laudable Practice

For some years now, it has been the custom on Laudable Practice to mark Thanksgiving in Canada by giving thanks for an aspect of Anglicanism in the True North. Today, as Canadian friends rejoice in the beauty of Fall, give thanks for the harvest, and enjoy family and home, my thoughts turn to a meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June 1788. Gathered were the Church of England clergy of the Province of Nova Scotia, assembled by their newly-appointed Bishop, Charles Inglis, for his primary episcopal visitation.  At the outset of his visitation charge , Inglis referred to his appointment by the King as part of a wider ecclesiastical policy for post-1783 British North America: Our gracious Sovereign, in His Royal wisdom, and pious solicitude to promote the best interests of religion in His American Dominions, hath been pleased to erect this Province into a Bishop's See, or Diocese, thereby intending to compleat the Polity of the National Church in this country, and to Supply a defect ...

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. And so begins, of course, Washington Irving's ' The Legend of Sleepy Hollow '. That Irving was a parishioner of the Episcopal congregation in Tarrytown, "on the eastern shore of the Hudson", adds to the story: he was writing about the place which was his home from 1835 until his death, the place in which he worshipped (in the Episcopal congregation, Christ Church), the landscape in which he rejoiced. It is the custom of laudable Practice on Thanksgiving Day to give thanks for an aspect of the Protestant Episcopal Chur...

On this Thanksgiving Day in Canada, laudable Practice turns to an Autumn day in 1820, as - according to an 1851 account of the journey - the Rev'd John West, appointed by the Church Missionary Society, set out for the territory then known as Rupert's Land (now southern Manitoba and parts of eastern Saskatchewan): It was in the autumn of the year 1820 that a little boat of birch-rind might have been seen to leave York Fort, on the western side of Hudson's Bay and after coasting for a while along the shore, enter one of the rivers that flow from the interior. There was nothing in this circumstance to attract the attention of a casual observer - similar boats were continually arriving at, and departing from, the fort during the few bright months of summer and early autumn; this canoe was, as usual, manned by natives, and, as was frequently the case, an European gentleman was sitting at the stern. But if any of God's own people had seen that boat depart, they would have w...

Each Thanksgiving Day, laudable Practice gives thanks for an aspect of the life and history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. This year, we turn to the simple, modest ceremonies of early PECUSA worship.  It is, in some ways, a theme particularly appropriate for Thanksgiving Day: modest, quiet, decent ceremonies, after all, echo something of the frugal New England spirit associated with the origins of the day. There was nothing gaudy, loud, or overstated about early Episcopalian ceremonies: minister vested in surplice; kneeling to receive the Sacrament and the sign of the Cross at Baptism; the congregation appropriately kneeling, sitting, standing; a decently attired Lord's Table, with communion rails; quietly plain church buildings consecrated for divine service. In a sermon to the 1786 General Convention, meeting in Philadelphia, William White - the recently consecrated Bishop of Pennsylvania - explained why Prayer Book worship was not defined b...

On this Thanksgiving Day in Canada, laudable Practice shares extracts from A Journal of Visitation in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and along the Eastern Shore of New Brunswick (1843) by Bishop John Inglis (son of Charles). The Journal  provides a quite wonderful insight into how Anglicanism's Reformed Catholic order took root and was nurtured in the Maritimes by the missionary activity of bishops, clergy, and laity. On this Thanksgiving Day, it exemplifies why - not least in light of the profound challenges faced by the Anglican Church of Canada - there is reason to be profoundly thankful for (rather than dismiss, obscure, or forget) the heritage of Canadian Anglicanism. Sunday, May 21. Storm and rain, through which we drove (over a wretched road, with many long and steep hills, and several broken bridges), to the church at Douglas (15 miles). To our surprise the building was well filled by about two hundred persons. The church (St. Peter's) and its burial ground were consecrate...

From a Harvest sermon preached by Old High William Jacobson (received orders in 1830, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford in 1848, appointed Bishop of Chester in 1865) in the parish church of Iffley, Oxford, in 1839: All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. These words we repeat in their course when we come to them in their place in the Psalms, with a sort of general notion that they are true; but when the Heavens are black with clouds and wind, when the voice of God's thunder is heard round about, and His lightnings shine upon the ground, then, indeed, we feel that His works are praising the power and majesty of God. Or, to take one other instance, when the vallies stand so thick with corn that they seem to laugh and sing, when it appears as though the clouds in months past had indeed dropped fatness, and when God is crowning the year with His goodness before our eyes; we feel then that the works of the Lord do indeed praise Him by setting forth the greatness and abundance o...

Now it is Autumn. The leaves are already turning in Jeremy Taylor country, mists greet us in the morning, apples are on sale from the abundant local supply, and the sun sets in early evening. During the days of Autumn, the words of the Book of Common Prayer can be heard afresh, illumining and giving deeper meaning to the thoughts evoked by the season.  ... this peace of the dying season,  this vibrancy of quiet rest,  in autumn's arriving night - Christopher Yokel, 'Lux in Tenebris' As the days grow shorter, with mornings slowly becoming darker and the sun setting in early evening, soon to be late afternoon, autumnal darkness gathers around Matins and Evensong. 'Autumn's arriving night' can give a renewed meaning to familiar words. At Matins, in the Benedictus, as mornings grow darker, we hail the One who is the Light in all our experiences of darkness: To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death ... At Evening Prayer, words we have of...

Each Thanksgiving for some years past, laudable Practice has given thanks for aspects of the life and witness of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. This year, my attention turns to Old Narragansett Church in Rhode Island , regarded as the oldest Anglican and Episcopalian church building in New England. Built in 1707 in the style of a New England meeting house, Old Narragansett Church combines two expressions of modesty: New England charm and Prayer Book piety.  A sermon preached by a former rector of the successor church at the two hundredth anniversary of the erection of the Old Church quite beautifully evokes both these aspects of the building: For ten scores of years has it braved the storms, which have beaten upon it from the Atlantic, and stood as a landmark in southern Rhode Island. In all New England, there remains no other church structure of our Faith, so ancient. Well worthy of our honour and affection is the sturdy old edifice, with which are involve...

As Canadian friends celebrate Thanksgiving, my thoughts turn to Old Holy Trinity, Middleton, Nova Scotia .  During the Summer, I happened across pictures of the church on social media and reproduced them for a post celebrating Charles Inglis , commemorated in the Church of Ireland calendar on 16th August. I then read Brian McConnell's delightful history of Old Holy Trinity, The First Church , a title referring to this being the oldest church built by United Empire Loyalists in the lands that would become Canada.  On this Thanksgiving Day, those of us elsewhere who value Canadian Anglicanism can look to Old Holy Trinity as embodying a heritage, virtues, and theological commitments which represent the best - and, we might add, future hope - of Anglican life and witness in Canada.  Unfashionable though it may be within official Canadian Anglican circles to recall the significance of the Loyalists to the foundation of Anglicanism in the True North, the story of those Loyalist...