MORAL REFORMS SUGGESTED IN A PASTORAL LETTER, REMARKS ON PRACTICAL RELIGION / By A! CLEVELAND COXE, Bishop of Western New York. Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier mat- ters.— St. MATTHEW XXIII. 23. PHILADELPHIA : J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. 1869. Ttf \3V Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, By A. CLEVELAND COXE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York. \5, ^b"} Printed by Matthews & Warren, buffalo, n . y . CONTENTS Page, I. Pastoral Letter, 9 II. Moral Reforms, 13 1. A Religion for Use. 2. A Recent Appeal. 3. Unrebuked Vice. 4. Signs of the Times. 5. Obvious Duties. 6. Christian Marriage. 7. Heathenish Houses. 8. The Transition. 9. Puritanism. 10. The Reaction. 11. The Standard. 12. Homicides. 13. Mothers. 14. What Marriage Means. 15. The Remedy. 16. A Jesuit's Argument. 17. The Truth of the Matter. 18. An Answer to the Jesuit. 19. The Primitive Church. 20. The Means of Grace. 21. Instrumentalities. 22. Wife and Mother. 23. Experience. 24. Convictions. 25. Hopeful Signs. 26. Conclusion. VI Contents. III. The True Work of Woman, The Feast of Mothers. The Power of Woman. Homes. A Revival Needed. The Appeal. The Churching- Office. Conscience in all Things. Minor Proprieties. Practical Matters. page. • 59 IV. Illustrations 79 12 Deaconesses. The Education of Conscience. Direction. Moloch Worship. The Need of Christian Unity. Cheap Education. Family Reading. Family Prayers. The Lord's Day. Common Schools. The House Bond. The Future. PASTORAL LETTER. The following Pastoral Letter was addressed to the Dio- cese of Western New York, on the 30th of January, 1869. PASTORAL LETTER. The solemnities of Lent, now about to begin, justify me in calling you, as myself also, to renewed repentance, medi- tation and sincere confession, with prayer. The late Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops sug- gests those practical matters to which attention should be particularly directed, and I need add little to my request that you may heed those admonitions and study the Holy Scrip- tures, " whether these things are so/' The enormities of theatrical exhibitions, and the lascivi- ousness of dances too commonly tolerated in our times, are there so specially pointed out as disgraceful to the age, and irreconcilable with the Gospel of Christ, that I feel it my duty to the souls of my flock to warn those who run with the world to " the same excess of riot " in these things, that they presume not to come to the Holy Table. Classes preparing for Confirmation are informed that I will not lay hands, knowingly, on any one who is not prepared to renounce such things, with other abominations of " the world, the flesh and the devil." Let all such choose deliberately whom they will serve ; and if salvation be worth striving for, let them be persuaded to a sober life, to self-denials, and to the pure and innocent io - Pastoral Letter. enjoyments which the Gospel not only permits, but which it only can create. It is high time that the lines should be drawn between worldly and godly living; and I see no use in a Lent that is not sanctified to such ends. I have heretofore warned my flock against the blood-guilt- iness of infanticide. If any doubt existed heretofore as to the propriety of my warnings on the subject, they must now disappear before the fact that the world itself is beginning to be terrified by the practical results of the sacrifices to Mo- loch which defile our land. There are scientific and statis- tical documents before the people which fully sustain my remonstrances. Again I warn you that they who do such things cannot inherit eternal life. If there be a special damnation for those who " shed innocent blood," what must be the portion of those who have no mercy upon their own flesh ? Dearly beloved, " save yourselves from this untoward gen- eration." Your affectionate bishop, A. C. C. MORAL REFORMS. The ^following remarks were addressed to the Clergy of the Convocation of Erie, in the form of a Conference, i?i St. James's Church, Batavia, on Wednesday, March .31, 1869. Moral reforms i. Wanted, a Religion for Use. The practical temper of the American people demands of religion that it should be useful. A deep and growing suspicion' that unreality and hollowness are characteristics of many forms of popular piety has much to do with the growth of iniquity and indifference among us. Now, if the ministers of Christ are prepared to assert their commission, by a struggle with prevailing immorality and vice, the utility and grandeur of their calling will be demonstrated. If we wish men to believe in the Apostolical Succession, let us manifest its power to revive the. apostolical spirit, and to inspire every branch of church or- 1 4 Moral Re/or ms. ganization with the life and energy of the Prim- itive Day. The first followers of Christ were trained, in the school of John the Baptist, to re- buke vice ; and while John's Master afterwards taught them Grace and Truth in their fulness, He also gave them the highest example of lov- ing fidelity in scourging sin. II. A Recent Appeal to Conscience. The late Pastoral of the House of Bishops was addressed, in large proportion, to the conscience of the nation. To enforce it in a specific point, rather hinted at than stated in that Letter, was the main purpose of my own Lenten Pastoral. It" now becomes the duty of the reverend Clergy, and of the heads of house- holds, to lay to heart these warnings, if they be, indeed, appropriate to the times, and to enforce them in parishes and in families, as occasion may require. A mighty reformation of manners has become essential even to the temporal prosper- The Dangers of Unrebuked Vice. 1 5 ity of our country, and Christians are bound to effect it: for "if the salt have lost its savour" wherewith shall the land be salted ? III. The Dangers of Unrebuked Vice. It is something that sin be not without rebuke. Even if we cannot, immediately, apply the rem- edy, it is something gained if Christians cry out against the pestilence and give alarm to souls, against the "superfluity of naughtiness," and the " overflowings of ungodliness." It is something that, at least, " our eyes gush out with water, because men keep not God's law." For if our youth grow up amid the scenes of shame and the open licentiousness of our days, without hearing any remonstrance, or being warned that such things are wicked and hateful to the Most High, the result may be easily foreseen. They will breathe the atmosphere of vice, till their own habits are formed in corruption : and our civilization will sink to a still lower stage of dis- 1 6 Moral Reforms. solute living. Then, the carcase will be ready for the birds of prey, to which, in righteous retri- bution, God will give it over for destruction. IV. Signs of the Times. I have observed with surprise, not unmingled with gratitude, that the secular press has in a remarkable manner responded to my words, with an acknowledgment that they are just, and that the times require plain dealing. In fact, the daily newspaper, in every part of the land, is a constant comment on our fearful moral degeneracy. Rapes, murders and adulteries are the staple of our news ; divorce cases and other scandals, and all the nauseous reports of our courts of justice, are given in full to the public, with revolting illustrations ; the village fence is covered with pictorial placards which no eye can escape, «in which the female form is displayed in nudity, and in attitudes of indecency which ought to excite disgust as well as indignation. Signs of the Times. 1 7 In our great public schools, boys and girls are herded together with little reference to propri- ety or delicacy; and, as I have been credibly in- formed, a licentious press, in New York, has found means to supply these schools with im- moral books and pictures which pass from hand to hand, and of which even a moment's sight is poison to the soul. The maiden who has un- guardedly looked on such things has received a wound which nothing can obliterate. The scar, if nothing worse, must remain in the mind for life. And while such are the less obvious perils of the young, few give a moment's thought to the evils they encounter even in respectable soci- ety. At an age when they should still be chil- dren, they read licentious novels, frequent the most shameful theatrical shows, and are often permitted to take a full share, without any re- straint from the presence of parents or guard- ians, in private entertainments which are far from innocent ; which are marked by wanton dances and indelicate undress, by excess of wine and greedy feasting, and by revellings until the morning hours. Shall these heathenish orgies be tolerated among Christians ? Shall Christian 1 8 Moral Reforms. pastors utter no entreaties that the lambs of the flock may be saved- from such pollutions ? V. Obviotts Ditties. The commands of God require us to -warn men of their perils, " whether they will hear or will forbear." " Cry aloud, spare not," says the prophet; " show my people their .sins, and the house of Israel'their transgressions." And all our admonitions should be coupled with inter- cessions, that the power of the Holy Spirit may accompany our words. Such should be our dependence. Let us go to the root of evils which are the subject of general complaint. Why are the clergy ill-supported and our missionaries starved ? Why is there so little offered for the House of God, when there is always plenty of money for the pleasures of the world ? Is it not because those who profess and call them- selves Christians are worldly ? Look at the Christian Marriage. 19 superfluous dressing ; the vain costuming ; the dazzling adornments of women. See what men expend for wines, for cigars, for horses, for every form of luxury, and almost for every form of vice. There's the secret. Little is left for God who has made them stewards only of what they dare to call their own, and who will cer- tainly bring them to a dreadful account. And shall no trumpet be blown when such guiltiness defiles the sanctuary itself ? VI. Christian Marriage. Our Church puts the highest honour upon the marriage-state, and celebrates it in the house of God, in a form of words which has come down to us from ancient days, and which is incompar- able for its beauty and for the great principles it embodies. The Christian Mother is the source of the Christian Family, and Christian Society is founded on the purity of the Wife, her honour and fidelity, and on the blessings she 20 Moral Reforms. communicates to her household. Unless these fundamental principles are recognized and made operative, we labour in vain to build up the par- ish, or the diocese. But, alas ! there is reason to believe that marriage itself is degraded in the popular mind, and even by ministers of re- ligion. It is generally reputed that a mock- marriage was not long ago celebrated at a fair by the pastor of a respectable congregation ; and that another popular preacher consented to marry a pair, without prayer or benediction, in a public park ; while others have been married in railway carriages and even in a balloon ! All this implies a state of public morals which the great Roman satirist would lack words to describe. The multiplying of divorces and the low views of matrimony which abound are not unconnec- ted with that sickening feature of American life, the rejection of decent house-keeping and the herding of whole communities in hotels. Such living, except in transient emergencies, is wholly inconsistent with the practice of domestic piety, and is attended with perils innumerable. It is a mode of life which begets idleness, self- indulgence, sensuality and crime. To the young Heathenish Houses. 2 1 it is as a canker in the bud ; it taints the very blossom of their beauty. The growth of Mor- monism is hardly to be wondered at, when such caravanserais are popular at the very heart of our social system. We have one polygamous State, and communities scattered throughout the land which imitate Utah, and which are said to be increasing. What must be the secret source of such diseases on the surface ? And is the Church of God to lift up no voice of alarm ? Is she to see the infection spreading among her own children, and not cry aloud ? VII. Heathenish Houses. The adorning of homes has come to be pro- fane. Heathen emblems are wrought into arabesques and vignettes. Even gross symbols are to be seen in the decorations of walls and cei- lings. The most shameful statue, save one, to be seen in Europe, has become a favourite and stands in bronze or marble, in the drawing- 22 Moral Reforms. rooms of Christians. The late Queen of Naples ordered this figure to be locked up : she resen- ted its exposure, in the Museum, as an insult to her sex. And this was in Naples, in a city filled with lust and public shame. . Yet Ameri- cans buy the same figure at costly prices and set it before their sons and daughters, in their homes. Nay, not homes ; for houses cease to be homes when' they cease to be pure and lovely. Home is a Christian idea. Everything in a Christian's home should minister to thoughts of purity and truth. I am sorry to add that many forms of nominal Christian Art are even worse than pagan. The Invisible God is often rep- resented in works of Romish origin ; and one would think that the very stones of the wall would cry out against some of the pictures which are hung on them, for Christians to gaze upon. VIII. A Transitioit Period. Something must be considered, it is true, for A Transition Period. 23 the period of transition through which our civili- zation is now struggling. We may trust that there is a struggle and that it will not be over- come. Sudden wealth and other causes have forced upon this generation surprising changes and corresponding dangers. Until very lately, the American people were even primitive in their simplicity. Our higher" Society was old, and limited to the older States ; and it too was primitive in its habits, and even in its pleasures ; and, while less artificial, was much more refined than what is called " Society" in our days. Ex- cept in New England, our own Church largely influenced Social taste and the character of the educated classes, even beyond its pale ; but a severe Puritanism had the mastery of the. popu- lar mind and manners, and foreign travellers ac- cused the people of a prudery which is nice be- cause it is fundamentally coarse. Under the pop- ular religion, the emotions were made the test of repentance and of faith. Moral duties were little preached upon. The ten commandments were not even recited in public worship, and the Lord's Prayer was rarely hearcU Even Scripture-Lessons were exceptional features of 24 Moral Reforms. Puritan worship. And, in the practice of this system almost all forms of amusement were pro- scribed. It was in this proscription that the great distinction was established between the world and the faithful. The pious were sup- posed to have renounced pleasures the most in- nocent, and they were more frequently subjected to a rigid discipline for any indulgence in for- bidden enjoyments, than for habitual untruthful- ness, slandering, or over-reaching in trade. IX. Puritanism. Far be it from me to disparage the piety of any Christians, whose prayers and good works contribute to the health of the Nation. Even the stern piety of the New England Puritans, in spite of its narrowness and unloveliness, is to be commended in comparison with the open un- godliness which has come in its stead. I doubt not the homely and simple but rigidly conscien- tious devotion which Burns eulogizes in his "Cot- Ptiritanism. 25. ter's Saturday Night," survives in many humble homes throughout our country. But experience proves that Puritanism cannot long outlive the homelier forms of social life. Refinement and education shrink from the irreverence and coarse- ness of extemporized public worship ; and the result is irreligion and unbelief, unless the Church, with her venerable liturgic forms, her grand his- tory, and her sweet, domestic influences, inter- poses a timely refuge and invites the wanderer to her Ark. A clergyman, eminent for his churchmanship and for a life of noble devotion to his priestly work, lately said to me, "I tremble for the fu- ture when I observe the disregard for the Lord's Day which is every where growing upon the land, the neglect of the second service of Sun- days, and the decay of household worship. Com- pared with what is now prevalent, there is some- thing great in the fierce old Puritan Sabbath, perversely conscientious though it was. If it failed to exhibit the love of Christ, it had in it much of the fear of God." I thank my reverend brother for his remark. It is just ; and it is exemplary, because some 26 Moral Reforms. minds are so petty that they cannot see any good in a wrong system. But, after this ad- mission, I fear it must be said that the Puritans by making a Jewish Sabbath of the Lord's Day, have entailed upon us the very revolt complained of. The law of reaction is everywhere at work where Puritanism once had sway. X. The Reaction. Only thirty years ago Dubufe's " Adam and Eve " was a shock to the popular conscience : nude figures were hardly endured even in a pic- ture representing Sacred History. But, the old story of popular reactions has found a new illus- tration. The Age of Cromwell was succeeded by that of Charles the Second ; the reign of the saints by that of the satyrs; and the Puritan morals of America seem to be giving away to those of the Mormons. With the influx of wealth and with the ocean steamer, foreign travel became common. Not The Reaction. 27 that kind of travel which ennobles and refines ; for Americans rushed through Europe for ex- citement and pleasure, and rarely formed any ac- quaintances among the people of older nations, except such as their money might command. The fashions of what is called the demi-monde were imported as if they were European ele- gancies, and much that belongs only to the vices of the older world was, unsuspectingly, natural- ized in America, as if it were reputable. To the new views and manners thus imported, the simple village habits of our people were as fuel to flame. The morals bred of decay tainted our young life. The safeguards which an older civilization has been forced to throw around the young, to save them from premature exposure to its vices, were here unknown. In the public ways, in the midnight revel, in places of public resort, in driving, riding and even in bathing, and in the idle routine of hotel life, young girls were often left without matronly protection or over- sight. In a word, the shepherdess was intro- duced to Comus and left in charge of his route, and nobody seemed to fear the result. But the consequences will not be survived by the 28 Moral Reforms. present generation. All things, for the present, are turned upside down. Young men cannot afford to marry ; young women prefer the mo- neyed profligate to the virtuous but purseless scholar, or professional man ; and village maid- ens learn to scorn the farmer, the merchant and the mechanic. The love of finery often makes them the prey of the dissolute. In vain we preach, one day in seven, while the Enemy has the whole week more or less in his possession. Even our Sundays are threatened by the Strangers who come in to sojourn, and would needs be our judges : and what is there left to us, but the promise — "when the Enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him" ? XL The Standard. That standard, I suppose to be lifted up in the voice and testimony of our Scriptural Church. But the Church itself needs to be purified. A The Standard. 