The Religious Life of London
by J. Ewing Ritchie · English · Gutenberg #32844 · 504,665 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Religious Life of London
Author: J. Ewing Ritchie
Release date: June 16, 2010 [eBook #32844]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32844
Credits: Transcribed from the 1870 Tinsley Brothers edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LONDON ***
Transcribed from the 1870 Tinsley Brothers edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org.
THE
RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LONDON.
* * * * *
BY
J. EWING RITCHIE,
AUTHOR OF "BRITISH SENATORS," "THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON," ETC.
* * * * *
"'Tis Nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of form created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good."
WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1870.
* * * * *
LONDON:
SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
* * * * *
TO
SAMUEL MORLEY, ESQ., M.P.
TO WHOSE UNEXAMPLED ACTIVITY AND MUNIFICENCE
(BY NO MEANS CONFINED WITHIN HIS OWN DENOMINATION)
MUCH OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LONDON IS DUE,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTION.
Man is undoubtedly a religious animal. In England at any rate the remark
holds good. No one who ignores the religious element in our history can
rightly understand what England was, or how she came to be what she is.
The fuller is our knowledge, the wider our field of investigation, the
more minute our inquiry, the stronger must be the conviction in all minds
that religion has been for good or bad the great moving power, and, in
spite of the teachings of Secularism or of Positivism, it is clear that
as much as ever the questions which are daily and hourly coming to the
front have in them more or less of a religious element. It is not often
foreigners perceive this. Take Louis Blanc as an illustration. As much
as any foreigner he has mastered our habits and ways--all that we call
our inner life; yet, to him, the English pulpit is a piece of
wood--nothing more. According to him, the oracles are dumb, the sacred
fire has ceased to burn, the veil of the temple is rent in twain; church
attendance, he tells us, in England, besides custom, has little to
recommend it. There is beauty in desolation--in life changing into
death--
"Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers;"
but not even of this beauty can the Church of England boast. Dr.
Dollinger--a more thoughtful, a more learned, a more laborious writer--is
not more flattering. The Church of England, he tells us, is "the Church
only of a fragment of the nation," of "the rich, cultivated, and
fashionable classes." It teaches "the religion of deportment, of
gentility, of clerical reserve." "In its stiff and narrow organization,
and all want of pastoral elasticity, it feels itself powerless against
the masses." The patronage is mostly in the hands of the nobility and
gentry, who regard it as a means of provision for their younger sons,
sons-in-law, and cousins. Our latest critic, M. Esquiros, writes in a
more favourable strain, yet even he confesses how the city operative
shuns what he deems the Church of Mammon, and draws a picture of the
English clergyman, by no means suggestive of zeal in the Master's service
or readiness to bear His yoke. Dissent foreigners generally ignore, yet
Dissent is as active, as energetic as the State Church, and may claim
that it has practically realized the question of our time--the Free
Church in the Free State. In thus attempting to describe the Religious
Life of London, I touch on a question of which I may briefly say that it
concerns the welfare of the community at large.
IVY COTTAGE, BALLARD'S LANE, FINCHLEY,
_April_ 4_th_, 1870.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
ON HERESY AND ORTHODOXY 1
CHAPTER II.
THE JEWS 16
CHAPTER III.
THE REFORMED JEWS 37
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREEK CHURCH 47
CHAPTER V.
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 58
CHAPTER VI.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 76
THE DEAF AND DUMB AT CHURCH 87
A SUNDAY IN JAIL 93
HIGH CHURCH REVIVALISTS 100
A SUNDAY WITH THE LUNATICS 107
LAY WORK IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 113
AN EVANGELICAL PREACHER 121
CHAPTER VII.
AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS:--
AT COLEBROOK ROW 131
PARK CHURCH, HIGHBURY 139
CHAPTER VIII.
CONGREGATIONALISTS AND BAPTISTS 146
THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS 159
CHRISTMAS MORNING WITH THE YOUNGSTERS 169
DR. PARKER AT THE POULTRY 177
MR. LYNCH'S THURSDAY EVENINGS 187
CHAPTER IX.
THE UNITARIANS 193
AGGRESSIVE UNITARIANS 204
CHAPTER X.
THE WESLEYAN METHODISTS 210
AT A WATCH-NIGHT SERVICE 223
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUAKERS 232
JONATHAN GRUBB AT THE AGRICULTURAL HALL 236
CHAPTER XII.
THE MORAVIANS IN FETTER LANE 244
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SWEDENBORGIANS 252
CHAPTER XIV.
THE IRVINGITES, OR APOSTOLICAL CHURCH 271
CHAPTER XV.
THE FREE CHRISTIAN UNION 279
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONDON ECCLESIA 291
THE CHRISTADELPHIANS 298
CHAPTER XVII.
SOME MINOR SECTS 306
THE PECULIAR PEOPLE 307
THE SANDEMANIANS 313
THE SOUTHCOTTIANS 320
THE SPIRITUALISTS 328
THE CAMPBELLITES 335
THE MORMONS 344
CHAPTER XVIII.
ADVANCED RELIGIONISTS:--
THE CHURCH OF PROGRESS 352
THE INDEPENDENT RELIGIOUS REFORMERS 359
SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY SQUARE 365
THE SECULARISTS 371
CHAPTER XIX.
THE IRREGULARS 380
IRREGULAR AGENCIES 381
CHAPTER I.
ON HERESY AND ORTHODOXY.
The original meaning of the word heresy is choice. "It was long used,"
writes Dr. Waddington, "by the philosophers to designate the preference
and selection of some speculative opinion, and in process of time was
applied without any sense of reproach to every sect." The most fruitful
source of speculative opinion is, and has ever been, religion; from the
schools of philosophy to those of theology the term heresy passed by a
very intelligible and simple process. The word is thrice used in the
Acts to denote sect (Acts v. 17, xv. 5, and xxiv. 5), and Paul himself
when on his defence before Felix and in answer to Tertullus confesses
that "after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my
fathers."
In process of time heresy came to have a bad meaning attached to it. It
is easy to see why this should be so. We naturally prefer our own
opinions to those of other people. We naturally prefer the society of
those who hold our own opinions to the society of those who do not. Life
is short, and we do not want to be always disputing. Life to most of us
is hard, and it would be harder still if after a day's toil Paterfamilias
had to discuss the three births of Christ, or His twofold nature, the
AEons of the Gnostics, the Judaism of the Ebionites, the ancient Persian
dualism which formed the fundamental idea of the system of Manes, or the
windy frenzy of Montanus, with an illogical wife, a friend gifted with a
fatal flow of words, or a pert and shallow child. We like those with
whom we constantly associate. They are wise men and sound Christians.
They are those who fast and pay tithes, and are eminently proper and
respectable. As to the heretics--the publicans and sinners, away with
them. Let their portion be shame in this life, perdition in the next.
Thus it is heretics have got a bad name. Church history has been written
by their enemies, by men who have honestly believed that a man of a
different heresy to their own would rob an orphan, and break all the
commandments. The Rev. Mr. Thwackem "doubted not but all the infidels
and heretics in the world would, if they could, confine honour to their
own absurd errors and damnable deceptions." The phrase "absurd errors
and damnable deceptions," is one a real theologian might envy, or at any
rate appropriate. In another sense also that hero of fiction is a type
of the spirit in which orthodox people often (thankfully we record the
existence of a better spirit in our day) have written on theology. "When
I mean religion," cries Thwackem, "I mean the Christian religion, and not
only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion, and not only
the Protestant religion, but the Church of England."
Still the question occurs, What is heresy?
It is not difficult to say what it is not. The African Bishops on one
occasion, in council in Carthage, decided that heretics were not at all
any part of the Church of Christ, but this opinion was modified by a
later council. "Heretics," writes Epiphanius, "are divided into two
kinds: those who receive the Christian religion, but err in parts, who
when they come over to the Church are anointed with oil; and those who do
not receive it at all and are unbelievers, such as Jews and Greeks, and
these we baptize."
According to the Articles of the English Establishment, "the Church of
Christ is a company of faithful people among whom the pure Word of God is
preached and the Sacraments rightly administered according to Christ's
institution." But on this very matter we find the Church divided. Low
Churchmen tell us that the ritualists do not rightly administer the
Sacraments, and the latter say the same of their opponents. The _Record_
suggests that Bishop Colenso is little better than one of the wicked, and
charitably insinuates that the late Dean Milman is amongst the lost. Dr.
Pusey places the Evangelicals in the same category with Jews, or
Infidels, or Dissenters, and has strong apprehensions as to their
everlasting salvation. Dr. Temple was made Bishop of Exeter, and
Archdeacon Denison set apart the day of his installation as one of
humiliation and prayer. Yet all these are of the Establishment. Dr.
Parr gladly associated with Unitarians, and went to Unitarian chapels to
hear Unitarian ministers preach. Would Dean Close do so? Yet Dr. Parr,
as much as Dean Close, was of the Church as regards solemn profession,
and deliberate assent and consent. Mr. Melville believes Dissent to be
schism, and one of the deadly sins, while the Deans of Westminster and
Canterbury hold out to Dissenters friendly hands. If we take the
Articles, the Church Establishment is as orthodox as the firmest
Christian or the narrowest-minded bigot can desire; if we turn to its
ministers, we find them as divided as it is possible for people
professing to take their teaching from the Bible can be. If there be any
grace in creeds and articles, any virtue in signing them, if their
imposition be not a solemn farce, it is impossible that heresy should
exist within the Established Church. It is in the wide and varied fields
of Dissent that we are to look for heresy.
Yet the Church of England is tolerant, to a certain extent, of heresy.
The judicious Hooker writes, "We must acknowledge even heretics
themselves to be a maimed part, yet a part, of the visible Church. If an
infidel should pursue to death an heretic professing Christianity only
for Christian profession's sake, could we deny unto him the honour of
martyrdom? Yet this honour all men know to be proper unto the Church.
Heretics, therefore, are not utterly cast out from the visible Church of
Christ. If the Fathers do, therefore, anywhere, as often they do, make
the true visible Church of Christ and heretical companies opposite, they
are to be construed as separating heretics not altogether from the
company of believers, but from the fellowship of sound believers. For
where professed unbelief is, there can be no visible Church of Christ;
there may be where sound belief wanteth. Infidels being clean without
the Church, deny directly and utterly reject the very principles of
Christianity which heretics embrace, and err only by misconstruction,
whereupon their opinions, although repugnant indeed to the principles of
Christian faith, are notwithstanding by them held otherwise and
maintained as most consistent therewith." The Privy Council by its
Judgment of "Essays and Reviews" has decided that a Churchman may hold
heretical opinions.
In popular language, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, the
Presbyterians are orthodox; the Quakers, the Methodists, Wesleyans and
otherwise, are orthodox; for our purpose popular language is sufficient.
Heresy, says Tertullian, is the result of wisdom, real or assumed. He
writes: "The philosophers are the fathers of the heretics." It is
computed that there have been no less than five hundred distinct
heresies. Happily for us, most of them are dead and buried in Greek and
Latin folios, rarely read and still more rarely understood. The East was
the land of heresy. Every day saw the birth of a new one amongst a
people of subtle intellect and endowed with a language wonderfully
contrived to express the most delicate and phantasmal forms of belief.
We laugh at the schoolmen, at their barbarous Latin and incomprehensible
disputations. No one now ventures to discuss how many angels could stand
upon the point of a needle, but in the early ages of the Church the
Fathers wasted their lives in disputations equally windy and barren of
practical result. "Greek Christianity," writes Dean Milman, "was
insatiably inquisitive, speculative. Confident in the inexhaustible
copiousness and fine precision of its language, it endured no limit to
its curious investigations. As each great question was settled or worn
out, it was still ready to propose new ones. It began with the Divinity
of Christ, still earlier perhaps with some of the gnostic cosmogonical or
theophanic theories, so onward to the Trinity; it expired, or at least
drew near its end, as the religion of the Roman East, discussing the
Divine light on Mount Tabor." Extinct long ago are the questions to
settle which Church councils were held, fanatic monks swarmed into
Constantinople by hundreds from far away--Syrian, or Arabian, or African
deserts--and armies took the field. Even a vowel might stir up strife
and bloodshed. The enmity of the Homoousian to the Homiousian was as
bitter as that between Guelph and Ghibelline, as that of Capulet and
Montague; and only the pen of a Swift could do justice to the brawls
"Bred of an airy word."
Heresy can be put down in two ways. You may argue it out of existence,
or you may crush it out with the sword. As soon as ever the alliance
between Church and State was formed, the latter was the favourite mode of
dealing with heretics; it saved so much trouble. If you cut off a
heretics head, you are certain to stop his heretical tongue. There is an
end of his pestiferous logic. Continue the process, and heresy is
exterminated, as Unitarianism was in Poland--as the Huguenots were by the
massacres of St. Bartholomew--as Protestantism was crushed out in the Low
Countries by Alva, and in Spain by Torquemada and the _auto da fes_ of
Madrid. After a similar fashion, Bombastes Furioso proposed to
annihilate his enemies single-handed. His plan was to take them
half-a-dozen at a time, and when he had cut off the heads of the first
division, a second was to follow to receive a similar favour at his
hands, and so on till all were slain. Power has always dealt with
heretics after this fashion; in this way Churchmen endeavoured to put
down Puritanism in England, Presbyterianism in Scotland, Popery in
Ireland. To Henry IV. is due in this country the first permission to
send heretics to the stake. The Preamble of the Act of 1401, _De
Heretico Comburendo_, is as follows: "Divers false and perverse people,
of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the sacraments
of the Church, and of the authority of the same, against the law of God
and of the Church,--usurping the office of preaching,--do perversely and
maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers
new doctrines and wicked erroneous opinions contrary to the faith and
determination of Holy Church. And of such sect and wicked doctrines they
make unlawful conventicles, they hold and exercise schools, they make and
write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and excite and
stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and
division among the people, and other enormities horrible to be heard
daily do perpetrate and commit. The diocesans cannot by their
jurisdiction spiritual, without aid of the king's majesty, sufficiently
correct these said false and perverse people, nor refrain their malice,
because they do go from diocess to diocess, and will not appear before
the said diocesans; but the jurisdiction spiritual, the keys of the
Church, and the censures of the same they do utterly condemn and despise,
and so these wicked preachings and doctrines they do from day to day
contrive and exercise to the destruction of all order and rule, right and
reason."
The Bishops by this Act received arbitrary power to arrest and imprison
on suspicion, without check or restraint of law, at their will and
pleasure. Prisoners who refused to abjure their errors, who persisted in
heresy or relapsed into it after abjuration, were sentenced to be burnt
at the stake.
So much deadlier a thing was heresy deemed than evil-living on the part
of the clergy, that, previous to the reign of Henry VII., Bishops, who
had no power to imprison priests even though convicted of adultery or
incest, had, as Mr. Froude points out, power to arrest every man on
suspicion of heresy, and to detain him in prison untried. Constantine
was the first Christian Emperor who had recourse to this system; and it
was against the Arians, who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, that
his enmity was directed. Death was the penalty for any one guilty of
concealing an Arian book. Of course the Arians, in their turn, were
equally ready to draw the sword. In those passionate and contentious
times it was hard consistently and constantly to be orthodox. Justinian,
whose laws against heretics were more severe than those of Constantine,
and who was hailed by the Church as "the most Christian Emperor,"
actually died a heretic. A controversy arose as to whether the body of
Christ was or was not liable to corruption. A new sect of course was
formed, known as the Corruptibles and the Incorruptibles. The latter
were considered heretics. Justinian gave them his support, and was on
the point of persecuting others of a different way of thinking when he
died. One of his successors, Theodosius, was just as ready to persecute
the holders of equally unimportant opinions. He it was who put down the
Tascodragitae, "who made their prayers inwardly and silently, compressing
their noses and lips with their hands, lest any sound should transpire."
Fortunately for our readers, religious London is not thus minutely
divided and subdivided. We have still absurd squabbles, that for
instance whether Mr. Mackonochie was kneeling or only bending, being
pre-eminently so; yet on the whole in Western Europe and among the German
races the tendency is more and more to practical, and less and less to
speculative life. In another way also may the comparatively speaking
undisturbed orthodoxy of Western Europe be accounted for. For the
orthodox there have been cakes and ale, and even the ass knoweth his
owner and the ox his master's crib. Nothing so keeps men from religious
speculation as a good endowment. In his "History of Latin Christianity,"
Dean Milman very significantly writes: "The original independence of the
Christian character which induced the first converts in the strength of
their faith to secede from the manners and usages, as well as the rites
of the world, to form self-governed republics, as it were, within the
social system; this noble liberty had died away as Christianity became an
hereditary, an established, a universal religion." The poet asked, and
he might well do so--
"What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year."
To have an opinion of his own, and to express it, was utterly impossible
to any man whose heart was set upon church preferment. One illustration
will suffice: Many--many years ago there was in the old city of Norwich a
Bishop known by the name of Bathurst. His connexions were good, and when
George III. was king there was an Earl Bathurst and a Lord Chancellor
Bathurst, and a Sir Benjamin Bathurst. This clerical scion had thus on
his entry into public life every chance in his favour. He lived to a
great age: he was born in 1744, and died in 1837; but to the last he was
only Bishop of Norwich. Why was this? Well, on the 27th of May, 1808,
Lord Granville moved for the House of Lords to resolve itself into a
committee "to consider the petition of the Irish Catholics." The
petition was not a prayer for political equality, simply for employment
in military and civil situations. The Bishop of Norwich had the audacity
to lift up his single voice from the episcopal bench on behalf of Lord
Granville's very moderate motion. The heavens did not fall--nor did the
earth open its mouth and swallow him up--but the light of the royal
countenance was lost to him for ever. His daughter writes: "A friend of
my father's happened to mention in the presence of Queen Charlotte that
the Bishop of Norwich ought to be removed to the see of St. Asaph, as the
emoluments were better and the duties less numerous. 'No,' said her
Majesty, quickly; 'he voted against the king.'" Some years afterwards it
was said by those about the Court that the Bishop "might have commanded
anything in the Church if he had taken the right line."
It has thus come to pass that heresy in London and the country has been
confined within narrow bounds. Whatever Churchmen may have thought, the
creed and the public utterances of the Church have been orthodox.
Popular dissent has followed suit--heresy has been avoided by some as a
temptation of the devil, by others as an obstacle to worldly success, but
no religious life can exist without it. In the religious world, as a
rule, heresy is life, orthodoxy death. "Are you a Christian?" asked one
well-known man of another. "When I am a good man," was the reply; but,
say the orthodox, it is on his belief or rejection of dogmas that a man's
Christianity depends. One cheering sign of the times is that the
religious public is beginning to realize the fact, that it does not
follow that because a man holds heretical opinions he will pick your
pocket, elope with your wife, or make away with your silver spoons. It
is well when people come to think that there may be something purer,
higher, holier, than unreasoning uniformity of opinion or than a blind
assent to scholastic terms and definitions. Mental stagnation is not
Christian life, neither does sterile orthodoxy deserve the name. It was
the recognition of this idea that gives to the Apostle John a special
claim to admiration and regard. "If," says he, "a man say I love God and
hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother,
whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?" It was
under the influence of the same spirit that the Master rebuked the zeal
of his disciples when they would have hindered one who was according to
their own account doing good, merely because "he followed not us." The
passage is worth transcribing. "And John answered him, saying, Master,
we saw one casting out devils in thy name and he followeth not us, and we
forbade him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him
not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can
lightly speak evil of me; for he that is not against us is on our part.
For whosoever shall give you a cup of water in my name because ye belong
to Christ, verily I say unto you he shall not lose his reward."
CHAPTER II.
THE JEWS.
