"James never gave them though, so sharp a reproof as did the late King, when he told them 'it was scandalous that Churchmen should be debarred the exercise of their religion, by those who had the liberty of being of what religion they pleased.' "* "I know," said Vassall. "But good Mr. Blackstone's hit was a better one; 'I came away from England to be rid of my Lords Bishops, and now I daily pray to be rid of my Lords Brethren.' I am curious to see if they will dare serve Mr. Ratcliffe as they served him. I think Randolph will care for that. What say you, Montfort?" country is not to be given up by Churchmen, though I am very far from agreeing with your plan for introducing the Church; concerning which, also, in the general, I fancy our views are widely different." "I am as much as ever in the dark," said Montfort. "Well, then, I will explain myself more fully. You are both what I shall call Establishment-men. You both look-men once did not-but you both look on the Church of England, as in some way or another a portion of the State: and so your attachment to her, has become part and parcel of your loyalty. Deprive you of your loyalty, and I fear your Churchmanship would go with it. Put you in a position where you should be dissevered from your allegiance, and you would not necessarily continue sons of our English Church. I do not exactly say, that if Presbyterianism should ever be established, you would become Presbyterians. Yet such a thing might be." "No, no," cried both at once, Cavaliers for that." 66 we are too much of "I confess I am more curious to see how they treat the King's commission," was the answer. "I have always thought that the Church of England would find herself grievously out of place in this colony, where there are no means of keeping up her proper dignity as an Establishment; and therefore I have always wondered that Randolph should be as pertinacious on that head, as on the resumption of the charter. The latter is surely a great thing. But in persisting in the "Still," continued Apthorpe, "if the King establishformer he is only persisting in trying an experiment,{ed it, I think you would. If it grew up against him, which they will soon tire of. New England must be your loyalty would keep you from it. Beside, the given up to the Puritans. It may be well enough to Faith of the Church is your hereditary faith, and that have a chaplain to the governor and council, and offor which both your fathers suffered in the Rebellion. course we Churchmen are there provided for, but that It is associated with all you know or esteem in Engis all." land, of good, or great, or loyal. Now I do not say that all these things are nothing. On the contrary, they are elevated, and dignified, and honorable. But see to what different results, this so similar feeling leads you. You, Montfort, with your lofty ideas of the revenues of an Establishment, would give New England over to the Puritans. You, Vassall, with your horror lest gentle blood should be any thing but a Churchman, and with your high ideas of the kingly prerogative, would have an Establishment imposed at sword's point on New England, and upheld by the strong hand of power. Here, as I said, I differ from you both." "I cannot agree with you" said his companion. "I see no reason why there should not be an Establishment here as well as in Virginia. There is good blood here as well as there, I trow. And cannot the King set out glebe lands and foundations, on which the Church may dwell securely, upheld by the strong hand of the State?" "Even if that were done," replied Montfort, "it must be on a small scale, and so would not be what it is at home. No, Vassall, depend upon it, our venerable Church can only be herself in the old island. But what says Henry Apthorpe,† or why does he say nothing? He should know of these things, for he will be ordered ere long?" "I have said nothing, because I have been listening to you; and now I find that I agree and disagree with both of you," was the reply rendered to this query, in a pleasant voice, by a young man of strikingly mature, and thoughtful appearance. "But suppose," said Montfort, “you could bring in all the Puritans, where would be the gain? They would do the Church, I fancy, very little credit." "There again I must disagree with you," replied Apthorpe. "My estimate of the Puritan and New England character, differs widely from yours. You see it now under its worst aspect; hardened, cramped, "A paradox," cried Vassall; "read us your puzzle, and made angular and repulsive by a cramping, most clerkly youth." straightening, narrowing form of faith and worship. "That is easily done," said Apthorpe, "only it may But these are great elements in it. Give to it the exseem somewhat long in doing. You, Montfort, are panding and adorning culture of the Church, and it right in declaring, that we cannot have in this coun- would come forth in a way that would develop its real try, for many years at least, any thing approaching, incapabilities, which are now hidden, and pushed back, the respects on which you dwell, to the English Estab-and made to prey upon themselves. But even if this lishment. You, Vassall, are right in saying that the were not so, still are they not wanderers from the Ark? Is it not true, that their faith is jejune and vague, and their worship meagre and unnatural? And to bring to them the pure, and fruitful, and satisfying doctrines of the Catholic Faith, and the rich and scrip See the instructions to the commissioners sent out in 1664. The writer has made bold to use the names of early and distinguished Church families in the colonies. tural and glorious ritual of