James 1: 17–21; John
16: 5–15
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at The Cathedral
Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Springfield, Illinois on Saturday, May 2, 2015, on the occasion of an historic service using the 1789 Book of Common Prayer.
Welcome to this
service.
Our aim this evening is to
recreate the worship experience that might have greeted visitors to St. Paul’s
as they made their way to Springfield for the funeral and burial of President
Abraham Lincoln, an event that took place on May 4, 1865. Of course, you are all aware that the 150th anniversary observance of that event is taking place in the city this weekend.
Back in that day and
time 150 years ago, the Episcopal Church was using the 1789 edition of the Book
of Common Prayer. Your introductory
notes provide some background for the adoption of this Prayer Book, which had a
long service life, 103 years, until it was superseded by the 1892 edition. I invite you to make your way to your left down
the hallway, and then to the left again as you reach the end of the hallway to
the museum room in the Canterbury House.
There, you’ll be able to see original copies of the 1789 edition, as
well as other displays of the history of St. Paul’s and of this Cathedral’s
connection to the Lincoln and Todd families.
As is the case this
weekend for the 150th commemoration, the original funeral in 1865 would
have been the cause for many people to be in Springfield. So perhaps it’s possible that St. Paul’s
greeted many, many visitors. It’s also
possible that some of those visitors arrived on the nine car funeral train,
which had arrived just a few blocks from where St. Paul’s second edifice stood,
at Third and Adams Streets (SE of and across the street from where the Sangamo
Club stands today).
Back then, St. Paul’s
bell, which now is mounted in our bell tower here at 815 South Second Street,
was tolled as the funeral got underway.
St. Paul’s bell is the oldest church bell in town, dating from the 1840s
(as best we can tell). That historic
bell will be tolled again tomorrow beginning at Noon as the funeral
re-enactment gets underway. Our team of
ringers will be twenty High School Honor
Society members from the Springfield area.
Let’s unpack some of
the worship practices as they existed at St. Paul’s in the mid-19th century. Doing so might enhance our
understanding of the worship experience of those who attended St. Paul’s in
1865.
We ought to begin by
talking about the Oxford Movement, about which I have made some brief comments
in the introduction to the service leaflet.
In those days, the Springfield area would have been in the Diocese of
Illinois (the Diocese of Springfield came into being in 1877, when the Diocese
of Illinois was split into three dioceses).
Illinois, along with Wisconsin and parts of Indiana comprised what is
called the “Biretta Belt”, an area in which High Church practices were – and
are – especially prevalent.
Springfield had, in
those days, embraced to a large extent, the ideals of this movement. Markers of the effects on worship could be
seen in the fact that the choir was wearing robes (as our choir is doing this
evening). Furthermore, there were
candles on the altar (which were there for ceremonial reasons, and not just for
the practical necessity of being able to read the altar book). Clergy were wearing Eucharistic vestments
(chasubles, dalmatics, etc.), and the Holy Communion was celebrated with the
presiding clergy facing away from the people (a so-called “east-facing
celebration”).
Turning to the 1789
Prayer Book itself, we should notice some of the differences from our
contemporary practice in the 1979 edition of the Prayer Book. The traditional language of our 1789 rite
survives in the new Prayer Book, where it is known as Rite I. However, the order of the elements of the
service have moved around a bit from 1789 until now. If you are conversant with the practices of
the Episcopal Church today, these differences will be quite apparent.
The 1789 book shares
with all of the historic Anglican Prayer Books a very penitential flavor it its
liturgy. The liturgy possesses the
flavor of God’s people kneeling in penitence before the Lord, the almighty
judge. Notice the disciplinary rubrics
at the very beginning of the service leaflet:
Did that phrase about a person who is an “evil and notoriously evil
liver” catch your attention? It may
surprise many to know that those same disciplinary rubrics are still a part of
our current Prayer Book. However, the
wording is somewhat milder than what you see today, and these disciplinary
rubrics have been removed from the beginning of the service, and have been
placed on page 409 (at the end of the Communion section) in the 1979 edition of
the Prayer Book.
Now notice how the
service itself begins: Aside from the
prelude and the opening hymn, which would have been customary elements of
worship in 1865, the service itself begins in a very subdued manner, with the
recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is followed by some collects. In today’s usage, the service – after the
prelude and entrance hymn – begins with an opening acclamation: Today, in Eastertide, we would begin by
saying “Alleluia! The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”
Then, there is the
reading of Scripture. In the practice of
those former times, only an Epistle reading and a Gospel reading were
prescribed. Today, of course, an Old
Testament passage and a Psalm precede the reading of the Epistle and the
Gospel.
Notice also that clergy
read the Scripture, following the rubrics of the 1789 book. Today, lay persons read the Old Testament and
the Epistle, and often lead the Psalm as well.
In addition, clergy were to lead the Prayer for the Whole State of
Christ’s Church (which is known today as the “Prayers of the People”), and they
administered both of the elements at Communion time. In contemporary practice, lay persons do many
of these things.
So much for the liturgy
we are experiencing today. It is our
hope that this worship experience will carry us back to some degree or another
to the time of Lincoln’s untimely death.
What might have
prompted those who came to St. Paul’s that first weekend in May, 1865 to attend
service that Sunday? Perhaps many in the
congregation and elsewhere had known Fr. Charles Dresser, who was St. Paul’s
first Rector. It was Fr. Dresser who had
officiated at Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd’s wedding in 1842, using the 1789
Prayer Book. You can go to our museum
space and see the marriage record of that wedding.
Perhaps many remembered
that Fr. Dresser had sold his house to the Lincolns two years after their
marriage. The Lincolns enlarged the
house from one story to two, and it is the house that is seen and visited today
in the historic area that is administered by the Park Service some few blocks
east of the Cathedral.
But more than that,
people in Springfield and elsewhere thought of this city as Lincoln’s
home. And they knew the qualities by
which Lincoln lived his life, qualities that our Epistle reading from the
Letter of St. James speaks to today:
Lincoln was a person who embodied the qualities that James
addresses: Qualities of being swift to
hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
The Letter of St. James
concentrates on the living the Christian life in very practical, everyday
terms. James’ purpose seems to instruct
us about how we live godly lives, holding our brothers and sisters in high
regard. Surely, during his lifetime,
Abraham Lincoln would have had plenty of opportunity to be quick to speak
against those who vilified him in the press of his day….for examples of the
attacks which were leveled against him, take some time to look at some of the
political cartoons of the 1860s…the rancorous nature of today’s political
debates seems mild by comparison with some of the images we have from that day
and time. We have in Abraham Lincoln an
exemplary example of a man who lived out the ideals we hear in James’ letter,
day in and day out. His concern for the
welfare of others is one of the hallmarks of this great man. Perhaps these qualities are among the reasons
so many continue to admire him, for he was a man who possessed great integrity
and who held the ideals of honesty, the welfare of others, and hard work in
high regard.
AMEN.