Of the many definitions of London, perhaps the truest is that which
describes it as several cities rolled into one. The rich inhabit
Belgravia, the poor Bethnal Green. In Mark Lane on a Monday morning you
might fancy, if you were to shut your eyes and listen to the conversation
around, that you were in primitive East Anglia; on the contrary, in
Chancery Lane, and all the places of resort contiguous, the talk is of
writs, of issuing executions, of levying a distress, and of all those
horrible processes by which law seeks to secure property from its natural
enemies, poverty or rascality. Irish abound in Drury Lane, and in
unsavoury Houndsditch the seed of Abraham congregate.
The traveller from the palatial West will perhaps shrink from leaving on
his right hand Aldgate Pump, and plunging in the dark alleys and crowded
lanes in which the Jews reside. Nor, if he be of a fastidious stomach,
would I much blame him. In Meeting House Yard, for instance, I saw a
pool of dark fluid, around which little pale children were playing,
suggesting something very rotten in the state of Denmark. It is in this
neighbourhood that the far-famed Rag Fair is held on the Sunday, and all
the week there is more or less dealing in such articles as come under the
denomination of "old clo'," respecting which it may as a general rule be
safely affirmed that, whilst we may dispute the title of clo', as regards
much there vended, there can be no dispute as to the appropriateness of
the descriptive adjective. In the lanes and courts around us are names
familiar to us from infancy. Lazarus keeps a second-hand book-shop, and
Moses sells fried fish. You see a printing-office, with posters up; on
those posters are Hebrew characters. In Duke Street there are a couple
of book-shops, but the books are all or chiefly Hebrew. In this
neighbourhood you can easily forget that you are in London at all. It is
not the English tongue you hear; or, if it be, it comes to you disguised
in such a foreign accent as to be scarcely intelligible. Through the
mist and fog dark eyes, all redolent of the far-off East, flash on you;
and now and then a tall figure in flowing robes, sad and solitary, stalks
by; and you rub your eyes to be sure that you are not in a dream. This
temporary delusion will be stronger if you visit this neighbourhood on a
Friday evening just after sunset. In Whitechapel and Aldgate the gas is
flaring, and a busy trade is carried on; in Leadenhall Street, in the
offices of the great Navigation Companies or of the leading shipbrokers,
clerks are busy writing, and weather-beaten skippers from Australia or
the Cape or New Zealand are tearing about, if we may use a colloquial
expression much in vogue, like mad. It is a contrast to pass from this
busy scene into the Jewish quarter, where the shops are all shut up and
where all is still. How is this? The answer is, it is the eve of the
Sabbath, and the Jews are at their synagogues. There are three in this
neighbourhood. The first and oldest is that of the Portuguese Jews in
King Street, Duke's Place, erected in 1656. The first German synagogue,
also in Duke's Place, was built in the year 1691, and occupied until
1790, when the present edifice was erected. This is called the Great
Synagogue. The New Synagogue, as it is denominated, in Great St. Helens,
is a very elegant and ornamental structure. The interior is very
beautiful. In so dark and dolorous a neighbourhood you are not prepared
for anything so fine. Very liberally must these ancient people have
subscribed for the fitting worship of their God. From the ground spring
up pillars highly decorated, and in the side are windows of a rich
arabesque pattern in stained glass. The ceiling is semi-dome with
octagonal coffers containing gilded flowers upon an azure ground; and the
pavement, which is of polished marble, forms a perfect circle. The
ministers of the Great Synagogue were considered the leading ones. It is
not so now. Dr. Adler is the head rabbi. He has been long in office,
and is universally esteemed by Christians as well as Jews. He is an old
man, and as his English is that of a foreigner it is clear that in his
public addresses you get an inadequate idea of his talents or
attainments. This remark applied to most of the Jewish ministers in
London. They were foreigners, and in speaking English did not succeed
much better than we do when we attempt to speak German or French. Now
two-thirds of the Jewish ministers are English.
Very far back in English history we find the people whose descendants
have taken possession of Houndsditch and all around, and turned it into a
Jewish colony. More or less they have always been with us. In
Anglo-Saxon times we seem to have had a fair sprinkling of them. After
the Conquest they arrived here in great numbers. By William Rufus they
were especially favoured, and Henry I. conferred on them a charter of
privileges. They were enabled to claim in courts of law the repayment of
any money lent by them as easily as Christians, and while the latter were
forbidden to charge any interest on their loans, there was no restriction
in this respect put upon the Jews. At this time, doubtless, they laid
the foundation of their subsequent wealth. The sovereign rather
encouraged them, as the richer they were the more gold could be forced
from them--and with our earlier as well as with many of our later kings,
gold was a commodity always in request. During the former part of the
reign of King John (A.D. 1199-1216) they seemed to have gained the favour
of that monarch, or at any rate obtained permission to exist, and trade
and worship in this country on sufferance. Subsequently, however, they
appear to have suffered much persecution, and were eventually banished
from the country in 1291 (19 Edward I.), continuing in exile for 367
years. Menasseh Ben Israel, a Jewish rabbi of great learning in
Amsterdam, petitioned the Protector Cromwell, in the year 1649, on behalf
of his brethren, for a liberty which the Latin Secretary of the Lord
Protector it is to be hoped would be foremost to advocate. During the
interval the Jews lived secretly in England, but did not possess any
"Jewries," or publicly organized congregations. Ultimately they obtained
permission to return, though the Commonwealth refused to give any formal
sanction to their re-appearance, merely tacitly consenting to it. The
people of England, says Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," "are a fierce people,
quarrelling ever with their neighbours or among themselves, and ready to
plunge the sword into the bowels of each other. Such is no safe abode
for the children of my people. Ephraim is an heartless dove. Issachar
an overburdened drudge, which stoops between two burdens. Not in a land
of war and blood, surrounded by hostile neighbours and distracted by
internal factions, can Israel hope to rest during his wanderings." There
is, however, reason to suppose that nowhere, except for a short interval
in Spain and always in Holland, have the Jews fared better than in this
country. In our time they have been allowed to take their seats as
M.P's. We have seen a Prime Minister of England of Jewish origin. Need
we say more? Jews are in all respects on an equality with Christians; in
art, and literature, and science, and the acquirement of wealth, they
have displayed a genius equal to our own. In practical piety--in the
benevolence which teaches the rich to give of their goods to the poor,
they are infinitely our superiors.
Truly, if we may judge by the aspect of the Hebrew race in Houndsditch
and its neighbourhood, there is much room for charity. Just as the Irish
Corporations were accustomed a few years ago to land a cargo of "the
finest pisantry under the sun" on the Welsh coast to beg or steal, work
or die, according to circumstances, so the chiefs of the Jews on the
Continent ship the poor and helpless of their people here, and a heavy
tax is thus enforced on the wealthier portions of the community. Then,
again, the Jews have a great dislike to military service; and the
conscription which is imposed in Prussia, Austria, Poland, and France,
drives large numbers away from the land of their birth. Thus their
number in London is greater than people imagine. Dr. Stallard places it
as 55,000, but many Jews inform me that 100,000 is nearer the mark. One
thing is certain: as soon as a synagogue is opened anywhere it is
immediately crowded; and on special occasions, such as the days of
penitence, fifteen regular and eighteen or twenty temporary synagogues
are opened in different parts of London. Most of the foreign Jews when
they arrive here are wretchedly poor and ignorant, but under any
circumstances the Jew has to fight the battle of life under circumstances
of peculiar difficulty, in consequence of the Mosaic law, which he is
bound to obey, and which he does at a very heavy pecuniary sacrifice. It
is almost impossible for a Jew to work with a Christian. He may not
partake of his food. He may not work on Friday evening or on any part of
Saturday, nor on the days set apart for the observance of the Jewish
fasts and festivals. He is thus shut out from all employment in our
factories, shipyards, engine works, or shops. If he seeks work at the
docks he is driven away by the roughs. The "old clo'" business is being
gradually taken away from him by the Irish, so his chief industrial
occupations are tailoring, cigar-making, fish and fruit selling. The
women are employed in tailoring and shirts making, in the manufacture of
umbrellas and parasols, caps and slippers; latterly the supply of cheap
picture frames has got into the hands of the Jews. I fancy none of these
trades are very lucrative, yet the Jew is rarely a thief, never a
drunkard, always attached to his family, and remarkable for his
longevity. Suicide is rare, and murder never met with among the Jews.
There are not twenty-five male Jewish convicts in all England, and for
many years there has not been a Jewess in any convict establishment.
Such is the charity of the wealthy that the poorest, who have resided
here six months, are looked after. No Jew ever is permitted to die in a
workhouse. In many of our hospitals there are wards for the Jews,
supported by them. The Jewish Board of Guardians inquire into every case
of distress, and relieve it. Yet so economically do they go to work that
their expenditure in 1869 was, including loans, not quite 5000_l._, yet
in that year the applications were 12,510.
But, in addition to their charities, the Jews are alive to the importance
of promoting religion and education. The Jewish Association for the
Diffusion of Religious Knowledge has now been in existence eleven years.
Amongst its supporters are the Rothschilds, the Goldsmids, and the other
wealthy Israelites whose charities are known all over England; but it
needs, and let us add deserves, more efficient support. It has
established a Sabbath school, where the present number of pupils is over
500, where instruction is given in reading, translation, and explanation
of the Bible, translation of the prayers, religious and moral lessons,
and Hebrew hymn-singing. It has established a synagogue in Union Hall,
Artillery Lane, where lectures on the Sabbath are given. It has provided
Scripture classes, and has published a series of Bible stories and
Sabbath readings, of which half a million of copies have been delivered.
The committee, when issuing the first number of their publications,
stated that those papers would "have for their object to impress upon the
Jewish mind proper notions of the principles and observances, spirit and
mission, of Judaism, and by appeals to the reason rather than to
sentiment, to develope and foster the most fervent conviction of the
truths of our sacred religion." In the way of Bible distribution the
Society has especially been active; until recently it was comparatively a
rare occurrence to find a Bible in the houses of the Jewish poor. Where
it was found it was of course the authorized Anglican version, which,
says the report, "however great its literary merit, must be admitted to
be faulty, and to contain numerous mistranslations adverse to the spirit
of our religion." The version they circulated was Dr. Leeser's, and they
anticipate the day when no poor Jewish home wherein parent or child can
read shall be without a Jewish version of the Holy Scriptures. Under the
auspices of the committee, a reply to Bishop Colenso was published.
The children are educated in a way of which Christians have no idea. The
Jewish free school in Brick Lane, with its three thousand children, is a
sight to see. There is, besides, an infant school equally flourishing,
and no poor Jew is relieved unless he sends his children to school. In
the visiting of the sick, in the care of the poor, all take their share.
I believe a synagogue is a little commonwealth in which the rich help the
poor, most frequently by way of small loans, and in which the strong take
care of the weak. In these works of beneficence all take their share,
the humblest as well as those of more exalted rank. The Jewish M.P.
takes his place at the Board of Guardians. The Jewish Countess will not
only give of her wealth, but will leave her stately home and seek out the
abode of sorrow and distress. Charity is inculcated in the Talmud as the
first of duties; and, if heaven is won by good works, the Jews are safe
and sure.
As a theology, to an outsider, Judaism seems ritualism _in excelsis_.
The Jewish faith is contained in the Creed and the Shemang. Of the two,
the latter is the more important. It is a declaration of the unity of
God, the first utterance of the child, the last of the devout Jew as the
watchers stand by his bedside, at the head of which is the Shechinah, or
Divine presence, and at the foot of which, with outstretched wing,
waiting for the last breath, hovers the angel of death. The Creed, which
every Jew ought to believe and rehearse daily, but which they treat as
Churchmen do their Thirty-nine Articles, is as follows:--
1. I believe, with a perfect faith, that God (blessed be His name!) is
the Creator and Governor of all created beings, and that He alone has
made, does make, and ever will make, every production.
2. I believe, with a perfect faith, that God (blessed be His name!) is
one God, and that there is no unity whatever like unto Him, and that He
alone is our God, who was, is, and will be eternally.
3. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) is not corporeal, nor is He subject to any of those changes that
are incidental to matter, and that He has no similitude whatever.
4. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) is both the first and last of all things.
5. I believe, with a perfect faith, that to the Creator (blessed be His
name!) yea, to Him only, it is proper to address our prayers, and that it
is not proper to pray to any other being.
6. I believe, with a perfect faith, that all the words of the prophets
are true.
7. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the prophecy of Moses our
instructor (may his soul rest in peace!) was true, and that he excelled
all the sages that preceded him or they who may succeed him.
8. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the law which we have now in
our possession is the same law which was given to Moses by our
instructor.
9. I believe, with a perfect faith, that this law will never be changed,
that the Creator (blessed be His name!) will never give us any other law.
10. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) knoweth all the actions and thoughts of mankind, as it is said,
"He fashioneth their hearts, and knoweth all their works."
11. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) rewards those who observe His commandments, and punishes those who
transgress them. (12.) The Jew believes in the coming of the Messiah;
and (13), in the resurrection of the dead.
The Jews in London are divided into three communities--the Reformed, the
_Ashkenasim_, or Polish and German Jews, and the _Sephardim_, or
Portuguese and Spanish. These latter pride themselves on their ancient
descent, and especially on their nationality. Their Church, as we have
said, is the oldest in London; their rabbi is Dr. Artom, and their
service differs from that of the _Ashhenasim_ in matters of detail not of
faith. Of course both take their stand upon the Pentateuch, which they
term the Torah or law, a portion of which is read every Sabbath; but,
according to the rabbinists, Moses received two laws on Mount Sinai, one
written, the other unwritten. This latter was transmitted down from
generation to generation by word of mouth until after the destruction of
Jerusalem, when it was committed to writing. This work is called
_Mishna_, or repetition. In process of time it became a text-book in the
schools of Palestine and Babylon, and lectures were delivered on it and
comments made by rabbis more or less learned and devout. In course of
time these comments and lectures were collected together into one work
under the title of _Gemara_, completion. The _Talmud_, which means
doctrine, contains the two. There are two Talmuds in existence. One
contains the decisions of the Palestine rabbis, collected and published
somewhere in the fourth century; the other contains similar decisions on
the part of the learned divines of Babylon. The difference between the
two is exclusively in the _Gemara_. The Babylonian Talmud is the one in
common use. It is for this Talmud, long too much neglected by
Christians, that the Jews have contended for ages, and it is for this
Talmud an able writer, in an article in the "Quarterly," which produced
an immense sensation at the time, eloquently pleaded, much to the
astonishment, most undoubtedly, of those bigoted ecclesiastics who,
deeming the traditions of the Romanist Fathers equal in authority with
the Bible, look down upon the older and truer traditions of the Talmud
with the contempt which ignorance always cherishes for what it cannot or
does not understand. Sentiments, as the learned Professor Hurwitz wrote,
worthy of Plato have been described as rabbinical reveries, and their
authors arraigned of impiety on no better grounds than what the
detractors supplied by wantonly imposing their own literal sense on
expressions evidently and unmistakeably figurative.
In the synagogue is the worship daily or weekly of the devout Jew
performed, for the aim of that worship is to connect itself with the
daily life. Dr. Arnold's idea of the Church and State being
synonymous--an idea as old as the judicious Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity--is undoubtedly in its origin Jewish. The officers of the
synagogue are a complete political as well as religious administration.
A synagogue forms a little world of its own. A volume would be requisite
to tell of the officers of the synagogue and of their various duties.
There is among them no separation into lay and secular. The community
consists of three kinds of members--the Cohen or priest, the Levite, and
the Israelite. A minister must often support himself, but his ministry
never ceases. To the last hour of his life he maintains his ministerial
character. "The rabbis are men of great learning; and now in the Jews'
College the students," writes a report just received, "have the advantage
of a careful and systematic clerical education, and an equally valuable
advantage, an example of piety and earnestness in their teachers."
The oldest synagogue in London is, as we have said, that of the
Sephardim, in Bevis Marks. Let us go there first. All Jewish synagogues
are alike; all the men keep their hats on, and wear a scarf round their
shoulders, hanging down to their knees. At one time, in another respect,
they were much alike--that was in the use of a service not understood by
the people generally. All this is altered now. Within the last thirty
years there has been a great change for the better. There are but few
even of the poorest Jews who do not understand Hebrew.
The governing officers of the synagogue are the Wardens, the Treasurer,
the Overseer, and the Elders. The clerical officers are the Chazan, or
reader, and the Shama, or second reader, and clerk. The ark is always
situated in the south-east end of the synagogue, to direct the worshipper
towards Jerusalem. The ark contains the law, written on vellum, fastened
to rollers, on the tops of which are little crowns of silver surrounded
by bells. The rolling and unrolling of the Law is a ceremony carefully
observed every Sabbath. In form the Bevis Marks synagogue much resembles
one of our old Nonconformist places of worship before they were improved
according to the requirements of modern taste. You pass into it from
behind some raised benches, on which several stout old gentlemen are
gesticulating with all their might. A little further on is the reading
desk, where the reader, with his hat on, his scarf round his shoulders,
is performing his appointed task--at one time singly, at another time
with the energetic assistance of the whole house. The readers wear black
gowns. The faces of the reader and the rabbi are alike turned to the
ark, before which a lamp perpetually burns. Of course there never are
pews, but benches, under which are lockers, in each of which the
worshipper deposits his scarf and prayer-book. In the synagogues of the
_Ashkenasim_ the benches nearest the ark, where the chief rabbi stands,
are considered the most honourable; but the Spanish and Portuguese Jews
make no difference in this respect. In the evening the synagogue is
lighted up by means of large tapers and old-fashioned gas-chandeliers.
In the service all join with more or less fervour. It consists entirely
of reading and singing prayers and certain portions of Scripture. No
sermon or lecture, except on Sabbaths and festivals, is necessary or
usual. The melodies used are ancient, and the reading is of a very
peculiar character, and not to be confounded with chanting or intoning as
known to Christians. Most of the congregation in Bevis Marks seem to
keep time with their bodies, as the sound rises and dies away. Also
every other sentence begins with a woah-wooah sound of a monotonous cast;
but all seem to enjoy it, especially the little Hebrew lads, who make
more noise than anybody else. Sometimes the people stand up, at other
times they sit down--they never kneel; but the stranger realizes little
solemnity while the service is performing, and many of the Jews are quite
ready to enter into a little secular conversation, or, if need be--as we
can testify from personal observation--to quarrel. The prayers are
chiefly of a laudatory, a confiding, a grateful, reverent character, and
in a style, as regards composition, indicative of a foreign origin.
Indeed, all the time the service is performing--the principal one is on
the Saturday morning, and very long--you feel as if you were a stranger,
as if you had no business there; that to the hook-nosed, black-haired,
dark-eyed men around, you are a poor pale-faced, flat-nosed Saxon, to be
preyed on and victimized to any extent. Here and there you see a
foreigner in the picturesque garb of the East, looking sad and solitary
as if he really remembered Zion, as if he had walked along the shores of
Galilee, rested beneath the shade of the cedars of Lebanon, or had drank
of
"Siloa's brook,
That flowed fast by the oracle of God."
Occasionally a Jew will rush in, seize a prayer-book, and, shutting his
eyes, gabble on at a prodigious rate as if he had started late and had to
make up for lost time, and his repeated bowing to all points of the
compass is, to the spectator, of a very perplexing character. In this
quarter the Jews, as regards appearance, are not very wealthy, nor have
many of them very clean hands, nor, except on certain occasions, are the
synagogues very well filled. Here you fail to recognise the swell Jews
of Margate and Ramsgate, of Brighton and the Boulevards, the fact being
that the rich Jews, like the rich Christians, have gone further west; yet
the Montefiores belong to Bevis Marks, and the Rothschilds to the great
congregation in Duke's Place. Such are the London synagogues, including,
in addition to those we have already referred to, those in Fenchurch
Street, St. Alban's Place, Maiden Lane, Cutler Street, Islington,
Portland Street, Bayswater, and others. But the reader will ask, What of
the ladies?--most of our churches and chapels would look intolerably
destitute without them. The answer is, all the duties of their worship
depend entirely on the males. The Jewesses are allowed to sit in a
gallery. At Bevis Marks you see they are there, that is all. Whether
they are white or black, whether they listen or not, it is impossible to
tell, as they are concealed behind a lattice-work almost as impervious to
male eyes as those behind which, on the night of a debate, our House of
Commons hides our British fair. In other synagogues their gallery is
open, and they can see and be seen.
