George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 FAMILY OF 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
Public Worship in the Church 
 
 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF THE 
 DIOCESE OF NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MEETING OF THE CONVOCATIONS 
 OF RALEIGH AND CHARLOTTE, IN OCTOBER 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE 
 
 ALSO 
 
 A PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CLERGY 
 AND LAITY OF THE DIOCESE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RT. REV. JOS. BLOUNT CHESHIRE, D.D. 
 BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA 
 
Pamphlet Collection 
 Duke Divinity School 
 
CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 Brethren of the Clergy: 
 
 The Canons of the General Convention lay upon each 
 Bishop the duty of delivering a Charge to the Clergy of his 
 Diocese at least once in every three years. They do not 
 specify the form or the subject of the Charge, but seem 
 simply to point out, as part of the duty of a Bishop, that 
 function of supervision and leadership which instructs in 
 the principles of conduct, and discerns and indicates the 
 special demands and opportunities of the time. 
 
 Though Episcopal Charges, under that formal designation, 
 have been seldom heard among us, in this Diocese or in oth- 
 ers, yet we may fairly claim that the provisions of the Canons 
 have been substantially fulfilled in the Annual Address of 
 the Bishop to his Diocesan Convention. The Canons re- 
 quire, as has been said, a Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese 
 at least once in three years, as they also require the Bishop 
 to make a visitation to each parish at least once in three 
 years. They further require the Bishop to make to the An- 
 nual Convention a report of his visitations, confirmations, 
 ordinations, and other more important official acts. As in 
 the life of the Church the visitation of the Bishop has come 
 to be, so far as practicable, an annual event, and he feels that 
 he can not, in justice to his work, limit his ministrations to 
 the canonical minimum, of a visitation once in three years ; 
 so, in somewhat the same way, in the matter of instruction, 
 suggestion, and direction to the Clergy upon topics of gen- 
 eral and special importance and interest, the crowding events 
 and ever-shifting currents of our modern life do not allow 
 him to wait for the recurring triennium, that he may deliver 
 to the Clergy his Episcopal Charge. The annual report has 
 become the Annual Address ; and its enumeration of visita- 
 tions, confirmations, ordinations, and the like, which is all 
 that the Canons contemplate or require, has come to be its 
 least interesting feature, by contrast with what is, in effect, 
 the annual charge of the Bishop, in which he sets forth to 
 Clergy and Laity those matters of principle and of duty, 
 which he would from year to year specially press upon their 
 
2 
 
 attention, as the most important demands and opportunities 
 of the hour. 
 
 And yet this canonical provision, in regard to an occa- 
 sional or periodical Charge to the Clergy, suggests to the 
 Bishop a proper method of addressing his brethren and fel- 
 low laborers, when occasion seems to require a word of in- 
 struction, exhortation, or warning, with reference to the 
 great responsibilities and opportunities of the work commit- 
 ted to him and to them ; and it can not but give additional 
 emphasis and power to his words, to have them presented in 
 the form of a Charge, authorized, and in a manner required, 
 by the provisions of the Canons set forth by our highest 
 legislative authority. 
 
 The Condition of Our Work. 
 
 When we consider the work of the Church in this Diocese 
 I think there are many things to make us thank God, and 
 take courage. We are not all that we ought to be, and we are 
 not doing all that we ought to do. But we have not been 
 altogether idle, and I think that we have some evidences of 
 the divine blessing upon our labors. So far as I can form 
 a judgment upon the subject, we have never had a more de- 
 voted, able, and effective body of Clergy in the Diocese than 
 we have at present ; and we have never had so many Candi- 
 dates for Holy Orders, except possibly in that heroic period 
 of want and suffering immediately following the War be- 
 tween the States ; when purified by the fires of battle, and ex- 
 alted by the sacrifice of their all, many of the bravest young 
 Confederate soldiers pressed into the ranks of the Christian 
 ministry. To the mind of a Bishop nothing can be more en- 
 couraging and helpful than to see, as we now see, so many 
 young men coming forward to seek the ministry as their life- 
 work. 
 
 Along with this increase in the number of our Postulants 
 and Candidates, and closely connected with it, is an increas- 
 ing sense of responsibility in all our people, for the work of 
 the Church, and a more generous response to our demands 
 upon them. It is, I believe, characteristic of our age, that 
 men are coming to feel a closer social bond between all, and 
 therefore a quickening sensibility as to our obligations to 
 and for one another. 
 
 A manifestation of this is seen in our increasing use of 
 
 » 
 
3 
 
 laymen in Church work. Whatever be the superior func- 
 . tion of the Apostolic Ministry in serving about holy things, 
 an inward sympathy, as well as an outward necessity, is 
 making many laymen preachers of the Word. This is ob- 
 servable in all parts of the country and among all Christian 
 people. And such has always been the case whenever the 
 Church has deeply felt, and earnestly addressed itself to 
 fulfil, the call of the Master. 
 
 It is, as I take it, a sign of hope in our Diocese, that the 
 work which for some years past we have been doing, and 
 which I trust to see increase as the years go on, could not 
 have been done, and can not be continued, except by a large 
 use of laymen engaged in what we used to assume to be ex- 
 clusively the function of the ordained minister. 
 
 And at the root of it all lies, as I believe, a deeper experi- 
 ence of mutual love, and a higher appreciation of the value 
 of human life here and hereafter. All over our Diocese I 
 trust that our Clergy and our people are moved by a common 
 impulse to save for God's Church and for God's world our- 
 selves and all others, and to save ourselves by forgetting our- 
 selves in the service of others. It is this element in our dio- 
 cesan life which makes me thankful and happy to meet our 
 Clergy and people in Convention and in Convocation, where 
 we can feel the warm pulse of this common purpose, and the 
 resulting common confidence that God is with us. 
 
 This is the spirit pervading the Church, and showing itself 
 more and more plainly in the triennial meetings of our Gen- 
 eral Convention, and especially in the joint sessions of its 
 two Houses acting as our great National Missionary Coun- 
 cil. This spirit has already greatly affected our most per- 
 manent institutions, our Constitution and our Prayer Book. 
 The amendments to our Book of Common Prayer, completed 
 in 1892, and the alterations in our Constitution and Canons 
 constantly going on, are manifestations of the desire and 
 purpose of the Church to do more effectively our work as 
 one of the great Provinces of the Kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 The changes, modifications, and additions in our Prayer 
 Book were intended to make it a more effective weapon in 
 the armory of the Church for the purpose of the conquest of 
 the world. Our Clergy have not been slow to divine this 
 purpose, and to use this readapted instrument in our aggres- 
 sive work. And I trust we shall continue to appreciate its 
 
 2 
 
4 
 
 wonderful effectiveness, and to use it with increasing skill, 
 adapting it to the necessities and opportunities of our mis- 
 sionary and devotional work, in our new fields of missionary 
 endeavor as well as among the ignorant and uninstructed of 
 our oldest communities. I most heartily sympathize with 
 the new liberty and variety in the use of our services in the 
 aggressive and progressive work of the Church in our new 
 fields and in our old. 
 
