The delightful and erudite Reverend Father Charles McClean gives a brilliant address on the history of the Society of St. James - which worked in the early to mid 20th century to restore liturgical and eucharistic piety back to an American Lutheran context decimated by various cultural forces that left our churches ceremonially impoverished.

Members of my own congregation will enjoy the fact that the Rev. Adolph Wismar - mentioned several times in this presentation - served our own little Salem Lutheran Church in Gretna, Louisiana from 1910-1918 - before his 1918-1945 stint at St. Matthews in New York City, and his later call to serve as a professor at Valpo.

The fact that we can celebrate the Divine Service at my congregation with the level of traditional Lutheran ceremony that we have had for many years is because of the work of men like Pastor Wismar and the others in the Society of St. James.