Even these ancient people are moving with the times. The _Jewish Record_
says, "That the Synod of Jewish Rabbis, which has just been held, has
recognised three new principles. 1. Individual authority in religious
matters. 2. The primary importance of free scientific investigation. 3.
The rejection of the belief in Jewish restoration. The Synod also
recommends choral services and the use of the organ in the synagogue, and
musical performances on Sabbaths and festivals." This paragraph is not
exactly correct. The Synod was one of little importance, and the
principles enunciated were not affirmed, only discussed; but I quote it
as an indication of the spirit existing in our day in all the religious
circles of our land.
CHAPTER III.
THE REFORMED JEWS.
Sappho, implies Mr. Pope, at her "toilette's greasy task," is quite a
different individual to "Sappho fragrant at an evening mask." Just as
much does the Jew of the West-end, the Jew of society, rich and
cultivated, the Jew who gives good dinners, drives in a faultless
brougham, on whose fingers diamonds sparkle, differ from the Houndsditch
Jew, toiling along painfully under a load of ol' clo' considerably the
worse for wear, or smoking bad cigars in the Effingham Saloon. In the
same way do the synagogues of the West differ from those of the East. In
place of that in Portland Street, the Jews have erected a gorgeous one,
towards which the Rothschild family have subscribed 4000_l._ Those in
the Haymarket and at Bayswater and Islington are clean and comfortable,
and that in Margaret Street is especially so.
On Saturdays service commences there at ten and terminates at one. Let
us go there. As you enter, of course you face the ark. On each side
benches, well cushioned, are placed. On the right of the ark is a
pulpit. In the middle is the raised platform for the readers and the
rabbi, the Rev. Mr. Marks. There is a gallery facing the pulpit, in
which is an organ, an innovation of which the orthodox do not approve, as
it implies Sabbath labour, and there is another innovation I dare say
equally shocking. Actually in the side galleries appropriated to ladies
you can see them. People of an uncharitable turn often insinuate that so
many young men attend at such or such a church that they may see the
ladies. I don't think the fact that you can see them in Margaret Street
Synagogue adds materially to the male congregation. Yet Hebrew maidens,
some of them, have been and are beautiful as any whose names have come
echoing down to us along "the corridors of time." However, if the
Christian stranger should let his eyes wander thitherward he is to be
forgiven. Hebrew is a difficult tongue to follow if you are ignorant of
it, and, save where there is no singing, which is very fine, the reading
of the prayers is not very impressive. Nor do the gentlemen around, all
wearing black hats and silk scarfs over the coat, appear to be much
impressed. They sit with their prayer-books in their hands, in
appearance as calm and unmoved as real West-end Christians of
unquestioned respectability. At a certain interval the ark is unlocked,
the roll of the law is taken reverently to the platform, where it is
uplifted on all sides that all may see it, and then, when the reader has
finished, it is borne back and deposited in the ark as formally and
reverently as it was taken out. After a little while, as you begin to
weary, one of the individuals on the platform leaves it. He wears a
black gown and bands, he ascends the pulpit and preaches with his hat on;
that is the Rev. Mr. Marks. He is thought much of by the younger and
more educated Jews. As a preacher, much is to be said in his favour: he
is short, he delivers himself well, his style of address is popular, and
he gives many an Old Testament lesson. He demands of Abraham's
descendants Abraham's faith in God, and obedience to Him. The Christian,
of course, misses much. We worship a Messiah who has come; the Jews
still, with sad and weary eyes, look onward, waiting His advent.
Wherever civilization and science go hand in hand, wherever humanity
reaps "the long results of time," whether in the old world or the new,
wherever the great Caucasian race multiplies and nourishes, there, more
or less, is there a living faith in the mission of Christ as a Divine
teacher, as the comforter of human sorrow, as the healer of human woe, as
the model for all to follow who aspire upwards to heaven and to God. In
Europe there are 280 millions of Christians, and but very few of Jews.
Everywhere they are an immense minority.
"The cedars wave on Lebanon,
But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
The Jews are not a proselyting people, but they are becoming increasingly
anxious that the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should not forsake the
God of their fathers; and about thirty years ago certain of the London
Jews agitated for a reformed mode of worship, as they deemed, more in
accordance with the circumstances of their brethren in this age and
clime. They argued that there is much that is local in the Jewish
ritual, and much that is inapplicable now; that the people in consequence
would fall away unless a reformed mode of worship was introduced. I do
not think the Reformers have made as much progress as they anticipated,
though to a stranger they certainly appear to have not merely modified,
but improved the service. The Prayer-book was carefully revised, an
improved ritual was drawn up by blending the beautiful portions of the
Portuguese and German Liturgies, a choir was formed for the purpose of
inspiring devotional feeling by means of solemn song. In the old
orthodox synagogues the custom of calling up persons to read the law for
the sake of presenting their offerings during divine service, often
interferes with the edification of the assembly, according to the Jewish
reformers, and this also they omit. Furthermore, they decline to
recognise as sacred, days which are evidently not ordained as such in
Scripture. It must be remembered the Jew of the Restoration is much more
of a formalist than the Jew of David's and Solomon's time, that the
rabbis returned after the captivity laden with Babylonian learning, and
that a new school arose. In his sermon on the opening of his new place
of worship in 1842, Mr. Marks said, on behalf of himself and people, "We
must as our conviction urges us solemnly deny that a belief in the
_divinity_ of the traditions contained in the Mishna and the Jerusalem
Talmuds is of equal obligation to the Israelite with the faith in the
divinity of the law of Moses. We know that these books are human
compositions, and though we are content to accept with reverence from our
past Biblical ancestors advice and instruction, we cannot unconditionally
accept their laws." "On all hands," continued Mr. Marks, "it is conceded
that an absolute necessity exists for the modification of our worship,
but no sooner is any important improvement proposed than we are assured
of the sad fact that there is not at present any authority competent to
judge in such matters for the whole house of Israel. Now, admitting this
as a truth (since the extinction of the right of ordination has rendered
impossible the convocation of a Sanhedrim, whose authority shall extend
over all Jewish congregations), does it not follow as a necessity that
every Hebrew congregation must be authorized to take such measures as
shall bring the divine service into consonance with the will of the
Almighty, as explained to us in the law and the prophets?" To the force
of this reasoning the Jews as a body remain impervious, and though time
has mitigated the angry feeling which the Reformers created, as Reformers
always do, and no longer do the chief men of the orthodox Jews issue
warnings against the Reformers, who from the first professed their love
to the old synagogues and their desire to continue connected with them in
works of charity, yet the new community is by no means cordially received
and sanctioned by the old. Nor can we expect it to be otherwise. The
more men have in common, the smaller is the difference between them, the
more, often, is the ill-will with which they regard each other. The eye
of the true theologian is of a wonderfully magnifying character. As he
looks, a little rivulet expands into an impassable gulf, and a molehill
becomes a mountain. What bitter things have been said, what fierce
passions have been aroused, what martyrs have had to die and survivors to
weep, because of what seemed to cool observers trifles light as air!
Yet, after all, there is a danger. If rationalist principles prevail,
and the Old Testament be a series of myths or allegories, why still
retain the ritualist law in all its strictness? and if that goes the
whole system goes. Pious Jews find all society against them; its spirit,
its customs, its literature, all hostile, if not to their nation, at any
rate to their faith. In too many cases they perceive that those who
forsake the religion of their forefathers are but little the better for
doing so. They find that those who begin by laughing at rabbinical
absurdities end by despising the Word of God. A Hebrew infidel, an
infidel among the Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the
glory and the covenants, writes a Jewish author already quoted, "is
indeed a frightful and portentous phenomenon," and thus the more
sensitive and conservative amongst them shrink from in any way modifying
their ritual in accordance with what is termed the spirit of the age.
Christians have no idea of the earnestness of spirit, of the striving
after conformity to the law of God, of the devout Jew, or of the great
and grand truths which he extracts from observances or forms in which
they can see no meaning. The Jew is fond of pleasure, fond of show, fond
of jewellery and gorgeous dress, and on his Sabbath rarely exhibits a
very devout appearance; nevertheless his religion requires daily
observances from his birth upwards, which can only be carried out by
means of a living faith. In the first place his religion is an expensive
one, and he must pay in various ways very heavily for its support. It is
true many of the observances required have become obsolete, but on the
Sabbath he has much to go through at home, as well as to attend at the
synagogue and to abstain from all worldly occupations. After the third
day of the month every strict Jew either alone or with a number of his
co-religionists must make the salutation of the moon. Then every month
has certain days to be kept, especially in October, their new year, on
the first and second days. It is believed that the destiny of every
individual is determined on this month by the Creator Himself; that those
whose demerits preponderate are sealed to death, those whose merits
preponderate to life, and those whose merits and demerits are equal are
delayed until the day of atonement. The first ten days of their new year
are ten days of repentance, during which the Israelites are to repent and
confess their sins, pray to the Almighty to write them down in the book
of life, and grant them a happy new year. On the seventh day every one
has a branch of willow procured under the superintendence of the officers
of the synagogue, and all repair there with branches in their hands. The
last of these days is the Day of Atonement, and is religiously kept by
every Jew. On the 15th is the Feast of Tabernacles, on which the Jews
are expected to live in booths, but in this country the rule is not
strictly observed. In April is the most important of all the
festivals--that of the Passover and of unleavened bread, when the doors
of the house are left open for all, even the very poorest of the poor.
In June is held the feast of Pentecost, to commemorate the giving of the
law. The synagogues on that occasion are decorated with flowers, and in
their houses the tables and floors are also dressed with flowers, sweet
briar, and other fragrant herbs. A conscientious Jew must have a life of
intense labour and self-denial, nor can he evade his duties nor impose
them on another. How welcome to them of old must have been the Master's
kindly words, "Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I
will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, and ye shall
find peace unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
To appreciate these words aright you must fancy yourself a Jew, weighed
down to the earth by the daily routine of painful ceremonial and the
rigid requirements of inelastic law.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREEK CHURCH.
In the dark ages of Christianity, when the zeal and purity of the early
professors and martyrs of the new creed had died away; when Constantine,
anxious to fix his throne on a permanent basis, entered into an alliance
with priests and bishops, not satisfied with the humble position assigned
them in the Church, only by courtesy at that time to be called
Apostolical; there was a revival of an old abuse, or rather, of a Pagan
principle--the alliance of Church and State. Dr. Arnold, the truest
Churchman in modern times, believed that the national conversions to
Christianity, which then became the fashion, were productive of immense
evil. This is the opinion long held by Dissenters, and latterly by an
increasing number of independent inquirers. If so, Constantine was an
arch-heretic; for surely, when Christ had taught that His kingdom was not
of this world, it was heresy to disbelieve it, and, in the very teeth of
such a declaration, to introduce an ecclesiastical system founded upon
compulsion, ignoring altogether the Divine power of Christianity, and
assuming that it could only be maintained by the sword and pay of the
State.
Constantine's empire has vanished, but his Church remains; and it speaks
to us, as Dean Stanley says, in the only living voice which has come down
to us from the Apostolic Church: the State Churches of Europe, including
even the pretentious one at Rome, are but its children. It is the
pattern and model for them all. Greek was the original tongue of the
early Christians. It was at Antioch, a Greek city, the birthplace of
Ignatius, of Chrysostom, of John of Damascus, that they were first called
by the name which now denotes the noblest form of human development. In
the Old World or the New, the Councils to which Churchmen in all ages
have referred, as of equal, or almost of equal, authority with the Bible,
were Eastern. In them the Pope of Rome was considered but as a Bishop in
the midst of his equals. The great fathers of the Church wrote in Greek.
Dean Stanley says, the earliest fathers of the Western Church, Clemens,
Irenaeus, Hermas, Hippolytus, did the same. St. Mark first preached his
Gospel at Alexandria. St. John established a school at Ephesus, and
Polycarp at Smyrna. The very word theology, as Dean Stanley remarks,
arose from the peculiar questions agitated in the East. If there be such
a thing as apostolical succession, the Greek Church has it. To this day,
the English Church owes much to the East; the direction for holding of
Easter is of Alexandrian origin, and on every Sunday, in the "Kyrie
Eleison," the "Gloria in Excelsis," in part of the "Te Deum," and the
prayer of St. Chrysostom, English Churchmen borrow from the service of
the Church of Constantine. In Queen Elizabeth's time it was enacted that
the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon were
equally judges of heresy as the High Court of Parliament with the assent
of the English clergy in their Convocation. No wonder, in these days,
when Churchmen are prone to rely on Church claims rather than on Bible
teaching--when, of little faith, and timid as to the future, they trust
rather to hazy traditions than to living truths--no wonder the Greek
Church has become to them an object of special reverence; that they long
to form a union with it. Though proud of its superiority, it regards
them as little better than Roman Catholics--Roman Catholics as a Greek
once said to the writer, without the Pope.
The oldest creed we have is Greek. The pious forgeries of our Church
historians are enough to make a candid inquirer a thorough sceptic as to
all they say; but we may still give some credit to Eusebius of Caesarea,
the father of ecclesiastical history. He tells us he read his creed
before the Council of Nicaea. It was the same, he said, that he had
learnt in his childhood from his predecessors, during the time that he
was a catechumen, and at his baptism; and which he had taught for many
years as a presbyter and bishop. It had been approved of by the Emperor
Constantine, and would have been carried had not there appeared a
probability of its being accepted by Arius and his partisans--a
consummation which, in the opinion of the majority, would have had a
disastrous effect, would have promoted union, would have saved many from
the sin of schism, would have allowed the energies of the Church to have
been directed to the conversion of the world rather than to internal
squabbles, would have relieved Constantine from the stain and guilt and
shame of having recourse to the sword to repress religious opinion. The
Council of Nicaea cared for none of these things; all they wanted was
victory, and so the earliest Christian creed was rejected by the Church.
It was as follows:--
"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things, both
visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God,
God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the
Firstborn of every creature, begotten of the Father before all
worlds, by whom also all things were made; Who, for our salvation,
was incarnate, and lived amongst men, and suffered and rose again on
the third day, and ascended to the Father; and shall come in glory to
judge the quick and the dead; and I believe in one Holy Ghost.
Believing each of them to be, and to have existed, the Father only,
only the Father and the Son, only the Son and the Holy Ghost, only
the Holy Ghost."
Instead of this, but on it, the Nicene Creed was framed, and this creed
is still the bond of union in all the Churches of the East. We have
corrupted it, and as Dean Stanley remarks, "every time we recite the
creed in its present altered form, we have departed from the intention of
the fathers of Nicaea, and incurred deprecation and excommunication at
the hands of the fathers of Ephesus." In the heart of London the Greeks
have a place of worship. You feel interested as you enter. In the
tongue in which you hear the Gospel there read, the Gospel was first
proclaimed. Peter, Paul, John, spoke just such language as that you
hear. Ever since the Master left the earth has Sunday after Sunday, and
year after year, this Greek Church met in Syria in remembrance of Him.
In many things the Church of Constantine was less assuming than that of
Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. Where in our Prayer-book we have, "I
absolve thee," the Greeks say, "The Lord absolve thee." Where the
English Church says, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," the Greek more humbly
and Scripturally offers up a prayer for the Divine blessing. In other
ways also they differ: they have no organs; the congregation stands all
the time of service; their baptism consists of three immersions, and
laying on of hands; they administer extreme unction, offer prayers for
the dead, and allow infant communion; they have no organized hierarchy;
their clergy are married, and their laity have a considerable amount of
power. They pride themselves on their orthodoxy, and are very bitter
against the doctrine of the double procession--that is, that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
And now let us go to London Wall, of which the Pope, or head, is the Rev.
Narcissus Morphinos, a gentleman really courteous and sincere, and
indefatigable in the performance of his sacred duties. Of all the
chapels in London, surely this in London Wall is the most unique. As we
enter we face a recess, before which lamps are burning; in that recess is
a crucifix with a lamp burning over it. In this recess is a door which
is partly open, and between the door and the crucifix officiates the
priest at a small table. He wears a very rich cassock, and occasionally
has on his head a primitive-looking sort of hat, without a brim, and very
big. I fancy there are no poor Greeks in London. On our right is a
recess, in which are ladies elegantly dressed. On our left is a pulpit
very rarely used, and a table at which two clerks are seated. They seem
to have the performance of the service very much to themselves. There is
a choir in one of the side galleries. In his recess, before the altar,
the priest is engaged in praying and taking the sacrament; but every now
and then he comes out. A side door opens, and a lad in a white surplice,
holding an enormous lighted taper, appears. Then the priest comes from
the altar, and stands on the steps. It may be to swing the censer, or to
bring out the Gospels bound in silver, which almost all present come
forward to kiss; or it may be, in the course of the service, some one
wishes to communicate. Then, while the clerks are reading, the doors of
the altar are opened, and the priest appears with a cup in his hand,
which the communicant comes forward to receive. (The cup, it must be
observed, contains bread and wine.) Again the priest comes forward with
the crucifix, to which all bow; and last of all he comes forward and says
a few simple words of edification to his faithful flock, in number, I
should fancy, from two to three hundred. And this reminds us we have not
yet stated where they are. Well, they are exactly opposite the altar,
before which there is a vacant space well carpeted, and into which, on
one or two occasions in the course of the service, the priest descends.
The seats are beautifully carved, and are something like those in our
cathedral stalls. Each worshipper is well fenced in by himself; and, as
he stands all the time, he will find the sides very convenient for
resting his arms on. Each seat is beautifully finished, as the reader
can well imagine when he is told that the carving of each seat cost about
eight pounds about fifteen years ago, when the chapel was first opened.
There are no sittings appropriated to particular individuals, any person
coming takes the first he finds vacant. All expenses are paid by the
men, chiefly merchants in Finsbury Square, who subscribe on an average
for the cost of the service about twenty-five pounds a year. Two
gentlemen contributed eighty, and one as much as two hundred pounds, a
year. The annual income of the church is stated to be 1660_l._, and of
this 50_l._ or 60_l._ has to be paid to an English church over the way--a
grievance which the Greeks, as well they may, feel deeply. There is
another Greek church in London, that of the Russian Embassy,--that of
course being much smaller. It cannot, I should fancy, surpass in
neatness and finish this in London Wall. The Greek Church, Dean Stanley
tells us, has always been unfriendly to the arts. You would not think
so; the building seems just what it should be--handsome, ecclesiastical
in appearance, and yet plain. On the screen, behind which is the altar,
are paintings of the "Last Supper," "The Virgin and her Child," and a few
others, intended to denote to the eye of the worshipper the great fact
the worship has to commemorate. Pictures are used but as symbols, as
even words themselves are, of ideas needed for human salvation.
The Greek Church protests against anything in the way of doctrine not
found in the Bible. Surely it cannot claim the same sanction for its
rites and ceremonies. As each worshipper entered he made the sign of the
cross on his forehead and his shoulders and breast. This ceremony was
repeated several times in the course of the service, the priest on more
than one occasion doing the same; indeed, this seems to be the only way
in which the laity join in the service. They utter no responses, they
declare with one voice no creed, they raise no sacred chant or song;
otherwise, they stand as it were motionless and apart; everything is done
for them by the officiating priest. He comes between them and God. They
speak through him and by him; without him they cannot worship the Father
in heaven. Such is the theory of worship current in the Greek Church.
