Original.
Ritualism.
by John R. G. Hassard.
In one of the up-town streets of New-York there is a Protestant Episcopal Church dedicated to St. Alban. It is externally a plain, unattractive little building of brick and stone, in the early English style, with a modest little porch, and a sharp high roof, surmounted by a belfry and a cross. Within there is little to be seen in the way of ornament about the body of the church. The seats are plain benches rather than pews, and are free to all comers. But any one who should enter St. Alban's, not knowing to what denomination it belonged, and should look toward the sanctuary, would be very apt to fancy for a moment that he had got into a Catholic Church. Let us imagine ourselves among the crowd of curious spectators who fill the edifice of a Sunday morning. In place of the reading-desk conspicuous in most Protestant meeting-houses, there is a very proper-looking altar set back against the chancel wall, and ornamented with a colored and embroidered antependium. Behind it, instead of a painting, there is an illuminated screen-work, with inscriptions in old English ecclesiastical text, not much easier to be read than if they were in Latin. Where the tabernacle ought to be, stands a large gilt cross; on each side of it are vases and ornaments. On a shelf which runs along the wall back of the altar there are candlesticks, three tall ones at each side, and two others just over the altar itself. We see altar-cards, such as are used at mass; a burse for holding the corporal; and a chalice covered with a veil, the color of which varies with the season of the ecclesiastical year. Today not being a festival, the hue is green. At one end of the altar is a big book on a movable stand. At the epistle side is a credence table with a silver paten, on which is the wafer-bread for communion, and with vessels of wine and water that might be called cruets if they were only a little smaller. The pulpit stands just outside the railings on the left. There is a little raised desk on it for the preachers's book or manuscript, and this desk is covered with a green veil. Opposite the pulpit on the right hand side is a lectern with a bible on it. The lectern likewise has green hangings. On one side of the sanctuary is a row of stalls, precisely like those we see in some of our cathedrals and seminary-chapels. On the other are benches for the choristers. The organ is in a recess just behind them, and the organist sits in the chancel, in full view of the people, with his back to the instrument. He wears a white surplice, and presents altogether a very respectable and ecclesiastical appearance.
The appointments of St. Alban's being so very much like those of a real church, we shall not be surprised to find the service almost equally like a real mass. At the appointed hour an acolyte in cassock and surplice lights the two candles on the altar. Then we hear a chorus of male voices— principally boys—intoning a chant, and presently a procession issues from the vestry door and files into the chancel. First comes a lad wearing a black cassock and short surplice, and carrying a cross on a tall staff. Then follow the chanters, men and boys, similarly attired; then one or two clergymen, or perhaps theological students, also in cassock and surplice; next two little boys in red cassocks; and finally two officiating ministers, wearing long albs. The "priest" has a green stole, crossed on his breast, and confined at the sides by a cincture; the "deacon's" stole is worn over the left shoulder. The clerks take their places in the stalls; the singers proceed to their benches. The cross-bearer kneels at one side of the altar; the "priest" kneels at the foot of the steps, with the deacon behind him and the acolytes at his side. The service about to be performed is not the "Order of Morning Prayer" prescribed by the prayer-book, but simply the communion service. The officiating minister (for the sake of convenience let us call him what he calls himself—the priest; though without, of course, admitting his sacerdotal character) chants a short prayer, very much in the style of the chanting we hear at mass, and the choir respond "Amen." Then the litany is chanted antiphonally, by one of the clergy and the choristers alternately; it is in the main a translation of that part of our litany of the saints in which we address Almighty God directly, without asking the intercession of his blessed. This over, the ministers and acolytes retire in the same order in which they entered, and the organist plays a voluntary, during which the other six altar-candles are lighted. When the clergy return the priest is seen in a green maniple and chasuble. The latter differs from the vestment worn by the Catholic priest at mass only in being less stiff in texture, pointed behind, and covering the arm nearly to the elbow; and instead of being embroidered with a cross on the back it is marked with a figure nearly resembling the letter Y. With hands clasped before his breast the priest now ascends the steps, and standing before the altar, with his back to the people, goes on with the second part of the service. We need not describe it, for it is principally translated from the missal. The words are all repeated in a tone which is half reading and half chanting, and whenever the minister says "Let us Pray," or "The Lord be with you," he turns round to the people like a priest chanting "Oremus" or "Dominus Vobiscum." The epistle and gospel are read by the deacon. The sermon follows; a rather vague and wordy discourse, chiefly remarkable for the frequent and affectionate use of the term "Catholic." The preacher begins by saying "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," and the more devoutly disposed of the congregation thereupon cross themselves. After the sermon comes the most solemn part of the service, taken nearly verbatim from the canon of the mass; and at the commencement a great many of the congregation who apparently are not communicants, leave the church with reverential faces, as if they supposed the old law forbidding catechumens to witness the more sacred mysteries were still in force. But the curious spectators, who compose a large proportion of the audience, are under no such scruple about remaining.
We need not describe the order of the service in detail, because the words are almost exactly those to which we are ourselves accustomed, and the ceremonies come as close to those of the mass as it is possible to make them come. Whenever the ministers or attendants pass before the altar they make a low bow to the cross. As the time of consecration approaches, the deacon goes to the corner of the altar, and the acolytes bring him there the bread and water and wine, which he hands to the priest, the wine and water being mixed in the chalice. The prayer of consecration (a translation of our own) is chanted like the rest of the service, until the priest reaches the words, "This is my body," etc., "This is my blood," etc.; those, suddenly dropping his voice, he repeats in a low voice, bending over, and immediately afterward lifting up the elements on high. The attendants, during this ceremony, hold up the corners of his vestment. After the consecration all make genuflections, instead of bows, when they have occasion to pass before the altar.
After receiving communion himself, the priest administers it to the deacon and clergy and the altar boys. The people then approach the railing and the priest gives them the consecrated wafer, using the formula prescribed in the Catholic and the Protestant Episcopal liturgies alike—"The body of our Lord Jesus Christ," etc.; but with each morsel of bread before he gives it he makes the sign of the cross, which is a striking innovation in the Protestant service. The deacon follows with the chalice. Before the communion, however, a general confession is recited, and then the priest, turning toward the people with great solemnity, repeats the form of absolution, making the sign of the cross as he does so with outstretched arm. After communion the celebrant scrapes the crumbs from the paten into the chalice, and takes the ablutions at the corner of the altar exactly as the priest does at mass. And when the congregation is dismissed at the close, it is with a blessing and the sign of the cross, just as we are dismissed after the Ite, Missa est at the end of the mass.
On specially solemn occasions incense is used at St. Alban's, and various other ceremonies are performed which have been borrowed from the Catholic ritual. For example, candles are placed about the corpse when the burial service is read.
We have described a service at St. Alban's, because that is the church in which the ritualistic ideas, as they are called, are carried out to the fullest development they have thus far attained in the United States. But the rector and congregation of St. Alban's are by no means the only persons of the Protestant Episcopal denomination who entertain those ideas. They are only a little more advanced in their views than the majority of the High Church Episcopal party. There are many places in New York where Sunday services are conducted more or less in conformity with the practices of the ritualists; and antiphonal chanting and other popish abominations have been introduced, even into sober old Trinity Church itself. The number of those who believe that divine service ought to be conducted with a more elaborate ceremonial than any Protestant sect has thus far admitted is rapidly increasing, and among them are many of the most distinguished and influential of the Episcopal clergy.