1916
Reading edition
Visited old Mrs. G. today and gave her communion. This was my first experience with communion at the sick bed. I think there is a good deal of superstition connected with the rite. It isn’t very much different in some of its aspects from the Catholic rite of extreme unction. Yet I will not be too critical. If the rite suggests and expresses the emotion of honest contrition it is more than superstition. But that is the difficulty of acting as priest. It is not in your power to determine the use of a symbol. Whether it is a blessing or a bit of superstition rests altogether with the recipient.
I must admit that I am losing some of the aversion to the sacraments cultivated in my seminary days. There is something very beautiful about parents bringing their child to the altar with a prayer of thanksgiving and as an act of dedication. The trouble is that the old ritual in the book of forms does not express this idea clearly. I have to put the whole meaning of the sacrament as I see it into the prayer. Perhaps I can use my own form later on, if I get the confidence of the people.
Incidentally Mrs. G. gave me a shock this afternoon. After the service was completed she fished around under her pillow and brought forth a five dollar bill. That was to pay me for my trouble. I never knew this fee business still existed in such a form in Protestantism. I knew they were still paying for baptism in some denominations, ours included. But this is a new one. The old lady was a little hurt, I think, by my refusal. I think she imagined that pity prompted my diffidence. She insisted that she was quite able to pay. I’d better get started on this whole fee question and make an announcement that I won’t accept any fees for anything. I think I’ll except weddings however. Every one takes fees for them. It will just make a scene when the groom or best man slyly crosses your palm with a bill and you make a righteous refusal. They never will understand. Marriage is not a sacrament anyway. Then, too, it’s fun getting a little extra money once in a while. But isn’t marriage a sacrament?