Thus was it when the Imperial purple was worn by Constantine fifteen
hundred years ago; thus it is in the reign of Queen Victoria, thus it
will be, we may predict, for the Greek Church is jealous of every iota of
its creed, _in secula seculorum_.
Well does a living writer remark, "Such as the Greek Church became on the
extinction of Paganism, such, or nearly such, she seems to be now. Her
missionary work has been narrow, her moral influence and control at home
small, and though she has preserved a rigid continuity of doctrinal form,
the principle of an ever-expanding and all-absorbing vitality has been
wanting; in great cities her prelates have too frequently been the slaves
of wealth and power, of courtly intrigue and political faction; in the
desert her monks have become dreamy and unpractical anchorites. No lands
reclaimed, no centres of agriculture and civilization created, no
literature preserved, no schools founded, no human beings raised to a
higher sphere of social action and duty, are to be set down to the
account of the Greek Church. She is a fragment of old Byzantine
civilization, as rigid and angular as the mosaics that still adorn and
seem to frown down from the walls of her churches."
CHAPTER V.
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.
If we may quote the Eastern Church, the Roman Catholic Church is the
greatest heresy of modern times. In the Encyclic Epistle of the Eastern
Patriarchs, the Papal system is referred to as "the chief heresy of the
latter days, which flourishes now, as its predecessor, Arianism,
flourished before it in the earlier ages, and which, like Arianism, shall
in like manner be cast down and vanish away." "I die in the faith of the
Catholic Church before the disunion of East and West," were the last
words of Bishop Ken. Under the Stuarts, in solemn conclave the Anglicans
accused the Romanists of idolatry. In the opinion, then, of the oldest
Church, the only Church with an indisputable apostolical succession, and
in the opinion of some of England's greatest Churchmen, the Church of
Rome is an heretical one. Such is the conclusion to which also we are
driven by the very slightest historical inquiry. Lady Herbert wonders
that an Anglican Churchman can go to Jerusalem and not become a Romanist.
Why, as the priest takes you from one sacred station to another, shows
you where the Saviour fainted beneath the load of the cross, where Saint
Veronica wiped His face with her handkerchief, where the print of the
Saviour's foot yet remains,--when we all know that the Jerusalem of the
Saviour's time is some eighty feet below the surface, and that all these
assertions are absolutely false, you feel indignant, and, if you have the
smallest iota of intellect left, after listening to the priestly legends,
return a considerably sounder Protestant than you went. In like manner,
history leads you to a similar conclusion as to the Roman Church.
History, with an impartial pen, tells us how the Roman heresy sprang up,
and grew, and reigned in every land. History robs Romanism of all its
terror and of all its power. We see it, with plain, unblinded eyes, to
be a heresy gradually enlarging its claims in accordance with the
increasing ambition of its prelates, and the increasing credulity of its
devotees. Gradually, as the memory of apostolic teaching and preaching
passed away, the Church of Rome, after the fall of Jerusalem, continued
to advance among the western Churches certain vague assertions of
authority. In proportion as its clergy asserted their claims, other
changes of an unscriptural character were made. First of all, the
doctrine of baptismal regeneration was asserted; then a mysterious
veneration began to attach itself to the celebration of the Lord's
Supper; the sign of the cross was held to be vital to the expulsion of
the devil; and prayers for the dead became common. A great step was
gained when the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy was enforced; when
Gregory the Great, as the Romanists may well call him, inculcated
purgatory, and pilgrimage to holy places; instituted the Canon of the
Mass, and added splendour to the ceremonies of the Church, and claimed
the power of the keys for the successors of St. Peter. On the foundation
thus raised it was easy to base the most astounding claims; whether you
are asked to believe that the Church of Loretto flew through the air from
Syria to Italy, or, as in our time, the liquefaction of the blood of St.
Januarius, and the immaculate conception of the Virgin. After a certain
point gained, the rest is sure to follow. Give up the Bible, believe in
the priest, and the Roman heresy is the natural result.
In the Catholic Directory I find the statistics of Romanism as it exists
in London. The province of Westminster, established by his Holiness Pope
Pius IX. (Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince
of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,--such are a few
of the titles he assumes), Sept. 29,1850, comprises the diocese of
Westminster, with twelve suffragan dioceses. Westminster comprises
Essex, Hertfordshire, and Middlesex, with, for Archbishop and
Metropolitan, the Rev. Edward Henry Manning, elected and consecrated in
1865. In London also there is another Church dignitary, the Rev. Thomas
Grant, Bishop of Southwark, elected and consecrated in 1851. The patron
saints of the diocese of Westminster are "our blessed Lady, conceived
without sin; St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles; St. Edward, King and
Confessor." In addition to the Virgin in Southwark, the patron saints
are St. Thomas of Canterbury and St. Augustine. The ecclesiastical
statistics of Westminster diocese are, priests--secular, regular,
oratorians, oblates of St. Charles, and unattached, 221; public churches,
chapels, and stations, 123; and the average attendance at the four
schools of the diocese was, for 1866-67, 12,056. Of course this includes
more than the London district; but then in Southwark diocese I find St.
George's Cathedral, and, besides, about thirty chapels or stations; and
of the 160 priests in the diocese, we may reasonably conclude that a
fourth are engaged in London and its suburbs. Last year thirty-eight
secular clergy were ordained for England. Of these, thirteen were for
the dioceses of Westminster and Southwark.
A correspondent of the _Weekly Register_, writing to show the increase of
Catholicism in London during the last thirty years, points out that in
1839 there were in the metropolis and the suburbs the following Catholic
churches:--St. Mary's, Moorfields; St. Mary's, Chelsea; the French
Chapel, King Street, Portman Square; the Chapel of the Benedictine
Convent at Hammersmith (now removed to Teignmouth, Devonshire); St.
Mary's, Kensington; St. Anselm's, Lincoln's Inn Fields; St. Patrick's,
Soho; St. Aloysius, Somers Town; St. James's, Spanish Place, Manchester
Square; and the Assumption, Warwick Street, Golden Square; in all ten
churches or chapels. There are now, in addition to the above, St. Mary
and the Angels, Bayswater; the new church at Bow; the Oratory, Brompton;
St. Bridget, Baldwin's Gardens; St. Joseph, Bunhill Row; the Servite
Fathers, Chelsea; St. Peter's, Clerkenwell; SS. Mary and Michael,
Commercial Road; the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street; St. Thomas,
Fulham; the German Church, Whitechapel; the church built by Sir George
Bowyer, in Great Ormond Street; St. John the Baptist, Hackney; Holy
Trinity, Brook Green; Nazareth House, Hammersmith; the chapel at
Hampstead; the Dominicans' Church, Haverstock Hill; the Passionist
Church, Highgate; the Augustinians' Church, Hoxton; the Sacred Heart,
Holloway; St. John the Evangelist, Islington; the Italian Church, Hatton
Wall; the Carmelite Church, Kensington; the church in Kentish Town; the
church at Kilburn; Our Lady and St. Joseph, Kingsland; the new French
Church, Leicester Square; the Rosary, Marylebone Road; St. Francis,
Notting Hill; St. Charles, Ogle Street; the Polish Chapel, Gower Street;
St. Mary's, Poplar; the Holy Family, Saffron Hill; St. Anne's,
Spitalfields; Our Lady's, St John's Wood; St. Vincent de Paul, Stratford;
the English Martyrs, Tower Hill; Our Lady of Grace, Turnham Green; St.
Mary's, Horseferry Road, Westminster; and SS. Peter and Edward, Palace
Street, Westminster--in all forty churches or chapels in thirty years
(without counting many private chapels or convents, &c.), or fifty
chapels, where thirty years ago there were but ten. And it should be
borne in mind that of the new churches many, such as the Oratory,
Commercial Road, Farm Street, Islington, the Italian Church, Bayswater,
Brook Green, St. John's Wood, and others, are of a size and beauty which
thirty years ago would have been deemed a folly even to hope for. There
are now as many masses said at the Oratory, Bayswater, and Farm Street,
as thirty years ago there were in all the chapels in London, so great has
been the increase of priests in London since 1839. On the south side of
the water, in the diocese of Southwark, the change for the better is even
more manifest than in that of Westminster; but, the congregation being
poorer, the churches are also smaller. In what is now the diocese of
Westminster, there were, in 1839 (writes the same correspondent), about
seventy priests, and of these but two were regulars--Jesuits--who lived
almost as private individuals in the Marylebone Road. There are now a
hundred and thirty secular priests--fifteen Oratorians, sixteen Oblates
of St. Charles, sixteen Jesuits, ten Marist Fathers, seven Oblates of
Mary, six Carmelites, six Dominican Fathers (besides as many more not yet
ordained), six Passionists (in addition to ten or twelve not yet
ordained), five Servite Fathers, five Fathers of the Society of Missions
(Italians), five Augustinians, two Franciscans, and three Fathers of
Charity--in all, between regulars, seculars, and priests not attached to
any particular mission, there are two hundred and forty-one priests in
this diocese. Of convents for women there were in 1839 two within what
is now the diocese of Westminster; there are at present thirty-eight.
In calculating the amount of Roman Catholic influence and activity, we
must remember that in their churches and chapels service is always being
performed; and that thus one Romanist place of worship for all practical
purposes may often be considered as equivalent to a dozen Protestant
places, especially where the incumbents are of the class of old-fashioned
clergymen who have a relish for port and what used to be considered a
gentlemanly religion. For instance, let us see what is the round of
services at the cathedral, Blomfield Street, Moorfields. On Sundays and
holidays there is mass at seven, eight, nine, ten, and high mass at
eleven. At three there is catechism, at four baptism, and on Wednesdays
and Fridays at eleven A.M.; vespers, sermon, and benediction at seven.
On week-days mass is performed at half-past seven, eight, and ten. On
Thursday, rosary, sermon, and benediction at eight; on the other evenings
of the week rosary and night prayers at that hour. On the first Friday
of the month there is sermon and benediction in honour of the Sacred
Heart; on the second Friday of the month the Way of the Cross. There are
the confessions, sometimes twice a day; and the Confraternities of the
Blessed Sacrament, of the Sacred Heart, of Holy Angels for Children.
Then there are the Societies, such as the Holy Family Total Abstinence
Society, Holy Family Provident Society, Benevolent Society for the Relief
of the Aged and Infirm Poor, and the Night Refuge for Homeless Women of
Good Character. Nor is this the only way in which Roman Catholic
influence is felt in this district. On good works the Roman Church has
ever laid great stress, and thus we find from the centre in Blomfield
Street the priests have specially assigned to them Newgate Prison, Old
Bailey; Debtors' Prison, Lower Whitecross Street; St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, Metropolitan Free Hospital, Royal London Ophthalmic
Hospital,--an amount of exertion incompatible with spiritual ease and
worldly enjoyment. I mention this to show that you are not to judge by
what you see; attendance at any particular time is no criterion as to the
state of the Catholic community. You may depend upon it that it is
always much stronger than it seems. Those present are but a tithe of the
Romanists in any particular locality, and the admirable organization of
their priests peculiarly fits them for aggressive purposes. I believe
they are most successful in the low neighbourhoods, in the guilt gardens,
in which a great metropolis like ours abounds. Their charities in London
are very extensive. There is a Catholic Poor School Committee, a
Westminster Diocesan Education Fund, an Aged Poor Society, an Association
for the Propagation of the Faith, a Society of St. Anselm, for the
Diffusion of Good Books. The Associated Catholic Charities, for
educating and apprenticing the children of poor Catholics, have six
schools in London. The Immaculate Conception Charity assists the clergy
in providing for children whose faith or morals are exposed to imminent
danger through the death or helplessness of their parents. The Society
of St. Vincent de Paul, whose chief object is visiting poor families at
their own homes, has sixteen branches in London, besides a large
Orphanage, at this time containing eighty boys, and a Catholic Shoeblack
Brigade. The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul have an
establishment in Westminster. The oldest Roman Catholic charitable
institution is the Benevolent Society for the Relief of the Aged and
Infirm Poor, founded in the year 1761. During the six winters the
Providence Row Night Refuge for Homeless Women and Children has been in
existence, 92,194 nights' lodgings, with suppers and breakfasts, have
been given gratuitously. The only condition requisite for admission is
that the applicant be homeless and without food and money. Such are the
charities in London of the Roman Church.
As regards the pulpit, the Romanists are not wise in their generation.
In London, where oratory can do so much, they fail to provide themselves
with a grand and effective preacher. They have no Father Hyacinthe in
London. Surely Italy might have sent us a Roman Catholic Gavazzi.
Ireland supplies us with orators in abundance, but where are her eloquent
priests? Cardinal Wiseman was florid and heavy. Archbishop Manning is
more than sixty years old; and oratory, unlike wine, does not improve
with age. His position, his talents, his zeal, incline you to hear him
with respect, nothing more. As I have listened in some of the fine old
cathedrals of the Continent to fiery priests, thundering away to crowded
and attentive audiences, it has often occurred to me that it is just as
well we have no such preachers in London to bring the Roman Catholic
Church into fashion; to make it the sensation of the hour; to do for it
what Irving did for Presbyterianism when he drew around him to the Scotch
Church in Hatton Garden all the beauty, the fashion, the genius, the
intellect of his day.
The ordinary public service of a Roman Catholic Church requires little
description; nor do you see it here as you do, for instance, in the
magnificent cathedral of Antwerp, where, in the dim dusk of an autumn
eve, while a flood of music floats down from the choir, and the gorgeous
priests, with tapers and incense and costly banners, are sweeping, dimly
seen, along the fretted aisles, the writer has often felt there is a
strange, weird effect produced, which, here you can never dream of. All
is poor, something like a theatre by daylight, or a fancy ball when the
delusions of gas have been dispelled by the too candid and impartial rays
of the sun. There are the tapers and the usual processions, the
vestments of various colours, and the music ever flowing, while at the
altar end the priests are bowing and kneeling and scattering incense, and
performing the service of the mass. If you have to listen to a sermon,
it will not be a long one; and if you be a Protestant, it will strike you
as verbose in style and un-English in tone. Nearest to the altar will be
the upper ten thousand, who come in broughams, and have fashionable
aspirations. At the other end will be the very poor, such poor as you
see nowhere else, scarcely educated enough to count, as they do on their
knees, their beads, and certainly not competent to intelligent
appreciation of the service. Of course the people kneel to the altar and
cross themselves as they come in, and join in the worship with an
appearance of piety (I mean the elder ones--young ladies who have eyes
will use them, whether they be saints or sinners), which is pretty well
for such an undemonstrative people as ourselves, but is nothing to that
of the Moslem, who plumps on his knees, regardless of all, exclaiming
_Allah hu akbar_! as the Muezzin calls to prayer.
On the Continent it fares ill with the Papacy. In France--in Italy--in
Austria--even in Spain it has lost its power. Its chief strength at this
time seems to consist in the sayings and doings of an increasing section
of the Church of England. It appears there is a society actually in
existence to form a union with Rome, and Mr. Malet, the Vicar of Ardley,
in Hertfordshire, was lately sent on such a mission. As to the idea of
Christian union no one can find fault with that. It is lamentable that
the Christian Church should be divided into sections that turn against
each other the energies that should be devoted to the destruction of a
common foe. That all should be brethren in Christ who believe in Him and
lead a Christian life, is manifest, the common reader will say, in his
desire after Christian unity. Mr. Malet comes then, of course, to all
Christians, of whatever sect or denomination, and holds out to them the
hand of fellowship? Alas! no; he does nothing of the kind. First of all
he tells us he will not call himself a Protestant, then he dresses
himself like a monk, and has his friends to call him "Brother Michael."
He then gets letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Manning,
and goes to Rome humbly to ask the Pope to recognise the Church of
England. Of course, at Rome, he is favourably received, and is delighted
with all he saw, and seems to have swallowed all he heard, not even
excepting the most monstrous fable or the absurdest legend. From Rome
Brother Michael finds his way to Jerusalem--that Jerusalem that crucified
the Lord of life, that stoned the prophets, that persecuted and slew the
teachers and apostles and converts of early times--that Jerusalem where
there is more downright lying in the name of God, and under the plea of
religion, if it be possible, than in Rome itself--that Jerusalem where
the rival monks to-morrow would cut each others' throats if the Turkish
soldiers did not keep them quiet;--and then to the Greeks and Roman monks
he offers a similar request; and "the aged pilgrim," as he terms himself,
returns delighted, believing that the Church of England will be permitted
to join with the Pope in asserting all the frauds of the Papacy, and with
the Greeks in celebrating that pious fiction of the holy fire once a year
in Jerusalem. "The aged pilgrim" sees many favourable signs in this
country. One is the reprint of Edward VI.'s Prayer-book for twopence;
and another the fact that incense may be bought in many shops at the West
End, and that half a pound lasts a long time. Now what must the
cultivated, intellectual, and sceptical spirits of the age think of a man
holding such opinions? What must be the effect of his teaching on such
men, but to estrange them more and more from the Church and its
institutions? Brother Michael falsifies history as much as he does
religion. Actually he tells us there would have been no vice and crime
in the country, no godless education, no pauper Bastilles, if Henry VIII.
had not put down the _Holy Brotherhood_. Of course he means by the "holy
brotherhood" the lazy and dissolute monks. Why, if we were to sully our
pages with but a tithe of the abominations and obscenities and
rascalities recorded of the "holy brotherhood" in indisputable historical
documents, every father of a family would hide away this volume. The
less Brother Michael says about "the holy brotherhood" the better.
Again, let us take another illustration of High Church literature:
"Innovations: a lecture delivered in the Assembly Rooms, Liverpool, by
Richard Frederick Littledale, Priest of the Church of England." The aim
of Dr. Littledale is to show that prayers for the dead, the choral
service, the sign of the cross, the weekly offertory, the daily
celebration of Holy Communion, the elevation of the Host, turning to the
east, the division of the sexes in churches, the mixed chalice, incense,
vestments, and lights are _not_ innovations. He knows so little of
history that he tells us that the conversion of our forefathers is due to
Gregory the Great (the man under whom Popery was introduced into
England); calls Edward VI. "_a tiger cub_," and speaks of Cranmer, the
martyr for his religion, as having "_been arrested in his wicked career
by Divine vengeance_." He says, "of the depth of infamy into which this
man descended" he has not leisure to speak; and all the Reformers,
according to him, were equally bad. Dr. Littledale says, "Documents,
hidden from the public eye for centuries, in the archives of London,
Venice, and Simancas, are now rapidly being printed, and _every fresh
find establishes more clearly the utter scoundrelism of the Reformers_."
The Doctor admits the Church of England was in need of a physician in
Henry VIII.'s time. His language is, "A Church which could produce in
its highest lay and clerical ranks such a set of miscreants as the
leading English and Scottish Reformers must have been in a perfectly
rotten state--as rotten as France was when the righteous judgment of the
Great Revolution fell upon it." The Rev. Thomas W. Mossman, West
Torrington Vicarage, Wragley, Yorkshire, goes further still. In a letter
to Dr. Newman, he says he believes that a time will come to pass that
Anglicans will also see that it is God's will that they should submit to
the Holy Apostolic See, and that it is their duty as well as their
privilege to be in communion with that Bishop who alone is the true
successor to St. Peter, and by Divine Providence the Primate of the
Catholic Church. He speaks of the "lurid murky flame of Protestantism
enkindled in the sixteenth century;" and hail the light "once more
beginning to beam upon us from the Eternal City, where the Prince of the
Apostles and the Doctor of the Gentiles shed their blood." When such are
the utterances of leading clergymen,--if the Church of England were
Church of the nation as it claims to be, the language of Dr. Manning
would be undeniably true. "Protestantism is dead in England. We may
save the time which controversy wastes, and instead of going out into the
battle-field, we may go into the harvest-field to reap and to bind and to
gather our sheaves into our garner."
