USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The parish of the Advent in the city of Boston, a history of one hundred years, 1844-1944 > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13
We are grateful that this broad Christian principle of the right relation between prayer and conduct found ex-
1 The Most Reverend William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury.
THE AUMBRY, OR SACRAMENT HOUSE
108
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
pression in other ways, as laid down by the founders of this parish. For example, the Advent has always had free pews. Discrimination in God's House because of such man-made distinctions as financial status, or race, is entirely foreign to the Catholic nature of the Church. Therefore, people of different races have, at the Advent, always felt at home as members of a worshipping community. In the Mystical Body of Christ the laity as well as the clergy have their in- dispensable participation in the only offering perfect in God's sight, the one, true, pure, immortal sacrifice.
Turning from our heritage of the past to the present and the future, your present rector gratefully records that unhappy relations with episcopal authority no longer exist. As a parish we have the good will, trust and help of our diocesan bishops. Indeed no rector could wish for a more cordial understanding than that which the late Bishop Lawrence and our present Diocesan, Bishop Sherrill, have again and again manifested. We enter upon our second one hundred years, then, with widespread good will, for our bishop reflects and reinforces a general attitude in the diocese.
.
Furthermore we are better equipped than ever before to meet the demands of the day. The new parish house is in constant use and is the means of developing what promises to be of increasing significance-Christian Education, with a full-time director. In this connection there is planned a series of Advent Papers which we venture to hope may bring a clear and accurate account of the Catholic position of the Anglican Communion to many Americans who are quite unaware of its existence. These are being published under the direction of an able editorial board. The first one, written by a professor of psychology at Harvard,2 has already been published and well received.
2 Gordon W. Allport, Professor of Psychology and chairman of the Department at Harvard.
109
THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS
This growing emphasis on Christian Education suggests what we are most concerned about, namely, the future of the Church in the new world. These words are being writ- ten while scores of our parishioners are away from home participating in a desperate world struggle which staggers the imagination and drives us all perforce to Him Who alone can heal ghastly wounds and bring peace out of chaos. Christians of every name face the prodigious task of estab- lishing, under God, a new world order, involving vast and complicated issues. That the Anglican Communion, as a free and democratic branch of the Catholic Church, has a mission to fulfill in this enterprise, we firmly believe.
Basic to a regenerated world is a regenerate people. What has Anglican Catholicism to offer? An example out of this parish is interesting and pertinent. Early in 1943 there met at the Advent rectory a group of ten leaders of our Church to consider the relevance of the Catholic Re- ligion to some of the desperate needs of our day. The group consisted of two specialists in religious education, the head of the department of psychology in a leading university, a professor of philosophy in the same university, a consulting psychologist, the Superior of a Religious Order for women with wide experience in social relations, the psychiatrist-in- chief of a well-known mental hospital, and three priests- all convinced Catholics. During the meeting it was revealed that not one of the group had been brought up a Catholic -a testimony to the compelling, magnetic power of free Catholicism in answer to deep personal needs. Yet none of the group would be guilty of the wrong belief that the Catholic Religion is true because it works. Rather, it works because it is true. All agreed that it is a God-given therapy for a sick world, a therapy at once personal and social.
The task of our parish in a sick world must be seen in relation to that movement of which it has been a conspicu- ous pioneer in New England-the Catholic Revival in the
110
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
Anglican Communion which originated in Oxford in 1833. The Oxford, or Tractarian Movement, as it was then called, was passionately concerned with bringing souls to Christ-Incarnate, Crucified, Risen and Ascended, and
THE PULPIT
living in His Body the Church. The spiritual life at that time was at a low ebb. It is said that less than a dozen per- sons received the Blessed Sacrament on Easter Day 1800 in St. Paul's Cathedral, London.3 The Tractarians began the Catholic Movement not as a man-made attempt to change
Today as many persons as that are found daily at many hundreds of our altars.
