CHAPTER XII THE SCOTTISH, AMERICAN, AND IRISH REVISIONS "And thou, true Church of Scotland, Cast down, shalt not despair; The desolate shall bear. . . ... "When o'er the western waters They seek for crook and key, Of Shiloh shalt extend, And a long line of children From thy sad breast descend." BISHOP COXE, Christian Ballads. HIS seems a fitting place to give some account of the TH later fortunes of the Church and Prayer Book in Scotland, the United States, and Ireland. The ecclesiastical changes in North Britain formed a marked contrast to those in England. There it was a revolution rather than a reformation. The leaders were not learned Bishops and Priests acting with duly constituted authority in their convocations or synods, but Priests of radical views acquired from Germany and Switzerland, who were determined to cut themselves off, "root and branch," from the ancient Scottish Church with its thousand years of history, and therefore also from other five hundred years which connected it with the Apostolic age. It was in 563 that S. Columba with his band of missionaries from the north of Ireland landed on the little western island of Iona, called in later ages I-Columbkill, that is, the Island of Columba's Church. It was in 1560 that the lay Parliament at Edinburgh rejected the ancient Divine government of the Church, and its liturgical and reverent worship. For political reasons the outer form of episcopacy was retained for a time in order to secure the property and income of the Church. Laymen were given the title and some of the authority of Bishops, so that they might draw the revenues of the sees. "It was a device of Highland farming, when a cow had lost her calf, to place the skin, stuffed with straw, before her eyes, to make her yield her milk more freely." 1 The name given to the make-believe calf was "tulchan," and so these titular "bishops," who were used as decoys, and only received a mere fraction of the revenues, while the Regent and the nobles were enriched, came to be called in contempt "Tulchans." During the next hundred years, in the reigns of James I and the two Charleses, various attempts were made to restore the Apostolic Ministry, and with it the ancient liturgic worship. In 1633 a committee of Scottish Bishops, with Archbishop Laud, and Bishops Juxon and Wren as advisers, was appointed to adapt the English Prayer Book for use in Scotland, and in 1637 this Book, in which much of the Communion Office of the Book of 1549 had been incorporated, was approved. The method of its introduction into the parishes, however, was unwise and unfortunate. The people, either in Assembly or in Parliament, had not been consulted, and the Book was thrust upon them by royal edict, without opportunity for clergy or laity to examine it beforehand. It was not then to be wondered at that it was not welcomed. A new bishopric had been established at Edinburgh, and the Book was first used in the Cathedral of S. Giles in that city on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity, July 23, 1637. When the Dean was beginning to read the collect for the day, "Lord of all 1 Lloyd, Sketches of Church His. in Scotland, p. 72. power and might," Jennie Geddis, an old herb-woman, sprang up and flung her stool at his head. The Bishop tried to restore peace, but the scene ended in a riot, and the riot ended eventually in a revolution which once more abolished Episcopacy in Scotland. Under Charles II the ancient Ministry and worship were partially restored, but in 1689, under William of Orange, the Church was again disestablished and deprived of her property, and Presbyterianism established in her stead. Henceforth the "Catholic Remainder," as those were called who clung to the ancient Church of Scotland, were subjected to a series of penal laws, and their numbers greatly diminished. This condition, however, was largely owing to the mistaken notion, shared in with the Nonjurors in England, that Church and King must stand together, and that their allegiance was due, not to the new line of the Georges from Hanover, but to the Stuarts. In 1764 the Scottish Bishops made a slight revision of the Eucharistic Office of 1637, and it was this Liturgy which Dr. Samuel Seabury, the first American Bishop, consecrated by three Scottish Bishops in the upper room of a house in Aberdeen on Nov. 14, 1784, introduced into his Diocese of Connecticut, and which was adopted in substance by the whole American Church in 1789.1 Bishop Seabury, after his consecration in 1784, always used 1 The reason for this secret service was the fact that all persons more than four in number, besides the family, attending a meeting conducted by an Episcopal Clergyman who had not taken the oath of allegiance to King George, were subject to a fine of five pounds for the first offence, and imprisonment for two years for the second. The death in 1788 of Prince Charles Edward, the last of the Stuart claimants to the throne, paved the way for relief. In 1792 the repressive law was repealed, and the Scottish Church had at last restored to her the full freedom of her worship. In 1797 the Book was translated into Galic. the Scottish Prayer of Consecration in his own Diocese. In a letter to Bishop White, dated June 29, 1789, in view of the General Convention of that year, referring to the meagre Prayer in the English Office, he wrote: "The Consecration is made to consist merely in the Priest's laying his hands on the elements and pronouncing 'This is My body,' etc., which words are not consecration at all, nor were they addressed by Christ to the Father, but were declarative to the Apostles. This is so exactly symbolizing with the Church of Rome in an error, an error, too, on which the absurdity of Transubstantiation is built, that nothing but having fallen into the same error themselves could have prevented the enemies of the Church from casting it in her teeth. The efficacy of Baptism, of Confirmation, of Orders, is ascribed to the Holy Ghost, and His energy is implored for that purpose; and why He should not be invoked in the consecration of the Eucharist, especially as all the old Liturgies are full to the point, I cannot conceive." 1 The independent organization of the American Church originated in a meeting of "The Corporation for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Clergymen of the Church of England" in the three Provinces of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, held in New Brunswick, N. J., May 11, 1784. At this meeting it was agreed to form a "Continental representation of the Episcopal Church," which took place in the city of New York on October 6 and 7 that same year. It was at the next meeting, September 27 and 28 in Philadelphia, consisting of sixteen Clergymen and twenty-six Laymen, that certain radical changes in the English Book, 1 Journals of General Convention, edited by Bishop W. S. Perry, III, pp. 387, 388. The Scottish Prayer, with slight verbal alterations, was adopted by the Convention the following September, and the revised Book came into use on October 1, 1790. after hasty consideration, were proposed, in addition to some required for political reasons which were the only ones adopted. This was the origin of the so-called "Proposed Book" published in April, 1786, but generally disapproved from the beginning.1 This is the account given by Horace Wemyss Smith, greatgrandson of the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the President of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies in 1789, as to the way in which the Scottish Prayer of Consecration was adopted by the American Church. Bishop Seabury of Connecticut and Bishop White of Pennsylvania constituted the whole House of Bishops at the time. They were in favor of the Scottish Office, but the Lower House was doubtful. In their anxiety they sent for Dr. Smith, who himself was a Scotchman, for a private conference. "He agreed to introduce the new Office to the House of Deputies, and recommend it for adoption. The next day he informed the House of the document entrusted to him, and of its variations from the Office of the Church of England. A storm began to brew, and hoarse whispers of popery reached his ears. He rose in his place, and, exclaiming 'Hear - (pronouncing it Heyre) before ye judge,' began to read. Dr. Smith was a superb reader, and withal had just enough of a Scotch brogue to make his tones more musical and his emphasis more thrilling. He soon caught attention, and read his paper through without a single interruption, his hearers becoming more and more absorbed and charmed. When he had finished, the new Office was accepted with acclamations." 2 1 These proposed alterations will be found in Bishop White's Memoirs, pp. 435-447, ed. 1880, and in Bishop Perry Reprint of the Journals of Early Conventions, and his Handbook of the General Conventions, pp. 25-40. 2 Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, D.D., Philadelphia, 1880, Vol. II, pp. 290, 291. Concerning these two remarkable |