 But, brethren of the Clergy, there is another aspect of our 
 services, and another purpose which they serve in the life 
 and work of the Church, besides the missionary aspect, and 
 the purpose towards those who are ignorant and out of the 
 way. The Church was established in the world, and is in- 
 spired and sustained by our divine Master, for two purposes: 
 first, to be the depository and source of spiritual Truth and 
 Power ; and second, to bring men into living contact with 
 that spiritual Truth and Power. Men must by the Church 
 be made disciples, and being disciples they must continue in 
 the things of spiritual life and duty commanded by our Mas- 
 ter. The Book of Common Prayer is an instrument in the 
 hands of the Church for the propagation and extension of 
 the Truth ; it is also a method of developing and conserving 
 power in the Church by common worship. In our eager 
 appreciation of our missionary duty, and our zealous use of 
 our services for attracting others into the Church, we are, I 
 believe, in some danger of failing to remember or fully to 
 appreciate that the Prayer Book is our Method and Law of 
 Common Worship. The subject of this Charge is 
 
 Public Worship m the Church. 
 
 I fear that we do not always remember the fundamental 
 character of Public Worship. In our anxiety to reach out 
 after new material we may overlook the necessity of develop- 
 ing what we already have. The idea of common worship 
 does not pervade the mind of our Christian community. The 
 prevalence of extemporaneous methods and customs of public 
 worship, among so large a portion of the Christian people of 
 our country, has an unavoidable tendency to throw the public 
 worship into the hands of the few more devout, or zealous, 
 or, it may be sometimes, the more self-confident, members of 
 the congregation, and to allow to the rest rather an acqui- 
 escence, than any actual participation, in the prayers and 
 
5 
 
 thanksgivings. The development of musical taste and skill 
 has also a tendency in many cases to deprive the great ma- 
 jority of the people of any part in the voice of praise. 
 
 I mention this tendency of ex tempore methods of worship 
 to weaken and destroy the idea and practice of common pub- 
 lic worship, not that we may in our hearts exalt ourselves 
 above any of our Christian brethren. On the contrary I 
 wish to say that the excellence of our methods and the beauty 
 and antiquity of our forms of service, have not secured us 
 against the same defects, though they perhaps render us less 
 sensible of them. We have not escaped the general decay in 
 the idea and practice of common public worship. A very 
 large proportion of our congregations take no more active 
 part in public service than do the frequenters of extempo- 
 raneous services. This is a matter which, in my judgment, 
 demands the most serious attention of our Clergy at this 
 time. 
 
 The Life of the Body. 
 
 Public Worship is the expression of the life of the Body. 
 It is also the condition of that life, and the chief means of 
 cultivating and developing the corporate life of the Church. 
 Christianity is not an individual human life ; it is the Life 
 of One divine Person, conveyed to us through His Body, the 
 Church. No man can be a Christian by himself: "by one 
 Spirit we are all baptized into one body." The very first 
 concern of every Christian should therefore be the life and 
 power of the Body. The public worship of the congregation, 
 participation in its common worship, sacraments, ministra- 
 tions, and activities of every kind, is his chief means of cul- 
 tivating his oneness with the Body, and thereby entering 
 into and enjoying that great Catholic Unity of the Church, 
 which the unity of the congregation expresses and promotes. 
 
 The first and fundamental function of the Body, in its 
 Catholic character and in its individual congregations, is to 
 represent the great truth of the divine presence, power, and 
 redemption here on earth with us. The first purpose of our 
 Public Worship is to realize and to testify of God, and of our 
 life in Him in His Church. Before the duty, or the power, 
 of preaching to the world, comes the necessity of having and 
 feeling the Truth in ourselves, the truth of our life in the 
 Father, through Christ Jesus the Son, by the power of the 
 Holy Spirit. I charge you, brethren of the Clergy, with this 
 
6 
 
 as the first and fundamental thing of your ministry. As the 
 central principle of your work, as the means of developing 
 the life of God in the Church, as a source of power by which 
 you may in the end reach out and save others, you must cul- 
 tivate and maintain in the public worship of the sanctuary 
 that high ideal of reverence and holy fear, that solemn and 
 noble earnestness in the rendering of the sacred offices, that 
 avoidance of all light and unseemly aids and accessories to 
 divine worship, by which alone you can enjoy and perpetuate 
 the treasures of faith and devotion, which have come 
 down to us. There is a time and there is a necessity for 
 coming down to the commonplace and the ordinary ; there are 
 services which you must adapt to suit the ignorant and the 
 careless ; there are means which you may properly employ to 
 attract the worldly and the hardened ; but not by debasing or 
 neglecting our great and noble offices for cultivating and de- 
 veloping the spiritual life of the devout and faithful Chris- 
 tian and for helping those who hunger after higher attain- 
 ments, and who in their efforts need the best that the Church 
 can give. The strength of the Church is in its central body 
 of earnest, holy, devout, consecrated men and women, in 
 whose mature characters the Spirit is having its perfect work, 
 bringing them into daily conformity with the Master ; and 
 the necessities of these blessed souls must not be neglected. 
 For this central life and power we need our highest and most 
 spiritual worship. The Christian army may throw out its 
 skirmish lines, but it must preserve its. solid centre of sup- 
 port and succor. It is the strength of the centre which gives 
 power and efficiency to the advance. We may perhaps have 
 been over conservative in the past, and guarded too jealously 
 the dignity and sobriety of our worship, to the lessening of 
 efficiency in aggressive work. Be it so ! We see our error. 
 We are improving in our missionary activities. But we may 
 not forget or neglect what has given us strength and influence 
 in the past. In my judgment the Church should preserve 
 the highest possible standard of reverence, dignity, and devo- 
 tion in public worship, even if it should seem to be a hin- 
 drance to success. There is something better than success. 
 But it is a great mistake to suppose that such a standard of 
 public worship is without influence upon even the men who 
 neglect it. It impresses them even at a distance. They know 
 that it is there. They know what it stands for and aspires 
 
7 
 
 after. They may in their busy hours and years of selfish 
 worldly occupations and ambitions and success, think that it 
 does not appeal to them. But just because it refuses to come 
 down to their level, and to court their favor, and to cater to 
 their carnal and worldly minds— because it is above them 
 they look up to it ; and when the time comes that they feel 
 the need of a deliverer, they will lift up their eyes to the 
 hills, from whence cometh their help. 
 
