J. A. Regester

“ It is a common thing to hear persons say that they care little for the sermon and speak lightly of preaching. They forget that the preacher is one "sent," that our Lord Himself made preaching one of the great means for the spread of the Gospel and for the salvation of men. And as such persons do not reflect, in this disparagement of preaching, the mind of our Lord, so neither do they represent the estimate of the Church. The Church takes care to provide for it, and that, too, in connection with her most solemn act of worship, the celebration of the Holy Communion. ”

“ And so at the close of the Holy Eucharist celebrated in the sanctuary, after the "memorial" has been made before God which His Son "hath commanded us to make," and we have been "partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood," this is the Blessing with which the Church lets us depart—a blessing which carries the thought up to what, in its fullness, waits for us in heaven: "The Peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." ”

“ The obligation and privilege of such worship cannot be too greatly exalted. It is not a matter of inclination merely; it is an imperative duty, the discharge of which may not be regulated by considerations of convenience, or indolence, or pleasure. To neglect it, is to dishonor God, to withhold what is His due. It is also to dishonor ourselves, to violate our own noblest instincts. ”

“ It should call to remembrance that "baptism doth represent unto us our profession; which is, to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto Him; that as He died, and rose again for us, so should we, who are baptized, die from sin, and rise again unto righteousness." That is the main profession or business of a Christian man, and the Font, where Baptism constantly represents our Lord's death and rising again for us, should ever remind us of it and call us afresh to "mortify all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceed in all virtue and godliness of living." ”

“ We show honor to and reverence the Altar and its worship as the place and the performance of the highest act of divine worship, in which, by the ministry of His Church and according to His own appointment, "a continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ" is "celebrated and made before the Divine Majesty," and as the place where God "vouchsafes to feed us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." All is done for His honor. ”

“ Our private and family devotions are acts of worship. They enter into its obligation, are comprehended by it, but do not fill it out. They are not sufficient alone. The due acknowledgment before others of our belief in and reverence for God, the blessings which attend only upon the use of united praise and prayer and of Sacraments, the honor of God, the rendering of "thanks for the great benefits that we have received at His hands," the setting forth of "His most worthy praise,"—all demand the public act of worship. ”

“ Trees and plants held sacred to heathen gods became associated with holier names and ideas.
Thus the Laurel, "the meed of mighty conquerors and poets sage," became for the humble Christian who had "fought a good fight, and finished his course," the emblem of triumph and glory.
The Pomegranate, with mystic association from remote antiquity with the idea of life, became the symbol of a hopeful future, the emblem of immortality.
The Oak is the representative of supernatural strength and power. In pagan antiquity it was especially dedicated in the West to Thor, the thunder-god. ”

“ That offering of ourselves must be made not only by our lips in the act of worship, but also by our lives, in deeds.
So, also, the spirit of Christ is the spirit of service, through love, in behalf of others—the spirit of true fellowship. Now we cannot realize that spirit without sacrifice of selfish inclination and desire. We saw that the main body of the church {25} represents that portion of Christ's Church which is on earth, and that the nave suggests the idea of fellowship as the very spirit and law of the Christian life. ”

“ So, again, the choir may impress upon our minds how joy has place in the Christian life: that Christianity is not a religion of gloom, but of joy; that if Christ says, "Come, take up the cross, and follow Me," He says also, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light," because the way of the Cross is the way into true joy. ”

“ Vestments.—Much may be said for the use of a distinctive dress in the holy offices of the Church. It is in accordance with ancient usage; it marks the action of the Minister as not personal, but official; it secures dignity and uniformity, and it is also, like the dress of the priests in the old Jewish Church, "for glory and for beauty."
The American Church has no law upon the subject of vestments. Their use is simply a matter of traditional custom. Those here described have come down to us from our mother Church of England. ”

“ Wherever possible, the church should be open every day and all day for private prayer and meditation. Many must of necessity live in crowded dwellings, or in circumstances in which quiet and privacy are hard to obtain. But to all, whatever their circumstances, the open church offers opportunities not afforded at home. Sacred associations and objects greatly aid thought and devotion; and in the quiet church, where there is so much to {16} remind of God and sacred things, and so little of the world and of sin, we can think and pray better than elsewhere. ”

“ The most common and, perhaps, the most appropriate lectern is that made in the form of an eagle, standing often upon a globe, bearing the Bible upon its outspread wings. The eagle, because of its lofty heavenward flight, is the symbol of inspiration, and its position upon the globe and its outspread wings remind us how the Word of God is to be carried into all the world. ”

“ No other act of which we as men are capable is so dignified or so worthy of ourselves. Not to worship is to debase ourselves.
This duty and privilege of worship the church and the Prayer-Book help us to perform. Just as {9} other buildings about us—homes, stores, factories, schools, libraries—stand for and represent certain interests and departments of our lives, so the church as a building makes its claim and reminds us that there must also be room—a large place and sacred—in our lives for worship, and supplies the hallowed means and helpful associations for its right discharge. ”

“ Angels are included in the Communion of Saints. "Ye are come ... unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven."
It is the constant tradition of the Church that the holy angels attend at Christian worship. It is one of the highest privileges of that worship that we have such communion with them as to be able to say, "Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name ”

