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Title: The Religious Life of London
Author: Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing), 1820-1898
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "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.
Döllinger—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
Æons 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
Tascodragitæ, “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,
Irenæus, 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 Nicæa, 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 Cæsarea,
the father of ecclesiastical history. He tells us he read his creed
before the Council of Nicæa. 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 Nicæa 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 Nicæa, 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 hû 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.
St. Bartholomew the Great, £680 40
Smithfield
St. Anne and Agnes, St. Anne’s 626 25
Lane
St. Michael le Querne, Foster 300 closed
Lane
St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish 230 18
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 Jewry 410 1
St. Margaret, Bread Street 287 3
St. Peter le Poor, Old Broad 1725 20
Street
St. Martin Outwich, 1100 6
Bishopsgate Street
St. James, Mitre Square 300 20
Allhallows with St. Bennet, 650 9
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 mediæval 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 “Horæ Apocalypticæ.” 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
Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’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 the third 44. The Society is at
present engaged, with Mr. S. Morley, M.P., in the erection of 24 chapels,
to each of which Mr. Morley contributes 500_l._, and the Society 500_l._,
half of the last being free loans. The success of the Society is largely
owing to its loan fund, now amounting to 11,006_l._ 19_s._, from which
loans are made free of interest to committees engaged in the erection of
chapels. This fund remains intact, and will be carefully preserved for
the object. The grant fund is, however, just now nearly exhausted, while
the liabilities of the Society on this account reach 2000_l._ Among
other particulars, it may be stated that the Society has been
instrumental in saving from extinction the two metropolitan chapels of
George Whitefield—Tottenham Court Road Chapel, and the Tabernacle,
Moorfields. Indeed, with the exception of Spa Fields Chapel, the
Countess of Huntingdon’s followers may be said to be absorbed in the
Congregational body.
The London Congregational Association has four District Missions. It has
aided in planting and sustaining eight Churches and Missions in four
districts. They ask 1000_l._ a year, with which, aided by local support,
they undertake to plant ten new district Missions in spiritually
destitute localities, and sustain them until they are enabled to support
themselves. As an illustration of what may be done in this way I give
the following account of the District Mission established by the Church
and Congregation under the care of the Rev. Dr. Raleigh, of Hare Court
Chapel, Canonbury, as drawn up by the Rev. J. H. Wilson, of the Home
Missionary Society.
The parent Church selected necessitous districts, in which they have
opened schools and mission-rooms; in these a number of the congregation
begin to labour as teachers, visitors, evangelists, &c. The result is
the early formation of a branch Church, where the poor people secure all
the privileges of Christian fellowship, and the fine feeling of a
Church-home, a place which they call “our Chapel,” and where they look up
to some one whom they call “our pastor,” and soon those so gathered
together become co-workers with the parent Church in extending its
influence in the locality—rising out of these movements, the Church at
Hare Court Chapel have now five branch Churches. From the last report
(1868) it appears that there are now three rooms for religious service
for the young, and several others for meetings with the poor and
ignorant; three day schools, and five Sunday or ragged schools; two large
week evening schools, and several smaller ones; seven mothers’ meetings;
a district nursery for children and infants, whose mothers require to
leave them during the day; coal clubs; home for little boys, where thirty
are fed and clothed; three paid ministers; six lay evangelists or
pastors; two Bible-women; six paid teachers, and seven paid monitors for
day schools; and to aid them, there are from 300 to 400 members of the
Church and congregation earnestly engaged as evangelists, pastors,
teachers, helps, visitors, Scripture readers, &c. During the year about
120 had joined the Church. The Sunday and ragged schools are attended by
1300 children; the day schools by 900, and the evening schools by upwards
of 400. Besides, there are temperance societies and Bands of Hope, and
in the summer months out-door services.
Another society worked by the Congregationalists is the Christian
Instruction Society, founded in the year 1825, to aid in evangelizing
London. House-to-house visitation was from the beginning and still is
its main characteristic. Its other agencies are lay-preaching in and out
of doors; the Sunday afternoon opening of places of worship; lectures on
prevailing immorality and vice, and united quarterly prayer meetings.
This society, however, is by no means sectarian. At its united quarterly
prayer meetings ministers of the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Independent
denominations join.
THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS.
As you go down Leman Street, Whitechapel, on your left, nearly at the
bottom, stand two public-houses—one the Shamrock, the other, if I mistake
not, the Brown Bear. Between them is a narrow little passage; on the
right is a Gospel Hall, facing you is a plain brick-built Meeting-house,
with a door which at certain times opens in vain, and with a window which
is covered with wire of a very suggestive character. Above the window is
an inscription, stating that it was rebuilt in 1790, but that it was
founded more than a century before that. A side door leads you into a
grass-grown and quiet enclosure. There are a few gravestones there,
recording, in illegible characters, the piety and virtues of those who
have gone before. At the back of the Meeting-house is the minister’s
residence. In the same square resides the pew-opener, with her little
family, who seem fresher and livelier than you would expect in such a
place. Outside rush along the Fenchurch Street trains to and fro,
sometimes with a scream which, as you will by-and-by find, will drown the
preacher’s voice. Outside there are factories and warehouses darkening
the air; outside there are heathens—baptized I daresay, but nevertheless
heathens—as complete and entire as any discovered by Captain Cook;
outside go up and down all day the sailors of every country under heaven,
at all times when on shore a disorderly lot, with a strong tendency to
get drunk and quarrel; outside are the lodging-house keepers, and Jew
slop-sellers, and foul women and crimps, who lie in wait for poor Jack;
outside, nightly and daily, on Sundays and week-days, once a week and all
the year round, is the ever-deafening and ever-growing roar of London
life.
On Saturdays this little old-fashioned meeting-house is opened twice a
day. Of sects, as we all know, there are many Lilliputian varieties.
One of the smallest of these is that of the Seventh-day Baptists. In
this country there are two congregations of them; one in Mill Yard, and
one far away in Gloucestershire, where, according to the common proverb,
“God is.” At one time they were a sect, as they are I believe at this
time in America. Here, in England, they have dwindled down to two
skeleton congregations, an endowment, and a Chancery suit. As there is
money a form of worship is kept up, though for all practical purposes the
cause is dead. There may be four grown-up persons besides the pew-opener
to form the morning service: there are just as many in the afternoon.
There is no week-evening service. At one time, many, many years ago,
there was a Sunday-school, but the scholars have grown up and moved away,
and none have come to take their vacant places. Inside the door you are
informed there are no pew-rents, no collections. Nevertheless, the
people keep away. In the pulpit is a learned man of an old-fashioned and
almost extinct type, and no one regards him; and yet I must confess there
was to me a fascination in the place. It was the ghost of what I knew in
youth. Long, long ago, there were just such old-fashioned meetings, with
just such sounding-boards over the pulpit, just such plain and high pews,
just such learned divines, just as deficient in all practical appeal. Up
in the window before me buzzed the very same bluebottle fly, only a
little more elderly and less active in consequence, which, in younger and
happier days, distracted the writer’s attention, and interfered sadly
with what would have been otherwise a profitable opportunity. There are
no meeting-houses now. If you want to see one as they were, in all their
original nakedness and want of grace, go to Mill Yard, Whitechapel. We,
of course, have wonderfully improved, and yet I have a tenderness for the
old meeting-house. How learned were their ministers, how awful and
orthodox their deacons! With what fear did I eye the man who gave out
the hymn, and with what greater fear the watchful individual who poked up
with his long stick inattentive or sleepy boys!
But I return to Mill Yard. The Christian Church in our day has pretty
well agreed to get rid of or, at any rate, ignore what is read in the
Bible about the seventh day being “the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” At
one time this was not so. Now the tide has receded and left the
Seventh-day Baptists stranded on the mud. In doing so, the Church, of
course, has increased the difficulty some feel about the Divine origin
and perpetual obligation of the Christian Sabbath. Archbishop Whately,
for instance, could reason with the Christian who had exchanged, in spite
of the literal command of God, the Christian for the Jewish Sabbath, but
his arguments would fail to touch the Seventh-day Baptist, who would
contend that he was doing that which God had commanded. But the fear of
this has not led Christians to abandon what, in the opinion of most of
them, is the apostolic plan of meeting on the first day of the week. It
is to be hoped the fund left for the benefit of the Seventh-day Baptists
is not a large one. The mouldy appearance of Mill Yard Meeting-house
indicates that it is not. But it is enough to retain at his post a
gentleman who, perhaps, would be more profitably engaged elsewhere.
Certainly it does seem like a waste of power to have a chapel and a
service lasting nearly a couple of hours for one grown-up adult male and
three adult females, excluding the chapel pew-opener. I must say, with
the exception of a young gentleman in knickerbockers, who was so
astonished at the apparition of a real stranger that he kept staring at
me all the time of singing, all seemed to do their duty. The singing—and
there was plenty of it—was really and truly Congregational. Five or six
parts of the Bible were read, and the congregation followed with open
Bibles. The preacher laboured at his discourse, and quoted Hebrew and
Latin as if we had all been learned divinity students. Nor could he have
prayed with more fulness and power had the benches been filled with
living souls waiting to draw near to the Father of spirits and live. One
could not but respect the preacher, however useless seemed his learning
and misdirected his research. Yet I would be sorry to stand in his
shoes. He had hearers once—Where are they? Dead, or moved away, is the
reply. He says in 1840 he began “to officiate as afternoon preacher in
the ancient Sabbath-keeping congregation in Mill Yard.” He talks of
“nearly sixty years of close critical, philological, and exegetical study
of the sacred Scriptures;” of “more than thirty years of constant and
laborious exposition of them;” of his having fully, freely, fearlessly,
and repeatedly discoursed upon every part of natural and revealed
religion. In spite of his age, physically he is not unequal to his work.
He has a good voice, yet practically he beats the air. There are few to
listen to his words and respond to his appeal. I wonder—as in his quiet
study he reads the ancient versions of the Bible and laboriously
constructs his argument:—whether it ever occurs to him that there is
something better and grander than seventh-day baptism, or systematic
theology, and that is everyday Christianity. I wonder, too, while
looking on the dead graves and the long grass, whether it occurs to him
that in that region of all unclean and deadly sin it especially behoves
the preacher, in preference to ingenious speculation or antiquarian
research, to impress on the heart and consciences of men the yearning,
living love of God. It is not in the calm retreat, the silent shade,
that vice and irreligion can be confronted and changed into purity and
piety. One would fancy at Mill Yard the contrary opinion was held, as
the preacher goes on, expounding the Proverbs or the Book of Job to empty
benches, while close by the harlot plies her unhallowed calling, the
publican retails his vitriol gin, and mothers, with eyes artificially
black, knock about their little ones or cover them with kisses, as they
themselves are alcoholically stimulated into maudlin tenderness or
demoniac rage! If you want to see what an endowment can do for religion,
go to Mill Yard. No doubt those who left money for the place thought
they were doing God service. In reality, an endowment can but preserve a
corpse which had better be put away. We bury our dead out of our sight.
As it is in the material world so it is in the spiritual world. We love
to look on life; we shrink with abhorrence from the sight of death, when
Time’s decaying fingers have dimmed the lustre of eyes once bright as
stars, and plucked from beauty’s cheek the blushing rose.
A more curious spot in all London is not than Mill Yard Meeting-house.
The day I was there, after a service of nearly two hours, it was
established by the learned minister, who is an F.S.A., and calls himself
elder of the congregation (he must often stand a good chance of being
junior as well), that the title of the Book of Proverbs was only to be
applied to the first part, that it consisted of divers distinct sections,
and that generally the book was found in the Bible after the Psalms.
Evidently the preacher is a learned, painstaking student of the Dryasdust
school—full of crotchets; but the biggest crotchet of all is that he
should go on preaching year after year in Mill Yard.
* * * * *
Mr. Spurgeon’s works and essays are so constantly before the public that
the briefest notice of them is all that is necessary here. In his great
Tabernacle near the Elephant and Castle, which is one of the sights of
London, he has a church alone consisting of 4700 members, and such is the
orderly arrangement that, as he said, if one of his members were to get
tipsy he should know of it before the week was out—a statement perhaps
true in reality if not literally. Enormous as his place of worship is,
it is always filled; but it represents, not so much a Christian Church as
a Christian community on a gigantic scale. In his Orphanage at Stockwell
some 135 boys are boarded, clothed, and taught. Then at Newington he has
established an Orphanage and School, and under his great Tabernacle is a
Pastors’ College, which in a couple of years takes the raw student from
the shop or the counting-house and sends him forth into the world a
ready-made divine, occasionally not a little to the dismay of those who
consider a good training and a careful preparation great helps to
ministerial usefulness. The students are lodged in families around, and
on the Sunday are principally employed in preaching in various districts
near London. Some of the Baptist places are very small indeed, and very
badly attended. It were better, one would think, that they were shut up
and merged with other churches or denominations. There is something
inexpressibly melancholy in the long lists of Zions, and Bethels, and
Mount Sions, where the pastor and the people scarcely live. Amongst some
of the Baptists there are some of Antinomian tendencies, and the
preachers of such doctrines have very large congregations. They are the
elect of God, and can never sin. As to their doctrine and its results,
one illustration will suffice. A member of one of the largest of these
Antinomian places unfortunately got tipsy, fell out of the cart in which
he was riding, and broke his leg. “Ah!” said his sympathizing pastor
when he heard of it, “what a blessed thing he can’t fall out of the
covenant.” The Antinomian believes that Christ paid, with his death, the
price of the pardon of a certain number. These are in the covenant, and
out of that covenant they cannot fall. There are in the Church of
England those who preach this doctrine, but their number is rare. Up in
Notting Hill is a Tabernacle built up and carried on by Mr. Varley, an
humble imitator of Mr. Spurgeon. Originally Mr. Varley was a butcher,
but he took to preaching; and finding that people came to hear him, and
that he did them good, he now devotes himself entirely to ministerial
work. At his Tabernacle, in St. James’s Square, there is accommodation
for 1200 hearers, and for the education of more than 500 children. This
history of these Tabernacles shows what may be done when suitable agency
is employed. Mr. Spurgeon’s subscriptions are really wonderful. Twenty
thousand pounds were given him by one lady for the purpose of founding
his orphanage. More than once 2000_l._ have been dropped into his
letter-box, as he told the writer of an article in the _Daily Telegraph_,
where, ludicrously enough, he appeared under the head of “Unorthodox
London.” “When recently attacked by illness, he began to despair; but
that same evening a lady left 100_l._ at his door, and 1000_l._ came in
immediately afterwards.”
CHRISTMAS MORNING WITH THE YOUNGSTERS.
Amongst the most unpleasant recollections of an otherwise not unpleasant
childhood are those connected with attendance at chapel on the evenings
of Christmas Days. On such occasions there were circumstances, needless
to explain, and in which the reader would take no interest were they
explained, which compelled the writer to leave the pleasant fire and the
games and mirth of the season, and, putting on his coat, trudge manfully
in the dark and through the snow to shiver for an hour and a half at
least at meeting. Other people the writer well knew were enjoying
themselves. Father Christmas was not the rage then that he is now;
Christmas-trees were a later invention, and so were Christmas tales; but
still even in those far-away and benighted times there were cakes and
ale, and homely Christmas carols and a little fun on a Christmas night,
when blind-man’s-buff was in fashion, and snapdragon was to the little
ones a wonder and a joy. The writer felt, as he sat in the comfortless
square box of green baize and deal, and surveyed the scattered
congregation, how much more agreeable it would have been had the old
meeting been shut up on such a night, had the old minister saved his
sermon, had the old ladies and gentlemen who formed the congregation
dozed comfortably in their old arm-chairs at home. He arrived at the
conclusion then which he has ever since retained—a conclusion the
correctness of which no subsequent consideration has induced him to
modify—that services at church or chapel on Christmas nights are an
immense mistake. Christmas morning special services, however, are quite
a different thing, and especially where children are concerned. They at
any rate realize Christmas more fully than their elders, and assuredly it
is by them the religious aspect of the day may be most vividly felt.
This is not a question for argument. More than forty years ago the late
Dr. Fletcher, of Finsbury Chapel, instituted a special morning service at
his own place of worship for Sunday-school children from the
Sunday-schools of the district. The avowed object of that service was
the benefit of the young. In time past it has been found to have had a
salutary effect. It has been continued by Dr. Fletcher’s successor, the
Rev. A. M‘Auslane, a minister whose manner, and personal appearance, and
mode of speaking qualify him especially for so delicate and difficult a
task. Mr. M‘Auslane hails from the land where Christmas is unknown. He
was a student under Dr. Wardlaw at Glasgow. He commenced his pastoral
duties in Dunfermline, but he has travelled south, and at Newport, in
Wales, where he stayed a short while, and latterly at Finsbury Chapel,
where he has now been eight years, he has caught something of the English
regard for Christmas Day, and preaches accordingly. I scarce think
London has a prettier sight to show than that of Finsbury Chapel on a
Christmas morning. It is full in every part. On the ground floor and
the first gallery are ranged the children and their teachers, and up
above there is another gallery full of adult spectators. As they sing
some of the finest of our hymns, such as—
“Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,”
the swell of their young voices is beautiful to hear. Their faces, full
of joy, were equally beautiful to see. To be preached to by a learned
man in a gown in a big chapel is something indeed for a little ragged
urchin to think of. Then what pains must have been taken to master the
tunes and sing them so well. Nor is this all by which the event of the
year—as it must be for some of them—is characterized. At some of the
schools the children, I believe, have a breakfast given them by the
teachers previous to starting. At all of them there is a distribution of
something satisfactory in the shape of buns. The muster is considerable.
