CHAPTER XV
RITES, CEREMONIES AND BELIEFS

I

BEFORE Frank went to Africa in 1898, he wrote on the flyleaf of my Bible:

Priests are called to be points of contact between God and the suffering world. Their hands stretched out to heal with soothing touch men's feverish souls, their hearts consecrated to be havens of refuge for the weary and fainting, must alike be pierced. If we can at best reproduce the Crucifix in miniature, let us at least be correct in the details.

Again and again has been noted Frank's insistence on our having fellowship in Christ's sufferings; and this insistence on details is also characteristic. He was always a tidy man. Hegongo might be destitute of luxury, but everything was in its place. He hated disorder of any sort, and disorder can only be avoided by method and an attention to details. As worship is man's highest act, so it should be rendered with most care. Frank was a born ritualist and he took an unflagging interest in ceremonial. He was not particularly interested in its origin or history, he desired that it should be appropriate, dignified and at times splendid.

In 1903 he wrote to me while on a visit to the mainland:

Easter Day! But not a nice Easter--For why?

The paten was only the size of a big host, and I had to get forty-two wafers cut in half on to it! That nearly did for me. Then the chalice was far too small and I had to consecrate a second time--and our Mission is rich in chalices! I did not mind a red vestment, no Easter hymn, no incense--I ain't a Protestant ceremonialist!--but I do bar unnecessary irreverence!

I do not know what he meant by a Protestant ceremonialist, but Frank, when he was home, was certainly no stickler for any particular use. He was ready to celebrate in churches of many types, and was scrupulous in conforming to their respective usages. One of his staff who travelled with him to Africa in 1920 tells me that there were several C.M.S. missionaries on board the ship. When Sunday came round they proposed that there should be two services, but Frank would not hear of it. He celebrated himself and in such a way that the most prejudiced C.M.S. clergyman was not shocked. He preached at the official service and attended the C.M.S. prayer meetings. Before the ship reached Mombasa, he and the C.M.S. missionaries were friends.

He could always get on with devout evangelicals, for he was so essentially evangelical himself. He looked forward to the time when the boundaries of his diocese and Mombasa should be rectified, and always maintained that he could quite easily manage the C.M.S. missionaries without disturbing or distressing them. On the Articles of the Faith he was as adamant, he was intolerant if you like; but he had a sense of proportion. He was also ardent in defence of his own opinions, but he was long-suffering with those who differed from him, though sometimes puzzled by their not seeing what to him was obvious. In 1922 he wrote to the present Bishop of Hereford:

No 1 We don't see eye to eye, but I believe we both look at the same Master and mean to follow Him. The odd thing is, He seems to expect loyalty from each of us to some different conception of His Will. At that we must leave it.

II

The hard and simple life of self-denial was for him an ideal; and he agreed with the sixteenth century reformers in the stress they laid on fasting; but he had the sense to see how the conditions of life have changed in England, and how different they have always been in Africa. After his first Synod he issued directions both for Europeans and Africans, with maximum and minimum rules, about fasting. They were based on the Book of Common Prayer, but contained very liberal dispensations for Europeans. These rules, however, did not satisfy him. He wanted Europeans and Africans to share, as far as possible, a common religious life. He wanted also his rules to be obeyed, and not to be like those of the reformers, everywhere disregarded. In consequence he issued new directions, making few demands but requiring them to be observed. In 1919 he wrote to his mother:

We are trying to keep Lent this year by Fridays of prayer and fasting. We have ten fast days a year, with fasting from midnight to 3 P.M. and public praying--which if a man keep he is dispensed from the hundred and something days of the Church of England. We keep seven Fridays in Lent and three Wednesday Ember days outside Lent. So far they have approved themselves. I allow one drink during the fast, so it be not alcoholic, in case people can't get on without a cup of tea. I am keeping the fast as I write. It is odd how difficult it is to keep one's head clear on an empty stomach. However, we have at length reached the fasting which Europeans and Africans can do in common--which is great! No man is forbidden to fast all Lent, except Europeans--rather, they are told that it is a good sacrifice to make: but I confess I am not keen on the forty days fast as Africans keep it--total fast till evening--for it is just the Moslem fast and they will make up for it at night unless carefully watched.

