Part 6 (1/2)
In the debates that occurred in various years on such subjects as the proposal to eliminate the word ”Protestant” from the official name of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and on the status of the Presiding Bishop, he was very firm but kindly and tactful in setting forth the Protestant emphasis in the Catholic-Protestant fabric of his church. He argued that the word ”Protestant” in the t.i.tle is there to protect the right of every sort of churchman. His candor was disarming, and he could get away with such unvarnished statements as this: ”As you know I am a Protestant of the Protestants. I do not belong to the Catholic party in the Episcopal Church. I belong to the Protestant party. I believe in Protestantism; I do not believe in Catholicism, I never have, and please G.o.d, I never will. I believe in Protestantism; but I believe more, and deeper, and further and broader, and higher in manhood and womanhood. I can see a vision of G.o.d in the man and in the woman, in the Catholic as well as in the Protestant, in the Jew, in the atheist, as well as in the Episcopalian.”[16] He was alert to any move that threatened the democratic basis of the Episcopal Church and diminished the power of the clergy and the laity, holding in the instance of the Presiding Bishop's status that the proposal for something similar to an archbishopric would introduce a monarchical form of government into a church whose government closely resembles that of the United States.
At those conventions when the Prayer Book was under revision, Mr.
Nelson's spiritual discernment, large-heartedness, and wise judgment were an important supplement to the work of the liturgical authorities.
One of the really notable speeches of any General Convention was his plea for the church to place the emphasis in the Baptismal Service where the Apostles did, namely, on disciples.h.i.+p rather than on Creed. ”The Creed ought to be on the Altar, not at the door of the Church,” he said.
”I want the Creed in the service, and I believe it will receive more emphasis than before if it is inserted where I have proposed to place it.[17] The important thing required of Christians is to follow Christ.
It is harder to follow Christ than to accept a creed, and G.o.d forbid that I should make members.h.i.+p in the Church easier than Christ made it.”
His earnestness and deep religious feeling made a profound impression, but there were those who saw in the proposal an opening wedge for the subordination of the creeds, and timidity and caution overcame the surge of approbation which followed immediately on his speech.
Commencing in 1925 and continuing until his death, Mr. Nelson served on the Joint Commission on Holy Matrimony, which dealt with the highly controversial issue of divorce. In upholding the high standards embraced in the canons of the Church, he supported that section of the Commission which sought to take into account the far-reaching human factors involved in marriage and divorce. He was absolutely convinced that the Church was not approaching the problem in the right way. To him it was not an ecclesiastical problem but a definitely human affair. He said he preferred to submit a delicate, ethical problem to a human bishop rather than to the arbitrary operation of a rule. He maintained, ”Divorce is now on a legalistic basis. That was not the way of our Lord, and the Commission desires to lift it out of the legal atmosphere into the sphere of the fellows.h.i.+p of the Gospel.” Towards this end the Commission had (in 1931) drawn up a proposed canon which was the result of six years' study on the part of an extremely able group of clergymen and laymen. Among the latter were some of the great lawyers of America, such as George W. Wickersham, Roland Morris, and Professor Joseph Beale of the Harvard Law School. This Commission proposed that ”any person to whom a divorce from a former marriage has been granted for any cause by a civil court may apply to his Bishop to marry another person.” In other words the Commission was endeavoring to have the matter decided not by some hard and fast rule which was bound to do many injustices to individuals, but by a more general principle to be interpreted by the Bishop or Marital Court. The proposal was defeated, but in the battle which ensued and has not ceased ”Frank Nelson,” says Bishop William Scarlett of Missouri, ”was a leading figure. He was trying to see this whole matter through what he believed to be the mind of Christ, and to act and legislate accordingly.”
