Let us suspend our service for a moment...

Over the next few days, I will excerpt some of the works of Rev. Brooke Herford. Born in England, Herford served churches there before coming to America where he served in Chicago and then at Arlington Street Church (the Church of Channing and Gannett) in Boston (1882-1892 .)  For today, this anecdote from "Heralds of a Liberal Faith."

"...he (Herford) received a call from the Arlington Street Church in Boston. It offered him a somewhat more comfortable life, which he did not want but which would do him no harm, and to enter into the tradition of Channing and Gannett was an invitation he could not refuse. The settlement was fortunate for Boston also. Two blocks from Arlington Street, Phillips Brooks was at the zenith of his power and fame at Trinity Church. Equally nearby was George A. Gordon at the new Old South Church. Brooke Herford was a worthy member of this trio, and they worked intimately and happily together.
   Herford preached twice every Sunday with the large auditorium of the Church often so full that people were sitting on the pulpit stairs. Occasionally, to be sure, some of the people at the Vesper Service would get up to leave as the musical program ended, and just before the sermon began. Once, as this happened, Mr. Herford said from the pulpit, “Let us suspend our Service for a moment, until those children who cannot sit for an hour have left the Church.”

Blessings

strange persistence...

Part one of  "A LAY VIEW OF SLEEPING IN CHURCH." from the collection "Eutychus and his Relations: Pulpit and Pew Papers", by Brooke Herford.  (This from the preface, "The ' Pulpit and Pew' Papers in this little book were written and published anonymously, during the years 1860 and 1861 by the late Dr. Brooke Herford in the early years of his ministry...it is stated that the ' Eutychus' papers ' made some little stir and roused considerable curiosity in their day, and will repay perusal still. There is a strange persistence in the minor weaknesses of humanity')

"For my part I pity Eutychus. He has been held up as a warning to sleepy congregations, and his falling down set forth as a judgment, by grave old divines of the precise Puritanical school, who could not appreciate the difficulty of keeping the attention fixed through long sermons, especially such sermons as their own. The clerical mind has a curious faculty of exaggerating small ecclesiastical offences, and while on most subjects entertaining very enlarged views and charitable feelings, has no sympathy with the little difficulties of the laity in these matters. I wish, therefore, to present a lay view of the subject.

It has a strange attraction for me. I have read those few verses in the twentieth chapter of Acts, again and again, and I love to touch and retouch the quaint little picture of the early church which they have left upon my mind. I seem to sit among the eager people grouped together in that little upper-room at Troas. Paul is on his way to Jerusalem, and the foreboding is strong upon his spirit that he shall never see them again. We do not know what he said,—Luke had taken ship and gone on before to Assos, so he was not there to tell us—but there are no more touching words in all the Acts than his farewell to the elders of Ephesus, given at the end of the same chapter; and it would be in much the same strain that he would speak to these poor folk at Troas, that last Sabbath-night of his brief stay. Have you never seen a crowded little preaching-room, away in some back street or country place,— a small, low room over a couple of cottages, with many lights stuck here and there against the walls, and homely long-headed weavers and poor women eagerly crowding to hear, and children sleeping heavily in the close hot air, and many faces peering in at the door. I think of such sights which I have seen many a time among the Methodists, when I was a young man, as often as I read of Eutychus. Poor young man, who has not seen him sitting, ' fallen in a deep sleep.' I dare say he was as fond of Paul as any of them, and listened lovingly at first. But ' Paul was long preaching,' and ' continued his speech until midnight' ; and so at last, what with the heat, and the lights, and some of the apostle's longer points about the Judaizing teachers and the dead works of the law, gradually the words began to melt into a pleasant dreamy flow of sound, and his head bowed down in that ' deep sleep.'

What a break in the midst of his touching words, when at last poor Eutychus overbalanced as he sat on the window-ledge, and suddenly his feet flew up and he disappeared with a heavy fall! How the people would rush out with lights and crowd about him, till Paul came down and knelt bending over him, with such a deep, longing prayer that he might be spared, and soon could say, to the great joy of the wondering friends, ' Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him.'

What a lesson for poor Eutychus! I don't think he would go to sleep in chapel again for a long time, and when he did, he would take care not to sit in a window!"

Blessings

the Emerson Cult...

Before diving into Brooke Herford's sermons, this bit of background on Boston Unitarianism upon his arrival at Arlington Street Church in 1882. Regular readers will know that I love, yet constantly wrestle with Emerson.  This is why I wrestle...(from a memoir of Rev. Herford by John Cuckson...)

"The religious atmosphere of Boston Unitarianism was eminently prudent and conservative, and charged with pride of the days of Channing and Parker and Gannett, but beginning to show the first symptoms of spiritual numbness and torpid inactivity, from which it has hardly yet recovered...

