Those great sections of the Church which have been most active in the work of Home and Foreign Evangelization, a work that has especially claimed attention during this century, have found the simple worship of our fathers well suited to the cultivation of the spiritual life that must of necessity lie behind all such efforts, and to the development of the reverent and devotional spirit so characteristic of an aggressive Christianity. The Church has been true to the traditions and principles so loyally maintained in the days of her heroic struggles in the past, and along these lines she has found in her public worship blessing and inspiration for her peaceful toils, even as our fathers in their day found in similar worship strength and revived courage with which to meet their difficulties and to endure persecution.
Modern Movements in Presbyterian Churches
Respecting Public Worship.
"All who desire to manifest an intelligent appreciation of what is distinctive in Presbyterian ritual would do well to guard against attaching undue importance, or adhering too tenaciously, to details of a past or present usage, as if these constituted the essentials from which there must never be the smallest deviation, of which there may never be the slightest modification or adaptation to altered acquirements and circumstances."—McCRIE.
Chapter IX.
Modern Movements in Presbyterian Churches
Respecting Public Worship.
The earliest indication of any general desire in Scotland for a more elaborate service than that in general use in the Church at the time of the Revolution was seen in the proposal to enlarge the Psalmody and to improve the Service of Praise. As early as 1713 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland called the attention of congregations to the necessity that existed for a more decent performance of the public praise of God, in a recommendation that was exceedingly desirable and necessary if the accounts of the service of praise at that time are to be believed. This was followed, not long afterward, by the introduction of paraphrases, styled "Songs of Scripture," and later of hymns, and finally of instrumental music. In this matter of the improvement of worship in the department of praise, the Secession Churches in several cases were more forward than the Established Church, the revived interest in religion and worship which had been in a measure the cause of their existence lending itself to such measures. In all sections of the Church the conflict concerning praise in worship was for a long period prosecuted with an energy that frequently arose to bitterness. The vexed questions of hymn-singing and the use of instruments in Churches being settled, there followed, or perhaps it may be said there arose out of these, the further question of the elaboration and improvement of other parts of worship.
In 1858 the Assembly of the Church of Scotland recommended to congregations that were without a minister, the use in worship of a book prepared by its authority, in which were embodied the prayers of the Book of Common Order, together with much material from the Directory of Worship. This action on the part of the Church was regarded by some as indicating the existence of a spirit which warranted the formation of "The Church Service Society." This Society was formed by certain ministers of the Established Church who were strongly impressed with the desirability of the adoption by the Church of certain authorized forms of prayer for public worship, and of the use of prescribed forms in the administration of the Sacraments. By the publication of its constitution, in which it announced its object as "The Study of the Liturgies ancient and modern of the Christian Church, with a view to the preparation and ultimate publication of certain forms of prayer for public worship, and services for the administration of the Sacraments, the celebration of Marriage, the Burial of the Dead," etc., it very early aroused vigorous opposition on the part of many who saw in its organization an evident intention to introduce into the Church a liturgical service. Such a purpose the Society emphatically disavowed, and insisted that there was no desire on the part of its members to encroach upon the simplicity of Presbyterian worship, but claimed rather the desire to redeem the same from lifelessness and lack of a devotional spirit with which they declared it is so likely to be characterized. So effectively have the fears of those who first uttered their objections been allayed, that the Society is said to comprise in its membership, at the present time, more than one-third of the ordained ministers of the Established Church. The results of this Society's labors have been published in a volume which is now in its seventh edition. It is a book of more than 400 pages, and is entitled, "Euchologion—A Book of Common Order." Its contents seem to harmonize more with the views which were charged against the originators of the Society at its commencement than with the defence which was put forward in its behalf at that time. Although widely used it has no official sanction of the Church, and, therefore, it is not necessary to enter into any close analysis of its contents. Briefly, however, it may be said, it is a liturgy much more closely approximating to the English Book of Common Prayer than to Knox's Book of Common Order, or to the ritual of any of the Reformed Churches of the Continent, with which its projectors declare themselves to be more in sympathy than with the Episcopal Communion of England.
The first part comprises, in addition to prescribed daily Scripture readings and readings for every Sunday of the year, the Order of Divine Service for morning and evening for the five several Sundays of the month; in this Order are contained special forms of prayer, responses to be used by the congregation, the Lord's Prayer, to be repeated by minister and congregation together, and the Apostles' Creed, which is to be either said or sung.
In the second part, which contains "additional materials for daily and other services," the first place is given to the Litany, which is an exact transcript of that of the Church of England with the exception of a change in one petition, rendered necessary by the difference in the forms of government in the two Churches. A number of "prayers for special graces," "collects" and "prayers for special seasons" and "additional forms of service" are added. The "prayers for special seasons" have regard to "our Lord's advent," "the Incarnation," "Palm Sunday," "the descent of the Holy Ghost," etc.