 The Church can never lose in the end by preserving in 
 thought, and setting forth in practice, the highest form of 
 solemn, reverent, devout service, appealing to the deepest 
 and most spiritual experiences and aspirations of the mature 
 Christian, and leading the less mature towards a like holy 
 culture. Therefore, brethren, while we seek the careless and 
 wandering, and with all diligence adapt the Church and its 
 ways to them, let us also preserve in the regular offices and 
 festivals of the Church, especially in all congregations of 
 settled and instructed Churchmen, the very best and most 
 solemn celebration we can maintain of the ancient liturgy 
 and services of the Catholic Church in that most admirable of 
 all versions, which is ours. 
 
 The Prayer Book the Law of Our Public Worship. 
 
 Our Public Worship is not left to our whim or caprice, 
 nor even to our individual judgment or conscience. It is 
 prescribed and ordered by law, and that law is the Book of 
 Common Prayer. There are times and places when the 
 Prayer Book can not be used; as, for example, where there 
 are no books, or where the people are ignorant or uninstructed 
 in their use. There are occasions plainly not contemplated 
 or provided for by the Prayer Book. Under such circum- 
 stances the clergyman, by virtue of his original divine com- 
 mission, must minister to human souls, and speak the word 
 given him to speak. The Church and the Ministry antedate 
 the Prayer Book. It remains true, nevertheless, that the 
 Prayer Book is our Law of Public Worship. In the gener- 
 ous liberty allowed by the Church, in the freedom of use per- 
 mitted by the rubrics since the revision of 1892, some clergy- 
 men seem to have found a relaxation of law. I sometimes 
 see men act as if they were under no binding rule whatever. 
 Suggestions are sometimes made to me, which imply such a 
 conception of freedom from obligation in the matter of our 
 
 3 
 
8 
 
 public worship. I am happy in believing that such is not 
 the spirit or thought of the Clergy of this Diocese. But we 
 have not wholly escaped. Let me beg you never to forget 
 your obligations in this matter. Any breach of law by you 
 is a grievous injury to the Church, and to your brethren, and 
 is an example of disloyalty and self-will, which will be more 
 effective for ill than you may be willing to believe. 
 
 First of all then, brethren, in the Prayer Book you have 
 the appointed services of the Church, and you are to have 
 them as they are there set forth. You have no authority to 
 alter, abbreviate, omit, or transpose, otherwise than is therein 
 allowed. In our established parishes and congregations, 
 upon the appointed festivals, fasts, and other holy days and 
 seasons, the Prayer Book is your rule and your only rule; 
 and it is the law which you have solemnly engaged to obey. 
 You are not to omit any appointed service, or any part of any 
 appointed service, where due performance is practicable, ex- 
 cept as the same may be contemplated and permitted in the 
 book. Let us all mark and remember this. We deplore, as 
 one of the gravest evils of our time and our country, a disre- 
 gard of law, when it would limit or restrain individual in- 
 terests, desires, or passions. Let not the Clergy set their 
 people an example of lawlessness in the very acts of service 
 which they offer to God ! 
 
 I shall not at this time speak particularly of the Holy 
 Communion. I assume that, so far as is practicable, it is 
 duly administered upon the appointed days throughout the 
 year. But I do feel that I should ask the Clergy to be more 
 careful to observe exactly the direction of the rubrics in 
 this most important office, and to follow them, not only with 
 a general purpose of obedience, but with accurate conform- 
 ity to their requirements. I do not infrequently see 
 Priests whom I know to be entirely faithful and loyal, dis- 
 regard the proper order, when I feel sure they have no 
 thought of doing so. But simply do not take sufficient 
 pains to make out clearly in their minds just what is the 
 true method of performing the service. 
 
 I desire to refer to the Litany and the daily offices. Our 
 Prayer Book does not expressly require Morning and Evening 
 Prayer to be said every day by each clergyman, either in pub- 
 lic or else privately, as the English Prayer Book does ; nor is 
 it commanded that the Litany shall be said every Wednesday 
 
9 
 
 and Friday. The circumstances of our Church life in Amer- 
 ica have made such requirements impracticable. It does not in 
 so many words order that these offices should be used every 
 Sunday, though I think it quite evident that the intention of 
 the Prayer Book is that they should all be said, as a rule, on 
 Sunday. The rubric says that they may be used as sepa- 
 rate services, and adds: "Provided, that no one of these 
 services be habitually disused." 
 
 When Morning and Evening Prayer are used they must 
 be used in their integrity, as they are given in the Prayer 
 Book. There is no authority for the omission of one lesson, 
 or of part of the daily Psalms, or of the Selections allowed 
 as alternatives. Such omission is a plain breach of the law. 
 I feel myself bound to obedience in this matter. A Bishop 
 must set an example of obedience, and he has a right to look 
 for the same obedience to law in the Clergy. 
 
 The Litany is part of the appointed Sunday service. I do 
 not know that in any church in this Diocese it is habitually 
 disused on Sunday. I hope it is not. But it seems to me 
 that there is a prevalent disposition to neglect its use, except 
 at infrequent intervals, and at times when but few attend. 
 I feel it well to call your attention to this, and to remind 
 you that the Litany is perhaps the simplest, the most affect- 
 ing, the easiest of comprehension, and most generally appre- 
 ciated, of all our services, and best fitted for popular use. I 
 am satisfied that the Clergy do not carry the hearts of their 
 people with them in the very frequent omission of the Litany 
 from the Sunday service. In more than one parish I have 
 heard expressions of dissatisfaction and regret at the so 
 frequent omission of the Litany on Sundays. 
 
 Where the Litany is said as a separate service, or where 
 it begins the service, the whole Litany should be used. Oth- 
 erwise, by the omission of the latter part, we have an office 
 without the Lord's Prayer, in violation of one of the prin- 
 ciples upon which the Prayer Book offices are constructed. 
 