29 more strict fidelity to our own doctrines and can- ons is the primary demand. How desirable it is that our flocks should be more and more in- structed in the morals of the Gospel ; not indeed to the neglect of doctrine, but so as to turn doc- trine to its grand utility — the " saving of the peo- ple from their sins '." " For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." How vain is ritual, with its incense and oblations, while hands are red with blood, and when the Spirit is crying — " Wash you, make you clean." When the apos- tolic churches were "giving heed unto fables which ministered questions rather than godly edifying," the young bishop of Ephesus was charged, by St. Paul, to teach them that " the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, arid faith un- feigned." Till these ends are magnified, in life and doctrine, " to what purpose is the multitude of our sacrifices" ? One almost hears amid the joys of the Paschal Feast, the rebuke of the ancient prophet — " Your new moons and your sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with: it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." 30 Moral Reforms. XII. Homicides. As to those crimes which I have likened to the sacrifices of Moloch, I am glad that our phy- sicians are beginning to be preachers. They tell us of frightful retributions ; of lunatic cells, and early graves, as the consequences ; of hag- gard and premature old age, unenlivened by the sweet society of sons and daughters, and terri- fied by conscience as by the ghosts of murdered babes. Truly, as Scripture says of another class of sinners, " they receive in themselves that recompense of their errours which is meet," because "in their skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents." If legisla- tion sleeps, while such things are preying like a canker upon the very vitals of the Nation, surely the pulpit should be heard. In their late Pastoral, the House of Bishops spake as with the authority of an old prophet to the People. Mothers. 3 1 XIII. - Mothers. The Christian Mother is the true woman in her highest glory, and till Christian women un- derstand this, nothing that can be said will be effectual. The grand defect of Puritanism is its utter lack of provision for the wants of the young. A hearty, cheerful, natural and yet spiritual, Christian life for children, is something for which it makes no place. Christian nurture, training, and the development of infantile piety into full grown Christian principle, must depend on the Baptismal and Confirmation Offices, and the Liturgical system of the Church, in connection with the Christian Year. But for the earliest application of all this to the mind and conscience of the young, the Church depends on the well-ordered Christian Family; and in that Family, while the father is the Priest, the wife and the mother is enthroned as a Queen, and is the constant, ever-present symbol to her 32 Moral Reforms. house of the Church itself, the spouse of Christ, and "the mother of us all." My own Pastoral was designed to give point more especially to one of the warnings of our en- tire Episcopate directed to " women that are at ease," and " careless daughters." I believe there is as little of this sin among the mothers and daughters of our own communion as can be credited elsewhere ; but there can be no doubt that the warning is everywhere needed. Women often live " at ease and without care," because they are fearfully criminal, in the means whereby they have avoided the glorious duties of mater- nity, and abdicated the throne to which God has called them in the Christian Family. There are few Samuels because there are so few Han- nahs ; and till this radical evil is put away, much of our pastoral work, dear brethren, is in vain and must be in vain. XIV. What Marriage Means. The object and ends for which Holy Matri- What Marriage Means. 33 mony is ordained of God are often defeated, and a sacrilege is committed in addition to other crimes/ Marriage was ordained to secure "a godly seed," and domestic piety. The promise is " to live together, according to God's ordi- nance, in the Holy Estate of Matrimony." But, where the object of Matrimony is shunned, in effect the wife degrades herself to a mistress, and the married life is desecrated, as the mere veil of a concubinage — - doubly criminal because sacrilegious and defiled with murder. Woe ! to such criminals if they embrace not, in sincere re- pentance, the gracious promise of the gospel — " though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." We hear much said of schemes for employ- ing women ; but let women be reminded of their great and glorious mission, as wives and mothers. It is through the duties of these sta- tions that they pass with the highest qualifica- tions to others. The early Deaconesses were widows. a Malachi ii. 15. 3 4 Mora I • Reforms. XV. What is the Remedy? And so, having spoken of the evil, I come to speak of the cure. I maintain that it is woman's mission to purify society. My attention has been directed to a pamphlet just published, a and purporting to be by a medi- cal man, a Frenchman by birth, and evidently a Roman Catholic. If the author had confined himself to professional limits and proprieties, I should have thanked him for a valuable rebuke of the times : but, as the end and aim of his essay are mainly polemical, I am not without suspic- ions that this is one of the thousand insidious agencies by which the society of Jesuits is every- where, secretly, operating upon the American people. The writer insists that the crime of ante- natal Infanticide prevails chiefly among Protes- tant women ; and he lays down as the result of his arguments these propositions : a Published in Portland, 1867. What is the Remedy ? 35 I. " Protestantism has no power within itself to check the increase of abortion in its own community, and the united efforts of the whole medical profession, so far, have been utterly un- availing." II. " Catholicity alone can reach the evil, be- cause it has proved itself equal to the task from the time it first made its appearance amongst the Roman ladies, down to the present day." In the term " Protestantism " he means to in- clude not only the Inorganic Protestantism of the day, but also our own truly Catholic and Apostolic Church. The term "Catholicity," he confines obviously to the Roman or Tridentine Sect ; and his ob- ject is to recommend its peculiar institution of Auricular Confession to the American con- science. As similar efforts are now made, everywhere, and have found a place in our periodical litera- ture, I take this occasion to say a few words on the subject which may meet the difficulties thus artfully created in order to entrap the minds of our people. 36 Moral Reform. XVI. A J esidf s Argument. The author very justly speaks of the preva- lence of this crime among the women of the Pa- gan Roman empire ; and he asserts, with equal justice, that it was Christianity that purified and elevated womanhood, till this vice became im- possible among Christian women. But he also insinuates that early Christianity was identical with Romanism ; and that the practice of Auricular Confession was then, as now, familiar to the Roman Christians. He must be a very ill-informed, or a very de- ceitful writer, in committing himself to proposi- tions so utterly false. For, first, not a trace of Modern Romanism can be found in the Chris- tianity of those ages, except in the form of heresies and corruptions which the Church de- nounced ; and, second, the practice of Auricu- lar Confession was unknown even to Roman Christianity until the thirteenth century, at least as a general institution. In its present shape of A Jesuit's Argument. 37 " direction," it has grown up since the Council of Trent (A. D. 1563), which created the mod- ern " Roman Catholic Church," so-called, and gave the Latin Churches a new Creed and a new Constitution. Since then, the history of the Confessional has been one of the most polluted casuistry, and every crime that dis- graces humanity has flourished wherever it has had sway. It is plain, therefore, (1) that if Christianity reformed the Roman Empire, with respect to the sin of ante-natal infanticide, it effected this great reformation with no other than the very instrumentalities which are employed by our own Primitive Communion ; and (2) that Auri- cular Confession and the modern " Roman Catholic " system can claim no credit for this blessed work of the Primitive Church. When the author asserts that Roman Catholic women in America are much less addicted to this crime than their Protestant sisters, he implies that unmarried Romish confessors are in the habit of regulating the habits of women, in respect to their most delicate relations, by the secret com- munications of the Confessional ! it must be 3 38 Moral Reforms. obvious that an institution which can be used to promote population in this way, for the avowed purpose of obtaining, as soon as possi- ble, numerical preponderance in the nation, is one which can be prostituted to the vilest pur- poses, and which involves those "evil communi- cations that corrupt good manners." Certain it is that our criminal statistics do not prove any great preponderance of Romish over Protestant morality, nor do they lead us to admire a Con- fessional which restores the vilest criminal to an easy conscience, and to a new round of crime, on the performance of a slight penance, in which no profession of Contrition is absolute- ly requisite. XVII. The Truth of the Matter, The author furnishes a solution to his own statement, however, if it be true ; for he affirms that this crime of "voluntary abortion" is only found among women who are fashionable. Now The Truth of the Matter. 39 the Romish population furnishes no appreciable proportion of this class, in our land ; so that he cannot prove the superior morality of those who are dupes of the Confessional. Fashionable women in France are not dis- tinguished by innocence in this respect above our own. We are glad to believe that women of the humbler classes are generally more obe- dient to the laws of Nature's God ; and we hon- our them as women and^ as Mothers, a far nobler title than that of " fashionable ladies." But, a physician may be supposed to know more about this sin than a clergyman has any right to know, so far as details are concerned. I will therefore confront this rash assault upon Americans, and their forms of piety, by the authority of an eminent physician, lately ad- dressed to a professional audience, at the Com- mencement Of a Medical College : " Fashion in morals ! witness, the atrocious soul and body imperilment by the avoidance of the sacred duties of legitimate maternity, by practices both indelicate and immoral. This is called an American fashion : it is cer- tainly a fashion, an immorality, a vice, but it 40 Moral Reforms. is not an original American fashion. It is de- rived from that people who are Fashions chief votaries — who dethroned the God of the Bible and made adoration of a day to a painted crea- ture — miscalled reason. Medical men were the first to sound the alarm, both in its moral and physical aspects. Philosophers and statisticians re-echo it, in its national and generic relations. The religious and the secular press alike expose and denounce it — and the pulpit implores, per- suades and fulminates against it. This usage is not limited to any people, nor is it avoided, as has been stated, by those of any creed. Medical men know this. It is one of the banes of civil- ization. That it finds more congenial soil in our country than elsewhere, cannot, alas ! be denied. Poverty and inconvenience are urged in extenuation. These do not excuse infrac- tions of human law, much less of divine — but even the excuse is false — the real culprits are fashion, frivolity, laziness, selfishness, and, O tempora ! O mores ! — national demoralization. Let no one charge that our language is too plain. When persuasion and argument fail in private, the public heart must be stirred. If An Answer to the Jesirit. 41 we would exist as a nation, this generic suicide must be stopped. Let us not follow, but be warned by the example of France — whose popu- lation is steadily decreasing, not from migration, war or pestilence, but from unnatural causes — the death-rate exceeding the birth-rate by at least 50,000 per annum. " a It would seem, then, that France, where women of fashion are so generally under the en- tire direction of Jesuit confessors, and where " Protestantism " hardly exists, is alike the model and the awful warning of American fash- ion, as respects this damning form of homicide. XVIII. An Answer to the Jesirit. It is strange that this Jesuitical pamphlet should have appealed to Primitive Church his- tory in favour of Romanism as the cure of the particular evil now under discussion. Was it, by a providential Nemesis, on purpose to justify a Hygiene, etc. By Thos. F. Rochester, M. D. Buffalo, 1869. 42 Moral Reforms. me in stating a fact which ought not to be for- gotten, but which I should not have thought of bringing forward but for this insulting assault of a Romanist on the religious principles of my countrymen ? Unfortunately for the author, one of the earliest, if not the very earliest his- torical reference to this crime as existing among Christians, is the charge brought by a great bishop and saint, against a contemporary bishop of Rome, as the patron and pander of this in- iquity ! It is true the said bishop was no pope ; for no such dignitary as a modern pope was known to those ages : but Rome claims him as one of her popes and pays him worship as " Saint " Callistus. Whether he was a saint or a pope may be inferred from the lately recovered works of St. Hippolytus, who knew him person- ally and rejected him as a heretic and as one of the worst men that ever climbed, like a wolf, into the Christian fold. " He permitted women," says St. Hippolytus, " to degrade their own dig- nity . . . and thence it was that women, called believers, began to venture ... to destroy what was conceived. . . . Behold to what impiety the Lawless One proceeded, An Answer to the Jesuit. 43 teaching adultery and murder, at the same time. It is remarkable that the words the Lawless One which Hippolytus uses here, are the same used by the Apostle in his prophetic portrait of the popes, which our translators render that Wicked* So that if any one wants to establish' the Romish claim to an early existence of Popery in the Church of Christ, I think the claim of Cal- listus to be a genuine Pope, can be more easily proved than that of any other bishop of Rome down to the days of the forged Decretals, by the aid of which Nicholas the First (A. D. 856) raised himself and his See to the " bad emi- nence" of genuine Popish imposture. Callis- tus, then, may be reckoned a pope, in some sense ; he was certainly a bishop of Rome ; and he was probably the first casuist, among Chris- tians, who ever approved of ante-natal infanti- cide and encouraged the practice. This is my answer to the Jesuit. a 2 Thess. ii. 8. 44 Moral Reforms. XIX. The Primitive Church. The Church of the Primitive Ages had a work to do, which none but those familiar with the social life of the Gentiles of the Roman Em- pire can even tolerably comprehend. In the first chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, there is a portrait of Roman society which gives the ordinary reader some idea of what it was with which the Gospel came into conflict, in calling men to repentance. But, blessed be God, many of the enormities to which the Apos- tle refers are not even named among Christians, and few understand precisely to what he points. In writing to the Corinthians, again, he enumer- ates a few of the fearful iniquities which dis- graced that people, a and he adds — " Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." a i Cor.,-, vi. 9. The Means of Grace. 45 Such was the success of the Primitive Church, in thoroughly cleansing the vilest characters: and, I repeat it, all this was done with individ- uals and with nations, by the same means of grace which are now richly possessed by us. Go to Italy, to Mexico, to Brazil, and it will be found that the attempt of Popery to improve upon Primitive Christianity has had the reverse effect, and has brought back, in shameless pub- licity, among Clergy and Laity alike, all the vices of Paganism. The English Reformation has restored to us, in their purity, the simple ministries which, under God, were found equal to the utter destruction of Paganism and all its immoralities. What are those, means of cure ? What is the remedy ? XX. The Means of Grace. First of all, the Holy Ghost, by his voice in the Holy Scriptures is the grand purifier. It was because the Primitive Church read the 3* 46 Moral Reforms. Prophets and the Evangelists, in a known tongue, in all the services of public worship, that she became the source of new life to cor- rupt humanity. It was because the early Chris- tians loved the Scriptures and knew not a little of them by heart, that they became sanctified in all their domestic relations. It was when they chaunted the Psalter as they sat at the distaff, or drove the plow, that " all their children were taught of the Lord, and great was the peace of their children!' So the Christian Family be- came the foundation of Christian civilization ; and the Christian Mother, the name enshrined in its heart, as the glory of womanhood and of the human race. But the Primitive Church not only read the Scriptures, she preached the word as its faith- ful witness alike in doctrine and in morals. Her bishops from their saintly chairs, her pres- byters from the ambon, and all her people, each in his vocation and ministry, were faithful in let- ting their lights shine. They understood that "for this purpose the Son of God was mani- fested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil." And then, as now, the annual Easter Instrumentalities. 47 Festival and its solemn Lent, called all the Faithful, year by year, to first love and to first Tories. Nothing could persuade a believer to forego his Easter Communion ; but then he un- derstood that he must prepare for it " by putting away leaven." He fasted and he repented, and he was received to the Great Communion ; and then he strove to go forward, as by the power of a new Resurrection " from dead works to serve the Living God." XXL * Instrumentalities. I have elsewhere endeavoured to instruct my Diocese as to the relation of the blessed Sacra- ments and of godly Discipline to the Moral System of the Primitive Church, so that I need not now dwell upon these. I would only di- rect your attention to the express intimations of Holy Scripture on this head. Let me recur, however, to my remark that the Sanctity of Marriage and the solemn celebration of it, as 48 Moral Reforms. an Ordinance of God, which man cannot annul, are the fundamental principles on which Holy Scripture and the Church of Christ rear the eif- tire structure of Social Morality. Referring you to the many passages of God's word which sus- tain this assertion, let me add only two special citations from St Paul : "I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion for the adversary to speak re- proachfully.'