just as really, that those who spend money for luxuries or luxuriously spend money for needful things are helping to create a situation out of which the high cost of living arises. As long as there is too much money or too much credit, prices will be high, and those who have little money and limited credit will suffer. The Cross has a message for this situation which the Churchman should dis- cover and apply. The Churchman should also recognize that the Christian revelation does not contain the justification for handling the wage problem on the basis of pay- ing only what is demanded. The word "demand" is an unbrotherly word. Its constant recurrence in the discussion of the industrial problems of the present betokens an antagonistic and unsocial state of mind. The Incarnation and the Cross are revelations of the nature of a self-giving and a self-sacrificing God. As the Churchman becomes a partaker of the divine Nature, he comes also to share in the divine 93 The Parish method of expression, and shares and gives not be- cause of what is demanded of him but because of the joy that springs from making it possible for others to have a more abundant life and a larger and gladder freedom. The relation of the Churchman to the revelation of eternal life also involves certain definite social responsibilities. God's gift of eternal life is cove- nanted and communicated through the Church. It is in His Son, who is in His Body, the Church. The attitude of this Body should be Christ-revealing with reference to the social order. If the Body, through its members, becomes class conscious and class an- tagonistic; if the selfish spirit dominates individual action so that the Church becomes the corporate institution of the privileged class and justly liable to this accusation, a barrier of prejudice is created between the children of God and the divinely con- stituted channels of eternal life. It is just be- cause the divine contact with the human problem is essential to its solution that the Churchman is called to do all in his power to break down the walls of prejudice and help bring the masses into vital contact with God through His Church. Any and every sacri- fice made in the name of Christ and His Church which will help form a point of contact between a human need and the divine spirit of helpfulness, be- tween a sin-slaved soul and a sacrament of life, be- tween poverty's despair and the Christian prophecy of redemption, is a positive and constructive contribu- tion to the divine adjustment of the social order. When to self and self-interest there is radically 94 Church Teaching and the Reconstruction Problem applied the living and fundamental truth (for Christ is the truth) to which the conservative Catholic Creeds bear witness ; when social greed and covetous- ness, when injustice and all unbrotherliness, are cut to the roots by the radical soul-surgery of the Great Physician of the social order, when the Incarnation, the Cross, and the conquering power of eternal life are witnessed to in the Churchman's attitude to the problems of his day; then the Mission of the Church will be manifest and its power evidenced in the new social, industrial, and world order which will be es- tablished upon earth. He who taught His Church to pray, "Thy Kingdom come," is Himself the King- dom's foundation. Other foundation, which will en- dure, can no man lay, but every Churchman is called to help lay this one. 95 CHAPTER V The Pastor and His People The scope and plan of this handbook does not allow or call for a treatise on the pastoral office. Something should, however, be said relative to some of the practical aspects of the pastor's life and work among his people, and the effort to say these things, in a chapter added at the suggestion of the Bishop who wrote the introduction to this little book, calls for a preface and an apology. There are diversities of gifts in the sacred min- istry, and sometimes the gifts which one most covets are those which one is conscious of possessing in very small measure. The writer's preference would be that this brief chapter should have been written by another, and by one more expert in the office and work of which we speak. On the other hand, one may look back, as doubtless every priest of God's Church does, and wish, in the light of experience, that the emphasis of one's ministry might have been somewhat differently placed. After life has become less plastic, many men in the ministry become aware of the fact that, either from lack of training, by 96 The Pastor and His People reason of circumstance, or from a lack of a right sense of proportion, time has not been rightly divided. Too often it happens that one finds oneself called here and there to do and say many things in which one has become somewhat proficient, overlooking or neglecting duties and privileges more personal, more vital, and more necessary. Out of such experiences one may, however, speak with more modesty, even though it be with less authority, on a subject so personal and important as the pastoral ministry. First of all a marked distinction needs to be made between parish calling and pastoral visiting. It is, doubtless, true that a call which is made to ask those to "come to church" who are worldly-minded and self-encased, lacking all sense of responsibility as to Christian duty and Church obligation, does more harm than good. It flatters their vanity. It makes them feel that they honor the Church by their pres- ence, and pulls down the standard of loyalty and re- sponsibility which, as a matter of fact, needs to be made much higher than it is. A real pastoral call devoted to an earnest effort to create a sense of per- sonal responsibility in these people and a conscious- ness of loyalty to and love for Christ and His Church may do good, but constant calling to urge them to come to church is a waste of time and is, in our opinion, a harmful practice. Such people need, first of all, to be disillusioned and made to see and know that they have a real need of conversion. Unless coming to church is an act of loyalty and devotion to Christ, or unless it represents the conviction that a man should at least give to the Church the support 97 The Parish of his presence and example, just coming to church in response to a call by the rector would hardly seem to be worth while. The principal value found in routine calling and the chief compensation for the usual barrenness of it lies