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4 (416) T H E I
Family F
THE WISE MEN AND THE STAR.
O wise <inen, wise indeed were ye
Who followed on and followed far
ine DecKonmg 01 tnat holy star,
'Till at Christ's feet on bended knee.
You laid your gifts, a tribute small,?
The gold and frankincense and my rrh,
Your faith and worship to aver
In Him who lived and died for all.
'Twas God's own light that showed you where
The infant Saviour sleeping lay,
And 'tis His light that leads to-day
From gloom of night to day-light clear!
Ob, that we, too, may follow on,
Led ever by God's holy star,
The star of truth, with naught to mar
The glory of the Eternal Son.
O. H.
A SCOTTISH COMMUNION.
T. B. M'CORKINDALE, THE PRESBYTERIAN, TORONTO.
Iu the not very distant days of which we are
thinking, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
was administered in the country parishes of
Scotland but once a year. "While the towns and
cities preferred to hold their sacramental seasons
in the spring and autumn, hundreds of
rural parishes held theirs some time in July or
early August, when there is a lull in the labors
of the agricultural year. In the country parish
with which the writer is best acquainted the
Sacrament Sunday was always the fourth Sunday
of July?after the hay harvest was over, and
whilst the grain harvest was being awaited. It
is a glorious time of the year, this latter part of
July, for Nature is arrayed in her profusest garments
and richest beauty. To be sure, the
broom, which Linnaeus is said to have journeyed
to Scotland to see, to feel himself well rewarded
?no longer covers the hillsides in its delicate
yellow, and the dog roses in the hedges are also
passing or gone, but a hundred other wild fiowaya
ofo Klonrlirnr tlioir norfnmp? in thf> Klimmpr
air. The pastures are clothed with tiocks; and the
valleys are covered over with corn; they shout
for joy, they also sing, and all Nature seems
ready to join in the Holy Eucharist. To this glad
and sacred season the whole parish had been
looking forward for weeks. The minister in his
parochial visitations wdhld be told again and
again by some anxious mother, that Jeanie, or
Jack, or Tom, or Maggie, was thinkin' of gaun'
forrit?thinking she meant of going forward for
the first time to the Table of Holy Communion;
would be told too that those members of the
family no longer at home, would be back for the
"saieramentfor it brought toerether one more
families separated most part of the year. "What
better time to meet again under the father's roof
than these glorious days of July; what better occasion
than the yearly sacramental season!
The Thursday previous to the Communion
Sunday was held as the fast day; when divine
service took place at the usual morning hour of
worship. To any one but a Scot it would be a
strange sight to see the minister with his elders
take their place at the close of the service in
some large pew?possibly the elders' pew?past
which the congregation was filing in slow pror>f>ssir?n
TVip l^irl* Spasirm ia thprp tn Hiatrihnfp
"tokens" to intending communicants?and the
people receive them as they pass. Cards have
now taken the place of tokens as passes to the
Communion; but not so long ago many an aged
saint had hardly thought he had received the
Sacrament in all its fulness unless he had received
the leaden token from the minister's own
hand.
'RESBYTERIAN OF THE S
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leadings
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a\ length the Sabbath comes?the holy day?
.stealing sweetly and gently down upon hill and>
dale, upon scattered hamlet, and distant farm
town. Nature herself seems to be keeping her
Sabbath?her day of rest?nay more, to have
hushed herself to reverent stillness as if to join
in the solemn worship of God's waiting people.
Calm is the dewy morn, without a sound, save
perhaps within the perfumed radius of the limes,
a very home of bees, whose drowsy, murmuring,
however, seems but to deepen the stillness.
As noon draws near intending worshippers
and communicants may be seen approaching
from all quarters of the parish?the frail old
woman making her slow and perhaps painful
way, carrying her Bible wrapped in a white
handkerchief, and holding between it and her
thumb a spring of southern-wood, or apple
ringie, as it is sometimes called?and farmers
driving in such numbers in gig or dog cart, that
stabling about the manse is taxed to its utmost.
Within the church everv bookboard in the
area is covered with a white linen cloth, and soon
every pew is full, for none is absent this day
that can be present.
There is probably no more solemn service on
earth than a Scotch Communion?not even High
Mass in the great Cathedral. Indelibly engraven
on one's memory was the absolute stillness of the
congregation?the perfect silence, unbroken until
the minister gave out, in the Scottish metrical
version, Ps. 43:3.