^ Again, he says, with reference to the great Nativity of Christ, no doubt, but still with gen- eral reference to woman's painful but glorious Maternity : " She shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." b Woman's mission as the mother and nurse of Immortals, and as the very image in this re- spect, of the Church and Spouse of Christ, was thus ennobled and kept before the primitive Christian women. Nor was the more intimate and detailed instruction of young married women a i Tim. iv. 14. h 1 Tim. i. 15. Instrumentalities. 49 in this respect committed to sensual monks and whispering casuists. The Annas and Eliza- beths who, as deaconesses, might guide the young women, and other mothers in Israel, had these sacred functions given them. These were women's institutors in all modest and holy liv- ing, in Christian Morals. Thus, in the diocese of Crete, Titus, its bishop, is enjoined to exhort " the aged women that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness . . . that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their hus- bands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." The Christian Matron who is prepared to do this duty, in her own sphere, will find the Ethical books of Scripture, the Prov- erbs and the Psalms, the Prayer Book and the apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, their all-sufficient text-books. I need suggest no other remedies against moral evil than those which the Holy Spirit and the Church have thus supplied. These were the remedies that cured the pagan women and made them Christians. Again, I say, it is not the prurient confessor 50 Moral Reforms. who is to be -invoked " like coals to burning coals and as wood to fire," but I appeal to Christian Mothers to make their daughters Christians, by the rules I have shewn to be Scriptural, and as such the Wisdom of God and the power of His Holy Spirit. XXII. Wife and Mother. Where then are the Christian Mothers ? Once more we must turn to her to whom God has given the mission of purifying and sanctify- ing the Home, and of finding in it her realm, her sphere of duty, her earthly paradise of joy and peace. To make home happy ; to fill it with pure delight ; to make it bright all the year round with innocent mirth ; to teach children and husband to seek no external pleasure, and always to turn homeward for happiness, this is the work of woman ; woman only can do this for the Church and for the Nation ; and when this is done the Nation also will be a family. Testimony of Experience. 5 1 The streams cannot run pure till the sources are thus purified. Oh ! that every power that can be invoked in the land, were only stimulated to make women understand the glory and the blessedness that belong to the Christian Wife and the Christian Mother. XXIII. Testimony of Experience. It was lately remarked by a candid Romanist, after twenty years' experience of his own re- ligion in Romish Europe, that the scenes of his youth, in truly Catholic England, often refresh his memory with a blessed contrast. " For a calm, unpresuming, uniform standard of practi- cal Christianity'' says this poor prodigal son, in the far country to which he foolishly and simply wandered, and where he yet sojourns, " I have seen nothing as yet, in any country, superior to that of the English parsonage and its surround- ings; go where I will I am always thrown back upon one of these as the most perfect ideal of a 52 Moral Reforms. Christian Family ; a combination among its members of the highest intelligence, with the most unsullied purity and earnest faith, I ever witnessed on earth." This judgment is just ; it is true, also, of many of the cottage-homes of England, as it is also true of many of her halls and palaces. And it might be more true of America than of any nation in the world, in view of our plenty and of our resources of every kind, were only the Church its nurse and mother. The English Parsonage is the place, where, preeminently, the Christian- Life is reg- ulated by the Bible and the Prayer Book. Hence its intelligence, its purity and its joy. Nothing morose in its religion ; nothing extrav- agant in its mirth. Sundays are brighter than week-days. Christmas and Easter bring their peculiar delights, and all the year is full of true happiness, because it is full of Him whose lov- ing kindness is better than the life itself. Convictions. 5 3 XXIV. Convictions. For every family in our dear country, in which Christ is worshipped and the Bible read, let us bless and praise God. On every such household, whatever its form of piety, let us in- voke a blessing. It is in houses like these that the salt of the land is found ; it is from such windows that even the smallest candle throws beams far into the region of surrounding night. The piety of many a Protestant dwelling is a beacon and a fountain to souls. But I must not conceal my convictions that " for a calm, unpre- suming, uniform standard of practical Christi- anity" — the Church of the Prayer Book is the great want of the American people. When will this be found out ? When will God give to our countrymen to see and learn that Or- ganic Christianity alone is able to organize so- ciety and to hold it on firm foundations, up to a uniform standard of Christian Morals ? I think this will never be, till we who are a 54 Moral Reforms. " kind of first-fruits " of the Nation, in the en- joyment of these blessings, make a better use of them for ourselves and for our households. Alas ! that our ingratitude for such unspeakable mercies, and our misuse of the superior ad- vantages which God has given us, should be the stumbling-block of souls. XXV. Hopefid Signs. I do not despair of the Republic. If the late war has been followed by many of the usual consequences of civil wars, I hold it to be a most gratifying fact that it has not been fol- lowed by some of those evils which were most to be dreaded. Heroic virtues as well as gi- gantic crimes were exhibited in warfare, and peace has been ennobled by the marvellous ab- sorption of immense armies into the ordinary life and activity of the Nation. Great evils have passed away, forever, and conscience has been found to respond, almost universally, to Cojtchcsion. 5 5 the principles of Divine Justice in what has been done and in what has been suffered. There is ground for hope, therefore, that a peo- ple which has gone through the trials of such an epoch, not without the development of great moral faculties, is not to be given up to " that swift destruction," which, in other respects, is portended by the vices of the times. The symptom which is most seriously to be consid- ered, is that of "the salt losing its savour." If Christians cease to be such, in reality, how can society he salted, and preserved from putrefac- tion ? XXVI.. Conclusion. When all the land of Egypt was given over to darkness, the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. When the Red Sea was about to swallow up the heathen, the waves thereof parted before the Ark of the Covenant, and made a way for the Faithful to pass onward, unharmed, toward the Promised Land. The 56 Moral Reforms. object of my exhortations is to secure, at least for those who are called Christians, in our coun- try, a similar result. If we cannot make others follow our example, let us for ourselves and for our own households serve the Lord. If we cannot save our beloved country, let us secure to ourselves and to our children the unspeak- able blessings of the Covenant. Let our door- posts be sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb, and let ours be the happy homes, around which the angel of the Lord encamps, and over which, in love and mercy, is ever looking down the un- slumbering eye of the Shepherd of Israel. THE TRUE WORK OF WOMAN. The following Pastoral Letter was addressed to Chris- tian Women, in the Diocese of Western New York, o?i the Feast of the Purification, 1868. THE TRUE WORK OF WOMAN. I. The Feast of Mothers. My Christian Friends: The return of the cheerful Festival of the Purification, falling this year on a Sunday, in- spires me with a desire to speak to you, as sisters in Christ, addressing myself chiefly to those of you who are Mothers. As such, you are called to the highest glory of your sex, if indeed you be Christian Mothers, rejoicing in God your Saviour, like the blessed Mary, " the handmaid of the Lord." This is the Feast of Mothers. It is designed to remind you of the great example of her who was the Mother of our Lord, and who, as on this day, presented in the Temple, her holy child, the Light of the World. 6o Moral Re/or ms. II. The Power of Woman. It is from the influence of Christian Mothers that the church receives the best of all gifts, her Timothys, her Agustines, her Kens, her Wil- sons, her Martyns, and her Hebers. It is the Christian woman that inspires men to be Christians, by her example to husbands, brothers, friends and children. It is the Chris- tian woman that creates the Christian Home — next to the Church of Christ the greatest source of happiness to a people and of prosperity to Nations. It is the Christian woman that proves the best auxiliary to the Christian minister, bring- ing her household under pastoral influences, and, like Lydia and Persis, and other Saints of the Scriptural Calendar, sustaining the work of Apostles. It is the Christian woman, who, like Dorcas, becomes the source of bounty to the poor, and the pattern of all good works. Homes. 6 1 It is the Christian woman, who, like the blessed Virgin, becomes the well-spring of pu- rity to the world. It is the Christian woman who gives a charm to practical piety, tl walking in all the command- ments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless," like the holy Elizabeth. It is the Christian woman, who, like Anna, serves the Church in the Temple by fastings and prayers ; or who, like Phcebe, becomes the suc- courer of many, in the office of the Deaconess. Who cannot see, at a glance, that if more of our Christian women would rise to these high patterns of character, all the glory of the primi- tive day would revive ? III. Homes. It is not convents that we need. Holy Scrip- ture does not speak of such things. We want Christian families and holy women, devoted to 4 62 Moral Reforms. Woman's work in schools, and hospitals, and prisons, but not under extra-baptismal vows, nor disguised in Pharisaical mufflers. These are the wants of the Church. Thank God, they are already supplied, in large meas- ure, by the piety of thousands of women, who are true Sisters of Charity and Mothers in Israel. When, not long since, I was pointed to an immense Romish nunnery, I said — " Yes, but I have something better in my Diocese. For every cell in that doleful prison, I can show you a Christian home — such as Romanism never created and never can create ; a home such as the Bible and the Prayer Book have multiplied in England and America. The con- vents of Italy have destroyed that land, and are now perishing. The homes of England and America have made the most vigorous of peoples, and they are as lasting as the Christian Church," A Revival Needed. 63 IV. A ''Revival Needed. But, the time has come when the Christian Home, and all schemes of Christian benevo- lence, must be revived and re-invigorated. It is Woman's mission to perform this glorious work, and so to rebuke the shameless schemes of some who would abase their sex to the level of habits and pursuits which are corrupting and degrading even to men. I write then, to call you, the Christian Women of my Diocese, to arise to the glory of your mis- sion, and to the work which it is given you to do, for your country and your God. I fear that here, as elsewhere, there are too many who have a very false estimate of what becometh women professing godliness. When I see, everywhere, the tawdry fashions, the costly vulgarity and the wicked extrava- gance of the times, I feel sure that thousands of American women are strangers to the first 64 Moral Reforms. law of refinement — simplicity in manners and attire. When I see that thousands of American women read the most shameful romances and the most degrading newspapers ; frequent the vilest dramatic entertainments and join in dances too shocking to be described, I feel that Chris- tian matrons are becoming too few, and that a civilized heathenism is occupying the fields we have wrested from the Indians. When I read, daily, of the most ungodly divorces, and of crimes against social purity and against human life itself, which are too gross to be mentioned more particularly, I feel that too many of our countrywomen are without God in the world; and that radical reforms are ne- cessary in the systems of education on which the young women of America are dependent for their training. When I see thousands of households, in which young girls are reared for a life of pleas- ure, without reference to duty, I cannot wonder at these results, nor at the misery in which they involve families and communities. They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The Appeal. 65 V. The Appeal. As a Christian Bishop, therefore, I make my appeal to you, Christian Women, and I ask you to begin the reformation, by faithfully bearing your testimony against all that tends to the de- gradation of your sex. I am the more urgent because much that is evil is not only winked at, but receives countenance in circles which ought to be exemplary. Resolve, first of all, that the Bible and the Prayer Book shall be the basis of the education of your children. The Bible, with its Book of Proverbs for young men, and its wonderful Psalter and Gospels and Epistles, besides, for the study of both sons and daughters. The Prayer Book, with its Chart of Life, mapped out from Scripture, in every part, and present- ing the whole duty of man and woman in an epitome. These are your grand securities in the education of your families. It is not enough that schools permit these to be used. I say it 66 Moral Reforms. with a deep sense of my responsibility, no school in which these are not the ground-work of all instruction, are schools to which you can com- mit the souls of your precious children, with fidelity to the covenant made with God, in their baptism. You are bound to " train them up in the way in which they should go." If* you do this, and they should go astray (which is not probable), you "will have no cause for self-re- proach. If you fail in this greatest of duties, their probable ruin for Time and for Eternity will be upon your own head. The evil results will embitter your own life, and will bring you down with sorrow to the grave. VI. The Churching Office. The subject of this Festival reminds me that one of the offices of the Prayer Book has come to be almost disregarded. The neglect of that beautiful provision for sanctifying and glorifying The Churching Office. 67 Maternity, " the Churching of Women," is dis- creditable to our civilization. It used to be ob- served, most sacredly, by virtuous women, of all conditions in life, as a tribute to their own self- respect ; by the lowly as a token of their honour- able marriage ; by the affluent as evidence of their refined and elevated views of the dignity of motherhood. To such motives a truly de- vout woman adds her sense of gratitude to God for the greatest of blessings, for the answer to her. prayers, and for her high vocation to be the educator of an immortal soul. It seems incredi- ble to me that any woman can attach degrading associations to such a solemnity. But perhaps this is one consequence of the neglect of a duty which, if observed conscientiously, would forever banish the false modesty and the gross ideas which are prevalent among too many. Until Christian women honour themselves and glorify their own condition in the use of this most be- coming office, it cannot be expected that such vices will cease to prevail. The remedy is with yourselves. Let the Church's daughters do in all things as the Bride of Christ teaches them to do, and they will find a rich reward in the 68 Moral Reforms. blessed effects that will follow in the household and in the community. VII. Conscience in all Things. May I ask you, next, to study much those Scriptures which are addressed to women con- fessing Christ, and which are your best guide in the paths of duty. Be convinced that to know your duty is to know, at the same time, the secret of your happiness. Any departure from this Law brings remorse and sorrow, in the end. To be the frivolous followers of Fashion will be of little use to you, here or hereafter. Beauty soon disappears, and nothing is more hideous than Age affecting the follies of Youth. A last- ing prosperity attends only those wise women who build their own houses, by founding them on a rock. It is not my purpose, in denouncing the ex- travagances of vulgar fashion, to argue against Conscience in all Things. 