III

Frank was not musical; but he was keenly alive to the importance of music as an aid to worship. In 1906 he wrote to me:

Magila music is that of the tenth century: the setting to which the British Museum religion is performed in Dearmer-like churches. The small boys sing it: persons of years endure it: Father J. lives for it. Korogwe clings fast to Anglicans: or what they remember of Fr. K.'s Anglicans; but he will soon be back to remind them of the truth. Bishop Hine (who wants everything to be quite African) is pledged to J.'s tenth century religion.

I smiled when I read this, and Bishop Hine may smile also, for Frank came round to his opinion. One of the last things he did was to write a preface to a music book containing a simple and easy form of a plainsong Mass printed in tonic sol fa notation. This he commended to all his priests and urged that it should be adopted as the common use of the diocese.

He tried very hard to learn the parts he had to sing. He had a MS. music book which he carried about on his travels. When he had also for a companion a musical priest, he would practise in camp at night, and the musical priest assures me that it was a sufficient protection against wild beasts. None the less, by unceasing efforts he managed to master his parts, although until the end he had his good and bad days, and continued to envy 'the knaves with tenor voices' and an aptitude for song.

IV

Soon after becoming Bishop, Frank constituted a committee for a revision of the Swahili Hymn Book, in which introits and antiphons for special days were authorised. One of these antiphons, which had been in the book since the days of Bishop Richardson, seemed only to be consistent with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. To it certain members of the staff objected, and Frank promised that it should be suppressed; but he was constantly on journeys, while the printing-press remained stationary at Zanzibar. Through some misunderstanding, or more probably through his forgetful-ness, the antiphon appeared, and Frank had a most unpleasant correspondence with a member of his staff.

Frank had a great devotion to our Lady, and both believed and taught that she was free from actual sin. Whether he believed also in the Immaculate Conception 1 cannot say, but he would certainly have claimed the right to hold the doctrine as a pious opinion. I remember that he was studying the subject during his first furlough and drawing up arguments for and against. He had not then arrived at a conclusion; but from the way in which the arguments were drafted, I had little doubt what the conclusion was likely to be.

The long history of the controversy from the days of St. Bernard meant very little to Frank. He had not the historic sense and was very little interested in origins or development. He accepted the Catholic Faith as a coherent body of belief, he verified its value in experience, and it seemed to him that it covered and interpreted the facts of life. So, in examining a new doctrine, he had only to investigate its congruity with what he already believed; was it in line with, and did it fit in with, the system he had accepted? Coherence and congruity are very valuable tests of truth, too much neglected by many Anglican theologians; but the history of how beliefs have originated and developed is also important, and it is necessary to confirm one's own experience by the wider experience of the Church. Otherwise a man is in danger of accepting facts for which there is no evidence, and of constructing a system of theology which is closed against new knowledge and cannot be brought into relation with new ways of thinking. It is from the divorce in the Church of Rome between theology and history that Modernism has arisen. Men claimed, as theologians, that they could have faith in facts which, as historians, they did not believe to have happened. Frank was fierce enough against Modernism, and he was fully aware of the value of facts; but he was naturally an abstract thinker: he had too great faith in logic, and perhaps too great an appreciation of the highly articulated system of Latin theology.

V

It will be remembered that in the early days at Mazizini he had introduced Benediction into the Students' chapel, but had abandoned it on going to Kiungani because he was not sure about its theological justification. He of course retained the tabernacle and encouraged everyone to visit it.

But theologians at home whom he respected, like Dr. Gore and Professor Scott Holland, did not agree with him, and it was because of the controversy in England that he wrote God with Us.

The book was composed during the War, and, like all Frank's books, was written in a great hurry. It is not easy to read, and there is much in it at which a critic might cavil. On the other hand, it would be sufficient in itself to establish Frank's right to be regarded as an original thinker. Moreover it is not merely a defence, or a controversial pamphlet, but it is a constructive essay in theology, worthy of study by those who are not immediately concerned with devotions before the tabernacle.