the Church, could this fail thing, that New England should ever be any thing to be an object dear to a Churchman's heart?" "I am sure," said Vassall, "that in any thing I said, I never thought of bringing in the Puritans, as you term it. My only idea was to provide for the Churchmen who are in the colonies now, and probably will by and by come in greater numbers." "So I supposed," rejoined Apthorpe," that is always the effect of looking at the Church through a State medium. For I suppose you would think me harsh if I called you an Erastian." else than Puritan ?" "Unquestionably I do," said Apthorpe. They may not use the English Ritual, but a Ritual they will eventually have. They may not take the Thirty-nine Articles, but they will receive the Creed of Communion. Puritanism must one day wear itself out. And then truth will flow in upon this people's spirit like some healing balm. It may be long first. Centuries even of confusion, and blasphemy, and infidelity, may intervene. But I do look for the time, when the Cath"Nay," said Vassall, "if you come to hard names olic Church, and Faith, and Worship, shall fill this in theology, I have done. Only I should suppose there now favored land, and change and elevate the characmight be worse things in the world than that. For ister of those who are destined to be its possessors. not that the name that the Solemn League and Cove-Then, instead of philosophic moralists of rigid life, nant people give to the established Clergy in Scotland?" New England shall produce Christian saints of an un"There it is," was the reply. "How much of your earthly temper."* Churchmanship is of that same sort, opposition to rebels and covenanters !" "You are an enthusiast, Henry," cried Montfort. "I freely confess that some of mine is," said Mont-asm in a good cause. Nor do you, my friends, misfort. "But pray let me ask, how with your horror of understand me. I do not undervalue the grounds of I willthe State, you are about to welcome Mr. Ratcliffe so your attachment to the Church. Far from it. warmly; and indeed design to go to an Establishmentingly yield them much of honor. Your loyalty is a Bishop for Orders?" "I do not welcome Mr. Ratcliffe as an Establishment Clergyman, but as a Priest in what I believe to be a pure, though bondaged portion of the Catholic Church. I do not go for my Orders to an English Bishop, as to an Establishment Bishop, but as to a lawful successor of the Holy Apostles, in office and authority," was the answer. "But how will you have the Church sustained in Massachusetts, if not supported by the State?" inquired Apthorpe. "Just as it was supported for hundreds of years," was the reply. "You surely do not imagine that it is from the benefactions of the State, that the Church in England derives her revenues. Alas! had it not been for the rapacity of the State and Statesmen, the gifts bestowed upon her by ancient piety, would still be in her possession. Her hundreds of Hospitals, Colleges, and free Chapels* would be her own, instead of having fallen, in order to swell the ill-gotten wealth of noblemen and corporations. Believe me, there will be no difficulty on that point. Pious men, wherever the true Faith prevails, will always be forward to sanctify their earthly goods, by giving a portion to the service of the Lord. The Puritans about here, abundantly show their willingness to do. Will they do less if they shall ever be brought within the Church? I am unwilling to grant their principles such an advantage over us, as to believe it." "And do you seriously think of it as a possible noble thing. Your hereditary love and reverence are noble things. So are your associations with the Church, of honor to the great, and love to the wise and holy, and they are all worthy to be cherished and fostered. But they must not be all. For there may coexist with them, views and feelings far alien from the Church, and the spirit she would inculcate. Pardon me if I do not now say, more particularly, what these views and feelings are. I have said too much already; and I fear we have been speaking too loudly: for I see sharp eyes looking at us from under bent brows. Beside, I must make arrangements for Mr. Ratcliffe's arrival." With these words, the little group dispersed. The young men with whose conversation we have presented our readers, were types of different classes of Churchmen, at that time to be met with in the colonies. That Churchmen should be there at all, may perhaps seem wonderful, and yet they were, and in considerable numbers. So early as the year 1630, several had crossed the Atlantic to the Plymouth colony, and among them a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Ly * See this thought beautifully carried out, in Manning's Unity of the Church, p. 200, Am. Ed. how much latent Erastianism there was at that day, and may check our wonder at its wretched developments in England, after 1688. ford, who was sent out as a chaplain.