“ When all four arms are of equal length it is a Greek Cross, the cross in most frequent use among Eastern Christians. "The Latin cross suggests the actual form, while the Greek cross is idealized, the Greeks being essentially an artistic and poetic race." "The Greek cross is a symbol of the spread of the Gospel and of its triumphs in the four quarters of the world. It is the usual form wherever it is intended to express victory or is used as an ornament." ”

“ From Advent, with which the Church Year begins, to Trinity, our Lord is set before us in His life and His work. "We live over again, year by year, the time of the Incarnation from Bethlehem to Bethany." The design is to "bring out, and to bring home to the minds and hearts of all who shall reverently use these holy festivals and fasts, the great representative facts of Christ's life—to exhibit and to glorify Him. ”

“ As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."
And so we pray in the Holy Eucharist: "Grant us, ... gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh, of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us."
It all speaks of a foretaste here, in a Sacrament, of what heaven shall give in its fullness.
The sanctuary tells us of heaven in another way. ”

“ It is an ancient custom to dedicate churches to the glory of God and in honor of some special saint. This custom probably arose from the fact that in early days churches were commonly built over the {13} graves of martyrs, or in the place of their martyrdom, and hence were called by their names. Sometimes the church is named from some fact in the sacred history of our redemption, as the Incarnation, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension. ”

“ Standing.—To show readiness to engage in worship and to receive instruction, the people stand when addressed at the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer, or at the Exhortations in the Communion Office. As expressive of earnestness and determination to defend the Faith, they stand for the recitation of the Creeds. They stand at the reading of the Gospel in the Communion Service to "show reverent regard for the Son of God above all other messengers, although speaking as from God also." ”

“ It is the sanctification of color, sound, and skill, of intellect, imagination, and emotion. It is devotion—devotion of what is excellent in man, devotion of what symbolizes the loveliness of nature. Therefore it is that worship calls for art; therefore, too, it is that art so often finds its noblest use in worship. Worship and art together take the beauty of the world and offer it up as a tribute at the feet of God."
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The Church, the Place of Worship
It would seem that at first Christians worshiped in any place which they could use with safety. ”

“ So before He had said, anticipating this Sacrament of Communion which He thus ordained: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.... Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life ”

“ It is a note of "joy." There are indeed strongly marked features of penitence and need. We come before God in our worship as those who are sinful and needy. We ever make approach through the sacrifice of the Cross. But we come also as those who have confidence in divine love and mercy. So praise, joyous praise, predominates. The Te Deum, the Benedicite, the Benedictus, the Jubilate, all ring out this note and give {29} joyousness to the service, while Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis tell of rejoicing and hope in what Christ has brought us by His Incarnation. ”

“ Formerly parents were not admitted as sponsors, since they are sponsors in fact and by nature, and therefore no vow can increase their obligation of duty toward the child. But while the Church prefers that there should be three sponsors for every child, in addition to the parents, in order to insure by a fivefold promise the future guardianship of the infant soul, she yet permits parents to stand as sponsors in order to accommodate every variety of circumstance and need, and to save the office of sponsor from ever being merely a formal or perfunctory thing. ”

“ It is most probably called the nave from the Latin navis, signifying a ship, the same word from which we get our English "navy" and "naval." The ship was the favorite symbol of the Church in primitive times. We have the idea preserved for us in the first prayer in the Offices for Holy Baptism: "Received into the ark of Christ's Church ... may so pass the waves of this troublesome world" as {22} finally to "come to the land of everlasting life." ”

“ And so the Prayer-Book says, "Devout and holy men, as well under the Law as under the Gospel, moved either by the express command of God, or by the secret inspiration of the blessed Spirit, and acting agreeably to their own reason and sense of the natural decency of things, have erected houses for the public worship of God, and separated them from all unhallowed, worldly, and common uses, in order to fill men's minds with greater reverence for His glorious Majesty, and affect their hearts with more devotion and humility in His service ”

“ The ring, being of gold, and having neither beginning nor end, is not only a "token and pledge" of the vow and covenant made in marriage, but is also a symbol of the purity and unbroken constancy with which they should be "surely performed and kept." ”

“ The catechumen turned his face toward the west in renouncing the devil and all his works, and to the east in making profession of his Faith. The early Christians were accustomed to turn to the east in their devotions, just as the Jews turned their faces toward Jerusalem when they prayed." Many churches, whenever it is possible, are built for this reason "east and west," as was the ancient custom. When not so placed, the chancel is considered to be constructively, if not in fact, "the east," and the clergy and choir {107} turn toward the Altar. ”

“ Around the neck is worn the Amice—an oblong piece of linen, a part of which is folded over and forms a large collar. This is often embroidered.
The Chasuble, sometimes called "the vestment" by way of distinction, is worn only at the celebration of the Holy Communion. It is oval in shape, without sleeves, with an opening in the middle through which the head may be passed. In front and behind it extends nearly to the ground, and on the sides to the hands. It is usually ornamented with a Y-shaped cross, which is often embroidered. The chasuble is sometimes ornamented with very rich needlework. ”