 We should value as one of our highest privileges and most 
 precious possessions the Sunday services, wherein we unite 
 as one family, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven, in claiming and showing forth in 
 high and solemn strains the blessedness of the Christian heri- 
 tage and citizenship ; and we should allow no passion for 
 novelty, or desire for popularity, or effort after adventitious 
 
10 
 
 attractions, to debase our high and holy worship. Our ef- 
 forts to make our Sunday services more popular by extreme 
 abbreviation, by what are called "musical features," by col- 
 loquial addresses and lectures of an entertaining rather than 
 a devotional or doctrinal character, do not and will not in- 
 crease our congregations. The only way we can increase 
 our congregations is by increasing the devotional spirit of 
 our people. And the devotional spirit of the people can not 
 be increased by decreasing the devotional character of the 
 service: "The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." My 
 observation is that our congregations are largest where there 
 is least yielding to the demand for shortened services and so- 
 called "attractive features." 
 
 The Cause and the Cure. 
 
 The trouble is that so small a proportion of our congrega- 
 tions take any active part in the service. And taking no 
 real part, they do not become interested. Suppose, for argu- 
 ment's sake, that in a congregation of two or three hundred 
 people, every one should audibly and unitedly, with accord- 
 ant voices, join in those parts of the service intended to be 
 said by the people — what an inspiring and heartening effect 
 it would have upon all who should participate ! Would it 
 not be most interesting and attractive, as well as impressive, 
 to the least devout soul among them ? And would not such a 
 service, if you could bring your people up to it, have a 
 greater attractiveness, a greater drawing power, than the best 
 choir, or even the best preacher ? Such worship by the peo- 
 ple would make good preaching, by its influence both upon 
 speaker and upon hearer. The life of the Body gives power 
 to the voice and efficacy to the message. The most careless 
 and callous can not be wholly insensible to the truth spoken 
 by the preacher, where the throbbing heart of the great con- 
 gregation responds to and confirms his testimony, and sets 
 forth the same blessed Gospel in prayers and hymns and 
 confessions and professions of the Faith once delivered. 
 
 It is a very grave question whether the failure of our pub- 
 lic worship to prove thus inspiring and effective be not 
 chargeable to us of the Clergy. Certainly it is largely our 
 fault. An act of common worship by a large congregation, 
 all speaking with one voice in audible and intelligible re- 
 sponse, is a highly artificial act, and can not be accomplished 
 
11 
 
 without intelligent effort and frequent practice, guided by 
 apt suggestion and careful instruction. Some kind of re- 
 sponse may be made by the people with the book before them, 
 without help or training; just as you may have some kind 
 of singing in a mixed congregation, without practice or lead- 
 ing. But a liturgical service which shall be full, harmoni- 
 ous, intelligent, and intelligible, can not be had without care- 
 ful and continuous training and practice. I ask you, each 
 one, to consider with himself, whether he has ever made any 
 real effort to teach and to train his congregation, and by 
 direction, explanation, suggestion, and practice, endeavored 
 to give them distinct ideas of what public worship should 
 be, and to enable them to unite in the service, so as to secure 
 the best and most edifying result. Is it a matter which we 
 seriously consider ? Do we habitually remember it as part 
 of our pastoral duty ? I fear that we do not. 
 
 It is quite possible that as I speak these words some of you 
 may in your thoughts be repudiating the view I am endeav- 
 oring to "present. If any one think that it is not his duty to 
 instruct and guide and train his congregation in the proper 
 conduct of public worship, but that he may leave them to find 
 it out for themselves, if they can, and to practice it or not, 
 as they choose, I can not perhaps expect him to change such 
 opinions upon my order. But if there be such an one I can 
 ask him so far to follow my leadership, as to consider fairly 
 what I say, and to try if he can not find in it some element 
 of truth and duty, and some helful suggestion. A Bishop 
 is naturally no wiser than a Priest, or a Deacon — or even a 
 Layman ! But his observation in some matters is wider, his 
 opportunities are greater, he is forced to look at many things 
 from different points of view, and to consider many subjects 
 more broadly, than he did as a parish Priest and rector. 
 And I believe no Priest can become a Bishop without becom- 
 ing more sensible of his own faults and deficiencies, and 
 realizing how much more he might have done for his parish- 
 ioners than he did do. And his brethren of the Clergy he 
 is anxious to help by giving them some results of his observa- 
 tions and thoughts, the fruits, it may be, of his own failures. 
 
 It is not, of course, practicable to make our Sunday service 
 a time for frequent or extended instruction in mere methods 
 of worship. That would be to degrade that holy worship 
 which we would exalt. Yet brief directions and suggestions 
 
12 
 
 may from time to time be introduced by the wise and rever- 
 ent pastor, as to postures, responses, and other matters of 
 similar character, which would be of great value, and which 
 might tend to heighten rather than depress the devotions 
 of the people. But at week-day services, and more informal 
 meetings, and in pastoral visitation, ample opportunity may 
 be found for instructing and training those who would natu- 
 rally become exemplars and leaders of the congregation. And 
 especially in the Sunday School and in Confirmation classes, 
 much valuable work may be done. 
 
 Our most faithful Priests and teachers are strangely neg- 
 ligent in some minor matters, which I can hardly call minor 
 matters after all, so greatly do they affect the decency, rever- 
 ence, and edification of public worship. For example, in 
 classes of earnest and devout candidates for Confirmation, it 
 often appears that men and women are absolutely ignorant 
 of what it is to kneel; and coming forward to Confirmtion 
 and to the Holy Communion, crouch down at the chancel 
 rail, without putting a knee to the ground, in grotesque and 
 uncomfortable postures. 
 
 I mention this as an illustration of the need of careful 
 instruction and training, if we would really make our people 
 sharers in that holy culture which the Church provides for 
 her children. The saintly men and women, trained in the 
 stricter school of our old pastors and teachers, are passing 
 away; and a younger generation fills their places. More 
 than this, greater numbers are every year being brought into 
 the Church, who have been wholly strange to our ways and 
 untaught in our worship. We defraud them of their due, if 
 we fail to teach them, and help them to enter in and possess 
 the better things of our Book of Common Prayer. And we 
 greatly fail in our duty if we do not at such a time exert 
 ourselves to preserve and to perpetuate the Public Worship 
 of the Church, and give our best endeavors to raise to a 
 higher excellence the devotional life of our people. 
 
