THE LORD'S SUPPER, pp. 491-496.
• "Order of Service," pp. 491-492.
• "'Christian-Evangelist' Editorial" by J. H. Garrison, pp. 492-493.
• "'Christian Standard' Editorial by J. A. Lord, pp. 493-494.
• "'Christian Century' Editorial by Herbert L. Willett, pp. 494-495.
• "Forbes Field and Calvary" by Hugh McLellan, pp. 495-496.

      At signal, the congregation will stand and sing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Hymn No. 55.

      Congregation will remain standing and will unite, led by the elders who are presiding at the tables, in voicing "The Lord's Prayer."

      Congregation, seated, will read, in concert, led by the elders presiding, the following Scripture:

      "And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I shall not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he received a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I shall not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. And the cup in like manner after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, even that which is poured out for you" (Luke 22:14-20).

      "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and, when he had given thanks, he said, This is my body, which is for you: do this in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body" (1 Cor. 11:23-29).

      "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons" (1 Cor. 10:21).

      "And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them" (Acts 20:7).

      Congregation, seated, will unite in singing "'Tis Midnight and on Olive's Brow."--Hymn No. 21.

      At signal, the elders presiding will rise, the congregation will bow the head, the elders will remove the coverings from the tables. At second signal the elders will voice in concert the following prayer of thanksgiving:

      "O Lord, our God and Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of mercies and of all comfort, who didst so love us as to give thine only begotten Son, that we might not perish, but have everlasting life, we bless thee for the heavenly privilege which we this day enjoy of meeting with so many of thy saints in our Father's house and at the table of our Lord. We see in this a crowning of the blessings and mercies we have enjoyed at thy hand in the years that are gone. O Lord, help us, we pray, to once more discern in the broken loaf the broken body of our [491] Lord of which we may eat and live forever. Oh preserve us in this sweet communion with our Lord and one another, until we shall enter into the holiest of all, and see thee face to face, and glorify thy name world without end. Amen."

      After this prayer, the elders presiding will immediately break the loaf and hand it to the deacons, who, upon receiving it, will wait for signal, and will start upon signal, to wait upon the congregation, and, after waiting upon the congregation, will hold their places until signal to return to their respective tables; when they themselves will be waited upon by the elders with the loaf.

      At signal, the elders, while the congregation bows the head, will unite in voicing in concert the following prayer of thanksgiving for the cup:

      "Our Father and our fathers' God, we bless thee that Christ came into the world to save sinners. He was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. We praise thee that he gave himself a ransom for all; that he tasted death for every man. We thank thee for this cup of blessing, the symbol of the precious blood of Christ, the price that was paid for our redemption. We pray thee that thy blessings may be upon us, and upon thy people everywhere. That thy way may be known upon the earth, thy salvation among all nations. We ask it in the name of our divine Redeemer. Amen."

      The elders and deacons will observe the same order that was followed in administering the loaf.

      At signal, congregation will stand and join in singing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name."--Hymn No. 26.

      The offering that will now be received is given to the fund for Ministerial Relief. No more precious and tender appeal can come to our hearts. The "Old Guard" made the triumph we witness to-day possible. Long-delayed payment, and very poor pay, for their brave and sacrificial service, cause some of them and their dependents to be in need to-day. We are going to pay something on their unpaid salaries of the elder day.

      Brethren, make the biggest, best, lovingest offering you ever made in your life, right now. We can give $10,000 to-day if each one will do the part of a grateful child of God. You can not be happy if you neglect this. You will not neglect it! Give now, even though you have to deny yourself something else. Give! The deacons will now wait upon you.

      At signal, congregation will stand and sing "Blest Be the Tie that Binds."--Hymn No. 58.

      Congregation remains standing, and at signal, led by elders, will unite, voicing the following benediction:

      "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. Amen."

      The scene is one that will never be forgotten by those who were present. The emotions stirred were deep, and we trust will be abiding in their influence. But the stillness that fell upon the great throng of not less than twenty-five thousand worshipers was in itself an awe-inspiring fact. Nothing but the cross of Christ, symbolically set forth in the Lord's Supper, could have awed into silence that vast throng of people.

      There was no sermon, no solo, no show of any kind, to attract the people; nothing but the uplifted cross to draw together these thousands of worshipers. It was a supreme lesson on the significance and drawing power of this memorial institution.

      When, at the signal of the leader, given with a flag, the great throng rose, as if touched simultaneously by some unseen power, and began to sing in perfect harmony, "Nearer, My God, to Thee," there was not only a great wave of melody sweeping through the air and being heard a great distance, but there was an internal wave of emotion which swept over the souls of the people, as [492] they heard this music blending like the voice of many waters. Again, it was a supreme moment When all voices were blended in repeating the Lord's Prayer. To hear twenty-five thousand people pray, in unison, "Our Father, who art in heaven," beseeching him, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," was proof itself that the kingdom is coming with increasing power over the hearts and lives of men. Again, when with subdued voices the great multitude sang,

eyes were suffused with tears and many voices were choked with emotion.