The schools represented at the service I attended, in addition to that
belonging to the place, were Mile End, King Edward Street, Wood Street,
Spitalfields, Willow Walk, Ark Street, Paradise Street, the Weigh House,
the New Tabernacle, Bell Alley; Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell; Andrew
Street Ragged-schools, Union Walk, Jewin Street, James Street, City Road,
Ropemakers Street. The service commenced with singing—
“Another year has passed away,
Time swiftly glides along,
We come again to praise and pray,
And sing our festive song;
We come with song to greet you,
We come with song again.”
The Rev. W. Tyler then read a part of the fifth chapter of Matthew, and
offered up an appropriate prayer, in which a special reference was made
to the evangelistic work carried on in the City. Another hymn was sung,
and then came the sermon, the subject of which was Christ blessing
children, and the text of which was in Mark x. 14 and 16. Mr. M‘Auslane
described how a painter had portrayed the scene; not having the picture
there to show them, he would attempt a description of it in words. Some
might have thought Jesus too busy or children too insignificant. In
reality it was not so, and he believed that if Jesus came in this year
into London, He would act now as He did then. Sometimes people
forget—the butler forgot Joseph. Jesus Christ never changes. The
preacher endeavoured to bring out what the text teaches about Jesus and
children:—1. It taught that Jesus is attractive to children. Some men
and women children don’t like at all; others they go to cheerfully and
willingly. Jesus Christ draws them to Him just as the sun the flowers.
He is spoken of as the Sun of Righteousness. Why is a child not afraid
to walk through the valley of the shadow of death? It is because he sees
Jesus, and when he has passed through on the other side there is Jesus,
the most attractive in all that land. 2. The text taught that Christ
takes a deep interest in children. It was clear the Apostles did not, or
they would not have tried to prevent them from coming forward. He takes
the same interest now. It was to Him children had to be grateful for
bodies and souls, for kind friends, and the comforts of life. All power
is given to Him in heaven and on earth. Salvation is the gift of Christ,
and that is another proof of the interest He takes in children. If any
boy there had no father or mother, sister or brother, or friend, if he
stood in this cold world alone, let him take this thought with him—in the
morning as he rose from his humble cot, in the evening as he retired to
rest—Jesus cares for me. Here the preacher paused while the children
refreshed themselves by singing “The Pilgrims,” the boys asking, the
girls replying, and all joining in the chorus, the last verse of which
is—
“Come, oh, come! and do not leave us;
Christ is waiting to receive us,
Christ is waiting to receive us,
In that bright, that better land.”
Mr. M‘Auslane resumed. The text taught (3), Jesus prays for children.
It is true we have not the prayer, but, nevertheless, he believed that
Jesus prayed. The account in Matthew implies that He did. His prayer
would, in all probability, be that God would be the protector of these
children, and guide them all through life to the heavenly, happy land.
There was a young man once condemned to die. His brother, who had lost
an arm in the service of his country, went and pleaded for him. The
judges were overcome, not by his eloquence, but by the sight of the stump
of the amputated arm, and spared his brother’s life. Christ, in the same
way, might plead with the Father the five wounds received on Calvary. “I
have often heard an old man pray for children,” said the preacher, “and
have heard him ask for things which I am sure were not proper to ask for
for children. It was so long since he had been a child that he had quite
forgotten what children’s feelings were. It was not so with Jesus. But
you must remember also to pray for yourselves. Jesus prayed for Peter
that his faith might not fail, but it did, because Peter did not pray for
himself. 4. Christ wishes children to be happy, and they could not be
that without the pardon of sin and hope of heaven. 5. The text taught
that there are a great many children indeed in heaven. It is true there
were there Jesus, and the patriarchs, and prophets, and angels, and
apostles, but there were more children there, for of such is the kingdom
of heaven. That last text meant that the glory of heaven was open to
children, but it also meant that the population of heaven was made up of
children. They would be there of every colour,—from every quarter of the
globe. Last Christmas morning one little child was in that chapel who is
in heaven now. “Shall we go there when we die?” was the question which
concluded and enforced the preacher’s appeal, which was plain and simple
and thoroughly adapted to its end. Of course there were some little ones
who could not follow the preacher, but it seemed to me that evidently the
majority did. It is to be hoped they did, for none but those who live in
London can tell what are its trials and sorrows for such as they, or what
are their needs. From the Sunday-school even many a lad and girl has
gone astray. It was only a few weeks before that, at a midnight meeting
in the Euston Road of some eighty or thereabouts—I cannot speak within
one or two—some seventy fallen, weeping women confessed that they had
been Sunday scholars, and amongst them even there were Sunday-school
teachers! Of the hundreds who trooped joyously into Finsbury Chapel on
our last bright, joyous Christmas morning, who can say what may be the
end? Of this one thing, however, we may rest assured, it will be long
before some forget the wise, kindly words listened to then, the songs in
which they then took a part, or the prayers that then went up to heaven
for them.
DR. PARKER AT THE POULTRY.
“What are you doing?” said lately one of London’s biggest D.D.’s to a
visitor from the country. “Oh, sir, I am in the ministry now,” was the
somewhat exulting reply. “Ah, but, my brother,” said the querist again,
“is the ministry in you?” Rather an important question that, and a
question to which, alas! many ministers would be unable to give a very
satisfactory reply. When I see a nervous, timid, feeble, hesitating,
wavering brother in the pulpit, I think of the Doctor’s question as one
from which such a man would instinctively shrink.
Dr. Parker belongs to another and a rarer class. The ministry is in him
as a divine call, and not as an accidental profession. He speaks as one
having authority. In an age of negation, and mistrust, and little faith,
he is as positive as if spiritual truths had been audible to his bodily
ear and seen with the bodily eye. Amidst the perplexities of a theology
ever shifting in external phraseology, where man’s wisdom has darkened
God’s light as revealed in His Word, where the miasma of doubt has
repressed and stinted Christian life, he walks with a masculine tread,
and he does so not from ignorance but from knowledge, because he knows
how difficult is the way, how dark the path, how easily error comes to us
in the form of truth, how the devil himself can assume the shape and
borrow the language of an angel of light. He has got good standing
ground, but he knows how treacherous is the soil, and what pitfalls lie
open to catch the rash, and reckless, and overconfident. His is the
strength of the athlete who has become what he is by years of careful
training, protracted conflicts, and painful discipline, and in all his
words, and they are many, you can hear as it were the ring of victory and
assured success. Physically he looks and speaks like a man. What he
says he means, and what he means he believes. He is not the kind of man
to write an apology for Christianity; he would laugh to scorn the idea.
He can laugh at much, because, as Hobbes says, to do so implies
superiority, and Dr. Parker, strong in his faith in the everlasting
Gospel, has an immense feeling of superiority; and as you listen he takes
you up with him into his coign of vantage, and you laugh too. It is good
to see wit as well as logic and learning in the pulpit; to feel up in
that serene height, where the preacher has it all himself, and none may
gainsay him, there is humanity there, a flesh and blood reality, and not
a respectable academic ghost in whose brain there is hollowness and in
whose eye there is no fire of speculation. What a head the man
has—ample, well formed, well and fairly developed. What a voice the man
has—strong as a mountain torrent, impetuous, irresistible, mastering all,
carrying like a Niagara all before it. Dr. Parker is better off than
Paul. Apparently the earthen vessel in which he has his treasure is of
admirable adaptation and utility.
London has gained and Manchester has lost Dr. Parker. Already he has
made himself no stranger in London. To many his “Ecce Deus” has
commended itself as the work of a vigorous thinker, and all have
confessed that his “Springdale Abbey” was full of very clever talk. No
ordinary preacher could have written such books, that was clear. In
Manchester he had become a success. How came he to be such? Partly I
have explained the reason. In the first place, in an age of doubt, of
negative theology, of blinding and bewildering speculation—when between
the so-called Christian and the Cross in all its eternal lustre has risen
up a fog of gloom—when the Gospel of unbelief and despair has come into
fashion, so that when we listen for the shout of psalm or the holy
exultation of prayer, we hear instead
“An agony
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come since the making of the world.”
Dr. Parker has a living faith. And then again he has a deep sense of
what the pulpit requires, and an unmitigated scorn of that kind of
preaching which is too common there. “Almighty God has to tolerate more
puerility in His service than any monarch on earth. If Christianity had
not been Divine it would have been ruined by many of its own preachers
long ere this. The wonder is, not that it has escaped the cruel hand of
the infidel (it can double up a whole array of crazy atheists), but that
it has survived the cruel kindness of its shallow expositors.” Whose
language, you ask, is this? Why, Dr. Parker’s own. The preacher who can
thus censure his fellows is bound to guard sacredly and constantly
against that which he condemns, and to come to his pulpit with every
feeling attuned and with every energy aroused for its gigantic work.
Give to such a man the requisite brain and tongue, let him have the
requisite delivery, let his lips be touched by that spirit which
“Touched Isaiah’s lips with hallowed fire,”
and you have a Dr. Parker. He has come to London—a difficult thing for
any man to do, but in this case the step has been undertaken under
peculiarly difficult circumstances. Time was when the City was the home
of citizens, and many of the wealthiest and most influential of them went
to the Poultry. That time has long gone by. It was when deacons shook
their heads at Mr. Binney as not quite sound. Of all places on the earth
the most deadly on a Sunday is the City of London, and especially that
part of it in which the Poultry stands. At St. Mildred’s, close by, it
is impossible, or seems to be so, to collect a decent congregation. Will
Dr. Parker succeed better? Some sort of answer was given to the
question, when to a crowded and attentive congregation he preached what I
may term his inaugural discourse. If I say it was an eloquent display I
shall excite the Doctor’s indignation, as he contemned the use of such
phraseology in his sternest and most indignant manner. Nor indeed with
regard to the discourse in question would the phrase be literally
correct. No one can doubt the Doctor’s eloquence, but in speaking of
himself and his hopes and purposes in connexion with the Poultry—in
showing the grand principles upon which he took his stand, and by means
of which he was placed beyond the fear of failure, he aimed at something
more than eloquent display. “I am preaching to myself as well as to
you,” said the Doctor in the course of his sermon; and such was in
reality the case. For the work which he has to do, for the programme
which he trusts to work out, truly indeed does the Doctor need the
guidance of that Providence which shall go before, and which shall make
the crooked places straight. This, indeed, was the Doctor’s text. You
will find it in Isaiah xlv. 2. From the beginning to the end of the
service this was the leading and appropriate idea. He commenced with
Cowper’s magnificent hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way.” The portion
of Scripture read was Christ’s commission to the seventy to go and preach
the Gospel all over the world; the prayer was an acknowledgment that the
human will should be subordinated to the Divine; and it was “Guide me, O
Thou great Jehovah,” which formed the closing song.
As Dr. Parker told us he was going to publish his sermon (his sermons now
appear weekly, under the title of “The City Temple”), I need say little
of the discourse, of which I have already given the text. It began with
a reference to the triumph and danger of liberty—that man might go
whether with God or without Him. Man was free, nor was his religion one
of slavery. To those who considered such a statement to be a grand
contradiction of what we know of eternal decrees, it was sufficient to
reply that it could only be harmonized in the ecstasy of light and love.
God will not make everything straight, but only in proportion as we trust
Him and live with Him will our difficulties diminish. As to his text in
particular, remarked Dr. Parker, it was first a warning—there are crooked
places. It was a promise—the crooked places God would make straight: all
that we required was patience. Also it was a plan—God would go before
us. Say some, that is God’s sovereignty—that is the omnipotent Jehovah.
No, it indicated His love, His tenderness, His care. In such an idea we
do not dwarf God, but exalt Him. Then came the limitation of the
promise. This going before was a question of character. The steps of a
good man are ordered by the Lord. That, however, was no motive for
carelessness, but the reverse. The Doctor, in conclusion, spoke of
himself. He had been told that in leaving Manchester and coming to the
Poultry he was moving into a crooked place. In explanation he stated he
did not look for the ordinary course of a minister. He looked at London,
that immeasurable centre; he thought of the young men who come strangers
to the metropolis, and with no friends to guide and guard them; and if he
did not get people to come and hear him on the Sunday, he trusted they
would do so on the Thursday, when there would be a service from twelve to
one, when he would aim simply to touch the heart with a sense of sin and
forgiveness. He also intended to use the printing-press. He had great
faith in the printed page. It remained to be read at spare moments when
a man had nothing to do. Finally, said Dr. Parker, he spoke with fear
and trembling, but he came there with a strong determination to succeed,
and he appealed to all around to do their duty—not to carp, or criticise,
or say unkind words, but to resolve to labour and to be guided by
heavenly power and wisdom. At the close of the service there was a
collection. After this the immense congregation streamed out into the
open air, much to the astonishment of casual passengers, who did not
understand what was the matter. The Poultry has a prosperous look, and
they have got a new pulpit there almost as rotund, and bright, and
buoyant as Dr. Parker himself.
I know not how the Sunday service succeeds, but the Thursday morning
service is wonderfully well filled. In this busy age it is scarcely
credible that in the busiest part of London, and at the busiest hour of
the day, a chapel as large as the Poultry can be crowded, and is
regularly crowded, with merchants and men of business and others. Yet
such is the case, and Dr. Parker has succeeded in an attempt which, until
he tried it, certainly seemed hazardous in the extreme. If the Doctor
seems a little bombastic, it may well be forgiven him under these
circumstances, especially when we remember that no preacher can succeed
in convincing others that he is worth hearing till he has become firmly
convinced of that fact himself. A modest man I fear is out of place
anywhere, but most of all so in the pulpit. It was in wisdom that Dr.
Parker was selected for his post. I should think he is a preacher
pre-eminently adapted to the young. Judged not by what he has done, but
by years, the Doctor is almost a young man himself. There is youthful
vigour in his full round face, in his small dark eyes; and certainly
there is no small store of youthful enthusiasm in his heart. In his
black hair and beard there is no suggestive tinge of grey. If he has
passed through and left the golden portals of youth behind, it can only
be but recently that he has done so, and there is still in him somewhat
of its grace and glory. In another respect also the choice of Dr. Parker
was appropriate. The Poultry Chapel is in the very heart of London; the
chances were that most of the young men present—and, I might add, of the
old ones too—were more or less engaged in some secular avocations. In
like manner, so the writer has always understood, the Doctor’s youthful
years were passed. Hence it came to pass the old Poultry Chapel is in a
flourishing state. The Doctor seemed in his right place, and, if we may
judge from appearances, the people seemed to think so.
MR. LYNCH’S THURSDAY EVENINGS.
In a great city like London there are many sources of pleasure completely
overlooked. If people complain that life is dull—that it is
monotonous—that it presents to them few objects of interest or
attraction—I fancy they have chiefly themselves to blame. No man or
woman either with heart or head need lead a barren life either in the
country or in town. There is always something to do, to see, or to hear,
and in London especially is there much to hear of which Londoners know
but little. Such, at any rate, was the reflection of the writer one
Thursday night as he made his way along the Hampstead Road to a neat
little iron church on the left-hand side as you go from the City, and
just before you reach Mornington Crescent. Every Sunday morning there
preaches there the Rev. Thomas Lynch, the author of some choice prose and
poetry—a man at whom there was a dead set made by certain religionists a
few years ago, but who has long outlived that, and to whom that time of
trial and of trouble was undoubtedly a most blessed event, inasmuch as it
taught the gentle author of the “Rivulet” his strength, both as regards
himself and as regards the best of our religious teachers; and inasmuch
as it demonstrated to all anew, and more clearly than ever, how hard, how
cruel, how unmerciful dogmatic theologians could become. At that time
Mr. Lynch was preaching in a chapel in one of the streets running from
Tottenham Court Road into Fitzroy Square. He is now nearer Camden Town,
and preaches in a building between which and the pastor there seems to be
a kind of resemblance and sympathy; at any rate, as much as can exist
between what is abstract and concrete—between matter and mind. The
church is no Gothic edifice, hoary with time, but slender and modern,
and, as much as possible, graceful. You wonder it has not been swept
away by the storms of winter. A similar feeling exists when you look at
Mr. Lynch. There are great mountains of men, whose tread is terrible,
whose laugh is volcanic, whose heads are rugged rocks, whose bodies are
bulls of Bashan, whose speech is as the roar of an angry sea, whose faces
in summer parch you up like burning suns, or in winter darken you with
angry clouds. To this genus Mr. Lynch does in no way belong. The
fairies who assisted at Mr. Lynch’s birth did very little for him
physically—at any rate, they robbed his bones of all flesh, and made his
outward frame as spare as possible. It is to be wished also that they
had endowed him with better health. Yet his figure cannot be termed
ungraceful or his appearance unattractive. In his dress he is
scrupulously neat. Even on weekday services he wears the white
handkerchief, which when round the neck denotes that you are a swell on
your way to dinner, or a waiter, or a gentleman of the clerical
profession. His grey eye is full of enthusiasm, and kindles up a pale,
dark face that otherwise might be dull. His voice is stronger and
clearer than you would expect. You are agreeably surprised to find how
animated and vigorous he can become. After all, and in spite of
ill-health, time has dealt not ungently with Mr. Lynch. He is a trifle
bald, and you can detect a greyish tint in his hair—that is all; but Mr.
