Tuesday, August 25, 2009

08Oct1867, Comments on New Vestments

LONDON, October 8th, 1867.
—I went to see poor Joshua Dutch in the All Saints' Home : he won't die after all. Went into the church to have a few quiet minutes, and found the Holy Communion being administered. The priest was consecrating the elements. It was my first sight of "the vestments," and it is honest truth that at first sight of the figure in green cope and long surplice I took it for a woman in a shawl, in the dim light. The "raiment clean and white" will, I think, always look more solemn and priestlike to me ; and the Bible and first ages give us no thought in primitive times of the narrow stole. It was a quiet, solemn thing, those few minutes in the near Presence of our Lord in the midst of the busy day.

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