69 the genuine refinements of the age, or even against taste and beauty in costume. " Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her at- tire ?" Isaac gave Rebecca certain jewels of espousal, and the Bride of Christ is figuratively adorned in clothing of wrought gold and rai- ment of needle-work. There are times and oc- casions when wealth is privileged to contribute to social arts, and competence and respectability are justly expected to cultivate taste and to in- dulge it. The Christian matron, however, is warned not to make outward things her adorn- ing, even if, at a fitting time, she is apparelled with cost, and at all times with propriety ; and it is made her primary duty so to adorn herself with good works that nothing which she wears or uses can possibly be that which belongs to the needy, to the institutions of the Church, or to the Glory of Christ. Happy are those noble women who spare their husbands the extravagances of mere show, and hence have something to give to the claims of Christ and his poor ; who embellish their homes with taste, but save from the mere ca- prices of ostentation what they should expend jo Moral Reforms. in works of Faith' and Charity, and in laying up treasures for Heaven. The excessive costliness of much that is worn and used in these days is not merely to be cen- sured on the score of good taste, as marking re- cently acquired wealth, and a low social educa- tion ; but, on the score of Morals, also, as very often exceeding what the purse can justify, and so tending to poverty and crime. To advertise one's purse, in this manner, is conceded to be ill-bred : but, surely it is much worse to make a false show, or to contribute to the delusive idea that riches, without character, are worthy of re- spect : whereas, it is all important that woman- hood should maintain the great principle that Christian virtue and true benevolence are the indispensable qualities of woman's respecta- bility. VIII. Minor Proprieties. St. Paul, writing by the Holy Spirit, has given Minor Proprieties. Ji very minute directions as to womanly proprie- ties, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, as in other places. I beg that as Christian women, you will teach them to your daughters. In Confirmation, there is a general departure from the rule of the Apostle that women should not be uncovered in public worship. The old custom requiring a plain veil, or cap, to be worn at such times, would be according to God's Law, and hence I wish it were restored: but, if con- venience and long usage, in this one exceptional instance, be regarded as justifying a momentary suspension of the law (as the law of the Sab- bath had its exceptions, and also the eating of the shewbread by the Laity), then let it be un- derstood that the Gospel requires, at all other times, that as men should be uncovered in wor- ship, so also women should be covered. This is the Scriptural Law of all public worship, and it should not be disregarded in church-choirs, and at weddings. Who would tolerate, in the other sex, a like disregard of the law that men should uncover the head ? This was a Christian precept, reversing the rule of Jewish* worship. But, the Law as to the women rests on an ap- 72 Moral Reforms. peal to their native modesty, as well as on an v Apostolic precept. " Judge in yourselves," says the Scripture, " is it comely that a woman pray unto God, uncovered ? " " Every woman that prayeth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head." It was by these rules that the mod- esty of Christian women was made a part of their religion : and out of these simple laws of ■a the Holy Ghost, have grown alike the freedom with which Christian women move in society, and the delicate self-respect which so elevates them above the condition of their sex in Mo- hammedan and other heathen countries, and which secures them from insult, even in public places, and almost when exposed to the gaze of the vilest of men. I have touched upon this point to remind you that all the rules of Holy Scripture have moral bearings and grand purposes, even when they seem to be minute and unimportant in them- selves. Practical Matters. ' 73 IX. Practical Matters. But, in closing this address, let me now ask your attention to two or three great practical matters, by which a wise woman may not only " build her own house," but the house of the Lord also. I have spoken of education ; I call upon you to aid me, and to aid your pastors, in the establishment of truly Christian Schools, in which your children may find that training which is their birth-right and their inheritance — the training to which I have referred already, as the surest dependence for time and eternity, the Blessed Word of God, and the Book of Common Prayer. Remember Lois and Eunice, and do not fail to instruct your children in the catechism and in the Scriptures, yourselves, personally. It is a great thing for a child to associate such teach- ings with a mothers voice. That voice will sound in his ear all through life. As a foolish 74 Moral Reforms. and wicked mother's counsel haunts the soul of her child as long as he lives, so the good mother is a guardian angel, especially to the son, and the remembrance of her recalls him even from a prodigal's exile to his father's house. I beg you to look well to the formation of your Family Libraries. Every house should be supplied with books, and with none but the best books. Reject the frivolous and licentious magazines and periodicals of the day, and choose only those which are pure and of wholesome moral and religious character. Many children's books abound in maxims the most pernicious and immoral. These poison the very fountains of moral life, and are worse than the noisome pestilence. , I ask you to encourage the careful and punc- tual attendance of your households on week-day services, so far as you may have it in your power to do so, and to avoid making other en- gagements for evenings when services may be appointed in your parish churches. I entreat you to see to it that Family Prayer be not neg- lected in your households, but that every day God's Holy Word is read and His blessed Name invoked under your roof. Practical Matters. 75 I urge you to encourage your most promising sons to be students and scholars, so to supply the land with its learned men ; and more especially to call on such of them as may seem best suited for it to reflect on the claims of Christ for their service in the Ministry of the Blessed Gospel. Finally, I urge you often to seek the closet for holy communion with God, so to prepare yourselves for all the duties and responsibilities of your calling as Christian Women — wives, mothers, and " handmaids of the Lord." Be- hold how glorious your sphere, and how degrad- ing the ideas of those who would invade it and drag you out of it, into gross and revolting pub- licity. With all the gratitude of one who owes to a Christian mother lessons of life and duty more precious than any worldly fortune, and with all the reverence for the sex which can be in- spired by such gratitude, I commend these thoughts to your prayerful consideration ; and am, at once, your brother in Christ, and, in the Episcopate, your father in God. See-House, Buffalo, January 27, 1868. ILLUSTRATIONS. The subjects already treated requiring some further illus- tration, I have here grouped my remarks into chapters, instead of encumbering the pages with foot-notes. ILLUSTRATIONS. Deaconesses. The order of Deaconesses having been often referred to in the foregoing remarks, it may be very reasonably inquired what plan or principle should be recognized in its restoration. I reply, I am able to give the detailed ac- count which follows. In January, 1864, while a presbyter of the Diocese of New York, I was called upon by my bishop (Dr. Potter), to con- sider, as one of a committee, the following questions which he proposed to us, for counsel : Questions in regard to a Sisterhood on which the Bishop desires the opinion of his Presbyters : 1. Is it well for him to recognize a Sisterhood, and to stand in some fixed relation tQ it? 80 Moral Reforms. 2. If so, what should that relation be? 3. Should there be different classes : such as full sisters, probationers, and associates ? 4. With what engagements should a woman enter the Sisterhood ? 5. Should the age be beyond a given limit ? and what? 6. As to form and circumstances of initiation — how far a religious solemnity, and how far public ? 7. As to a uniform habit? 8. How shall the first Sister be appointed, and for what term ? 9. Shall there be a Rector between the Sisters and the Bishop ? 10. Of what age should he be, and how appointed? 1 1 . Shall the Sisterhood be a general Institution, inde- pendent of the House of Mercy, and incorporated ? 12. How shall rules and a form of initiation be drawn up ? 13. I would suggest that the committee undertake this when the other matters have been disposed of. 14. Can you suggest a na7ne for the Sisterhood? 15. And as to the function of a Sister, is the term Dea- coness the right and expedient one to use ? Along with these questions I send sundry papers, which please preserve carefully, and return to me. Praying God to guide and prosper your deliberations. These questions were all very carefully con- sidered and debated by the clergy to whom they were confided ; and, as the result, we were able to unite in the following report, which fully embodies all my view.s on the subject. The Deaconesses. 8 1 report was addressed, of course, to our vener- able Diocesan. The Report to the Bishop of Neiv York* Your communication having been read, it was resolved to take up the questions in order to discuss each one separately, and then to agree upon a report, containing, in a series, our answers to each point presented. The discussion had not gone far, however, before it was perceived that a subject of great width was opening upon us ; and as our delib- erations proceeded, it became evident to all that we could not adhere to the course which we had originally proposed to pursue. For the questions seemed to refer to a special case with the exception of No. i and No. 15, which ap- peared to bear upon the general subject of Woman's Work in the Church of Christ. It was found that every attempt to decide upon a concrete topic led to a discussion of abstract principles, and with such logical certainty that a The committee consisted of the Rev'd Drs. Tuttle, Peters and Dix, with the present bishops of Long Island and Western New York. 82 Moral Reforms. the decision of any single point required a full understanding upon the bearings of the whole question, and could only be satisfactorily rend- ered by reference to such a general view. Un- certain as to your wishes, we were in doubt how to proceed, not knowing whether you in- tended that we should go beyond the line marked out for us in your communication. But since it was found impossible to come to any agreement on particulars, until we had first reached entire unanimity on the general ques- tion, we decided to ask your indulgence, and take the only course which seemed practicable. We have not been able in making our report, to follow your queries in the order in which they were* put ; and yet it is believed that in this, our reply, no one of them has been overlooked, and that an answer to each will appear. The Committee found themselves engaged about two distinct yet connected subjects. The first was that of the work of Devout Women in the Church ; the second was that of Religi- ous Houses in which such persons should reside together under rule. It is therefore proposed, with your permission, to treat of these sub- Deaconesses. 83 jects, as briefly as may be consistent with the design of placing our Bishop in possession of our views on each of them. It is evident, as well from the Holy Scrip- tures as from the records of the Primitive Church, that, from the very first, women were admitted to the function of special works and labours of love for the glory of God and for the good of the bodies and souls of their fellow- creatures ; that they were enrolled and organ- ized for such works ; that peculiar obligations were regarded as binding them while so en- gaged : and that they stood in- a definite offi- cial relation to the Church, from the moment of their entering upon those duties and assum- ing those obligations. Thus we read of the " Deaconess " as having a recognized position among the faithful ; of a " number " into which none should be admitted but with restrictions as to age and character ; of a life of devotion described expressively by St Paul as involving the serving God by continuing " in supplica- tions and prayers night and day ; " of a spirit- ual relationship to Christ so incompatible with worldly ties that he prohibits younger women 84 Moral Reforms. from entering into it lest, by marriage, they should " wax wanton against Christ," and " cast off their first faith," thereby incurring krima, or, (to drop the harsher term used by our transla- tors,) condemnation. These Scripture expres- sions involve the idea of a life of self-dedication which must have been different from the life of the ordinary Christian family ; of a life which must have been passed under rule, and from which, after it had once been entered upon, no one could with safety or honour retire. It is un- necessary to enter upon a discussion of the re- cords of the Early Church ; for no one familiar with them is ignorant that these ideas were held as Scriptural and Apostolic, by the Chris- tians of the First Age ; that the iife of which we are speaking was recognized, embraced, and held in high honour in those, the purest days of the Church's history ; and that full approval and sanction were accorded it, as well by the authorities ecclesiastical as by the mind of the faithful in general. The Commitee are, therefore, united in the opinion, that great advantages would flow from the recovery of those ideas, and from their ap- Deaconesses. 85 plication towards results, under a practical form such as should command the confidence of our people. They feel that there is no sufficient reason why the Church of Rome should con- tinue to enjoy, as though by a recognized mo- nopoly, the advantages and the credit resulting from association and concentration in this kind of work. Regarding the system of mediaeval nunneries as a late and evil development from the Primitive System, they would recommend a return to the way of the first days of the Church, and an attempt to regain, by resort to a Scriptural and Apostolic platform, and by the revival of a Scriptural and Apostolic office, the power which resides in truly primitive institu- tions. We find in the Holy Scripture the word " Deaconess." It is evidently the name of what may be called an Order; it is the ap- pellation of a certain office, known, recognized, and held in esteem in the earliest period of Christianity. That name may be taken as a symbolic term ; so that, in the use of it, the fact is shown and set prominently forward, that they who would revive the Order formerly so desig- 86 Moral Reforms. nated, have in their minds a good and profit- able thing, approved by the first and highest authority, and not a comparatively recent and dangerous institution, the product of a deteri- orated type of religion. This term, in fact, seems to possess a marked fitness, in respect to the historical position of the system which it de- notes. For it is the name of an office marked by a special designation to its exercise ; recog- nized by authority ; comprehending all works of mercy, spiritual as well as corporal, among its objects ; assumed only by permission and after probation ; and regarded as involving a final and life-longf dedication to the service of the Divine Master. At the same time it is pure of the defilements wjiich other offices have contracted ; it is not associated with supersti- tions foreign to the spirit of the Gospel ; and it includes no idea of relationship to Roman errours, whether of doctrine or practice. Your committee would, therefore, recommend that the Order and Office of a Deaconess in the "Church of Christ should be restored among us ; as one which is both Scriptural and primi- tive in its origin and design ; and as one which Deaconesses. 8 7 will afford, to devout women who may be ad- mitted thereto, the means and opportunities of systematic and effective work in the Household of Faith. They would further suggest, with reference to the duties of such Deaconesses, the age at which they should be admitted to that good de- gree, and the other qualifications requisite in applicants, such considerations as the following : 1. It should be understood, that the work of a Deaconess should not be limited, but that it be held to include all the corporal and spiritual works of mercy which a woman may perform ; and that the idea, as well of a con- templative life of prayer and devotion, as of an active life of manual labour or otherwise, should be included in the full description of the office. But especially it should be held to have refer- ence to the care of the sick and needy, and to the work of educating the young. 2. It is considered that no woman should be admitted as a Deaconess until she be at least forty years of age, nor until she have had a probation sufficient to remove all doubt from her own mind, and from that of her advisers, 88 Moral Reforms. that she is duly qualified for that work, and has, so far as can be judged, a true vocation to the same. If the time of her probation have been passed in a Religious House, (as hereinafter explained), it is further considered that such time of probation should in no case be less than ten years in extent. 3. It should be, also, understood that, while no previous engagement or vow binds the pro- bationer to enter that Order, yet that when, after full consideration, she shall have been ad- mitted thereto, the step is to be a final step, and the dedication of herself to those duties must be, in the full purpose and intent of the candi- date, unqualified and absolute. These conclusions having been reached, the attention of your Committee was next directed to the manner in which persons would probably be prepared and qualified for the high position and responsibilities which have been described. Here the question of Sisterhoods was encoun- tered, in its logical order. For, if devout women were moved to desire that higher way of life, and yet could not embrace it without due pro- bation, it seemed probable that the simplest Deaconesses. 89 and most acceptable mode of making prepara- tion would be, to form themselves into commu- nities or households, as a step towards their final object. Existing associations might also be continued with that end in view. Therefore your Committee would, in addition to the suggestions already offered on the sub- ject of Deaconesses, respectfully make the fol- lowing recommendations on the subject of Sisterhoods : 1. That the Bishop should recognize the principle of the association of devout women in organizations to be known as Sisterhoods, with a view to the fulfilment of such works, or any of them, as may prepare them for the office of Deaconess in the Church of Christ. 2. That such Sisterhoods should be incor- porated if it be found expedient or necessary. 3. That such Sisterhoods should include different classes, to wit : Sisters, properly so called, and Probationers ; the Sisters being in probation for the Order of Deaconesses, and the Probationers being in probation for the Sis- terhood : that, in future time, Deaconesses should also be united in such association with 90 Moral Reforms. the Sisters and Probationers ; and that it should be permitted to have associates, not members of the Religious House, but living with their own families, and indirectly lending aid to its objects. 4. That no person should be admitted as a Sister, who is under the age of twenty-five years. 5. That no vows should bind the members of such Sisterhoods during their term of proba- tion, but that they should be at liberty to with- draw at any time previous to their being admitted Deaconesses. 6. That the Bishop should stand in a defi- nite official relation, not merely to the J Sister- hoods in general, but also to each one in particular ; that he should be legally visitor of each Sisterhood, and should have an Episcopal check on their proceedings at any time and in all matters. 7. That all forms of initiation, as well to Sisterhoods as to the Order of Deaconesses, and all religious services other than those of the Book of Common Prayer, which may be used at such initiation, or at other times by them in public, should be drawn up by the Bishop, or by some person appointed by him for that purpose. Deaconesses. 9 1 8. That all rules for the conduct and inter- nal management of the said Religious Houses should be draughted by the members thereof, subject to the Bishop's approval. 9. That the Sisterhoods may be designated by proper and suitable names, as in the case of parish churches ; but that the names of Sister- hoods should be confined to such as may be found in Holy Scripture and in Primitive Church History ; and that the members of each Sisterhood may select the name by which it shall be called and known. 10. That the members of the Sisterhoods wear a suitable and uniform habit. 