Lynch, I imagine, is not one of those who age fast. He has a happy
cheerfulness apparently, which compensates for the poetic sensitiveness
which frets away many a man’s, life, and which made a hard-headed
Wordsworth write—
“We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
Whereof come in the end despondency and madness.”
Indeed, Mr. Lynch’s cheerfulness is evidently, ever welling up out of his
heart and colouring all his thoughts and words. In his services this is
everywhere apparent. He has much of the lithe action of the comedian,
and he stands ever, like Garrick, between tragedy and comedy, one moment
ready to make you smile, and the next touching all that is most earnest,
most serious, most devout in our common nature. He leans on his little
desk, his hands before him, and talks away, sweetly and devoutly, about
things that interest all—things that have a spiritual bearing, things
that are secular and profane, only to the secular and profane. There are
not very many people to hear him; but then, they are hearers, and there
is sympathy between the preacher and the pews. The Iron Duke said, “When
you begin to turn in bed, it is time for you to get up.” In a similar
way it may be said, when the people begin to turn to look at the clock it
is time the preacher or lecturer was done. The other night I found Mr.
Lynch’s service occupied nearly two hours, yet it did not seem wearisome
or long. The service was commenced with chanting, and prayer, and
reading scripture, and singing. Then there was a text, and a lecture or
sermon from that text. On the occasion to which I refer the subject was
John Howe, as an illustration of that passage in Proverbs which
predicates of the man diligent in his business that he shall stand before
kings—a prediction literally verified in the case of John Howe, who was
chaplain to Oliver Cromwell—a man greater than any king—and who had
friendly converse with that Protestant hero, William the Third, the best
king England ever had. Very vividly did Mr. Lynch bring out all that was
noblest and brightest in John Howe’s character and career, dwelling with
evident unction on the many pregnant titles of Howe’s works, which he
seemed much to prefer to the works themselves, and in which he was right;
for Howe’s thoughts, it must be conceded, are not couched in the form and
language most easy of apprehension to the men of to-day; and from the
past, with some rare exceptions—those, of course, written in a dead
language being the chief—it is vain to extract literature for the study
and edification of the present. Religion is no exception to a universal
law; indeed, more than anything else, it is required of him who preaches
it that he should speak to living men in the living language of
to-day—not according to formulas that have long died out, or in terms
that have long become extinct; and this specially may be said of Mr.
Lynch, that as much as any one he realizes this great law, and does use
language and illustration and argument familiar to the men and women of
London in this latter day—that he does not cease to be a man when in the
pulpit, and deal with abstraction rather than with real life. When Mr.
Lynch began his ministerial career this virtue was rarer than it is now,
and of this desirable result Mr. Lynch deserves, at any rate, some of the
credit. Be that as it may, the writer has one other thing to say. It
seems to him that these Thursday evening lectures of Mr. Lynch’s deserve
a wide support. There are many in London who would be glad enough to
attend. There are many living out of town who would find it worth while
stopping an hour or two later on a Thursday evening. The service
commences at a quarter past seven; and I believe generally Mr. Lynch
takes some specific subject, such as “John Howe,” or “Bells,” or anything
which seems to him notable. The writer heard also on the night in which
he was there something about questions asked and answered; but on that he
can say, as he knows, nothing.
CHAPTER IX.
THE UNITARIANS.
“In the apostolical Fathers we find,” writes the Rev. Islay Burns, “for
the most part only the simple Biblical statements of the deity and
humanity of Christ in the practical form needed for general edification.
Of those fathers Ignatius is the most deeply imbued with the conviction
that the crucified Jesus is God incarnate, and indeed frequently calls
Him, without qualification, God. The development of Christology in the
scientific doctrine of the Logos begins with Justin and culminates in
Origen. From him there proceed two opposite modes of conception, the
Athanasian and the Arian, of which the former at last triumphs in the
Council of Nice, and confirms its victory in the Council of
Constantinople.” By the Ebionites Christ was regarded as a mere man. By
the Gnostics he was considered as superhuman; but in that capacity as one
of a very numerous class. The doctrine of the absolute unity of God,
alike in essence and personal subsistence, was held by the Monachians,
who are divided respectively into Dynamistic and Modalistic. As the
latter held that the whole fulness of the Deity dwelt in Christ and only
found in him a peculiar mode of manifestation, it was assumed that the
natural inference was that the Father himself had died on the Cross.
Hence to these heretics the name of Patripassians was applied by the
orthodox. Sabellius, who maintained a Trinity, not of divine Persons but
of successive manifestations under the names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
was one of the chief Patripassians. The Arian controversy, as Dean
Stanley shows, turned on the relations of the divine persons before the
first beginning of time.
If Dean Stanley be correct, at this time the Abyssinian Church is
agitated by seventy distinct doctrines as to the union of the two natures
in Christ. It is clear, then, no one man can epitomize all that has been
uttered and written on this pregnant theme, over which the Church
contended fiercely three hundred years. “Latin Christianity,” writes
Dean Milman, “contemplated with almost equal indifference Nestorianism
and all its prolific race, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism.”
When the Reformation quickened free inquiry and religious life, Socinus
appeared; the epitaph on his tomb shows what his friends thought of his
doctrine. “Luther took off the roof of Babylon, Calvin threw down the
walls, Socinus dug up the foundations.” Furious persecution was the fate
of the holders of his opinions; Servetus was burnt by Calvin; and Joan
Bocher was sentenced to a similar fate by the boy-king Edward VI. for
denying the doctrine of the Trinity. With tears in his eyes as he signed
the warrant, he appealed to the Archbishop. “My Lord Archbishop, in this
case I resign myself to your judgment; you must be answerable to God for
it.”
Unitarianism has made way in England. When Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act
became law the Unitarians in England were a small sect, and had not a
single place of worship. It was not till 1779 that it ceased to be
required of Dissenting ministers that they should subscribe to the
Articles of the Church of England previous to taking the benefit of the
Toleration Act, and even this small boon was twice thrown out in the
Upper House by the King’s friends and the Bishops. In 1813, however, one
of the most cruelly persecuting statutes which had ever disgraced the
British code received its death-blow, and the Royal assent was given to
an Act repealing all laws passed against those Christians who impugn the
commonly received doctrine of the Trinity. It was no easy matter to get
this act of justice done; the Bishops and the Peers were obstinate. In
1772, we read, the Bishop of Llandaff made a most powerful speech, and
produced from the writings of Dr. Priestley passages which equally
excited the wonder and abhorrence of his hearers, and drew from Lord
Chatham exclamations of “Monstrous! horrible! shocking!” A few years
after we find Lord North contending it to be the duty of the State to
guard against authorizing persons denying the doctrine of the Trinity to
teach. Even as late as 1824, Lord Chancellor Eldon doubted (as he
doubted everything that was tolerant in religion or liberal in politics)
as to the validity of this Act, and hinted that the Unitarians were
liable to punishment at common law for denying the doctrine of the
Trinity. Yet the Unitarians have a remote antiquity. They can trace
their descent to Apostolic times, and undoubtedly were an important
element in the National Church, in the days of William and the Hanoverian
succession.
Dr. Parr, says Mr. Barker, “spoke to me of the latitudinarian divines
with approbation. He agreed with me in thinking that the most brilliant
era of the British Church since the Reformation was when it abounded with
divines of that school;” and certainly Unitarians may claim to be
represented at the present day in Broad Churchmen within the
Establishment, and in divines of a similar way of thinking without. They
have been much helped by their antagonists. No man was less of a
Unitarian than the late Archbishop Whately, yet, in a letter to Blanco
White, he candidly confessed, “Nothing in my opinion tends so much to
dispose an intelligent mind towards anti-Trinitarian views as the
Trinitarian works.”
As a sect, the Unitarians are a small body, and at one time were much
given to a display of intelligent superiority as offensive in public
bodies as in private individuals. They were narrow and exclusive, and
had little effect on the masses, who were left to go to the bad, if not
with supercilious scorn, at any rate with genteel indifference. There
was in the old-fashioned Unitarian meeting-houses something eminently
high and dry. In these days, when we have ceased to regard heaven—to
quote Tom Hood—as anybody’s rotten borough, we smile as a handful of
people sing—
“We’re a garden walled around,
Planted and made peculiar ground;”
yet no outsider a few years ago could have entered a Unitarian chapel
without feeling that such, more or less, was the abiding conviction of
all present. “Our predominant intellectual attitude,” Mr. Orr confesses
to be one reason of the little progress made by the denomination. A
Unitarian could no more conceal his sect than a Quaker. Generally he
wore spectacles; his hair was always arranged so as to do justice to his
phrenological development; on his mouth there always played a smile, half
sarcastic and half self-complacent. Nor was such an expression much to
be wondered at when you remembered that, according to his own idea, and
certainly to his own satisfaction, he had solved all religious doubts,
cleared up all religious mysteries, and annihilated, as far as regards
himself, human infirmities, ignorance, and superstition. It is easy to
comprehend how a congregation of such would be eminently respectable and
calm and self-possessed; indeed, so much so, that you felt inclined to
ask why it should have condescended to come into existence at all. Mrs.
Jarley’s waxworks, as described by that lady herself, may be taken as a
very fair description of an average Unitarian congregation at a no very
remote date. Little Nell says, “I never saw any waxworks, ma’am; is it
funnier than _Punch_?” “Funnier?” said Mrs. Jarley, in a shrill voice,
“it is not funny at all.” “Oh,” said Nell, with all possible humility.
“It is not funny at all,” repeated Mrs. Jarley; “it’s calm, and what’s
that word again—critical? No, classical—that’s it; it’s calm and
classical. No low beatings and knockings about; no jokings and
squeakings like your precious _Punch’s_, but always the same, with a
constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility.” Now it was upon
this coldness and gentility that the Unitarians took their stand; they
eliminated enthusiasm, they ignored the passions, and they failed to get
the people, who preferred, instead, the preaching of the most illiterate
ranter whose heart was in the work.
In our day a wonderful change has come over Unitarianism. It is not, and
it never was, the Arianism born of the subtle school of Alexandrian
philosophy, and condemned by the orthodox Bishops at Nicea; nor is it
Socinianism as taught in the sixteenth century, still less is it the
Materialism of Priestley. Men of the warmest hearts and greatest
intellects belonging to it actually disown the name, turn away from it as
too cold and barren, and in their need of more light, and life, and love,
seek in other denominations what they lack in their own. The Rev. James
Martineau, a man universally honoured in all sections of the universal
church, confesses:—“I am constrained to say that neither my intellectual
preference nor my moral admiration goes heartily with the Unitarian
heroes, sects, or productions of any age. Ebionites, Arians, Socinians,
all seem to me to contrast unfavourably with their opponents, and to
exhibit a type of thought and character far less worthy, on the whole, of
the true genius of Christianity. I am conscious that my deepest
obligations, as a learner from others, are in almost every department to
writers not of my own creed. In philosophy I have had to unlearn most
that I had imbibed from my early text-books and the authors in chief
favour with them. In Biblical interpretation I derive from Calvin and
Whitby the help that fails me in Crell and Belsham. In devotional
literature and religious thought I find nothing of ours that does not
pale before Augustine Tauler and Pascal; and in the poetry of the Church
it is the Latin or the German hymns, or the lines of Charles Wesley or
Keble, that fasten on my memory and heart, and make all else seem poor
and cold.” This is the language of many beside Mr. Martineau—of all,
indeed, to whom a dogmatic theology is of little import compared with a
Christian life.
Let us attempt to describe Unitarianism negatively. In one of his
eloquent sermons in its defence, the late W. J. Fox said, “The humanity
of Christ is not essential to Unitarianism; Dr. Price was a Unitarian as
well as Dr. Priestley, so is every worshipper of the Father only, whether
he believes that Christ was created before all worlds, or first existed
when born of Mary. Philosophical necessity is no part of Unitarianism.
Materialism is no part of Unitarianism. The denial of angels or devils
is no part of Unitarianism.” Unitarianism has no creed, yet briefly it
may be taken to be the denial of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, or
of the natural depravity of man, or that sin is the work of the devil, or
that the Bible is a book every word of which was dictated by God, or that
Christ is God united to a human nature, or that atonement is
reconciliation of God to man. Furthermore, the Unitarians deny that
regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit, or that salvation is
deliverance from the punishment of sin, or that heaven is a state of
condition without change, or that the torments of hell are everlasting.
It may be that the Broad Churchman entertains very much the same
opinions, but then the Unitarian minister has this advantage over the
Church clergyman, that he is free. He has not signed articles of belief
of a contrary character. He has not to waste his time and energy in
sophistications which can deceive no one, still less to preach that
doctrine so perilous to the soul, and destructive of true spiritual
growth, and demoralizing to the nation, that a religious, conscientious
man may sign articles that can have but one sense and put upon them quite
another. Surely one of the most sickening characteristics of the age is
that divorce between the written and the living faith, which, assuming to
be progress, is in reality cowardice.
In our day we have seen something of an Evangelical Alliance, that is, a
manifestation of the great fact that people are yearning after a Catholic
union, and are caring less and less for denominational differences. The
Unitarians all speak and write of the orthodox as of a body of Christians
perfectly distinct from themselves. Yet there is an approximation
between them, nevertheless. Unitarianism, as it becomes a living
faith—as it leans to the theology of the sweetest singers and most
impassioned orators of the universal Church—becomes in sentiment and
practice orthodox; while orthodoxy, as it grows enlightened, and burst
the bonds of habit, and, laden with the spoils of time, gathers up the
wisdom and the teaching of all the ages underneath the sun, sanctions the
Rationalism and the spirit of free inquiry for which Unitarianism has
ever pleaded and its martyrs have died in our own and other lands.
Actually, at the meeting of the British and Foreign Unitarian Society, an
effort was made to get rid of the title altogether, and to call
themselves instead a British and Foreign Free Christian Association, on
the plea that the Christian Church consists of all who desire to be the
children of God in the spirit of Jesus Christ His Son, and that,
therefore, no association for the promotion of a doctrine which belongs
to controversial theology can represent the Church of Christ. To this
Unitarianism has attained in our time. This is the teaching of Foster,
and Ham, and Ierson, and Martineau—a teaching seemingly in accordance
with the spirit of the age. Unitarian theology is always coloured with
the philosophy of the hour, and consequently it is now spiritual and
transcendental instead of material and necessitarian.
As regards London, the statistics of Unitarianism are easy of collection.
In their register we have the names of fifteen places of worship, where
Holy Scripture is the only rule of faith, and difference of opinion is no
bar to Christian communion. In reality Unitarians are stronger than they
seem, as in their congregations you will find many persons of influence,
of social weight, of literary celebrity. For instance, Sir Charles Lyell
and Lord Amberley are, I believe, among the regular attendants at Mr.
Martineau’s chapel in Portland Street. At that chapel for many years
Charles Dickens was a regular hearer. The late Lady Byron, one of the
most eminent women of her day, worshipped in Essex Street Chapel, when
Mr. Madge preached there. In London the Unitarians support a domestic
mission, a Sunday-school association, an auxiliary school association,
and a London district Unitarian society.
AGGRESSIVE UNITARIANS.
It is not often that Unitarianism is aggressive, or that it seeks the
heathen in our streets perishing for lack of knowledge. Apparently it
dwells rather on the past than the present, and prefers the select and
scholarly few to the unlettered many. Most Unitarian preachers lack
popular power; hence it is that their places of worship are rarely
filled, and that they seem tacitly to assume that such is the natural and
necessary condition of their denomination. It is with them as it used to
be with the old orthodox Dissenters in well endowed places of worship
some thirty or forty years ago. Of them, I well remember one in a
leading seaport in the eastern counties. I don’t believe there was such
another heavy and dreary place in all East Anglia, certainly there never
was such a preacher; more learned, more solemn, more dull, more
calculated in a respectable way to send good people to sleep, or to
freeze up the hot blood and marrow of his youthful hearers. Once and but
once there was a sensation in that chapel. It was a cold evening in the
very depth of winter. There was ice in the pulpit, and ice in the pew.
