DEPARTMENT OF RITUAL EFFICIENCY |
| DIRECTOR Vasant Cremona |
ABOUT
There is yet another reason, which can hardly fail to have its influence with candidates for the ministry, when it comes to be duly weighed—a reason, which, it must be confessed, does not rest in Episcopacy apart from its accidents ; but which in our country, and for the most part elsewhere, is known to be allied to it. I mean the excellence and convenience of the public and authorized ritual of the Episcopal Church. The use of this, always the same and always orthodox, will be found upon reflection to constitute a facility most essential to the convenience and efficiency of the ministry. The experience of all ministers, who have been accustomed to do without this help, will abundantly certify, that all those services which this ritual comprehends and supplies, customarily make a most exorbitant and exhausting demand upon their intellectual resources and physical powers. To sustain these parts well, independent of a Liturgy, requires an ability which few men possess. In the use of this ritual, it is only necessary, that the officiating minister should carry into his pulpit a proper and a devout state of feeling. His intellect is not tasked for these services ; but all his strength, in that particular, may be reserved for his sermon—for that exercise, the more specific design of which is to bring sinners to jepentance, and to allure onward towards heaven the hosts pf God's elect, by inciting them to actiye obedience on earth. While the Liturgy prepares the mind, the sermon should have a power in it to give the impulse.
As a matter of needful economy in the public offices of the ministry, the help of the ritual is most important. For the want of this there is at this moment a greater waste of health and life in the ministry of this country, than can be estimated. I heed not the charge of laziness, coming up from the fens and bogs of uncharitableness—from those unsympathizing hearts, which would rather exult and sing, than shed a tear, over the premature grave of a minister of Jesus Christ, leaving upon the sod that covers him this cruel praise and long stereotyped cant—" that it is better to wear out, than rust out." There is no time—no room for laziness in the ranks of the Christian ministry, in this age and in this land. The great question is—how shall they be saved from becoming victims to the incessant and overwhelming demands for their private and public labours ; and how shall the little power, which God has given them, be most economically and efficiently employed ? A public ritual, generally introduced, would unquestionably be a most essential relief; besides, that it would furnish a most important facility in the hands of ministers to check and control those powerful tendencies to extravagance, which are so characteristic of our religious world.