Seventeen Years in Paris: A Chaplain's StoryNoyes, H. E. (Henry Edward)
Religion
Seventeen Years in Paris: A Chaplain's Story
Noyes, H. E. (Henry Edward)
Church of England -- France -- Paris; English Church (Paris, France)
“At the morning service in the English Church, Rue d’Aguesseau, the
King was attended by his suite, and accompanied by Sir E. Monson and
the staff of the Embassy. This sacred edifice is a building of great
interest to English residents in Paris. The Rev. H. E. Noyes, D.D., has
been Chaplain to the Embassy since 1891, and during that incumbency has
known three eminent representatives of the Empire, Lord Lytton, the
Marquis of Dufferin, and Sir Edmund Monson. Our compatriots in the French
capital do not forget their Church. It is surely a matter of pleasure
to know that at the last Easter celebrations there were no fewer than
930 communicants. To-day the Church was all too small. Though admission
was necessarily by ticket, a crowd besieged the doors more than an hour
before the beginning of the service. Notre Dame or the Madeleine would
have been insufficient for the congregation anxious to be present.
Indeed, one feels regret for the hundreds who failed to obtain a coveted
ticket of admission. Practically small room was left after seats had been
found for the regular congregation, among whom I was pleased to note a
large number of English young ladies attending Parisian schools. Many
a year hence it will be a pleasant memory for those young persons who
participated in this historic service. ‘What a noble national possession
is England’s “sublime liturgy,”’ to quote George Borrow’s description of
it.
“Who has not felt its impress in a foreign land? I have heard it west of
the Rocky Mountains, under the Stars and Stripes, beneath the Southern
Cross, in the capital of China, on the Indian, the Atlantic, and the
Pacific Oceans, and in war time in South Africa, and the effect is
everywhere the same—a finer patriotic glow than almost anything else
can call up. It appeals to one as part of the heritage of the English
people, like their old Parish Church, or their very language itself. In
the Rue d’Aguesseau the prayers for the King and the Royal Family of
Great Britain were followed, as they always are here, by petitions for
the Presidents of the United States and of the French Republic. The ‘Te
Deum’ was finely rendered, as were the hymns ‘Children of the Heavenly
King’ and ‘The King of Love my shepherd is.’ Dr. Noyes founded a short,
eloquent discourse upon Matthew xiii. 54, 55.”
As the King left the Church the congregation sang the National Anthem
with a fervour and emotion, which was natural upon such an occasion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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