5'940 
 N5IK 
 
 iieopirii:; ' ' - unity of 
 
 By 
 Willi'am Ford Ilichol?' 
 
 .:: V ir :.
 
 Keeping the Unity 
 OF THE Spirit 
 
 By THE Rt. Rev. William f. Nichols, D. D. 
 
 BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE
 
 Keeping the Unity 
 of the Spirit 
 
 SERMON 
 Delivered at the Opening of the 
 
 Fifty-Second Convention of the Diocese 
 OF California 
 
 by the 
 
 Rt. Rev. William F. Nichols, D.D. 
 
 bishop of the Diocese 
 
 Oaicland, Cal. 
 
 PRR3S OF THE Oakland ^nquirbr 
 
 1903
 
 f\'5-/ 
 
 vo 
 
 Keeping the Unity of the Spirit. 
 
 Endeavoring to Keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of 
 Peace.'' — Ephesians iv:3. 
 
 There is a Unity of the Holy Spirit which is no less than the 
 Unity of God. As we speak of the Three Persons in one God, 
 so in the Blessed Trinity we may speak of the Third Person — 
 the Holy Spirit — in One God. Man has nothing to do with 
 making and breaking that divine Unity. That is obviously, 
 then, not the sense in which we are to consider " Unity of the 
 Spirit " in our text. 
 
 There is also a Unity of the Spirit as we have knowledge of 
 
 His working in the history of mankind. This Unity amounts 
 
 to a perfect consistency, — "' as it was in the beginning, is now, 
 
 «o and ever shall be." The same Spirit that brooded over the 
 
 en 
 
 ^ face of the waters, inspired the prophets, moved holy men of 
 
 >r old to write the Scriptures, co-worked with the Second Person 
 
 2 of the Trinity in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, came in the 
 
 ^ Pentecostal tongues of fire, maketh intercession for* us, and is 
 
 =: in all the ages the One Spirit of the One Body of Qirist — His 
 
 S^ Church. i 
 
 - But again the unity with itself of that divine agency — its 
 
 oneness and identity wherever it is revealed in human aflfairs — 
 
 in no sense depends upon our " keeping," and the text cannot 
 
 therefore mean to exhort us to anything like that as an object 
 
 of our effort in its bidding to the endeavor to keep the Unity of 
 
 the Spirit. And so we narrow down thq Apostolic charge to 
 
 its practicable limits, and reach its precise point. The Apostle 
 
 portrays a condition of things among those to whom he was 
 
 writing which leaves no doubt as to the pith of this appeal. 
 
 Indeed, in this same fourth Chapter of the Epistle to the 
 
 Ephesians, he, as it were, turns the exhortation around to put 
 
 it in another way, when he says, " Grieve not the Holy Spirit 
 
 of God, * * * Let all bitterness, and wrath and anger, and 
 
 clamour, and evil speaking be put aw^ay from you, with all 
 
 malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving 
 
 295586
 
 one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." 
 This all well explains what he means by keeping the Unity of 
 the Spirit in] the bond of peace, and our real part in it. 
 
 God the Holy Ghost is the true Peace-maker of the Church, 
 the true Unifier. He guides us into Unity as into truth. He 
 witnesses to it with our spirits. But' we can resist. We can 
 grieve the Holy Spirit with our self-chosen courses, and disin- 
 tegrate and disrupt, and in a sad measure counteract and over- 
 throw the Unity. Now the full force of the Apostle's appeal 
 does not reach us until we' see that he is sounding ai rally, not 
 merely of negative bodies who are trying to avoid being peace- 
 breakers, but of those who are very positively and zealously 
 ranging themselves on the side of furthering and protecting 
 Unity. The word " endeavoring " is a very strong one. It 
 implies the being all in earnest about this, the alertness and 
 action of those who realize that they propose to declare them- 
 selves as against thoughtlessly or frivolously or rashly throw- 
 ing to the winds the bond of peace. If there is such a thing as 
 crying peace, peace, when there is no peace ; there is also such 
 a thing as allowing individualism or petty considerations of 
 self to work a noise of war, war, when there is no war. And 
 the Apostle here counsels^ the sentiment which would protect 
 Unity from! the inroads of! all' such spirit as that, and soi mini- 
 mize the power of discord. 
 
 But the endeavor to keep the Unity of the Spirit must be in- 
 telligent, well-timed and practical, or it will come to little, how- 
 ever earnest or well-meant it may be. We must look at things 
 just as they are. We must frankly and fearlessly follow the 
 factsi with which we have to deal wherever they may lead us. 
 We must take as wide bearings as possible. We must never 
 mistake any toy balloon for a planet of God's universe, though 
 both may be well-rounded and floating in space; nor an opin- 
 ion for a universal law, however ably maintained. The mo- 
 ment we try to reach the definite! idea of what wei are to keep 
 as thej Unity of the Spirit, the need of all this care becomes 
 obvious. We have already seen that our province* in the mat- 
 ter is confined to that unity as it represents the working of the 
 Holy Spirit! in the Church of God.
 