111
THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS
the Anglican Communion into a Catholic Church (an im- possibility in the nature of the case) but, profoundly con- vinced that their Church already was Catholic, they pro- claimed her full Catholic heritage and thus sought to imple- ment her God-given powers for the redemption of society. Her Catholicism was not something added to the Christian faith but was based on Holy Scripture, "as the sufficient sum- mary of all saving truth," interpreted with the mind of the undivided Church which our Lord promised would be guided by His Holy Spirit into all truth and as set forth by the Vincentian Canon-"That alone is to be accounted truly Catholic which has been believed everywhere, always and by all." Bishop Ken, in his last will and testament, stated his allegiance to "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith professed by the whole Church before the division of the East and West. More particularly the Communion of the Church of England as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations."
The Catholic Movement, indwelt as it was by the Holy Spirit, brought many people to the Sacraments. Increas- ingly, the devout understood the true nature of the Sacra- ments to be not mere devotional luxuries but God given meat and drink of the life in Christ. Their transforming and nourishing power comes from their objectivity as actual pledges and means which God Himself uses. They are spiritual realities whether or not people subjectively feel them; morally conditioned to be sure, by human re- sponse, never our creation but always His.
Along with the recovery of the full Catholic heritage an- other neglected truth was restored-the priestly tradition. The earlier Evangelical Revival had recaptured the pro- phetic tradition. In Catholicism alone these two valid Chris- tian traditions are united. It is vain to attempt to divide Christ's religion into opposed elements, the prophetic and the priestly, for they are combined once and for all in the
112
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
person of our Lord. The priestly element, or sacrifice, stands for the truth that sin is more than a series of wrong choices, and that more than human will power is needed to cure it. Sin is a spiritual disease. Divine intervention is needed for souls who are unable to accomplish their own salvation by responding to the stern message of the prophets.
If Protestant thought has exalted the prophetic at the expense of the priestly, and if the Catholic churches have sometimes exalted the priestly at the expense of the pro- phetic, Catholics might do much to restore a right propor- tion. While upholding the priestly element we could and should have a zeal for souls, proclaim personal conversion, and give ourselves fully to the world wide mission of the Church. Catholics of the Episcopal Church have not, on the whole, been zealous in setting forth the Evangelical elements of the Gospel. As we begin our new century in this parish, I crave for us complete allegiance to the whole Gospel of our blessed Lord as befits us who love the name of Catholic with its inclusive implications.
As the Oxford Movement developed, another aspect emerged-a social conscience. Men like Bishop Gore and Canon Scott Holland helped awaken the church to the conviction that "the power of Jesus Christ and His Spirit is the solution to social wrongs ; the one and only hope that the Kingdoms of this world may become the Kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ."
The full power of the Catholic Church in general and the Anglican in particular to penetrate with healing the roots of the social order has yet to be fully demonstrated. Anglican Catholicism, free and democratic has, we believe, a potential power as enormous as it is unique. In this
4 For this paragraph I am largely indebted to Fr. Joseph Barker, C.R., author of Sacrificial Priesthood, pp. 10-11 (Dacre Press, West- minster ).
113
THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS
branch of the Church there has been preserved a balance between authority and freedom which the democratic peo- ples of the West instinctively value. Her liturgy derives from the ages of Catholic life, is God-centered, objective, both deeply personal-directed to man's need of redemption -and widely social in its implications. Preeminently in the Eucharist all the great realities proclaimed by the Gospel come to life, oper- ate as spiritual power and are transmitted into the very stuff of life. What- ever comes out of this war, tragic events have patently demonstrated the futility of attempting to redeem a social order without re- deemed individuals, just as any religion that does not meet the test of con- duct and issue in social action is unreal at its heart.
yorum Pine du bois
As together we of the Advent face the future, I see another task God has given us. We cannot be indifferent to our responsibility for the appalling sin of disunity among Christians and the pressing need of confronting a divided world with a united Church. We believe that God has given the Anglican Communion a conspicuous role in heal- ing the wounds of Christ's Body. As Catholics we are convinced with Bishop Brent that there are no short cuts to unity. We take our stand with that great Apostle of Unity when he said, "Church Unity must not be limited; it must be something so tremendous as to be above and be-
114
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
yond all concrete conceptions we may be able to give to it; it must include the whole Christian Church . . . Any pan- Protestant movement that is inaugurated should be inaugu- rated with reference to the balance of the Church which is Catholic." "In the end" said the Archbishop of Canter- bury," "the reunion of the Church will not be fabricated by us at all; it will be the work of God resulting from a deeper devotion in all parts of the Church, and all members of all parts of the Church, to the one Lord of the Church. It is not through skill in negotiation, but through deeper devo- tion to the Lord Himself that we may hope in the end to be brought into that full unity which corresponds to the Unity of God and His purpose for His people."