in the fact that often there is discovered along the way the hidden but real and vital need for a real pastoral visit. Parish calling should always be designed to open the door to a pastoral visit. Conversation should be guided away from the weather, the political situation, and trivial affairs and be lifted to a plane where points of contact may be found with the deep soul needs of life. It is in the realm of higher thought and feeling that confidence is established and the way opened to a vital and helpful ministry. Just at this point attention may be called to the fact, which is not generally recognized, that the parson as well as the parishioner has need of what a real pastoral visit may supply if it is paid to him. The layman should sometimes play the part of pastor to his parson. The latter is too often left apart and alone. He needs the stimulus and inspiration which would come from a visit paid him by a vestryman or a call from a layman who might drop in to talk things over. The one-track mind is often the result of the fact that no train of thought other than its own is ever dispatched over it. Under these cir- cumstances it is apt to become a narrow-gauge, as well as a one-track, mind, and often it is in large measure the layman's fault that it becomes so. The pastoral care of the sick and ministry in times of sorrow is supremely important and essen- 98 The Pastor and His People tially different from parish calling. For this min- istry special training is needed. It requires not alone the grace of God which makes one want to do it, but a knowledge of psychology, the gift of com- monsense, and the spirit of God which enables one to know how it should be done. It would be well if men in training for the ministry could be allowed, for the purpose of instruction, to accompany a real pastor in visitations to the sick and through the wards of hospitals. Clinic practice in pastoral care of the sick would be most valuable. A ministerial retreat might occasionally be held to advantage, under expert guidance, in the wards of a hospital. The atmos- phere which one carries into a sick room or creates there, whether of cheer and hope or of gloom and despondency, largely determines the value or harm of a pastoral visit to the sick and also frequently de- termines the attitude of physicians and hospital authorities as to the value or harm of such visits. The sick room or the challenge of a sick or doubting soul are testing laboratories of the truth and balance of a man's theology. Just what is said, for instance, about prayer to a person who is ill may bring either hope and resignation or result in skepticism or despair. Spiritual prescriptions need to be prepared with exceeding care, especially when given to life under the abnormal conditions of sickness, sorrow, and skepticism. The pastoral relation offers many opportunities for enriching life and for creating and strengthening the ties which bind the hearts of men to God through His Church. The thing that one always wants to 99 The Parish avoid is asking people to do things as a favor or kindness to the minister himself. The call to service should always be a higher call than this. It should be asked and rendered for His sake who has called the Church to be His Body and who asks service of His Body that His Mind and Love may be expressed. Parishes that are built upon the personal popularity of a gifted rector or devoted pastor are built on foundations unsubstantial, while loyal service which continues to be rendered, even in spite of ministerial defects and unpopularity, helps to make enduring the structure of parish life. It will be found that the things that are done beyond the measure of what is expected are the things most appreciated and longest remembered. The thought of the sick when one is away and sup- posed to be thinking of something else : a word or letter of appreciation for some service rendered, recognizing it as rendered to Christ through His Church: the ability to win cooperation by leading people to make your plan their plan also : the voicing of Christ's great hope and desire so that it is accepted as the desire and hope of the people : the opportunity given to people to discuss and help decide upon the plan and programme which they are expected to support and carry out : the discovery of people to themselves through the faith which leads the pastor to get their consent to do things: the detection of marks of leadership and the willingness to trust people with responsibility : all this comes in the day^s work and helps to make the joy and gladness of the pastoral ministry. 100 The Pastor and His People It is the responsibility of some to have official and pastoral relationship with the rich. They, as well as the poor, need to 'liave the Gospel preached to them". Often they need it much more than the poor, and it is not always the easiest gospel to preach. We are speaking here, however, not of the preacher's re- sponsibility, but of the pastoral relationship. The pastor should see that the barriers of separation which wealth tends to build between him and the rich in his congregation are broken down in order that he may have perfect freedom of conference with those whose counsel and advice he needs. Too often the rich are made to feel that they are approached and appreciated only, or chiefly, because of their money. This they rightfully resent. A rector has far more need of the judgment, advice, and discretion which has enabled a man to become successful in business than he has for the riches which the man may have acquired. This confidence and mutual respect is not alone needed by the rector, but is needed also in the vestry. Perfect freedom in the discussion of plans and ways and means for their accomplishment should prevail, regardless of what the plan would cost the rich men on the vestry should the plan be determined upon. The man possessed of large means and also of a large mind and sympathy will appreciate the fact that the undertaking will cost the average man in the parish just as much, if not more, in terms of sacrifice than it would cost him ; and, if he has been brought to feel that his candid counsel and advice is asked and de- sired, regardless of the measure of his ability to con- tribute, he will give his counsel with a generosity of 101 The Parish spirit equal to his generosity in giving money. It really is not fair to men and women of wealth to make them feel, or