...Inside the Unitarian churches, the Emersonian gospel of individuality, so lofty and inspiring and helpful in every direction, except in that of organized life in the church, was winning its way, and the zeal of Drs. Bellows and James Freeman Clarke was unable to withstand its somewhat disintegrating tendencies. It was giving new strength to individual faith, but no strength to the organization of that faith, for ecclesiastical purposes. Men felt themselves lifted into a diviner air by the Concord seer, but the expansion was toward higher altitudes, rather than towards close and active fellowship for practical ends, such as those which create churches, and strengthen them. Emerson was deeply religious, but it was the religion of solitude and seclusion, and not of the church and of the congregation, the religion that worships beneath the stars and pines, and not the faith that communes with itself, only that it may the more effectively stand in close and helpful relations with men and women steeped in sin and wretchedness. And so the spirit of Emerson made more transcendentalists than missionaries, more solillaquists, and prophets on their own account, than Christian workers. Under its spell the liberal ministers placed such emphasis on self-development and self-reliance, that they turned a noble truth into a hurtful exaggeration. In his Divinity School Address, which had so powerful an influence upon the religious thought of the time, Emerson broke away from traditions and history, and did scant justice to the instinct of hero-worship, which lies at the root of all religion, and especially of the religion of Jesus. In condemning what he called the noxious exaggeration of the person of Jesus, he unconsciously fell into the opposite exaggeration of asserting that "the soul knows no persons." No better example could surely be found of the falsehood of extremes. It would have been much nearer the truth to have said, the soul knows nothing but persons. Religion in all its aspects and phases is a personal relationship. It is the worship of a person, the federation of persons, and the love and service of persons. The religion that revolves around self, as a centre, even though it be the higher self, is a glorious illusion.

Be this as it may, at the time Mr. Herford settled at Arlington Street Church, what was called the Emerson cult was at its height. It did not openly discourage organized religious fellowship, but made it difficult, if not impossible. The churchly habit and congregational worship were slack, and in some instances every characteristic of well-defined Christian conviction was "disemboweled," and religion was lost in a "cadaverous abstraction." The older churches suffered less than others from this tendency to universalize everything. They still clung to liberal Christianity, and retained the few rites of the primitive faith, such as baptism and the Lord's Supper. The field in which Channing and Gannett had laboured so long and to such purpose was, therefore, eminently congenial to Mr. Herford. He found an atmosphere in which he could gladly preach and labour."

Blessings
(iluustration is "View from the steeple of Arlington Street Church)

the very watchword...

This from Brooke Herford's sermon, 'PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING.

 "To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality— eternal life!' (Romans ii. 7.)

I Cannot help thinking that this very phrase, with the position that it holds in Christian thought, is a sign of one of the noblest characteristics of Christianity. Christianity has brought out, as no other system ever did, the beauty and worth of simple, faithful living, apart from any greatness or conspicuousness. That simple kind of life was not of much account in the ancient world. The ancient world's idea of ' glory, honour, and immortality,' was of reward for the conspicuously great. He who should do some striking act of heroism, or some noble service to his country, for him, certainly—immortality! A Hercules, slaying the lion or dragon that had become the terror of a whole tribe ; a Leonidas, dying at the head of the forlorn hope of Greece; a Curtius, leaping into the chasm that superstition whispered could never close till Rome's best treasures were cast into it—no doubt about immortality for these, or such as these,—ancient thought followed them to heaven and fancied them dwelling among the gods or changed into shining stars. But there was no idea of anything of this kind for the rank and file of the common people. The husbandmen of the Campanian fields, who through those old-world centuries had to delve and plough, and take their corn to market, and live busy days about their farms; the merchants, who at Tyre or Corinth had to buy and sell, and try and make a little profit here and there ; the women, who, in the inner chambers of those ancient houses, had to pass their days in the thousandfold little cares of home and children—these—let alone the myriads, humbler yet, of hired labourers or slaves, —well, of course such work had to be done, such classes had to be, but as to their being of any account with the gods, or as to any ' glory, honour, and immortality' being in store for them, that hardly entered men's minds! There, exactly, it was that the elevating power of Christ's religion came in so strikingly and beautifully. It touched human life even in its homeliest levels with a new self-respect. It inaugurated a kind of divine democracy. It gave to the lowliest a new hope, a new encouragement. The Gospel's teaching of the great heavenly Father, as near to the labourer in the sand quarries as to the priest in the temple, and loving every one of these toiling ones,—not merely beneficent to mankind in the mass, but knowing them and loving them soul by soul, as a father knows his children; and the Gospel's great practical illustration of that divine love in a Christ who had especially gathered poor men about him, to teach them and inspire them with his glorious hopes; yes, and the whole tone of Christ's teachings, dwelling so tenderly on the work, and cares, and temptations of the common world, taking his parables from hired men, and vine-dressers, and busy women at their sweeping or their baking—all this was what really took hold of the heart of mankind. It is when I think of all this, that Paul's saying—' patient continuance in well-doing'—looks grandest to me. It stands out not as a mere fragmentary text, but as almost the very watchword for the Christian life, and rich with such a large, appreciative hopefulness for the common race of men."

Blessings

thro' a glass darkly...

Brooke Herford has been my comanion the past few mornings and though I was set to move on, this sermon, "The Veiled Life in Man" struck me today. The beginning...