 But there comes in another trait of the Holy Spirit — known 
 in the New Testament, as the liberty of the Spirit — and the 
 evidence of this traitf is as great a fact in the whole history of 
 the Church as the agency of the Spirit for Unity. Indeed, if 
 we take the one matter of worship, the human element has 
 ever disturbed the divine adjustment of these two influences of 
 the Holy Spirit in history. Were the Church perfect, and 
 were its members ever moving under the full and harmonious 
 and unswerving obedience to the sway of the Spirit, unity and 
 liberty, would be in such exact poise and power that the wor- 
 ship of earth would be like the worship of heaven. We should 
 worship in spirit and in truth, and questions about worship 
 would be impossible and unknown. It is inconceivable that 
 angel worship would ever need courts of appeal to decide what 
 is lawful and what is not, or that Cherubiml and Seraphim 
 could continually have a usage in one place at variance with 
 that in another. 
 
 The human factor with its (frailty, however, has led to a far 
 different condition of worship in the Church Militant here on 
 earth. The ideal interplay between unity and liberty has sadly 
 failed of realization. Theories have crowded it out, sometimes 
 one-sided in their rigid uniformity, at other times just as one- 
 sided in the laxity of their whole conception of worship. If 
 there were the time, I think considerable data could be ad- 
 duced to show how in the history of worship each of these the- 
 ories has dominated whole sections of Christendom and 
 whole epochs; sometimes succeeding one another in the way 
 of reaction, so that enforced uniformity has given way to^ di- 
 versity and the widespread license in turn to unification, as the 
 pendulum swing carries it from one extreme to the other. 
 » Dolus latct in gcncralibus and hasty generalizations are ever 
 hazardous, but I venture to think that a student of liturgies 
 who would begin with the undoubted marks of variety in unity 
 of the Apostolic Church would find a certain periodicity of 
 change in the usages of worship, marked somewhat on the 
 lines I have indicated, in all the history of worship since. There 
 would, for example, be traceable the tendencies toward unifi- 
 cation of usage in the Sacramentaries of Gregorv and Gelasius
 
 in the 5th and 6th centuries, followed by the same tendencies 
 under what is known as the Leo-Cassianic Revisions of Litur- 
 gies in the centuries immediately succeeding. Or, to take a 
 specific instance, there was the simplification of the whole mat- 
 ter of Proper Prefaces in the Gelasian Communion Offices, so 
 that three hundred were at one time reduced to three. 
 
 Then again, in the middle ages there was the reactionary 
 movement away from! the federation of worship towards its 
 many-sided localizing of custom and taste. This brings us 
 to the liturgical lineage of the English Church and the middle 
 age varieties in various parts of even the small area of Chris- 
 tendom included in England, known^ familiarly as the usages 
 of Sanim, York, Lincoln, Hereford, &c. And now the tide 
 of uniformity sets in again, and we have the new teaction well 
 defined in the Preface of the first English Book of Common 
 Prayer in 1549: " Where heretofore there hath been great di- 
 versity in saying and singing in churches within this realm: 
 some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, some the 
 use of Bangor, some of York, and some of Lincoln: Now from 
 henceforth, all the whole realm shall have but one use." 
 
 And it is not as well understood as it might be that this was 
 not an isolated movement in the Church, but that Pope Clem- 
 ent Vn. had sometime before commissioned Cardinal Quignon 
 to revise and unify the services of the Roman Church. This 
 revision, first published in 1535, left some mark upon Cran- 
 mer's work, and the Preface of the Prayer Book of 1549 shows 
 some kinship with Quignon's Preface in phrases which bear 
 aptly upon the very reaction towards uniformity which we are 
 rioting. 
 
 We should mark carefully this intent avowed in the Preface 
 of 1549 to have one use fori the Realm, and how that was en- 
 forced by a Parliamentary "Act of Uniformity." For three 
 hundred and fifty years such has been the position of the 
 Church of England in the provision for public worship. There 
 is but one Prayer Book, practically unchanged for two hun- 
 dred and forty years, and the use of that book is guarded with 
 the civil penalties that would follow the breach of a Parliamen- 
 tary enactment. Though not guarded in the same way, our
 
 American Prayer Book is equally representative of the same 
 ideal of uniformity, being " far," as the Preface states, " from 
 intending to depart from the Church of England in any essen- 
 tial point of * * * worship." 
 
 For over three centuries, then, the use of the Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer has stood for and trained a sentiment of uniformity 
 in worship. There has been no appreciable counter theory. 
 No Diocese, fort instance, would think of setting up a Prayer 
 Book of its own in distinction from the Book used in common. 
 It is perhaps not too much to say that to) many of our minds 
 so wonted and attached to the Prayer^ Book, the possibility of 
 another Prayer Book would be a things unheard of, and even 
 the suggestion of one would be accompanied with something 
 of an unwelcome shock. 
 
