Excerpt from Notes on the American Liturgy: For Use in Parish Instruction, and in the Preparation of Candidates for Confirmation

In the Office for Holy Baptism, on page 251 of the Prayer Book, the Church refers to Those things which a Christian ought to know and believe, to his soul's health, and cites the Catechism as being set forth for the purpose of making those things plain.

It is self-evident, moreover, that the objective point of all such instruction is the formation of regular habits of Divine worship; the instruction referred to is intended to be, not merely academic, but intensely practical. If the person instructed does not become an actual worship per, and form the habit of regular prayer, the instruction is failing of its chief purpose, so that even Baptism and Confirmation, with all their glorious possibilities, may in the end come to imply only unused gifts and added re sponsibility.

Further, it is evident enough that the habit of wor ship can never be regarded as complete until there is a loving appreciation of that which the Holy Communion stands for, since that Sacrament is the divinely given keystone of the arch of worship, without which it can never be firm and strong to bridge the trials and tempta tions of life. The Holy Communion is not merely the privilege of the advanced saint, nor the last refuge of the helpless sinner, but it is intended to be the normal support of the average Christian man or woman, boy or girl. It would seem therefore that truly efficient parish instruction ought to succeed in making, out of the great majority of those who come to Confirmation, life long and regular attendants at the Lord's Table. The evidence that such results today are far from universal, may be found in almost every parish. May not condi tions be improved, by means of the placing of a more constant emphasis upon the Eucharist itself, throughout the whole course of preparatory instruction, and by means of an united appeal to all intelligent Christian people, to raise that most essential act of worship to its rightful place of importance?

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.