      None of us, perhaps, will ever see another scene like that. A gracious Providence had given us the only cloudless day of the Convention for this holy service, and the blue skies above us seemed to bend in heavenly benediction over the solemn scene. When the offering for the Ministerial Relief Fund had been made, and the closing hymn was sung, and the benediction pronounced, the people passed out of the amphitheater reverently, with the spell of the occasion lingering on their minds and hearts.

      What must it be, when the innumerable throng of the redeemed in heaven shall join together in the glad song of redemption, ascribing praise and dominion and power and glory unto the Lamb which was slain for our redemption?

      The communion service was the crowning feature of the Lord's Day, as it should ever be, and, indeed, of the whole Convention. The day was fair, as if by design. Forbes Field, a great sheltered amphitheater with an open-air outlook, was the place of meeting. Fully twenty-five thousand people were present. Of course, it was impossible to speak to such a concourse, but Wallace Tharp and his assistants had the service so well planned that there was no clash or hitch in it all. There were five hundred deacons and one hundred elders serving the people from some forty-five tables. The order and harmony were remarkable. It was perhaps the only communion service ever watched over by policemen, and never were officers of the law more needless. The entire service consumed less than an hour, and yet there was no haste or indecorum. . . .

      After a week of visiting and Convention-going, and after a much-scattered but full Sunday morning church attendance, twenty-five thousand Disciples sat down in the pavilion of Forbes Field to the feast of Christian love.

      The events of the week--memorial addresses, great board reports, college banquets and imposing parades--important in themselves, were dwarfed in comparison with this sublime service. Friends and aliens together confessed its supreme interest and pre-eminent spiritual power. Its dignity borrowed nothing from earthly sources. Human eloquence and wisdom were still while the people read the very words of Christ in establishing the holy Supper, and imitated the early disciples in showing forth the Lord's death until he come again. Not a word was breathed about revising the old faith, and all felt that here was being revealed the unsullied devotion of the brethren to the Restoration movement. Here was answered, as is answered in every faithful church each Lord's Day, the charge that intellect and not heart, law and not love, is the distinguishing quality of the people who are committed to the only creed that will never need revision.

      Forget every other feature of Centennial week, and the communion service unerringly bears witness that the Restoration people have not departed, and will not depart, from their original position. For the fellowship of the bread and the cup is the seal of our reliance on the sacrifice of Calvary, and our adherence to Paul's statement to preach nothing else but Christ and him crucified to a sin-burdened world. This celebration meant that twenty-five thousand people directly participating, and more than a thousand thousand disciples they represented, believe that Christ died for [493] our sins according to the Scripture, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scripture, and that they would say with Paul, "Though we or an angel from heaven should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema."

      The climax of our Centennial celebration was reached in the communion service in the amphitheater on Forbes Field. It was held on Sunday afternoon, October 17. The preceding days of the Convention had been more or less inclement and cold. But on this day it was as if Providence had interposed. The plans so precisely laid by man needed the co-operation of nature, else unspeakable confusion and discomfiture would have resulted.

      The amphitheater is a great structure of cement and steel built for observing athletic games. It has a roof, but is open in front and on the sides. The program of the afternoon called for a great choir and leader, elders, deacons and eight cornetists to be stationed on the ground of the arena to lead the throng of worshipers in the seats above. Rain would have rendered the carrying out of the program impossible.

      But it did not rain. And the chill winds of previous days were held back on the Lord's Day as if the Master of the winds himself had checked them. And the sun shone fairly and warmed the ground and the benches so that the people suffered no discomfort. Men betokened their reverence by removing their hats during the prayers and while the emblems were being passed. This was probably the only day of the Convention in which this divine politeness could have been manifested without exposure and risk.

      The fears of many that the big throng could not be organized into a reverent body of worshipers were dispelled as soon as one entered the amphitheater. There was no conversation. Against all the secular and trifling suggestions of the building and its outlook upon an athletic field the well-bred instinct of worship asserted itself. The thousands had come to honor Christ, and no one could doubt that they truly discerned the Lord's body and blood.

      The occasion was splendidly prepared for. The service was a communion service throughout. There was no address. A ritual consisting of the Scripture words of the institution of the Supper, the prayers and the vow of consecration, together with the hymn numbers and an announcement of the object of the offering, had been printed in a four-page leaflet and put into the hands of every attendant.

      With remarkable evenness of rhythm the multitude, separated from end to end by a distance of nearly two city blocks, kept together in the reading. And no congregation of one hundred in a conventional meeting-house could have sung with greater precision than did they. W. E. M. Hackleman led the host in its praises. It was done with unassuming grace and taste.

      Wallace Tharp, of the North Side Church, Pittsburg, had charge of the preparations and officiated at the service. Five hundred deacons assisted him and nearly one hundred elders. These men were in their places promptly. From the tables placed in the front of the various sections of the amphitheater and on the arena below, the elders united in voicing the prayer of thanksgiving for the loaf. Upon signal from Mr. Tharp, the deacons, having received the plates from the elders, dispensed the bread to the people. Afterward in like manner the cup was passed.