The very lamps seemed as if it was impossible for them to burn, as the
preacher in his heaviest manner discoursed of themes on which seraphs
might love to dwell. All at once rushed in a boy, exclaiming “Fire,
fire!” The effect was electric—in a moment that sleepy audience was
startled into life, every head was raised and every ear intent. Happily
the alarm was a false one, but for once people were awake, and kept so
till the sermon was done. It is the aim of Mr. Applebee in the same way
to rouse up the Unitarians, and in a certain sense he has succeeded. He
has now been preaching some eighteen months in London, in the old chapel
on Stoke Newington Green, where, for many years, Mrs. Barbauld was a
regular attendant, and where long the pulpit was filled by no less a
distinguished personage than Burke and George the Third’s Dr. Price; the
result is that the chapel is now well filled. It is true it is not a
very large one; nevertheless, till Mr. Applebee’s advent, it was
considerably larger than the congregation. Before Mr. Applebee came to
town he had produced a similar effect at Devonport; when he settled there
he had to preach to a very small congregation, but he drew people around
him, and ere he left a larger chapel had to be built. I take it a great
deal of his popularity is due to his orthodox training. It is a fact not
merely that Unitarianism ever recruits itself from the ranks of
orthodoxy, but that it is indebted to the same source for its ablest, or
rather most effective ministers.
In the morning Mr. Applebee preaches at Stoke Newington; in the evening
he preaches at 245, Mile End. It seems as if in that teeming district no
amount of religious agency may be ignored or despised. In the morning of
the Sabbath as you walk there, you could scarce fancy you were in a
Christian land. It is true, church bells are ringing and the
public-houses are shut up, and well-clad hundreds may be seen on their
way to their respective places of worship, and possibly you may meet a
crowd of two or three hundred earnest men in humble life singing revival
hymns as they wend their way to the East London Theatre, where Mr. Booth
teaches of heaven and happiness to those who know little of one or the
other; nevertheless, the district has a desolate, God-forsaken
appearance. There are butchers’ shops full of people, pie-shops doing a
roaring trade, photographers all alive, as they always are, on a Sunday.
If you want apples or oranges, boots or shoes, ready-made clothes,
articles for the toilette or the drawing-room, newspapers of all
sorts—you can get them anywhere in abundance in the district; and as you
look up the narrow courts and streets on your left, you will see in the
dirty, eager crowds around ample evidence of Sabbath desecration. I
heard a well-known preacher the other day say it was easy to worship God
in Devonshire. Equally true is it that it is not easy to worship Him in
Mile End or Whitechapel. The Unitarians assume that a large number of
intelligent persons abstain from attending a religious service on Sundays
in the most part “because the doctrines usually taught” are “adverse to
reason and the plain teaching of Jesus Christ.” Under this impression
they have opened the place in Mile End. In a prospectus widely
circulated in the district, they publish a statement of their creed as
follows: 1. That “there is but one God, one undivided Deity, and one
Mediator between God and man—the man Christ Jesus.” 2. That “the life
and teachings of Jesus Christ are the purest, the divinest, and truest;”
His death consecrating His testimony and completing the devotion of His
life; his resurrection and ascension forming the pledge and symbol of
their own. 3. “That sin inevitably brings its own punishment, and that
all who break God’s laws must suffer the penalty in consequence;” at the
same time they “reject the idea with abhorrence that God will punish men
eternally for any sins they may have committed or may commit.” Such is
the formula of doctrine, on which as a basis the Unitarian Mission at
Mile End has been established, and to a certain extent with some measure
of success. It is charged generally against Unitarians that they have no
positive dogma. The Unitarianism of Mr. Applebee has no such drawback.
He has a definite creed, which, whether you believe it or not, at any
rate you can understand. In the eyes of many working men, that is of the
class to whom he preaches at Mile End, he has also the additional
advantage of being well known in the political arena. As a lecturer on
behalf of advanced principles in many of our large towns he has produced
a very great effect. I confess I have not yet overcome the horror I felt
when I saw at the last election how night after night he spoke at
Northampton on behalf of Mr. Bradlaugh’s candidature. Surely a
secularist can have no claim as such on the sympathies of a Christian
minister. Yet at Northampton Mr. Applebee laboured as if the success of
Mr. Bradlaugh were the triumph of Gospel truth, and as if in the pages of
the _National Reformer_ the working men, to whom it especially appeals,
might learn the way to life eternal. But Mr. Applebee is by no means
alone. In Stamford Street Chapel and in Islington you have what I
believe the Unitarians would consider still more favourable specimens of
aggressive Unitarianism.
CHAPTER X.
THE WESLEYAN METHODISTS.
Tertullian wrote in his apology, or rather in his appeal, to the heathen
persecutors on behalf of the Christians of his age, “We are but a people
of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to you—cities,
islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camps, your tribes,
companies, palaces, senates, forum. We leave you your temples only. We
can count your armies; our numbers in a single province will be greater.”
The language was boastful, but it was founded on fact. Wesleyan orators
might indulge in a similar rhetorical flourish. In 1729 John Wesley
returned to Oxford, intending to reside there permanently as a tutor. He
found that his brother Charles, then a student at Christ Church, had,
during his absence, and chiefly through his influence, acquired views and
feelings corresponding with his own, and had prevailed on two or three
young men to unite with him in receiving the Lord’s Supper weekly, and in
cultivating strict morality in their conduct, and regularity in their
demeanour. “Here is a new set of Methodists sprung up,” said one. The
name took at once, and was thenceforth applied derisively to the little
band. To this company John Wesley united himself; and of it his ardour
and his wonderful talent of organization and for ruling his fellows soon
made him the head. In the world’s history a hundred and thirty years is
but a little while; the fathers and founders of Wesleyan Methodism have
as it were but recently passed away. There may be some living now whose
little eyes saw Wesley’s body carried to the grave in 1791, or whose
young ears heard the last public utterances of the dying saint. And now
it appears from the recently-published returns of the Conference that the
total number of members, not mere attendants, at Wesleyan places of
worship, is in Great Britain at the present time 342,380, being an
increase of 5310; and there are upon trial besides for Church membership
24,926 candidates. A people which have thus grown, which have thus
become a power in the State, to whom Dr. Pusey has appealed for aid,
surely are well worth a study.
In an exhaustive work by Mr. Pierce we have, as it were, the inner life
of Wesleyan Methodism, methodically arranged and placed in chronological
order. “The attempt,” says the Rev. G. Osborn, D.D., in his Introductory
Preface, “is made in honesty and candour; and has required a large amount
of labour on the part of the compiler, which, however, his love and
admiration of the system have made, if not absolutely pleasant, yet far
less irksome than under other circumstances it would have been.” We
must, in fairness, add that Mr. Pierce has certainly exhausted his theme,
and his non-Wesleyan readers. A catechism of 800 large pages of small
type is more trying than even that of the Assembly of Divines. Surely it
was possible to do what Mr. Pierce has done in a more readable form.
Still, however, his work is invaluable as a cyclopædia of Wesleyan faith,
and organization, and practice.
Mr. Wesley had originally no intention of seceding from the Church of
England. Dr. Stevens, in his very interesting work, has shown how, step
by step, he was forced into secession, and was compelled, by the force of
circumstances—the irresistible logic of events—to abandon his very strong
Church principles. In this respect Conference has rigidly adhered to
Wesley’s teaching. “What we are,” it stated in 1824, “as a religious
body we have become both in doctrine and discipline by the leadings of
the providence of God. But for the special invitation of the Holy Spirit
that great work of which we are all the subjects, and which bears upon it
marks so unequivocal of an eminent work of God, could not have existed.
In that form of discipline and government which it has assumed it was
adapted to no preconceived plan of man. Our venerable founder kept only
one end in view—the diffusion of Scriptural authority through the land,
and the preservation of all who had believed through grace in the
simplicity of the Gospel. This guiding principle he steadily followed,
and to that he surrendered cautiously but faithfully whatever in his
preconceived opinions he discovered to be contrary to the indications of
Him whose the work was, and to whom he had yielded up himself implicitly
as His servant and instrument. In the further growth of the societies
the same guidance of Providential circumstances, the same signs of the
times, led to that full provision for the direction of the societies, and
for their being supplied with all the ordinances of the Christian Church,
and to that more perfect pastoral care which the number of the members
and the vastness of the congregations (collected not out of the spoils of
other churches, but out of the world which lieth in wickedness)
imperatively required.” Thus, practically abhorring the name of Dissent,
Methodists became Dissenters themselves, and certainly as a sect put
forth, as the above extract teaches, the strongest claims to a Divine
origin and sanction.
In 1784 Conference had a legal habitation and a name. All power was then
placed in its hands as regards the Wesleyans. “The duration of the
yearly assembly of Conference shall not be less than five days nor more
than three weeks.” It has to fill up vacancies by death, elect a
President and Secretary, expel or receive preachers—who must, however,
have been in connexion with it as preachers for twelve months,—and
regulate all the affairs of the body. Appointments of preachers are
limited for three years. According to the original rule, no person could
be a member of the Methodist Society unless he met in class. If he
neglected to do so for three weeks in succession (if not prevented by
sickness, distance, or unavoidable business), he was considered by such
neglect to exclude himself. Consequently, the meeting in class is still
made a fundamental condition of membership, and is indeed the only gate
of admission into society. Once a quarter each of these classes is
visited by one of the travelling preachers, for the purpose of
ascertaining the spiritual state of every member, and giving to each a
ticket or printed badge of membership, by the production of which he is
admitted to any of the more private means of grace. The preachers are
instructed to give notes to none till they are recommended by a leader
with whom they have met at least two months on trial. If in the opinion
of a leader any reasonable objection exists to the character and conduct
of any person who is on trial, such may be stated, and, if established to
the satisfaction of the meeting, the ticket may be withheld. No
backslider after gross sin may be readmitted till after three months.
All members are expected to meet in the classes belonging to their
respective circuits, and all persons acting as local preachers,
class-leaders, stewards, conductors of prayer-meetings, or sustaining any
other office in the body, are expected to belong to the circuits in which
they reside. In order to avoid conformity to the world, it is forbidden
to teach children dancing, to dress according to the fashion of the day,
to drink spirits, to smoke tobacco, or take snuff, to indulge in evil
conversation or strife. Music, and such-like diversions, are also
interdicted. In the Conference of 1836 similar injunctions were
repeated, as it observed with sincere regret in some quarters “a
disposition to indulge in and encourage amusements which it cannot regard
as harmless or allowable.” The strict observance of the Sabbath is
enforced. On that day members are not to employ a barber, or to trade,
or go to a feast, or engage in any military exercise. In 1848, convinced
of the great and growing importance of a careful observance of the Lord’s
day to the Church of Christ and the nation at large, the Conference
appointed a committee to watch over the general interests of the Sabbath,
to observe the course of events in reference to it, to collect such
information as may serve the cause of Sabbath observance, to correspond
with persons engaged in similar designs, and to report from year to year
the result of their inquiries, with such suggestions as they may think
proper to offer. The duty of family worship is strongly recommended.
The power of expulsion is conferred only on preachers, who have ever
appointed leaders, chosen stewards, and admitted members. No one is to
belong to the society who is guilty of smuggling or bribery at elections.
For the support of their ministers most careful provision has been made.
The direct means by which funds are raised is that of weekly and
quarterly collections in the classes, and quarterly collections in all
the chapels. It is expected that every member, in accordance with the
original rule of Mr. Wesley, should contribute at least one penny per
week and one shilling per quarter.
I have spoken of the class meetings. Band Societies are the same, except
that they are divided into smaller companies and are on a stricter plan
as to the faithful interchange of mutual reproof and advice. The
questions proposed to every one before he is admitted are such as these:
Have you forgiveness of your sins? Have you peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ? Have you the witness of God’s Spirit with your own
that you are a child of God? Is the love of God shed abroad in your
heart? Has no sin, outward or inward, dominion over you? Do you desire
to be told of all your faults? Do you desire that every one of us should
tell you from time to time whatever we fear—whatever we hear concerning
you—that in doing this we should cut to the quick and search your heart
to the bottom? And so on. Again, at every meeting it is to be asked,
“What known sins have you committed since our last meeting? What
temptations have you met with? How were you delivered? What have you
thought, said, or done of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?” To
the members of these bands the minutest injunctions are given. Amongst
other things, they are to “pawn nothing—no, not to save life.”
Society Meetings were instituted by Mr. Wesley immediately after the
formation of the first Methodist Society, and were regarded by him of
great importance in a spiritual point of view. All preachers were to
hold them on the Lord’s day; only those members who had tickets were to
be admitted. On these occasions the society is to be closely and
affectionately addressed by the preacher on those important subjects
which relate to personal and domestic religion. A Methodist love-feast
is a meeting at which none are present but the members of the society,
and such as have obtained special permission from the minister. The
meeting begins with singing and prayer, after which the stewards, or
other officials of the society, distribute to each person a portion of
bread or cake, and then a little water. A collection is then made for
the poor. Liberty is then given to all to relate their religious
experience in accordance with the words of the Psalmist—“Come and hear,
all ye that fear God, and I will tell what He hath done for my soul.”
This service is usually held once a quarter, continues about two hours,
and is concluded with prayer. The times for holding public
prayer-meetings are not fixed by any established rule of the connexion,
but are left to the discretion of the superintendent of the circuit, who
usually appoints such times as may be most convenient to the people of
the district. Prayer-meetings are generally held on Sunday mornings and
week-days. Missionary prayer-meetings are held once a month, and
meetings in private houses for prayer are strongly recommended.
Quarterly days of fasting and humiliation are also held. The religious
services known as Watch Nights are usually celebrated on the New
Year’s-eve, but they are not always confined to the close of the year,
for it is the custom of some places to hold them quarterly. On the first
Sunday afternoon in the New Year, a solemn service is held entitled the
Renewing of the Covenant. It generally commences at two and closes at
five. None but members or those who have obtained special permission
from the preacher may be present.
Baptism is regarded by the Methodists as a dedicatory act on the part of
Christian parents. The Sacrament is their most solemn and sacred
festival. In the bread and wine they see no mystical efficacy, but a
significant emblem of the body and blood of Christ; but they do not make
it the test of Church membership. Originally the Wesleyans went to their
parish church for the purpose of celebrating it, and it was not till
after Wesley’s death that the body received the Sacrament in their own
chapels, and from their own ministers.
On the Sabbath morning public worship is usually commenced by the reading
of the Church of England service in a more or less abridged form. The
Conference has appointed that, where this is not done, the lessons for
the day, as appointed by the Calendar, should be read. A hymn is then
sung from a hymn-book compiled by Charles Wesley, and subsequently much
enlarged. Extemporaneous prayer follows; then another hymn; then, unless
the Church service has been previously used, the reading of portions of
the Scriptures; then an extemporaneous sermon, and the worship is
concluded with singing and prayer. With the exception of the Church
service, the same order is observed in the evening.
Among Wesleyan institutions must be placed first and foremost pastoral
instruction. Catechumen classes for the instruction and edification of
the young are held by catechists. Sunday-schools were next established;
then day and infant schools. In 1843 steps were taken for the
establishment of the Wesleyan normal schools in Westminster. This led in
1856 to the establishment of the Westminster Training College. Other
schools, such as those at Sheffield, Taunton, and Dublin exist for the
children of such as can pay for a good education for their children. The
Kingswood and Woodhouse Grove Schools are supported by the denomination
for the free training of the children of preachers. Then steps were
taken for the establishment of the Wesleyan Theological Institution at
Richmond and Didsbury. In 1866 it was resolved to have one at Headingley
for training missionaries. The responsibility of recommending candidates
for the ministry originally rested upon the superintendent. He proposes
him to the quarterly meeting. The candidate is then recommended to the
ensuing annual district meeting, and they recommend him to Conference,
who decide. The candidate must previously have been a local preacher.
After a certain time of trial the candidate is ordained or admitted into
full connexion, after a private examination by the President and a few
senior ministers whom he may select. The ordination is by imposition of
hands. No travelling preacher can marry during the term of his probation
without violating the rules and rendering himself liable to be dismissed
from his itinerancy. There are besides, assistants and superintendent
preachers. Every preacher shall be considered as a supernumerary for
four years after he has desisted from travelling, and shall afterwards be
deemed superannuated. No person is eligible to be a local preacher
unless he be a regularly accredited member of society, and meet in class.
He has to undergo an examination of a private nature.
It would take far more space than I have at command to continue the
subject. The Wesleyans have a Stationary Committee to draw up a plan for
stationing ministers; a Committee to guard their privileges; a Committee
to look after and support worn-out preachers; another to consider the
case of the widows; another for the maintenance of the children of
ministers; another for the Home Mission and what is called the Contingent
Fund. In 1862 Juvenile Home and Foreign Missionary Societies were
established. The General Wesleyan Missionary Society, as it is now
known, dates from 1817.
The chapels are, of course, the property of the denomination, and the
same may be said of the preachers’ dwelling-houses. There is a Chapel
Loan Fund, a Connexional Relief and Extension Fund, a Wesleyan Chapel
Committee, and a Metropolitan Committee for the same purpose, which,
since 1862, has granted 11,625_l._ to nineteen chapels in the
metropolitan districts, which cost altogether 89,499_l._, and gave
accommodation to more than 17,000 hearers.
The Methodist Book Establishment consists of the President and
ex-President, the members of the London Book Committee, thirty-nine
travelling preachers, and the representatives of the Irish Conference.
There is also a Wesleyan Tract Society.
Such is Methodism on paper; of Methodism in practice we can only say
_Circumspice_. In London there are 132 Wesleyan, 54 Primitive Methodist,
52 United Methodist Free Church, 9 Reformed Wesleyan, and 13 Methodist
New Connexion Chapels.
