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SERVICES FOR THE CHURCH:

WITH

ORDER OF VESPERS, AND HYMNS.

Samuel Osgood, so
Frederick Augustus 2

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me and
I in thee, that they also may be one in us."

C. NEW YORK:

JAMES MILLER, 522 BROADWAY.

BOSTON: WALKER, WISE & CO.

1862.

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Rev Samuel EsgUA, DE
of Hawyer, $6.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862,

BY JAMES MILLER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.

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PREFACE.

THIS volume is prepared to meet an actual want in our churches here, and in the hope of its being of some use elsewhere. We needed a new collection of chants and anthems for our usual worship, and also a sufficient manual for our new evening service or Vespers. In few words the plan of the book may be stated.

In the first place, we have sought to give a regular morning and evening service which shall duly combine freedom and order, or the variety which is the spice with the constancy which is the bread of life, and save us at once from the monotony of a wholly set ritual, and the distraction of a wholly variable choice. Thus in the morning service, the two chants that may be sung severally at the opening and after prayer vary every Sunday in the month, and may moreover give place each to a versified hymn immediately following, so as to allow the same order to return once a month; or by using the hymns also, so as to allow the same order to return once in two months. Thus the service has a certain spontaneity and method combined, and the pieces may be sung without being announced or read, and at the same time they may be at once found in the book. There is ample room left for free choice in the remainder of the service, and the pieces to be sung therein may be selected at pleasure.

In the second place, we have given an extended and careful order of service for Vespers on very much the same plan, and have added a full selection of psalms for responsive reading, and of hymns especially adapted to this service. The idea of course is not new, for Vespers are as old as the Christian Church, if not older, and all of the great churches of Christendom, Rome at the head, have their vesper ritual. Our order is wholly Protestant, and in fact in some respects more bold and progressive than any other of our services; yet it retains much of the severe beauty of the ancient rule, and will be found to wake echoes between the old and new ages. Our esteemed brother, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, formerly of Brooklyn, has been the pioneer in this movement, and we can recognize his labors without sacrificing our own judgment. The service here given will be found to afford opportunity for the highest art of music, and at the same time to be within the reach of the simplest congregational worship. In fact, the musical portion is so full and varied as to be capable of being sung by any

tolerable choir, and may moreover more easily dispense with a choir, and be wholly congregational, than the usual order. The responsive psalms are printed in a new way, so as to be easily used; and this is the first time within our knowledge that they have been so arranged as to be read by our people according to the original intention, and it is evident that this method will soon be universal. These psalms, together with the hymns for congregational singing, contribute towards a more sympathetic and edifying worship in our churches, and tend to do away with the coldness and isolation that are so often complained of. Strange it is that principles so large and genial as ours should be so commonly set forth inadequately, and the most meagre of rituals should attend so rich a faith.

The Vesper service may admit of the accustomed evening or afternoon sermon, although it is more compatible with an extemporaneous address or exposition. We believe that it meets a decided and general want in our churches, and attracts and impresses many who do not care to attend an evening service on the old plan, or to hear two regular sermons with much the same accompaniments. The want of something like this has led several churches to discontinue the second service. It is a very serious and devout mode of worship, and only by a monstrous perversion can it be made the occasion of musical vanity and operatic artifice. It is in great part scriptural, and calls for constant and devout attention from the audience. Thus far, wherever held, it has won the favor of all classes of hearers, and is ranked among the fixed institutions of religion with us as with the ancient Church.

We remark in the third place, that we have not in the least sacrificed the natural and cherished order of our usual worship, but have built wholly upon that order, beginning with praise to God, and reserving the more penitential acts until we have so contemplated his goodness as more fitly to see and confess our sins and seek forgiveness and peace. The regular services of our congregations who adopt this book may continue almost wholly as usual; and the prayers that are introduced are to be used at home or at church, as may be in each family or congregation appointed. The only portions of the prayers that are essential, and not properly to be displaced by extempore prayer, are the responsive sentences that are common to all the great historic churches, and are as edifying as they are time-hallowed. The more extended prayers that are to be used at discretion, as well as the Collects for the Christian Year, are mainly from the old standards; and were preferred not only from their sacred associations and simple and solemn diction, but because our current thought and style, our more subjective, personal, and emotional thoughts and feelings, have such full movement in the free extempore prayer which we regard as so essential to the vitality of worship, and which we can never wholly

renounce without surrendering all our usages and convictions. In common with our neighbors, especially our Episcopal neighbors, we have put our hands somewhat freely into the coffers of the great mother church of old; and have all the less scruples at our course, from the fact that we have no exclusiveness to maintain, but on the contrary are bound to claim all the gifts of God, and the endowments and achievements of our race, as our own and our children's by right. We have preferred to respect, as far as practicable, the ancient usages, especially where the Scriptures and custom agree, and accordingly we follow the ancient Church in the division of the Christian Year, and name the closing Sundays as coming after Pentecost or Whitsunday, instead of adopting the modern and more dogmatic nomenclature.

We owe a great deal to the Church of England; something to its original work, but more to the simple and rich diction of its translations from the Latin standards; and in this diction, as in that of the Bible, we are all heirs. Our own friends here and in England retain much of the Book of Common Prayer, and we are indebted to them for a portion of this volume, especially to the Liturgy of King's Chapel, Boston, one of our oldest churches. Where doctrinal points are involved, we have sought uniformly to respect the convictions of our people; yet we have judged for ourselves, and not followed servilely all precedents, retaining more or less of the ancient standards, and in some cases adding studies from the Bible and ancient manuals of worship different from the English models. To Dr. Hedge we are indebted for a valuable oriental litany, and to Rev. James Freeman Clarke for some most edifying litanies from the Scriptures, which have passed into general use with our brethren, and are contained in five or six different manuals. Should some portions of the book, such as the Catechism and Service of Confirmation, seem novel to any, they will remember that these have been, in substance, used already in some of our churches, at home and abroad, and are important in the religious nurture of the young. Confirmation gives meaning and force to Infant Baptism, and is a proper introduction for Communion. Yet it is not to be so urged as to trench at all upon personal conviction, and the freest access of every conscientious and devout believer to the table of our Lord.

While preparing this volume for our own people, we have been asked to have some thought for others, and we have sought to shun all local narrowness and dogmatic prejudice. Our churches in this vicinity, so long under the lead of such large and truly catholic minds as Drs. Dewey and Bellows, favor a broad policy, and our work is easier because the way has been so prepared. We have brought together essential materials for Christian worship in a form so flexible as to allow each congregation to follow its own judgment. Moreover, while the volume presents freely many of the time-hallowed treasures of ancient

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