The Church Handy Dictionary Part 12

LOW CHURCH, _see_ Church Parties.

LOW SUNDAY. The Sunday after Easter is called _Low Sunday_, because, although it partakes in some sort of the festal nature of Easter, it being the Octave, yet it is a festival of a much lower degree than Easter itself.

LUKE'S (St.) DAY. October 18. Kept in commemoration of St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul, the author of the third Gospel, and also probably of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. He is believed to have been a physician, and his writings prove that he was a man of education. According to St. Augustine, his symbol is the ox, the Sacrificial Victim.

LUTHERANS. The followers of Martin Luther, an Augustine monk, a German, born 1483. He was the great Reformer of the Continent. They retain the use of the Altar, some of the ancient vestments, lighted tapers, incense, crucifix, confession, &c. At the time of the Reformation, the Lutherans, meeting with nothing but opposition from the Bishops, were constrained to act without them, and consequently they are in much the same position as the Scottish Presbyterian body, though not from the same cause. The Lutherans earnestly protested, that they much wished to retain episcopacy, but that the Bishops forced them to reject sound doctrine, and therefore they were unable to preserve their allegiance to them.

The ritual and liturgies differ in the various Lutheran countries, but in fundamental articles they all agree.

LYCH GATE. A covered gate of the churchyard where the body (_Leich_, a corpse) rests on its way to burial.

MAGNIFICAT. The song of the Blessed Virgin, Luke i. It is the first canticle of Evening Prayer, and has been sung in the Church from very early times.

MANIPLE, or MANUPLE, _see_ Vestment.

MARIOLATRY. The wors.h.i.+p, or cultus, of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One of the princ.i.p.al errors of the Church of Rome, and on the increase.

MARK'S (St.) DAY. April 25th. St. Mark was a companion of St.

Peter, and is thought to have written his Gospel under St. Peter's directions. This evangelist is symbolized by the _Man_.

MARRIAGE, _see_ Matrimony, Holy.

MARTINMAS. November 11th. A festival formerly kept in honour of St.

Martin, Bishop of Tours, in France, in 374.

MARTYR. One who lays down his life for his religion. The word means a "witness." St. Stephen was the first, or proto-martyr.

MARY, The BLESSED VIRGIN. We admit to her the t.i.tle of "Mother of G.o.d," but protest against her being wors.h.i.+pped. No instance of Divine honour being _paid_ her is earlier than the fifth century.

Two festivals only in the Church of England are kept in her honour, viz., the Purification, and the Annunciation.

Ma.s.s. In Latin, _Missa_, with which word congregations were accustomed to be dismissed. Then it was used for the congregation itself, and finally became applied only to the Communion Service.

MATERIALISM. One of the philosophies of the day which looks upon everything as the out-come of mere physical energy; denies the soul, and every spiritual force; and regards matter as eternal.

MATINS, _see_ Morning Prayer.

MATRIMONY, HOLY. With regard to the Marriage Laws, the Church and the State are not agreed. The former maintains Holy Matrimony to be a religious ceremony, while the State recognises the legality of mere civil contracts, and allows people to enter into the nuptial state by a civil ceremony. We find the early Fathers distinctly stating that marriage is of a sacred nature. Paley, in his Moral Philosophy, says, "Whether it hath grown out of some tradition of the Divine appointment of marriage in the persons of our first parents, or merely from a design to impress the obligation of the marriage-contract with a solemnity suited to its importance, the marriage-rite, in almost all countries of the world, has been made a religious ceremony; although marriage, in its own nature, and abstracted from the rules and declarations which the Jewish and Christian Scriptures deliver concerning it, be properly a civil contract, and nothing more." It was forbidden in the 4th century during Lent, and so custom and propriety forbid it now during the same season. In the Manual marriages were prohibited in the following seasons:--(_a_) Advent to the octave of Epiphany, (_b_) Septuagesima to the octave of Easter inclusive, (_c_) Rogation Sunday to Trinity Sunday.

The Roman Church has exalted Holy Matrimony into a Sacrament.

The State so far recognises the position of the Church with regard to Holy Matrimony that no clergyman can be forced to marry a divorced person, though he may be obliged to lend his church to any other who will perform the ceremony.

