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
affect him in the least, and the pure mirror of his soul was
never tarnished by vanity and self-complacency. Even then, his
spontaneous desires and longings seemed to forecast the apostolic
vocation which was in store for him. He had an ardent desire for
a religious life, and was especially attracted by the character
and life of Nicholas Ferrar, and by the history of the little
religious community which he formed at Little-Gidding. In our
walks we often conversed about the practicability of establishing
a religious house which would give us the opportunity of working
among the neglected masses of the people, and looked about for
some suitable building for this purpose. There was a scheme
talked of for establishing a monastic and missionary institute on
the eastern shore of Maryland, and there were eight or ten
clergymen who would have been eager to join in the enterprise if
the bishop had been courageous enough to begin it. But the fear
of Low Churchmen prevailed, and nothing was ever done. We very
soon found that the work of "Catholicizing" the Episcopal Church
in Maryland got on very slowly and miserably, through the open
opposition of the Low Church party, and the dead, inert
resistance of the old High Church.
{66}
At an early period of Bishop Whittingham's administration, the
Rev. Henry V. D. Johns, rector of Christ Church, bade him open
defiance, and preserved that attitude until his death, many years
afterward. The bishop preached and published two remarkably
learned and able sermons on the priesthood, one of which was
preached at the institution of Mr. Johns. At the close of it he
exhorted the parishioners to receive their new rector as their
divinely-appointed teacher, and to submit to his instructions
with docility. The same night, Mr. Johns preached a sermon which
contained a violent attack on the bishop's doctrine, and made a
solemn declaration, sanctioned by an appeal to Heaven, that he
would evermore oppose that doctrine, and preach the contrary in
his pulpit. This was the signal for hostilities, and a sharp
controversy arose out of the affair, which was renewed from time
to time, as occasion offered. The bishop made one or two more
efforts to bring out his Reformed Catholicism in sermons or
charges, and then desisted, seeming to be more anxious to defend
himself against the charge of Popery than to attack
Protestantism. In regard to the outward ceremonial of religion,
the efforts made to improve it were equally feeble and abortive.
There was a miserable little church in an obscure street, called
St. Stephen's, with an altar something like a marble-topped
wash-stand, and some curtains covered with roughly-executed
symbols, such as mitres, chalices, keys, etc., where we played a
little at Catholics with so much success that a good old lady
said it was worse than the Cathedral. The opposition which was
excited by these innocent and absurd little ecclesiological
essays were such that the parish was nearly ruined, and the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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