" . . . We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and
build the house that was builded these many years ago."--Ezra v.11.
This was the reply of the rebuilders of Jerusalem to certain
critical lookers-on who would fain be informed by what authority
a picturesque ruin was disturbed. It is a serviceable answer still.
There are always those to whom the activity of the Christian Church
is a standing puzzle. Religion, or at any rate revealed religion,
having, as they think, received its death-blow, the unmistakable
signs of life which, from time to time, it manifests take on almost
the character of a personal affront. They resent them. What right
have these Christians to be showing such a lively interest in their
vanquished faith? they ask. What business have they to be holding
councils, and laying plans, and acting as if they had some high and
splendid effort in hand? Are they such fools as to imagine that
they can reconstruct what has so evidently tumbled into ruin?
But the wonderful thing about this great building enterprise known
as the kingdom of God is that, from the day when the corner-stone
was laid to this day, the workmen on the walls have never seemed to
know what it meant to be discouraged. In the face of taunt and
rebuff and disappointment, they have kept on saying to their
critics: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and
build the house that was builded these many years ago." This is
just what the Church Council which has been holding its sessions
in Baltimore during the last three weeks has to say for itself.
Its task has been an architectural task. According to its lights,
it has been at work upon the walls of the city of God. Let me give
you, as my habit has been under similar circumstances in the past,
some account of its doings.
The General Convention of 1892 will be memorable in our ecclesiastical
annals for having closed one question of grave moment only to open
a kindred one of still larger reach. The question closed was the
question of liturgical revision; the question opened is the question
of constitutional revision. I should like to speak to you this
morning retrospectively of the one, and prospectively of the other.
It is now about twenty years since the question of modifying, to
some extent, the methods of our public worship began to be mooted.
While it was acknowledged that the need was greater in the mother
country than here, many of the repetitions and superfluities of the
English Church service having been set aside by Bishop White and
his compeers in the American Revision of 1789, it was felt that
further improvements were still possible, and that the time had
fully come for making them. Since the beginning of the so-called
"tractarian movement" in the Church of England a great deal of
valuable liturgical material had been accumulating, and it was
discerned that if ever the fruits of the scholarship of such men
as Palmer and Neale and Maskell and Bright were to be garnered
the harvest-day had arrived. To the question often asked why
it would not have been wiser to wait until the Church of England
had led the way and set the pattern, the answer is that the
hands of the Church of England were tied, as they have been
tied these many years past, and as they may continue to be tied,
for aught we know to the contrary, for many years to come. The
Church of England cannot touch her own Prayer Book, whether to
mend or to mar it, except with the consent of that very mixed
body, the House of Commons--a consent she is naturally and properly
most loth to ask. Immersed in a veritable ocean of accumulated
liturgical material, she is as helpless as Tantalus to moisten
her lips with so much as a single drop. It was seen that this
fact laid upon us American Churchmen a responsibility as urgent
as it was unique, viz., the responsibility of doing what we could
to meet the devotional needs of present-day Christendom, not only
for our own advantage, but with a view to being ultimately of
service to our Anglican brethren across the sea. An experiment
of the greatest interest, which for them was a sheer impossibility,
it lay open to us to try. After various abortive attempts had
come to nought, a beginning was at length made in the General
Convention of 1880, a joint committee of bishops and deputies
being then appointed to consider whether, in view of the fact
that this Church was soon to enter upon the second century of
its organized existence in America, the changed condition of
the national life did not demand certain alterations in the Book
of Common Prayer in the direction of liturgical enrichment and
increased flexibility of use.
Few were of the opinion at the time that anything definite would
come of the deliberations of this committee, and the fact, never
before publicly stated till this moment, that of the deputies
appointed to serve upon it the greater number were men who had
not voted in favor of the measure, makes it all the more interesting
to remember that the report, when brought in at Philadelphia
three years later, was signed by every member of the committee
then living. This Philadelphia report recommended very numerous
changes in the direction both of "flexibility" and "enrichment,"
and by far the greater number of the recommendations met with the
approval of the convention. There is, however, a very wise provision
of our Church constitution, a provision strikingly characteristic
of the Anglo-Saxon mind, which, by way of making allowance for
second thought, requires that liturgical changes, before being
finally adopted, shall run the gauntlet of two successive conventions.
Much was accepted at Philadelphia; it remained to be seen how much
would pass the ordeal of its second reading at Chicago three years
later.
Into the war of words waged over the subject during that interval
period, I have neither the time nor the disposition to carry you.
The three years, while they gave opportunity for reaction, also
allowed space for counter-reaction; so that when, at last, the
question came once more before the Church in council assembled
whether the work done at Philadelphia should be approved or
disallowed, men's minds had sufficiently recovered balance to
permit of their exercising discrimination. Accordingly in 1886
some things were rejected, some adopted, and some remanded for
further revision. But why should I confuse your minds by an attempt
to tell in detail the whole story of the movement? No matter how
clear I might make the narrative it would be difficult to follow
it, for in the progress of the work there have been surprises many,
successes and reverses not a few; enough that, at last, the long
labor is ended and in this Columbian year the ship comes into port.
As to results, their number and their quality, opinions will of
course differ. In connection with this, as with all similar
undertakings, there are many to cry: "Who will show us any good?"
