Twentieth Century Negro Literature Part 50

BY REV. O. M. WALLER.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rev. O. M. Waller]

REV. OWEN M. WALLER.

Rev. Owen Meredith Waller, rector of St. Luke's P. E.

Church, Washington, D. C.; a.s.sociate of Arts of Oxford University, England; Graduate of the General Theological Seminary, New York, was born in Eastville, Va., in 1868.

When but five years old his parents settled in Baltimore, where he was sent at an early age to the St. Mary's Academy.

In 1881 he went to Oxford, England, where he entered St.

John's Cla.s.sical School, pursuing studies there until 1889, when he returned to New York city. He graduated from the General Episcopal Theological Seminary in 1892, and was ordained to the Deaconate by Bishop Potter, after which he accepted a call as a.s.sistant rector to St. Phillip's Church, New York.

He declined the princ.i.p.alship of Hoffman Hall of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., to accept a call to St.

Thomas' Church, Philadelphia. Having pa.s.sed all examinations before reaching the required age to enter the priesthood, it was only after his election to St. Thomas' that he became eligible for advancement.

Bishop Potter arranged for the ordination to take place in the Colonial Church of St. John, Washington, D. C. Here in the presence of the Chief Justice, Cabinet Officers, Senators and other men of national note, Mr. Waller was formally elevated to the priesthood. After a rectorship of three years' successful work in this historic parish, during which its centennial was celebrated, Mr. Waller was elected rector of St. Luke's Church, Washington, D. C., in succession to the Rev. Dr. Crumwell.

In size he is above the medium and of athletic build. He is a perfect type of the physical manhood of his race, graceful in manner and address and is clear and eloquent in his style of oratory.

Success has crowned his work from the beginning. Mr. Waller combines all the essentials necessary of a leader of men along religious lines. He understands humanity. His methods inspire the confidence of men, and they reverence his gospel. He appeals to the intelligence and reason, never to pa.s.sion and prejudice. He has the faculty of saying much in little, and saying it with directness and force.

Mr. Waller was married in 1893 to Miss Lillian M. Ray, of Brooklyn, N. Y. Three bright boys have blessed this union by their advent into the home.

I have no hesitancy in saying that not only are there other churches adapted to the training of the Negro than the Methodist and Baptist churches, but, in my opinion, some are better suited to the present needs of the Negro, and chief, if not indeed the first, among these is that branch of the Apostolic Catholic Church known as the Protestant Episcopal Church. I advance the following arguments to sustain this statement:

First, the Negro is under a spell of religiosity; a conception of religion that freely recognizes and imbibes its sentiment, but just as frankly rejects its stern practical duties and obligations. The Negro's religion is a poem--a sentiment--indeed, a velvet-lined yoke.

He, therefore, stands sadly in need of an influence that will regulate his super-emotional nature, and not one that adds fuel to an existing conflagration that threatens to forever consume the only power in the human being that can ultimately work out his salvation, viz., the human will.

His religiosity needs to be directed to the deep channels of true religion, and there harnessed as a mighty Niagara to produce practical righteousness in daily living. No church is better adapted to this end than the Protestant Episcopal. (a) She seeks after the example of her Master's method to develop the permanent power of the will, rather than the unstable prop of emotionalism. This is evidenced in her majestic liturgies and dignified but helpful services. (b) In doctrine, discipline and worship the Protestant Episcopal Church is the school of mental, moral and spiritual training, that a people but now coming to the light from the darkness and degradation of bondage so terribly need. (c) Again, her ministry, bishops, priests and deacons are her people's leaders; secure in the tenure of their office from factional machinations, they are fearless in the advocacy of righteousness; not with their ears to the ground, but with eyes looking upward, their pulpits speak plainly "Things pertaining to the Kingdom of G.o.d." Nothing at this stage does the Negro stand in greater need of than fearless and positive guidance in the "ways of righteousness."

Second: The present Negro needs opportunity and lat.i.tude for self-development in a church where he must measure himself with the highest standard of Anglo-evolution. As long as the Negro is content to compare himself, in Negro a.s.sociations, with himself, he must be satisfied to know only that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another. But, both in the lay membership and in the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Negro coming into contact with the best results of modern forces, not only rises up to higher standards, but is saved from the insidious evils of conceitedness by ever seeing the vistas beyond him. Withal, the doors are open to the Negro, here more truly so than in any church of like prestige and heritage. Two Negroes are on the bench of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Nearly a hundred have been elevated to the diaconate and priesthood, meeting all requirements and thereby teaching the same level as other men. Such a showing cannot be made by any church of like history.

