Word: coffin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...contains the consecrated Host. This, Catholics believe, is the Real Presence of Christ. The monstrance of Protestantism, however, is the preaching of its ministers, and the faith of the Reformers was based on the assurance that "God met His people in His word." Using this comparison, Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, 76, longtime president of Union Theological Seminary and onetime (1943-44) Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., has written Communion Through Preaching (Scribner; $2.50), a short but striking book about the preaching sacrament of Protestantism -and how poorly a lot of Protestants understand...
Currently, Dr. Coffin finds, there are few congregations which do not suffer from a surplus of "ministerial chat." "A talk on current events, or on some social evil, or on managing one's feelings, escaping one's worries, or overcoming fears, on 'integrating one's personality' ... is hardly the vehicle for the personal approach of Almighty God eliciting adoration, trust and love...
What should a sermon be? To Dr. Coffin, a sermon "exalts, God in Christ for worship that He may enter into personal fellowship with listeners." This is no figure of speech. Preaching is the essence of Protestantism. By hearing the Word preached, and receiving it with faith, Protestants get the Divine grace which Roman Catholics believe can come only through receiving Sacraments...
...only one, his frail daughter Dolly, ever tugs very hard at Ase's heartstrings. One winter day Ase's mother, half-crazed by Ben's continued absence, takes Dolly walking in a blizzard and loses her. Ase buries his child in a tiny, hand-hewn coffin...
...with legal action, and demanded that he deliver the body to them in Galena, Kans. Boydstun, who had begun getting black looks from people in Comanche, hastened to oblige. He laid three dozen celluloid roses on Billy's chest, put a plastic boutonniere in his lapel, loaded the coffin into his hearse and took it to them. That night a handful of Billy's kin took him quietly to a rural cemetery at Lone Elm, Kans. and buried him by the light of flashlights. Said Undertaker Boydstun: "The deal backfired...