AT A WATCH-NIGHT SERVICE.
Methodism has one special institution. Its love-feasts are old—old as
Apostolic times. Its class meetings are the confessional in its simplest
and most unobjectionable type, but in the institution of the watch-night
it boldly struck out a new path for itself. In publicly setting apart
the last fleeting moments of the old year and the first of the new to
penitence, and special prayer, and stirring appeal, and fresh resolve, it
has set an example which other sects are preparing to follow. In the
Church of England the Methodist plan is being extensively carried out.
On last New Year’s-eve there were midnight services in the churches in
all parts of London. Especially have the Ritualists availed themselves
of the opportunity. Dr. Cumming chose the occasion for preaching a
sermon to young men, and Mr. Spurgeon’s great congregation met, as usual,
to see the old year out and the new year in. But after all, the
Methodist services were the most numerous. In the metropolitan district
they advertised services on watch-night at no less than seventy-three
chapels, and there were other smaller ones at which watch-services were
held, though they were not advertised. At first sight there seem to be
many obvious objections to midnight meetings. They keep people up late;
they keep them out in the streets late; they interfere with the routine
of business and the prescribed order of domestic life; they cause
delicate people to wake up next morning with an aching brow and a fevered
frame. To others they bring catarrh, disorder of the mucous membrane,
cold, necessitating as a remedy water-gruel and cough mixtures.
Obviously, however, these are minor considerations. It may be asked: Is
not the soul, that never dies, of more value than the body, which
to-morrow may be dust and ashes? The life that now is—what is it
compared with the life that is to come?
Last year’s eve I was one of a crowd that found their way to the ancient
head-quarters of Wesleyanism—the fine old chapel which, it is to be
hoped, will not be improved off the face of the earth, in the City Road.
It was an unpleasant night to tear one’s self away from one’s study fire
or the friendly circle. The rain was heavy, the streets were a mass of
mud, and the melancholy lamps, which are the disgrace of such a
metropolis as London, did little more than make the darkness visible.
Over all the City a Stygian gloom prevailed, except where the light
blazed forth from the gin-palaces, which seemed, as I passed, to be doing
a roaring trade, and to be filled with sots but too happy to find an
excuse for the glass. Occasionally also a cigar shop threw out a little
ray of light on the pavement and across the street, and now and then from
an upper window the lamps gleamed, and you heard the click of billiards.
So still was the traffic that even the beggars had gone home. Here and
there an omnibus, here and there a cab crawling for the last time, for
the new Act was to come into operation the next day—here and there a
policeman, here and there a belated clerk, here and there an
unfortunate—such were all you saw as you paced along the deserted City
that night. You could almost fancy its inhabitants had fled as if an
enemy were on its way, or as if the plague ran riot in its streets. A
little after ten the scene began to change. Doors were opened by heads
of families doubtful as to the state of the weather. Up area steps
creeped ancient males and females to do what they had done years and
years before. Children, young men and women, fathers and mothers,
masters and servants, got out into the streets. I followed them, and was
soon seated in the chapel in the City Road. All round me were monuments
of Wesleyan worthies. It were a task too long to describe their virtues
or record their memories here. Up in that pulpit Wesley preached, and
there the imprint of his genius yet survives. It is hard to realize what
a power Wesleyanism is. I did not expect to see many; in reality the
commodious chapel was well filled. The service began at half-past ten,
but it was not till long past that hour that the congregation had
entirely assembled. It seemed to me this was a great mistake. For half
an hour or so the opening and shutting of doors and the entrance of
hearers interfered much with the comfort of those who had already come.
Under these circumstances the service was trying to all taking part in
it. Neither preacher nor hearer had a fair chance. In reality the
attraction of the night was the sermon of the pastor of the place, the
Rev. M. C. Osborn, and he did not begin till his pulpit had been occupied
by an assistant for an hour. After it was all over it puzzled me to
perceive what had been gained by the preliminary service and the
assistant’s sermon. The assistant was a young man, and it was the sort
of a sermon a properly trained young man would preach. The subject was
the barren figtree, a striking subject treated with all the tediousness
of commonplace. It was clear the preacher had read more than he felt, or
he would not have spoken of the responsibility of a figtree, or bothered
himself with the threefold sense which cropped up under his three
divisions—first, as to the figtree, then as to the state of the Jews to
whom Christ told his parable, and then as to its applicability at the
present time. His great virtues were fluency, perfect coolness and
self-possession, and a distinct and powerful utterance. When he came to
the terrible climax, when he spoke of the condemnation which awaited the
finally impenitent, when he repeated how there could be no hope for such
as they, how for them there was agony of which no tongue could tell the
horror, or no imagination conceive, there was no pathos in his tones, no
tear trembling in his eye, no sign of sensibility in his heart. The
Saviour wept over Jerusalem as He saw the coming fate of the city that
had mocked at His warnings, that had stoned the prophets, that was to
crucify Himself. It did not seem to me that the sermon produced much
effect. When it has been the writer’s privilege to converse with
Wesleyans they have contrasted their warmth with the coldness of the
services of other denominations; but in Episcopalian church or
Independent or Baptist chapel—nay, at a Quaker’s meeting—such a service
as that preliminary to Mr. Osborn’s appearance might have been held
without causing any sensation on account of its extra warmth and fire.
It was plain, and simple, and orthodox, and when it was over the people
seemed to feel that the proper thing had been said, and that was all.
Mr. Osborn next entered the pulpit, while the people were singing with
well-trained voices and without the help of an organ one of the
well-known Wesleyan hymns. His appearance excites confidence. As he
stood up there seemed in his face something of the fatherly feeling of a
real, not a conventional bishop. A lay brother engaged in prayer. In
spite of its boisterous tone and stentorian _Ohs_ and _ands_ it was deep,
and heartfelt, and impressive, and invoked the responses which custom
permits in a Wesleyan chapel alone. Then came a short sermon from Mr.
Osborn, from the text in Jeremiah which tells how “the harvest is past,
the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” In his hands the text
suggested three thoughts—1. There are special seasons for men to become
religious. 2. There is a possibility of letting such seasons pass away
unimproved. 3. A time will come when the consciousness of such neglected
seasons will awaken in the mind bitter memory and unavailing regret. The
sermon was in its way wonderfully ripe and full. To every man living
under the Gospel is salvation offered. To some that offer is made in
youth, or by the preaching of the Gospel, or by providential
dispensations, or by revivals of religion occurring in their
neighbourhood. But God never coerces any one, nor interferes with man’s
free will. Human law proceeds upon the supposition of man’s perfect
ability to control his actions, and God does the same. The grace of God
is resistible, as the Bible shows in the case of the Antediluvians, of
Pharaoh, and Jerusalem; but too late people who resist that grace will
remember it, and that remembrance will form the most bitter ingredient in
their lot. As it is, when people are going wrong, they refuse to think.
The preacher then dwelt on the last words—not saved. Most powerfully did
he carry out that meaning as he pictured the shipwrecked mariner who sees
the sail that was to have saved him pass out of sight; or as the besieged
army behold the succour that was to have rescued them cut off; or as the
criminal left for execution hears there is no reprieve for him; or as
that poor woman with her babe and little ones, who found the other night
(alluding to a tragedy which had just occurred) the fire-escape failed to
reach them, and fell a sacrifice to the devouring flames. But whilst
there was life there was hope; and then the preacher appealed to all on
that last night of the old year to accept God’s offer of life, and to
cast themselves at His feet. For about ten minutes every head was bowed
in silent prayer. In that great assembly I saw no wandering eye; and
then, just after the clock had struck twelve, all rose to sing—
“Come let us anew our journey pursue;”
and after a short prayer by the preacher for blessings during the coming
year, the service closed, and out I went into the streets, suddenly as it
were wakened up into life—while church bells rang out the old 1869, and
rang in A.D. 1870.
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUAKERS.
Modern Christianity, it is often said, has little in common with that of
apostolic times: I fear it is equally true that the Quakerism of to-day
has little in common with the heroic Quakerism of an earlier day. It was
in 1646, during the prevalence of civil and religious commotions, that
George Fox commenced his labours as minister of the Gospel, being then in
the twenty-third year of his age. It was a hard time of it he and his
disciples had; no men ever fared worse and for less provocation given, at
the hands of arbitrary powers, than did the Quakers. Baxter thus
describes them:—“They made the light which every man hath within him to
be his sufficient rule, and consequently the Scripture and ministry were
set light by. They spake much for the dwelling and working of the Spirit
in us, but little of justification and the pardon of sin and our
reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. They pretend their
dependence on the Spirit’s conduct against set times of prayer and
against sacraments, and against undue esteem of Scripture and ministry.
They will not have the Scriptures called the Word of God. Their
principal zeal lieth in railing at the ministers as hirelings, deceivers,
false prophets, &c., and in refusing to swear before a magistrate, or to
put off their hat to any, or to say _you_ instead of _thou_ or _thee_,
which are their words to all. At first they did use to fall into
wailings and tremblings at their meetings, and pretend to be intently
acted on by the Spirit, but now that is ceased. They only meet, and he
that pretendeth to be moved by the Spirit speaketh, and sometimes they
say nothing but sit an hour or more in silence and then depart.” The
most fiery, the most untameable of men were the old Quakers, now a Friend
is the sleekest and fattest of men; lives in a style of the utmost
comfort, and wears the best of everything; there are no such homes of
luxury, no such lives of ease as amongst the Quakers. It is no wonder
they are a long-lived race. They mingle little with the world, and find
a peace which often the worldlings miss. As a religious organization
they are becoming weaker every day; they have a few chapels in various
parts of London, but as the old worshippers die off no new ones appear.
At their last annual meeting Mr. R. Barclay, who referred with
satisfaction to the fact that all over the land, Sunday by Sunday, 1100
Friends were engaged in teaching 1400 children and 3000 adults, regretted
to find that no other Church had declined so much either in this country
or in America since 1720. In the United States 13,000 seats were closed
in the meeting-houses between 1850 and 1860. “If,” said he, “other
Churches had declined as we have done, Christianity must have died out.”
As regards the metropolis they seem to be in a little better condition;
the last statistics of membership show an increase of 95 in the year, the
whole number being 6608 males, 7286 females; total, 13,894; the births
exactly balanced the deaths. There were 121 new members from
convincement and 61 resignations, against 31 disownments there were 19
reinstated. The habitual attenders at the places of worship are 3803,
being an increase of 145. It was remarked by a senior Friend that the
resignations were fewer and the convincements more than in any year since
accounts had been kept; Mr. Tallack gave it as his opinion that the
Society was never more healthy, not even in the first years of its
existence; J. Grubb believed that there was a considerable change for the
better, both as regards public and private prayer. It is to be hoped
such may turn out to be the case. The great characteristic testimony of
the Friends, particularly against ecclesiastical pretensions on the one
side and against religious forms on the other, is as much requisite now
as ever; there is, as one of their official documents remarks, “a strong
tendency in the human mind to substitute the form of religion for the
power, and to satisfy the conscience by a cold compliance with exterior
performances while the heart remains unchanged. And inasmuch as the
baptism of the Holy Ghost and the communion of the body and blood of
Christ, of which water baptism, and bread and wine, are admitted to be
only signs, are not dependent on those outward ceremonies or necessarily
connected with them, and are declared in Holy Scripture to be effectual
to the salvation of the soul, which the signs are not, Friends have
always believed it to be their place and duty to hold forth to the world
a clear and decided testimony to the living substance—the spiritual work
of Christ in the soul and a blessed communion with him there.”
Practically, in the promotion of temperance and education, in the
improvement of prisons and prison discipline, in the advocacy of
universal peace and freedom, in philanthropy and charity, the Friends
have ever led the way. For such ends they have freely sacrificed money
and time, and energy and life itself; nor do they forget those of their
own household, as it were; every poor Friend who may be unable to earn a
livelihood usually receives aid from his brother members to the extent of
20_l._ to 40_l._ per annum (administered privately in general), according
to age or infirmity. When the poorer Friends are out of a situation they
are often helped to obtain employment by various arrangements under free
registries, and by the aid of private inquiries for vacancies. In
addition it may be remarked that a large number of charitable bequests
and special funds have been bequeathed for the local or general benefit
of the members of this religious community. The City of London owes much
to Quakers, who in time past by their industry and self-denial laid the
foundations of many of its noblest charities and its most princely
mercantile establishments.
JONATHAN GRUBB AT THE AGRICULTURAL HALL.
Long, long ago the wise men came from the East, and from the east of
England has come to us a man wise, in the opinion of his friends, in the
best wisdom. It is of Mr. Jonathan Grubb I write, who has been living in
Sudbury for many years, and who for the last twelve or fourteen has
almost entirely devoted himself to missionary work in various parts of
England, Scotland, and Ireland. I think as a temperance lecturer he
first came before the public. It was the sin of drunkenness which first
led him to lecturing. He had seen the evils of intemperance; he had seen
what poverty, what wretchedness and crime were its results; and much and
deeply moved thereby he mounted the platform, which more or less ever
since has been familiar with his name. While in Cornwall on one occasion
he found an opportunity of talking on something else—on that common
salvation without which, in the opinion of pious people, temperance
itself is of little worth. The opportunity was one of great spiritual
benefit, and ever since he has been engaged in what is called by the
denomination to which he belongs—the denomination whose energetic and
untiring philanthropy has been honoured all the world over—the
denomination which, from the days of George Fox, has ever borne a silent
protest against the frivolities of fashion and the vanities of
life—public preaching. In the opinion of those excellent people an
ordinary minister is not a public preacher at all. They reserve that
title exclusively for one who, like Mr. Grubb, goes out into the world,
as it were, collects the crowds by the wayside, on the seashore, in the
crowded street, and there, to those for whose souls few care, who
otherwise would perish for lack of knowledge, proclaims that Gospel which
tells how, for such as they, pardon can be secured and life and
immortality brought to light. In our day no Friend is more extensively
engaged in this work than Mr. Grubb. In all parts of Suffolk his labours
have been many. In various districts of the metropolis he has been
similarly engaged. He has also spent much time in Ireland—where he has
been listened to and aided by Roman Catholic and Protestant alike. It
was only on one occasion that he has ever been prevented from preaching
by the intrusion of a mob, and that was (tell it not in Gath, publish it
not in the streets of Askalon) in no less ancient and respectable a
borough than that of Bury St. Edmunds. In the filthiest and most
depraved districts of London, in the very heart of Roman Catholic
Ireland, he has never been interfered with at all. Of course some of
this success is due to Mr. Grubb himself. With his one aim to tell how
sinners may be saved, he has been remarkably successful in avoiding
collision with class feelings and sectarian animosities. His manner is
also eminently kind and gentle; but after all does not his experience
also show, what we have long believed, that honest, simple, faithful
preaching is never exercised in vain? It may be also said that some of
Mr. Grubb’s qualifications are hereditary. By birth he is an Irishman
(he comes from Tipperary), and his mother was an eminent Quakeress, and
extensively useful in her day. It was a sermon from her that was the
instrument, humanly speaking, in the conversion of one of the most
respected of our open-air preachers in London at the present day. We
take much from those to whom we owe our being. Why should we not also
inherit some of their excellences? The question may be asked though not
answered here.
But to return to Mr. Grubb. The last time I heard him he had a truly
magnificent congregation at the Agricultural Hall, Islington. Mr. Thain
Davidson’s well meant effort to attract outsiders, and to keep up a large
Sunday-afternoon service, now that the novelty of the thing has passed
away, seems as successful as ever. He and his people have lately moved
into the new hall, a most commodious building, and right well do they
fill it. It will be much to be regretted if this scheme fall through for
want of funds. It appears much good has resulted from it. Not a week
passes but cases occur in which it has been shown how awakening have been
the addresses delivered. A service that only lasts an hour is a
desideratum. No one could have listened to Mr. Grubb without feeling how
his kind of address is pre-eminently adapted to encourage and stimulate
the religious life, to arrest the attention of the impenitent, and to
touch especially the hearts of the young. Mr. Grubb takes no text,
preaches no formal sermon, aims at no rhetorical flight, does not strike
you as being very intellectual, or very original, or very learned. It
may be that he is all three—it certainly is not for me to say that he is
not—but whether he be so or not, it is clear that he judges and judges
rightly that, at the Agricultural Hall on a Sunday afternoon what is
wanted is not the glare of the rhetorician, not the learning of the
divine, not the elaborate argument of the trained logician, not the fancy
of the poet, not the dramatic action of the elocutionist, but the tender
beseeching of one who, saved by Divine mercy himself, and assured of all
its fulness and omnipotence, would force a similar boon on all around.
It was thus he preached on Sunday afternoon. He seemed to speak out of
the depth of a holy love, in language very simple, abounding with the
commonest, and, as some might think, most worn of Scripture quotations,
yet with a pathos that, as it came from the heart, at once reached the
hearts of all his hearers. A more homely or plainer-looking man than Mr.