* The Rev. Mr. ( never could have gone. It goes, however, to show, Blackstone also, had established himself on the site of the present city of Boston, being indeed at one time the only inhabitant on the peninsula. In every instance, however, they had been treated with more than coolness, and compelled to depart-Mr. Blackstone fleeing to Rhode Island, and leaving as a memorial of the terms on which he lived with his neigh-pride themselves as their descendants have since laudbors, the quaint saying quoted above. Nevertheless the petition, carefully neglected as it has been by the Puritan historians, contains lessons in the principles, on which they probably did not so much ed them, which might have well made the "great General Court" blush for shame. They appear, however, to have been most complaisantly insensible to the practical satire of the document, and coolly dismissed it, adding contemptuous and harsh expressions In 1628, the first movement toward the religious liberty of which we hear so much in connection with the Puritans, was made in the Massachusetts colony, by two persons by the name of Brown, who claimed the privilege of using the ritual of the Church of Eng-concerning the petitioners personally, affecting to conland. It was of course refused them, and they were sent back to England, as persons whose presence was dangerous and prejudicial to the colonies. sider them as the heads of a party, and thereupon declaring that they are "an unsavory head, not to be seasoned with much salt." These arbitrary and decipetitionsive measures appear to have effectually silenced any further voice of petition. Indeed they spoke a language that could scarce be misunderstood In 1662, soon after the Restoration, a requisition came from Charles II, enjoining, among other things, that the Ritual of the English Church should be permitted in the colony, and thereby implicitly ordering the toleration of the Clergy of the Church within the In 1646, the matter was renewed in a and remonstrance" to the General Court, signed by seven persons. It is a bold, and in many respects a noble document; and though little noticed by Puritan historians, deserves to be honorably remembered. Its terms and demands were, one should fancy, sufficiently moderate. It spoke of two-fold grievances, civil and ecclesiastical, and petitioned for their removal. It complained that none could be admitted to the priv-colonial limits. Little notice, however, was taken by ileges of freemen, who had not become "Church members," as the phrase was and is, meaning, that is, communicants, and who had not signed the covenant of one of the Churches. It complained also, that the petitioners were debarred from baptism for their children, and the Lord's Supper for themselves, unless they complied with the same requirements. It demanded, if the prayer was not granted, that they should be freed from taxation and impressment; and threatened to appeal to Parliament in case of extremity. { Still, while we give it all due praise-we must not forget that the document had its faults. There is found in it no token of the true Church spirit, of suffering meekly for the Church's sake. There is found a mel-word of God as their rule." The commissioners' reancholy disregard of the Apostolical commission. For the petitioners evidently speak of their being unable to receive the sacraments at the hands of the Puritan ministers as a grievance. And we are forced, however unwillingly, to believe, that were the legal disabilities removed, they would have sought the rites of the Church from those to whom, without an utter disregard of the doctrine of the Church, they * The Puritan historians declare this Mr. Lyford to have been a needy and unprincipled adventurer. Unfortunately, when the Puritans speak of evil living, they so often mean doctrinal disagreement with their standards, that one does not know precisely how far to believe. the colonial authorities of any requisitions that did not suit them, and amongst the rest of this. So in 1664, when the four commissioners came out from England to attend to the matters mentioned in the King's requisitions of two years previous, one of the points to which they were required to give heed was this: “ that such as desire to use the Book of Common Prayer, be permitted so to do, without incurring penalty, reproach, or disadvantage." Upon inquiring of the General Court, how far this requisition of two years' standing had been complied with, they received a sufficiently indirect answer: that, "as to ecclesiastical privileges, they commended to the ministry and people here, the joinder is worthy of note. "Though you commend to the ministers and people the word of God for their rule, yet you did it with this promise: that they have the approbation of the Court; and we have great reason both to think and say, that the King and his council and the Church of England, understand and follow the rules of God's word, as much as this corporation." The General Court apparently considered themselves competent to the work of an Ecclesiastical Council; or looked upon themselves as a sort of dif fused Pope. However, in all the above doings, with the single exception of the witness in favor of religious liberty †These covenants were all different; by way, we suppose, of and freedom of conscience, we find very little to praise exhibiting the ONE FAITH. on the part of Churchmen. We trace only too clearly the State infection. For strange as the idea may be, This was the very principle afterward of our revolution: "Taxation without representation, is tyrrany." Except we must add in the present case, under the Puritans and in Massachu-it is very clear that what was intended by the King's Letter of 1662, and what was the object of the Com setts colonies. claim them; or who could find no emotion of sorrow and of pity, to mingle with, and far less to displace, the contempt with which they regarded the formality, and narrowness, and fanaticism, and gloom, which they saw all about them. They could have but little understood the work and mission of Holy Church in this western world, who would have limited it to the care of the few Churchmen, that from time to time should find their way to the colonies. Thus unsound, arrogant, and selfish, is State-Churchmanship. missioners of 1664, and to secure to the members of the character of the unworthy man, who, with unhalthe English Church in the colony the ability to re-lowed hands, set himself forward as its champion. ceive the sacraments at the hands of the Independent { Such were the effects of State association on those ministers, without becoming "Church members," or without.