MINISTRY AND WORSHIP
A Sermon Delivered by ANN BRANSON, at the Meeting of the Northern District of
Philadelphia, 1865.
Journal of Ann Branson, A Minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends. Philadelphia:
W. H. Pile's Sons, 1892, pages 227-228.
This is The Quaker Homiletics Online Anthology, Part 3: The 19th Century.
On First-day we attended the Meeting for the Northern District in the morning and afternoon. In
forenoon, after Deborah Brooks (a young Friend) had spoken, not a word of which I could hear,
my mouth was opened to speak of silent worship, and express my belief that those who worship
the Father in spirit and in truth, often find these meetings to be the most strengthening and
encouraging of any other; for the minister of the sanctuary and true tabernacle, who is the Lord
Jesus Christ, knows all our wants, and is acquainted with our several situations, and where there
is a looking unto Him in the way of his judgments, bearing the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire,
He will cleanse the temple of the heart, and come in and sup with us, and we with Him. And He
will at times and seasons break in amongst those thus waiting upon Him, with this inviting
language--"Children come and dine"--that there will be left no doubt who it is, knowing that it is
.the Lord himself, thus inviting and feeding his disciples with the food He hath prepared for them,
comforting and strengthening their hearts together, with his holy, life-giving power and presence.
Instrumental ministry which is of his begetting and ordering, is not to be despised, but appreciated
according to its worth; that is as instrumental help, and not to be withheld when He gives the
command to speak, for He still, as in days past, makes use of clay to anoint and open the blind
eyes, yet this is not to be compared to his own immediate presence and inspeaking word nigh in
the heart. I said blessed be his name forever, and let all the world say amen.