Grubb you don’t often see. As he stood there, with his sunburnt, honest
face, with his suit of sober black and grey, with his rustic air, you
felt that his power (for there was not a single unattentive hearer) was
such as a Whitefield or a Wesley wielded, and which has never been
exerted in our world in vain. Man’s fallen state, his need of pardon,
his need of pardon now, the danger of delay, the duty of all instantly to
receive the proffered grace—such were his themes. He told them he had
stood by the death-bed of a woman who had believed that there was no
mercy for such a wicked old sinner as she was, and had heard her song of
joy as she passed from the poverty and sorrow of earth to the wealth and
joy of heaven. Yes, for all there was mercy, and that all there present
might attain it was his prayer; and as thus he spoke, light came to his
eye and animation to his voice, and, with uplifted arm and flowing
utterance, he gave you his idea of the true evangelist—the man always
needed in our land—and it is to be feared, in spite of all our boasted
Christianity, never more than now. But it is not for me to say what are
Mr. Grubb’s peculiar qualifications for his work. What they are may be
best gathered from his abundant labours. In his own denomination it is
well known how numerous are his efforts and how great his successes. He
is a fitting representative of active and spiritual Quakerism. Men say
that body is not what it was; that it is losing its power; that it has
little hold upon the people; that it makes no converts. It may be so,
but if it has many such ministers as Mr. Grubb in its midst, as much as
any it is fitted with a living ministry which will go out into the
highways and hedges and bring back to the fold those who have wandered
far away. His appeal is not to the high and mighty, to the rich, the
learned, or the great, but to the poorest of the poor. Mr. Grubb’s
mission is evidently a special one. Amongst fallen women, in districts
where ragged-schools and churches are required, in corners of our land
where no regular means of grace exist, he finds special charm and need.
It is pleasant to see him supported by the good men and true of his own
denomination and others. It is evident that at the Agricultural
Hall—perhaps all the better for its not being professedly such—we have
the true idea of an Evangelical Alliance, an alliance for Christian work
rather than of Christian creed, an alliance practical, not speculative,
not in form and dogma, but in life and love.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MORAVIANS IN FETTER LANE.
What virtue there is in an if. Without going as far back as the Book of
Genesis, and thinking what a different thing life would have been if the
mother of us all had not plucked and eaten
“The fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,”
it is very obvious much depends upon the ifs. If Sir Robert Peel had
encouraged the advances of Disraeli, how different would have been the
state of politics in this country. If Louis Philippe had shot Louis
Napoleon when he had the power to do so, the Orleanists might have been
the rulers of France. If old George III. had had brains as well as
self-esteem and a stubborn will, what untold horrors might have been
averted from England and Ireland. If Balthazar Gerard had not fired his
pistol at William the Silent, Belgium at this time would have been as
intensely Protestant as it is now intensely Catholic. If John Wesley had
perished in the fire at Epworth Parsonage, where would have been the
Methodist Revival of the last century? And if Wesley himself had not
broken from the little band who met in Fetter Lane, what sect in England
would have equalled in numbers or usefulness that of the Moravians? Now,
in this teeming London they have but one place of worship, and that but
very indifferently filled. It does not even present the usual appearance
of a place of worship, and thus attract notice; the stranger passes it
by. Yet it is a place of surpassing interest, one of the hallowed spots
of London, where sinners have wept, where souls have rejoiced, where the
power and presence of God have been marvellously displayed. Let us go
there; we pass along a passage till we come into a very old-fashioned
meeting-house. There we shall find plenty of room. There are two
hundred communicants, and at certain times they are all present, but they
are scattered far and wide, and in general the place has a very deserted
look. The benches—there are no pews—are most uncommonly hard to sit on.
There are galleries, and in one of them there is an organ. The place is
neat and clean. The service itself calls for no especial notice. It is
much like that of other denominations. The liturgy is exclusively that
of the Moravians. The preaching is such as you may hear elsewhere.
Attached to the place is a skeleton Sunday-school. There is light about
the place, but it is not very powerful. It suggests more that of the
setting than of the rising sun. I confess I see no reason why this
should be the case, why the Moravianism, so powerful in many places, so
blessed in missionary efforts, should be so powerless here. Moravianism
is older than Lutheranism. It has an apostolical descent more genuine
than that of the English or the Romish Church. Pre-eminently it may
claim to have followed the leadings of Providence. Nowhere is there a
trace of the gradual elaboration of any plan dictated by human wisdom.
The leading men in the Ancient Unity, the emigrant founders of Herrnhut,
Count Zinzendorf himself, and those of his fellow-labourers who were
instrumental in introducing the Church into England, were all led
gradually and by a way which they knew not to results they had not
contemplated. As an anonymous writer, one of their body, remarks, “What
a striking proof is here afforded of the wisdom and faithfulness of God!
Surely it well becomes the members of a community which has been so
undeservedly favoured to inquire whether they, as individuals and
collectively, have faithfully improved the privileges bestowed upon
them.”
But about the chapel. Turn to Baxter’s Diary, and we find the place
mentioned there. He writes: “On January the 24th, 1672–3, I began a
Tuesday Lecture at Mr. Turner’s church in New Street, near Fetter Lane,
with great convenience and God’s encouraging blessing.” It is, writes
Mr. Orme, that between Nevill’s Court and New Street, now occupied by the
Moravians. It appears to have existed, though perhaps in a different
form, before the Fire of London. Turner, who was the first minister, was
a very active man during the Plague. He was ejected from Sunbury, in
Middlesex, and continued to preach in Fetter Lane till towards the end of
the reign of Charles II., when he removed to Leather Lane. Baxter
carried on the morning week-day lecture till the 24th of August, 1682.
The church which then met in it was under the care of Mr. Lobb, whose
predecessors had been Dr. Thomas Goodwin and Thankful Owen. This church
still exists, but on the opposite side of the way, under the care of the
Rev. J. Spurgeon. The Moravians came into possession of the building in
1740. They had previously met in Fetter Lane, but in a smaller room.
The present chapel was then known as the Great Meeting-house, or
Bradbury’s Meeting-house. Tradition says that the place was once used as
a saw-pit, and as a place of asylum when the State Church was busy at the
work in which it has ever been untiring, no matter how remiss in other
matters—that of enforcing its rights real or fancied, and disregarding
those of other men. Tradition also says that the place was built, for
the same reason, with two modes of egress, that the good men in the
pulpit might have an additional chance of safety. It was in the meeting
that Emmanuel Swedenborg was for a time accustomed to worship. It was in
the old place that Whitefield and Wesley attended, and where, as Southey
writes, “they encouraged each other in excesses of devotion which, if
they found the mind sane, were not likely long to leave it so,” but of
which Wesley writes in very different language. Let us hear what he
says. “About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in
prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried
out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were
recovered a little from that awe and amazement we broke out with one
voice, ‘We praise Thee, O God! we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.’” “It
was a Pentecostal season indeed,” wrote Whitefield. Let me add that it
was there, and not in the present meeting, that Wesley stood up and read
from a written paper such of their doctrines as he contemned, especially
that of there being no degrees of faith short of perfect assurance. He
had learnt much from the Moravians. They had found him a mere Ritualist,
they had left him a converted man, but he had outgrown his teachers, the
mild and loving and placid Germans of Fetter Lane. “I have borne with
you long,” said he at the end of his discourse, “hoping you would turn;
but, as I find you more and more confirmed in the errors of your ways,
nothing now remains but that I should give you up to God. You that are
of the same judgment, follow me.” When he had thus spoken he withdrew.
This breach was never healed, and from that day to this Moravianism has
never in this country, and especially in London, recovered from the blow.
It may also be said that the impulse given to the religious life of
England by the Moravians has tended naturally to their decrease. Their
speciality was to preach the atonement made for sin by the blood of
Jesus, and happiness in communion with Him. In the dark days, when they
came over, this doctrine was far less commonly believed than now, and in
proportion as it has been preached by Churchmen and Dissenters has there
been a decline of Moravian influence. In reality, what they came here to
do has been done by others who had learned how to do it from them. All
Evangelical sects teach now what they teach, and even where they now
break fresh ground it is found those whom they have influenced prefer to
take part with churches of a more native origin or British character. As
regards London the position of their chapel is very much against them.
An out-of-the-way situation is as undesirable in a spiritual, as in a
commercial point of view. In their church government they are
Episcopalian, and meet at certain great occasions in synod. At one time
they much favoured the lot, but now that is rarely used, and their
marriages are not arranged by it as was formerly the case. A bishop is
an elder appointed by the synod to ordain ministers of the church. The
latter are sent to a congregation, but it exercises a veto. The
congregation is ruled by a committee chosen by the communicants. They
claim not to be Dissenters; it was the opinion of Archbishop Potter they
were not. They trace their pedigree from Zinzendorf to Huss, from Huss
to the Greek monks, Theodorus and Cyril, who in the ninth century
introduced Christianity into Moravia and Bohemia. But after all they
chiefly glory in the fact of preaching, to use one of their own hymns—
“That whoe’er believeth in Christ’s redemption
May find free grace and a complete exemption
From serving sin.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SWEDENBORGIANS.
If the reader be told that there exists in this enlightened age a sect
who believe that the day of judgment is passed, that it took place nearly
a hundred years ago, that the Christian dispensation is at an end, that
Emmanuel Swedenborg daily visited the spiritual world, and made
acquaintance with its inhabitants, that he was directly appointed by God
to describe to men the scenery of heaven and hell, and the world of
spirits, and the lives of their inhabitants, and that through him the
Lord Jesus Christ makes his second advent for the institution of a new
Church described in the Apocalypse under the figure of the New Jerusalem,
at once you exclaim, this is “one of the things no fellah can
understand.” Nevertheless, such actually is the fact—nay more, it may be
observed, that the number of Swedenborgians is on the increase; that they
have a hundred chapels in England, and a larger number in America, and
that this sect, while it has excited the rude laugh of ignorant folly,
has attracted to itself some of the greatest intellects of the day.
Emerson claims for Swedenborg that he was a “colossal soul;” and Mr.
Kingsley speaks of him, though not very correctly, as a “sound and severe
and scientific labourer, to whom our modern physical science is most
deeply indebted.” The Swedenborgians, says Theodore Parker, have a calm
and religious beauty in their lives, which is much to be admired. I
should fancy the artist Blake was a Swedenborgian. Amongst the active
Swedenborgians of the past I find such names as John Flaxman, sculptor;
William Sharpe, engraver; the Rev. Joseph Gilpin, curate to Fletcher of
Madely; and James Hindmarsh, one of Wesley’s preachers; Charles Augustus
Tulk, a friend of Joseph Hume, and M.P. for Sudbury in 1821; Samuel
Crompton, the inventor of the spinning-mule, of whom it was truly
remarked by his biographer, “Few men, perhaps, have ever conferred so
great a benefit on their country and reaped so little profit for
themselves.” In our time Swedenborgianism was represented in Parliament
by Mr. Richard Malins, now Sir Richard, and a Vice-Chancellor. Mr. Hiram
Power, the American sculptor, is a zealous missionary of the
Swedenborgian faith. The chief of the living Swedenborgian literati in
this country are Dr. Garth Wilkinson, and the Rev. Augustus Clissold,
formerly of Exeter College, Oxford. Other well-known names in connexion
with the sect are Mr. Isaac Pitman and Mr. George Hartly Grindon.
The Society shows signs of life. In Islington there is a college for the
education of young men for the ministry. Mr. W. White, no friendly
witness,—he was driven from the community on the question of
spiritualism,—writes on the testimony of Her Majesty’s inspectors:—“There
are no better schools of their class in England than those maintained by
the Swedenborgians of Manchester and Salford, in which about fourteen
hundred children are educated.” The Swedenborgians have besides a
national missionary institution, with a very limited income, and two
societies for the production of tracts, one in London and the other in
Manchester. The London Missionary and Tract Society of the New Church
had in 1865 an income of 209_l._, and circulated 32,000 tracts. The
Manchester New Jerusalem Tract Society had the same year an income of
154_l._, and circulated 100,000 tracts; their chief society is that for
printing and publishing the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, established
in London in the year 1810. “For half a century,” writes Mr. White,
“this society was the happy meeting place of all who had any lively
interest in Swedenborg, whether citizens of Hindmarsh’s New Jerusalem, or
Churchmen like Clowes, or Quakers like Harrison, or unattached like
Tulk.” In 1845 the Swedenborg Association was formed in London to
promote the sale of Swedenborg’s writings, which were translated by Dr.
Wilkinson, the Rev. Augustus Clissold, and Mr. Strull. In 1854 it was
thought advisable that the Society should establish a book depôt of its
own. Accordingly the Rev. Augustus Clissold subscribed 3000_l._ for the
purchase of suitable premises. A house was taken in Bloomsbury Street.
In 1865 there were 3016 volumes disposed of, valued at 217_l._, and the
income of the Society from subscriptions and donations was in that year
205_l._ The operations of the Society are not, however, confined to its
sales. Swedenborg’s works are kept in print, and often are given away to
libraries and to persons of eminence at home and abroad. It does not
appear that Swedenborg’s writings have ever been very popular. The first
volume of the “Arcana Cœlestia” was published in 1749, and was completed
in 1756, in eight quartos. The book fell stillborn from the press. In
his “Spiritual Diary” Swedenborg describes the fact, and thus accounts
for it:—“I have received letters informing me that not more than four
copies have been sold in the space of two months. I communicated this to
the angels. They were surprised, but they said it must be left to the
Lord’s providence; that His providence is of such a nature that it
compels no one; and that it is not fitting others should read the ‘Arcana
Cœlestia’ before those who are in the faith.”
I hasten on to finish what I have to say as to the Swedenborg
organization. There are many of his admirers who believe that the
attempt to form a separate sect was not a wise one; certainly Swedenborg
himself did nothing of the kind. Fletcher of Madely, who read “Heaven
and Hell,” and used to declare that he regarded Swedenborg’s writings “as
a magnificent feast set out with many dainties, but that he had not an
appetite for every dish,” when asked why he did not preach the new
doctrines, candidly confessed, “Because my congregation is not in a fit
state to receive them;” and so, in the opinion of many, people might be
Swedenborgians, as members of other churches, without setting up a new
denomination. Such was the opinion of the chief apostle of
Swedenborgianism in England, the Rev. John Clowes, for the extraordinary
term of sixty-two years rector of St. John’s, Manchester. A complaint
was laid before his Bishop, Dr. Porteus, charging him with the denial of
the Trinity and the Atonement, and with holding heretical opinions. The
Bishop summoned him to Chester, “read to him the several charges, heard
patiently his reply to each, made his remarks (which discovered plainly
that he was by no means dissatisfied or displeased with his opinions),
and dismissed him with a friendly caution to be on his guard against his
adversaries, who seemed disposed to do him mischief.” And no wonder.
Swedenborg took almost as great liberties with the Pentateuch as Bishop
Colenso himself.
Robert Hindmarsh, a printer, in Clerkenwell Close, the founder of the
sect of “the New Church signified by New Jerusalem in the Revelation,”
was not of the same way of thinking as Clowes or Fletcher. In 1783 he
held meetings at his own house; he had an audience of two. In 1784 he
was joined by others; chambers were rented in New Court, Middle Temple,
under the title of “The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose
of promoting the heavenly doctrine of the New Jerusalem, by translating,
printing, and publishing the Theological Writings of Emmanuel
Swedenborg.” Meetings were held on Sundays and Thursdays, at which
portions of Swedenborg’s writings were read and discussed. In 1787 a
chapel was opened at Great Eastcheap. In 1797 Proud came to Cross
Street, Hatton Garden, a place built expressly for him; and very large
congregations for some years attended on his ministry. In time the
chapel became deserted, the preacher ceased to draw. In 1812 it was sold
to the managers of the Caledonian Asylum, and then for a time Irving
blazed in it, the comet of a season; and then once more it came back to
the Swedenborgians; and now, at any rate of a Sunday night, it is a sad,
lonely spot. Proud was succeeded by Noble, an engraver, who commenced
his ministry in 1819, and continued it till 1853, when he closed it by
his death in his seventy-fifth year. One of the blessings promised in
the Old Testament to those who keep the Commandments seems to be
pre-eminently enjoyed by the Swedenborgians, and that is length of days.
Swedenborg himself lived to be eighty-four.
From the Wesleyans the Swedenborgians got the idea of a conference which
was to govern the new Church. As represented in conference, the
Swedenborgians form a congregation of 3605 members, divided into
fifty-five societies. In London there are four societies, containing,
says Mr. White, 566 members. In 1807 one was held, at which they decreed
no one should act as minister who had not received their ordination, and
recommended all who would enter the New Jerusalem to receive baptism at
their hands. Since 1815, conferences have been held regularly in various
towns. Conference has for its organ the _Intellectual Repository and New
Jerusalem Magazine_.
The faith of the new Church is briefly this:—
“That there is one eternal, self-existent God, who is Infinite Love
and Wisdom, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
“In the fulness of time and for the redemption of man, He took upon
Him human nature by birth of a virgin, and became God manifest in the
flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, in whom dwelleth all the fulness
of the Godhead bodily.
“The Lord Jesus Christ is the one only true object of Christian faith
and worship, and in Him is centred the Divine Trinity of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. The divinity of the Father being the soul of the
Son, and the humanity of the Son being the body of the Father, whence
proceeds the Holy Spirit to regenerate and save mankind.