* signing any of the various Church Covenants. And On those within they were yet more lamentable. accordingly we do find, some years after, a Governor Mistaken views without, affect nothing but the of New Hampshire presenting himself to the Puritan Church's progress. Mistaken views within, affect her minister of Portsmouth, and demanding to receive the soundness, and touch upon her life. They could have Holy Eucharist, according to the Ritual of the Church had little idea of the Apostolical commission, who of England! This is of course explained, by recollect-sought to be relieved from religious disabilities, in ing the false view, which grows out of Establishments, the way and for the purpose, just now mentioned; touching the State power in things ecclesiastical. who considered every thing necessary accomplished, It was about this time that Edward Randolph be- if the Puritan ministers of the Colony were obliged came so mixed up with the affairs of the Church in to administer to them the sacraments after the EngMassachusetts, that he brought upon it no little por-lish Ritual. They could have entered but little into tion of the odium which attached to him and his acts. the true spirit of the Catholic Church, who could cast This person has been characterized as a mere adven-off their separated brethren without one effort to returer; and he certainly was a worldly and unscrupulous man. His two great objects in the colony appear to have been to deprive it of its Charter, and to build up in it the English Establishment; for with this, his notions of the Church terminated. Thus unhappily did he, in the eyes of the Colonists, associate the Church with a tyrannical plan, with which it had, and could have, no connection; while by his proposed arbitrary mode of its introduction, noticed in the opening of the previous chapter, he raised against it a storm of indignation, as if the scheme had been its own, and not that of its unworthy fautor. Of these two objects which he had in view, he accomplished the former. For it was a human matter, and human means could bring it about. In the latter he failed. For the Establishment, whose cause he undertook on merely worldly grounds, and in merely worldly ways, was in this case a portion of the Church of God; and the human policies that under other circumstances might have been successful, were not, and could not here be bless-who, like Henry Apthorpe, had drunk at the fountains ed. They recoiled upon their manager, and, alas! of ancient wisdom? Who owned the Church as the upon that Holy Body, which always suffers from the Redeemer's Living Body, spreading and to spread irsupport of the worldly and profane. In 1684, the respective of human policies; who saw in the English Charter was taken away. In 1685, Charles died. In vine, a true and healthy branch; who recognized the 1686, the Rose Frigate brought out the commission English fold, as the divinely appointed home for all to the first Governor appointed by the Royal author- of Saxon tongue, and as one with the universal fold ity; and as we have seen, in the same frigate came, of Christ; and whose hearts were touched with the by an unfortunate coincidence, the first permanently chivalrous and lofty spirit of the Church's early established Clergyman of the Church of England. { sons ?† Thus was the Church presented, as apparently in full union with an arbitrary and oppressive State. We said in the beginning of this chapter, that the young men to whom we had introduced our readers, were types. We trust they now see how and why. And while some, like Montfort, could not dream of the Church but as glittering in worldly splendors, and therefore never to dwell among the forests and mountains of New England; and others, like Vassall, would have pushed it into power by the strong hand of the State; may we not believe that there were others still, [TO BE CONTINUED.] * We do not refer to the papal Interdict. That is one thing, and excommunication another. The former is a terrible piece of iniquity. The latter a spiritually given power. What dif ference can the Church know between kings and beggars, if they are evil livers? None, surely. If the reader would have an instance in point, he must not think of Innocent and John of England, but of Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius. From this very brief review, we may perceive with what unhappy associations the Church of England was presented to the Massachusetts Colonists. It was associated in their view with a profligate King; a King who deserved only at the Church's hand that sentence of excommunication, which, in an earlier and purer age, he would unquestionably have felt in all its rigors. It was associated too with arbitrary measures,ity of Humphrey's History of the Society, &c. I do not recoland attacks on chartered rights, which could not but be especially vexatious. And finally, it suffered from The authorities used in compiling this Chapter, have been Bancroft, Greenwood, in his History of King's Chapel, and the History of Boston. One or two facts are stated on the author lect to have found in Bancroft, any mention of the petition of 1646. It is certainly a very unaccountable omission. CHOIR-SINGING, AND CHURCH-MUSIC. have been purloined from the parlor, or transferred from the theatre to the house of God. Let the music of the Church