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 A Bishop, he was very fir forth the Protestant emphasis in the Catholic-Protestant fabric of his church He argued that the word ”Protestant” in the title is there to protect the right of every sort of churchet aith such unvarnished statements as this: ”As you know I a 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 God, I never will I believe in Protestantism; but I believe her in manhood and womanhood I can see a vision of God 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 di in the instance of the Presiding Bishop's status that the proposal for so similar to an archbishopric would introduce a overnment closely resembles that of the United States

At those conventions when the Prayer Book was under revision, Mr

Nelson's spiritual discernical 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, naht 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 i required of Christians is to follow Christ

It is harder to follow Christ than to accept a creed, and God forbid that I should make membershi+p in the Church easier than Christmade a profound impression, but there were those who saw in the proposal an opening wedge for the subordination of the creeds, and tie of approbation which followed i in 1925 and continuing until his death, Mr Nelson served on the Joint Cohly controversial issue of divorce In upholding the high standards embraced in the canons of the Church, he supported that section of the Co hue and divorce He was absolutely convinced that the Church was not approaching the probleht 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 alistic basis That was not the way of our Lord, and the Coal atmosphere into the sphere of the fellowshi+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 extre the latter were soe W Wickersham, Roland Morris, and Professor Joseph Beale of the Harvard Law School This Commission proposed that ”any person to whoranted for any cause by a civil court may apply to his Bishop to marry another person” In other words the Co to have the matter decided not by some hard and fast rule which was bound to do eneral 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 Willia to see this whole h what he believed to be the ly”

At the Church Congress in Richinia, in 1926 in a paper on _What Is Loyal Churchmanshi+p?_ he boldly stated:

Even when it coe of divorced persons, when I find inbefore God in the presence of Christ, as I try to do, that a ht to be remarried, I will remarry theo about seeking ways of disobeying the Church I a extreme cases Of course I do not hest loyalty is to the Spirit and to the race to see it The human soul is more sacred than constitution or canons Canons and foruide 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 per rerave a sin as to demand exco 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 aainst 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 reee canon was not to liberalize divorce and re to interpret the mind of our Lord We have presumed to separate men from the love of God by excoher plane this tre us, to lift this treulation 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 passed in 1931 one constructive piece of legislation bearing on instruction in Christian h the extremely forceful defense of Frank Nelson

The saht and effort was apparent in his work on another Coram 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 ures, because he set them forth in terms of human values or in what the newspaper writer calls ”huhtfully manifest on occasions when friends endeavoured toofficer or President of the House of Deputies He would never consent, and humorously said that if he becas and couldn't play golf!

In 1937 the General Convention h 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 assist in the arduous preparations always entailed by such affairs At the opening service in the University Stadiu 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 inthe Nation-Wide-Caet plan of operation instituted in 1919, as athe church to a sense of national responsibility Despite heavy work in parish and city he never spared hily put his services at the coht months before his death, he spent an entire week in the Diocese of Massachusetts speaking two and three tiroups of vestrymen on the forork of the church

When General Conventionafter 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 regularthe triennium, but as the Convention opens without the tribute to some of those e loved best and best reree is Frank Nelson as the outstanding enuine Christian devotion, his courtesy, his fairness and his gentleness can never be forgotten Letthat shows his character You all know his type of churchmanshi+p, and yet, for the sake of others he placed candles on his altar for the corporate co but it was so like Frank Nelson[20]

Whether in parish, city, or the whole Episcopal Church, his as affected by a dom of God 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 hts the path to the City of God

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 frolis of Cleveland

_The Mystery of Personality_