The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-28

| tDer peaceaOie nelghbOrs. The present eX-
! cltement ABOUT Ritualism is due 70 the
! efforts OF that iudeatigable band, who not
! content with refusing TO follow the general
! traditions of Chnstendom, do their best to
At this point in our reflections, two strange
opinions must be noticed. The hrst Is this
that when He came, whom the ancient system
foretold and symbolized, everything in that
system was abrogated and annulled; so that
Immediately, a religion OF great outward state
illness and splendor was succeeded by one with
no beauty, form, or comellness at law. Ana
the second opinion is, that this new religion,
after continuing little while in garb OF abso.
Lutte plainness, and with scarce so much as a
rite or ceremony of any kind, beyond a mere
initlatory aolution, and a weekly meal in com;
upon bad course, and took to copying the
1ites and services of that Paganism which it had
destroyed, until It became, within very short
time so unlike what its founder intended, that
one could hardly conceive that it was the same
system.
To say that these opinions are strange, is to
speak mildly they are without foundation IN fact,
and were born of the spirit OF religious con-
troversy. We shall oppose to them PROPOSE
tions which are deemed to be unassailable on
historic grounds, however 10th men may be TO
accept them, cOntradicting their strongest
prepossessions and their most sweetly cherished
and most tenderly nurtured theories.
For, looking to the facts of history, It is clear,
first, that the leading features Of Divine worship
passed over frsm the old system into the new.
The bloody sacrifices, together with crcum.
cision, which was a rite of blood and in its
own way, sacridcial, disappeared forever; but
that truth which they implied continued to be
presented in visible forms and with ceremonies
resembling those of the ancient Dlspensation. 4
great deal of the old kingdom lived on, and was
prolonged into and preserved in the new In their
general arrangement, the Christian churches
reminded men of the Temple at Jerusalem;
priesthood still remained, and sacrifice
spiritual and un6loody, yet real and true the
psalms were still chanted, vestments were worn,
lights and incense did not cease TO be used.
Nor can it be said with any truth that Chris
tianity copied from Paganism On the contrary,
the rites of Paganism were but corrupt iulita-
tions of ordinances divinely established in the
world. Whatever of truth there was in the reli-
gion Of Paganism, came as we think, from the
primitive revelation, impertectly comprehended,
and obscured through transmission by irregular
means; and as it was with doctrines, so was it
with ceremonies. the nations of the world we're
not inventors so much as bad copyists the
degraded disciples o. a noble school. Chris
tianity preserved much of that older system,
a knowledge of whose principles was widely
spread among the Genties; and the allega-
tion that she copied Paeanism betrays an
inversion Of view which prejudice may
explain but does not justify. The beauty,
| majesty, aud grandeur of the old Ritual
were not meant to perish forever. That Ritual,
In its general outlines, was shown to Moses in
the Mount. The "places made with hands,"
| and all the acts performed in them, were
Figures of the truen and symbols of heavenly
| verities. And such a system, purged of all
| bloody and unspritual features, would still be
| therefore best adapted to symbolic them.
| When the veil is lifted by an apostle and evan
| eelist and we are permitted to look upward and
| admire the worship of heaven, the features are
the same: we see again the golden altar, the
| incense, the White-robed ministrants, the
crowns, the palms, the chants, the bowings and
prostrations. The Christian Dispensation is
bounded, on the one side, by the magnificent
| Ritualism of Israeli and on the other by the
analogous and not less glowing Ritualism of
heaven. Who would expect to find between
n1yArn tlNn Ntnfx thn
and the precursor of the latter, no
thing but badness and dryness, and a
formless, colorless, and chilly blank
harmoniously between such past and such a
future? a system whose ceremonies and ordi-
nances correspond in general with the visible
beauty on either hand, or one which has no
ritual worthy of the name, no temples, no
affairs, no vestments, no lights, nor color, nor
concourse of sweet sounds, nor aught to charm
the sense or kindle the imagination?
Such are our general principles: let them be
Rtualism is the science of rites and ordi-
| nances in religion.
Man must worship; he must worship through
forms and by their help. The forms of any
religion constitute its ritual.
God is the Author of religion; He taught us
whom to worship and how to worship.
The earliest records show that formal worship
was offered by men under the direction OF
Almighty God.
Down TO the time when Christ came, there
were in the world creed taught by the Lord,
and mode of worship prescribed by Him.
These were preserved by peculiar people,
elected Tor that purpose, trustees OF the reVe-
laton. The partial truths held among the
nations we're glimmering and broken lights of
that great central flame; and their rites, SO far
as there was any fitness in them, were imita-
tions of what God had enjoined from the be-
ginning.
With the incarn alton and advent of the Son
of God, there came clearer light and ne "
dispensation but the truths were the same,
and the broad traditions of ritual remained
unchanged. What had ceased to be useful
was abrogated: what is of perpetual value re
! mained
And beyond, this world, where the heavenly
glory shines, the same general outlines o
doctrine and worship have been disclosed to
us, perpetuated in the acclamations, the songs
and the ceremonial performance which never
cease around the throne OF God and of the
Lamb.
Having stated the principles of Ritualism, 6
few remarks must be added upon the history o.
the question within the Christian era.
For fifteen hundred years there was no ritual
istlc controversy deserving the name. In gene
raj features Divine worship was the same
throughout the world. But errors and abuses
crept into the Church. and these became sym
bOliZed in novel rites and practices, by whIcl
ritual became in some respects, deaied anC
corrupted. And these accretions grew unit
they obscured the majestic simplicity anC
beauty of the ordinances OF the new dispense
, tion, and became so mixed up with them as L
make it difficult to discern between the tru
and the false.
Then came the Reformation, in the sixteentl
century.
That movement did not affect the eastern
portions of Christendom; IN Greece and Russi
the old traditions may be traced, although
under load of useless ceremonies, with clear
ness, back to the commencement of the Chris
t tlan era; there, where least disturbance ha