 Let this stand in evidence of the thorough way in which uni- 
 formity of worship has been instilled into our hearts and hves. 
 I could name many reasons why I thank God that it has been 
 so, but I only refer to the fact now in its bearing upon the 
 point urged, and that is, that in our own Church we have had 
 a distinct era ol uniformity in worship, and that it has lasted 
 about three hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Three centuries or so has more than once constituted a 
 period by itself. The first three centuries of the Christian 
 Church had a character of its own to lead historians frequently 
 to use it as one of the grand divisions of the" history of the 
 Church. At the beginning of the fourth century began a well 
 aligned period of theological agitation and of the General 
 Councils. Again it was a period of about three centuries in 
 England from Magna Charta to the Reformation, from the 
 fc»rmula " In primis * * * quod Anglicana ccclesia libera sit " 
 to the working out through varied agents and agencies the 
 actual freedom which had been asserted all along. 
 
 So the three' centuries since that provision for one use for 
 the whole realm in 1549 may have done a specific work for our 
 worship. As the first three centuries of the Christian Era did 
 so much to unify Church government within the Roman Em- 
 pire, so these last three centuries may have been an era among 
 other things to unify our worship. The period is significant
 
 8 
 
 as a cycle of Church accomplishment. Three centuries and 
 over it took to make the Imperial Roman soldiery themselves 
 bear aloft a standard of the cross they sentineled at Calvary. 
 The passing of three centuries and over has endeared the one 
 Book of Common Prayer to the modern empires of English 
 speaking people. 
 
 But there mayj be Jnore significance in it all than that, and 
 we should not be slow to see it if there is. A closing period 
 suggests a new period. The ending of one chapter suggests 
 the beginning of another. An era accomplished suggests an 
 era to begin. And there are signs of the times which do dis- 
 tinctly point toward the setting in another direction of the 
 liturgical instinct of the Church. For about seventy years, or 
 since the beginning of the Oxford Movement in England there 
 has been an increasing tendency toward greater variety in wor- 
 ship. That has shown itself in the ever growing interest in the 
 study of Liturgiology, beginning with such books as Palmer s 
 Origines Litiirgicce, and creating a valuable library of Anglican 
 and American lore upon the subject. Early Prayer Book 
 manuscripts in the British Museum have been ransacked. 
 Scattered books from Crannier's library have been found to re- 
 veal his liturgical sources. So marked has been the progress 
 that a new edition (1901) of a standard work upon| the Prayer 
 Book written about a half century ago had to be; practically 
 rewritten. This literature has thrown much light on the 
 Prayer Book, cleared up both the law and the freedom that ex- 
 ists in using it as it is, has enabled us in our American Prayer 
 Book to enrich it under the revision concluded in 1892, and 
 given greater flexibility of movement to our whole worship. 
 That, I think, all will observe whose memory can span a score 
 of years. 
 
 But with it all has come the opening up of many questions 
 of law and of usage with an inevitable scope for individual 
 preference and, practice, and so we seem to have developing 
 under our eyes a gradual assertion of a reaction from uniform- 
 ity to diversity, as though a new current of Church craving 
 had set in. It is important that we should calmly and candidly 
 note this as a phenomenon Vvithout having our prejudices
 
 aroused one way or the other. It is a matter we should here 
 scrutinize, not as of our likes or dislikes, or of our fears or 
 hopes, buti as a simple fact challenging* our attention to study 
 it for what it is worth. 
 
 And looking at it in this spirit, this widespread breaking 
 away from uniformity gives us a proper standpoint from which 
 to fairly inquire what it all means. And perhaps it dawns upon 
 us that it may mean that we are in something of a transitional 
 age, promising to lead to a better understanding of the mind of 
 Christ and of the Church with reference to allowable expres- 
 sion of the infinite varieties of character and climate, and race 
 and age and! century, in the public worship of Almighty God. 
 The efifect of this can hardly be other upon an open mind than 
 to lift it up to a high point of outlook, for to be able to see over 
 centuries is vastly more than to watch any second-hand of time 
 noting the passing instant, and far-reaching movements are 
 ever more ennobling and! stimulating to scan than the passing 
 dust they raise. And' if it be a law o| the centuries that eras 
 of variety follow those of uniformity, and if we are at this very 
 time in our own American Communion and in the Anglican 
 Communion undergoing changes which in their true and; full 
 reading do at any rate awaken the query whether an era of 
 greater flexibility, in worship is not to follow, it behooves the 
 men of this generation not to shut their eyes to it, far less to 
 view it with jaundiced eyes, and not to lose the clearing up it 
 affords to many a misgiving and many a bewilderment about 
 knowing where to take one's stand. 
 
 This standpoint has none equal to it that I know of in its 
 reading of ecclesiastical signs of the times, or in making a ten- 
 able and sound and assuring position for one to occupy. He 
 can know where he stands, and others can know where to find 
 him in many besetting problems and strifes of passing Church 
 life. Moreover, it is a distinct gain towards a right attitude in 
 the endeavor to keep the Unity of the Spirit. 
 