become what Church-music ever should be, simple, solemn, dignified—so simple as to be intelligible to the most uncultivated ear-so solemn as to be in accordance with the most devout frame of PERHAPS there is no officiating Clergyman who has not found more or less reason to lament the difficulty of arranging the music of the Church, so as to render it truly subservient to the great purpose for which it has been connected with religious worship. Judg-feeling, and so dignified as to command the respect ing from the practice which at present obtains among of the most scientific and refined taste. Such a comalmost all denominations of Christians, it seems to be bination is far from being impossible; plainness and a conceded point, that the singing cannot be conducted gravity are by no means incompatible with richness correctly without the aid of a choir. And yet, al- and majesty in musical composition. The noblest though this expedient serves to secure accuracy in the specimens of psalmody now extant, which have won performance, its tendency, if we may credit general their way everywhere, and gained the commendation complaint, is to silence the congregation at large, and of all classes, and now, after centuries of use, are as to appropriate to the choir exclusively, this beautiful part of divine service. It needs not much observa- popular and impressive as they were when first written, are syllabic, or nearly so, in their character. Intion to perceive how this undesirable result is brought stead of crowding as many notes as possible into each about; and that, without any special design either in word, which seems to be the perfection of many modthe choir or the congregation. The wish which all ern pieces, every syllable has its own note, so as to be members of a choir naturally feel to sustain its reputa-enunciated with ease and distinctness. Such tunes tion for musical knowledge, tempts them to venture a congregation must feel, and will soon learn almost upon tunes which require much practice to master, without effort. To such tunes no choir will take exand which display much skill in the performance. In ception, unless they are prepared to repudiate the works, such exercises, the people, of course, are expected to and impeach the judgment and taste of the first mutake no other part than that of silent admirers of the sical composers who have ever lived. Of such tunes attainments and powers of the singers. If, on hearing no very great number will be needed for the ordinary such tunes several times repeated, any of the congreuse of the congregation. Unlike the finical and fangation should be so happy as to catch the airs, and be-tastic flourishes against which we protest-those mugin to flatter themselves with their ability to join in the songs of Zion-just then they discover to their mortification, that the choir have become tired of these tunes, and have prepared themselves with others equally strange and difficult to the congregation. A few months of this experience, and the people, in utter despair, give up the expectation of uniting in singing, and quietly surrender to the amateurs in the gallery an exercise which is surely designed for the congregation at large. What was introduced as auxiliary to devotion, is perverted to purposes of display. What was intended as the means of lifting the heart in praise to God, is made to minister to the vanity of a few per-service, and a help to our devotion. formers, and so noble a part of public worship is metamorphosed into what has been fitly named a "frontgallery exhibition." It may all be very fine, but it is very inappropriate, and every serious hearer feels it to I Do not think it proper to join in any kind of pubbe a most unedifying interruption of the services of lic worship but that which is celebrated in the Church religion. Light-minded persons may applaud, in no to which I belong, under a regular and duly authormeasured terms, the skill with which pieces of so ized ministry. From a ministry so happily constimuch difficulty were executed, but the humble wor-tuted, according to the primitive model, I cannot shiper will be apt to wish, with Dr. Johnson, that such pieces were "not only difficult, but impossible." They deprive the people of a sacred right, and they rob God of the revenue of glory which arises from the joint praise of an entire congregation. Cannot this unhallowed monopoly be prevented, whilst all the good effects of a choir are secured? Undoubtedly. Banish at once those flippant, flighty airs, which with good intent, but most unfortunate effect, sical sky-rockets which are got up to amaze the crowd-these will bear to be repeated-will improve on repetition-will gain upon the feelings by intimay, and strengthen their salutary power over the heart, by increasing and solemn associations. Then will we see reinstated in our Churches some of those solemn melodies which have been so unworthily superseded, and restored to the people a privilege and pleasure, from which they have been wrongfully precluded. Then singing will be conducted as it should be, and accomplish the end for which it is associated with religious worship. It will be an ornament to God's think myself at liberty to depart, or wander about, in search of what some are pleased to consider as more powerful or popular means of edification. For it is my humble opinion, that the means of God's appointment will always be found the most effectual for promoting man's salvation; and I shall never be ashamed of being thought too precise or singular in adhering to that, which, for answering this merciful purpose, has been so wisely appointed.—BP. HOBART. |