Dissent, however, has not been taken into account. It is rarely a
Dissenter becomes a Roman Catholic. It is impossible, if he understands
his principles, that he should. To too many it is the Church of England
that leads to that of Rome.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
The peculiarity of the Church of England, that by which it is
distinguished from orthodox Dissent, is the priestly character of its
claims, and its intolerance of other sects.
The "Tracts for the Times" tell us "that the Bishop is Christ's
representative, and the priests the Bishop's, so that despising the
clergy is despising Christ." "A person not commissioned may pretend to
give the Lord's Supper, but it can afford no comfort to any one to
receive it at his hands; and as for the person who takes it on himself
without a warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while
treading in the steps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. It is only having
received this commission that can give any security that the ministration
of the Word and the Sacraments shall be effectual to the saving of your
souls. The Dissenters have it not."
The Dean of Chichester writes--"Our ordinations descend in a direct
unbroken line from Peter and Paul. Unless Christ be spiritually present
with the ministers of religion in their services, those services must be
vain. But the only ministration to which He has promised his presence
are those of the Bishops, who are successors of the first commissioned
Apostles, and the other clergy acting under their sanction and
authority."
The Bishop of Winchester says--"We believe that we do possess, as we
cannot see that others do, Christ's direct commission for our ministry,
and a certainty and fulness, therefore, of His presence and of His
Sacramental working, which, to say the least, may be lacking elsewhere.
If we do not hold as much as this we must dissent from the plain language
of our own Ordination Service." The Bishop also denies that it is a
superstitious theory that "the clergy can convey to the soul by a
material intervention some spiritual influence in an occult manner."
The Rev. E. Blenkinson, in the "Church and the World," a book presented
to Convocation by the Bishop of Oxford, says the Protestant bodies have
"cut themselves off from the participation of the one Spirit as living in
the Church and flowing through the Sacraments, which are the veins and
arteries of the body." The last utterance on the subject is that of the
Bishop of Ely, who places the first and undisputed General Councils as of
equal authority with Scripture. The Catechism teaches Baptismal
Regeneration. The clergy also tell us that they are called by the Holy
Ghost, that the Bishop has conferred on them spiritual graces by the
laying on of hands. This is the theory of the Church of England. In
accordance with this in time past, it drove out the Evangelicals on
Bartholomew Day, and has at any rate till our time prosecuted Broad
Churchmen for heresy.
The bitterest opponents of this theory are the Evangelicals. It is a
singular and noteworthy fact, that the theology dearest to the hearts of
the people is that which teaches in the plainest manner the literal
inspiration of the Bible, the doctrine of Original Sin, of
Predestination, of everlasting damnation, of a Devil ever thwarting the
designs of a benevolent Deity, and seeking whom he may devour. Yet the
character given by Dr. Arnold of the Evangelical clergy is still true,
and accounts for the little influence they have in educated circles.
Another fact also becomes increasingly prominent: their readiness to
swallow their words, to quietly accept whatever may be offered them by
their opponents apparently merely for the sake of position in society.
Every now and then a crisis occurs in the history of the Church. If
Baptismal Regeneration, for instance, be ruled to be permissible they
must leave, and then when the time comes for them to arise and become
martyrs, they quietly pocket their principles and remain. Of course they
plead their greater opportunities of usefulness, as if religion were
better served by dishonesty than by honesty,--as if the cause of God were
better advanced by falsehood than by truth,--as if position as regards
society were of more importance than the man's consciousness of
independence and honourable life. For the ritualist or the Broad
Churchman it is no difficult matter to remain in the church in company
with the Evangelical; but they, in accordance with his theory, are
teaching soul-destroying errors; yet he remains with them, and is,
according to his idea, a partaker in their sins.
The characteristic of our day is the Broad Churchmanship, which rejects
the common theology as a prejudice well fitted for certain times, but
unworthy of credence now. Of this party are the ablest men in the
Church; all who are disgusted with the childishness of ritualism--with
the narrowness of orthodox formulas, turn to them, and hail them as the
regenerators of Church and State. Such men as Dean Stanley and Mr.
Maurice are a power in the land. They walk hand in hand with the poets
and men of science of our time. In their teaching is gathered together
much that is best and truest in the wisdom of the past. The difficulty
of their position is that they are tied down as strongly as they can be
to orthodoxy, and half their strength is wasted in the effort to show
they have a right to be where they are. Nevertheless it is quite true
that there can be no honest faith without honest doubt; that we fight our
fears and gather strength; that as we know more, we feel how outworn is
the old creed of Christendom. Sir J. D. Coleridge tells us the Articles
are Articles of peace--that is, for the sake of uniformity a minister may
make statements which he cannot believe. But a man who cannot trifle
with words is denied all this liberty; he is tied hand and foot. The
State gives him moral prestige, supremacy, wealth, on certain conditions.
The Dissenter is free; the wildest ranter has a liberty which an
Archbishop may sigh for in vain. Such is the law. A State Church such
as is desired by Broad Churchmen is an impossibility. And yet in spite
of the rival and differing parties in the Church, and in spite of the
fact that Churchmen themselves are longing to be free of the fetters of
the State, I know not that the Church of England, as regards London, was
ever stronger than now. The layman has little sympathy with Church
squabbles: he goes to church feeling that in doing so he is not committed
to any form of belief or worship. Dissent requires some sort of faith as
preliminary to fellowship. In the Church you avoid all this: the
Puseyism of the pulpit seldom extends to the pew. Then, again, there is
a natural yearning in all minds after national union in religious as well
as political matters. The higher class of Dissenters display this
feeling in an extraordinary degree. Their chapels are built like
churches--they cling to the steeple which the stern old Puritans
considered an abomination--the meeting-house has ceased to exist. Day by
day Dissent gets rid of all its characteristics--its ministers assume a
clerical appearance--they adopt the Prayer-book as their model--they now
listen to read sermons and read prayers. Of late years their leaders
have grown rich and respectable, and anxiously disclaim all connexion
with the loud and exciting form of worship that has attractions for the
ignorant. You may safely assume that the teaching of modern Dissent is
indirectly in favour of the Establishment. Dissenters tell us they have
modified their customs in order to retain their hold upon the young of
the wealthy classes. But they cannot be retained by means like these.
It has almost become a proverb, that in the third generation they will
pass through the chapel to the church. Half the great mercantile houses
of London and the empire were founded by Dissenters whose sons, as they
have grown rich and cultivated, feel more and more the awkward isolation
of Dissent. Increasingly this feeling is spreading among Dissenters, and
the Church, if it were wise--its history is a career of blunder upon
blunder--would have laid its plans to recover such. All the levers of
society have been at its disposal. The Establishment rolls in wealth;
there is no other Church in the world so wealthy; the aristocracy are
bound to support it. Literally, there is in our land no career for a
Dissenter. Dissent is a stigma in society. Even men who have no
religious predilections would scorn the name of Dissenter. The schools,
the universities--all have wealth and honour for those who will conform;
and for those who conscientiously refuse to do so--exclusion and
disgrace.
In London, within twelve miles of the Post-office, there are some seven
hundred churches and chapels connected with the Church, and about treble
that number of officiating clergy. At St. Paul's it is estimated that on
special occasions as many as 7000 or 8000 persons take part in the
services. For the special evangelization of the metropolis there is what
is called the Bishop of London's Fund. In the summer of last year the
Bishop of London stated that towards the sum proposed to be raised for
that purpose, 360,000_l._ had been subscribed. By means of that
subscription 200 clergymen have been added to the diocese, and
contributions made to the erection of 69 new churches and of 20
parsonages. Sites also had been secured for 33 more churches, 27
schools, 15 parsonages, and 4 mission stations. 15,000_l._ had been
expended for educational purposes; upwards of 9000_l._ for 53 Scripture
readers; about 2000_l._ for 27 parochial mission women, and 2670_l._
towards the rent and expenses of mission rooms. It says something for
the Church that it has thus raised funds for such purposes. When Bishop
Blomfield appealed for 10 new churches for Bethnal Green, and raised
sufficient money both to build and to a great extent endow them, it was
feared that he had called forth such an expression of Christian
liberality as would exhaust the resources of wealthy Church people in the
great metropolis for many years to come. Since that time it is estimated
that 1,700,000_l._ have been expended in London on churches and
endowments. I am not aware that any other religious sect can say as
much. The _Times_ estimated that there are as many as 85 clerical
charities in London.
In the City of London the Church does not seem to thrive. The _Church
Times_ published a kind of census of fourteen of the City churches drawn
up after personal inspection during service time not long ago. It gives
the value of the benefice, and the number of persons actually present
when the correspondent entered the church.
Annual Value. No. Present.
(pounds)
St. Bartholomew the Great, 680 40
Smithfield
St. Anne and Agnes, St. 626 25
Anne's Lane
St. Michael le Querne, 300 closed
Foster Lane
St. Mary Magdalene, Old 230 18
Fish Street
St. Nicholas Cole Abbey 270 closed
St. Bennet's, Paul's Wharf 254 6
St. Nicholas Queenhithe, 260 11
Thames Street
Allhallows, Bread Street 382 3
St. Martin Pomray, Old 410 1
Jewry
St. Margaret, Bread Street 287 3
St. Peter le Poor, Old 1725 20
Broad Street
St. Martin Outwich, 1100 6
Bishopsgate Street
St. James, Mitre Square 300 20
Allhallows with St. 650 9
Bennet, Lombard Street
7074 162
In the City there are 105 churches, parochial and district, and in the
City the superiority of the Church over Dissent is manifest. The Jews,
the Greeks, the Roman Catholics, the Wesleyans, the Baptists, the
Congregationalists, the Presbyterians altogether have but twenty-six
chapels in the City.
From the beginning of the long reign of George III. to its close--that is
from 1760 to 1820--there were not six new churches erected in the
metropolis.
When the Great Fire had devoured the eighty-nine parish churches of
London, Sir Christopher Wren superintended the building of fifty-three at
the same time that he was building St. Paul's. Various Acts were passed
in the reign of Queen Anne and George I. to increase church accommodation
in London, and Commissioners were appointed to apply the coal duties from
the year 1716 to the year 1724, to the building of fifty-two new
churches. Much of the money was misappropriated and only eleven were
built, and a subsequent fund of 360,000_l._ was granted, to be paid in
instalments of 21,000_l._ a year. In 1818, Parliament was prevailed on
to vote a million and a half for building churches throughout the country
as a thank-offering for the termination of the war; and in the same year
the Incorporated Church Building Society was founded, to build, enlarge,
and repair churches; of which many, such as those in Bethnal Green,
Hackney, St. Pancras, Battersea, were in London. Daniel Wilson, Bishop
of Calcutta, persuaded the vestry of Islington to vote 12,000_l._ for
church building. In 1836 Bishop Blomfield inaugurated the Metropolis
Churches Fund, to which he himself gave up sinecure patronage at St.
Paul's to the extent of 10,000_l._ a year. Sixty-eight churches were
built by this fund at the cost of 136,787_l._, before it was merged, in
1854, in the Diocesan Church Building Society. During the twenty-eight
years of his episcopate, Bishop Blomfield consecrated 108 churches in
London. The whole number of churches ten years ago, writes Mr. Bosanquet
in 1868, was only 498. Now Churchmen aim at absorbing the entire
metropolis. "But in order to secure for every 2000 of our population one
clergyman," said the present Archbishop of Canterbury in 1867, "we shall
need twice as many additional clergymen as we have yet, with a
proportionate number of schools." And here as elsewhere it seems to be
true that supply creates demand. As soon as a church is opened it is
well filled.
The Bishop of Winchester's Fund, also known as the South London Church
Extension Fund, is a similar effort to supply the spiritual need of that
part of London which belongs to the diocese of Winchester.
THE DEAF AND DUMB AT CHURCH.
In London there are two thousand persons born deaf and dumb. To the
sweet music of speech, whether in the way of conversation or lecture,
grave or gay, or song however sacred and Divine, they are insensible. It
follows almost as a natural consequence that they are mute, that from
their lips can never come the thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
It is almost impossible for us to measure adequately the greatness of
their loss or the depth of their desolation. How in some degree to make
it up to them, to raise them in the scale of being, to teach them to
think, and feel, and learn, and to enable them to communicate to others
the results, is certainly not one of the least praiseworthy of the many
praiseworthy Christian efforts of our day. With this view two courses of
action have been followed. A Jewish school has been established at 44,
Burton Crescent, where the system of teaching by articulation and
lip-reading is pursued. For some time a similar system has been in
successful operation in Rotterdam. As to the merits of the system a warm
dispute has been for a considerable time in progress in America. Its
advocates tell us that when these results shall have been made known, and
the attention of the philanthropist and man of science shall have been
directed to them, the days of the old system of dactylology, or
communication by the aid of fingers, will be numbered. They ask,
triumphantly, What parents will be content that their children shall
continue to communicate their thoughts and wishes by the aid of signs,
when it can be proved to a demonstration that 999 deaf mutes out of every
1000 possess the faculty of speech, and that such faculty can be
successfully utilised? Mr. Isaac tells us, that at Burton Crescent,
after only eighteen months' instruction, a deaf child who had never
previously uttered a clear sound, recited a verse of the National Anthem
in a way that brought tears into the eyes of many hearers. The questions
are put by the teacher in audible language; and the deaf mute, by aid of
lip-reading--another marvel of the system in which the eye does duty for
the ear--comprehends every question, and gives answers audibly and
distinctly. The Association in aid of the Deaf and Dumb, of which the
Rev. Samuel Smith is the able and indefatigable secretary, are, however,
doubtful of the new system--and certainly lip-reading seems liable to
give facilities for great misapprehension as to the speaker's
meaning--and prefer to continue the system which the society was
organized in 1840 to teach, and under which it has worked more or less
successfully ever since. Under this system has sprung up a deaf and dumb
church-going public. On Sundays there are five or six places opened for
such in London; on Tuesday evenings there are two, the principal one
being held in the fine old church of St. Lawrence Jewry, near the
Guildhall--one of Sir Christopher Wren's churches--in which are monuments
to Wilkins, the learned Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop Tillotson,
whose lot was no peaceful one, and of whom it is worthy of remark that in
the language of Jortin he broke through an ancient and fundamental rule
of controversial theology, "Allow not an adversary either to have common
sense or common honesty." Poor Tillotson, you see, never got over the
disadvantages of Dissenting training.
But to return to the deaf and dumb. Inside this handsome church you will
find any Tuesday evening about eight o'clock, some fifty or sixty of them
sitting near the reading desk. Most of them are men and women in a
humble position in life, engaged in various callings in the
neighbourhood, more, however, in the east than the west. The desire to
profit by such services seems on the increase. They have, for instance,
at St. Lawrence, double the number they had, and the same may be said
with regard to the services conducted morning and evening at the
Polytechnic Institution. Nor are these services held in vain. Every
year some are prepared for confirmation, and special celebrations of the
Holy Communion are held for their benefit. To the ordinary attendants,
including even such as have little need of an interpreter to explain the
subject or to help them to follow the services in church, the committee
report, "these services and lectures are profitable." "I have felt it a
great privilege to attend the services," said one, "which have been a
great comfort and benefit to me, and I hope I shall remember what I have
heard" (it is to be presumed, by "heard," the writer means what he saw:
his language is conventional). "After I left school I felt so lost I
could not hear what was said in churches, and now I am very happy in
attending them." In another way, also, the religious condition of these
afflicted ones is kept in view. The Society employs missionaries engaged
in house-to-house visitation. By these missionary agents, acting in
concert with the parochial clergy, a personal acquaintance is maintained
with the deaf and dumb scattered over London, and a most marked
improvement in their character, conduct, and intelligence is the result
of the supervision exercised. The society is also engaged in promoting
the erection of a church for the deaf and dumb. For this purpose 550_l._
have already been subscribed. In the Old Kent Road there is a Deaf and
Dumb Asylum, and in other parts of the metropolis there are societies for
their special benefit. Of course no mere outsider can give an account of
a service with the deaf and dumb. It is easy to realize songs without
words, but not so easy to realize public prayer and preaching in which no
audible sound is heard, in which the service is conducted as it were by
pantomime. As much as possible the rubric is observed, the deaf and dumb
obey the instructions of the Prayer-book, and stand where standing is
prescribed, and "sign" the response to the Lord's Prayer, Creed,
Confession, &c. As to the sermon, all that can be said is that it comes
up to the Demosthenic standard for eloquence--action, action, action.
Among the deaf and dumb the best preacher must be the best actor. Not
merely are the fingers in constant requisition, but every part of the
preacher's face, as much as possible, is speaking all the time, either in
the way of exhortation or entreaty. Great use, as we may imagine, is
also made of the arms, and the body sways backward and forward as if to
lend expression to such ideas as it may be the design of the teacher to
convey. The great aim of these services is educational. They are
intended to afford such an insight into the meaning and use of the Book
of Prayer, that the deaf and dumb may be enabled to join intelligently in
the public worship of the Church of England, and undoubtedly it is
desirable that the terrible sense of isolation so natural under the
circumstances should be got rid of, that the deaf and dumb should feel
that they are part and parcel of the universal Church. Nevertheless
there must be a deaf and dumb pulpit from which may flow the ever
fructifying stream of Christian truth--a pulpit which the deaf and dumb
may feel exists especially for them. Of this pulpit at present the Rev.
Samuel Smith is the most distinguished orator, and as you watch him,
though you cannot understand him, you cannot but wonder at his marvellous
skill. Evidently his heart is in his work; equally evident is it that he
has to complain of no wandering eyes. Every hearer is intent, many seem
really devout and find the privilege one not lightly to be esteemed. The
deep strain of the organ is not there, you miss the song of praise, you
hear no penitential chant. From no living tongue falls the sweet promise
of salvation and eternal life, from those sealed and silent lips escapes
no audible prayer. Yet we know that
"God reveals Himself in many ways,"
and that He may be met with even among the deaf and dumb.
A SUNDAY IN JAIL.
Most travellers by the Great Northern Railway must have been struck with
a feudal castle apparently, just what you might expect to see on the
Rhine, but certainly not such a building as you would look for in the
immediate vicinity of the Cattle Market and of Mr. Mark Wilks's
overflowing congregation. As you approach it, all around you are genteel
villas and desirable residences; the neighbourhood has an air of comfort
and respectability; the inhabitants seem substantial and well to do--in
short, to belong to the upper strata of that middle class which in our
land, at any rate since the last of the Barons fell on Barnet Common, has
been a powerful influence for good in England and all over the world.
You would scarce fancy that feudal castle, with its "jutty, frieze, and
coigne of vantage," was a jail, or that inside it there were shut up
between three and four hundred rogues and vagabonds, old and young, male
and female, who have outraged the laws of their country, and have been
sent there, if possible, to receive punishment for their offences, and to
learn to do better for the future. Yet such in reality is the case. You
are standing outside the City House of Correction, which was built some
few years ago at a cost of 100,000_l._ Into this place it is rare for
good characters to obtain an admission. They may knock at the door, but
it will not be opened unless they are furnished with an order from the
Secretary of State, or one of the visiting magistrates, who are aldermen
of London city.
In this necessarily short paper it is not our intention to describe the
general arrangements of a place which we fear to too many of its inmates
can have but few terrors. There are homes outside of filth, and want,
and degradation; where, morning, noon, and night all that is decent, that
is tender, or true, or pure is crushed out of man, woman, and child;
where you can scarce believe man was made in the image of his Maker, that
he is a little lower than the angels; where you feel that rather than
have company with such you would associate with the beasts of the field,
or dwell in some lonely isle "far off amid the melancholy main." To
such, such a place as Holloway, with its cleanliness, and fresh air, and
wholesome food, educational advantages, and considerate attendance, must
be simply--in spite of its drawbacks of the treadmill, &c.--a millennium;
and the question arises whether we have hit on the most effectual mode of
making the dread of jail an incentive to the criminal class to keep out.