 Worship in a sense is an expression of human characteris- 
 tics, and in so far as it is so, we could no more reasonably ex- 
 pect all th^ worldl to worship alike than to dress alike. And 
 personality and locality must color worship as they do thought
 
 lO 
 
 and sentiment. Voltaire's famous sneer implied that the 
 Anglo-Saxon has grown up with the idea that all races should 
 worship God exactly after the Anglo-Saxon model. And it is 
 not difficult for us to appreciate how the ingrained sense of 
 uniformity of which I have spoken fosters such a fallacy. And 
 the moment it is stated the fallacy becomes as manifest as 
 would be the berating of an Oriental for saying his prayers on 
 a housetop because an English or New England or even Cali- 
 fornia winter roof does not suggest a help to devotion from 
 such an exposed outlook. 
 
 Now the liberty of the Spirit allows for the personal equation 
 in many ways. Take the inspired writers. St. Luke's pen 
 carries St. Luke's classical individuality. St. Paul's some- 
 times cannot go fast enough to keep up with his characteristic 
 ardent thought. The Petrine is a well marked style. The 
 Holy Spirit divides to every man severally — or after that man's 
 own stamp — as He will and uses the diversities of gifts. And 
 so in Apostolic worship. If, as is presumable, varying forms 
 of worship grew up around these great leaders, it would be but 
 the natural working of each one's mind in the liturgy as on the 
 inspired page. 
 
 There was a liberty of the Spirit in, prophesying. It would 
 be but fundamental to expect like traces of the Holy Spirit's 
 use of distinct human traits as forms bf worship were in pro- 
 cess of development. And in point of fact as liturgies emerge 
 from the Apostolic period from which so few data have come 
 down to us, they first come into view as at least in five families, 
 with almost unending diiTerences of features. 
 
 The eflFect of having this historic sense is to give just recog- 
 nition, whatever the personal taste or tradition, to the simple 
 fact that Christendom has never cast its worship all in one 
 mould. Something of no small consequence, I believe, follows 
 from this, as to the fair and' true temper of mind towards this 
 whole matter withim our own Communion. It is a| corrective 
 of the sense of bald uniformity in which we have been trained. 
 It prepares us to admit that if in itself there is a liberty of the 
 Spirit which allows for temperament, that liberty does not end 
 wheni we see Roman or Russian exercising the right to wor-
 
 II 
 
 ship God in their way. If it is a Hberty outside, it must be a 
 liberty inside our Communion asi well. Indeed, the very first 
 words of the Preface of our own American Book of Common 
 Prayer put all this plainly in our charter, sQ to speak. " It is 
 a most invaluable! part of that blessed liberty wherewith Christ 
 hath made us free, that in His worship different forms and 
 usages may without ofifence be allowed, provided the substance 
 of the Faith be kept entire." 
 
 The fact that two congregations of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church do not have their ornaments, or ritual,', or worship ex- 
 actly the same, inj itself is not a reproach; it is a simple ex- 
 liibition of the working of the liberty which is given 
 to the Church. And if just now these divergencies are 
 especially attracting attention throughout the Church, it may 
 only be as I have already intimated, the dawning of an era of 
 better understanding and of wider-mindedness touching both 
 Catholic liberty and Catholic law in the conduct of Public 
 Worship. It] may mean not disintegration] but re-integration, 
 not so much hopeless strife as the stir of larger life. 
 
 But just where does the law come in? you may say. Is not 
 this liberty, however* well up to a certain point, in danger of 
 becoming license? Is not the tendency one, if unchecked, lia- 
 ble to run into rank individualism? It must be admitted that 
 such a concern is not without justification. In periods of 
 transition there are always men who go too far. There are 
 others who unconsciously become a law unto themselves. 
 There are fstill others who feel called upon to throw so much 
 accent on the liberty that they make very poor enunciation of 
 the law. There may be rare cases of using liberty for a cloak of 
 maliciousness. But allowing for all this, if there be a principle 
 of right liberty at work underneath it all, that must be reckoned 
 with, and we cannot with any insight or foresight disregard it. 
 We can, however, find its true place and scope, and so co-ordi- 
 nate it and subordinate it by law. And the glorious liberty of 
 the Children of God is) only; possible under the law. To en- 
 deavor to keep the liberty is really to endeavor to keep the 
 law — which defines and so protects the liberty in the One- 
 Spirit of the One Body.
 
 12 
 
 Suffice it for our present purpose to assume that there is 
 such a thing as plain, strict law in the r)Ook of Common Prayer 
 and in the Canons of the Church. There may be points of 
 doubtful interpretation. There may be archaisms difficult to 
 literally observe. There may be open questions upon which 
 the due authority of the Church has not pronounced in her law. 
 But recognizing all this, it remains that there is law that is as 
 clear as the English' tongue can put it, and as binding as ac- 
 cepted legislation can make it. And now let us leave no room 
 for misunderstanding. By law, I mean here the law of wor- 
 ship in the Prayer Book since the first Prayer Book of Edward 
 the VI. in 1549, and especially as that is embodied in our Amer- 
 ican Book of Common Prayer, which has been revised almost 
 to date (1892) after some twelve years spent m the revising. 
 Any, liberty of the Spirit in thei public worship of our Ameri- 
 can Church must be consonant with downright loyalty to that 
 law, — loyalty to its spirit as to its letter, loyalty to its genius as 
 well as to its grammar. 
 