At this glorious milestone of our parish life and at this crucial moment of world history I would make our own certain noble words I was privileged to hear at the centen- nial of that Movement 6 of which we are a part :
"In the purpose of God civilization as we have known it may not be meant to be saved. The Church is finally bound up with no civilization and tethered to no secular order. It exists to serve the glory of God-that only. But the glory of God is disclosed in his kingdom. And the Kingdom of God is not only the treas- ure of the individual soul, but a society-an order of personal relations. That order has been brought from heaven to earth by the Incarnation of God himself within our human nature: and the Church, the fellowship of his Spirit, is set in the world to be the embodiment of the Kingdom of God . . . The Church with only too fatal ease can become absorbed in the aim of maintaining itself as an institution in the world alongside and external to other institutions-as though God were merely the head of the ecclesiastical interests in the world. Or the function of the Church
5 The Most Reverend William Temple before the Canterbury Con- ference, July 1943.
6 From a sermon, "The Divine Society," preached in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, by a Religious (Father Talbot, the Superior of the Community of the Resurrection), on Fri- day, July 14, 1933, being the one hundredth anniversary of the Assize Sermon preached by John Keble ..
115
THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS
may be conceived as that of supplying satisfactory expressions for the religious feelings of those who happen to have them. But the object which the Church is called to present to men's faith and first allegiance is the God whose will constitutes, and whose purpose penetrates, every order of created being . .
"Man is made to worship God, and chaos is come again in his soul and in his society if he forgoes his citizenship in the spiritual order.
"If Christendom is to be . built, however imperfectly, it must find again a spiritual unity in a faith in what alone is absolute, and a worship of what alone can embrace and transcend all other loyalties . . . The Church is not only to proclaim, but, in anticipation of its fulfilment, to be the Kingdom of God upon earth to unite the men of all nations under a rule both absolute and free, because it is the rule of the eternal love of God. Citizenship of that Kingdom is ours-if only we will repent and believe and purify our lives under the law of Christ and the power of the Spirit . . .. Many loyalties claim us, and rightly; but we shall betray them all unless in serving them we are mastered by our allegiance to Christ and the City of God. Broken, indeed, is the witness of the Church to the Divine Society by the sin of its disunion and the worldliness of its members. But in faith and will we are to cleave to it, prizing in our own Church not first what is peculiar to England, nor what binds it to the State or to a social system which is passing away-that were to defraud the nation of what it most needs-but prizing first what in it pro- claims the universal Church, what is common to all times and all places, what passes the frontiers of all nations and all races, what discloses God's eternal order. For truly men can only find liberty and honour and fellowship in the Jerusalem which is above- which is free and the mother of us all."
116
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
This parish under God, has been a radiant influence for one hundred years in the revival of Catholic faith and prac- tice, and will not waver. For this we give thanks to God. We honor all who have served the movement in our midst and we humble ourselves in penitence for our own sins and negligences.
May God give us the courage, the faith, and the intelli- gence to renew our consecration to the service of Christ in His Church that we may, in the days ahead, do our part to bring all men to the knowledge of God.
WHITNEY HALE
The Laity of the Parish
1844-1894
M ANY of the worthies of the Advent," it has been said, "were men of great character, who would have been of note anywhere, many good and holy men, but many with strong wills, distinctive peculiarities and more or less difficult tempers-a headstrong, lively team for the control of any incumbent !
"The venerable Richard H. Dana was one of the wisest of men, sensitive and fastidious, exacting in taste. His son, Richard H. Dana, 2nd, of those days was a man of peculiar reserve, a devout churchman and yet of sturdy inde- pendence.
