The purpose of this Centenary Congress is to give thanks to Almighty God for the Catholic Revival in the Episcopal Church and throughout the Anglican Communion, to bear witness before the world to the faith and worship of the Church, and to seek together God's grace and guidance, that his Kingdom may come and His will be done on earth as in heaven.
The year of grace, 1933, marks an epoch in the history of Anglican Christianity. What is meant by the word epoch? Webster defines it as "a point of time from which succeeding years are numbered." If, then, we recognize this year as an epoch in our religious history, it means that it is a time of new beginnings, of renewed consecration to a great cause, a new obligation of ourselves, body and soul, to the work of forwarding the Faith of our Lord Christ.
But every such period of time has, of necessity, its roots in the past. We are what we are, we are able to go on to fresh labours and conquests, because of what has gone before. One hundred years ago on July 14, John Keble preached in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, a sermon at the opening of the Assize courts, taking as his subject the peril of National Apostacy from God. This has been always regarded as the beginning of the Oxford Revival. In the United States, as Dr. Hardy has shown in his brochure, "The History of the Catholic Revival in America," the beginning of the Movement antedated this event in England, but the impulse received from the Mother-Church seems to have been necessary in order to make the Movement really move, and we are well content to join with our English brethren in dating the practical start of the Catholic revival from that memorable July day at Oxford.
In every part of the world during this present year there have been celebrations of this hundredth anniversary of the greatest religious awakening the western Church has known in many centuries. We have seen the Anglo-Catholic Congress in London, [7/8] with the many allied celebrations in every part of Great Britain. In South Africa and Australia, and in every portion of the far-flung Anglican world, men of all types of Churchmanship have united in honouring the fathers of the Oxford Movement. In this commemoration, barriers across which men have fought for a century have been swept away, and every school of religious thought now conspires to praise those who a generation ago were persecuted, and hunted from parish to parish.
It is thankworthy that those who were martyrs within the memory of many living men, have at last come into their own. But as the Principal of Cuddesdon Theological College points out in a recent essay, there is another side to the matter. The "guarded benedictions" which are now pronounced upon the Fathers of the Catholic Revival, are possible because many have learned, unhappily, to tolerate that which they believe to be denials of the pure Gospel of Christ, and many who have no spiritual kinship with the Movement are ready to praise it because they think, after all, the faith does not matter. However, it often happens with human nature that what it tolerates it learns to love. Whether the thing be good or evil, men "first endure, then pity, then embrace." God the Holy Spirit, without doubt, often works in this way to bring men to a knowledge of the truth.
But, unfortunately, in certain quarters Catholics are expected to take a like attitude, and we are asked to condone what we believe to be denials of the faith. We are asked to say that, after all, the Modernist has his contribution to make, as has also the Evangelical. We gladly agree to this; there never has been any form of error that did not contain some modicum of truth which could [8/9] be rescued from its environment and placed in the right setting. But we are told that we should be liberal, and take the position that the three "parties" have an equal place in the Catholic Church, each having a contribution to make; but, as Principal Graham points out, "We cannot accept the partition theory which has been outlined. For Catholicism is not an element in Christianity: rather it is Christianity at its richest and fullest. There is no element of positive value, in any truly Christian school of thought, which is alien to Catholicism and disqualified from finding a place in Catholic thought and life . . . . Catholicism necessarily includes all the positive values . . . . but it sets them in a fuller context and so conserves them in a more just proportion."*
I have seen nowhere a saner or truer definition of what the Movement is "in the eyes of those who are proud to own allegiance to it" than that given by Principal Graham, and in our American centennial celebration of the launching of this great work of Catholic revival, we would do well to keep it in mind. He says: "They regard it not merely as a pillar of ancient tradition, however valuable, not merely as a teacher of the art of public worship, but as a truly Catholic revival; a presentation of the Christian Faith and Life in its fulness--a fulness which combines things old and new, and leaves room for further progress under the guidance of the Spirit of truth." If we are really Catholics, we shall not have to levy tribute on anything save the traditional Catholic interpretation of Christian Truth, adapting it logically and legitimately to the changing needs of the times. Just because the Faith and practice of the Church is Catholic, it must, of necessity, embrace all truth.
[10] Realizing, then, what our heritage is, and how that heritage lays upon us a solemn duty as to the future, let us go back to our consideration of the word epoch,--"a point of time from which succeeding years are numbered." This anniversary is not an occasion for self-congratulation, not a time for the mere contemplation of past victories in the fruits of which we rejoice, but rather is it preeminently an opportunity for a deeper consecration of our energies to the setting forth of the Faith once delivered to the saints; for a renewed proclamation of war against all that would assault and hurt the souls of men, a building up of ourselves and all those whom we can influence, in our most holy Faith. It is time for the organization of new campaigns, in order that those who come after us may enter into our labours as we have entered into labours of those who went before. The year 1833 marked an epoch; we date our blessings in the Church from it. Will Catholics a hundred years from now look back to this year as to a new epoch, one from which they can date the multiplied blessings which they will enjoy because we have been faithful and true?
In this warfare there is no possibility of failure provided we yield ourselves whole-heartedly to the guiding of Him who dwells and works within us in the plentitude of His omnipotence. When a century ago Mr. Keble said in his historic sermon that he who devoted himself to the cause of the apostolic Church "would sooner or later be on the winning side, and the victory would be complete, universal and eternal," he was stating nothing new or startling. It was a natural and inescapable truth. Yielding ourselves to His Spirit, [11/12] failure will be impossible, unless Satan be stronger than God.
