'We love the place, O God': a hymn of Old High piety

On a recent Sunday without duty, I attended Morning Prayer in a nearby parish. It was a fine example of low church Anglicanism: unfussy Morning Prayer Two (1662 structure, contemporary language), metrical canticles (the parish does not have a choral tradition), and a very good sermon from a lay reader, quoting Augustine and George Herbert. 

What particularly captured my thoughts and feelings regarding the service was hymn 343 from the Church of Ireland's Church Hymnal, sung after the sermon: 'We love the place, O God'. As we were singing the hymn, I reflected on how it wonderfully captured an Old High piety that was at home in this low church context (remember, Old High can be the New Low): Prayer Book, surplice and tippet, a relatively plain church building (stained glass, but no candles, no icons, no statues), said service with hymns, a solid expository sermon. 

As the hymn gathers up in thanksgiving the various ministrations experienced in the parish church - prayers, the reading and preaching of the Scriptures, the administration of Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the singing of praise - it reflects a staple of Old High, Protestant Episcopalian piety: that each of these are means of blessing, calling for "meek heart and due reverence", by which we are "led into the way of truth", aiding us to "hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life". Each of these ministrations, therefore, are to be cherished. And so, in the words of Jeremy Taylor:

Let no Preacher compare one Ordinance with another; as Prayer with Preaching, to the disparagement of either; but use both in their proper seasons, and according to appointed Order.

We might give particular attention to one verse of the hymn regarding sacramental piety. I here quote it as found in the Irish Church Hymnal:

We love your table, Lord - no place on earth so dear; for there in faith adored, we find your presence near.

Anglicans elsewhere may be thinking that Irish Anglicans have demonstrated an irritating aversion to the word 'altar', found in the usual text of the hymn:

We love thine altar, Lord ...

The original version of the hymn, however, was different. ''Altar' was introduced by another author's revision of the original, in 1861. The original was, we might argue, closer to the Irish Church Hymnal version:

We love our Father's board, Its altar steps are dear; For there in faith adored We find Thy Presence near.

Here there is, admittedly, a rather cautious use of 'altar' but, much more prominent, is the older term associated with 'Lord's Table', "board". Its homely character is better reflected, I think, in the use of 'table' in the Irish Church Hymnal version of this hymn. Also significant is how this echoes the attractive and comforting homely character of the 1662 rite. 

In addition to this, this verse also quietly embodies the modest yet fervent sacramental piety of the Prayer Book: "in faith adored", for "the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith"; "Thy presence near", for "in these holy mysteries" we "duly [receive] the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ". In celebrating this, nothing more dramatic is required of the hymn than these words. To again quote Taylor:

It was happy with Christendom, when she, in this article, retained the same simplicity which she always was bound to do in her manners and intercourse; that is, to believe the thing heartily, and not to inquire curiously; and there was peace in this article for almost a thousand years together ... Christ is present spiritually, that is, by effect and blessing; which, in true speaking, is rather the consequent of his presence than the formality. For though we are taught and feel that, yet this we profess we cannot understand; and therefore curiously inquire not.

Two other aspects of the hymn endear it to Old High piety. The hymn's author was William Bullock (b.1797), who served in the Royal Navy from when he was 15. According to the Church of Ireland's admirable Companion to Church Hymnal, Bullock, while surveying the coast of Newfoundland for the Royal Navy post-1816, and encountering settlements in the province, was "appalled by ... their lack of facilities for religious worship". He was discharged from the navy on health grounds in 1821, offered himself as a missionary under the auspices of SPG, and was ordained deacon and priest in 1822, becoming  missionary at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, in the same year. He wrote the hymn for the consecration of the small mission church in Trinity Bay in 1827.

An officer of the Royal Navy, moved by neglect of the spiritual needs of the people of Newfoundland, and a SPG missionary in British North America, building a mission church and ministering diligently to his flock, nourishing them through the ministry of Word, Prayer, and Sacrament, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. If you wanted a heart-warming example of Old High piety and witness, Bullock provides it. 

And then, of course, there is Canada. Bullock spent all of his ministry in Canada. He would, in 1847, be appointed by Bishop John Inglis - son of Charles - as curate of St. Paul's Cathedral, Halifax. In the 1860s, when Queen Victoria issued letters patent to establish a cathedral for the diocese of Nova Scotia, Bullock was appointed dean. He ministered over decades in the Atlantic Canda, 'Charles Inglis country'. Amongst those to whom he ministered may have been aged Loyalists who had settled in Newfoundland, and their descendants. His hymn, written for the consecration of a mission church in Newfoundland in 1827, can bring to mind those plain little wooden churches of  Atlantic Canada, established by Charles Inglis, in which, in quiet, prayerful simplicity, in a challenging landscape, souls were nurtured and nourished, from cradle to grave, in the Reformed Catholic way of Anglicanism.

It is a hymn to cherish, a hymn to sing with thanksgiving, both for "the house of prayer" that is the parish church, and for the Old High piety which shaped the hymn and to which it gives expression. Next time it is sung, we can reflect on William Bullock, a young officer of the Royal Navy, who saw the need for such houses of prayer and praise, Word and Sacrament, in Newfoundland, that souls would be prepared - to use the closing words of the current version - "in heaven to see your face, and with your saints adore".

(The first photograph is of St. Paul's Anglican Church, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, the successor building to that first constructed under Bullock. The second is of Old Holy Trinity, Middleton, Nova Scotia, a fine example of the simple churches first constructed in Atlantic Canada under Inglis. Historian Brian McConnell has provided a wonderful history of this particular church.)