 That means, of course, that the English speaking Church 
 has a well determined genius and spirit of its own, positive, 
 powerful and blessed — a genius and spirit that as it breathes 
 in the character and devotion of a Jeremy Taylor, an An- 
 drews, a Wilson or a Keble, and is phrased everywhere in the 
 fond " mother-tongue " of the Prayer Book, is true to Scrip- 
 ture and to th0 bestj credentials of the Holy^ Cathohc Church. 
 So that a timely reflection for us of the English speaking Com- 
 munion, and a watchword foP times! of our transition, is to be 
 ourselves, and not to try to be some other part of Christendom. 
 
 Much all parts of Christendom have in common, thank God, 
 but when there are noble, tried traits of our own worship, it be- 
 hooves us to stand by] them and neither to apologize for them 
 nor to set them aside for local traits of other communions. All 
 this, I believe, finds point and illustration in our' Prayer Book 
 law. Where it is plaini and bounden, we are noti to go oflf to 
 other centuries or other communions to find law. CathoHc tra- 
 dition before the First Book of Edward may have much that is 
 edifying and other usages of Christendom much that is full' and 
 suggestive. There is no reason why the scholars should not
 
 13 
 
 fully elucidate this ; no reason why matter may not be g-athered 
 for future revision and enrichment of the Prayer Book, if the 
 Church please; no reason! why all effort should not be made 
 looking to a future true Ecumenical Council, which the federa- 
 tion of the world in these days of surprises may make possible, 
 when now it seems so far off. 
 
 The law of our public worship is nd real bar to the student 
 of liturgiology, nor to the prayer and effort for the g-reater 
 Unity of public worship throughout the whole Catholic Church. 
 That is one thing. It is quite another thing, however, when 
 one feels bound in his individual capacity, or in the capacity of 
 aiiy voluntary association, to be a law unto himself in adjust- 
 i)ig or introducing' services for public worship without warrant 
 of. if not in contravention of, the plain law of the Prayer Book, 
 either in the way of shortening or slighting- those services or 
 of adding services of ante-Prayer Book times, or those of some 
 modem cult outside of our Communion. ! 
 
 If the Church can sometime be persuaded in its authorita- 
 tive legislation to duly authorize any such fondl usage or such 
 recent fashion, then that would become the law of our Church. 
 But it cannot be stated too plainly that until and unless the 
 present law is duly superseded, any less authoritative enter- 
 prise in putting it aside or nullifying it can only lead to a con- 
 fusion and an exhibition more suggestive of man's license than 
 of the obediencel and order of the Holy Spirit of God. And 
 the word of caution that seems needed just now is not so much 
 that we be careful to see that the Reformation of the Sixteenth 
 Century does not obscure our catholicity, as that we be careful 
 to see that all sorts of doughty reformers of the Twentieth 
 Century do not allow theinselves to obscure good American 
 and Anglican Prayer Book law. Here there is good occasion 
 again to remember that the Unity of the Spirit can only be pre- 
 served by preserving the law and' order of the Spirit. 
 
 There is in one of the very earnest questions of the day, I be- 
 lieve, happy opportunity to put into practice, first the law.and 
 then the liberty of the Spirit in a way which would further, not 
 a little, the endeavor to keep the' Unity of the Spirit and allay 
 disquiet and concern. The rubric at the end of Communion 
 Office reads:
 
 '4 
 
 ^ ''And if any of the Consecrated Bread and Wine remain 
 after the Comtmmion, it shall not be carried out of the Church; 
 but the Minister and other Communicants shall, immediatelv 
 after the Blessing, reverently eat and drink the same. ' ' 
 
 That states a law. But liberty of interpreting it is claimed 
 from two different quarters, in that it is a rubric with 
 what might be called an unwritten exception. Some make 
 that exception in the form of what is familiarly styled " the 
 rubric ol common sense," and maintain, for example, that in 
 case of an epidemic where with communicants dying all about, 
 and that with disease so deadly that departure often follows 
 attack' speedily, it] would be obviously impossible to have even 
 a shortened form of Celebration of the Sacrament for the Sick 
 for every one; and that in such cases, as has been done in epi- 
 demics of yellow fever, the priest should interpret the rubric 
 to allow him to take the consecrated elements directly from 
 the Church to as many as| he can reach. 
 