MATRIMONY, THE FORM OF SOLEMNIZATION OF. Of all our services this preserves most of the older Office in the Sarum Manual. Some of the hortatory portions come as usual from Hermann's Consultation. There has been no change since 1549, except the omission of the ceremony of giving gold and silver to the bride as "tokens of spousage."

The Service is divided into two parts (_a_) the Marriage Service proper, performed in the body of the Church; (_b_) the succeeding service at the Holy Table, evidently intended as an introduction to the Holy Communion which should follow.

_The Banns_. From a barbarous Latin word meaning an edict or proclamation. In 1661 the rubric directed them to be published immediately before the offertory sentences. The marriage Acts of the Georges are supposed to set aside this rubric, and to order them to be published after the Second Lesson. It is doubtful whether this does not apply to the Evening Service only, in places where there is no Morning Service.

The _Licence_ of the Bishop makes the publication of Banns unnecessary. Without a Special Licence, Marriage can be solemnized only between the hours of 8 and 12 in the forenoon.

(_a_) _The Marriage Service_ proper should be performed in "the body of the church" (see rubric, 1661) the place selected being generally the Chancel steps.

The _Exhortation_, 1549, from the "Consultation" chiefly; it rests on the following pa.s.sages of Holy Scripture:--Gen. ii. 24; Matt.

xix. 5; Eph. v. 22-33; John ii. 1-11; Heb. xiii. 4. No impediment being alleged, the _Espousal_ or _Betrothal_ follows. The joining of hands is from time immemorial the pledge of covenant, and is here an essential part of the Marriage Ceremony. The words of the betrothal are agreeable to the following pa.s.sages: 1 Cor. xi. 1-12; Eph. v. 22-33; Col. iii. 18, 19; 1 Tim. ii. 10-14; 1 Peter iii. 1-7.

The _Marriage Rite_ itself. The use of the ring is probably of pre-Christian antiquity. The old Service directed it to be worn on the fourth finger because "there is a vein leading direct to the heart."

Gold and Silver was also given the bride in 1549, but omitted in 1552. The word "wors.h.i.+p" means "honour," as in Wycliffe's Testament, Matt. xix. 19, "_Wors.h.i.+p_ thy father and thy mother."

(b) _The Post-Matrimonial Service_. The rubric directs only the "minister or clerks" to go to the Lord's Table, but the practice is to carry out the older rubric, 1549, "Then shall they"--the whole marriage party--"go into the Quire." A second Psalm is added for use in cases when the language of the first would be unsuitable.

The following rubric is almost unique, in directing the Priest to turn his face to the people. The _Versicles_ are substantially the same as those used at the Visitation of the Sick and in the Churching of Women. The concluding rubric dates from 1661; the rubric in 1549 definitely ordered the reception of Holy Communion.

MATTHEW'S (St.) DAY. Sept. 21st. This Apostle and Evangelist, before his call to the apostles.h.i.+p, was known as Levi, the publican, or tax-gatherer. He may possibly have been the brother of St. James the Less, and of St. Thomas also. He was the first to write a Gospel, which he addressed to the Jews, his aim being to show that Jesus was the Messiah. It is probable that he alone, of all the New Testament writers, wrote in Hebrew. His symbol is the Lion, according to St.

Augustine.

MATTHIAS'S (St.) DAY. Feb. 24th. Of St. Matthias we know simply nothing, except that he was elected to the vacant place in the Apostolic College, caused by the desertion and death of the traitor Judas; Acts i. 15 to end.

MAUNDY THURSDAY. The Thursday before Easter, being the day on which our Lord inst.i.tuted the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood. The name is a corruption of the Latin word _mandatum_, meaning a command, in allusion to the "New Commandment" of mutual love.

MESSIAH, _see_ Trinity, The Holy.

METHODISTS. The original Methodists are the Wesleyans, but already this sect has split up into numerous sections, or "Churches," as they call themselves. The leading sub-divisions will each have a separate notice. The leading idea of Methodism is a revival of religion by a free appeal to the feelings, and the method adopted is an elaborate system of "societies," and preaching the doctrine of "sensible conversion."