Another question also suggests itself: Is it right thus to tenderly treat
dishonesty, when honest poverty in our midst undoubtedly fares so bad?
Here, however, that subject cannot be discussed, neither can we touch on
that other question, at this time strongly agitating the aldermanic mind,
as to the propriety of allowing prisoners to have a religion of their
own, and to be attended by their own religious ministers--a question the
majority of the court evidently think absurd, for, as Alderman Cotton
observed--and our readers must remember Alderman Cotton aspired to the
honour of a seat in Parliament,--"if every dissenting sect were to apply
for facilities for the celebration of their religious services, what
would become of them? They should have to give the Baptists a pool to
bathe in, the Mormons a harem, and the Shakers a circle in which they
might make their dance." Of course, then, when I write of a Sunday in
Holloway jail, I write of a Sunday where the services--there are two,
morning and afternoon--are Protestant, and Protestant according to the
Church of England. As the worthy chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Owen, is now
about to preach, let us accompany him. We follow him up a flight of
stairs, and are at church and in jail. To most of us it is to be hoped
the sensation is a novel one.
In a small gallery, under which is the clerk and in the middle of which
is the pulpit, we take our seat. The chaplain, of course, is seen by
all. A red curtain, which we are requested not to remove, hides us from
the congregation. However, we can see them nevertheless. On the right
of the preacher, partitioned off so as to be seen by none but himself,
are the women prisoners; on his left, in another recess, are the boys,
little lads for whose offences against society others and older ones are
certainly more responsible than themselves. Before us, in rows gradually
ascending, are ranged the male adults--pale, melancholy-looking men, who
form the principal portion of this sad community. While they are seating
themselves let us note the cheerful, neat appearance of the place. Not a
speck of dirt is anywhere visible. You might, to use a common but
expressive form of speech, eat your dinner off the floor. The wooden
ceiling is very light and airy; the windows are plain and plentiful; the
walls are bare, but of snowy whiteness. Underneath is the
communion-table, and once a quarter such as the chaplain considers truly
penitent are permitted to partake of it. Some dozen officials, in
uniform, on raised seats, are ranged in different parts of the chapel,
and when all have taken their places the service is commenced by singing,
in which generally the wife of the chaplain--a lady not unknown in the
literary world--assists by instrumental performance. This part of the
service is especially remarkable. The prisoners are fond of singing.
There is weekly a class for this purpose, and they enter into it with all
their heart and soul. Of course the tunes are very simple and
old-fashioned, such as we used to hear, but they are sung with a fervour
of which few outsiders can have an idea. One could not help thinking of
Longfellow's lines:
"Loud he sang the Psalms of David,
He a negro and enslaved."
The book used is the collection of Psalms and Hymns issued by the
Religious Tract Society, and those selected are chiefly of a penitential
and consolatory character. The soothing influence of this part of the
service is, according to the experience of the chaplain, very great
indeed. It was also very evident that the men took great pleasure in the
responses, and one could not but hope that it was not all assumed; that
when they confessed themselves "miserable sinners," that when they
exclaimed, "We have followed too much the desires and devices of our own
hearts," or that when after the chaplain read each one of the
Commandments they prayed, "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our
hearts to keep this law"--that to some, at any rate, these words were
full of meaning, and did represent actual workings of the mind. In
chanting also they join, and the way in which they find out the proper
places in the Prayer-book, or in which they turn up the portions of
Scripture read, or find out the text, or repeat the Creed, is a model to
others, and gives an illustration of the existence of a very desirable
influence which the men appear to be under. It must be remembered that
they are there by themselves, that no external eyes are on them, that to
many of them the service is an unaccustomed novelty, and that to those to
whom it is not it affords a welcome relief after the monotony of the
week. Be this as it may, nowhere in London or the country, at home or
abroad, have I seen a quieter or better-behaved congregation. If you did
not see the prison garb, and the number on the arm, and the little brass
plate on the breast, you might fancy you were in the midst of an earnest
Christian people, who for purposes of their own excluded women, and
babies, and old men. The chaplain's sermon generally occupies from
fifteen to twenty minutes, and is of a character adapted to his audience;
yet I must confess the attention paid to it was not equal to that which
was shown in the more active parts of the service. The pulpit has yet to
learn to be plain and practical; and chaplains, it is to be feared, with
very remarkable exceptions, are inclined to be conventional. Still, the
preacher did his best, was kind and simple, and when he speaks of such
topics as godly sorrow for sin, and of turning away from it to God, or of
the many ways in which men fall from rectitude, many evidently,
especially of the younger ones, seem desirous to understand and realize
it, and to lay hold of something spiritually soothing and appropriate.
In many faces was to be seen an expression of great earnestness, forming
a contrast to the unconcerned look of the indifferent. As the chaplain
visits them all the week, and reads prayers to them every day, his
influence must of course, whether in the pulpit or out, be great. Be
this as it may, to many it is manifest that to them has arisen unmixed
advantage from spending a Sunday in jail.
HIGH CHURCH REVIVALISTS.
What is a mission? In a book of the mission edited by the Society of St.
John the Evangelist, at Cowley, Oxford, I read--1. It is a special call
from God. "Jonah preached a mission to Nineveh, and the whole city
repented and was saved. Lot preached one night to Sodom, but they would
not hearken, and were destroyed by fire." 2. It is a time of special
grace. The men who have devoted twelve days to a mission in London have
taken a bold and brave step in connexion with the Church of England. As
much as Sodom or Nineveh, London, with its pauperism, and vice, and
crime; with its nobles stooping to the foul companionship of the jockey
and the courtesan; with its high-born daughters rushing to see _Formosa_
at Drury Lane; with its merchant princes deeming it no disgrace to be
honest as the world goes, or as the times will allow--needs if it would
be saved from the fearful fate of Sodom, or the decline of Nineveh, that
it should be specially preached to and called on everywhere to repent.
For twelve days, then, some hundred churches have been open nearly all
day long, in addition to the Sunday services, which have been conducted
as usual. At All Saints, Margaret Street, for instance, the first
service began at a quarter to seven in the morning, and the last did not
close till past nine P.M. Church people are not partial to innovations.
It was only this week a lady was complaining to the writer that in the
parish in which she resided a week-evening service had been introduced.
As if two services on a Sunday were not quite enough. And truly, as
times go, she had reason to complain. Two such sermons as one generally
hears read in that lackadaisical, sing-song manner, which seems to be the
only thing clerical the raw curate picks up at Oxford or Cambridge, are
quite enough. If such were the preachers employed in the recent mission
(I see their number is set down at forty-eight), it must have proved a
failure. At All Saints, so far from the mission being a failure, it has
been, I should think, a success. I have always respected the Ritualistic
clergy; I have always given them credit for honestly attempting to
develope the Catholic element, of which there is a considerable leaven,
in the historical English Church; I have always felt that amongst them
rather than amongst popular evangelical preachers, whose favourite haunts
are the drawing-rooms of dowagers, or Broad Churchmen, the delight of
sceptical peers, are to be found the men most ready to take up the cross
and bear the yoke; but I had no idea they could preach, or if they did
that men of sense could listen. I have found out my mistake. I have
been one of the thousands who have listened to Mr. Body, of
Wolverhampton, and I never heard or saw within the walls of a church a
man so absorbed in his message, so carried away with its import, so
imbued with a sense of its Divine reality. I may also add that a more
awkward-looking, ill-favoured clergyman I never saw ascend the pulpit
stairs.
But these people were all Ritualists--believers in form? Well, they are;
there was an exaggeration of form, I frankly admit; there was a great
deal more crossing the forehead and the breast than we English approve
of; there was far too much of appearance of devotion. A man may worship
God in a hearty, cheerful way as well as on his knees and with elongated
jaw. The preacher himself at times assumed an air of needless imbecility
as he stood with drooping head and with hands folded, as if engaged in
secret prayer; lank and pale, and with a sickly smile upon his face, as
was the manner of mediaeval and pre-Raphaelite saints. And then of
course, like most of the services of all churches, of whatever
denomination, the harlot, and the publican, and the sinner to be called
to repentance, kept away. It is a sign of respectability to attend a
place of worship, and people who come to church in neat broughams, who
are partial to diamond studs, who wear brilliants on their fingers, are
eminently respectable; still there were poor sinners there, and the place
was full, and many were evidently deeply smitten, for the apostolic
fervour of the pulpit crept from row to row till the sinner and the
sceptic ceased to sneer, and all seemed mastered and subdued. Before the
service began half the audience seemed engaged in silent prayer, and at
the close that silent prayer was resumed.
It is difficult to describe this new burning and shining light. A
_verbatim_ report of his sermon would convey no meaning. Who cares to
read the sermons of Whitefield or Wesley? I heard him twice. In the
afternoon he gave an address on the subject of prayer. There he stood in
the pulpit, without gown or surplice, dressed in plain black cloth,
mouthing and ranting apparently in the wildest manner, just as on the
boards of the theatre they love to represent a Chadband or a Stiggins.
His dark short hair was brushed right down to his eyes. The principal
feature was his enormous mouth, over which an unripe moustache seemed
struggling into life. One moment his face was brought down to a level
with the pulpit, the next it was shot forward almost into the faces of
the occupants of the nearest seats, and the next he seemed to spring on
his toes, with each arm extended over his head, and as far apart as
possible. In the same manner the tones of his address were
proportionately varied. One moment he spoke in a whisper, the next in a
quiet, conversational manner, the next there came a thundering blast as
if he sought to arouse the dead. Was this art, or was this passion? The
former, says the sceptic. The tragedian can mouth it just as grandly, on
the stage. But as the greatest tragedians are the men who, like Kean,
felt--ay, even to their inmost core--all the agony they endeavoured to
realize and express, so I would say of Mr. Body that the intenseness with
which he realized what he said elevated him, and enabled him to embody,
as it were, the sublime of human passion. For instance, at All Saints
over the altar is a crucifix. In his evening sermon he was pleading that
as much now as ever was it our duty to confess Christ before man. It was
grand for the Crusaders to save the Holy Land from the Infidels. It was
grand the way in which St. Agnes and St. Polycarp died, in which the
early Christian martyrs lived and died. Nowadays the Church and the
world were far too friendly, and what was the result? That we tried not
how much we could do for Christ, but how most easily we could save our
souls. We sang the song of martyrs, we acted the part of cravens.
"Look," said the preacher, turning round to the crucifix, "look at the
Saviour on the Cross. Who placed him there? who made those wounds
there?--the world. And you try to be friendly with the world." So
intense was the power of the speaker that all seemed awestruck, as if
before their very eyes stood the Saviour with His wounded and bleeding
limbs. Another wonderful thing about the preacher is his common sense.
"Look here, now," said he, "here are a million of people who do not go
anywhere on a Sunday in London. Suppose each one of you now resolve to
go to the east of London and bring the people to church. Suppose you
were to be street preachers. I don't see why you should not. I don't
see why some of you laymen should not come and preach in this pulpit. Do
you want your commission? Here it is, 'Let him that heareth say Come,'
and if you did this you would accomplish more good between now and
Christmas than would be done by the Society for the Employment of
Additional Curates if they worked till Doomsday." Well, there is a
freshness, and a vigour, and a common sense about this style of remark
one does not often meet in the pulpit. And the service itself, too, was
the perfection of common sense. It began in the evening at eight. It
was over by nine. It began with a short prayer and a hymn which did not
take ten minutes, and it ended the same way. There was a service after
to which many stopped, but short as the service was I fear the speaker
had overtaxed himself. He speaks from the chest deeply, hoarsely, and
his throat gave him a good deal of trouble at the end. Sometimes in his
homely Saxon and ironical way he reminds you of George Dawson, but then
George Dawson never stirred the depths. The only man I have ever seen
equally effective was J. B. Gough, but then Gough was no orator, and
could only act one character, while Mr. Body is a master of powerful
language, and words never fail. He can read and sing also as well as he
can preach, and while I write I seem to see him as he stood giving out
the hymn after the sermon, as a general might marshal his troops--
"Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching on to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before."
A SUNDAY WITH THE LUNATICS.
One of the earliest of the Gospel stories is that which tells how the
Saviour healed the man possessed with devils. It is only of late that we
have learned to imitate His example. For hundreds of years society has
gone on torturing the mad, hardening the hardened, depraving the
depraved. We are now retracing our steps; we are atoning nobly for sins
of omission and commission on the part of our ancestors. It would do
good to some of the noisy poor who waste their time in low pot-houses
talking of their rights, when all that a man has a right to is what he
can earn, to look over such places as Hanwell and Colney Hatch, where
pauper lunatics are lodged in a palace, waited on by skilful male and
female attendants, spend their days in light and airy rooms as clean as
wax-work, have four meals a day, and every reasonable want supplied. I
have no doubt that many a careworn City man, as he has been hurried
backwards and forwards past such places by the train, has often wished
that in some such stately pile he had a niche where he could come of a
night, after the day's work was over, to breathe the fresh air, to tread
the fresh grass, and to smell the fresh flowers. I propose to gratify
this wish,--come with me, respected reader, and in the twinkling of an
eye you will find yourself in Colney Hatch.
It is on Sunday, a day when the asylum is closed to the public. Far and
near this bright sunshiny afternoon there seems resting over all a
Sabbath calm. On the neighbouring rails no trains are running; the doors
of the Station Hotel are shut; no traffic occupies the road and distracts
your attention. You gaze on fields as yet yellow with no ripening corn,
meadows as yet uncarpeted by flowers, trees as yet leafless. Farther off
on the distant ridge we see lofty mansions.
"All bright and glittering in the smokeless air."
Arrived at the gate we ring a bell; the porter opens it to us. We enter
our name in the visitors' book, and descend the gravel slope on which the
asylum is placed. All round is a wide extent of land in which the
lunatics take exercise and occasionally work. There are none outside
now, for it is the hour appointed for Divine service. The door is opened
for us by an attendant, who understands our mission. He takes us
upstairs and we find ourselves seated in a little gallery set apart for
the leading officers of the asylum. Just below us is the pulpit; on a
line with it, but a little farther off, is the reading-desk; opposite us,
at the other end of the room, is the organ. From the floor on which the
pulpit is placed there is a gradually ascending series of benches; on our
right are ranged the female, on our left the male inmates of the house.
It may be that there are some four or five hundred present. Here and
there amongst them you see their well-clad keepers. The lunatics attend
this service willingly, it is a pleasure for them to come, it is a
punishment for them to keep away. On the whole they behave very well,
and, as is often the case outside the walls of lunatic asylums, the
females greatly preponderate. From our gallery in this clean, cheerful
chapel we look down upon the group below. The sight is an unmitigatedly
sad one; we fail to see a single pleasant face. The chapel, considering
who are the audience, is almost light and cheerful. It is painful to
turn from its white walls and rafters to the crowd beneath and realize
how much darker and more cheerless is the human face when it is void of
intelligence. In this chapel you do not see the worse cases, they are
properly concealed from the spectator's eye; it is enough to know that
they are equally wisely and carefully tended with those before you. The
women are far more troublesome than the men. All are hideously ugly,
such as Fuseli might dream of after a supper of pork-chops, such as,
perhaps, that wonderful painter at Brussels, whose pictures form the
chief modern attraction of the place, could have painted in that queer
little imitation Roman ruin in which he lived and died, but such as no
living artist, at any rate in England, could portray. You feel inclined
to exclaim with Banquo--
"What are these,
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants of earth,
And yet are on't?"
Some sit as living corpses, others with scowling eye, flesh-and-blood
pictures of despair. Others there be who have driven themselves mad with
their bad tempers and unruly tongues. You can read all that in many a
repulsive and reddened face. This one had led a gay life; what a
termination for a career of pleasure! That one has become what she is by
drinking; this one by the grand passion which underlies all human life,
past or present, all philosophy, subjective or objective, all religion,
true or false. Amongst the men you do not see so many thoroughly dead
and vacant faces; you will also see among them more diversity of action
and a greater assertion of individuality. Some look angry, some silly,
but few have that God-forsaken appearance sad to behold anywhere, but
especially on the face of what might have been possibly under happier
circumstances a tender, loving woman. But the tones of the organ
indicate that the service is commencing. Men and women are now hushed
and still; in spite of an occasional friendly word with a neighbour, whom
very probably they pity as "As mad as a March hare," males and females
come and go quietly and comfortably. Most of them have Prayer-books, and
make a proper use of them; they join in the responses with great fervour,
and repeat the Apostles' Creed, and bow at the name of Jesus quite as
decidedly and uncompromisingly as do any of the sane outside. As to the
singing, it may be briefly said that it is loud, and is all the better
and more harmonious for the organ, which, especially at the end of the
last verse, is prolonged unusually, and with a view to the drowning
sounds of an unnecessary character. Indeed, this tendency to individual
utterance is the chief danger of such a meeting as this. You can detect
notes occasionally very undeniably loud and defiant, and, as it is, one
female at the close of the sermon begins talking so loud as to require
that two female attendants should take her off as quickly as possible;
not that any one is disturbed--oh no! nothing of the kind. In a
Belgravian chapel or church such an interruption would have created a far
greater disturbance. Here no one is surprised, the preacher goes on just
the same, and not a lunatic takes the trouble to turn round and look at
the disorderly sister. Out she goes, and no one cares. With this one
exception the service was most decorous. One very plain young female
appeared to me to be too much taken up with her fruitless endeavour to
attract the eye of a very plain young person of the opposite sex, who did
not in any way seem to respond. Another also seemed to be smiling
joyfully many times, when in the sermon there was nothing to call forth
such an external manifestation. Many also seemed to hear with
intelligent attention, but as a rule the audience listened to the
preacher with that resigned and spiritless expression with which most
church-goers are but too familiar. Yet the preacher was short and
simple, and spoke of matters in which all could take an interest; and
which all could understand, of Him who hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows, who was bruised for our iniquities, and with whose stripes
we are healed. It is cheering to think that even here some do not hear
of Him in vain.
LAY WORK IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
Dissenters have taught Churchmen a lesson, which they are, at any rate in
our time, not slow to learn. The theory of the Church has been up to our
own day almost exclusively sacerdotal. Its parochial system is, as Canon
Champneys termed it upon one occasion, "a great allotment system," and to
work that system there was the priest with his assistant deacon. That
time has gone. There was time also when it was quite sufficient to argue
against anything that it was a custom practised among the Dissenters.
The reader of Wilberforce's Life will remember how anxious was that good
man that the Dissenters should not take up the question of sending the
Gospel to India, as if they did he feared their activity would put a stop
to all Church action in the matter. It is not so now. The pressure of
public opinion, the dreadful mass of heathenism which had grown up while
the Church slumbered, the growing influence of Dissent, the increasing
spirituality of the clergy, the zeal and liberality of their people, have
in London completely altered the position of the Church of England.
Never were her services so well attended, never were her clergy more
useful than now. At the West-end the Church is the fashion. In the
East, where the poverty is too great to admit of the existence of a
church on Dissenting principles, the Church is in some parishes the only
place of worship, and the Church clergyman the only religious teacher. I
have heard of one parish where the utmost that the clergyman could get
for religious and charitable purposes from his wealthiest parishioners
was but ten shillings; and of another, where the clergyman spent five
hundred a year in charity. It is in these parts of London that the
Church is most useful, most successful, most untiring in its operations,
most lavish of its spiritual and temporal good. The laity give
munificently. For example, the Countess of Aberdeen gives three hundred
a year for the support of a clergyman in the East, who preaches in a
church built by Lord Haddo; the Marquis of Salisbury has subscribed
300_l._ for a similar purpose; and the clergy, whether vicars or curates,
devote themselves unremittingly to the performance of their sacred
duties. Under these circumstances they find themselves unequal to the
task, and appeal to the laity for help.