 I can not at this time say more. I had thought of going 
 into some particulars of our duty in leading the devotions 
 of the people and ministering in the congregation the Sacra- 
 ments of Grace. Perhaps I may do so on another occasion. 
 Whatever the inadequacy of my treatment of this great sub- 
 ject, I am sure you can not fail to recognize its importance. 
 Our whole system of Doctrine, Polity, and Worship is in- 
 
13 
 
 eluded in the vital unity of our organic Church life. Catho- 
 lic Truth, Apostolic Order, Liturgical Worship, have not 
 been tied together by the bands of our choice and of our 
 ecclesiastical legislation. They have grown and developed 
 together in the divine life of the one Body. But it is the 
 character and the quality of our Worship, and of the Truth 
 set forth in that Worship, which have given to the Church 
 most of the influence which it has exerted upon American 
 Christianity. By that we have touched the religious life of 
 our people, and contributed to the improvement of their 
 worship, and helped to retain in the popular mind the purity 
 of the Gospel. In what body of worshipping Christians is 
 this influence unfelt ? Who now fails to recognize in the 
 Book of Common Prayer the most admirable of all com- 
 pendiums of devotion % That which has been our greatest 
 source of life, of power, of influence, we must learn to prize 
 more highly, by learning to understand it better, and to use 
 it more faithfully. 
 
 Jos. Blount Cheshire, 
 
 Bishop of North Carolina. 
 
 September 28, 1912. 
 
PASTOEAL LETTEE TO THE CLEEGY AND LAITY. 
 
 To be read in the Churches of the Diocese on such Sunday or Sun- 
 days during the months of November and December, 1912, as to the 
 local clergyman or reader may seem most convenient. 
 
 Brethren of the Clergy and Laity: 
 
 I have recently addressed to the Clergy of the Diocese a 
 Charge upon the Public Worship of the Church. This is a 
 large subject, and a subject in which the Laity are vitally 
 interested, no less than the Clergy. My Charge to the Clergy 
 was intended solely to call their attention to their duty in 
 ministering to the Laity. 
 
 And since the Laity have thus an equal interest in all mat- 
 ters affecting our Public Worship, and an almost equal part 
 in its performance, and in responsibility for its proper and 
 effective use, I think it well to continue this subject in a 
 Pastoral Letter, and to set before both Clergy and Laity in 
 more detail some instructions and suggestions, which may be 
 of assistance in the better understanding and more reverent 
 and edifying enjoyment of the services and offices of the 
 Church. Many of you need no information or direction in 
 regard to what you were trained in as children, and have 
 loved and practised with intelligent appreciation all your 
 lives. But others have not enjoyed, it may be, such careful 
 training and instruction ; and many earnest and faithful men 
 and women, boys and girls, are daily coming into the com- 
 munion of the Church, who have had no early experience of 
 its holy ways, and who will welcome a word of direction and 
 of explanation to help them to a fuller appreciation and more 
 intellient use of the Prayer Book. 
 
 L 
 
 In the first place, then, I ask: What is the chief purpose 
 and motive with which we attend the service of the Church ? 
 W 7 e should go to the public service first of all to present our- 
 selves before our God and Father, and to claim our place as 
 His children : to "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 
 acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.'' 
 That is the first and foundation principle of public worship — 
 to present ourselves before God, in His House. Keep that in 
 
16 
 
 mind; it will give tone and character to the whole service. 
 "Three times a year shall all your males appear before the 
 Lord in the place which He shall choose." . That was the 
 fundamental law in the public worship of the old Hebrew 
 Church; and our w T orship, as to the form and outward ex- 
 pression of it, had its origin in the religious institutions of 
 ancient Israel. 
 
 This thought of presenting ourselves before God in 
 acknowledgment of our relation to Him, claiming Him for 
 our God and Father, determines our bodily attitude; we 
 must stand before Him. There is no attitude proper for 
 worship except standing, or else kneeling. Indeed when we 
 kneel we stand upon our knees. We do not kneel when we 
 grovel, or crouch, or recline, or merely bend the head. None 
 of these postures are proper for devotion. We should stand 
 upright on our feet, or upright upon our knees. The Prayer 
 Book knows no other posture for worship. It knows nothing 
 even of the congregation sitting. There are no seats in the 
 great ancient churches, i. e. no fixed or permanent seats for 
 the congregation. Indulgence to human weakness gradually 
 introduced the custom of sitting during those portions of the 
 service in which the people are not engaged in an act of 
 worship, but merely listen to the sermon or to the reading of 
 the Bible. 
 
 And here it is to be noted, that although the people sit 
 ordinarily to hear the holy Scriptures, yet at the reading of 
 the "Gospel for the day" they stand. The Gospel for the 
 day gives always the very words of our Lord, or some part 
 of the story of His redemptive work. The Gospel for the 
 day always sets Him before us, and so we stand in reverence, 
 and praise Him for His goodness, saying, "Glory be to Thee, 
 O Lord." 
 
 So when the minister enters the chancel, or rises from his 
 knees to begin any service, or says "Here endeth the lesson," 
 or "the Epistle," the congregation should rise and stand, 
 ready to participate in the following act of worship. They 
 should not wait for it to begin, but should at once rise and 
 stand ready to take their part. What an irreverent and slov- 
 enly effect is produced when the people wait for the minister 
 or the choir to begin before rising ; and the first noble sen- 
 tence of the Te Deum or the Benedictus, is lost in the rustle 
 and movement of the congregation getting upon their feet ! 
 
IT 
 
 And when it is time to kneel, we should kneel; and to 
 kneel is to keep the body upright, but resting on the knees 
 instead of on the feet. Do these suggestions seem trivial ? I 
 am only endeavoring to let you see clearly what our Prayer 
 Book requires ; and nothing is trivial which endeavors to 
 help us to godly reverence, humility, and obedience. 
 
 And especially is it right and necessary that we of the 
 Clergy should remember how much depends on our setting 
 the people an example of obedience and reverence. I some- 
 times fear that we are more careless and irreverent than the 
 Laity. Being so continually occupied in holy things it is 
 hard not to fall into habits of indifference and carelessness, 
 going through the form of reverence, but wholly forgetting 
 the true spirit of godly fear. We need to be constantly on 
 our guard that we may make our service real, and truly feel 
 the power of that Truth which we declare; and that we may 
 set our people an example of that sincerity of reverence and 
 devotion which we inculcate. Let us therefore be constantly 
 on the watch against wandering thoughts and careless actions, 
 humbly seeking God's help that we may remember what we 
 are doing, and that we may really enter into the solemn 
 meaning of the holy words we utter. The old arrangement 
 of the choir and chancel, whereby the officiating clergyman 
 ordinarily faced across the church, and not towards the peo- 
 ple, to which we have so generally returned in our recent 
 Church building, served, among other purposes, to guard the 
 minister from being distracted in his devotion by having the 
 people always in his line of vision. The Prayer Book in- 
 tends that the minister ordinarily should not face the peo- 
 ple, because at certain places it commands him to turn to 
 them, plainly implying that he is not looking towards them 
 before. Though he must not be inattentive to the general 
 attitude and behaviour of his people, he must guard against 
 any idle or curious gazing at persons or occurrences in the 
 congregation. By his very attitude and by the expression of 
 his countenance he must impress them with his earnestness 
 and devotion. And specially he must never fail to bear his 
 part in every act of prayer and praise. Tf he have no voice 
 to sing, yet must his heart join with choir and singers, and 
 all the more earnestly because his heart must then do its own 
 part and also the part in which his lips fail him. We must 
 not be so thrifty and economical of our time that we find the 
 