“The Lord became our Redeemer by subduing the infernal hosts, and
glorifying His humanity, without which no man could have been saved,
and by which all men are capable of being saved by belief in Him;
such belief implying a faithful obedience to the Divine laws, as the
means of receiving the gifts of salvation.
“The Sacred Scripture is the Word of God, and contains within its
external or literal sense an internal or spiritual sense, being thus
Divine.
“On the death of the natural body, man rises again in a spiritual
body, and according to the quality of his life here, lives in
happiness or in misery hereafter.
“Now is the time of the Lord’s second coming, not in person, but in
the power and great glory of His Holy Word, to establish a new and
permanent Church, testified in the Revelation by the holy city—New
Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven.”
As a philosophy Swedenborgianism is the exact opposite of Materialism.
Everything in nature, Swedenborg tells us, exists first in spirit. “We
are created by the Lord, so that during our life in the body we may
converse with spirits and angels, as indeed was the habit of the people
of the most ancient times.” During his worldly life “he (man) is not
seen in spirit, because he is immersed in nature.” God is in
everything—is the life of everything. In heaven all is love—in hell all
is selfishness. There is besides a spiritual world.
There are four Swedenborgian congregations in London. The principal one
is that in Argyle Square, King’s Cross, at which preaches the Rev. Dr.
Bayley—a tall, pleasant gentleman, in the prime of life. Outside, the
place presents the appearance of a well-built, superior sort of chapel;
inside, the massive pillars give it almost a cathedral appearance. It
holds about 700 people; there are no galleries, and it is generally well
filled. The people have a respectable appearance, and some of them have
arrived at the dignity of “carriage folk.” The preacher is attentively
listened to, and if passages of Scripture are referred to in the course
of the sermon, there is at once an appeal to innumerable Bibles. There
is service twice a day; and in the afternoon there is a conversation
class, at which the Sunday-school teachers meet and take tea together.
In the course of the week there is a theological class; and then, in
connexion with the chapel, there are societies of a friendly and
philanthropic character; there is also a lending library, and a day as
well as a Sunday school. At either school the average attendance is the
same—about three hundred.
At the far end, as you enter, there are two desks or pulpits, one for the
minister and another for the assistant reader. The minister is in the
one on the right-hand side. Between them is the communion-table. Both
the minister and the assistant are dressed alike, in white robes—typical,
we may suppose, of the doctrine and the life.
The service begins with a hymn, followed by certain passages from the
Bible, in which all the congregation join, with the help of an efficient
organ and choir. Then the minister reads, while the congregation kneel,
a prayer of confession and supplication, ending with a prayer to “our
Father who art in the _heavens_.” Then the congregation stand while the
minister reads the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes. Again passages
from the Psalms are sung, and there is another prayer, varied according
to its being the first, or second, or third, or fourth Sunday—a variation
deserving to be imitated if ever we have a reformed Book of Common
Prayer. In these prayers there is a scrupulous avoidance of evangelical
formulas. Of course we hear nothing of the blood of Christ to wash away
the stain of sin; and if terms are used common to other denominations,
they are carefully toned down. Instead, praise and adoration are offered
“for the establishment of a church upon earth as the means of raising us
to heaven, and may it be increasingly receptive of those exalted
principles which constitute Thy spiritual Zion; and may it speedily
advance to that glorious state which is the subject of prophetic promise.
Grant that the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from Thee out of
heaven, may be more and more extensively welcomed; and that all who are
enabled to perceive its heavenly nature may show forth the knowledge of
Thy truth by a life in agreement with its dictates.” Hymns, more
philosophical than theological, are sung, and sacred anthems. No
reference is made to other churches, or to other bodies of Christians.
Amongst the special services we find Christ is thanked for His victory
over the _hells_. God is, we are told, one in essence and in person; and
in Him is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The
partaker of “the Holy Supper,” as it is called, is required “to
acknowledge that the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the only God of
heaven, and that His humanity is divine.” In the Marriage Service we are
told, “Love truly conjugal is the union of two minds, which is a
spiritual union, and all spiritual union descends from heaven. Hence
love truly conjugal comes from heaven, and its origin, from the marriage
of goodness and truth there.” But while we have been looking through the
liturgy, the preacher has read a short prayer, and has commenced his
sermon, the text of which, you may be sure, is taken from the Old
Testament. Let us listen. I have said it is sure to be taken from the
Old Testament. The reason is, Swedenborg rejects the Acts of the
Apostles, and the Epistles, or, rather, declares that they have no
“internal sense.”
Once upon a time, as the story goes, an aged minister was asked the
reason why he abounded in expositions in preference to regular sermons.
His reply was, because when he was persecuted in one text he could flee
unto another. Swedenborgian preachers need no such excuse. According to
their master, Scripture has a threefold sense—_the celestial_, _the
spiritual_, and _the literal_ or natural. In this Swedenborg was not
original. He recognised a threefold sense in Scripture corresponding to
the threefold nature of man—as body, soul, and spirit. This idea was
undoubtedly suggested to him by the threefold division of mankind
according to the Gnostic system. “The _celestial_ sense,” writes the
Rev. Mr. Clowes, “according to Baron Swedenborg, involves in it
whatsoever relates to the Divine love, and whatsoever has a tendency to
excite that love in the will and affections of the devout reader. The
spiritual sense, again, involves in it whatsoever relates to the Divine
wisdom, and whatsoever is communicative of that wisdom to the devout
reader’s understanding and thought. And lastly, the natural or literal
sense involves in it whatsoever relates to the expressions of the Divine
love and wisdom, and is best adapted to convey those heavenly principles
to the reader’s mind, and to impress them on his life.” According to
this method, then, the Swedenborgian has a fulness and a liberty which,
in the pulpit, should give him a power of amplification denied to those
whose Biblical exegesis is of a more old-fashioned character. If, for
instance, as Swedenborg says, the history of the Creation in Genesis
means the rise of the most ancient church—if by Noah is meant the ancient
church in general—if Shem typifies true internal worship, Ham corrupt
internal worship, Japheth true external worship, and Canaan corrupt
external worship—it seems to such as the writer the Swedenborgian
preacher may do what he likes, and in his flights of rhetoric may leave
his brethren of other denominations far behind. Take, for instance, the
plague of frogs. An ordinary preacher could make but little of it; but a
Swedenborgian will tell you that frogs mean false doctrines, and then
what room you have for expansion! Again, if I take the word Egypt in the
Old Testament to mean the “natural principle,” how much more can I say
than he who means by Egypt—Egypt and nothing else! At the same time this
very liberty seems to hamper and confine the Swedenborgians. There is
something narrow and pedantic about their preaching. As Swedenborg
studied the Bible and read no other book, so they seem to confine
themselves exclusively to Swedenborg; and as they have none of them his
genius, or his fulness, or his power, the result is something very
far-fetched and tame and second-hand. You feel that in accordance with
their own system of interpretation they might do much more than they
actually do. “It is unquestionably true,” however (writes Mr. George
Bush, late Professor of Hebrew in the University of New York), “that the
piety inculcated by the doctrines of the New Church is of a more genial
and cheerful stamp than that which is usually found under the auspices of
the prevailing creeds, because the doctrines impart a higher and sublimer
view of the infinite love and benignity of the Lord towards the human
race, as willing the salvation of all, and ordering every event of His
providence with a view to eternal ends of mercy in regard to each
individual, and incessantly aiming to withhold him from hell, so far as
it can ‘be done consistently with his moral freedom.’” When Tennyson
writes:—
“Behold we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last to all,
And every winter change to spring.
“That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete”—
he merely reproduces Swedenborgianism. Again, the Swedenborgians claim
for their system an active philanthropy superior to that of any other
sect. If heaven and hell are in us—if, as we develop the good we arrive
at heaven, or as we develop the bad we sink into a deeper hell—no sects
have greater provocatives to a godly life, and we might expect in their
preaching a glowing sympathy with human right and popular progress, which
assuredly in their pulpits in England finds but little utterance.
Swedenborg teaches, in the strongest manner, that no man can lead a
spiritual life apart from civil and moral life. Again and again he
argues that the life which leads to heaven “is not a life of retirement
from the world, but of action in the world. A life of charity, which
consists in acting sincerely and justly in every situation, engagement,
and work, in obedience to the Divine law, is not difficult; but a life of
piety alone is difficult, and such a pious life leads away from heaven as
much as it is vulgarly believed to lead to heaven.” The Christianity of
his day he proclaims again and again to be worthless. It was founded on
opinion, not on conduct. He who believes otherwise than the Church
teaches is cast out of its communion; “but he who thieves, if he does not
do so flagrantly, lies, betrays, and commits adultery, if only he
frequents a place of worship and talks piously, passes as a religious
man.” When a great abuse has to be attacked—when a hoary wrong in Church
and State has to be swept away—when help is to be given to the wretched
and the perishing, have we ever seen the Swedenborgian minister coming to
the front as a leader? On the contrary, you will find him in his New
Jerusalem ignoring humanity altogether, and torturing with tedious
complacency Genesis and Revelation alike. If I were a preacher of any
denomination, I would have Swedenborg’s works by me. They should be the
fruitful source of many an argument to illustrate or arouse; but if in
the future the pulpit is to maintain its place and power, the
Swedenborgians, unless they turn over a new leaf, must retire into the
background. Look at Cross Street, Hatton Garden, for instance, on a
Sunday night; you will not find thirty people there; yet it stands in the
midst of a teeming population, where the devil preaches to a crowded
congregation every day and every hour. Let it not be supposed, however,
that Swedenborgianism is perishing for lack of new blood. It was only a
few days since I heard of a clergyman of the Church of England, who had
resigned his living in consequence of his joining the Swedenborgians. Of
the fancies of Swedenborg let me say there are those to whom they suggest
much—reveal much. According to the man’s own statement, he was sent from
God, and saw and revealed the secrets of the invisible world. Sometimes
his revelations are very indecorous. Here is one. “Spiritual angels
dislike butter, which was made clear to me from this circumstance: that
although I am fond of butter I did not for a long while, even for some
months, desire any, and during which time I was in association with them;
and when I had tasted butter I found it had lost the pleasant flavour it
once had to me. That the spiritual angels caused this aversion was plain
from the fact that when a celestial angel was with me, and I was impelled
to eat some good butter, the spiritual angels caused an odour of butter
to rise from my mouth to my nostrils by way of reproach; still, however,
they are much delighted with milk, and when I partook of some the relish
was more grateful than I can describe. Milk belongs to the spiritual, as
butter does to the celestial angels—not that they delight therein as
food, but on account of their correspondence.” I should have said
Swedenborg divides all angels into two orders—the celestial angels are
the angels of love or the will, the spiritual angels are those of truth
or the intellect. Angels, according to Swedenborg, are poor guides in
worldly matters; “they only regard the good intention, and can be adduced
to affirm anything which promises to advance it.”
CHAPTER XIV.
THE IRVINGITES, OR APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.
If the absence of brotherly love for religious people, if a scorn of all
who worship God different from themselves, constitute heresy—and surely
the Apostle John shows that it does very clearly—then there are no such
heretics in London as the Irvingites, who worship in a very magnificent
cathedral in Gordon Square. Irving, I imagine, with all his genius, had
a very uncatholic spirit. Take, for instance, his celebrated missionary
sermon. Requested by the directors of the London Missionary Society to
preach the annual sermon at Surrey Chapel—how did he begin?
When he ascended the pulpit he entered on a kind of audible soliloquy.
Said he, “How shall I encourage myself to address the thronging multitude
by whom I am surrounded? I will even cast about for a few examples.
There are three of a notable character which now strike me: that of the
Apostle Paul preaching before the Jewish Sanhedrim, that of Bernard
Gilpin preaching before the Court of King Edward VI., and, that of a
Scottish Divine preaching before the Commissioner of the General
Assembly. On these three examples, as on a sacred tripod, I feel my
spirit propped; but especially the last, the Scottish Divine preaching
before the Commissioner of the General Assembly. If he could venture to
encounter the hoary-headed eldership and substantial theology of the
North, surely I may, without fear, address myself to the flimsy
evangelism of the South.” In this kind and flattering way did Irving
speak of the great body of English Dissenters.
Of the Irvingite Church, the late Drummond, the banker, M.P. for Surrey,
was also an elder, and the same spirit lent bitterness to his sarcastic
and biting tongue. It was a treat to see and hear him, especially when
the topic was at all theological. Irving describes Drummond as one “who
hath taken us poor despised interpreters of prophecy under your wing, and
made the walls of your house like unto the ancient schools of the
prophets.” But out of his own house Drummond seemed to have taken little
else or nothing under his wing. His mission apparently was to preach
that in nothing was there anything—that we were all whited sepulchres.
The Egyptians placed a skeleton at their feasts to remind them of their
mortality. The Sultan Saladin, it is said, had a similar message dinned
daily into his ears by a herald especially appointed to that purpose.
Mr. Drummond voluntarily took that duty on himself. In his eye we were
all morally dead; all virtue was gone clean out of us; the Church was in
darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death. Nor had Dissent one
ray more of Gospel light. Under the mask of patriotism he saw the
grovelling soul of the placeman; in the love of liberty the desire of
licence; in the rulers of the land a lamentable lack of understanding; in
the people a blind, senseless, untaught mass. Drummond was such a one as
Tennyson describes:—
“Thou shalt not be saved by works;
Thou hast been a sinner too.
Ruined trunks on wither’d forks,
Empty scarecrows I and you.”
Thus did he perorate with the thinnest of voices, and gentlest manner, to
a House of which, for many sessions, he was the delight and puzzle, all
the while he was a member of the Irvingite Church.
A great claim is set up by this Church. Like Aaron’s rod, it is to
swallow up all the rest. So great is its hatred of sects, it forms a new
one. While calling itself the holy and Apostolic Church, it makes no
exclusive claim to the title. It acknowledges it to be the common title
of the one Church baptized unto Christ. It claims to be no body of
separatists from the Church of England. The members recognise the
continuance of that Church from the days of the Apostles, and of the
three orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, by succession from the
Apostles. They have no sympathy with Dissent in any of its forms. That
is schism, and is to be condemned accordingly. They meet in separate
congregations, but they are not open to the charge of schism, on the
ground of their meeting being permitted and authorized, so they say, by
an ordinance of paramount authority which they believe God has restored
for the benefit of the Church. At once their ecclesiasticism strikes the
most superficial observer; the idea of the Church, that it is a mere
assembly of believers, is rejected by them on every occasion and in every
way. Their great glory is that the Apostolical order exists and is
manifested in them.
Their special teaching is something more. It is often asked, Are the
days of Pentecost gone never to return? Have miracles ceased from among
men? Cannot signs and wonders be still wrought by the Holy Ghost? As a
rule, the Church answers this question in the negative. It teaches that
the age of miracles is past; that they are no longer necessary; that in
the fulness of time the Divine will was made known to man; and that the
Church needs not now the signs and wonders by which that revelation was
attested and declared. A large, or rather an active body, some few years
ago sprang up in Scotland, crossed the Border, and extended to England,
and enrolled amongst their members many in what may be termed an
influential position in life. Enter their churches, and you learn,
according to them, the gift of tongues still exists, signs and wonders
are still manifested to the faithful, miracles are still wrought by those
upon whom God has conferred the gift. Still, as much as in Apostolic
times, does the Divine afflatus dwell in man, and the man so endowed
becomes a prophet, and declares the will of God. “The doctrine of
Christ’s reign upon earth was at first,” says Gibbon, “treated as
profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless
opinion, and was at length regarded as the absurd invention of heresy and
fanaticism.” A similar process has been in operation with regard to the
power of working miracles and speaking in unknown tongues. Against this
process the Irvingite or Catholic Church is a living protest.
It is now many years since a magnificent Gothic cathedral was commenced
in the corner of Gordon Square, between what at one time was Coward
College and the handsome building erected by the Unitarians, and known as
University Hall. Architecturally the new church may take high rank. The
cathedral, still unfinished, is perhaps the most extensive modern work of
the kind that has been undertaken. The Early English style has been
adopted generally for the exterior, but inside the style of the roof and
stone carvings is Decorated. The flat ceiling of the aisles, with rich
traceried bosses and spandrels, is very effective. The ornament
throughout, of which there is a considerable quantity, displays careful
design. Indeed, in the opinion of competent critics the execution could
not be surpassed. There are daily services in the church; on Sunday
there are four. In the evening there is a sermon addressed to strangers.
It may be added here that, under the title of Catholic Apostolic
churches, there are in all seven buildings registered in London. To
each, I believe, appertain an evangelist, an apostle, a prophet, and an
angel; and as each officer is peculiarly distinguished by his dress, in
the cathedral in Gordon Square an effect is sometimes produced almost as
scenic as any in a Roman Catholic cathedral. There are chairs for some,
and benches for others; as much as possible they come and go in
procession. All that is wanted to make you believe that you are in a
Roman Catholic place of worship is a little incense, a few more banners,
a little more life in the pulpit, and, above all, the presence of
considerable numbers of the poorest of the poor. Here, indeed, the
resemblance fails; there are no poor, comparatively speaking. Everyone
is distressingly genteel; and I could swear more than once when I have
been present, the preacher, so fashionable has been his lisp, has been,
if not Lord Dundreary himself, at any rate his own “brother Thwam.” The
hearers must be wealthy and liberal—the service of the church, and the
church, all indicate this.