The Association of Lay Helpers for the Diocese of London was formed in
the year 1865, and "readers" have been admitted in the chapel of London
House with a form of service drawn up for the purpose in the form
following:--
John, by Divine permission, Bishop of London, to our beloved and
approved in Christ, A. B., Greeting: We do, by these presents, give
unto you our Commission to act as Reader in the parish of C, within
our Diocese and jurisdiction, on the nomination of the Rev. D. E.,
Rector [or Vicar] of the same, and do authorize you, subject to his
approval, to read Prayers and to read and explain the Holy Scriptures
in the School thereof, or in other rooms within the parish, and
generally to render aid to the Incumbent in all ministrations which
do not strictly require the service of a Minister in Holy Orders.
And we further authorize you to render similar aid in other Parishes
in our Diocese, at the written request, in each case, of the
Incumbent. And we hereby declare that this our Commission shall
remain valid until it shall be revoked by us or our successors
(whether _mero motu_, or at the written request of the said D. E.),
or until a fresh admission to the said parish of C. shall have been
made. And so we commend you to ALMIGHTY GOD, Whose blessing we
humbly pray may rest upon you and your work. Given under our hand
and seal, &c.
At present the Association consists of 44 lawyers and medical men, 141
clerks, 48 mechanics and labourers, and 156 ranged under the head of
miscellaneous. They aim to strengthen the hands of laymen already at
work by bringing them into closer relationship with the Bishop and with
one another, and to call out more lay help by making known the kind of
work in which the clergy want assistance. Recently the Association has
been very active on the subject, and has held many meetings in all parts
of the metropolis. At these meetings undoubtedly much good has been
done; a distinguished layman has taken the chair; a paper carefully
prepared has been read upon the subject, and then a discussion of more or
less interest and value has ensued.
Great care is taken in the appointment of suitable agents. They must be
communicants sanctioned by the Bishop; a register of the names and
addresses of the members is kept, showing what description of work each
unemployed member may be willing to undertake, and also of the place and
nature of the work in which each unemployed member is engaged. Upon the
application of incumbents, members of the Association are put into
communication with them, with a view to such arrangements for lay
assistance in parochial work as may be mutually agreed upon. Once in
every year the members attend Divine service and receive the Holy
Communion together. Once, at least, in every year a meeting of the
members is held under the presidency of the Bishop if possible, in order
to consult together upon one or more of the various branches of work in
which they are engaged, and to make such regulations as may be found
necessary or expedient. I hear also of the formation of Parochial
Associations of Lay Helpers which hold monthly or occasional meetings of
a desirable character. The executive committee of the Association is
appointed yearly by the Bishop.
The work to be done is various. At all the meetings which I have
attended I have found the principal stress laid upon house-to-house
visitation and mission-house services. It has been found that the poor
have a reluctance to attend the church, but they will attend a
mission-house service, and to preach and pray at such place lay help is
urgently required. Other subjects specified are teaching in
Sunday-schools and getting children to attend, conducting Bible-classes,
tract distribution, seeking out the unbaptized and unconfirmed,
encouraging the newly confirmed to come to Holy Communion, and inducing
the poor to attend church. Under the head of week-evening work such
subjects are indicated as teaching in night and ragged schools,
management of working-men's clubs and youths' institutes, assistance at
popular lectures, penny readings, and other means of recreation,
attendance at penny banks, clothing funds, and school and parochial
libraries, visiting the poor, assisting in church services. Day work is
much the same. Other subjects not already mentioned are superintending
the distribution of relief, reading and speaking to working men on
religious subjects in workshops; collecting and canvassing for funds for
parochial and mission purposes, and acting as secretaries to parochial
institutions and religious and charitable societies. Especial stress is
laid upon the clergy being relieved of their secular duties as relieving
officers. It is felt that clergy laden with an infinity of secular work,
essential to the good of the parish and the carrying out of their plans,
are thus more or less incapacitated for the performance of the higher
functions of their office. When we think what are the manifold duties of
the clergy, it is no wonder that sermons made to represent original
compositions, and which may be read as such, meet with a ready sale.
Parochially London has grown wonderfully of late. The census of 1861,
for instance, enumerates twenty-three parochial districts as formed out
of the old parish of Kensington. Bishop Blomfield consecrated in all no
less than 198 churches during the twenty-eight years of his episcopate,
of which no less than 107 were in London.
Lay organization may be said to have commenced but recently. The first
District Visiting Society of which I have heard, writes Mr. Bosanquet,
was founded in connexion with St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, of which
Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, was visitor. The Parochial
Women Mission Fund was established in 1860. This association does not
send its agents into any parish without a written application from the
incumbent, who selects both the agent and her lady superintendent. There
are now about 100 agents at work in London, acting chiefly in the
capacity of Bible-women. For the young men connected with the Church
there is a Church of England Young Men's Society in Fleet Street, with
fifteen branches in London and the suburbs; of 200 members on the books,
more than half are engaged as teachers in Sunday-schools or other lay
work. Then there is the Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association,
21, Regent Street, formed in 1843, to distribute the contributions of
charitable persons in such parts of the town as most need them, by means
of the clergy and their district visitors. For that part of London which
is in the diocese of Winchester there is the South London Visiting and
Relief Association. How well laymen can work is understood in the
neighbourhood of Drury Lane, where more than 500 of the lowest and the
poorest in that district may be seen any Sunday afternoon at two
Bible-classes conducted by laymen. Another lay agency in operation is
the Workhouse Visiting Society.
In spite of all these organizations the Church of England as regards
London has not yet fulfilled her mission. The harvest is plentiful, the
labourers are few. Clergymen in the East say they would be glad of lay
help from the West; but it does not come. In some parts of London there
are parishes containing from 15,000 to 30,000 people, and in such a
clergyman is almost unable to do his duty, in spite of his curates and
paid lay agents. In most cases the number of visitors is quite
insufficient. Mr. Bosanquet refers to a friend of his who had told him
that some months after entering on a very poor cure in the south of
London he had twenty-eight districts for visitors, but that twenty-seven
were hopelessly vacant, and that the twenty-eighth was taken by his wife.
This reminds me that some of the ladies of the clergy, especially in the
East and poorer districts, labour as energetically as their husbands. I
have heard of one lady who has two sewing-classes, with a hundred women
in each. Commander Dawson, conference secretary of the Association of
Lay Helpers, looks forward to the time when every communicant will be one
of the agents of the society, thus stimulating his fellows, and giving
fresh life and courage to his clergyman. It is clear when this
consummation is achieved the Church of England, whether established or
not, will shine with a saintly lustre which has never yet been hers.
Let me give a sketch of
AN EVANGELICAL PREACHER,
"You must go and hear the Church Spurgeon," said an intelligent lady,
residing not a hundred miles from Highbury New Park, to the writer.
"Who is he?" we asked.
"The Rev. Gordon Calthrop," was the reply. "He preaches in a temporary
iron church, St. Augustine's, Highbury New Park."
Soon afterwards, on a certain Sunday, we made our way to the church in
question. There was very little difficulty in finding it out. As you
enter Highbury New Park, leaving Dr. Edmond's new church on the right,
you come into a region of broad roads and handsome villas, into which
poverty, which has an unpleasant knack of pushing itself where it is not
wanted, actually seems ashamed to intrude. In these houses, almost
countryfied, standing in the midst of well-trimmed lawns, shaded by leafy
shrubs, between which flowers of the richest beauty bud and blossom, only
rich people and people apparently well-to-do dwell, and they all attend
at Mr. Calthrop's church. Follow any of them, as on a Sunday morning the
hour of service draws nigh, and bells far and near are calling men to
prayer, and you find yourself at St. Augustine's. Close by, a handsome
ecclesiastical structure is rapidly rising, which is to hold 1400 people.
That is the permanent church, the foundation-stone of which was laid by
the Bishop of London, and where, it is hoped and believed, Mr. Calthrop
may labour for many years to come. As it is, he has been preaching in
this iron church, which will seat about nine hundred, for the last five
years. He came there a stranger, fearful of the future, doubting what
would be the issue. The church was quite a new one. The neighbourhood
had been but recently built on, but he came with a heart full of zeal,
with an experience ripe and varied, and in a little while it was apparent
to himself and his friends that the step he had taken was fully justified
by the result. Now he has a crowded church, more than 250 communicants,
and a people ever ready to respond to his appeal, and rich in that
charity without which a religious profession is but little better than
sounding brass. The sacrament money at St. Augustine's, as they have no
poor of their own, is distributed amongst those of neighbouring churches.
One of the noticeable features in connexion with the place is the
attendance of young men from the neighbouring College of St. John's. For
the benefit of my readers let me add, that what was Highbury College is
now a place of training for ministerial work in connexion with the Church
of England--of young men who have not had, owing to unavoidable
circumstances, the benefit of a University education, but who
nevertheless are the right stuff out of which to make useful preachers of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. On Sundays they find employment as
Sunday-school teachers in various parts of the metropolis; also on that
day, with a view to future usefulness, they go to hear such eminent
clergymen as may be preaching in the City or the West-end, but mostly
they attend at St. Augustine's, and under Mr. Calthrop's preaching they
prepare for the great work themselves.
Nor do I know that they could have a better model. Mr. Calthrop is not
the Church of England Spurgeon. I am not aware that the Church of
England has a Spurgeon. I know none of the other Christian churches of
our day that have. It is only once in an age that a Mr. Spurgeon
appears, but Mr. Calthrop has no need to fear comparison with Mr.
Spurgeon or any one else. Personally, he is much smaller than the
far-famed Baptist orator Mr. Spurgeon, and in figure and face very much
resembles the late Douglas Jerrold. His voice is one of wonderful
sweetness and power, and as he reads the Liturgy of his Church you feel
that with him it is no empty form, to be repeated parrot-like and with
railway speed, but the voice of a people humbled on account of sin, and
standing trusting, yet trembling, in the presence of their God.
Exquisitely can he render all its pathos, all its tenderness, all its
sorrow, all its fulness of exultation, all its ecstasy of Christian hope.
From the reading-desk to the pulpit the transition is easy and natural.
At a distance there is something youthful in his look; but in his grey
hair, in his face lined with thought, in his eye, which seems ever
looking far off, as if here was not the boundary of his horizon, as if it
had realized something of the glory which is to come; you see that
already golden youth has past, and that you have before you one who has
attained to the strength and steadiness, and ripeness and experience, of
Christian manhood. He will not detain you long, nor will he weary you
with learning, nor will he aim to dazzle the intellect and neglect the
heart. In language of poetical simplicity will he unfold and illustrate
his text, and force home on the hearts and consciences of all, its
lessons. There is nothing of the pretension of the priest about him, nor
does he delight in the terrors of the law. Evidently he is the servant
of one whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light; and such is his
freshness and originality, and such is his careful preparation for the
pulpit, and such the naturalness of his delivery, that the more you hear
him the more you like him. Much of his ministerial work is done at his
own house, amongst the young people whom he collects there in his
Bible-classes, which are largely attended. For this work he seems
eminently fitted by a refinement of manner, not so much, I should fancy,
the result of training, as of the natural instinct of a kindly heart.
The North of London is favoured as regards clergymen, and Mr. Calthrop is
a favourable specimen of his class. There are none around him more
eloquent, more laborious, more successful. A recent American writer
points to the chaplainships founded and supported in all the places of
fashionable resort on the Continent as a proof of the amazing energy, and
wealth, and power of the English Church. I would rather point to such
churches as St. Augustine's, where a pastor is maintained in affluence,
and a church crowded, and real good accomplished, without one farthing
but what is raised by the free-will offerings of the people.
Outside his own immediate circle Mr. Calthrop has laboured with much
effect. As a platform speaker he is very effective. As an out-of-door
preacher he at one time greatly distinguished himself. He was also one
of the first to take his share in the work of preaching in theatres; and
one of the best accounts of one--a service at the Britannia, which was
reprinted in almost all the religious journals at the time--was from his
pen. A little while ago he had the honour of preaching in Westminster
Abbey. He was before that one of the preachers in the special services
at St. Paul's. Perhaps the greatest compliment in this respect paid him
was the appointing him University preacher at his own university--that of
Cambridge--a few years since. To have occupied that pulpit is a
memorable event in any clergyman's life.
Little more need be said. Mr. Calthrop was born in London, and educated
at Trinity College, Cambridge. He at one time had thoughts of studying
for the law, but ultimately the pulpit became the object of his choice.
As a curate he originally laboured at Reading; he moved thence to
Brighton, where he was curate to the late Rev. Mr. Elliott, author of a
work still known in theological circles--the "Horae Apocalypticae." Six
years of his ministerial life were spent at Cheltenham, and thence he
removed with his wife and family to what was then a new and untried
sphere of labour. The wealth and material prosperity around him seem not
to have impaired his devotedness. Very possibly they have opened to him
fresh fields of usefulness; for if ever plain preaching was required for
rich men, it is in the day in which we live. It is to the credit of Mr.
Calthrop that he realizes this fact, and sees in the Gospel he proclaims
a message for the richest of the rich as well as for the poorest of the
poor.
* * * * *
A book might be written about Church Life. I can only say Dr. Temple
tells us, that such commands as those in Leviticus as to tattooing,
disfiguring the person, or wearing a blue fringe, should be sanctioned by
divine authority, is utterly irreconcileable with our present feelings.
The Bible is before all things the written voice of the congregation,
writes Dr. Rowland Williams. The Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
The Psalms do not bear witness to the Messiah. The prophecies are
histories. Justification means peace of mind, or sense of the Divine
approval. Regeneration is an awakening of the forces of the soul.
Reason is the fulfilment of the love of God. The kingdom of God is the
revelation of Divine Will in our thoughts and lives. The incarnation is
purely spiritual. In London pulpits the preacher best known and most
identified with Broad Church theology is Professor Jowett, whose great
theme is that eternal punishment is inconsistent with all that we can
conceive of the requirements of justice or the character of God. Dean
Stanley says no clergyman believes the Athanasian Creed, and treats many
parts of the Bible as mythical. Of Father Ignatius and his
eccentricities it is needless to speak.
The following statistics will interest many:--"There is a weekly
celebration of the Holy Communion at 169 churches, more than one-fourth;
daily celebration at 20, nearly one-thirtieth; early morning celebration
at 159, one-fourth; evening celebration at 97, nearly one-sixth;
afternoon celebration at 5; choral celebration at 63, one-tenth;
saints'-day services at 198, nearly one-third; daily service at 132, more
than one-fifth; no weekday service at 104, one-sixth; full choral service
at 128, more than one-fifth; and partly choral service at 115, nearly
one-fifth; giving a proportion of nearly half where the psalms are
chanted; surpliced choirs at 137, more than one-fifth; paid choirs at 88,
nearly one-seventh; voluntary choirs at 231, more than one-third.
Gregorian tones are used exclusively for chanting at 46, one-fourteenth.
The weekly offertory is the rule at 128, nearly one-fifth. There are
free but appropriated seats at 141, nearly one-fourth; free and open
seats at 65, more than one-tenth. The Eucharistic vestments are worn at
20, being one church in every 31; incense is used at 7, one-nineteenth;
the surplice is worn in the pulpit at 83, more than one-eighth; and 26
churches are open daily for private prayer."
Dr. Sherlock, afterwards Bishop of Bangor, in his "Test Act Vindicated,"
published in the year 1718, tells us that in the year 1676, upon a
calculation that was made, the Nonconformists of all sorts, including
Papists as well as others, were found to be in proportion to the members
of the Church of England as one to twenty. That this is not the case now
shows how the Church of England has misused her opportunities, or else
that her claims have been rejected by the nation at large.
CHAPTER VII.
AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.
_At Colebrook Row_.
Innovations are the order of the day. New times and altered
circumstances require them. In Christian work they are imperatively
required. While the Church has folded its arms and slept, while people
have been lulled to ease and carelessness by the respectability of Church
life and the wealth of professors, while pastors and ecclesiastical
authorities have found satisfaction in the observance of ancient order
and in the routine of established work, all at once there comes to them a
cry that the heathen are outside of them, blaspheming the name they love,
ignorant of the Gospel tidings, perishing in their sin and crime and
misery at their very doors. John Wesley wrote how, in the latter end of
the year 1739, eight or ten persons came to him in London, who appeared
to be deeply convinced of sin, and earnestly groaning for redemption.
They desired that he would spend some time with them in prayer, and
advise them how to flee from the wrath to come. In our time the curtain
has been lifted up, and the devout and earnest Christianity of the day
has stood face to face with the unbelief which, by ignoring the existence
of a heavenly Father, and robbing humanity of its loftiest hopes and
deepest consolations, left the masses in our crowded cities to live and
die like brutes. The revelation has raised up in many quarters a feeling
that something more has to be done than has yet been done, that the
Church, to discharge its mission aright, needs a more earnest
consecration of the heart, a less formal _modus operandi_, a freer
utterance, a less stiff and starch and time-worn manifestation of
Christian life.
In accordance with this feeling, one Sunday evening there was a novel
service in the Presbyterian church, Colebrook Row, of which the Rev. J.
Thain Davidson is pastor. The night itself was one of the most
unfortunate that could have been selected for that or for any other
experiment. London people have a great, and, let me add, a natural
objection to wet weather. If it rains hard it offers them a good excuse
for stopping at home. They do not like to spoil their Sunday clothes,
and they have a great aversion to bronchial affections. In this respect
the Scotchman contrasts favourably with the Englishman. In such places
as Edinburgh or Glasgow the churches are as well attended in bad weather
as in fine. If it were so in London how many a pastor's heart would
rejoice! At Colebrook Row they are Presbyterians, and in England we
naturally presume Presbyterians to be Scotchmen--at any rate, this must
be the case as regards the attendance at Colebrook Row. On Sunday
evening the place was crammed. I did not see a seat anywhere to spare,
nor did I see a hearer who did not seem to take the deepest interest in
what was going on.
Well, and what was going on?--a thing I should think never seen in a
Presbyterian place of worship before. It appears that the services in
the Agricultural Hall just by have led to an increased demand for
religious agency in that district. Hundreds who attend no place of
worship have now been induced to do so. Hundreds who were careless about
religion have now become concerned. Hundreds who a short while ago would
have refused the gift of a tract, and would have shut their doors in the
face of a Christian visitor, are now ready to receive the one and to
listen to the _viva voce_ instruction of the other. Naturally, the
appeal is made to Mr. Davidson, but his own duties in connexion with his
church and congregation leave him no time to spare. A fund raised partly
by Mr. Davidson's own people, and partly by the liberality of a private
individual, has enabled the London City Mission to send an agent to
labour in connexion with the services at the Agricultural Hall. But,
after all, one man in such a multitude can do but little, and on Sunday
evening Mr. Davidson, instead of preaching a sermon, organized, as it
were, a public meeting,--yet not exactly a public meeting, for there was
no chairman, there was no rhetorical fireworks, no murmurs of
applause--the aim of which was to elicit Christian co-operation in
evangelistic work in that particular locality. Belonging to their
congregation there are some two hundred young men. How much can they do
if they have but the willing heart!
The service commenced in the usual manner by the singing of a hymn. Mr.
Davidson, who was in his pulpit and wore his gown, then offered up
prayer, leading up to what was to be the peculiarity of that evening's
service. He then delivered a short address explanatory of the
circumstances in which that meeting had been originated, and which had
led to the visit of the deputation who were to address them that night.
It had seemed to their evangelistic committee that an opportunity had
arisen in consequence of the services at the Agricultural Hall which
required the utmost efforts of Christian workers. The object of that
meeting was to excite to further effort. They were all too much inclined
to be supine, to be content with mere religious routine. There was a
need to break through spiritual monotony. They must endeavour to breathe
new life and energy and freshness. There was a fine field before them,
for London truly was, as it was often termed, the finest missionary field
in the world; even amidst the lowest of the low there was an encouraging
feeling existing. The masses felt that on the whole the Christians were
their best friends--those most ready to do them good temporally as well
as spiritually. Especially was it so in that particular district. The
Church was much to blame in that it had not been more ready to take
advantage of this feeling and to turn it to proper account. People had
often been driven away from places of worship. As an illustration, Mr.