The book is a study of the extension of the Incarnation, and Frank begins by distinguishing between the Christ Who is within us by the power of His Spirit uniting us with God, and the Christ without us on the throne of His Glory Who calls us to progress and is the object of our adoration. He insists on the necessity of maintaining the balance of these contrasted conceptions of His Presence. The Blessed Sacrament is where they meet. There we receive Christ within us, there we worship Christ above us, there through the Spirit we offer the Sacrifice of Christ to the Father, and there we realise the corporate significance of our faith through communion with all other members of Christ's mystical Body, the Church. This is possible because God became man and His manhood was sacrificed on our behalf. In His humanity, His Body and Blood, our manhood is redeemed, the Church is constituted, and we can attain to God. But His humanity is not ubiquitous as Luther taught. It is in heaven at God's right hand, but He wills to make that Presence known to us in the Blessed Sacrament. It is the place where we who are limited to places can meet with God. But is this Presence only focused for us at the moment of communion, so that we may think of the consecration of the elements as conditional on our reception of them? This, Frank argues, is to destroy the balance of our thought about the Christ within us and without, and would lead to a purely subjective religion. The devout communicant, conscious of the grace that he has received, comes to the tabernacle that he may give thanks to the Giver, and our Lord from the throne of His Glory still condescends to be with men in the Sacrament. He disposed very easily of a theory which he ascribed to Bishop Gore; and which I, for my part, do not believe the Bishop holds. He showed equally clearly that he was in no danger of the many pitfalls pointed out by Professor Scott Holland. That Professor, however, could have replied: 'Yours is no real answer to my objections. I do not accuse you of the errors which I foresee may arise from the practices you commend. I am thinking of the misconceptions of ill-instructed people, and I know that in the past such misconceptions have arisen.' I do not know what answer Frank could have made to this, for he himself insisted on balanced thought, and unreservedly condemned the worship of the Sacrament, and the language of people who spoke of taking the Lord out of the church. Perhaps there was little or no difference between the theology of Frank and his distinguished opponents, only they were more conscious than he was of dangers which all would wish to avoid.

In 1916 he and his diocese agreed that, in view of the controversy at home, they should exercise for a time a self-denying ordinance and not introduce Benediction. A year later he saw his way to license 'Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament as opposed to Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament.'

It was not until 1919, when there was a chance of an East African Province, that he concluded it would be better to license Benediction before that province was formed lest provincial action should for ever debar it. He, however, expressly forbade the devotion in any church without a licence in his own handwriting, and the licence detailed the occasions when it might take place, and forbade any hymns or devotions except those addressed to the Lord Himself.

First, it may be noted that Frank was quite unimpressed by those who argued that the Devotion was a novelty and purely Roman. He answered: ' Some new things may be good, and we owe many good things to the Roman Church.'

Secondly, it must be remembered that in his Defence of the English Catholic, 1923, he admitted that the introduction of Benediction into a Church demanded caution, though he added: ' In my own diocese we are accustomed to it. We do not find it dangerous, because our people are, on the whole, regular at Mass and Communion, and really believe in God.'

VI

If Frank believed in the reality of our Lord's Presence in the Eucharist, he believed also in the manifestation of Christ through the members of His Body, and had a lively faith in the Communion of Saints. He could not understand the exclusiveness of some Anglicans who would restrict that communion to those living on the earth. For Frank the other world was as real as, perhaps more real than, this. For him heaven was no far away place above the bright blue sky, but this world was everywhere interpenetrated byv,spirit, and the holy souls were not far away. In communion with our Lord, he believed that he was also in communion with just men made perfect; and he asked for the prayers of saints as he asked for the prayers of his friends. He asked for the prayers of the saints with more confidence, for they were nearer to the throne of God and in more perfect conformity with the Will of our Lord. He was scandalised when the late Bishop of St. Albans inhibited a clergyman because he invoked saints, and, as we have seen, this act was one of the three reasons why he wrote his Open Letter asking, 'What does the Ecclesia Anglicana stand for?'

At the same time he was not unaware of past abuses in the cultus of Saints, but he thought they could be guarded against and would not recur. So he wrote in God with Us:

The wisest course for a missionary bishop is to steer clear of the evident pitfalls revealed in the past. He will teach his people, and lead them to practise just as much devotion to the saints as they can combine with a living sense of Christ indwelling the mystical Body, the Church. And he will forbid, and by all means prevent, such devotion as lays stress upon the personalities of the saints as against the dominant indwelling of the Christ within His holy ones.

This by itself is unsatisfactory, because we can only be inspired to love and confidence by personalities, and it is the distinction in their personalities which renders one saint or the other sympathetic to our needs, and therefore our natural advocate with God. But in his next paragraph Frank makes his meaning clearer when he speaks of the danger arising from individualism:

The individualist too often neglects Christ in the saints. Sometimes he forgets the saints altogether, and sometimes he exalts them, in his own interest, to the dishonour of Christ. Either way he is his own centre, worshipping the person who best serves his own advantage.