SHIRLEY CARTER HUGHSON, O.H.C.
* "The Moral Ideals and Aims of the Movement," by Eric Graham, in "Northern Catholicism," edited by N. P. Williams and C. Harris.
Executive Committee
Central Conference of Associated
Catholic PriestsREVEREND SHIRLEY C. HUGHSON, O.H.C., Chairman
REVEREND CHARLES C. EDMUNDS, D.D.
REVEREND GRANVILLE M. WILLIAMS, S. S. J. E.
REVEREND FRANK DAMROSCH, JR.
REVEREND DONALD H. MORSE
REVEREND FREDERICK T. HENSTRIDGE
REVEREND FRANK L. VERNON, D. D.
REVEREND MORTON A. BARNES
REVEREND GEORGE W. ATKINSON, D .D.
REVEREND WILLIAM A. MCCLENTHEN, D. D.
REVEREND LOUIS B. HOWELL
REVEREND FRANKLIN JOINER
REVEREND MALCOME DEP. MAYNARD
REVEREND JULIAN D. HAMLIN
REVEREND W. JUSSERAND DE FOREST
REVEREND HOWARD W. PERKINS
REVEREND EDWARD R. NOBLE
REVEREND C. CLARK KENNEDY, Secretary
The Rev'd THOMAS A. SPARKS
Chairman of the Congress CommitteeCommittee on the Congress REVEREND THOMAS A. SPARKS, Chairman
REVEREND WILLIAM PITT MCCLUNE, PH.D., Vice-Chairman
REVEREND FREDERIC O. MUSSER
REVEREND ROBERT S. CHALMERS
REVEREND CHARLES L. GOMPH
REVEREND C. CLARKE KENNEDY, Secretary of the Committee and of the Congress
MR. OSBORNE A. DAY, TreasurerAssociate Committee. PROFESSOR CHAUNCEY BREWSTER TINKER, PH.D., Chairman.
REVEREND FRANKLIN JOINER, D. D., General Chairman
REVEREND WALLACE E. CONKLING, Secretary
REVEREND FRANK L. VERNON, D. D.
REVEREND EDWARD M. JEFFERYS, D. D.
REVEREND GILBERT E. PEMBER
REVEREND CARL I. SHOEMAKER
REVEREND FRANCIS B. ROSEBORO
REVEREND JOHN MOCKRIDGE, D.D.
REVEREND HENRY C. MITCHELL
REVEREND WILLIAM I. EDWARDS
REVEREND FRANK WILLIAMSON, JR.
REVEREND LEICESTER C. LEWIS, PH.D.
REVEREND ALEXANDER N. KEEDWELL
REVEREND ROBERT CORNELL
REVEREND FRANCIS F. BLAKE
REVEREND GEOFFREY M. HORSFIELD
REVEREND ROBERT C. HUBBS
REVEREND WILLIAM T. METZ
REVEREND G. HERBERT DENNISON
REVEREND HOWARD W. FULWEILER
REVEREND ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES
REVEREND WILLIAM P. S. LANDER
REVEREND ALFRED C. ARNOLD
REVEREND CARROLL L. BATES
REVEREND VINCENT F. POTTLE
REVEREND CHARLES L. STEEL
REVEREND JAMES C. THOMAS
REVEREND CHARLES JARVIS HARRIMANLaymen's Committee The Honorable Clinton Rogers Woodruff, Chairman
Mr. Alexander C. Groome, Secretary
Mr. John S. Newbold
Mr. Lawrence J. Morris
Mr. Samuel F. Houston
Mr. G. Lewis Mayer
Mr. Edmund B. McCarthy
Mr. George K. Crozer, Jr.
Mr. Stanley G. Flagg
Mr. Horace W. Sellers
Mr. E. Osborne Coates
Mr. J. Hartley Merrick
Mr. John P. B. Sinkler
Mr. Spencer Ervin
Mr. William J. Dickson
Mr. C. Fenno Hoffman
Mr. Edward B. Clay
Mr. Thomas B. Stockham
Mr. Frederic R. Leidy
Mr. Francis D. W. Lukens
Mr. Charles P. Maule
Mr. John Van Pelt
Mr. Sheldon P. Ritter
Mr. Frank R. Watson
Mr. John B. Mulford
Mr. William R. Talbot
Mr. F. Cooper Pullman
Mr. Samuel H. Chase
Mr. Harold H. D. Balbirnie
Mr. James R. Hughes
Mr. William Rommel
Mr. Reed A. Morgan
Mr. James R. Hughes
Mr. E. Leroy Van Roden
Mr. William J. Dickson
Mr. Charles P. Maule
Mr. William Rommel
Mr. E. Leroy Van Roden
Mr. Murray H. Spahr, Jr.
Mr. Alexander C. Groome
Mr. John L. Evans
Mr. Malcolm S. Huey
Mr. G. Lewis Mayer
Mr. George R. Bedinger
Mr. J. Vaughan Merrick
Mr. E. Osborne Coates
Mr. John B. Mulford
Dr. J. Norman Henry
Gen. William G. Price
Dr. Burton Chance
Mr. J. Vaughan Merrick,
Dr. Frank B. Gummey
Dr. William H. Jefferys
Mr. John B. Mulford