Davidson said that in one of the churches in that locality a young man
entered and took his seat one Sunday evening. Presently the lady to whom
the pew belonged came in: she said to the young man, harshly, "This is my
pew, you have no business here." The young man took up his hat and
walked out, resolving never to enter a place of worship again. In a week
after, he was dead.
"In their various societies," continued Mr. Davidson, "there was ample
room for all; some were more fitted for one kind of work than another,
but they wanted workers of all kinds. There was a large amount of
Christian talents amongst them lying waste, and they were losers, no one
could say to how great an extent, through all eternity, in consequence.
When there was a cry of anguish from earth, Christ came; and now can we
refuse to utter the response, when there is a cry to the Church, 'Lord,
here am I; send me?' Help is needed, nor can the work be done without
human help." The reverend gentleman then called on Mr. Mathieson, the
banker of Lombard Street, who stood up in the table pew, and, after a
short prayer, proceeded to read a few verses from Matthew's Gospel,
describing how the multitude were fed in the wilderness with seven loaves
and a few small fishes. "In our time," said the speaker, "there was just
such a multitude exclaiming, 'Who will show us any good?' and in the
Scriptures we find rules for our guidance. We find our means of
usefulness in the inexhaustible love of our Saviour. No man could do any
good who did not feel that. Christ said, 'I have compassion on the
multitude.' What was compassion? Fellowship in suffering. And this is
required from us. It was in this the greater part of Christ's suffering
consisted. We may be ready to come to Christ, to have fellowship with
Him at this table; but the question is, Are we equally anxious to have
fellowship with Him in His suffering? It was the wonder-working power of
love by which Christ fed the multitude. The practical question, How many
loaves have ye? was one to be put to us. If our answer is, We have
scarce enough for ourselves; we have very little over, we must use that.
The manna that was not eaten at once became corrupt. We must realize the
fact that when we took God's vows upon us we became as much consecrated
to His service as any priest. Find out your gifts, learn not to be
impatient of results, and make the most of the opportunity God has given
you in so remarkable a manner to work in His service." Such was the
substance of Mr. Mathieson's address. Another hymn was sung, and then
Dr. A. P. Stuart, a medical man well known at the West-end, spoke briefly
yet energetically on the living Christ, and the constraining power of His
death and resurrection as the most powerful and only stimulus to
Christian zeal. The discourse was constructed on two passages in Paul's
Epistles to the Corinthians, in which he shows how the love of Christ was
the motive power, and how necessity was laid on Him in consequence to
preach the Gospel. "It was not alone," said the Doctor, "the living
Christ, but it was the fact that He died for sin, that supplied the
foundation of Christian effort. All we can do is far too little to show
forth His praise. What is wanted is life in the soul--a dead soul can do
nothing." The speaker then showed what a revival of religion had been
produced by personal conversation after sermons, and concluded with an
urgent appeal--an address of unusual earnestness. Then Mr. Davidson
closed the service in the usual way. The experiment was a bold one, but
none present could have regretted it. Why should not qualified laymen
give addresses in our chapels and churches on special occasions--on a
Sunday night? Is there a valid reason why they should not, or why
ministers should not thankfully accept their aid?
PARK CHURCH, HIGHBURY.
At the back of substantial and well-to-do Highbury Place, bounded by the
New River and the North London Railway, has sprung up of late years a
flourishing settlement of villas, single and semi-detached, known as
Highbury New Park. At one end of it there has been erected, at a cost of
somewhere about eleven thousand pounds, a very handsome place of worship
of white brick, ornamented with a very handsome spire. From an
inscription in front of it I learn that it is a United Presbyterian
Church, and that the pastor is the Rev. John Edmond, D.D. The Doctor
came from the north to London some few years ago to preach to a
congregation of Scotch men and women, meeting in Myddelton Hall,
Islington, whence they had to move, as the church increased in success
and influence and Christian zeal and power. Boswell, when introduced for
the first time to old Sam Johnson, admitted that he was a Scotchman, but
added, humbly and by way of apology, that indeed he could not help it.
"Sir," replied the Doctor, "that's what many of your countrymen cannot
help;" and, the writer would add, a good thing too, when we see what Dr.
Edmond is, and how he and his church labour to spread Christian truth
around.
Inside you are struck with the comfort and cheerful appearance of the
building. In form it is almost a square, and is remarkably light and
airy. The pews are all open and well cushioned. The pulpit is a
handsome platform. Underneath is the choir. The chapel is computed to
seat comfortably 1200, but that estimate is rather under than over the
mark. Underneath the chapel are rooms fitted up with every convenience
for week-evening lectures, for meetings of young men's mutual improvement
societies, for ladies' working parties, and the other organizations of an
active and flourishing church. I find here about 2000_l._ is annually
raised for religious purposes. The pastor has a salary of 700_l._ a
year. Attached to the place is a Young Men's Literary Institute, a Young
Men's Christian Fellowship Association, a Missionary Association, a
Psalmody Association, a Ladies' Working Association. In Highbury New
Park there are no poor people, and, consequently, there is no missionary
agency or Sunday-school in connexion with that district; but the church,
consisting of between four and five hundred members, is not idle nor
neglectful of its special privilege and duty. In the neighbouring Hoxton
there are many poor untaught, and for their souls the church in Highbury
cares. There a City missionary is employed, whose labours are not in
vain. They have organized a Mothers' Meeting, a Bible Class, Penny
Weekly Readings and Musical Entertainments, a Singing Class, and a Band
of Hope. Last year their missionary conducted 156 in-door and 21
out-of-door meetings, 2100 district visitations for Scripture reading,
&c., 500 district visitations to the sick and dying, besides the
distribution of a large number of religious tracts. In Harvey Street,
Hoxton, the church maintains a Sunday-school with an average attendance
of 160, a day-school not so numerous, a Sick Relief Society, and in
Albert Square another Sunday-school and a domestic servant class. Dr.
Edmond himself preaches twice on the Sunday, and once on a week-night.
He has a special service for servants on Sunday afternoons; on Fridays
and Saturdays he also holds Bible classes. On Sundays the service itself
is conducted very simply, much as it was in old-fashioned Dissenting
chapels before the introduction of chants and anthems. To the stranger
the principal novelty is the vast preponderance of young men in the
congregation, and the use of that somewhat inelegant version of the
Psalms compared with which, in Scotch--not English ears,
"Italian thrills are tame."
And now what further shall the writer say of Dr. Edmond? Personally he
does not come up to the English idea of a successor of one of the old
grand Presbyterians who died gladly for God and His covenant in troubled
times, and to whom, humanly speaking, as Mr. Froude has well shown,
England owes the civil and religious liberty she enjoys. Even with his
gown on he does not strike you as being a big man. His features are
small, and when he is reading or looking down his very dark eyebrows
completely shadow and eclipse his eyes. For his age he is very bald, but
his face is apparently that of a man of hardy constitution and active
out-door life. His voice is excellent, and every syllable he says can be
distinctly heard. He preaches apparently from notes, and as he goes on
his way rejoicing the fire burns; he leaves his desk, now retreating
behind, now walking a few steps on one side, and a smile lights up his
face as he talks of what the Gospel has done, and of the brighter
triumphs it has yet to achieve. At other times he comes forward,
reaching his right arm as far as he can over the desk, as if anxious to
individualize his appeal, and to force it home to every heart. As a
preacher he hammers at his text with true Scotch pertinacity, and will
not give it up till in the way of spiritual truth he has wrung from it
all it can be made to yield. There can be no question about his
orthodoxy, or his knowledge of Scripture, or of the firm foundations of
his faith, or of the ample preparation he makes for his Sunday services.
No hearer need go empty away from Park Church. It must be his own fault
exclusively if he does. The preacher understands his vocation, and to it
conscientiously devotes his every power.
The English have never taken kindly to Presbyterianism; the simplicity of
its worship, the sternness of its Calvinistic creed--that of the
Westminster Assembly of Divines--have repelled our English sympathies.
Of late it has put forth, and is still putting forth, growing strength.
There are about twenty Presbyterian churches in London, only two of
them--Dr. Cumming's being the principal--being connected with the State
Church of Scotland.
The Presbyterians are moving with the stream; they are beginning to
substitute "human hymns," as they are called, for the Psalms of David.
In one London chapel, at least, the organ has been introduced. In some
quarters doubts have been entertained as to the divine right of
Presbytery. There is amongst them a growing feeling of the impossibility
of spending the whole time of the Sabbath in "the public and private
exercises of God's worship, except so much as is taken up in works of
necessity and mercy." It is to be questioned whether the Catechism
definition of the duties of the State in relation to the Church is
maintained by London Presbyterians. "The civil magistrate hath
authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be
preserved in the Church; that the truth of God be kept pure and entire;
that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and
abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the
ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the
better effecting whereof he hath power to call synods, to be present at
them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according
to the mind of God." The Calvinism of the moderns is not the Calvinism
of the Westminster Assembly, and yet every clergyman at his ordination
declares that "he sincerely owns and believes the whole doctrine
contained in the Confession of Faith to be founded upon the Word of God;
acknowledges it as the Confession of his Faith; that he will firmly and
constantly adhere to it; and that he disowns all doctrines, tenets, and
opinions whatsoever contrary to and inconsistent with the Confession."
Holy Willie's prayer--
"O Thou wha in the heavens dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel',
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
A' for Thy glory,
And no for onie guid or ill
They've done afore Thee"--
whatever it was in Burns's time, is a caricature of Presbyterianism as it
exists in London in our day.
CHAPTER VIII.
CONGREGATIONALISTS AND BAPTISTS.
Early in our religious history two theories as to Church and State were
developed. If the Presbyterians had gained the day in that time of
religious ferment--which had so melancholy a termination in the
restoration of Charles II., with his puppy-dogs and mistresses--we should
have seen the Church established independent of the State: the latter
acting as its servant, exercising the sword at its bidding and on its
behalf. The Churchmen of that day adopted a lower theory, as appears by
their favourite formulas--"the power of the magistrate in ecclesiastical
matters," and "passive obedience without limitations." In his zeal in
this direction, Archbishop Sancroft actually went so far as to alter the
rubric. If Bishop Cosin may be believed (the story is told by Calamy),
where it was said nothing was to be read in the churches but by the
Bishop's order, Sancroft took on himself to add, "or the King's order."
In short, the theory was then what Sir J. D. Coleridge only the other day
stated it, that "the Church was a political institution." Against this
theory, as dishonouring to God and degrading to religion, the Puritans
sternly protested, and at the peril of their lives. Naturally they fell
back upon such texts as, "My kingdom is not of this world," "Render unto
Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's." More and more it became clear to them that the Church was simply
an assembly of believers; that Christ's kingdom was exclusively a
spiritual one; that the greatest service the State could do to religion
was to leave it alone. They argued, and not without some show of
plausibility, that the faith enunciated by the carpenter's son,
disseminated through the world by tent-makers and fishermen; the faith
which had found its way into the hearts of the stubborn Jews; which had
been more than a match for the pride of Rome or philosophy of Greece--for
which the multitude, the grey-haired sire, the high-spirited lad with
life with its golden prospects opening all round him, the tender and
delicate maiden, had gone smilingly to die--the faith immortal with the
immortality of truth, required not the vulgar patronage of worldly men,
or that the State should attempt bribery on its behalf. Of course they
were wrong; for only last session of Parliament the present Archbishop of
Canterbury, in his place in the House of Lords, on the night of an
important debate, denominated a religion thus supported as a spurious
one; and it was only within the memory of living men that Nonconformists
were permitted to be parish constables or town councillors.
Nevertheless, half the worshippers of England and Wales are
Dissenters--that is to say, are of this spurious religion, and pay their
own ministers, and build their own chapels, without asking a farthing
from the State. Their leading denominations are the Baptists and
Congregationalists; and it shows how terribly Dissent undervalues the
historical element when I state that the Independents now prefer to call
themselves Congregationalists. There is an historical halo around
Independency. Mr. Brodie remarks that "the grand principle by which the
Independents surpassed all other sects was, universal toleration to all
denominations of Christians whose religion was not conceived to be
hostile to the peace of the State--a principle to which they were
faithful in the height of power as well as under persecution." Nor
should it be forgotten that Locke, the first of our philosophers to argue
on behalf of toleration, gained, as his biographers confess, his
enlightened views from the Independent Divines.
Speaking relatively, Dissent is a thing of yesterday. It was born of the
Puritanism which filled the gaols and fed the fires of Smithfield, when
there were men and women ready to die for Christ and his Cross. Wycliffe
was one of our earliest Dissenters. What he taught was the study of the
Bible as the source of religious faith and the rule of a religious life.
At college he was known as the Gospel doctor.
Queen Elizabeth ever believed in the invocation of saints; the worship of
the Virgin Mary; thought it sinful for priests to marry, and had a couple
of lighted candlesticks on her altar; but the country was full of learned
divines, who had come from Geneva or Frankfort with a contempt for such
papistical ideas, and with a more keen appreciation of the spiritual
character of true religion. About twenty years after her accession, the
principles of Independency were openly taught by Robert Brown, a relative
of Cecil, the Lord Treasurer. When Black Bartholomew came, Puritans and
Presbyterians were alike driven out of the Church. Owen, Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Oxford, Baxter and Calamy, might have been Bishops,
but they held that they could not assent to the teaching and ritualism of
the Church, and be false to conscience and to God. For this they had to
endure hardships, poverty, imprisonment, of all kinds--when Charles II.,
who obtained the Crown of England under false pretences, though he did,
as Pepys tells us, take the Sacrament on his knees, received from his
pliant Bishops his title of most religious King. Calamy, when a lad,
wondered why the old ministers who led peaceable lives, and always prayed
for the King, were persecuted, and in our day the feeling of wonder still
exists.
There have been times when the religious life of England has been utterly
divorced from the Church. Such were the times when George II. said all
the Bishops were infidels; such were the times when the clergy read to
their congregations the Book of Sports, enforcing on their hearers
dancing, jumping, archery, Whitsun ales, May-poles, and Morrice dances on
a Sunday; such were the times when the Methodists were expelled Oxford,
and when old John Newton wrote, that besides himself, there were only two
pious clergymen in London. It is impossible to overrate the obligations
of this country to Dissent. It saved England from Popery. It laid the
foundation of the mightiest republic the world has yet seen. It crushed
the despotism of the Stuarts, while the Church was indecently declaring
that a royal proclamation had the force of law. It gave us civil and
religious liberty; the wonderful change for the better which within the
last thirty years has come over the Church life of this country is due to
the fact that, rivalling the Establishment in zeal and good works, has
been an ever-growing, intelligent, and educated Dissent.
What are the doctrines of orthodox Dissenters? I reply, as regards
Baptists and Congregationalists, they are very much the same. The real
question at issue, whether adults or infants are the proper subjects of
baptism, and whether the rite should be administered by baptism or
immersion, really being but of little more importance than that of the
Big Endians and the Little Endians of Gulliver. The Congregational Union
issue a statement called "The Principles of Religion," which they
publish, not as a bond of union or as a series of articles to be
subscribed to, but as a summary of what is commonly believed amongst
them. In this document they state they believe the Scriptures of the Old
Testament as received by the Jews, and the books of the New Testament as
received by the Primitive Christians from the Evangelists and Apostles,
to be divinely inspired and of divine authority; they believe in one God
as revealed in the Scriptures as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in the
fall of man; in the existence in man of "a fatal inclination to moral
evil utterly incurable by human means;" in God, before the foundation of
the world, designing the manifestation of his Son in the flesh for our
salvation, to attain eternal salvation for us. They believe that the
Holy Spirit is given to quicken and renew the soul of man; that all who
will be saved were the objects of God's electing and eternal love; in the
perseverance of the Saints; in the perpetual obligation of baptism and
the Lord's Supper; in the coming of Christ to judge all flesh; that the
righteous will receive life everlasting, and that the portion of the
wicked will be everlasting punishment. As I have stated, such is a rough
outline of the common belief in Congregational and Baptist Chapels. It
is to be questioned, however, whether it would receive the unanimous
assent and consent of Baptist and Congregational ministers.
As regards Church order and discipline, I may attempt the following
summary, which I believe is as true of Baptist as of Congregational
Churches.
A Church, according to them, is a society of believers meeting
voluntarily together to observe religious ordinances; to promote mutual
edification and holiness; to perpetuate and promulgate the Gospel in the
world; and to advance the glory and worship of God through Jesus Christ.
The New Testament exclusively is their authority for Church customs, and
Christ is their only head; they elect their own officers, whether bishops
or pastors, and deacons. They believe that no person should be received
as members of Christian Churches but such as make a credible profession
of Christianity; are living according to its precepts, and attest a
willingness to be subject to its discipline. They believe that the power
of a Christian is purely spiritual, and should in no way be corrupted by
union with temporal or spiritual power.
In London there are 220 Congregational churches and 210 Baptist; some of
the latter being very small, and the ministers illiterate and
narrow-minded more than is usually the case. The Congregationalists are
chiefly incorporated in a body known as the Congregational Union, which
meets twice a year to deliberate; once in London, and once in such
provincial city or town as shall previously have been resolved on.
In London the Congregationalists have two or three Colleges for educating
young men for the work of the Ministry--the principal one being the New
College, St. John's Wood. This College is in connexion with the London
University, where some of the students graduate. The Baptists also have
a fine College in the Regent's Park, the students of which also
occasionally are in the class lists of the London University. But the
real fact is that in all the Dissenting Colleges the men who take
university honours are the exception, not the rule; the reason is the
course extends over but four or five years--and so much of that time is
devoted to theological study and pulpit preparation that there is not the
time to attain to the high standard prescribed by the London University.
The student has often had but an average middle-class education. He
feels an impulse, or, as it is technically termed, "a call" to the
Ministry. He has been found acceptable as a Sunday School teacher, or in
other ways has demonstrated his ability and religious character and zeal.
With the sanction of his Minister and the Church with which he is
connected, he is sent to College, where he remains till his professional
education is complete. Occasionally young men seek to enter the Ministry
with very humble views. Recently I heard of such a one. His pastor
having indicated his doubt as to the possession of the requisite ability,
the reply was: "Oh, sir, I know I never could be a learned man like you,
but I thought I might make a hignorant Minister like Mr. ---," naming a
well-known and popular Minister of another denomination.
The Baptists have also their Baptist Union sitting in London, and
occasionally in the Provinces. The first General (Arminian) Baptist
Church is said to have been formed in London in 1607. The first
Particular (Calvinistic) Church in 1616. I fancy that in some of the
Baptist Bethels and Cave Adullams, an Antinomian, or, at any rate, a more
decided Calvinism exists than prevails in the Independent Churches. As
regards Church government, their ideas are the same. One necessity of
this state of things is that their ministers must have some preaching
ability, a thing which is quite an accident in the Church of England;
another advantage is, that there are few pecuniary attractions to tempt
men to undertake duties for which they are unqualified.
The leading bodies connected with Church work in London are as
follows:--1. The Congregational Chapel Building Society, of which the
twentieth anniversary was held last year. We gather from the facts laid
before the meeting that during the 21 years (including 1869) of the
Society's existence it has materially assisted in the erection or
purchase of 87 chapels--representing a contribution from it in grants and
free loans of 110,000_l._ towards an aggregate outlay of 360,000_l._, and
providing (exclusive of intended galleries) nearly 80,000 sittings for
adults. Dividing the 21 years of the Society's history into three
periods of seven years each, in the first period its list comprises 17
chapels, in the second 26, and in
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