The "people called Methodists," or Wesleyans, are the followers of John Wesley, who was born in 1703. He took his degree at Oxford, and was ordained in 1725. He held a Fellows.h.i.+p at Lincoln College until his marriage in 1752. While at Oxford, he, with his brother Charles, of Christ Church, and his friend Whitefield, of Pembroke, and some twelve others, determined to live under a common rule of strict and serious behaviour; to receive frequently the Holy Communion; and to adopt a methodical and conscientious improvement of their time. After ordination, these two brothers, John and Charles, set to work to revive a spirit of religion in the Church of England, of which they were priests, and were aided by the good-will and sound paternal advice of some of the Bishops.

In 1735 John Wesley went out as a missionary to Georgia, in America, but the settlers rejected his services, and his mission to the Indians was a failure. On his voyage out, he unfortunately came under the influence of some Moravians; and on returning to England, after a three years' absence, he became a regular member of the Moravian Society in London. It was here he learnt the two peculiar doctrines of subsequent Wesleyanism, viz.: (1) instantaneous and sensible conversion, (2) the doctrine of perfection, _i_._e_., of a Christian Maturity, on attaining which, he that is (in the Wesleyan sense) "born again," "born of G.o.d," sinneth not. If, however, we take into view Wesley's own persistent affirmation in later times, "I have uniformly gone on for fifty years, never varying from the doctrine of the Church at all;" and many other such pa.s.sages, we cannot escape the inevitable conclusion that the very doctrine on which his modern followers have built their separation from the Church, is nothing else than a transient and _foreign_ element in their great founder's teaching.

In 1744 Wesley called around him his most trusted friends,--six clergymen of the Church of England and four lay preachers, and held what we should now call a _Retreat_; this meeting, however, is regarded by the Wesleyans as the first regular "Conference" of the Methodist Societies. It was in 1784 that Wesley drew up a "Deed of Declaration," which was formally enrolled in Chancery, establis.h.i.+ng Methodism in the eye of the Law. This was an _unintentional_ step on the part of Wesley towards an ultimate separation from the Church. Now it was too that he made his second great mistake of consecrating an English Clergyman as bishop, and two laymen as presbyters of the American Societies. This was the origin of the Episcopal Methodists of America. John Wesley died in 1791, almost his last printed utterance being, "I declare that I live and die a member of the Church of England; and none who regard my opinion or advice will ever separate from it." (_John Wesley_, _Arminian Magazine_, _April_, 1790.)

Four years after his death, in 1795, the separation took place, and the Conference allowed the preachers to administer the Lord's Supper. No sooner was the severance complete than the punishment followed. In 1795 the _Methodist New Connexion_ split away from them, under a man named Kilham. In 1810 the _Primitive Methodists_ caused another schism. In 1815 the _Bible Christians_ seceded, and so on. What would John Wesley have thought of all this? Only nine months before his death, he had solemnly charged his preachers: "In G.o.d's name, stop there! Be Church of England men still!"

(Wesley, Sermons, iii. 268). And his dying breath was spent in a prayer for the Church!

The Minutes of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference for the year 1883-4 give the following statistics:--

Members.

1. In Great Britain 407,085 2. In Ireland & Irish Missions 24,384 3. In Foreign Missions 70,747 4. South African Conference 20,739 5. French Conference 1,856 Total 524,811

On Trial.

1. In Great Britain 34,399 2. In Ireland & Irish Missions 668 3. In Foreign Missions 5,299 4. South African Conference 9,093 5. French Conference 168 Total 49,627

Ministers.

1. In Great Britain 1,545 2. In Ireland & Irish Missions 181 3. In Foreign Missions 285 4. South African Conference 93 5. French Conference 28 Total 2,137

On probation.

1. In Great Britain 91 2. In Ireland & Irish Missions 16 3. In Foreign Missions 98 4. South African Conference 74 5. French Conference -- Total 279

Supernumeries.

1. In Great Britain 284 2. In Ireland & Irish Missions 42 3. In Foreign Missions 9 4. South African Conference 10 5. French Conference 3 Total 348