This hymn text is by John Greenleaf Whittier, a nineteenth-century Quaker who gave himself to the anti-slavery movement when he was twenty-five. In this hymn he extols the Quaker virtue of silence in the midst of the enthusiastic revivalism of the Great Awakening.
Christ on the cross cries:
My people, what wrong have I done to you?
What good have I not done for you?
We ought to hold firmly and maintain our [Christian] unity, especially those of us who are bishops presiding in the Church, thereby revealing the episcopate to be one and undivided. The episcopate is one; it is a unity in which each bishop enjoys full possession.
In uniting us to a visible society, for the purpose of redeeming us from the corruptions of our evil nature and of the world, and for training us for the purity and bliss of a celestial and eternal existence, the Divine Author of our being has not only exercised that sovereign power which makes us in all things dependent on his will, but has mercifully accommodated himself to the social principle which so strongly characterizes us.
Of course, Christian-Muslim dialogue must go on. But I am wary of the term ‘inter-faith dialogue’. It often suggests a disconnected, middle class, rather intellectual activity which is cut off from the mass of the people, both inside and outside the faith communities. To be of practical value, dialogue must be localized, honest and courageous.
Although Alexander Crummell and other black Episcopalians could do little to stop white church people in the South from regarding them as inferior, they organized an association (the Conference of Church Workers among Colored People) designed to lobby for recognition and respect in denominational affairs.
Early in his ministry, Bishop Johnson conducted a sort of diocesan listening tour. Christ Church, as one of the largest churches in the diocese, was picked to host one of these events. As Buck and I drove to church, I suspected a hostile audience might ambush the new bishop.
Years after I found my way back to mainstream Protestantism, someone asked what attracted me to the Episcopal Church. With only a moment’s pause I replied, “The wood.”
Although I had just finished writing a lengthy doctoral dissertation on the history of the Episcopal Church, my truest self was silent. I do not know how or where I learned it, but I had learned not to say what I really thought or truly believed or most desired.
Prayer is, I believe the best test of the whole matter. If it is right and our honest duty to fight the war [World War I] to a finish, then we should use the Church’s great weapon of prayer to that end.