11. That in selecting a Superior, or First Sister, or Head of the Household, the Sisters should send to the Bishop one or more names, not to exceed three in number, and that the Bishop should make a selection from among those names ; and that the person so selected should fill the office for a term not less than three years in duration, nor more than seven. 12. That there should be attached to each Sisterhood, a clergyman, to be called and known as the Warden or Chaplain, or by some appro- 92 Moral Reforms. priate .title of that description ; that he be appointed by the Bishop ; and, although, for obvious reasons, no rule can be laid down as to the age of the person so appointed, yet the Committee would recommend that he be not less than forty years old. Your Committee now conclude their Report, with the hope that their mode of presenting their replies to the questions proposed by the Bishop may not be regarded by him as officious, and with the belief that every point covered by those questions will be found to have been answered. Such was our Report. It should be added that our views were not purely theoretical. My own were formed upon some practical observa- tions of the Order of Deaconesses as it has for several years existed in the Diocese of Mary- land. Many years have passed since the great importance of Sisterhoods began to be recog- nized in England, under impressions- produced by the writings of the late Mr. Southey. The Education of Conscience. 93 II. The Education of Conscience. It is a blessed thing that our ancient Church refuses to give to her children a conscience- keeper, and leaves to every one, of full age, the solemn responsibility of studying the Scrip- tures and conforming himself to that Holy Law. It is by this self-exercise, of which St. Paul speaks, that spiritual growth and health are developed ; and experiments designed to relieve the individual conscience of this work, whether in the Romish Confessional, or in the minute rules of divers sects, have always failed to pro- mote a genuine morality. In her Catechetical Instructions, however, by Canons, by Pastoral Letters, and by the duty laid on her bishops to address their dioceses on matters of practical piety, the Church provides for the enlightment of conscience and for the general guidance of the judgment. Such has been the rule of the Catholic and Apostolic 5* 94 Moral Reforms. Church from the beginning. Now among "the pomps and vanities" renounced at baptism, were anciently understood among other things, theat- rical exhibitions and " all promiscuous and las- civious dancing of men and women together. " a I must leave it to Christian Mothers to say whether certain modern dances are not justly accused of such a character. Popular satire is everywhere busy in crying shame upon some of them. " The Girl of the Period " has become a by-word. The nudity and lewd familiarities, the drinking and late hours of modern balls, are denounced in popular songs and caricatures ; yet, constantly, I am told, as I go on my Epis- copal journeys, that these things are patronized, as well as tolerated, by Christians of all names, and by many Communicants of the Church. Indeed, I am often asked what it is that Chris- tians " renounce " under the name of pomps and vanities, and in what the life of Communi- cants is supposed to differ from that of the votaries of pleasure and worldly living. In short, things have come to such a pass, that I must call attention to these scandals, and trust a See Bingham's Antiquities, Book XVI., chap, xii., 15. The Education of Conscience. 95 in the Holy Ghost and the power of con- science, to bring about the remedy, especially by the wholesome operation of our annual Lenten discipline, retirement, meditation and prayer. Let nobody suppose that the Church's stand- ard of morals is lower in these respects than that of other Christians. St. Ambrose power- fully rebuked the immodest dances of his day, specifying many of the shameful character- istics which have reappeared in these times. " St. Chrysostom," says Bingham, " has abund- ance to the same purpose ;" and nobody can read Jeremy Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying," without feeling that " the sober, right- eous and gqdly life," for which we continually pray, implies far more than popular religion is wont to enjoin. The late Bishop Meade, of Virginia, in his valuable essay on " Baptismal Vows," reminds us that it is neither Puritan nor Methodist, but the extreme high-churchman, Bishop Collier, who has laid down the law most stringently concern- ing theatrical entertainments. I refer you on that subject to Bishop Meade's excellent re- g6 Moral Reforms. marks, only calling your attention to the lan- guage of our own House of Bishops in a Pas- toral Letter of fifty years since. It must be remembered that things which the Police of that day would not have tolerated are now, everywhere, common in theatres ; yet they say : " The House of Bishops, solicitious for the preservation of the purity of the Church, and the piety of its members, are induced to impress upon the Clergy the important duty, with a discreet but earnest zeal, of warning the people of their respective cures, of the danger of an indulgence 2 in those worldly pleasures, which may tend to withdraw the af- fections from spiritual things. And especially on the subject of gaming, of amusements involving cruelty to the brute creation, and of theatrical representations, to which some peculiar circumstances have called their attention : they do not hesitate to express their unanimous opinion that these amusements, as well from their licentious tendency as from the strong temptations to vice which they afford, ought not to be frequented. And the Bishops cannot refrain from ex- pressing their deep regret at the information that, in some of our large cities, so little respect is paid to the feelings of the members of the Church, that theatrical representations are fixed for the evenings* of her most solemn festivals."* Let me only add, that the diocese of Mary- land, always foremost under its great bishop, a House of Bishops, May 27, 1S17. The Education of Conscience. 97 and by its eminent lay-delegates, in the councils of our Church, has legislated on this subject as follows: "Canon xviii. Attendance upon the- atrical exhibitons, horse-races and other vain and light amusements, being considered inconsist- ent with the Christian character, it is hereby declared the duty of members of this Church carefully to abstain from encouraging them by their presence." The late Bishop Potter, of Pennsylvania, in his essay on " the drinking usages of society," has fully discussed and rebuked another form of vice, and to his pages I would refer the reader for wholesome admonitions on that subject. If the bishop has taken grounds, which, in the judgment of some, are too austere, let us remem- ber that a reformer, to use a homely illustration, is like the engine that goes, with mighty im- pulse, in advance of the railway carriages, be- cause it has to drag thousands after it, who would make no progress at all if left to their own means of locomotion. So then our Church, gives only general di- rections, and within these limits leaves the rest to every man's conscience in the fear of God. 98 Moral Reforms. She instructs her children by the largest reading of God's word, and leaves the rest just where the Apostle does when he says : " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso- ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things!' III. Direction. A brilliant French writer has produced a series of novels, of which Le M audit (" Under the Ban ") was the first, to illustrate the actual condition of Romanism in France. a In La Re- ligieuse he unveils the wretched results of Con- vent Education ; concerning which the learned Abbe Guettee bears a testimony which ought to sink into the hearts of those American parents a The series, in French, may be had of T. W. Christern, importer, 77 University Place, New York. Direction. 99 who foolishly give up their children to this in- sidious system of corruption as it now exists in America. With reference to the late exposure of Convent Life in England, by the famous Saurin case at Westminster Hall, he says : " The developments which shocked the English, in that trial, are the most ordinary matters in all convents, but there are much graver secrets than these. No need to go back to the middle ages for veritable victims, nor for immoralities of all sorts. They deny these excesses, it is true, with an impudence which they who are not in a condition to know about them can hardly- credit. But they who do know all about it find in such impudence only another proof of the profound immorality which prevails in Con- vents. All is covered up, indeed, under a mys- tic formalism, which, at first, may deceive. Those who know these houses, called religious, more intimately cannot be so imposed upon. It is customary to praise them as seats of angelic life. But, angels, indeed ! Which sort of an- gels, for there are two kinds ? The English have found out a little, but they will learn much more if Convents are to be multiplied among them." ioo Moral Reforms. So speaks the Abbe, who knows all about French Convents. But the author of Le Mau- dil, whoever he may be, is another Abbe, equally well informed, and his work La Religieuse should be read in connection with another which fol- lowed it, Le Confesseur. In this truly vivid picture of French Life, the author shows that the Confessional is an entire failure, and ought to be abolished; that it nowhere exists according to its theory, as a Sacrament of penitence ; and, that the Jesuits and Dominicans, who aspire to be the Directors of " fashionable ladies," have a thorough contempt for it. They decline to act as confessors, and only accept the care of souls as Directors] that is to say, as assuming the whole control of a lady s conscience, deposing her husband as well as her own personality, and taking her whole household, even to the kitchen and the bed-chamber, under their own rule. Such is the system of Jesuit dominion, which begets the utmost hatred of all religion in the hearts of fathers and husbands, and drives them into infidelity. This is the system which the Jesuits are trying to introduce into our country. They first gain some terrible secret of a gay Moloch Worship. ■ . 101 woman's history, in the confessional, and then hold her, by the chain of her known sins, a slave and a victim for life. How different the refuge offered to tl\e true pentitent in Holy Scripture. " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." The blessed means of grace provided in the Church, first cleanse and then restore the true penitent : they bid him " go and sin no more :" they place him under the care of a pastor, not an inquisitor; and they give him wisdom and strength to "ex- ercise himself" and to direct his own conscience by God's word, as one who must answer for himself before God. IV. Moloch Worship. A physician of highly respectable position, has lately sent me several of his own contribu- tions to one of our newspapers, from which I extract the following paragraphs : "It is related that when the Huguenot Mother, Perrotine 102 . Moral Reforms. Massy, and her two daughters were burned at the stake, one of the latter was delivered of a child in the very midst of the fiery furnace, which rolled out of it alive and almost un- scathed. A bystander picked up the child, thus miracu- lously saved, but was ordered by the bailiff, Helier Gosselin, to throw it back into the flames that it might be consumed with its heretic mother." This happened in the isle of Guernsey, under Queen Mary the Bloody. " One cannot read such a recital as this without a shud- der of horror ; it outrages every sympathy and sensibility of our nature, and we feel like doubting, almost, its veracity. Judging of a Helier Gosselin after our own standard of vir- tue, we are compelled to the belief that either himself and the class to which he belonged were exceptional beings of different moral mould from the mass of humanity, or else that human nature must have settled into a sad state of de- generacy in the times of Mary Tudor, from which, happily, it has since elevated itself. " But is this conclusion correct ? What if we state that to- day, — in our very midst, — in the bosom of the Church, within those circles of society where the tenderer attributes of human sympathy are most cherished and cultivated; within the closer and dearer limits of the family and the fire- side, crimes are committed, daily and hourly, that rival the savage brutality of Gosselin ! " Gosselin did not believe that he was committing a crime ; on the contrary, he no doubt supposed that he was fulfilling a stern religious duty, so much the more meritorious as it was costly to his moral sentiments." Moloch Worship. 103 After arguing that no such excuse can be found for another class of child-murderers, the writer adds : " The terrible fact exists, the bloody work goes on day by day, the cruel actors in it are taken by the hand, public con- science sleeps, the law looks blandly on, and society felici- tates itself upon its moral progress and high religious stand- ard. " Then the crime must be so skillfully covered up that it never sees the light; that old and well-established law of events which forces crime to the surface where it must be discovered, has ceased to act ! " Wrong again. No general fact is better or more univer- sally known than that of the existence of this crime ; there are few members % of any community who could not point the finger at some one who is guilty of it ; proposals and means to its commission are boldly advertised throughout the country ; knowledge of these means are retailed from one to another in every grade of society ; the guilty even boast of their guilt, and laugh at the timid fears of those whose con- sciences still feebly restrain them from yielding to these ex- amples of evil. " It will have been divined what crime is alluded to ; there is but one .that could exist under such conditions, and that is murder of the unborn human offspring — willful destruc- tion of the existence created by God for an undying soul • a flying in the face of the Creator by despatching to Him, un- timely, a witness that shall live to confront the murderer in the day of judgment. " Murder is always murder, whether it consist in the des- truction of the apparently formless ovum, or the full grown 104 Moral Reforms. man. In either instance the organic animal life, concurrent with the spiritual, has been arrested in its progress ; a spe- cific creation, endowed with all its attributes of immortal as well as mortal existence has been destroyed, so far as it is destructible, and the perpetrator of the deed has taken upon himself the responsibility of sending a soul back to God who gave it. There is a social difference ; society and human relationships miss the murdered child or man, and do not miss the unborn child which has never yet taken its place among them,. but that is all; there is no difference in the accountability to God for the destruction of a work which is His from the beginning. The Psalmist says : " My bones are not hid from thee, though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the earth. "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book were all my members written; ^ ' ' Which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."- — Ps. cxxxix. " If then this crime is so prevalent, so widely known, and so horrible and bloody in its character, how does it come about that it should be tolerated and tacitly ignored in a civi- lized and Christian community? Wherein consists the fatal errour that renders either its commisson or toleration possi- ble in a land where lesser crimes are so vigorously frowned down and punished? " The basis, the ultimate element of this error lies, as the present writer believes, in a mistaken popular notion that denies both spiritual and animal life to the foetus, at least up to quite an advanced period of gestation. This notion has governed and does govern, even now, the laws of the land, as well as popular opinion. It seems strange that the simple thought that the germ not interfered with Moloch Worship. 105 would in time become a man, should not have carried with it a deeper sense of the importance of that germ and of its intimate relations with spiritual life. Suffice it to say here, that no physiologist doubts at the present day, that the relations of the ovum an instant old to the immortal life of a newly created soul, are the same as those of a man who has reached the allotted three-score-years-and-ten, so far as the facts of the existence and individuality of that soul are concerned. " But the fallacy, the opposite to this doctrine, naturally carries with it the popular impression that to destroy the unformed child, is a mere peccadillo, the furthest possible removed from such a terrible crime as murder. Add to this facility for the accomplishment of such a design; familiarity, which always softens the hideous aspect of crime; the force of example; laxity of the law; moral carelessnes, an educating of the mind, so to speak, to the admission of such guilty deeds as a sort of matter of course, and we have the state of things which actually exists. " It is difficult to state how extensively practiced is this murderous habit. It would be safe to say, perhaps, that un- born generations have been lessened of late nearly one-half by criminal interference with the laws of nature/' From another journal I extract the following alarming statements : " The report of Dr. Harris, the Register of Vitaf Statistics in New York, speaks volumes and furnishes food for earn- est reflection. The returns of births in the city of New York, during the six months ending Sept. 30, 1866, show 5,745 births, of which 868 were children of native parents, 106 Moral Reforms. 3,246 were of foreign parentage, 398 had foreign fathers only, 339 had foreign mothers only, and the parentage of 894 was not stated. This shows a total of 3,983 children of foreign parentage born during that period, while only 868 full-blooded natives were ushered into this world. The Doctor asserts that the returns are manifestly incorrect, but remarks that the tables show a decided preponderance of children of foreign parentage. In Brooklyn, 1,991 births were registered; 776 were children of native parents; 807 of foreign; 213 had foreign fathers; 137 had foreign moth- ers, and the parentage of 37 was not stated. This shows a total of 1,157 children of foreign parentage born in Brooklyn, and as decided a preponderance as in New York. The Doctor thus shows how many babies have come into the world, and their parentage, but unfortunately the records do not show the condition of the parents — if they did, what a tale would be told of city life ! Our New York corres- pondent recently copied an extract from Dr. Harris's report, in which he referred to the crime of child murder, and as- serted that the bureau should have returns of from 27,000 to 30,000 births in New York annually, and half as many in Kings Co., that is unless marriage is a farce and child murder more frequent than he believed it to be. Accord- ing to the best calculation which can be made of the births last year we do not believe that the records will show 12,000 in New York, and yet the Doctor insists that by the laws of social progress there should have been at least 27,000. If these *figures be correct what has become of the absent 15,000 babes? The still-births will perhaps number 2,000, leaving 13,000 to be accounted for. The great question is where have they gone to ? The Doctor's figures may be exaggerated, but diminish them as we may we cannot escape the fact that thousands of children are sacrificed yearly. Moloch Worship. 