18 
 
 lessons while the Gloria is sung after the Psalter, or so in- 
 dulgent to our bodies that we sit down during a hymn or 
 anthem or offertory. The proper posture of the officiating 
 minister is standing or kneeling. Unless age, or bodily in- 
 firmity require such indulgence, he should never sit. What 
 better way can he find of teaching the people than by his own 
 devout attention and intelligent participation in every part 
 of the service ? 
 
 It is most important, first of all, in considering our public 
 worship, to have a clear understanding of its fundamental 
 principles. I have said that we go to Church on Sundays to 
 present ourselves before God in His House. And we come 
 into His House as His Family. We do not come as indi- 
 viduals to preserve our individuality; we come that we may 
 express and realize our union with our brethren in the One 
 Body. We are One Body in Him Who hath joined us to 
 Himself, and made us members of Him and of one another. 
 7 fear we do not ordinarily think of this, but we come to 
 church that we may know it and feel it. We do not come 
 that we may think about ourselves, and offer our individual 
 prayers and praises. We come to think of others, and to 
 join our hearts and our voices with theirs in common worship. 
 You are not to shut your eyes and your hearts to all things 
 external, and to try to be alone with God. You do that in 
 your private devotions at home. When you come to church 
 you must open your eyes and open your heart, and see your 
 brethren, and take them into your heart and into your sym- 
 pathy and affection, and you must think of them in prayer 
 and praise, and pray for them more than for yourself. If 
 the services and Sacraments of the Church do not bring us 
 into sympathetic communion with our brethren with whom 
 we worship, we have missed the great blessing intended in our 
 common worship. 
 
 This public worship being for the expression and cultiva- 
 tion of our oneness in Christ, we are not at such times to 
 indulge in acts of purely personal and individual devotion, 
 however right and proper in themselves, which do not tend 
 to promote the feeling and appearance of unity in the con- 
 gregation. With some persons it is a very real expression of 
 reverence always to bow at the holy Name, or to make the 
 sign of the Cross in connection with acts of worship. I have 
 no disposition to object to this. But true devotion and 
 
19 
 
 Christian humility will not obtrude its individual expres- 
 sion to disturb even in appearance the harmony of common 
 worship where such customs are not general, but will find a 
 way modestly and unobtrusively to do its reverence, that 
 even outward unity may not seem to be broken. 
 
 For the expression of our union in Christ, and to cultivate 
 the sense of common needs and common duties, the Church 
 provides a service in which we shall unite with one voice, as 
 well as with one heart and mind. This purpose of our 
 Prayer Book worship is, it seems to me, too little attended to 
 or appreciated. Almost no effort is made to fulfil what the 
 Prayer Book plainly intends. We have mostly been satisfied 
 if our people somehow or other, every one according to his 
 own fancy, read out the responses, loud or soft, slow or fast, 
 with little discrimination and with no direction or guidance. 
 The result is that we almost never hear the service read as it 
 should be read, and are seldom able to appreciate its full 
 beauty and power. 
 
 I ask you, therefore, my dear brethren, to remember that 
 you should endeavor to join your voices with those of your 
 brethren in an audible and intelligible, and united utterance 
 in the solemn services of the Church ; and to accomplish this 
 you must speak with some measure of deliberation, pausing 
 distinctly at the natural breaks in the sentence, that the una- 
 voidable differences in time may every moment be arrested 
 and corrected, and so a practically united utterance may be 
 obtained. This is very plainly the purpose of the Prayer 
 Book, as you may see by observing that in all those parts to 
 be said together, the sentences are broken into short clauses, 
 each beginning with a capital letter, that we may readily per- 
 ceive where these common pauses are to be made. And in 
 reading the Psalms and Canticles you observe that at or near 
 the middle of each verse is placed a colon. Here a full and 
 distinct pause should be made by the whole congregation, 
 that the characteristic feature of this ancient Hebrew poetry 
 may be preserved, and that all may make a united beginning 
 upon the second part of the verse. By reading deliberately, 
 with sympathetic attention to the voices of others, observing 
 the pauses so plainly marked for us in the Prayer Book, en- 
 deavoring to keep in harmonious accord with others, we may 
 readily attain a unity of utterance, a unanimity of expression 
 in our spoken devotions, which shall add greatly to the beauty 
 
20 
 
 and effectiveness of our services, and in even a greater meas- 
 ure elevate our sense of joy and happiness in the communion 
 and fellowship of our brethren in the Church. We all feel 
 the power of a familiar hymn uniting the hearts and voices 
 of a great congregation, as they join in its familiar strains. 
 In the same way we may make our whole service a source of 
 spiritual power and enjoyment, if ministers and people will 
 take a little more pains to enter into the true spirit and pur- 
 pose of the Prayer Book, and learn to render its holy offices 
 as they are plainly intended to be rendered. 
 
 I would specially emphasize the necessity of reading all 
 parts of the service with deliberation and distinctness, and, 
 in George Herbert's phrase, pausably. Our familiarity with 
 its language renders as -insensible of the rapidity with which 
 we are disposed to run through it, and there is a sort of stirnr 
 ulus in reading together, which tends to increase this habit. 
 I have not infrequently noticed that a clergyman who reads 
 his own part of the service with reasonable deliberation, will 
 quicken his pace in those parts where the people join with 
 him, which is just when he should read a little more slowly. 
 All skilful public speakers find that if they would be under- 
 stood they must speak more slowly in proportion as they have 
 a larger audience ; and it is the same in reading the service, 
 the larger the congregation the more deliberately and paus- 
 ably should the service be said. 
 
 We must speak somewhat deliberately, for we can not our- 
 selves fully appreciate the beauty of the words, nor enter 
 deeply into their spiritual significance, unless we dwell upon 
 them a little as we speak them. The rythmical quality of the 
 language demands a measured utterance, that the musical 
 cadence of its eloquent periods may accompany and deepen 
 its appeal to mind and heart. 
 
