What did PECUSA worship look like in 1900?

In March 1900, the US publication Literary Digest provided a fascinating glimpse of life in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Noting the "marked demarcation in matters of doctrine and worship" within PECUSA, the article provided a breakdown of "the relative strength of the High-, Low-, and Broad-Church parties". High Church is defined as "not elaborate ritual alone" but also "the importance of the sacraments" and a belief "in the place of the church, as preceding the Bible, not founded upon it". Low Church is taken to mean "attach[ing] less importance to the sacraments", being "evangelical in method, and sometimes "employ[ing] extempore prayer". As for Broad Church, it refers to "the liberal constructionists, sometimes of the Bible, oftener of church practises".

Perhaps what is most significant about these introductory comments is that a Low Church, evangelical tradition is recognised as being part of PECUSA. Mindful that the Reformed Episcopal Church was founded in 1873, the continuance of a Low Church, evangelical tradition within PECUSA is worthy of note.

There are, we are told, "four dioceses in which bishop and laity, generally standing together, almost always show pronounced High Church tendencies": Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Springfield. Alongside these are nine dioceses in which "the bishop stands for more advanced ideas than do the clergy and laity under him": Albany, Vermont, Central New York, Washington, Georgia, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Arkansas, and Nebraska. "The strongholds of Low-Church folk" are Virginia and Alabama, with West Virginia and South Carolina. "The Broad-Church strength is confined" to three dioceses: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. 

Each of these three traditions within PECUSA, therefore, is understood to have a regional base in 1900: the Mid-West for the High Church, the North-East for the Broad, and the South for the Low.

Alongside High, Low, and Broad, however, is an intriguing reference to another tradition:

There are three dioceses in which the churchmanship is of the staunch sort: not high, and yet most decidely not Low. These are Georgia, Connecticut, and North Carolina.

This is a fascinating and suggestive description. When we consider that 'Low' has been defined as 'evangelical', it is possible that this refers to 'Low but not evangelical' ('Seersucker Low'?). This would, we might think, fit Georgia and North Carolina. But what of Seabury's diocese, Connecticut? Perhaps what is most likely is that the 'Low but not evangelical' Georgia and North Carolina looked very similar to the 'Old High but not ritualist' Connecticut. This, then, was the "churchmanship ... of the staunch sort" - a very pleasing description! 

In addition to providing a survey of the churchmanship of the dioceses, the Literary Digest article addressed ritual practices. The "growth of ritual", it stated, was "evident to any one whose memory of Anglican churches extends back twenty-five years". This, then, provides a marker for when ritualist practices were noticed within PECUSA: 1875. 

Four ritual practices are explored: robed choirs, altar lights, incense, and "colored vestments for the clergy". It is not clear whether the latter description refers to the chasuble or can also be taken to refer to the stole with the surplice. Perhaps the fact that this is not made clear is itself significant, suggesting that the stole could carry the same connotations as the chasuble.

With 1875 as the marker for when ritual practices were introduced into PECUSA, the article summarises how this occurred: 

Twenty-five years ago, one of the first ritual tendencies to develop was that in favor of vested choirs. Eight or ten years later came altar lights, and a few years later still, incense and colored vestments for the clergy.

An approximate timeline, therefore, would be robed choirs 1875, altar lights 1885, incense and vestments 1890. This would indicate that PECUSA worship in 1870 was broadly that found in the early decades of the 19th century.

How widespread were these ritual practices in 1900? The article provides a table, numbering the "leading [PECUSA] churches" in various cities and indicating in how many of these the various practices were to be found. 

377 churches in 16 cities are found in the table. 60% had robed choirs. Amongst the cities, however, there was considerable divergence. While 42 of 65 churches in New York had robed choirs, it was only 6 of 26 in Baltimore. Nor should we overlook divergence within the same city. 48 of 87 churches in Philadelphia had robed choir, meaning that a hefty 45% of PECUSA churches in the city did not have such choirs. 

29% of the PECUSA churches in these cities had altar lights. In other words, albeit with much regional diversity, a very significant majority of such churches did not have altar lights. What is more, in some cities, the practice was not found in any of the churches: Atlanta, Hartford (testimony to Connecticut's Old High tradition), and Pittsburg. Only two cities, Newark and Indianapolis, had a majority of churches with altar lights - 7 of 13 and 2 of 3, respectively. In all other cities, such churches were a minority. This ranged from 47% in Chicago, 40% in New York, 33% in Philadelphia, 28% in Boston, 17% in Washington, and only 1 of Rochester's 9 churches. 

Incense was, as we would expect, the practice of a very small minority, found in only 7% of these city churches. In 6 of the cities, no churches used incense. The highest figures were New York, in which it was 7 of 65 churches, and Boston, 4 of 25. 

Vestments were worn in 11% of these city churches. In 5 cities - Atlanta, Hartford, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, and Rochester - vestments were found in no churches. In the cities with the largest number of Episcopal churches, New York and Philadelphia, it was 14% and 10%. In Boston, it was 20%; in Brooklyn, 5%.

Even with the significant changes in ritual within PECUSA in the last quarter of the 19th century, it remained the case that a large minority of these city churches did not have robed choirs; most did not have altar lights; only a very small minority used incense; and the traditional Anglican surplice, rather than vestments, remained the norm in the vast majority of these churches. 

This being so, it is clear that earlier 19th century norms, while no longer universal within PECUSA, were still remarkably healthy in 1900. Even allowing for regional variations, it remained the case that the traditional norms of PECUSA worship continued to have a very significant presence in most cities at the beginning of the 20th century. If one desired a church without a robed choir and without altar lights, such could easily be found in most of these cities. In those churches with robed choirs and altar lights, it is clear that a significant majority did not use vestments. All of which points to the 20th century as being the era in which the ritual character of PECUSA worship fundamentally changed, moving to universal altar lights, with eucharistic vestments becoming normative. 

To put it another way, it is the not the Victorians who are to blame for these ritual changes becoming standard in PECUSA. A considerable narrowing of liturgical traditions, particularly the loss of the liturgical norms of an older, classical Anglicanism, took place within PECUSA in the 20th century.

Likewise, the presence of a strong evangelical tradition in PECUSA of 1900 also highlights how this was lost, not with the emergence of REC, but in the 20th century. Losing this evangelical constituency has, surely, contributed to a weakening Episcopalian cultural presence, with continued consequences.

Finally, we return to Georgia, North Carolina, and Connecticut, with their "churchmanship ... of the staunch sort". This persistence until 1900 of what I take to be 'Low but not evangelical' and 'Old High and not ritualist' is a fascinating example of older ecclesial traditions having taken root in particular regions and enduring, even when they had become distinctly unfashionable in wider Victorian Anglicanism. A comparison might also be made with the disestablished Church of Ireland, in which Old High norms continued, rejecting ritualist practices and influences. It would be interesting to explore if such traditions continued into the 20th century in Georgia, North Carolina, and Connecticut.

In the mean time, those of us who cherish such expressions of Anglicanism - 'Low but not evangelical', 'Old High and not ritualist' - might consider retrieving a fine description of these traditions: "churchmanship ... of the staunch sort".