Latin in Protestant Services

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 16, 22 April 1909, Page 609

Latin in Protestant Services

An Auckland correspondent writes : ' To- settle a discussion, which those concerned have agreed to refer to you : Kindly state if any Protestant Church uses, or has used, Latin in its religious services. My Protestaat friends ask for detailed references in the matter. I have a recollection of something appearing in the? N.Z. Tablet on the subject, but -cannot recall it. 3

We have much pleasure in complying with our correspondent's request. Much curious evidence on this point might be given from the early history of the Reformation, both in Great Britain and on Continental Europe. We content ourselves, however, with' two bits of evidence in. point. One of these is from the seventeenth century, and shows how long the use of Latin was legalised in the services of the Protestant Church as by law established in England; the other refers to jour own time. Our first quotation is from the last English Act of Uniformity, which received the assent of King Charley 11. on May 19, 1662. It is known as the 14 Charles 11., cap 4. Its history is given in CardwelL's Prayer Booh Conferences, p. 378, and its text in Documents Illusifative of English' Church History, Com-

piled from Original Sources by Henry_ Gee, 8.D., F.S.A., and William. John Hardy, F.S.A. (London, 1896, pp. 600619). Here is (p. 612)- one of its provisions in regard to the services' contained in the official Booh of Common Prayer : ' Provided always, that it shall and may be lawful to use the Morning and Evening Prayer, and all other prayers and services prescribed in and by the. said book, in the chapels or other public places of the respective colleges and halls in. both the Universities, in the colleges of Westminster, Winchester, and Eton, and in the Convocations of the clergies of either province, in Latin; anything n this Act to the contrary notwithstanding.' (We have followed the compilers' modernised "spelling of the Act.) We may add- that even until 1548, well into the reign, of King Edward VI., a Latin liturgy continued to be celebrated in ' reformed ' England. -

On Continental Europe Latin also continued to be used by the Lutheran creeds; it is used by some at least of these denominations to our day. A curious instance in point is furnished by the Earl of Dufferin in his Letters from Sigh Latitudes (seventh edition, London, 1883). The author refers (pp. 22, 37, 39) to the extent to which Latin is understood in Iceland. ' The next day,' says he, ' being Sunday, I read prayers on hoard, and then went for a short time to the cathedral church — tlie only stone building in Reykjavik. . . The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion. . . Before dismissing his people,- the preacher descended from the pulpit, and putting on a splendid cope of crimson velvet (in which some bishop had in ages past been murdered) turned his back to the congregation, and chanted some Latin sentences in good, round Roman style.' He adds that the Icelanders (a law-abiding people) still retain ' a few vestiges of the old religion,' and that ' altars, candles, pictures, and crucifixes yet remain in many of their churches.' The substance of this last paragraph appeared a few years ago in the New Zealand Tablet. It is, no doubt, the reference which our Auckland friend has been trying to call up out of the vasty deep of things half forgotten.