"Paul's famous saying "Now we see thro' a glass darkly but then, face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known" is commonly quoted as a saying about religious things, — of how we see such great realities as God and eternity only as through a glass darkly. And it is deeply true that way, but that was not what Paul was speaking of. He was speaking of Man and how Man is only darkly seen — and of the hidden good in man. The whole chapter is about "charity." "Love" the revised version renders it; and love is the commonest translation of Paul's word, and yet I like "charity" better here for it is that large impersonal kind of love, which Paul is speaking of — and " charity " seems to express that better — that which " hopeth all things " and "believeth all things" — not just of those we love. And this is his closing thought about such "charity " — that if we will have faith for it here, if we will keep on loving our fellow-creatures even when we cannot see much in them worth loving — our faith shall there be justified; for here we only see each other through a glass darkly, but there face to face — and there — looking "face to face," "knowing even as we are known" we shall find not less good than we thought, but more good than earthly charity ever hoped.
What a searching thought of the Hereafter — that seeing " face to face " — and yet he seems to have felt it a large hopeful thought too. And Paul was no easy-going optimist. He saw with terrible clearness the sinful side of human nature...and yet even Paul with his clear sight of it, is not dismayed. Over it all, he sees the Love of God, and through it all he sees something better in man, and so he puts it that there, where all is known, there where we shall judge not with these poor childlike judgments of earth — there will be more to love than to hate."

the very spirit of Christ...

Brooke Herford continues his sermon "The Small End of Great Problems"

"In morals too — questions of right and duty — the modern world is becoming familiar with this principle of taking hold of problems by their small near end. I think that this is largely due to Christianity. For, if you look into it, you will see that this is the very spirit of Christ, both in regard to the simplest matters of doing right and the most complicated problems of Christian thought. Christ did not indeed speak of "problems" or of taking hold of them at this nearer end. But he was always doing it, and teaching men to do it. The beginning of the Kingdom of God, he shews is as small as a mustard seed. The place to grapple with sin, is not at the circumference of action, but at the centre of thought. It had been said by them of old time "Thou shalt not kill." Christ puts it — " You must take hold of that matter at a smaller end than that — you must not even be angry." The angry feeling he puts as the smaller end of the murderous deed. So with all moral questions. Christ brought the right and wrong of things down from the clouds to the earth, from the traditions of the Rabbis to the common sense of the common people. They were working out their Sabbath law by abstract theorising from some supposed Divine Will in the beginning of Creation, —" The Sabbath was made for man," said Jesus, and brought the question down to what is good for you and me to-day. So, that golden summing up of duty — "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them " — that was not a maxim of mutual axe-grinding, but the bringing of the great problem of righteousness to its smallest end, just where it touches me and my neighbour. And so of deeper questions. Some one asked him "Lord, are there few that be saved?" Why, that was just one of those problems which at the larger end cover the whole vista of Eternity. But Christ would not even touch it at that larger end. Simply — "Strive thou to enter in at the strait gate " — just the small personal end of that great problem. And what a helpful saying that is for those who are perplexing themselves over large abstract religious questions — "If a man will do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine." Do the best you can — just do that; begin with the small near thing where you can see it, and the way will clear, the larger principle or doctrine will open out to you.

There is the marvellous thing in Christ — his mighty opening of man's thought to the Divine surroundings and infinities of life — while yet constantly bringing men down to the common things close about them as the way to that Divine. Often men would like to stay up in the cloudlands of Divine mystery — but Christianity won't let them. It keeps bringing them back to the work and the neighbour and the little child. Christianity is doing this to-day. It is just this which is making society impatient of mere abstruse creeds, which is making the churches crave less of the Apocalypse and more of the Sermon on the Mount; and which so is making them less divided in their interpretations of the Heavenly Mysteries and more united in trying at this nearer end of things to make this common world a more wholesome, honest, and happier place."

Blessings

take hold at the small end...

Brooke Herford has graced these pages before. He is, to me, a sturdy preacher. this from his sermon, "The Small End of Great Problems."

"My thought is one for the simplifying of the problems and perplexities of life. You know what these are: — problems of duty; problems of religion; problems of Nature and of life — of what Life is, and what it is for, and of what is going to be the end of it; problems of man and of God — of time and of eternity. Gradually, this idea has shaped itself out to me — of how much the problems and perplexities of life would be simplified if people would only take hold of them at the small end...

Man is constantly wanting to begin at the big end of things and of thoughts. In the beginning of knowledge, man's mind is confident and wants to spread itself. The child thinks it could manage the household very well. The raw recruit would willingly undertake to be General. If you have any literary gift, you are apt to feel as if you could write a book that should at once be a success. When I first started to preach, I had a profound conviction that if I could only get a fair hearing I could convert the human race. At twenty-one, one would undertake to run the Universe. We want to spread ourselves on the large circumference of things. So in Art. Simplicity is not the first grace of Art, but the last and finest perfection of it...(more tomorrow)

blessings