to allow the parish to feel, that they are valued according to or because of their rating in Bradstreet. Sometimes they do not possess the personal worth that the rating would suggest. Often they will be found to be worth vastly more as coun- sellors than as contributors if the money barrier can be broken down. They should be made to feel and express that comradeship and fellowship in counsel and service which is based upon spiritual, rather than material, foundations. A man in the ministry is in the chancel and pulpit very few hours as compared with the amount of time spent in parish administration and in pastoral service. The Sunday and Saints' Day ministry has to be worked out in the laboratory of pastoral experience. It is there that theology is tested and transmuted into the religion that transfigures life, and there that the doctrines and psychology of books are refined and distilled into the dew and sunshine which give glory and beauty to the flowers of immortality in the garden of God. All the while it is the mind and heart and will of the Christ which the pastor is being called to express. He cannot do it alone. He must have fellowship with God. He must find spaces, for silence, for prayer, and meditation. His ministry to men must be guided by the purpose, which prayer creates, of bringing the thought and conduct of his people into closer fellowship with God. Somehow this purpose, if persevered in, creates in a man the spirit of the gentleman, a spirit essential to real Chris- 102 The Pastor and His People tianity. It makes him comprehensive in sympathy, firm in matters of principle, but never domineering or overbearing in his dealing with others. His sympathy becomes a human expression of a divine, indwelling love, and his friendship an interpretation of the care and consideration of God. If he is a student of life, he will come to see that ministry to childhood is the most potent and resultful ministry which he directs or renders, and will more and more shift the emphasis of his interest and en- deavor from schemes to reform society to the work of teaching and ministry which seeks to form the plastic spirit of childhood. At times he will almost wish that about half of the adnlt membership of his parish could become invisible, at least to the eyes of the children, and that he might have a chance to point the faith and courage of youth to paths steep and difficult which lead up to God and which the children would choose and follow, were they not beset by unspiritual highway robbers who, by evil example and negligence, steal away the faith, devotion, and courage of childhood. It would be well if in some way the parishioner could be brought to know the rector's work and prob- lems. It may be truly said that in the average parish there is not one person who knows and understands what the ministerial work involves, unless there be in the parish a minister's wife, and even she will not fully know, if the rectory is a real retreat (as it should be and often is) from the cares which call at the close of day for rest and diversion of mind. The problems faced by a group captain, multiplied by the 103 The Parish number of parish groups, would suggest the expe- riences of a pastor in one line of his work. There is no question but that the creation of the Parish Council and the Church Service League, including the parish group organization, will greatly relieve the rector from the burden of detail and also widen and deepen the knowledge and understanding of the people in the work and responsibility of the priest and pastor of the parish. The Church must, of necessity, depend in large measure upon voluntary service. The vestry and the people of the parish, especially the efficient business man, should bear this fact in mind when comparison is made between the way the parish is run and the way a well-ordered business is directed. Voluntary service is the glory of the life of the Church. It springs from wills responsive to the call of Christ. It originates in devotion to the Lord and Master of life and is the tribute of love and loyalty rendered by the soul to the Head of the Church. It springs from consecration made by those who have seen the vision of the cross and learned its meaning, and is the expression of faith in Him in whose Spirit the service is rendered. The pastor who has faith and courage will do men and women the honor of laying before them the challenge to do big things in a big way. He will not minimize the difficulty or seek to belittle the magnitude of the service which he asks men to render. He will go to the busiest men and women with the challenge to service, recognizing that they are busy because they are efficient. He will study men and women and seek to fit them to the 104 The Pastor and His People duties and to the leadership which require the talents which they possess, and he will never fail to offer daily intercessions for God's blessing upon them when they have consented to serve in positions of respon- sibility. It will, nevertheless, often occur that voluntary service is hindered by causes over which the volunteers have no control. It frequently happens that there is lacking a deep sense of personal responsibility. The rector has no compelling power of control. He can- not require attendance at committee meetings or quickly discharge the volunteer who fails to produce desired results. Some pastors in the Church, as a result of these conditions, form the habit of trying to do everything themselves; others persist in prayer and in the endeavor to find by degrees those who in volunteer service will be as efficient and faithful a9 paid workers would be. Surely this is the better way. It has the example of the Master and His min- istry. He trusted men. He depended upon volun- tary service, and even though one of His chosen ones was a thief and another denied Him, and all, at one time, "forsook Him and fled", He won eleven of them back again. And He built His Church upon their faith and voluntary service, which He blessed and empowered, leaving His Church to be His Body and His Witness and trusting its continuity and its per- petuity to the loving service which the pastors of His flock would through the ages inspire His followers to render in His name and for His sake. May He who is the Chief Pastor of the fold inspire and guide the pastors of His holy Church to keep ever in remem- 105 ■". ll :. 7 ": ■ . .".'7 : : : CHAPTER VI Pari