Third: We have been told of late to teach the Negro history, and I add that no lesson will be so potent as identification with a historic church that has come down the centuries to us, in unbroken integrity, from the hands of Christ through the spiritual loins of the Apostles.

I advance the following argument to show that the Protestant Episcopal Church will meet this need of the Negro: At Acts 11:42, we read as follows: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers."

It may be readily seen from these words, drawn as they are directly from the scholarly Greek of St. Luke, that the Apostolic Church was distinctly marked by four observances or characteristics:

(a) Their steadfastness in the Apostles' doctrine.

(b) Their steadfastness in the Apostles' fellowship, dealings, doings, ministry or form of government.

(c) Their steadfastness in the breaking of the bread, or the Holy Communion; Holy Baptism being included in the Apostolic doctrine.

(d) Their steadfastness in the Apostles' manner of praying or in the set forms of prayer, at first, for twenty-five years in the Temple and the synagogues of the Jews.

These being the four marks of the church at that time, is there now in existence any church having these selfsame marks? Without any doubt, Christ was the founder of that visible body of Christians, the church in Acts II. Does that church exist to-day? It must, because Christ said: "The gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against it."--Matt. 16:18.

THEN WHICH IS IT, AND WHERE IS IT?

The church is certainly a visible body of Christians, not founded by a man or men, but by Jesus Christ. Having a divine founder it is then a divine society, seeking men to save them from the degrading power of sin and everlasting punishment in h.e.l.l. It is not then, as is so commonly and popularly thought, a human society founded by Luther, 1530; Calvin, 1541; Knox, 1560; Robert Brown, 1582; Roger Williams, 1639; John Wesley, 1739; or Swedenborg, 1783. In brief, the church founded by Jesus Christ is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, as Christ so often described it (Matthew 13:47, 5:19, 13:44); endowed with power from on high transmitted through her unbroken line of the Apostolic ministry, but obedient to her Divine Founder, who is at the right hand of G.o.d in heaven.

This church of four distinct marks in the Acts existed before the completion of the New Testament at least some sixty years, and it was the church that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit p.r.o.nounced the New Testament inspired, and rejected other books claiming to set forth the life of Christ, three hundred years after it was founded. The Old Testament is the doc.u.ment of the Jewish Church, that church having been in existence for a thousand years before its doc.u.ment was completed. Therefore, this church of the Acts cannot be set aside for one claimed to be founded upon the Bible.

For three hundred years then, this Apostolic Church existed with Apostolic doctrine, ministry, sacraments, and prayers before she gave the New Testament to the world with her certificate that it was the Inspired Word of G.o.d.

The Protestant Episcopal Church of America as the daughter of the Church of England, has ever possessed, and does now possess and hold more sacred, these four marks that identify her unmistakably with the primitive and Apostolic Church, as a true branch of the same.

First, as to doctrine this church holds and defends the pure teaching of the early church, without taking from or adding to the same. There are few, indeed, who would question this.

The Holy Trinity (John 14:16, 26; Acts 2:33; Gal. 4:6).

The Incarnation of G.o.d's Son (Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Matt. 1:23).

The Redemption of Man by Christ Jesus (Matt. 1:21, 20:28; Gal. 1:4).

Regeneration and Holy Baptism (t.i.tus 3:5; Rom. 6:4; Gal. 3:27).

The Holy Communion (Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20).

Confirmation (Acts 8; Heb. 6:2).

The Resurrection of the Dead (Luke 14:14; John 11:23).

The Judgment (Acts 17:31; Heb. 9:27).

Belief in these statements and other fundamental teaching of Holy Scripture is in accord with the mind of the Apostolic Church.

Secondly, as to the unbroken line of bishops, priests and deacons, who have succeeded for more than eighteen centuries other ministers Apostolically ordained, that has been most jealously guarded and maintained by the Episcopal Church.