Certainly nothing that could be called a radical change has been
brought to pass; but then, is there any reason to suppose that
radical changes were either sought or desired by those who have
been active in the movement? Certain distinct and indisputable
gains may be counted up. The recovery of the great Gospel hymns
come under this head. There are some of us who think that only to
have succeeded in replacing the _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc Dimittis_
in the Evening Prayer is of itself a sufficient reward for years
of effort, but this is only a small part of our harvest. The new
opening sentences for Morning and Evening Prayer, which have so
"adorned and beautified" our observance of great festivals, the
remodelling of the Ash-Wednesday service, the recovered Feast of
the Transfiguration, the various provisions for adapting the
Church's worship to the exigencies of times and seasons, the
increased freedom in the use of the Psalter, all these go to make
up an aggregate of betterment the measure of which will be more
fully understood as time goes on. "_Parturiunt montes_" is an easy
verdict to pronounce; it remains to be proved whether in this case
it is a just one to render. If there are some (as doubtless some
there are) who hold that the sample book presented at Philadelphia
in 1883, faulty as it confessedly was, is still, all things
considered, a better book for American needs than the standard
finally adopted at Baltimore, week before last, if there are some
who deeply regret the failure to include among our special offices
one for the burial of little children, and among our prayers
intercessions for the country, for the families of the land, for
schools of good learning, for employers and those whom they employ,
together with many other forms of supplication gathered from the
wide field of English liturgiology--if, I say, there arc some who
are of this mind they must comfort themselves with the reflection
that, after all, they are a minority, that the greater number of
those upon whom rested the responsibility of decision did not wish
for these additions, and that the things which finally found
acceptance were the things unanimously desired. For, when we think
of it, this is perhaps the very best feature of the whole thing,
looked at in its length and breadth, that there is no defeated
party, no body of people who feel that they have a right to fret
and sulk because unpalatable changes have been forced upon them by
narrow majorities. It is a remarkable fact, that of the many scores
of alterations effected, it can be truly said that, with rare, very
rare exceptions, they found, when it came to the decisive vote,
what was practically a unanimous consent. They were things that
everybody wanted.
As to the annoyance and vexation experienced by worshippers
during the years the revision has been in progress, perhaps the
very best thing that can be done, now that the end is so near at
hand, will be to forget all about it. In a few months, at the
furthest, the Prayer Book, in its complete form, will be available
for purchase and use, and the hybrid copies which have been so
long in circulation, to the scandal of people of fastidious taste,
will quickly vanish away. Meanwhile, it is interesting to know
that all through this stretch of years while the Prayer Book has
been "in solution," as some have been fond of phrasing it, the
Episcopal Church has exhibited a rate of growth quite unparalleled
in its history.
Of course nobody can say with certainty what has caused the
increase. But it is at least conceivable that among the accelerating
forces has been this very work of liturgical revision. People at
large have been made aware that this Church was honestly endeavoring
to adapt its system of worship to the needs of our time and country;
and the mere fact of their seeing this to be the case has served to
allay prejudice and to foster a spirit of inquiry. Finding us
disposed to relax something of our rigidity, they, on their part,
have been first attracted, then conciliated, and finally completely
won.
I cannot leave this subject without paying a personal tribute
to a prelate but for whose aid in the House of which he is a
distinguished ornament, liturgical revision would, humanly speaking,
have long ago come to nought. To the fearlessness, the patience, the
kindly temper, and the resolute purpose of William Croswell Doane,
Bishop of Albany, this Church for these results stands deeply and
lastingly indebted. When others' courage failed them, he stood firm;
when friends and colleagues were counselling retreat, and under
their breath were whispering "Fiasco!" and "Collapse!" his spirit
never faltered. He has been true to a great purpose, at the cost of
obloquy sometimes, and to the detriment even of old friendships.
Separated from him by a dozen shades of theological opinion and by
as many degrees of ecclesiastical bias, I render him here and now
that homage of grateful appreciation which every Churchman owes him.
So much for the ship that has dropped anchor. I have left my self
but a few moments in which to say God-speed to the other craft which
is even now sliding down the ways, ready for the great deep. Put
perhaps it is just as well. History is always a safer line to enter
upon than prophecy; and were I to say all that is in my mind and
heart as to the possibilities of this new venture of faith on the
Church's part, constitutional revision, I might be betrayed into
expressions of hopefulness which would strike most of you as
overwrought.
Suffice it to say, that never since the Reformation of Religion
in the sixteenth century has a fairer prospect been opened to
the Church of our affections than is opened to her to-day. No
interpretation of the divine purpose with respect to this broad
land we name America has one-half so much of likelihood as that
which makes our country the predestined building plot for the
Church of the Reconciliation.
All signs point that way. To us, if we have but the eyes to see it,
there falls, not through any merit of our own, but by the accident,
if it be right to use that word, by the accident of historical
association, the opportunity of leadership.
It is possible for us, at this crisis of our destiny, so to mould
our organic law that we shall be brought into sympathetic contact
with hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen who worship the
same God, hold the same faith, love the same Christ. On the other
hand, it is possible for us so to fence ourselves off from this
huge family of our fellow-believers as to secure for our lasting
heritage only the cold privileges of a proud and selfish isolation.
There could be no real catholicity in such a choice as that.
We have the opportunity of growing into a great and comprehensive
Church. We have the opportunity of dwindling into a self-conscious,
self-conceited, and unsympathetic sect. Which shall it be? With
those to whom, under God, the remoulding of our organic law has
been intrusted it largely rests to say.
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF ADDITIONS MADE TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER AT
THE SEVERAL REVISIONS SINCE 1549.
1552 1559 1604 1662 1789 1892
Scripture Sentences 11 8 31
Collects 3 1 3
Epistles 2 1 3
Gospels 1 1 3
Offices 13 8 1 1
Prayers 15 2 7 18 13 9
Proper Psalms (days) 2 10
Selections of Psalms 10 10
Canticles 8 2
Versicles 4 3 11
Litany Suffrages 1 1
Catechetical Questions 12
Exhortations 3 2