107 " It is a subject of common remark that rich people have small families ; the middle classes do not overburden them- selves with 'olive branches'; but the poorer classes are literally ' fruitful and multiplying/ The returns themselves show more than four foreign births to one native, and every- body knows that the foreigners are to a great extent among the poorer classes. The poor do not have children because they can better afford them than the rich, but the latter do not have them because they consider it unfashionable ; they do not care to have the trouble of rearing their offspring * and, not only themselves but the less wealthy classes, find no difficulty in getting rid of the children during the periods of gestation, when such a process may be considered com- paratively safe. This is a bold assertion, but one that will be borne out by the facts if ever they can be collected. " A glance at a morning journal published in New York shows no less than thirty advertisements of persons who, ' for a consideration/ will ' remove obstructions, from what- ever cause/ Few of our newspapers are free from these advertisements, so that those who l run may read/ "Dr. Harris knows that did not the 'oath of Hippocrates' forbid, physicians could reveal tales of this crime which would startle the community and assist him to account for infants, more or less, which his theories say should have made their entree into this wicked world every year." My late Pastoral calls forth from a Boston editor, a very kind notice, which he follows up in the following vigorous language : " For nearly two years we have been speaking as much and as strdngly as we dared, probably more than was accept- 108 Moral Reforms able to our readers, on the dreadful theme. The thought of it has been to us literally an infinite and inexpressible sorrow; we could not shake it off; it has haunted us like a stifling, hideous dream. The crime has at length grown to such monstrous proportions, that no human language can suf- fice to describe it. Why, all the other sins and horrors of our land put together, our recent slavery, our late civil war, and all the drunkenness, and even the enormous curse of frauds, robberies, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders, which we are now going through, — all these rolled into one lump, do not equal the mass of shocking and inhuman depravity which the American people are guilty of in this one particu- lar. Our whole social and domestic life and being are suffering and wasting away under the ' deep damnation ' of it. Nearly all our walks of fashion, wealth, position, re- spectability, and even of piety, or what passes for such, are full of it. Our Protestant Churches are cursed, we some- times fear, beyond the hope and the possibility of redemp- tion, by the horrible impiety of it. " Some strange, diabolical visitation seems to have well- nigh burnt the conscience all out of our people on this point. Even our religion has lost its guarding and protec- tive efficacy in this most sacred and most awful province of morality, which is indeed the very holy of holies of humanity itself. The devoutest members of our Churches, or those who seem such, rush into the secret house of life, and turn it into a Moloch shrine, without even the slightest twinges of compunction or remorse. Protestant Christians of the first circles even boast of their sacrifices to that dreadful devil, and freely encourage others in the hideous and hellish worship. " Surely, then, it is high time that the Protestant Clergy Moloch Worship. 109 should cease their eternal wranglings about orthodoxy and doctrinal righteousness, and begin to think of those living, practical duties and virtues on which the very life of human- ity depends. They ought, long before now, to have addressed themselves most seri&usly to grappling and strug- gling with this monstrous evil. They will have enough to do, we can tell them, to preach a conscience into their peo- ple in this matter ; for the task is indeed hardly less than to ' create a soul under the ribs of death.' If they cannot blow and feed into a strong flame the few faint embers of moral life that yet live in this behalf, then, most assuredly, their candle-stick will soon be removed out of its place ; and the sooner the better. Indeed, that the light of reason and conscience and religion should have so far gone out, under their teachings, in this most vital point, is such a mix- ture of crime and blunder as we do not well see how they can survive. It almost looks as if not merely one, but all the screws were loose in their cause. It is in marriage and motherhood that the very life of the whole thing is centered. To fail in this is to fail utterly. What saves us here, will needs have, and will deserve to have, possession of the ground. Without this, our doctrinal virtues, and ' vital pieties ' are the starkest shams, and putting faith in them is the steepest of heresies. If Protestantism cannot serve us in this behalf, then the days of Protestantism are numbered, and it cannot hasten too swiftly into its grave." I have selected this from a large number of similar specimens of journalism, because, while it gives such a strong confirmation to my own words, it adopts, from beginning to end, 6 no Moral Reforms. - the Jesuit's hint that Protestantism is to be credited with these immoralities. I am no ad- mirer of Sectarian Protestantism, for the whole Reformation owes its arrest and its apparent de- feat, to the divisions of the Reformed and to the Sectarian bodies which disfigure and enfeeble modern Protestantism. But, I assert that, with all their faults, Protestant nations are, almost everywhere, comparatively pure, in their social life, if they be contrasted with those nations in which Romanism is supreme. In a word — compare the Northern and Middle States of America, with Brazil, with Mexico, with Italy, with Spain. We are bad enough, but, thank God, the ministers of religion are not our leaders in shameless vice ; they do not live in lewdness ; they do not afford a spectacle of every form of sensuality and licentiousness, and seduce women and children into the vilest forms of life-long captivity to sin. That such is the moral condition of many Romish countries is too well known to require elaborate illustration ; but a public document, lately issued by the government of Brazil, openly sustains these charges, and asserts that The Need of Christian Unity. 1 1 1 the morals of the people cannot be elevated, while their priests afford them an almost uni- versal example of dissolute living. a V. The Need of Christian Unity. While I 'thus defend even the inorganic religion of my countrymen, from unjust re- proach, I cannot but add that the remonstrances of the Boston Journalist are a sign of the times. This country is becoming impatient of un- real, hollow, guerilla forms of religion, which cannot be brought to bear, practically, on the moral life of the people. It is getting ready for almost any change, and in a sort of con- tempt for Sectarianism feels like calling in Romanism and giving it a trial. Thus, the sick ass in the fable calls in the viper to inocu- late him, because the dogs have licked his sores in vain. What the inorganic piety of America requires is the organizing life of the a Consult Count de la Hure on Brazil, published in Paris. ii2 Moral Reforms. historical Catholic Church of Christ. This alone can mass its forces, harmonize them, and give them concentrated power to contend with evil and to propagate good. Let the Metho- dists recur to their acknowledged standard, unite with the Church of their great founder, John Wesley, share with us in a genuine Episcopate, a Primitive Liturgic and Ritual System, and add an efficient system of Christian nurture to their zealous preaching, and the whole land will feel the influence of a new spirit. Let me quote the words of their own Dr. Coke, as fol- lows : "I most cordially wish for a re-union of the Protestant Episcopal and the Methodist Churches in these States. The object is of vast magnitude. . . . How great would be the strength of our Church, (will you give me leave to call it so ? I mean the Protestant Episcopal) if the two sticks were made one ? How can this be done ? The magnitude of the object would justify considerable sacrifices." So wrote one of the founders of American Methodism in 1791, to Bishop Seabury, of Connecticut. Let this spirit be revived, and America will be, in due time, rescued from the The Need of Christian Unity. 1 1 3 threatening evils of Infidelity and Romanism, by the natural process of a reunion between its historic and its popular forms of faith. I call ours the historic Church, for let me remind the pious descendants of the New En- gland pilgrims, that a great proportion of the founders of Massachusetts were presbyters in the orders of the Church of England, and that most of those things to which they objected, in the Church of England, have passed away, or have been re-adopted by descendants of the Puritans. Let me also remind the Presbyte- rians, in their several denominations, that in the tract " Moderate Episcopacy," I have de- monstrated their historic position to be much nearer to " the Episcopal Church " than is com- monly supposed ; so that I may well claim that ours is the historic Church of America, to which the chief of the other systems of the land may, naturally, converge, and in which they may happily meet, in due time. We must hasten slowly of course ; but, let the spirit of a recov- ered organic Unity begin at once. If not, then Protestantism in our land must run through the phases which have destroyed its spirftual life H4 Moral Reforms. in Europe ; and Jesuitism is destined to a tem- porary triumph in America, as in France and Germany. No nation of Europe ever offered it such facilities as our own Republic ; yet, it soon overcame the Protestantism of France, regained one-half of Germany and neutralized the Reformation in the other half. It is not difficult to foresee its progress here — unless an Apostolic Church is able to give it the organized opposition for which Sectarian Pro- testantism has no resources. VI. Cheap EdiLcation. It is the plan of the Romanists to furnish cheap education, in order to gather in the chil- dren of weak Protestants, who prefer cheap poison to food for their children at reasonable prices. The Romish priesthood, by bargains with politicians, secure the means to make their schools cheap, getting enormous grants from the Legislatures of our States, and from the Cheap Education. 115 corporations of towns and cities, all of which comes out of the purse of the tax -payer. Thus it is that Romish convents, abolished by law, as public nuisances, in Italy, are established by law, in America. But, what does this cheap education amount to ? Generally, it affords a thin varnish of ac- complishments, over a much thinner ground- work of real mental culture. Look at the women of Italy and Spain ; at the women of Mexico and Brazil ! Are these of the charac- ter we should prefer for our daughters ? Is it not our duty to train up a child in the way she should go ? And is this the way ? A religion of sensuous and imaginative routine, having little or no reference to the culture of the intellect and the heart, is that to which the plastic and emotional character of the young girl is subjected, when she enters a convent-school. These schools exist for no other purpose than to make proselytes. The Sisterhood of " the Sacred Heart," so-called, is under the control of the Jesuits, and is their instrument for operating on women, more es- pecially in Protestant countries. Whoever 1 1 6 Moral Reforms. sends his daughter to such a school, puts a dove into the coils of a serpent. More than one true story could I tell of the fatal conse- quences of such cheap education. But, if pa- rents are so weak as to subject their child to the peril, who can pity them when they bewail their folly ? I have seen parents wringing their hands and confessing -that they could better bear to see their child in the coffin of an inno- cent and holy sleep with Jesus, than living, " the skeleton in the house," which a Romish convent had made her. Untruthful, bigoted, besotted rather, an enemy to her own brothers and sisters, forever taunting her parents as heretics, and always plotting with her priest against the peace of the family, — such was the miserable wreck of a sweet young girl which they received back from a convent that pro- posed cheap education and " no interference with the religious principles of the pupils." A mere man of the world, Sir Jonah Bar- rington, tells us in his gossiping " sketches," how he fared in placing his daughters in a French convent for cheap education. His story is as follows : Cheap EdiLcation. 1 1 7 " The abbess of the convent in question, Madame Cousin, was a fine, handsome old nun, as affable and insinuating as possible and gained on us, at first sight. She enlarged on the great advantages of her system • and showed us long galleries of beautiful little bedchambers, together with gar- dens overlooking the boulevards and adorned by that inter- esting tower wherein Jeanne d ; Arc was so long confined previously to her martyrdom. Her table, Madame Cousin assured us, was excellent and abundant. "I was naturally impressed with an idea that a nun feared God at any rate too much to tell twenty direct falsehoods and practice twenty deceptions in the course of half an hour, for the lucre of fifty Napoleons which she required in ad- vance, without the least intention of giving the value of five of them ; and, under this impression, I paid down the sum demanded, gave up our two children to Madame Cousin's motherly tutelage, and returned to the Hotel de France al- most in love with the old abbess. " On our return to Paris, we received letters from my daughters, giving a most flattering account of the convent generally, of the excellence of Madame FAbbesse, the plenty of good food, the comfort of the bedrooms, and the extraor- dinary progress they were making in their several acquire- ments. I was hence induced to commence the second half-year, also in advance ; when a son-in-law of mine, call- ing to see my daughters, requested the eldest to dine with him at his hotel, which request was long resisted by the ab- bess, and only granted at length with manifest reluctance. When arrived at the hotel, the poor girl related a tale of a very different description from the foregoing, and as piteous as unexpected. Her letters had been dictated to her by a priest. I had scarcely arrived at Paris, when my children 6* ' 1 1 8 Moral Reforms. were separated, turned away from the show bedrooms, and not allowed to speak in any language to each other only one hour a day, and not a word on Sundays. The eldest was urged to turn ' Catholic '; and, above all, they were fed in a manner at once so scanty and so bad, that my daughter begged hard not to be taken back, but to accompany her brother-in-law to Paris. This was conceded ; and when the poor child arrived, I saw the necessity of immediately re- calling her sister." In America, where convents are trying to make themselves popular > they are not generally so negligent of the bodily comfort of pupils ; it is only the soul that they starve. It must be remembered that the " Moral Theology " of the Romish Church not only permits lying, but teaches it as a religious duty, in many instances ; not indeed under the name of lying, which they always profess to abhor, but by defining a lie in such a way as not to give that name to eva- sions, reservations, and mental tricks, which in- volve perjury as well as deception. It may be conceded that some of the Sisters are naturally good women, who, if they were left to their own consciences, would be truthful. But, every one of them is under a director, generally a Jesuit confessor, whose directions they must implicitly Cheap Education. 1 1 9 follow, and who can release them from the obligations of any promise or even of any oath. Such is the moral system of convents. Of their practical influences the following is a fair specimen. I take it from a repectable Presby- terian newspaper, and it gives the history of specific cases, which, I am sorry to say, I could confirm by similar instances that have fallen under my own observation. " There is in Rochester an institution, under the control of a Romish Sisterhood, called 'the Convent of the Sacred Heart.' Many young ladies of nominal 'Protestant' families are educated in it, with the stipulation blandly and speci- ously made, that their religion shall not in any way be inter- fered with. Recently a young Presbyterian, became an inmate of the Convent. She became sick, and was returned home, temporarily, for medical treatment. Her pastor, in an interview with the young lady, gathered the following information concerning the management of the ' Sacred Heart.' We quote his written statement. ' Protestant girls as well as Romanist are forbidden to attend any religious service, even on Sundays, outside the convent. Those whose parents reside in the city are made no exception to this rule. They are not allowed to go even where their own parents worship. Their only resource is the convent chapel.' Miss T. says : 1. 'I find it very difficult to practice my own religion. They do not forbid it, but their rules and regulations render it almost impossible. In order to pray in secret, and read 120 Moral Reforms. my Bible by myself, I am obliged daily to disobey the rules. No pupil has a room by herself. About thirty young ladies lodge in the room where I sleep, and we are barely allowed time to undress and get into bed, when a ' sister ' comes through to see that all is right. I get up in the dark, after she has gone through, and kneel down and pray. I man- age the case something in the same way in the morning. They seem trying to make us forget our own religion as much as possible. For a time I yielded, and gave up my Bible and prayer, but lately I have done as I described. 2. ' Every Sunday they require us to learn a ' Gospel/ and furnish us with Romish Testaments for that purpose. The girls generally use those Testaments, but last Sunday I used my own. and intend to do so hereafter, though they do not seem pleased with it. We are required every day, from half past eleven to twelve, to listen to a lesson on the doctrines of the Romish Church. The Protestants do not receive or answer questions, but they are required to put away their books, sit around the teacher, and listen respect- fully to what she says. Her teaching, lately, has been on purgatory, and the distinction between mortal sins and ve- nial sins. 3. 