The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-10
COMMUNION CUPS.

An innovation in so sacred an ordinance
in the Christian church as the Lord s
supper ought not to be introduced lightly,
but ought to be sanctioned by the most
urgent reasons. AS many churches are
introducing the Individual communion
cups in this service, it becomes every
Christian to inquire as to the legitimacy
Of SO important a change We do this at
which will appear in what follows:
We must first find out, if we can, what
the sacrament. The essential must not
be changed, the non-essential may be for
good reason-manifestly, the sacrament
in some form is an essential ordinance in
Christian faith. Christ instituted it and
said: This do In remembrance OF me. "
An apostle says: LAS often as We eat
this bread and drink this cup, We do shew
the Lords death till he come"
Christ said also: Except We eat the
flesh of the son of man. and drink his
6i9od, ye have no life in you'-and UNI
doubtedly meant the communion to sym
bolize to us this spiritual eating of his
said, This is my body" when he gave
the bread to his disciples, and This is
my blood when he gave them the wine
I'm the night when he instituted the or
dinance
1t is also feast of thanksgiving MAT
XVI, 20 and bond Of Christian fellow
ship of unity Il Cor. x, 1s, ID. It is a
an cath whereby we bind ourselves to
our Lord and HIS service.
The essential In the form of the Lord $
supper is the bread and the wine. bread
as the best aymbol Of Christ's body and
wine as the best symbol of his blood.
These emblems must never be changed
for others, for the reason that 20 other
embleps SO appropriate can be formed as
substitutes, and because Christ gave
them to us.
The cup does not appear to me to be
in any sense essential--that is whether
Methodist churches), q dozen or hun
dreds. Is it certain that Christ used only
one cup?
mon cups" in this service, that it sym
belizes the unity of believers and the
fellowship of communicates, etc. To me
the unity of believers and the fellowship
of comunicants is in the heart and moi
this unity and fellowship in the common
partaking of the bread and wine, rather
than in any particular manner OF talk
ing the wine, whether from one or many
cups. Besides. where is the so-called
common cup?" Certainly none of us
have the cups (supposing he used only
one) that our savior used. Nor is there
cup that is passed around Ch1stendom
for the common use Of believers. At most.
the cup can be common only to an in
dividual church.
I1ANO We SOOu TCd5OlS lOT lDlTOuuituH
an innovation In a non-essential in this
sacred service? An increasing number of
people think we have. These are some of
them:
I-Cleanliness. The individual service
is more and more taking the place Of the
common service in all our homes. This
is in keeping with refinement and civiliza-
than. We no longer take butter with in
divi9ual knives from a common plate.
Cardinal Gibbons Of Baltimore says: ut
would be very distasteful for 50 many
comRunicants to drink successfully out
Of the same 0hslice, which would be IN
avoidable il the SACRAMENT were admin
istered in both forms" AS Protest9ntS,
we do not believe in ccmnyping under
one lsind' as DO the Catholics, BUT the
cardinals .reaRon for not drinking. sue
cessiNely from a common cup ought to
have weight with us.
2-Health considerations. Is there no
tasious and germ diseases2 The doctors
must decide this. Some say there Is
We sometimes hear it said: "There is
no more danger from the communion cup
than in other thinss-sitting, for ex-
ample in poorly-ventlated buildingB"
Perhaps this is correct, but because there
is mo more danger in the one than the
other. shall we continue one because we
continue the other? or shall we not rather
avoid both dangers? Let all our churches
and other public buildings be properly
ventilated; let an intelligent public de-
on cars and boats and other places of
public resorts, or even in our homes?
A positive advantage of the individual
communion service it seems to me, will
come in the general education of the
people in reference to contagious and
germ diseases. More and more are we
being reminded Of the danger Of tuber-
culosis, FOR instance, as an infectious
germ disease. In the cars Of some cities
notices are posted forbidding splitting"
on the floors, and health authorities are
trying to prevent the unelean and dam
gerous habit even on the streets, for it
is a well-known fact that danger from
tuberculosis Turks in the dried sputum of
consumptives.
Now, in keeping with scientific attempts
to arrest the spread of various diseases,
including the one Just referred to, Is the
effort of the churches in the same line
by the use of the individual communion
cup, and the marked attention given to
the whole subject from this innovation
along the whole line and in the saving
perhaps of much sickness and OF thou
sands and hundreds of thousands of
lives. If the church can help the doctors
in this general education, why not? If
the only cost to us is in the sacrifice of
an unessential form OF the Lords supper,
why not make it. Indeed, ought we not
with the spirit Of him who gave his life
for us and who when on earth. healed
the bodies as well as the souls Of men
The physician Is as much a called servant
of Christ as the minister and the latter,
followed by the people of the churches,
should assist the former in his work OF
healing and especially preventing bodily
disease and death.
GEO. W. KING.
Trinity M &C. Parsonage