There may be some who have never given any study to the Apostolic succession of ministers in the church founded by Christ. No one could well doubt the fact or deny the doctrine who had patiently investigated the matter. The New Testament is itself witness to the fact that the Apostles appointed others to do Apostolic work and to be their successors; at least thirty Apostles are mentioned in the New Testament. Among them were Paul, Matthew, Barnabas, Andronicus, Silas, Luke, t.i.tus, whom St. Paul appointed Bishop of Crete, and Timothy, whom he appointed Bishop of Ephesus. There were also at least ten others whose names are recorded, s.p.a.ce does not permit us to mention.

Now, if the original twelve could have eighteen successors, certainly they could, and have had a continual line of successors down the centuries. The t.i.tles of the three orders of the ministry may, at first, mislead the unlearned.

(1) In the New Testament the highest order was Apostles. The second, "ordained in every city," were Presbyters (Presters or Priests), also called Bishops and the lowest order Deacons.

As the Apostles began to die off, the t.i.tle "Apostle" was limited to them and to their successors who had probably seen Christ, at the same time the t.i.tle "Bishop" was set apart to denote the highest order which succeeded the original Apostles. This is stated by Clement of Alexandria in the second, and Jerome in the fourth century. While Theodoret, writing in 440, says: "The same persons were in ancient times called either presbyters or bishops, at which time, those who are now called bishops were called Apostles. In process of time, the name of Apostles was left to those who were sent directly by Christ, and the name of Bishop was confined to those who were anciently called 'Apostles.'" From Palestine the church spread to Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Spain and England, carrying with her the Apostles'

doctrine, ministry, sacraments and prayer.

In 597, when Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, sent Augustine to England, he found there the church with the four marks. After awhile the Bishop of Rome, by political methods, gained great influence over the English Church in so much that he was receiving from England greater revenues than the king. When the tremendous revolt against the papacy came about in Europe in the sixteenth century the English people simply ejected the pope's emissaries and with them, Italian influence and corruption from England and the English Church, the church remained essentially the same she had been for centuries.

The word "Reformation" signifies the footing of something into a new shape. It is therefore not the destruction of the old and the subst.i.tuting of the new, but rather the reshaping, cleansing and revivifying of the old. The melting down of the family silver and the reshaping it on new models is not to acquire new silver. Perhaps it was so distorted by abuse that it required new shaping. This was very much the case with the Church of England.

The reformation in England was effected on very different lines from that on the continent of Europe. Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and others were individuals attracting to themselves mult.i.tudes of other individuals and together they establish societies of Christians. The Apostolical churches on the continent did not, as such, partic.i.p.ate in the reformation movement. In England the reformation, i. e., the reshaping, restoring and cleansing, was more wisely conducted. The church there had existed since the days of the Apostles. For six hundred years it remained independent of the Roman world power, and it was only after the Norman Conquest that the papal authority became well established in England. When a reformation seemed necessary, it was conducted, not by individuals leaving the national church, but by the whole Church of England. In A. D. 1532 the quarrel of Henry the Eighth with the pope led to the overthrow of the Roman power in England. Henry is not to be credited as a reformer, much less as the founder of any church. He never made any attempt to found a church.

When he was born, in 1491, he found the church existing in England, and when he died, in 1547, he left the same church, but cleansed and independent. The ancient church was not changed, and the old religion did not give place to the new. The papacy was opposed to the independence of the national churches for which the Church of England had always contended.

Accordingly, when the power of the pope was broken and thrust out of England, the church was at liberty to restore Apostolic purity and freedom to the nation and the individual.

Parliament prohibited the payment of money to the pope and appealing from English to papal courts. In 1539 the Bible was given to the people to read in their native tongue. The services were read in English instead of Latin. The chalice was given to the laity. The worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary was abolished and praying to departed saints forbidden. These reforms were conducted by the archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons and laity, i. e., by the whole church. The pope was not without his adherents during this period, who opposed these changes most vehemently. But these traitors to the Church of England found they could not stem the tide for an open Bible and pure religion. In 1569 Pope Pius Fifth created the great sin of schism by commanding all in favor of papal power in England to withdraw from the English Church and form an Italian party. In 1685 the Italian Church supplied this party with a bishop.

To-day the Italian mission in England is doing all in its power to make headway against the Church of England, but in vain.