 Others on their part as confidently claim that the rubric is 
 practically inoperative against Reservation of the Sacrament, 
 urging historical data to the effect that the rubric was intro- 
 duced at a time when communicants carried away some of the 
 sacred elements tq their homes to use for unauthorized pur- 
 poses, and so has its force exhausted against that. Let us see. 
 Let us group together the rubrics of authority, not very many, 
 which chiefly bear upon this from the time of the first English 
 Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The last rubric in the 
 Communion Office in that Book refers incidentally to a super- 
 stitious abuse of the Sacrament on the part of the people after 
 it had been delivered into the hand. "7 hey many times con- 
 veyed the same secretly away, kept it with them and diversely 
 abused it to superstition aud wickedness. '" 
 
 The same Book, in providing for a Communion of the Sick, 
 has a long rubric in which it first directs that the curates 
 ''from time to time, but specially in the plague time, exhort their 
 "parishioners to the oft receiving {in the Church) of the Holy 
 Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ. " But 
 for those for whom the service is meant when ' 'they be nH 
 able to come to the Church,'' it is provided, "And if the same 
 day there be a celebration of the Holy Communion in the Church
 
 15 
 
 then shall the Priest reserve {at the open Communion) so much 
 of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, as shall serve the sick 
 person, and so many as shall communicate with him {if there be 
 any); and so soon as he conveniently may, after the open Com- 
 munion ended in the Church, shall go and minister tlte same, first 
 to those that are appointed to communicate with the sick {if there 
 be any) , and last of all to the sick person hiinself. ' ' 
 
 ^ ' ' But if the day be not appointed for the open Communion in 
 the Church, then {upon convenient warni?ig given) the curate 
 shall come and visit the sick person afore noon. And having a 
 convenient place in the sick man's house {where he may reverently 
 celebrate) with all things necessary for the same, and not being 
 otherwise letted with the public service or any other Just impedi- 
 ment; he shall there celebrate the Holy Cotnmunion after such 
 form and sort as hereafter is appointed. " 
 
 ^ ''And if there be more sick persons to be visited the same day 
 that the curate doth celebrate in any sick man's house; then shall 
 the curate {there) reserve so much of the Sacrament of the Body 
 and Blood, as shall serve the other sick persons, and such as be 
 appointed to communicate with them {if there be any); and shall 
 immediately carry it and minister it unto them.'' 
 
 In the next Revision of the Book of Common Prayer in 
 1552, there is no express mention of Reservation in the rubrics 
 of the Communion Of^ces, that for the Communion of the 
 Sick providing simply for consecration at each time of its use, 
 and making no mention of any carrying the consecrated ele- 
 ment fromi the Church to the sick room. 
 
 In the; last revision of the English Book in 1662 the rubric 
 was inserted in the Communion Office essentially as it is now: 
 
 ^ ''And if any of the Bread and Wine remain unconsecratedi 
 the Curate shall have it to his own use; but if any remain of that 
 which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the Church, but 
 the Priest and such other of the communicants as he shall then 
 call unto him shall, immediately after the Blessing, reverently eat 
 and drink the same." 
 
 Our American rubric, as already given, is almost identical. 
 Since 1549 the Office for the Communion of the Sick has made 
 no reference to Reservation, but provided in express terms for
 
 i6 
 
 a fresh consecration each time. When it is remembered that 
 our American Prayer Book in some essential features has fol- 
 lowed throug^h our! first American Bishop, Seabury, who was 
 consecrated in Scotland, Scotch rather than English usage it 
 makes it germane to include here also some rubrics from books 
 associated with the Church in Scotland. A book was prepared 
 for Scotland in 1637, and although never used, it bears evi- 
 dence to the traditional) usage of that Church. 
 
 ''And if any of the Bread and Wine remain^ which is conse-^ 
 crated, it shall be reverently eaten and drunk by such of the com- 
 municants only as tJte Presbyter which celebrates shall take unto 
 him, but it shall not be carried out of the Church,'" 
 
 Nearly a century later, as the direct result, it wouldl appear, 
 of a conference with the Eastern Church, appeared the Scotch 
 Office of 1 718, and in that we find the following rubric: 
 
 ^ ''If there be any persons who through sickness, or any other 
 urgent cause, are under a necessity of communicatins: at their 
 houses; then the Priest shall reserve at the open Communion so 
 much of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, as shall serve 
 those who are to receive it at home. And if after that, or if, 
 when none are to communicate at their houses, any of the conse- 
 crated elements remain, then it shall not be carried out of the 
 Church; but the Priest, and such other of the Communicants as 
 he shall call unto him, shall immediately after the Blessing rev- 
 erently eat and drink the same. ' ' 
 
 The present Scotch Office authorized for occasional use, the 
 English Prayer Book being the one generally used, m.akesj no 
 reference to Reservation. 
 