      No well-ordered congregation could have observed the feast more decently. It required only about twenty-five minutes for the dispensation of both emblems. The whole service lacked five minutes of an hour in length.

      It was characteristically simple and unaffected. Among Disciples the communion is the Lord's Supper, simply. No touch of the Mass has ever been felt upon it. It has never been used to awe the soul, save as the soul is awed by the great love that burst through the bleeding heart of Christ. Among us its simplicity is its beauty and its [494] primitiveness, too. For was it not instituted as a token of spiritual friendship between the Master and his disciples, lest they forget that he gave his life for them?

      Yet the element of simplicity, both as an objective ceremony and as a conception of the communicants on this great Lord's Day in 1969, marks almost its only point of resemblance to that original feast. In other respects the original and this were in striking contrast.

      The first Supper was eaten by a few--those eleven faithful, wondering, trembling friends of the Master. This great Centennial communion was partaken of by thirty thousand. The first Supper was prepared in a hidden upper room. This latest Supper was prepared and celebrated out in the open, facing the blue horizon and a landscape whose picturesque details of valley and bridge and beauteous building both God's hand and man's had co-operated to produce, as if for this event.

      The music of the first Supper was pitched in a minor key. The cross was in sight. Its full meaning even the Saviour did not himself yet discern. The friends were hesitant and tremulous betwixt faith in their Master and knowledge of the brute fact that he was already being delivered into the hands of his enemies. Night's blackness brooded o'er their souls. But the music of this new communion was in a major key. The light had broken. These thousands had come to glory in the cross, not to dread it. They gathered in Pittsburg to recount the marvelous victories that had been wrought by the Master's failure. The Miserere had given place to the Jubilate Deo and the Te Deum. Triumphant rang the song from the thirty thousand throats and echoed over the distant hills,

      Next to being in it and of it, one could wish to have stood on the distant hill and beheld the sight and caught the praises of the thousands of voices melted into one. In the observers who thus placed themselves, distant and above, one easily felt the suggestion of the great company of witnesses which must on that day have filled the invisible hills with their heavenly presence. The "fathers" of the Reformation must have beer there, and those pioneers who had borne upon their stout hearts the burden of the plea when it was unpopular. And with them must have been all those great souls who have cut new paths for men's feet and suffered for their faith.

      Chief among them, our hearts must believe, was he whose face is more marred than any man's, who for us men and our redemption, that he might open a fair pathway to God, shed his blood upon the bitter cross.

      It is a far cry from Forbes Field to Calvary. A far cry in every way. The time lapse is twenty centuries. The changes in manners and customs is the story of our domestic history. In the interval between the cross and the playground modern civilization, blood-drenched, has slowly emerged. Separated by time and manners, they are still more separated by nature. Calvary! What holy associations are linked with that name! The cross, the suffering, the sin. The gloomy sea of human depravity and need which swirled around the cross. The black waves of hate which dashed against the feet of the Saviour. The love which like a star shone over it. The love which stilled the storm. All these crowd the mind when we think of Calvary.

      But Forbes Field! This name suggests the arena of sport. We recall the surging multitudes, the wild yells, the gambling and profanity. And back of it as a setting is the great smoky city, reeking with commercialism, the smoke of mammon's altars ascending night and day.

      These things were in my mind as I [495] went into Forbes Field that bright Centennial Sunday afternoon. I felt an incongruity. Like others, I thought the holy Supper would be better observed in the quiet of a church, where the architecture, music and service were in a harmonious association. I felt that the communion and Forbes Field were impossible.

      I was mistaken. The Master was there with his people. The thrill did not come to me when I saw the multitude. Nor in "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Neither did it come in the reading, nor in the first prayer. It came when, low and full, arose the hymn:

      A lady sitting near me was weeping. I could hardly sing. The emotion of the moment was real and evident. Never before did the simplicity, beauty and holiness of the feast so crowd upon me. As if by Prospero's wand, the smoky city sank away; the arena vanished; a "green hill" from far away, cross-crowned, rose in the midst as we sat at Jesus' feet.

      When the communion dissolved and we all went away, my heart still burned within me. I knew then (faintly, perhaps) what the two of Emmaus felt when He was "made known to them in the breaking of bread." I knew then what was meant by "not in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father; . . . but the true worshiper shall worship him in spirit and in truth." I knew then, and not before, what David meant when he said, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." Musing thus, something like a prayer formed itself in my heart:

      O Master, I had thought that the only place to meet thee in sacrament was the quiet church, the cloistered abbey, the solemn temple. I was wrong. Help me to know that thou canst meet me anywhere. Thou canst meet me here. Save me from the legalism of times and places. Help me to know, O Christ, that as the same stars which shone in Kedron, shine now in Monongahela: so the Love which crowned Calvary may sanctify Forbes Field. I need thee every hour. I need thee more in the smoky city than I do in the solemn temple. Spread thou thy feast for me amid the roar of traffic. Let me see thy face in the smoke of the factories. Be with me in the parks of pleasure. Prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Above all, let me never forget that thy quiet house is my own heart, wherever it may be. [496]

[CCR 491-496]