'We are required to attend chapel-services daily. We come in with long, black veils thrown over us, and moving very slowly. On Sunday we have white veils. It seems very solemn ; much like a funeral. On the altar are images of the Virgin and St. Joseph, and we are all required to ' bow down to them/ We all conform to this regulation. 1 Since Lent came in, seven pictures have hung on each side of the chapel, and in coming in we are expected to kneel before each one in turn on our way to the altar while they pray to the Virgin. This is called 'the way of the Cheap Education. 121 * Cross.' The prayers are mostly for souls in purgatory. Several of us Protestants respectfully declined kneeling to the pictures, and were reprimanded for it in the chapel. Then we were taken into a room by ourselves, and talked to very severely. ' I have to use great effort to resist these influences. Two Presbyterian girls, from Pennsylvania, go through the whole ceremony. They have been in the convent some time. One of our Protestants has just bought her some beads, and has great faith in them. She thought she got a holiday not long ago by using them in prayer.' I have now borne my testimony, I have warned the parents of my own flock, and I can do no more. If the fair fields of our country are to be given up to this Canada-thistle, it shall not be laid to my charge that I gave no warning. The evil will grow and spread and plant itself every where till it becomes the tor- ment of America, as it is of Italy ; and then, in some awful conflagration all will be swept away ; and years of patient plowing and sowing anew will not suffice to restore the land to the blessed harvest of a pure Gospel. 122 Moral Reforms, VII. Family Reading. It is almost in vain that we protest against bad books, if we fail to provide our families with such as are good. Happily, the evils of the unsanctified press are not unbalanced by the blessings of a moral and religious one ; good books abound, and every pastor should know how to give advice as to the selection of such books, and as to the supply of jour- nals and periodicals for the families of his flock. I purpose, by God's blessing, to provide a small manual of practical hints for reading and the formation of libraries. Meantime, I may be forgiven for saying that in a little pamphlet, " The Church and the Press," I have already contributed something of this sort, as a guide to Christian parents in directing the reading of their families. The Literature of our Church is part of the Literature of the Language, and Family Reading. 123 nobody is so inexcusable as a Churchman, if he is ignorant of the great authors and divines who have glorified the English tongue by their immortal works. Every family should possess a good well- bound large-sized English Bible, with the mar- ginal references and renderings. The Family Bible should, also, have the Apocrypha. No American edition of the Bible is suitable for family use. The binding and paper of most of these editions are inferior, and the types cannot always be trusted. The Commentary is sure to be faulty, if intended for popular sale. Be- ware of these catch-penny editions of the Holy Bible. The solid well-bound and faithful Bi- bles, imported by all our Church booksellers, are always preferable, and they are well worth the trifling additional cost. Next to- these, let every household possess Bishop Brownell's Family Prayer Book. It is invaluable. The devotional books published under the direction of Bishop Hobart have never been excelled for practical usefulness. The "Plain Commentary" is an invaluable 124 Moral Reforms. book for households ; and so is "Bishop Home on the Psalms." The " Life of St. Paul," by Conybeare and Howson, is equally precious and full of interest; and so is " Smith's Bible Dictionary." But, beware of editions of both of these works, mu- tilated and sadly disfigured, by incompetent persons, trying only to make them popular wares for the market. To every family in my diocese in which there are young children, I commend " Stories on the Catechism," written by Mrs. Sherwood. I have carefully revised and edited it, a myself, in the hope that it may become a book of per- manent usefulness in the Church. VIII. Family Prayers. In their late Pastoral the bishops have spoken strongly of the necessity of reviving Family religion in the form of "a Church in B Published by Lippincotts, Philadelphia. Family Prayers. 125 every house," in which the Christian father, or householder, is the priest. The neglect of this obligation of our religion, which is as old as the human family itself, is the source of much of the domestic unhappiness which is supposed to be characteristic of the times. The poor may find it very difficult, except on Sundays, to celebrate the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, in their households. No such excuse exists for those whom God has blest with wealth, and yet it is too often these who show themselves most negligent of a duty at once delightful in itself, all-important in the training of the young, and essential to the true prosperity of any family. The shorter Family Prayers of the late Bishop Wainwright are such as no family need excuse themselves from using. They would not occupy five minutes, even with a short portion of Holy Scripture added as a word for the day. The same may be said of the excellent forms in the Prayer Book. But why should there be time for everything else, but prayer ? Why not, especially on Sundays, add a chant, or hymn ? Why not, in the thou- 126 Moral Reforms. sands of families where instruments of music are used for everything but the praise of God, and where Sacred Music might be made, as among the old Moravians, a beautiful feature of Family Life ? We need the intercessions of families for par- ishes, and missions, for bishops and pastors, for every good work. Let a pastor see to this, if he wants living working Christians for his parishioners. Insist that all communicants shall have prayers in their homes. Many a widow's weeds, many an orphan's tears, many a lapse from plenty to penury, many a blighted fortune, many an instance of juvenile depravity, and many an example of affluence unblest with real happiness, may be traced to God's curse upon a house where " prayer was not wont to be made." IX. The Lord's Day. The hallowing of the Lord's Day as part of The Lord's Day. 127 Christian morality, is not sufficiently insisted upon. The Fourth Commandment raises to a moral obligation, what otherwise might have been supposed a Jewish ordinance. It also shows that the Institution of a Sabbath is as old as creation, and based on the rest of God himself. The Sun and Moon were given for signs and for seasons. We find Abel offering his sacrifice "at the end of days," as the margin of our bible renders it ; that is, at the end of the week. The Fourth Commandment says "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy." It was something to be remembered as already established. It is the oldest Institution of Religion. A real difficulty exists, in some minds, as to the applicability of the Fourth Commandment to the Christian Sabbath. If we were not Churchmen we might, indeed, be led away into the errour of those who have abolished it be- cause it is not established by a direct precept, a plain "Thus saith the Lord." It is thus they have abolished the Easter Feast, although it has a direct precept in its favour. a a 1 Cor. v. 7. 128 Moral Reforms. And it is so they have abolished the Epis- copate. The Church's living and unbroken testimony to Apostolic Institutions, and to the meaning of Scripture, is not recognized by such, although Scripture, over and over again, makes this the rule of observances ; as when St. Paul says, negatively, " we have no such customs, neither the Churches of God." The customs of the Churches, then, were a rule ; and novelties were ruled out by the same ap- peal to common usage. As Churchmen, then, it is enough for us that we follow the Apostolic examples, in observing the Lord's Day, and in preserving the Moral Law as given by Moses, and re-affirmed by Jesus Christ, who proclaimed himself "Lord also of the Sabbath." As such he has authority to transfer the moral duty to a day more glorious and sacred than the old day ; and such a day is that of his Resurrection from the Dead. Let us note, as to the letter of the Law, that we still keep "the Seventh Day;" the change is only in the reckoning. We reckon from the Resurrection and not from the Re- pose after Creation. The Lord's Day. 129 That the Christian Sabbath, which should be called the Lord's Day, or Sunday, was observed by the Apostles, and sanctified by Christ him- self, is evident from the Scriptures. It was specially sanctified by the gift of the Holy Ghost, on the day of Pentecost, which was the Lord's Day, when they were all assembled to receive the Comforter ; and Apostolic usage is enough for us, who recognize the authority of the Apostles to teach us, both by precept and example, " to observe all things" which they had learned of their Master. But for the actual abolition of the Jewish Sabbath, as such, and of the observances of the Sabbath Day of the old Law, it is said, we must have positive Law in addition to all this. I think so too, because the Apostles observed the Jewish Sabbaths, as long as the Jewish Church and nation were permitted to exist. But, they did this as Jews, in order, not to offend the Jews : while for the Gentile Christ- ians they gave a positive Law, dispensing with all Jewish institutions, save those only which they enumerated, of which the old Sabbath was not one. " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost 130 Moral Reforms. and to us," say they, " to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things!' Among the things dismissed as not necessary was the Jewish Sabbath. Hence, when certain Judaizers were urging the observance of their abrogated feasts, St. Paul says, " Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of any holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath Days."* All these, he argues, are sha- dows of Christ's body and of Christian Institu- tions, in his mystical body the Church. Thus, then, the purely Mosaic day fell, and was abol- ished as such ; but the moral Law remains and applies to the day of Christ, the seventh day dating after the first Easter. On this day we are to do no servile work, and we are to give as much rest as possible to ourselves, to servants, and even to the beasts of the field. But, it is not a day of affliction ; it is the very reverse ; a day, when all things in a Christian's home should be- token the blessings of the Christian Covenant ; and also be made a foretaste of an eternal rest with God, in heaven. a Acts xv. 28, and Colossians ii. 16. The Lord's Day. 131 The following suggestions for sanctifying the Lord's Day, were taken from an English work, and given to the American Church by Bishop Hobart fifty years ago. They deserve to be revived. The Order of the Duties of the Lord's Day. 1. Make due preparation for the day before it comes. Let your six days labour be so despatched, that it may not hinder you. Cast off worldly thoughts, and remember both the sins and the abuses of the week past ; and go in good time to your rest. 2. Let your first thoughts be suitable to the day. Re- member with joy the resurrection of your Saviour, when you awake to the beginning of this holy day ; and let your heart be glad to think that another Lord's day has come. 3. Rise full as early on that day as on your labouring days ; and think not that sloth is holy rest. 4. Let your dressing time be short ; and let it be spent, if possible, in hearing another read, or in good thoughts, or suitable conversation to those about you. 5. Begin with secret prayer, and let your servants de- spatch their necessary business, that it stand not afterwards in their way. 6. Then call your children and servants to family wor- ship, and call on God with joyful thanksgiving for the redemption and the hopes of glory ; but do all with serious- ness and alacrity ; and tell your servants and children for what purpose it is that they go to church. 7. Go early to the beginning of public worship. Let 132 Moral Reforms. none be absent that can be spared to go. It is an affront to God, and a disturbance to the congregation, when you come in after the service has commenced; and you lose the opportunity of joining in the Confession, and the benefit of the authoritative sentence of Absolution. 8. After your return, while dinner is preparing, meditate on the great business of the day, and consider what you have heard in the church, and endeavour to imprint it on your mind and memory. 9. Indulge in no week-day talk, but let your time at meals be seasoned with some cheerful and pious conversa- tion, suitable to the hearers and the day. 10. After dinner take your children again to church, and after your return betake yourself to devout meditation on what has passed in the day. 11. At supper, as at dinner, remember that though it be a day of thanksgiving, yet it is not a day of sensuality and excess. 12. But before supper examine your children and ser- vants what they have learned that day ; and catechize them : this duty must not be neglected. 13. When you go to rest, review briefly the special oc- curences of the day ; repent .of your failings in divine wor- ship, give thanks for mercies, and compose yourself to rest, ready, if need be, to be called, before another day, to rest with God. Sunday evenings should be sacred to do- mestic enjoyment, of which reading and singing should be a great part. Sacred Music is al- ways delightful to children ; and I have known Our Common Schools. 133 young men, when separated from their parents, deeply moved, for their good, by the return of Sunday evenings, and by the sweet associa- tions of the same with their Father and Mother and Home. x; Our Common Schools. Urgently as I have pressed the claims of the human soul to receive an education ad- justed to its wants, in Christian schools, where Science is baptized and sanctified, let no one suppose that I am an enemy to our Common School System. I know all that can be said against it, and I grieve that so much of it is forcible and cannot be denied. But the practical question is, What shall we put in the place of it ? The evils which it involves are inseparable from our social condition. If we consent to live in the United States of America, we ac- cept in our life, every day, a Social System 7 134 Moral Reforms. which is full of the evils we deplore in our Schools. The world is evil and all things are imperfect. We must be thankful to God for the unmerited good that abounds, in spite of evil, through the merits of a merciful Re- deemer, who loves all alike and " overcomes evil with good." The fact is, the Christian religion is so adapted to the human conscience, that, in spite of mans wickedness, he cannot rule it out of a system of education where Christian light is shining. " Against such there is no law ; " and, not denying their evils, our Common Schools do admit much Chris- tian light to minds and hearts, which, but for them, would be abandoned to ignorance and vice. I have visited many of these schools in Western New York, and I praise God that, on the whole, they are so good. If Christians would use their influence and assert their rights with more energy, they might be made far- better than they are. As Churchmen therefore, we can, consistently, sustain them; consenting to do all the good we can, where we can do no more. Our position, it seems to me, must be this : Ottr Common Schools. 135 i. Secure to every human being the very best education you can provide for him. 2. Where you can do no better, utilize the Common Schools, and supplement them by all additional means of doing good. 3. But, where we can do better, let us do our full duty to our own children, and to all children, by gathering them into schools and colleges thoroughly Christian. A specious and dangerous alternative is just now making some headway ; but, of all men in the nation, Churchmen have the greatest reason to oppose it. The plan is to destroy the Common Schools, and to apportion the funds to ''private schools," according to the number taught in each. The result would be an intolerable corrup- tion, in all departments of the management. Political denominations would fairly rake the streets for heads to count as claims upon the fund, and politicians would use it for their own purposes. Of course, the Romanists would claim and would receive the lion's share. Their Arithmetic is wonderful, and their Moral Theology concerning oaths allows the widest 136 Moral Reforms. exercise of imagination in making out returns and reports. a This proposal, therefore, is con- ceived in their interests, and wo ! to the land if they succeed in getting it adopted. Our immigrant population have the very greatest interests at stake : they should rally to the support of the Common Schools as the noblest privilege they enjoy, in becoming par- takers of our citizenship and of our free institu- tions. The man who does not stand to the defence of our School System, at such a crisis as this, is the enemy of his country ; and no Churchman who is not its supporter is true to the grand historic principles of the Church to which he nominally belongs. While these pages are passing through the press, my words receive the strongest corrobor- ation, in view of two signs of the times which may well alarm the American people. I am tempted to quote from a popular Journal, 1 * al- most an entire article, as follows : " The provision of the Tax Levy which gives' private schools 'twenty per cent, of the Excise Fund, will be a griev- a Liguori, vol. ii. de Juramentis. b New York Times, May 12 th, 1869. Our Common Schools. 