 This resume of rubrics is, I believe, sufficient in itself with- 
 out entering into the question of Canons or Articles to illus- 
 trate — and they are cited by way of illustration ofi the point 
 rather than of detailed study — the finding of a fair correlation 
 of law and liberty for our day. ' 
 
 The law in our rubrics is plain enough as it stands. It pro- 
 vides for the well communicant to receive at the Church. It 
 provides! for the sick communicant who cannot receive at the 
 Church toi have the service with the full consecration of the 
 elements at home. It says nothing about that law of necessity,
 
 '7 
 
 when in an epidemic it would be impossible to have a new con- 
 secration of the elements for every one of a multitude of sick 
 and dying. Just in that remote and very exceptional particu- 
 lar it is not explicit, and no law ever is framed which can meet 
 all contingencies. Under all other circumstances the rubric 
 is certainly not ambiguous. It says the elements that remain 
 must be consumed, must not be carried out of the Church. 
 Can, that mean other than what it declares in this clear, two- 
 fold way of putting it? And it is to be noted that even in the 
 distinct Reservation for the Sick, as far asi the rubrics quoted 
 indicate the mind of the Church, they, so to speak, exhaust 
 the use of the elements with their use for the sick. 
 
 The rubric quoted from the Office of the Communion of the 
 Sick in 1549, expressly directs that the Priest '^So soon as he 
 convenieyitly jnay, after the ope7i Communion ended in the 
 Church shall go and minister the same'^ that is, '''so much of the 
 Sacrament of the Body and blood as shall serve the sick per- 
 son.^' Then, as in evidence that it assumes thaf there is none 
 reserved after the sick communion, it further provides that 
 '' if the day be not appointed for the open communion in the 
 Church there shall be the fresh celebration for the sick," which 
 obviously would not be necessary if any of the Sacrament were 
 reserved anywhere from any previous consecration. Further- 
 more, it is significant that in the Scotch rubric of 171 8, quoted 
 above, after providing for the reserving " So much of the Sac- 
 rament of the Body and Blood as shall serve those who are to 
 receive at home,'' it is required ''if after ihat, or if when none 
 are to communicate in their houses any of the consecrated elements 
 remain,'' the Priest and Commutiicants ''shall ifnmediately 
 after the Blessing reverently eat and drink the same. " 
 
 The purport ofi the rubrics can hardly be doubtful to any 
 mind. They contemplate but one divergence from the strict 
 rule to leave none of the consecrated elements after a celebra- 
 tion on the paten or in the chalice, or in any other receptacle in 
 the Church. They are to be consumed then and there. They 
 are not to be carried out of the Church, save in an emergency 
 which cannot be otherwise provided against. And if carried to 
 sick persons for whoni a private celebration would be impos-
 
 l8 
 
 sible, the rubrics know no further deviation from the strict 
 letter of the law not to reserve. In a word there is no indica- 
 tion anywhere in the rubrics that the well or sick in the Church 
 should make use of the elements in any way outside of the 
 Communion Office itself, and the reservation contemplated in 
 the earlier rubrics I have adduced practically only amounts to 
 a timei for a journey of the Priest from the altar to a sick bed 
 instead of from the altar to the rail — only time for a few more 
 steps of ministration, only that unavoidable delay between con- 
 secration and the first possible opportunity of reception, which 
 a sick person a few blocks off might require over the well per- 
 son kneeling at the rail a few feet off. 
 
 To make the rubrics mean something else can only be ac- 
 complished by making them say something other than they do. 
 It is of course conceivable that some new mind of the Church 
 may find new expression by revising the rubrics. But until 
 such revision they must stand as they are, and where will be 
 any Unity of the Spirit, or for that matter, any wholesome lib- 
 erty of the Spirit unless they are dutifully obeyed as they are? 
 And Reservation for any other purpose than for administermg 
 as soon as may be to the sick when conditions absolutely pre- 
 vent the use of the Office for Communion of the Sick, — Reser- 
 vation for any other, purpose like that o£ the service of Bene- 
 diction of the Sacrament, however lawful in another Com- 
 munion or another age, have no rubrical warrant from< the 
 Book of Common Prayer. Such Reservation oversteps any 
 liberty and outreaches any law determined by that Book as it 
 now is. And if the aim, be to have another Book which will 
 make it lawful, that can only h^ accompHshed by a lawful re- 
 vision by the Church, not by the independent action of indi- 
 viduals here and there. And perhaps on this very matter of 
 Reservation no one better stands as Seer than the present 
 Bishop of Salisbury, who in his recent book, " The Ministry of 
 Grace," says: 
 
 " I dO' not, however,; for various reasons, wish for Reserva- 
 tion [for the purposei of communion of the sick] to be re- 
 stored; and I think that the three dangers attending it must 
 be obvious to everycme. First, I would put the deprival of the
 
 19 
 
 sick of the blessing of' a fuller service than that which accom- 
 panies the reception of a reserved sacrament; secondly, the 
 separation of their actual communion from that of their pastor 
 and of other faithful people; thirdly, the danger on the one 
 side of superstition, and on the other of irreverence in reserving 
 the consecrated Sacrament in Church and carrying of it 
 through the streets." 
 
 The law that is, never can safely be mistaken for another 
 law; one ivishei it were, without shaking the stability of all law. 
 And even if it be the case of a law which is defective, it is a 
 maxim of legislators that to strictly obey it is the best way to 
 lead,' to its revision or repeal. 
 