Frank would have nothing to do with invocation of the saints for the purpose of satisfying some temporal wish or avoiding some special danger. Saints are dishonoured when they are treated as genii or mascots. They are powerful intercessors because of their own victories over sin and their union with the Saviour, and they are helpful to Christian pilgrims because each of them in some unique way reflects or interprets the Jesus of the Gospels.

VII

He was no doubt at one with the Western Church as to the lawfulness of images, but he did not care for the Crib at Christmas, perhaps for the reason stated by Papini--that it does not bring home to children the poverty of our Lord's estate. He did not favour the introduction of images into the churches, for he knew what an obstacle they were to the conversion of Mohammedans in Zanzibar. He knew also that images were used in the witchcraft of the mainland; and perhaps he objected to them the more, because they represented beings of a European type, and were therefore unsuitable for an African Church.

He was never tired of reminding Europeans that they would have called the Syrian Christ a coloured man; but he was not going to create a colour bar in the African's approach to Jesus. He was never anxious, like some silly people at home, to prove how Catholic he was. He was only intent through the Catholic Faith and Catholic Ordinances to win souls for the Lord. It was just because he so loved our Lord, and had such a solicitude for souls that he cared for each detail by which God's name might be hallowed, and men might be edified.

VIII

He was distressed by the lack of uniformity in saying Mass, and this was the less excusable because there were no doctrinal differences in the diocese. Some freely farced the Liturgy in the Prayer Book, some omitted or substituted prayers. Some claimed the authority of the Western use, some quoted the dicta of the Alcuin Club, but all did what was right in their own eyes Frank saw but one way out of the confusion and that was by introducing the use of Zanzibar. Such a use, having the authority of the Synod, would be obligatory upon all.

He wanted a ritual and ceremonial which could be taught and carefully explained to African ordinands. He wanted a Liturgy which should be one and the same in every part of the diocese, so that he could shift priests easily from, one place to another as necessity required, without disturbing congregations. He believed in the jus liturgicum of bishops.

While in Zanzibar during the War, he worked hard at his new Swahili Liturgy and Prayer Book; and in 1917 he summoned his available clergy to Msalabani to discuss the result. Just before the meeting he wrote to his mother:

The clergy and I are not quite of one mind about the new Mass I want for the Africans, and for the abolition of the many ways of saying Mass which English priests bring out with them. Add to this the Archbishop is a little anxious! However, if the clergy assemble this week we shall talk it all over. Some of them feel, quite naturally, that it is a big order for one bishop to adapt other liturgies and make one new one, and people at home have driven this into their heads. They all fail to see that, as they say Mass, they adapt two liturgies at least every day, one of which they say most quietly. Hardly anyone in the English Church says the Prayer Book only: they nearly all add some private prayers, and our school of thought take those prayers from other liturgies. All I have done is to print an adaptation of Prayer Book and older liturgies, very simple and easy, all to be said aloud, with no private additions by this man or that, and with ceremonies the same for everyone. It would be a priceless boon! However, it may have to wait till I persuade some more bishops to join with me; but in any case I hope to get one uniform use for us all--no difference between priest and priest.

The rest of the Prayer Book I've finished. It's revised according to our local needs: it is very nice indeed. Some day I'll get it out in English, but not yet.

When the clergy met, they were converted at once to his views of uniformity, but they did not approve of what he called 'My Mass.' He then submitted to their choice (a) his Mass, (b) the Book of Common Prayer, (c) the 1549 Mass, (d) the Latin Mass translated, or (d) one of these Masses, altered and added to in accordance with African needs, by a liturgical committee chosen for the purpose. Whichever was selected was to be said without alterations or additions and was to be formally sanctioned and authorised by the Synod.

The clergy decided for the last of his suggestions and the committee got to work at once, so that some eighteen months later he was able to write to me:

Our new prayer book, into which much labour has gone, you will not be able to read! (Poor dear, not to know the Bantu's babble!) The new Mass is in every way satisfying; and it is an immeasurable gain to have the whole diocese endeavouring to observe the same rubrics! It is 1549 adapted, with Rome supplying the priest's prayers: much as I suppose a 'Catholic' in 1549 said the new service (tho' I spex he was called a papist or some such nasty term). The rest of the book is, I think, all right: tho' there is more Rome in it than Convocation (including your reverence) would approve.