 And, most important of all, we must check our disposition 
 to rapid utterance, because otherwise we make it impossible 
 for those to join with us who are less familiar with the serv- 
 ice. A body can move unitedly only by restraining its 
 swifter members, and accommodating its progress to the 
 speed of the slowest. If we would make our services attract- 
 ive and edifying to all, we must so render them that all may 
 unite with us with voice as well as heart in our prayer and 
 praise. 
 
 I most earnestly recommend to the Clergy and the people 
 
21 
 
 of the Diocese united efforts towards the better understanding 
 and use of our Book of Common Prayer. Priest and people 
 can in no way do better work for their own edification and 
 for increasing the power and influence of the Church, than by 
 taking pains to understand its principles, and to illustrate 
 them by their devout use of it, in its spirit and in its forms. 
 
 II. 
 
 I desire to speak briefly a few things as to some of the 
 more important services of the Prayer Book. 
 
 I am glad to know that throughout the Diocese there is a 
 proper recognition of the Holy Communion, as the great 
 service, and that it is, as a rule, duly administered upon all 
 Sundays and holy days, so far as is practicable. There are 
 a few details in regard to this service of which I would speak. 
 What I say may, to some, seem unnecessary, and to most it is 
 unnecessary. Yet the experience of a Bishop shows him that 
 very excellent people sometimes need and desire plain in- 
 structions and directions in what to most are familiar mat- 
 ters. 
 
 First, then, I think that few of our people, or even of our 
 Clergy, appreciate the value and practical utility of the two 
 forms of Exhortation or warning, appended to the office of 
 the Holy Communion, to be used beforehand in giving notice 
 when the Communion is to be administered. The use of the 
 first, in whole or in part, is obligatory. The Priest who 
 habitually neglects to use it violates his plain duty. The bet- 
 ter appreciation and more frequent celebration of this Sacra- 
 ment has not unnaturally affected the use of this "Warning," 
 and only the first two or three sentences or clauses are usually 
 read. I do not find fault with this; but I believe that once 
 in the month, before the monthly mid-day celebration com- 
 monly observed in our churches, it would be well to read at 
 least the first paragraph entire. And once each year, either 
 at the beginning of Advent or of Lent, I could wish that the 
 whole should be read in every congregation of the Diocese. 
 It is a most admirable statement of doctrine, and of wi e e and 
 wholesome counsel for the Christian, in connection with this 
 great Sacrament. 
 
 And what Priest or pastor is so happy as to be able to think 
 that his peonle never need to hear the second of these two Ex- 
 hortations, the one to be used "in case he shall see the people 
 
22 
 
 negligent to come to the Holy Communion'' \ My own rule, 
 when I had a parish, was to read the first Exhortation entire 
 Lt the heginning of Advent, and the second at the beginning; 
 of Lent. I believe it was a good rule, which might with ad- 
 vantage be adopted throughout the Diocese. 
 
 The elements used in the Holy Communion must be 
 wheaten bread and wine, i. e., the fermented juice of the 
 grape. Grape juice treated so that it can not become wine, in 
 the proper sense of the word, can not properly be used. The 
 wine may be diluted with pure water ; but not more than one- 
 fourth, or at most one-third, as much water should be used. 
 It should not be so diluted as not to produce on the senses the 
 impression of wine. So, where wafer bread is used, it should 
 be of sufficient thickness to produce on the senses the impres- 
 sion of food. Our Blessed Lord took the bread and wine of 
 ordinary use, and we abandon the symbolism which He em- 
 ployed and commanded unless we have elements of such kind 
 as preserve the idea of food for the body, figuring the spiritual 
 food of the soul. And the bread should not before the service 
 be prepared in small pieces for distribution. It must be of suf- 
 ficient size to be broken in the service, and divided among a 
 number of persons. That also is part of our Saviour's sym- 
 bolism, and it is expressly required by the terms of our 
 rubric. It is also required by the plain meaning of our 
 rubrics that "the Cup" should not be an "individual cup," 
 but one from which numbers of brethren may drink. I am 
 not saying that all these details are necessary to the integrity 
 of the Sacrament : I am only saying that they are required by 
 a fair interpretation of the service as set forth in our Book of 
 Common Prayer. 
 
 The bread and the wine should be prepared and placed on 
 the "Credence.'' Where this may be impossible or imprac- 
 ticable (as sometimes it is ), they may be placed on the south 
 end of the Altar until after the offerings are presented and 
 "placed on the Holy Table." After the alms are presented 
 and not until then, the Priest should ''place upon the Table 
 so much bread and wine as he shall think sufficient" ; and 
 when a sentence is said or sung at this time, it should be 
 when the elements are put upon the Altar, not merely at the 
 presentation of the Alms. The liturgical reason for this is 
 important, and is sufficiently obvious, but it is only neces- 
 sary to say that it is plainly required by the rubric. 
 
In the beginning of this service the minister is allowed to 
 omit our Lord's summary of the Law, when he has read the 
 Ten Commandments. I have no right to restrain the Clergy 
 in their exercise of any liberty allowed by the rubric. But 
 i.o my mind our Lord's words in this place ought always to 
 be read. I have never once omitted them in all my ministry. 
 Their introduction at this place was one of the very greatest 
 improvements made by our American Church in revising the 
 Prayer Book in 1789. In these words our Lord translates 
 the old Law— a the Law of a carnal commandment," — into 
 "the Power of an endless Life," which is Love. 
 
 In regard to the Sacrament of Baptism, I desire at this 
 time to call your attention to the careful preparation which 
 the rubric requires in the case of adults. I am at times 
 tempted to think that some of our Clergy have not atten- 
 tively read the rubric. I also wish to say that, where the 
 candidate is not immersed in the water, the water must be 
 "poured upon' him. I have sometimes seen the minister 
 sprinkle a few drops only, or merely lay his wet haud upon 
 the forehead of the child. Neither act is a compliance with 
 the rubric. I am sure that it is only necessary that I should 
 mention this. 
 
 I could wish that the Ember Days and the Rogation Days 
 were better observed. Many of our good people hardly know 
 what these days mean, or when they come. Where it is not 
 practicable to have service upon them, they should at least 
 be explained, and notice should be given of them. The rubric 
 requires the minister each Sunday to "declare unto the peo- 
 ple what Holy- days, or Fasting-days, are in the week follow- 
 ing to be observed" ; and whether he is able to have a public 
 service or not, the people should be notified, that they may 
 at least observe them in their homes and in their private 
 devotions. 
 