At the Church Congress in Richmond, Virginia, in 1926 in a paper on _What Is Loyal Churchmans.h.i.+p?_ he boldly stated:
Even when it comes to the canon in regard to remarriage of divorced persons, when I find in my conscience, standing before G.o.d in the presence of Christ, as I try to do, that a man and a woman have a right to be remarried, I will remarry them and take the consequences. I do not mean that I would go about seeking ways of disobeying the Church. I am putting extreme cases. Of course I do not mean that.... My first loyalty, my highest loyalty is to the Spirit and to the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ as G.o.d gives me grace to see it.... The human soul is more sacred than const.i.tution or canons. Canons and forms of wors.h.i.+p are used to illuminate and guide men's minds and souls to Christ, not to dominate them or compel them to conform to this or that.[18]
In a few exceptional instances he remarried divorced persons. He held the present canon of the church to be utterly ridiculous in permitting reinstatement to communicant status following remarriage after divorce: ”If one commits so grave a sin as to demand excommunication, how can one be reinstated while continuing to live in that sin? It is absurd on the face of it.”[19]
There were those who sneered at his position, saying it was individualistic and amounted to the setting up of oneself against the law of the church, yet he of all people was most conscious of the sin of pride and excessive individualism. At his last Convention in 1937, he reemphasized the point that the object of rewriting the marriage canon was not to liberalize divorce and remarriage: ”We have been trying to interpret the mind of our Lord. We have presumed to separate men from the love of G.o.d by excommunication. This Commission is trying to set free to a higher plane this tremendous question which is facing us, to lift this tremendous relations.h.i.+p from regulation to the life of the spirit. We want this church to face reality.” Nevertheless, the Commission marched from one defeat to another, but it still marches!
There was pa.s.sed in 1931 one constructive piece of legislation bearing on instruction in Christian marriage which was enacted largely through the extremely forceful defense of Frank Nelson.
The same human touch which guided all his thought and effort was apparent in his work on another Commission, namely, the Budget and Program. He usually was chosen to present the report in the House of Deputies, and it was always a masterly presentation. Like Gladstone, he had the faculty of making people like figures, because he set them forth in terms of human values or in what the newspaper writer calls ”human-interest” stories. This same humanness was delightfully manifest on occasions when friends endeavoured to make him the presiding officer or President of the House of Deputies. He would never consent, and humorously said that if he became an official, he would have to attend all the extra meetings and couldn't play golf!
In 1937 the General Convention met in Cincinnati. Though far from well and worn out after the usual strenuous year in his parish, Mr. Nelson gave up a large part of his vacation to a.s.sist in the arduous preparations always entailed by such affairs. At the opening service in the University Stadium he was selected by the Presiding Bishop to read one of the Lessons, the deserved recognition of his place in diocese and national church.
In the extensive work of forwarding the policies set up by the General Conventions he was called upon, as one of the representative rectors, to speak in many parts of the country. He was foremost in commending the Nation-Wide-Campaign or budget plan of operation inst.i.tuted in 1919, as a means of re-awakening the church to a sense of national responsibility. Despite heavy work in parish and city he never spared himself, and willingly put his services at the command of the Presiding Bishop. Only eight months before his death, he spent an entire week in the Diocese of Ma.s.sachusetts speaking two and three times a day to groups of vestrymen on the forward work of the church.
When General Convention met in Kansas City in 1940, the first meeting after Mr. Nelson's death, the President of the House of Deputies, the late ZeBarney Phillips, said at the opening session:
Later on we shall have the regular memorial to all members of the Convention who have died during the triennium, but as the Convention opens without them I cannot refrain from paying tribute to some of those whom we loved best and best remember.
First you will all agree is Frank Nelson who was the outstanding member of this House at Cincinnati. His genuine Christian devotion, his courtesy, his fairness and his gentleness can never be forgotten. Let me tell you one little thing that shows his character. You all know his type of churchmans.h.i.+p, and yet, for the sake of others he placed candles on his altar for the corporate communion. It was a little thing but it was so like Frank Nelson.[20]
Whether in parish, city, or the whole Episcopal Church, his work was affected by a mighty vision of the Kingdom of G.o.d on earth which set him apart as an unusual servant who humbly read the scroll of life as it is unrolled to the children of men. He pa.s.sed on to others the torch of faith which lights the path to the City of G.o.d.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Address at the Centennial of Christ Church, 1917. He spoke in this vein at Conventions though I cannot locate exact statements in official records.
[17] Mr. Nelson's proposal placed the Creed immediately after the Lesson.
[18] _The Church and Truth_, p. 138, Macmillan Co. 1924. Used by permission.
[19] Letter to the author, September 12, 1932.
[20] Letter to Mrs. Nelson from Mr. Richard Inglis of Cleveland.
_The Mystery of Personality_
”_There is not one of us but in some measure is in his debt._”