137 ous disappointment to all thoughtful citizens. The preser- vation of our school system has long been held to be the one great safeguard against the growing evils of politics in our large cities. While the children of the poor for- eigners can have the same instruction with our native citizens, while they can read the same books and catch the unconscious influence of modern science and progress, we need fear less the dangers from the votes of their ignor- ant fathers. The public felt sur% that every year a new class of intelligent and Americanized youth — though of foreign parentage — were added to the great population of city voters. It was evident that our public schools, though teaching nothing of religion, were breaking the power of priestcraft, simply by the spread of intelligence, and that the multitude of low foreign electors who had so long ruled in such cities as New York, was counterbalanced by a more intelligent and better educated set of young men, who were the legitimate fruit of our public school system. " We compared our condition with that of England with much complacency. Or we compared Prussia, where edu- cation was secular and universal, with Italy, where it had been local and under the power of the priests, and we con- gratulated ourselves that, with the vast number of sects in this country, and. the presence of an ignorant priesthood among us, our fathers had been able to found a system of public instruction which was secular, patriotic, in sympa- thy with the progress of the age, and freed from the control of all religious denominations. So deep has been the public feeling on this point that all wise and foreseeing citizens have looked with dread on the slightest attempt at innovation upon our public school system. "With such an immense foreign class here of ignorant 138 Moral Reforms. people, already blindly following their priests, it seemed in the highest degree dangerous to deliver up anything of our public instruction to religious bodies. " But the blow so long feared has at length been struck. The measure, passed as a portion of the Tax Levy after an excited debate, gives a large grant of public moneys — probably $300,000 — to 'private schools/ Almost the only private schools, as is well known, which will claim this appropriation are the Church schools of the Romanists, which are exclusively sectarian, and only attended by chil- dren of that form of faith. They are, as a rule, frequented by children who could perfectly well attend the public schools, not even being fit for the lowest class of street children, or the most destitute poor. They are notoriously poorly taught, and would not bear a close inspection by the inspectors and examiners of the Board of Education. They are mainly instruments of the priesthood, and will be sure never to teach anything which will diminish priestly author- ity or encourage the scientific spirit. As private or Church schools, we have nothing to say against them ; they then escape public criticism. But as public schools, and taking their share of public taxes, they come fairly under our no- tice. We should object as much should the Episcopal or Presbyterian Church schools undertake thus to infringe on the field of the public schools, and demand a share of the public moneys. It is a most dangerous precedent, and opens a leak in our system of popular education which may sink it. " The provision of the Tax Levy also establishes none of the healthful safeguards which usually surround such appor- tionments of the public money. The large sum appropri- ated is to be ' allowed under the supervision of the Board Our Common Schools. 139 of Education.' But no conditions are fixed. There are, as is well known, various sham charities in the city, with little squads of children gathered in cheap rooms, which are called 'private schools/ Are these to share in this appro- priation ? Is the money to be allotted after supervision by the officials of the Board, and according to the average attendance, or merely according to the partisan or sectarian feelings of the members of the Board ? " What is to prevent the Romanists or sham Protestant charities from getting it all, without reference to their real services in education ? " Does not the apportionment open an endless job before the Board? " If this large sum be withdrawn from the public taxes this year for this purpose, what may we not expect each year, as the foreign power increases through the growth of the City? Where will our public school system be in a few years hence ? " This is excellent, as far as it goes ; but, let us beware of making it a political question. It is a moral question, and should unite all lovers of the human race. For, at the very moment when we are confronted in New York by this infamous Tax Levy, we find in a man- ifesto, issued by a convention of Romish pre- lates, at Baltimore, the deep-laid scheme and system or> which Romanism is working out these changes in popular education. These emissaries of the Vatican speak as follows : 140 Moral Reforms. " Bitter experiences convince us daily more and more that a purely secular education, to the exclusion of a religi- ous training, is not only an imperfect system, but is at- tended with the most disastrous consequences to the individual and to society." Now, every word of this may be true, and yet, as coming from them, it ean have only one meaning. The Gospel they come here to publish is the Gospel of the late Syllabus .of Pio Nono ; and the education which they would give us is the gross ignorance and su- perstition of Italy, Spain and Brazil. . Borrowing, almost verbally, my own alarm on the subject of ante-natal infanticide, the same titularies strive to turn this also to their account in the following extraordinary state- ment : " The abiding interest all feel in the preservation of the morals of our country constrains us to raise our voice against the daily increasing practice of infanticide, espe- cially before birth. The notoriety which this monstrous crime has obtained of late, and the hecatombs of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch to gratify an unlawful passion, are a sufficient justification for our alluding to a painful and delicate subject, which should .not even be mentioned among Christians. We may observe that the cry- ing sin of infanticide is most prevalent in those localities where Our Common Schools. 141 the system of education without religion has been longest estab- lished and been most successfully carried out." Now, whether this be true or not, what is it to the purpose ? What could they give us in- stead? The morals of Italy? The morals of Monks and Convents, and Confessors and Inquisitors ? The morals of Alphonsus de' Liguori ? The morals of a priesthood, preying on the sanctities of families, and living in open concubinage, as in many Romish countries ? Do these writers imagine that we are ignorant of the sort of morals that exist wherever they have their own way ? That we have never read Pascal, and Scipio de Ricci, or the lives of their own popes and cardinals, as pourtrayed in their own historic documents ? The cool- ness of this manifesto is almost unparalleled, in view of its source and of the Syllabus which it is designed to supplement. But, as a sign of the times, it is of the utmost importance, and if our countrymen are not self-doomed to " swift destruction," they will not fail to take the alarm. 142 Moral Reforms. XI. The House Bond. In what I have written, it may be thought that I have spoken too exclusively of woman's work and of woman's piety. But, I have, pur- posely, endeavoured to carry with me my read- ers of the sterner sex, who all approve of relig- ion in wives and mothers and sisters, unto this very point, where I can ask them a plain ques- tion. Do they expect to build their house without a main stay and support for it ? Can woman do everything for her household ? The husband is the house-bond; he who must hold together and sustain all that it is, and all that it contains. Noah built an Ark for the saving of himself and his family; and the house we now need for the Christian family is just such an Ark. Shall it be left to woman to be its architect and its support; to be the house-bond as well as the wife? Our bishops have lately called for more manly The House Bond. 143 piety. It is greatly needed, nor can the Moral Reforms I have endeavoured to suggest as necessary be looked for until men become the priests of their own homes, and resolve, like the old prophet, for themselves and for their houses,* - to serve the Lord. We need guilds, or brotherhoods, also, corres- ponding to the sisterhoods I have spoken of, and having for their object, the aid of pastors in missionary and charitable works. In a word, I should be glad to borrow a leaf from John Wesley's book, and organize laymen into bands, as lay-readers and catechists ; but, I would have these bands connected with a primitive diaco- nate, providing, at least, one deacon for every Rector. In this way, we might organize a more effi-* cient financial system for all our church-work. I would have everybody, who claims to be a churchman, enrolled as an annual subscriber of some specified sum, less or greater, for such work ; this to be looked after by the guild, or brotherhood, and devoted under general canons to general or local objects. The money col- lected four times a year, under the rules of the 144 Moral Reforms. guild, might be laid on the altar, at the offertory, and so sanctified and delivered into the Treas- ury of the Church, by the Rector. Such husbandry will come when each house ^is provided with a true Christian house-bond. In commerce, we often hear of a " ship's hus- band;" and we may do well to remember that every parish, every church-school, in short, every interest of the Church, needs just such a stew- ardship. XII. The Future. ■ The utter indifference of the American mind to the claims of Truth, as such, is portentous. The spirit of our people is the spirit of Pilate, who said " what is truth," and so delivered up Incarnate Truth to be crucified between two thieves. And this awful phenomenon, which nobody can deny, is the result of the Sect- scheme, in which so many even of our pious and educated men seem not only to acquiesce The Future. 145 but even to exult, like a creature enjoying its own hideousness and deformity. To sustain it, there must be a theoretical concession that Truth is nowhere, or else everywhere. Hence, as a sort of plea for its own rights, the most rabid Sectarian bigotry will often be found affecting liberality in favour of some opposite form of errour, with which it happens to fear no immediate conflict, and will even patronize it, as being " not so bad as is supposed," or as "having much that is good in it." It used to be regarded as axiomatic that errour is danger- ous chiefly in proportion as it mixes itself with truth, and that evil is then most to be feared when it cloaks itself in external good. But not so now. If poison is but sugar-coated it is giv- en freely to children, and commended to man- kind ; and the enemy has only to put on a soft fleece to be sure of welcome, as a lamb. " I also will choose their delusions," saith the Lord. It would seem as if this were His decree concerning us. A Puritan pastor in Western New York is now sounding the praises of Po- pery, in our newspapers. Having made the discovery that it wears sheep's clothing, he 146 Moral Reforms. would have us to believe that the Jesuit within is not, after all, a ravening wolf. Nothing is more acceptable to popular appetite than such a phenomenon * and any silly and conceited ad- venturer, who wishes to make a sensation, can succeed by turning pander to Popery in this way, at the very moment when its political ag- gressions, and its daring assaults on our institu- tions, demand the most energetic and serious combinations, to resist it. In fact, it is just from such a class of minds as the Puritan pastor represents, that Rome has most to expect. Breaking away from a relig- ion of narrowness and prejudice, and discovering how much it has been deceived, it is ready to adopt the extreme opposite of its former delu- sion. The stark nakedness of Puritanism pre- pares it to .admire the meretricious adornings of Romanism ; and its utter destitution of any claim to what is ancient and venerable, inclines it to be profoundly impressed by the delusive pre- tensions of Romanism to all that can satisfy the mind, in this respect. When a Puritan begins to admire pictures and statues, he naturally falls down to worship them. The Fttttire. 147 Here, then, is the phenomenon of the times, a people indifferent to Truth and blind to the lessons of history and experience. Every form of errour finds, in this, its advantage and makes headway by this means. If a greater danger is to be apprehended from Romanism, however, it is in consequence of its organization and me- chanical strength. Inorganic Protestantism has nothing to operate with against such a concen- tration of forces. Will the minds of pious Protestants never be awakened to this fact, till " Parley the Porter," a having drunk deep of the wine of the Flatterwells, unbars the wicket of the castle, and lets in the banditti ? The claims of Historical and Organic Chris- tianity must be recognized sooner or later. Meantime, let us who enjoy its blessings be aware of our responsibilities and live not for ourselves alone. We must provide the re- sources which will be called for, by-and-by, by all thinking men, with clamours of alarm and agony. For myself, so sweet is the shelter of this a As I see a Puritan pastor thus parleying with Popery, I am re- minded of this striking allegory of Hannah More. 148 Moral Reforms. blessed Ark, which God has provided for me and for those who are dear to me, that I could consent, were it consistent with duty, to en- joy its tranquillity in calm contentment, and so to rise nearer to heaven, every day, on the very deluge that is overspreading the highest de- fences of others. But, the Master's precept will not permit me to do this ; I must sound the trumpet to warn others of coming danger. That the gravest civil dangers now threaten us I feel so sure, that I am glad of an opportu- nity to record my convictions. It is humiliating even to seem to share in the stupidity with which hundreds, who ought to be watchmen, per- mit themselves to slumber and sleep. The Trojan horse is dragged into our citadel, by a popular frenzy ; the viper is placed on our hearthstone by dull simplicity; and all the while the sentinel and the householder look on and smile. In our own Church, are some who play with hre, like children, and who seem not to suspect that it may kindle a conflagration. Experience is lost on us ; Jesuitry plays its old tricks, and we are no wiser than before. There is little in- The Future. 149 dependence ; there is too little sense of the tre- mendous responsibility of those who have eyes in their heads. If, as the consequence, such a Church as ours is not destined to obtain that mastery over mind and manners to which its inestimable merits entitle it, it is something to separate one's self from those within, whose follies must answer for the failure, and from those without who are blindly indifferent to the goodness of God in providing so richly for their temporal and eternal welfare. A Church at once old and new, Catholic and Scriptural, and progressive as historical, endowed with all that is pure and precious in antiquity, and yet freed from the clogs of superstition and the craft of kings and popes ; such is the gift, but are we worthy to receive it ? Nothing seems more probable, than that God will scourge the Sectarianism of America by Romanism, and force a thorough Reformation on all true Christians by persecution and suffer- ing. The triumph of the truly Catholic System of our own Apostolic Church, must be the re- sult of purification, of sobriety and of after- 150 Moral Reforms. thought. The popular taste is unprincipled and unrefined. It admires the poppy more than the rose, and prefers the flesh-pots of Egypt to man- na from heaven. It delights not in the creed, because it weighs and studies nothing so little as the Holy Scriptures. Its Sunday-reading is made up of low novels and illustrated gazettes. This general appetite for what is gaudy and sensual and false forbids us to expect any im- mediate" recourse, on the part of the million, to the chaste and simply primitive system of our own Church. On the contrary, weak minds and coarse natures, among ourselves, will try to popularize our modest ritual by conforming it, as much as possible, to external patterns of vul- gar show and senseless ceremony. Soon, there may be only a few, in Sardis, that will be content to keep their garments and to walk in white. But let the sober-minded rejoice in the consola- tions of their holy religion and in the promises of the Saviour. We are living in the enjoyment of the greatest spiritual blessings which can be given to man ; we have these for ourselves and for our children. In the end, our cause must triumph, for it is simply the cause of Christ, The Future, 151 and of His own institutions, in all their Scriptu- ral simplicity and in all their organic strength. Let us read the first chapters of the Apocalypse and learn what suits our position at such a cri- sis ; " what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." Then let us strive to save our own souls, for a prey. Time is very short ; Eternity is very long ; the end is at hand. " Come my people, enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee ; hide thyself, as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast" WRITINGS OF BISHOP COXE; PUBLISHED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO PHILADELPHIA. I. Impressions of England. A new Edition soon to be published. N. B. — This work was recommended by the late Washington Irving, to his per- sonal friends, as the best companion for a visit to England, or as a study of English scenes and manners. II. Thoughts on the Services. An Edition of this little work has been printed with large Margin, and is put up in fine bindings, for presents. As a' tract, it has been found very useful in introducing strangers to the Life and System of the Church. III. Halloween and Lays chiefly Devotional. A new Edition of this early production of the author of Christian Ballads has been lately published. IV. The Bride's Book. Now in preparation. V. The Remission of Sins. The primary charge of the Bishop of Western New York will soon be published. VI. Covenants Prayers, for the use of Households. In preparation. Writings of Bishop Coxe. VII. The Common English Bible ■ its history, and an Apology for preferring its unmutilated form. N. B. Constant inquiries are made for "the Apology," which appeared in 1857, and went rapidly through three editions ; but the immediate interest it awakened subsided very naturally, on the practical acquiesence of the American Bible Society in its argument, followed by the suppression of their mutilated editions. Calls for a new edition of the Apology have grown out of other experiments with the text of the English Bible which are now making, and by the occasional reappear- ance of the Society's mutilated Bibles on the shelves of Booksellers. The author proposes, therefore, to present a new edition of this little work, with a historical prefix, if his publishers shall feel justified, by previous orders, in putting it to press. Messrs. J. B. Lippincott & Co., invite orders accordingly. The book will be pub- lished in the style of the "Moral Reforms," and will make about 200 pages, designed for general circulation among Bible readers, and for permanent use in parish libraries. It will contain a view of the Interpretation of Scripture which was delivered as a Lec- ture in St. Stephen's Church, in Philadelphia, in the Winter Course of 1854, under the patronage of Bishop Potter. VIII. Stories for Sundays, illustrating the Catechism, by Mrs. Sherwood. Revised and edited by Bishop Coxe. N. B. This book is now stereotyped and prepared for permanent utility in all Christian households. Few believers in the "articles of the Christian Faith" will find in it anything which they would deem objectionable. In the beauty and simplicity of its diction and in the exquisite pictures it presents of Hindoo life and of the scenery of India, it is unrivalled. Perhaps no book in the language is likely to do more than this to awaken in children's minds a true Mission- ary Spirit. IX. Ritualism. A Pastoral Letter. X. Moral Reforms, with general remarks on practical religion. N. B. A liberal discount to rectors and others ordering a considerable number for parochial distribution.