 What has been said upon the general subject of the be- 
 haviour of minister and people during public worship leaves 
 nothing that I desire to add in regard to Morning and Even- 
 ing Prayer, except two observations of minor importance : 
 first, where the General Confession is to be used, the opening 
 sentences read should always include one or more of the peni- 
 tential sentences ; and second, it has always seemed to me 
 that at Morning and Evening Prayer the first form of Abso- 
 
24 
 
 lution should be used, and the shorter alternative form be 
 left exclusively for the Holy Communion, where it more 
 properly belongs. In this, however, the rubric allows the 
 officiating Priest his liberty of choice. 
 
 Due respect for the public worship of God can never be 
 dissociated from reverence for God's House — "the place 
 where His honor dwelleth," in the beautiful phrase of the 
 Psalmist. I must, therefore, say a word in regard to the 
 subject of the preparation and adornment of the church for 
 public worship. The essential thing here is to remember: 
 first, that ornament must be subordinate to use ; and second, 
 that the church is to be adorned and beautified for God's 
 honor, and not in honor of men or of women. 
 
 Ornament must be subordinated to use. There is a paral- 
 lel rule in architecture, that construction may be ornamented, 
 but that ornament must not be constructed. To illustrate 
 what I mean : the font stands in the church to. symbolize Holy 
 Baptism ; the altar stands as a continual symbol of the Holy 
 Communion. We must not change the font into a flower pot 
 by putting flowers into it, thus destroying both its symbol- 
 ism and its use. Nor must we use the Holy Table as a place 
 to put candles for illumination or flowers for ornament. 
 There may well be garlands of flowers around the font, or 
 flowers and the two candles on the re-table, but the Holy 
 Table proper should stand always unoccupied by such things, 
 as a symbol of the Holy Feast. 
 
 The Church must be beautified in God's honor, not for 
 man's. It is most important that we should remember this. 
 Some years before I became Bishop one of the best and ablest 
 of our Priests said to me that in his judgment the church 
 should be adorned at the celebration of Christian festivals in 
 honor of our Lord — but that it should not be decorated in 
 honor of men. I had not thought of that aspect of the ques- 
 tion, but it impressed me at once, and I determined from that 
 time that my parish church should be adorned and beautified 
 with flowers and other things, only with reference to the cel- 
 ebration of the Festivals of our Lord. We consecrate our 
 churches to God's service and worship. We have no right 
 then to use them to honor and glorify men. It is beyond 
 question that the dressing and ornamenting of churches for 
 weddings, and sometimes for funerals, is often carried to an 
 extravagant excess, so that the holy character of the build- 
 
25 
 
 ing and of the service is sacrificed to gratify the vanity of 
 wealthy or fashionable people. This ought not to be. If the 
 church is to be decorated for weddings or for funerals it 
 should be for all alike. The rich may exhibit their wealth 
 upon their persons and in their own homes, but the House of 
 God should be alike for all, All decoration or ornamenta- 
 tion, or preparation of the church for particular services, is 
 under the absolute control of the rector, and he should 
 appoint suitable persons to attend to it, under such rules and 
 regulations as he may appoint ; and no other persons should 
 he allowed to say what in this connection should be done. 
 And for weddings or funerals, or any other special service, 
 only such moderate and inexpensive adornment should be 
 used as can be afforded for all similar services, without refer- 
 ence to the wealth, position, or popularity of particular indi- 
 viduals. The Church should treat all Iter children alike. 
 
 I would further ask both Clergy and Laity to consider 
 seriously whether it is consistent with the reverence due to 
 the House of God, and with the terms of our solemn conse- 
 cration service, to allow the Church to be used for rehearsing 
 beforehand the details of wedding processions and the like. 
 I should like to see all such uses discontinued ; and if that 
 should mean simpler wedding services, less elaboration of 
 preparation, and less cumbersome ceremonial, I believe that 
 the gain in simplicity and reverence would justify the change 
 to all judicious minds 
 
 It remains that I should say a very few words in regard to 
 a matter more personal to certain classes of worshippers. It 
 is a traditional law of the Church, based on an explicit 
 direction of St. Paul in one of his Epietles, that women 
 should not appear at public worship with uncovered heads. 
 Unquestionably St. Paul spoke under the influence of preva- 
 lent social customs and convictions, which made it distinctly 
 immodest for a woman upon any public occasion, or in any 
 popular gathering, to appear with her head uncovered. And 
 it is also equally unquestionable that Christianity has pro- 
 duced such a change in men and in women and in society, 
 and a change for the better, that such an act does not imply, 
 and is not by any understood to imply, any want of modesty 
 at the present time. And yet fundamentally human nature 
 remains the same, and there is no radical change in us. And 
 the relation of woman to the life of man, and of the com- 
 
26 
 
 munity, does still make it becoming that she should observe a 
 guarded and reserved behaviour, especially in public, not 
 necessary in the same degree to a man ; and of that necessary 
 element of reserve and modest self restraint the covered head 
 is still beautifully significant. I am sure I carry with me the 
 sentiments of all of our people in desiring to see our women 
 and girls still observant of St. Paul's rule: that they should 
 not come to the public services of the Church with uncov- 
 ered heads. And I would add that, if this be our rule, it is 
 quite as proper that it should be observed upon the occasion 
 of public weddings in church, as upon other occasions of 
 public worship. 
 
 In this connection I have observed with much satisfaction 
 that in a number of our churches women and girls who come 
 to confirmation wear a simple white veil upon their heads. 
 This seems to be most proper and becoming, and a very 
 reasonable respect to a tradition so ancient and so universal 
 in the Christian Church. I could wish to see this custom 
 generally adopted. 
 
 I am making this letter much longer than I had intended 
 that it should be, in an effort to do something towards help- 
 ing you to a better appreciation of the law and customs of the 
 Church in the common duty of public worship. Now that 
 I draw to an end I feel how weak and feeble are my words 
 to accomplish the great work which I desire to help on. And 
 yet the Spirit and power of God may make use of very 
 poor instruments to further His work and to accomplish His 
 blessed purposes. Praying that He may use me, and that 
 He may bless my words to you to accomplish in you that 
 which may be well pleasing in His sight, I subscribe myself, 
 
 Your friend and brother, and servant for Christ's sake, 
 
 Jos. Blount Cheshire, 
 
 Bishop of North Carolina. 
 
 September 28, 1912. 
 
•s 
 
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