On this Liturgy I cannot express an opinion, being still unacquainted with ' the Bantu's babble,' but I am told that it is very simple and straightforward, and very congregational. All of it is to be said aloud, and all who assist are required to take their part, even to the saying of the Our Father in the Canon.

It was accepted by the Synod, and the one place where it met with any opposition was in the Cathedral Church of Zanzibar. Therefore, before the change took place, Frank called the congregation together and explained the new service. A good many questions were asked, and some were inclined to heckle their Bishop, but Frank took it all in good part. Then, taking advantage of the Bishop's patience, one ex-teacher became rude and offensive. Frank immediately closed the meeting and walked out of the room. The priest-in-charge hastened after him full of apologies, but Frank only smiled, saying: 'Don't bother, I know Carlo. I taught him at Kiungani. It was the best thing that could have happened. Now you will see that the congregation will ask me to introduce my changes at once'; and they did.

IX

Frank may or may not have been a liturgical scholar, but he had a liturgical sense and was neither an antiquarian nor a pedant. He neither wished to approximate as near as possible to the Western use, nor to revive the use which was in England before the Reformation. He was not prejudiced against the book of 1662, nor did he consider it incomparable. All he wanted to do was to provide his Africans, and the African Church of the future, with a prayer book that should be Catholic and at the same time adapted to the needs and comprehension of those who should use it. For the disputes about ritual that take place in England he had something that was nearly approaching to contempt. He thought no care was wasted that would ensure the proper and reverent rendering of the simplest ceremony. He hated what was slovenly and was irritated by confusion. In his own diocese he wanted an ordered uniformity, and he deprecated all chatter about what was, or was not, Catholic. In his last speech in England in 1923, he said:

Some, I think, hang back [from joining the Mission] because they have a sort of idea that Zanzibar diocese is rather like (shall we say?) the Society of SS. Peter and Paul's shop, or the Art and Book Company's shop. Ladies and gentlemen, Zanzibar diocese is more innocent of ecclesiastical talk than any place on the face of the earth. We have got a standard measure by which we measure priests who come into the diocese. We expect them to be Catholic-minded in the general sense of the word. They must be absolutely ready to carry out the instructions of the Bishop in Synod. We have our own ordered way of praying in Church; but if you want 'Spikery,' don't come to Zanzibar. We are so much up against fundamentals that we have no time for silly talk. I want priests to understand that Zanzibar diocese is quite human and quite healthy. I can guarantee that they will have a large amount of intellectual freedom within the limits of the Catholic Faith; and if they are prepared quite loyally to conform with the Synod, and the Liturgy as given in Synod, and to sacrifice little personal opinions on the comparative value of the ceremonies of the old Sarum rite, and the ceremonies of the Western rite, and the ceremonies of the British Museum rite, I can guarantee them a really happy time.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XV

Perhaps it would be most interesting to English readers to know about the simple services and daily round in little mud churches on the mainland, but it is just what is customary that no one describes. On the other hand, Miss D. Y. Mills has described a baptism at Korogwe and a midnight Mass at Masasi, while Archdeacon Swainson has given us full particulars about an Ordination.

A BAPTISM AT KOROGWE, 1921

The baptisms were at 4.30. By 4 o'clock the men's side of the church was packed with grown men and youths--there is no boarding school. The women were arriving slowly, very many of them with babies on their backs and some with a small toddler clinging to their garments, all of them slipping into their places in orderly rows till their side also was fairly full.

The font, like a huge tank at the west end, was open and filled with water: on either side were ranged the candidates--fifteen women and thirty-three men, a dark mass clothed in dark garments, with a look of expectation on their faces.

The Bishop stood facing the altar with Padre Maddocks and the two African priests, Padres Arthur Mbezi and Benjamin Mwelondo, the cross-bearer and servers.

One by one, in perfect silence and with perfect reverence the candidates came forward with their witnesses, passed down the steps on the north side into the deep water and, kneeling down, plunged three times under it, received their new names and the sign of their redemption, and going up the steps on the opposite side passed through the south door to change their garments.

The voice of the Bishop, plainly audible as again and again he repeated the saving words, was the only sound that broke the great silence.

When the last candidate had been 'plunged 'neath the saving tide,' the Bishop and his attendants moved to a small white-draped table half-way up the aisle and paused facing the west side. Then the white-robed throng poured in and stood in rows before him, while Padre Maddocks lighted the tapers from a candle on the table and passed them to the Bishop, who handed them one by one to the candidates, saying these words to each as they came forward to take them: 'Receive this candle as a symbol of the grace of your baptism: hold fast the commandments of God, that, when the Lord shall come, you will be accepted by Him and with all His saints enter His everlasting Kingdom.'