"Judge Metcalf was, of all the founders, perhaps, the surest staff and stay for the rector, sweet and round, steady and serene.
"Dr. William Edward Coale was the heart of the enter- prise. A Baltimorean, he lived here in the North, with a readiness that was never chilled by our less cordial atmos- . phere, and gave out his whole nature for the cause which he loved, as indeed he did to all humanity with which he came in contact. His prescriptions for the poor were always supplemented by those which he himself supplied, of needed soup or meat or fruit. His hospitality was unbounded. His laugh and cordial voice were as cheery as his responses in the service were inspiring. With his head thrown back and his broad breast inflated, how the accents of praise and thanksgiving rolled sonorously from his mouth-the lips long silent now that were so tender and true! One of the first solemn funerals, accompanied by the white-robed
117
THE HIGH MASS ON PALM SUNDAY
119
THE LAITY OF THE PARISH
choir, was that of Dr. Coale, when they marched singing to his grave, through the paths of Mt. Auburn.
"Mr. William F. Otis was a warm friend and supporter of Dr. Croswell, loved him with more than a brother's love, and gave the infant enterprise the value of his great name and high character.
"The Dales, William and Theron, both sweet singers and zealous parishioners, were of the early band. Mr. Peter Wainwright, the man of inflexible honesty, dignity, intense Anglicanism and earnest piety, was a pillar through many years. Mr. Henry M. Parker's memory is enshrined as that of a sweet saint. .
"Dr. George C. Shattuck's praise is in all the churches. His enormous liberality knew no bounds, nor did his un- wearying feet fail to carry him daily to the sanctuary he loved so well, and with which his name is more closely and justly associated than that of any other layman. His gifts to the Church of the Advent mounted into the hundreds of thousands. N. Austin Parks, the accomplished scholar ; Joseph Burnett, the courtly gentleman; Frederick H. Stimpson, practical, business-like and methodical, so long the parish treasurer; Charles F. Shimmin, Horatio Big- elow, Charles K. Cobb, John P. Tarbell, Judge Redfield, Dr. Frederick S. Ainsworth, Charles H. Joy, Dr. William E. Townsend, were among the incorporators." 1
To the foregoing list the author of the article adds the names of other parishioners, most of them members of the corporation at one time or another, who were then living and who had "done good service." Among them were "the eminent lawyer, Causten Browne," afterward identified with the Church of the Messiah; Dr. Samuel Eliot, ex-president of Trinity College; William S. Eaton, J. Montgomery Sears, John L. Gardner, and Francis V. Parker, all de- voted members of the parish; Charles P. Gardiner, who
1 The Boston Herald, Dec. 2, 1894, op. cit.
120
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
was deeply interested in the music of the church; Edward N. Perkins, junior warden for eighteen years, and Robert Codman, senior warden at the time of the fiftieth anni- versary; Francis I. Amory, a member of the corporation for over thirty-seven years; and Thomas Nelson, a treas- urer of the parish.
1894-1944
The loyal devotion to the interests of the parish upon the part of so many of its laymen makes it appear in- vidious to make special mention of a few; and yet the con- spicuous service rendered by some of them, who have since passed on to their reward, calls for such special comment. Among them are William H. C. Copeland, for thirty-seven years the efficient clerk of the parish; Francis W. Hunne- well, for eight years junior and for sixteen years senior warden, a munificent benefactor and ever a strong sup- porter of the rector; Erving Winslow, earnest in his devo- tion to the Catholic faith, who recorded much of importance for the information of present and future generations ; Leverett S. Tuckerman, for twenty years a faithful mem- ber of the corporation; Harold Jefferson Coolidge, devoted clerk of the parish for seventeen years, to whose generous bequest we owe our beautiful organ; Robert T. Walker, who did so much in the training of the servers and acolytes, the founder of the National Order of St. Vincent; Joseph Grafton Minot, a nephew of the fourth rector of the parish, for fourteen years its faithful clerk, and for nearly a like period junior warden; George Oliver George Coale, son of one to whose efforts the founding of the parish is largely due, a staunch Catholic and a devout churchman; Frederick S. Moseley, a generous, loyal and
121
THE LAITY OF THE PARISH
devoted parishioner ; and finally George Peabody Gardner -a member of the corporation for nearly fifty years, a warden for thirty-eight, and faithful treasurer of the parish for twenty-five years,-a wise adviser, a devout and constant communicant, and a generous supporter of the parish and of the rector in his every interest and respon- sibility.
