Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His LifeBaker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Religion
Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His Life
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius), 1820-1865; Catholic Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 19th century
I return now to the period when Mr. Baker and all these members
of his family were living a retired and happy life together in
the home on Courtlandt street. I remember this time with peculiar
pleasure. Mr. Baker, whom I always called Frank, as he was
usually called by his friends, partly from the peculiar affection
they felt for him, and also because of its appropriateness as an
epithet of his character, went every day with me once or twice to
prayers; and every day we walked together. When the peculiar,
tinkling bell of old St. Paul's, which will be remembered by many
a reader of these pages, gave notice of divine service there, we
resorted in company to that venerable and unique church. It was
spacious and ecclesiastical, though not regularly beautiful in
its architecture. A basso-relievo adorned its architrave, and a
bright gilded cross graced its tall tower. It had a handsome
altar of white marble, an object of our special pride and
devotion, with the usual reading-desk and pulpit rising behind
it. The pulpit was a light and graceful structure, surmounted by
a canopy which terminated in a cross, and having another cross
surrounded by a glory emblazoned on its ceiling, just over the
preacher's head. The door was in the rear of the pulpit, which
stood far out from the chancel wall, and in the door was a
beautiful transparency of the Ecce Homo, lighted from the chancel
window, which had an Ailanthus behind it, causing a pleasing
illusion in the mind of the beholder that the dirty brick
pavement of the court-yard was a pretty rural garden. The chancel
was large and imposing. An episcopal chair, surmounted by a
mitre, formed one of its conspicuous ornaments, and two seven
branched gilded gas-burners stood on the chancel rail, which were
lighted at Evening Prayer, or _Vespers_, as we were wont to
call it. In this church, the people all knelt with their backs to
the altar, and facing the great door, whereat a number of us,
being scandalized, determined to face about on all occasions and
kneel toward the altar, which we did rigidly and in the most
impressive manner, to the great annoyance of the rector, Dr.
Wyatt.
{24}
The _tout ensemble_ of St. Paul's Church, especially in the
dusk of evening, when the lamps were lit, was to a hasty glance
quite that of a Catholic church. Catholics very frequently came
in by mistake, and sometimes poor people knelt in the aisles and
began saying their prayers. Others inquired of the sexton at the
door if it was a Catholic church, and some persons occupying
seats near the door, who frequently heard his negative response
and his direction to the Cathedral, were led in consequence to
think, that if St. Paul's were not a Catholic church, they too
had best follow the sexton's direction and go to the Cathedral.
Besides the prayers on saints' days, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at
St. Paul's, there was a week-day communion service once a month.
Dr. Wyatt and his congregation were Church people after the type
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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