 In view of all this it is not surprising that a first impulse on 
 the part of some is to resort to sharp measures. On the one 
 side strict enforcement of the rubric as it stands by canonical 
 process is felt to be the only course. On the other hand, just 
 that is invited by those who are minded to practice reserva- 
 tion. And if sometimes there is on the one side a faint sugges- 
 tion of the historic animus of persecution, there is on the other 
 not altogether an absence now and then of that old Donatistic 
 supercharged zeal for martyrdom. In neither case is there 
 just the temper suited to making the best interpretation of an 
 age of transition into greater liberty. In each case the rising 
 to the true level of this Apostolic appeal, the downright devo- 
 tion to the endeavor to> keep the Unity of the Spirit is, I be- 
 lieve, the far better way. 
 
 The Apostles had a good many spectacles of things awry in 
 the Church before men and angels to contend with and write 
 about. But there is no record of their attempt to enforce 
 Unity with a canonical bandage. That would have been a 
 Unity of the splint rather than of the Spirit, a holding in place 
 of a fracture without the knitting of the bone. Nor while the 
 Apostolic Christians used their liberty sometimes in a way not 
 altogether congenial to Apostolic serenity do we ever discover 
 that they were conscious of any desire to use it as a basis for an 
 ecclesiastical trial. No, the! text was a maxim, and more than 
 that, a real working theory of the Church, if we are to judge 
 by the Book of, Acts and the Epistles, and all! felt the force of 
 
 295586
 
 20 
 
 that animating^ endeavor to keep the Unity of the; Spirit. To 
 the law; of the Spirit there was loyaUy. To the Hberty of the 
 Spirit there was the check of this loyalty, and the conscience 
 not to make stumbHng blocks for others. 
 
 The genius of oui^ American Qiurch, brethren, is rising to 
 this level more fully and more hopefully, depend upon it, than 
 we are apt to appreciate. And there; was striking" evidence of 
 it in the whole atmosphere of our great representative body, — 
 the General Convention which has recently left so many bless- 
 ings and happy memories with us here. One could not 
 breathe that atmosphere without feeling that he was at a 
 wholesome meeting place of both the fealty and the freedom 
 oi the Holy Spirit of God. The code and the sweet reason- 
 ableness of it all is the real charmi of the General Convention. 
 
 Our American Church is full of most assuring demonstra- 
 tions of the working of the Unity of the Spirit, indeed, it is not 
 too much to say that our American] Church itself is one long 
 demonstration of the Unity of the Spirit. What but the 
 precious guidance and over-ruling of the Holy Spirit could 
 have carried the Church through its Colonial perils, through 
 its devastation in the War of the Revolution, through the de- 
 lays and difficulties of nearly two hundred years in securing the 
 Episcopate, through the dire sectionalism of country and 
 Church after the Episcopate was secured, through the con- 
 troversies since the Oxford Movement, through the separation 
 of the South fromi North in the Civil War, and through all 
 the human frailties and follies which belong to the rise and 
 rapid growth of a new and gigantic nation? 
 
 Where in history, and with wliat assuring experience, has 
 our Blessed Lord proved more signally that the gates of Hell 
 shall not prevail against that Unity of the Spirit? 
 
 And here let us see with the seeing of the Seer, and aim with 
 the aim of the great Apostle, in our own fond California life 
 with its singular fascination, if with its sobering problems, witn 
 its ozone of opportunity and its outlook losing itself only on 
 ocean liorizons, and on wavy sky-lines of the lofty peaks like 
 great registering lines on fever charts of human progress, let 
 us set our faces towards the highest possible development of
 
 21 
 
 that same genius of the American Church, having a ready 
 mind and will to the law that is, and yet free with all the liberty 
 wherewith Christ has made us free, that genius great not in 
 foro confensioso, but in foro conscicntice, great in a de Koven say- 
 ing when asked, " Do you advocate Reservation for Adora- 
 tion?" " I do not." Great in a Coxe's muse singing of 
 
 "That holy service high, 
 That lifted my soul to joys above 
 And pleasures that do not die." 
 
 Great in a Phillips Brooks' " heart and mind deep and wide as 
 the ocean at his door " as it strove to fill itself with what he at- 
 tributed to the Sacrament " The life fed on God." No one 
 leader is able to express it all, but all express something* of it 
 in the genius of their greatness. 
 
 Why not then, fellow-followers of Jesus Christ, have our 
 California Church life catch more of this high endeavor? Why 
 not aim at no less than the Unity of God's Holy Spirit as our 
 real esprit dc corps F Why not mark California Churchmanship 
 as in the forefront of the century's march into the era of greater 
 freedom that promises to be? Why not pledge anew all fealty 
 to the simple law that is? Why not make our type of Church 
 lifei and Church thought and Church progress here stand for 
 that great onward sweep of the( Church of the Redeemer to- 
 ward the One Only Saviour, the Prince of Peace?
 
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