The church was getting dark, and as each candidate took his little torch, slowly, slowly the lights grew in number till the whole of the west end was lighted up. The beautiful symbolism of this part of the ceremony was very striking. Sparks from the Light of Life Who came to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles, may they each be a light shining through the darkness to lead others to that Light.

So the great ceremony came to an end, and the long white-robed procession, singing the hymn 'Glory be to Jesus' (one they all knew by heart), walked up the aisle and for the first time took their places among their Christian brothers and sisters.

The next morning they were all confirmed by the Bishop before the High Mass at which they were present.

A MIDNIGHT MASS AT MASASI ON CHRISTMAS EVE, 1921

It was a pitch-dark night, and the rough road, awful hill and bridges were terrifying to me! But with the help of three lanterns, a long pole and a friendly arm this appalling walk was safely accomplished and then--the whole of the lower part of the church was in darkness, but the high altar, snow-white in a very plain frontal, touched with gold, gleamed mystically among its many lights; and each group of worshippers, as they stole noiselessly in, brought with them a hurricane lamp, till presently the floor was starred with light. I never in my life before saw so many hurricane lamps! Then the long procession with lights and banners, singing hymn 56 A. & M., wound slowly, slowly round the church, filling it with light and colour and the sweet fragrance of incense. Then the stately service began, sung throughout without any accompaniment.

There are some very sweet voices among the boys, and one man had a beautiful bass like a great bell. I am no judge of music, but it seemed to me that there was a freedom and a ring in the singing which was very uplifting.

Mingling with the worship, the singing and the prayers, surging on one's memory came the thoughts of all that had gone before. The brilliant hopes, the disastrous failures, the heroic efforts and achievements, the lives given and the lives laid down for Him Whose Birthday we were gathered to celebrate, Who inspired it all and still inspires, Emmanuel, God with us. We know that though we are still a little flock in the midst of heathen darkness, it is the Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom.

AN ORDINATION AT MASASI, 1924

Sunday, March 23, was the Ordination day. The Bishop sang Pontifical High Mass from his throne. Archdeacon Mackay and Padre Kolumba were deacons of the throne; Archdeacon Lewin was assistant priest; Padre Obed, deacon; and Padre Silwano, sub-deacon, with Reader Petro Hamisi as M.C. The church was absolutely packed when the service started at 7.45. The Sacred Ministers were taken in procession to the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where they met the Bishop and escorted him to his throne, which had been placed in the chancel on the north side of the high altar. The other priests had taken up their position on the south side. As soon as the Bishop was seated, the five psalms of preparation for Holy Communion were recited, during which the Bishop was vested in tunic, dalmatic and chasuble, and all the other garments which are required for such a ceremony. The vesting finished, the Bishop preached, explaining in quite simple language to the people the meaning of vocation to the Sacred Ministry. The service then proceeded as usual to the Epistle, after which Yusuf Machinga was presented by the Archdeacon of Ruvuma. After the usual questions he received the laying on of hands, a N.T. and a chalice, and was clothed in a cloth of gold dalmatic. At the singing of the Veni Creator all the priests had formed a semicircle round the Bishop, and as each deacon was ordained priest, each priest came forward in order of seniority and joined in the laying on of hands. The new priests received a Bible, a chalice and paten, and each was clothed in a chasuble. Just before the laying on of hands, so that all might see, the Bishop ordered those in the front to sit down, those in the middle to kneel, and those at the back to stand. After their ordination the two new priests, Padre Isaya Mpelumbe and Padre Harry Dennis, said the Canon of the Mass together with the Bishop. There were about 120 communicants.

After the Blessing the Bishop returned to his throne, and the newly ordained were brought before him to take the canonical oath of obedience, and to do obeisance to him by kissing his ring. This over, the unvesting of the Bishop took place during the saying of the Office of Thanksgiving, each vestment being placed on the high altar. Finally the Bishop was escorted back to the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, and the great service was over. It had lasted exactly two and a half hours. The servers were quite wonderful, and did their parts as though they were used to an ordination every Sunday. After the ordinations the new priests were kept busy for quite a considerable time giving their blessing to the people.

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