O send Thy light forth and Thy Truth;
Let them be guides to me
And bring me to Thine holy hill,
Ev'n where Thy dwellings be.
?Drobnhlv snnc tn R. A StmifVi 'o
r ^ o o 6^ai luuc
Invocation.
A Scotchman may delude himself with the
idea there is no liturgy in the old Church to
which he is proud to belong; but use and wont?
that unwritten liturgy?directs every part in
the worship of this day?especially in the element
of praise. And so we have between the
lessons, Ps. CXVI.?a usage as old as Convenanting
days?and sung on the hillsides where
Claver'se or Grierson might, at any moment, interrupt
the worship with their dragoons. Dear
to the Scottish heart still are the words:
"I'll of salvation take the enn.
r J
On God's name will I call,
I'll pay my vows now to the Lord
Before His people all."
And dear, too, is the next line, that comforted,
perhaps, some little band of Covenanters as
they saw the fierce Dalziel with his horsemen
hurrying to the slaughter?
"Dear in God's sight is his saints' death;"
while they breathed out thir resignation in the
words that follow:
"Thy servant, Lord, am I."
Dear still are these words, for they have come
down from an immortal past, and are hallowed
by the associations of unforgettable events in
his national history.
Following the "action sermon" was the
"fencing" of the tables: but no longer as in the
eighteenth century when the intending communicant
was placed in a grave dilemma by being
told at one moment that he was running fearful
risks if he partook of Communion inasmuch
as "many were the worse of Communion and
made seven times more a child of the devil than
O U T H [April 10, 1912
before;" and by being told the next moment
that it was equally guilty to stay away.
While all living in any sin against their knowledge
or their conscience were charged not to prolane
the holy table, yet all who were truly penitent,
and were in love and charity with their
neighbor, and purposed to lead a new life, were
invited to draw near and take the holy saerapient
for their comfort?being assured that the
worthiness which the Lord requireth is that we
be truly sorry for our sins, and find our joy and
salvation in Him. One still remembers its coneluding
words: "United to Him who is holy,
even our Lord Jesus Christ, we are accepted of
the Father, and invited to partake of these Holy
Things that are for Holy Persons."
Whilst the people were singing Paraphrase
XXXV. Morrison's immortal hymn beginning
'Twas on that night when doom'd to know
The eager rage of every foe?
the minister and elders retired to the Session
House or vestry, whence they speedily returned
in procession, Dringing in the elements which they
placed on the Table. The cups were the large
silver vessels which, in some cases had come
down from Covenanting times, from which generations
of saints had drunk the grapes of God,
and which therefore had helped to bind together
the saints on earth, and the saints in Heaven. No
hallowed memories, no sacred associations can
gather round the individual cup. It can never
become the symbol of spiritual union. May the
time be far distant when the Church of Scotland
gives up these vessels, venerable with age, consecrated
by the use of many generations of the
faithful, for the individual cup.
No need to describe the Communion Service
itself. It was brought to an end, always with
the beautiful strain of thanksgiving, sung to tha*,
sweetest of all minor tunes. Coleshil:
"O thou my soul, bless God the Lord:
And all that it me is
Be stirred up. His holp name
To magnify and bless.
EMBRACING A WORLD.
And because of the universality and eternity
of his character, I believe in the deity of Jesus
Christ. Of course, he had to be born in a
given age, among a given people, and he was
born away back in the first century and in the
Jewish race. It was impossible that there should
be an incarnation without its being somewhere
and somewhen. But the wonderful thing is,
that though Christ came in a given age and in a
given race he transcends that age and that race
and is felt by every race and every age to be its
ideal and its Lord, the satisfaction of all its
spiritual needs. We see this aspect of his character
illustrated in the universality and eternity
of the sympathies that find expression in his
parables. Some of you have seen, perhaps, a
little book of illustrations of the parables that
appeared a short while ago. They were by a
modern artist. He had taken eight or ten of the
paraDies out 01 tneir old Uriental setting and
given them a modern setting. One of them was
a picture of a girl sitting in a restaurant with
wine glasses on the table before her. Another
girl, a Salvation Army lass, was coming through
with her tambourine, collecting gifts. Beneath
were the words: "Five of them were wise, and
five of them were foolish." Another was the picture
of the Pharisee and the publican. The
poor man was sitting in ragged clothes in the
r?pw nf fhp pVnirpVl and tVio urooHVnf mart
(standing in his self-contentment and power,
was taking the collection and holding the plate
at a distance for this poor man to put his coin
in. Another was the picture of the man with
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