All these, and many others, in their time rendered de- voted service to the parish in the furtherance of its aims, and in their loyal support of the rector, being ever mindful of the material and spiritual needs of the parish and earnest in their efforts to promote their every interest.
Nor may we leave unrecorded the faithful service given through all these years by the women of the parish. Labor- ing unceasingly for its welfare, and without the recogni- tion of official position, they have willingly assumed and with consecrated zeal discharged the responsibilities of active work in many fields. Some of the organizations in these fields will be given more extended notice in succeed- ing pages.
We are also grateful to the Sisters of the Society of St. Margaret, who during the past seventy years and more have ministered to the poor and needy in our midst, the sick and the sorrowing; who have taught in our Church School, have aided in making our altars beautiful by their handiwork, and have assured the care of our vestments and sacred vessels. Their devoted service to the parish has brought fulfillment and blessing throughout the years.
5
PA
THE HOLY ROOD
The Music of the Advent
The Development of Choral Worship
A T the time the Parish of the Advent was founded church music in this country was at a low ebb; the same observation may justly be applied to conditions in the mother country. Congregational singing, cultivated so assiduously by William Billings and his contemporaries in the Congregational churches during preceding decades, had become dominated and partly supplanted by the quartet choir, which despite whatever advantages it may have possessed rendered difficult that impersonal association of the music with the liturgy which is a sine qua non of Catho- lic worship.
It was natural that at first the music of the services should have been entrusted to a mixed quartet; but it was providential that this quartet comprised devout members of the parish, who not only provided the musical service on Sundays, but for some years continued to sing at the daily offices as well.1 That the music sung must have been comparatively simple, is probable; but it is recorded that the canticles were sung to the ancient Gregorian melodies, and that the chanting of the Psalms to the same system soon took the place of the metrical versions of the Psalms, which for a time were almost the only variety of hymns either employed or authorized by the Church.
1 The members of the original quartet, organized in 1845 if not actually earlier, were Miss Mary Hooper, Miss Almira Tarbell, Mr. Theron Dale, and Dr. William Dale.
123
124
THE PARISH OF THE ADVENT
The parish records fail to make clear the identity of the organists of the earlier years, or their respective tenure of office. It is recorded, however, that in October, 1845 Mr. L. P. Hamer was engaged, at the munificent salary of one hundred and fifty dollars per annum! The members of the quartet gave their services voluntarily. Mr. Hamer was succeeded in 1846 by Mr. Southard, and it was voted to purchase an organ at an expense of $350. The first organ had been one of which the use was offered by the rector in 1844; both must have been what were known as melo- deons, harmoniums, or "cabinet organs"; but they sufficed for the simple demands of accompaniment.
It is pleasant to note that the devoted and self-sacrificing efforts of the quartet choir and the organist were not un- appreciated; at the Easter meeting of the corporation in 1848 the organist and choir were commended "for their example in services gratuitously, cheerfully and acceptably rendered at the daily as well as weekly worship of the Church during the past year"; and they were "earnestly requested to persevere in their efforts to restore the ancient ecclesiastical harmonies." The following year grateful appreciation was again expressed of "the successful efforts of the choristers, organist and choir to elevate the stand- ards of Catholic music" in the city. It was further voted that these efforts be seconded by encouraging the subscrip- tion for purchase of a new organ, and what was even more significant, that "in pursuance of the same laudable object and to ensure permanency and increased efficiency to the present character of the music the Chorister be authorized to employ, at the expense of the Parish, the services of a teacher to drill selected boys of the Parish in the rudiments of music, under his direction." Here was the first step toward the formation of the "boy choir" which in its later development was to bring such fame to the Church of the Advent, and to serve as one of the first choirs of this char-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.