PREFACE LAST summer a well-known layman of New York, the Hon. Elbridge T. Gerry, who happened to have read a sermon of mine on Absolution,1 urged me to work out its argument more fully than the limits of a sermon allowed, and to add to it answers to some of the objections commonly brought against Confession and Absolution. This little book is the outcome of his request. Mr. Gerry had made a collection of nearly all the books, large and small, on this subject, which had been published of late years in the Anglican Communion, and we went over them together. Some were excellent from the historical and theological standpoint, but too exclusively dogmatic. Others, again, took a line so apologetic (in the common sense of the term) as to render them quite useless for the purpose we had in view, namely, to provide a Manual which could be placed in the hands of lay people desirous of informing themselves in regard to the doctrine and practice of Confession in our Church. In "Life and Its Problems" (the World's Pulpit Series), Masters & Co., 78 New Bond Street, London. It seemed to us that the most practical treatment of the subject would take the form of an investigation of the teaching of the Bible and Prayer Book in the light of Catholic theology, and that this should be sufficiently simple in method to appeal to any intelligent layman. Further, that the work should be constructive in that it should present a coherent view of the doctrine of Holy Scripture as interpreted by the declarations of the Book of Common Prayer, and that it should be uncontroversial except where it was necessary to answer objections ordinarily brought against Confession and Absolution. Bearing in mind the popular idea that only youthful enthusiasts and sentimental women used Confession, it seemed to me that some weight might attach to the testimony of two men, neither of them young, one a layman well known in his own country1 as a man of affairs, for forty-five 1 As he is probably not known to people in England I append, without his knowledge, the following extract from the Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. VIII: "Gerry, Elbridge Thomas, American lawyer and philanthropist: b. New York, 25 Dec. 1837. He was graduated from Columbia in 1857, was admitted to the bar in 1860, and was a member of the State constitutional convention of New York, 1867. Subsequently he became an associate of Henry Bergh in the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which he was for many years vicepresident. In 1874 he was the leading organizer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, of which he was the years a member of the New York bar; the other a priest who for nearly forty years has himself used Confession, and for more than thirty years has been called by God's Providence, not only to hear Confessions, but to devote a large part of his ministry to this work. Mr. Gerry's interest in the book manifests his desire that others should come to know a means of grace, which has been to him so full of blessing. For myself I am thankful to bear witness that my own first Confession was the direct and immediate cause of my vocation to the Priesthood, and that of the many thousands of Confessions I have heard there have been but few that have not borne fruit unto increased holiness of life. It is with extreme reluctance that I refer to a matter so entirely personal, but as many of the objections to Confession rest solely upon the opinion of those who have had no personal experience of it, it seems president in 1876-91, and which became so closely identified with his name as often popularly to be termed the Gerry Society. He was chairman of the commission on capital punishment which substituted execution by electricity for that by hanging, in New York State (1886-8). He also held many important offices of trust, and became known for his interest in yachting affairs, having been commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1886-93. He is a grandson of Elbridge Gerry ('Governor of Massachusetts, Vice-President of the United States, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence ’).” |