I do not here enter into the question how far Church authority extends,
whether apostolical gifts are to be looked for in our day rather than the
apostolic spirit. I am not even definitely able to sum up the teaching
of the lights of Gordon Square. They avoid putting their doctrines in
print—and seem to seek to make converts by sly insinuation rather than by
open statement. All I can say is—and any outsider can see it—that with
apostolic pretensions these men avoid every appearance of apostolical
simplicity. They must meet not in an upper room, but in a gorgeous
cathedral, where they must clothe themselves in every variety of
ecclesiastical millinery, and appeal to the senses, to the eye and to the
ear, rather than to the brain or heart. Thus is it, when genius fails,
men have recourse to art. Irving would preach for hours to enraptured
audiences. The church has no Irving now, but rejoices instead in mosaic
pavement, fine music, man millinery, and elaborate ceremonial.
CHAPTER XV.
THE FREE CHRISTIAN UNION.
Many professedly Christian people, and many who are in no way such, have
long been of opinion that there is something that is wrong about our
present religious organizations; that they tend to separate rather than
unite; that what society requires is not dogmatic theology, but freer
Christian union. Rightly or wrongly—and that is a question not to be
discussed now—this idea has led to the formation of the society whose
title heads this article. In June last year the first practical attempt
was made towards the formation of such a society. In the winter previous
the basis of union was agreed on, and in the month referred to the
anniversary was held in Freemasons’ Hall. Believing that in the vain
pursuit of orthodoxy men have parted into rival churches, and lost the
bond of common work and love; that doctrinal uniformity is become
increasingly difficult, while at the same time there is a growing and a
strengthening of moral and spiritual affinities; that the Divine will is
love to God and love to man, and that equally broad should be the terms
of pious communion among men, the new Union requires a spiritual
fellowship co-extensive with these terms, and aims by relieving the
Christian life from reliance on theological articles or external rites to
save it from conflict with the knowledge and conscience of mankind, and
bring it back to the essential conditions of harmony between God and man.
The Society proposes to issue publications to illustrate the spirit of
unsectarian Christianity, and to furnish the means of undogmatic
instruction; to give aid to persons suffering for conscience sake from
the spirit of exclusiveness; to watch legislation so far as it bears on
religious freedom; to help existing sects to widen their basis, and to
encourage the formation of congregations where the terms of communion
shall be broad and undogmatic. Further, it aims at the establishment in
London of a central church for the maintenance of Christian worship and
life, apart from doctrinal interests and names, the services of which
will be conducted by ministers of various ecclesiastical positions.
Amongst the committee of this Union may be noted the names of George
Dawson, Esq., the Rev. J. Martineau, and the Rev. W. Miall. The Rev. P.
W. Clayden is one of the secretaries.
To the promoters of this new religious organization the attendance the
first night must have been eminently gratifying. The large hall was well
filled, and outside there were as many cabs and private broughams waiting
about as at the Opera when a star of the first magnitude is engaged. On
the occasion there was a special form of prayer devised, which was read
by the Rev. Mr. Martineau, and two hymns were sung, one of Wesley’s—
“The saints on earth and those above
But one communion make.”
And another from the Breviary—
“Supreme Disposer of the heart,
Thou, since the world began,
With heavenly grace hast sanctified
And cheered the heart of man.”
Besides there was a chant, in which all joined, and a small band to sing
the Amen. Two sermons were preached; one by the Rev. Athanase Coquerel,
the far-famed leader of the section of the Reformed Church of France
which does not sympathize with orthodoxy. In the personal appearance of
this celebrated preacher there was little that was heretical or foreign.
With his round face and stout frame you might have taken him for one of
the sleekest of Anglican divines. Nevertheless his sermon was French in
its construction and style of delivery and emphasis. His text was—“One
thing is needful.” His argument went to show that that one thing needful
was the love of God, and that forms of faith and ritualism were so many
hills in our way, which blinded the view and impeded our appreciation of
this grand fundamental truth. The discourse, which lasted half an hour,
over, the Rev. W. Miall engaged in extemporaneous prayer, in which there
was a special reference to the death of the Rev. Mr. Tayler, of
Hampstead, one of the committee of the Union, and a Professor of
Manchester New College, London; and then came the Rev. C. Kegan Paul,
Rector of Upminster, in Dorsetshire, with another sermon. It is scarce
necessary to observe that Mr. Paul—a fine, tall, muscular man in the
prime of life, with a black beard and with a voice almost as sonorous (a
Frenchman’s lungs always seem better than an Englishman’s) as Pastor
Coquerel himself—is a man much distinguished by collegiate success and
Eton fame, and that his sermon evinced high intellectual culture. His
text was, “He is not here, but is risen,” and his aim was to show how men
seek the dead Christ rather than the living one. The Reformation was an
attempt to get rid of ritualism and formalism, and now again it is felt
that religion can no longer be confined in an article. It is not only
the Bible we must consult, God has written His Word in life and humanity.
They were not Theists; Christ was a name symbolical of humanity, and they
were, as a matter of fact, Christian men. Nor would they get rid of
Christian phraseology as long as the feeling of the heart clothes itself
in language hallowed by the use of ages. A change is passing over
society, and we have now to study religion in connexion with nature,
science, progress, life. Still, nothing that has nourished the soul of
man can die. All that has been is a part of what is to come, and
sustained by this truth we are not to faint or fail. And then came the
benediction, and ministers and people went home. In this Church of the
future, as it aims to be, it is clear there will be nothing derogatory to
the ministerial office. The committee were seated in various parts of
the hall, while the ministers in black gowns occupied the platform.
Apparently never in Freemasons’ Hall had there met there men more
spiritual and anxious for Divine guidance, and devout. As to the issue
of it all we can safely and reverently wait.
There are two sides to every picture—two aspects, at the least, in which
human schemes and organizations may be viewed. On the first night, as
regards the Free Christian Union, we had the one view which must have
cheered its promoters; on the next, when the business meeting was held,
when we were told of what the Society had done and what it was going to
do, an element of a very different character appeared. In this great
capital, at this season of the year, when London is crowded with
notabilities, the managers had to go to Cambridge for a young man to
preside, who had—we say it respectfully—really a physical
disqualification for the office. Then there was a very young gentleman,
quite unknown to fame, called on to second a resolution, and forced on to
the platform from the body of the hall to say that and nothing more. As
a matter of fact, the Society had enrolled, we believe, a couple of
congregations, and voted a grant of 5_l._ to the Free Christian Church at
Lynn. Nevertheless, with a platform on which few men save those
connected with the Unitarian denomination appeared, and with but little
response even from that body, the Society aims to influence the public
mind, especially by the press, by the publication of essays on the
connexion between scientific theology and pure religion, the Bible as
literature, dogma, prophecy, miracles, the possibility of a national
formula of public devotion, the ethics of conformity, the place of
religion in education, the limits of State action in ecclesiastical
organizations. In some quarters it was evident that the feeling was that
the Society had better aim at some practical work, such as the
reconstruction of the National Church on the bases laid down in its own
preamble; and one speaker, forgetful of the fact that the Church of Rome
denied the right of private judgment in matters of religion _in toto_,
asked whether any effort had been made to secure its sympathy and
co-operation. It says little for the meeting that such a puerile
question was politely received. As to speaking, indeed, the meeting was
a failure, or would have been had it not been for the presence of
Athanase Coquerel, who spoke in English at great length with the utmost
freedom and warmth, and who had much to say of his own struggles on
behalf of Free Christianity in France, of universal interest.
It appears in its early days the Protestant Church of France was entirely
exclusive, and its confession of faith was drawn up by Calvin and Beza.
One of its forty articles decreed that the sword had been put by God into
the hands of reigning princes, magistrates, &c., not only to enforce
obedience to the second table of the Ten Commandments, but also to the
first. Another article implied that little children, even unborn babes,
are condemned to eternal perdition in hell; and if they die without
baptism can in no way whatever be saved. By-and-by a little more
elasticity was imported into this creed, and the Liberal party continued
to live, even when, as in 1685, Louis XIV. shut up all the Protestant
academies in France. An English writer had truly remarked that no Church
had suffered so long and so much from persecution as the Reformed Church
in France, and he was right—the last pastor who was hung in Paris
suffered that penalty only as recently as the year 1762. A young pastor
preaching at Nismes had for one of his hearers Lafayette, and he and
Lafayette got from Louis XVI., in 1787, an edict that gave the French
Protestants civil rights, and since then the Church has revived, but at
the same time it has steadily and consistently refused to re-enact the
old rigid creeds. At present there were two parties in the Church, one
orthodox the other Liberal. In the Church at Paris, consisting of
bankers, with whom Guizot always acted, the Consistory is orthodox. That
Consistory was formed in 1802 by Napoleon, who selected for that purpose
the twelve persons most wealthy. In 1848 this Consistory was re-elected
by universal suffrage, and this was the cause of great changes. The
ultra-Conservative feeling of the day retained the old set in office, and
they, feeling themselves invested with additional power, began that
persecution of M. Coquerel’s father which continued till the last hour of
his life. Of that persecution he, the speaker, had his share, and at
last to support him the Union Protestante Libérale was formed. In a
little while after he had spoken, to a certain extent favourably, of
Renan’s work, he was excluded from the Church, and M. Martin Paschaud as
well. As to himself he had obtained leave with two young ministers to
commence preaching in a hired room. At the same time, as they had not
been legally ejected from the Church, they can baptize, marry, perform
funeral services—in short, do everything but preach. In conclusion, the
speaker said how rejoiced he was to find in England an attempt made to
establish such a Society. It was the want of the time, and long he
trusted might they continue to uphold the banner of peace and love.
It is clear, outside the meeting at Freemasons’ Hall the idea is
entertained that this was simply a Unitarian movement. Evidently such is
the feeling of leading Unitarians themselves. One of them, the Rev. Mr.
Ierson, who preaches in a beautiful and costly chapel in Islington, to a
congregation that does not half fill the place, evidently so regards it.
After the annual meeting, from the text, “Blessed are the peacemakers,”
he preached a sermon on behalf of the new organization. He was delighted
with what had been done. In the devotional service he had witnessed more
life than he had ever seen in a Unitarian service before, and he was
thankful for it. At the same time Mr. Ierson expressed his regret that
the movement did not aim to accomplish something more, and also regretted
that it did not succeed in enrolling beneath its banner men of
sufficiently diverse sentiments. This was not difficult to account for,
continued the reverend gentleman. The Independent Churches, meaning by
that term Baptists and Congregationalists, have great fear of each other.
The ministers are afraid of the people, who look well after them. In
many places, if a man shakes hands with a Unitarian he is straightway
denounced as a Unitarian himself. Nor was this altogether wrong. The
real fact was that it would be found, directly any one approximated in
civility to the Unitarians, he had either given up the doctrine of
eternal damnation or some of the other dogmas of his body, and was not
completely, and in the old-fashioned sense of the term, orthodox.
Meanwhile the duty of the Unitarians was very obvious. They had to be
more than ever charitable and deferential to all Christians, whatever
their denomination. It was something to get men to respect each other,
to believe each other to be honest, however they differed in faith and
dogma. In his own opinion the Free Christian Union would have had a
better chance had it been originated by another body of religionists.
Even as regarded themselves he feared many of them were not sufficiently
educated up to the mark; but at any rate it was something for the
Unitarians to be associated with such a catholic and Christian union.
One word more may be said. At the business meeting one of the speakers
was the Rev. Leigh Mann. Distinctly he avowed a belief the reverse of
Unitarianism, and distinctly he glorified the association as one in which
men of the most opposite dogmas could meet. In such an utterance we have
an indication, how significant or eccentric time alone can tell. At any
rate, while confessing that hitherto there has been little of Christian
union founded on dogma, we may anxiously ask, is there a better chance if
the common bond be work?
CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONDON ECCLESIA.
In the independent way, Baxter, describing the Westminster Assembly of
Divines, says, “I disliked many things.” After mentioning what those
things were—their making too light of ordination, their unnecessary and
unscriptural strictness about the qualification of church members—he
adds, “I disliked also the lamentable tendency of this their way to
divisions and subdivisions and the nourishing of heresies and sects.”
The soul of the good man was wearied, as well it might be, with these
differences, so trifling yet so fiercely discussed, with this waste of
power, with this spirit of wrangling and contention, with these quarrels
of Christian with Christian, when the world was only to be made better,
and the true Church only to be built up, by a holy life. In our time the
tendency of some minds to fly off into fresh sects is greater, perhaps,
than ever. In one street you see a placard up stating that here the
Gospel is preached, and nowhere else. A good man says he is weary of all
this sectarianism, and at once hires a room and starts a new sect. A
man’s conscience is too sensitive to allow him to worship with a one-man
ministry, or with any existing denomination. He shakes his head, and
mourns over their worldliness, their carnality, their want of spiritual
life; but does he better it by standing aloof, by shutting himself up
with a few dismal-minded people, who come with their Bibles, and see in
them, not what sound scholarly criticism teaches, but that which their
own morbid fancy suggests? As men of the world, these things are to be
looked at practically, and by the light of common sense. Here are
certain religious agencies at work—by them people are being strengthened
in the Christian life, trained to Christian work, in their way promoting
the welfare of man, and glorifying God. I may affect a superior piety, I
may refuse to associate with common Christians, I may leave them; but
what is the result? That as far as I can I put hindrances in their way.
Ignorant people look up to me as a saint, and the church and the minister
where I have any influence are to the extent of that influence damaged.
A gentleman writes to me—“Those who now represent the London Ecclesia, in
recognition of the constitution and order of its organization, are, in
this metropolis, myself and three others;” and then quotes—“‘Strait is
the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be
that find it.’” It is in Peckham this new religious body meets. At such
meetings they do not admit strangers, in fulfilment of the ordinance of
the Lord which enjoins us to assemble “ourselves together to worship God
in spirit and in truth,” and commands us—“If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine (the doctrine of the Christ), receive him not
into your house, neither bid him God speed.”
For the doctrines of this new sect I must refer the inquirer to a
pamphlet published at 22, Paternoster Row, called “The Truth as it is in
Jesus, defined in the Constitution and Order of the London Ecclesia, or
immersed believers of the things of the Kingdom of God and the name of
Jesus Christ.” In this pamphlet we have a summary of the faith delivered
to the saints contrasted with the erroneous dogmas of popular theology,
and also the apostolic rules for an ecclesiastical organization. In
America, and many parts of England, Ecclesias, as they call them, exist.
The document to which they subscribe their names is an exceedingly
lengthy one, nor is it very intelligible. I should say that wherein they
differ from other Christians in point of doctrine is this, that
“everlasting life is the gracious gift of God through our Lord Jesus the
Christ—the clothing upon the living soul or mortal body of life of a
justified believer, with the quickening spirit or house which is from
heaven, or the swallowing up of his death nature in the life of the
Divine nature, so that this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this
mortal puts on immortality by an impartation of spirit-life energy into
every fibre of its organism, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
during the sounding of the last trumpet; and according to his type the
Lord Jesus, the saint then becomes a son of God in power by a spirit of
holiness, through a resurrection from among the dead, and cannot sin
because he is born of God, and lives and moves and has his being in the
essential goodness and peace and blessedness of the Divine existence.”
Hence “the physical and moral impossibility of _an immoral agency of
evil_ exercising the attributes of an uncreated spirit—omniscience,
omnipotence, and omnipresence—emanating from the Supreme Good, to
antagonize His purposes and defeat the counsels of His will concerning
the redemption of the Adamic race for the glory of His name.”
So far I quote what the followers of this new sect call their Marturion.
As people generally can neither understand nor find time to read such
verbose and minute confessions of faith, let me add that they believe
that punishment on the finally impenitent is “the infliction on him as a
living soul or mortal body of life of the many or few stripes in
execution of his sentence until the appointed hour of his final doom
arrives—to utterly perish in his own corruption.” Furthermore, I glean
that with them the Devil simply means sin in the flesh. As the reader
will have gathered from the title of their confession, they baptize with
immersion; they deny, amongst other things, the common doctrine of the
Trinity, or that Christ is God and had an existence independent of the
Father; that the Holy Ghost operates of His own power as God; that God
fashioned man after His own image; that the serpent was an incarnation of
an immoral intelligence; they deny the common ideas of heaven and hell;
that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the sin of the whole world, so
that infants, idiots, and believers obtain eternal salvation under the
covenanted and uncovenanted mercies of God; or that the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas,
through the instrumentality of the orthodox ministry as ambassadors of
Christ, beseeching men in His stead to be reconciled to God by believing
in the Gospel, and in the Jesus they present as the Way, the Truth, and
the Life, and that Christ is with them always, even to the end of the
world. Their appeal is, however, to the Bible, and its inspiration is
one of the cardinal articles of their creed.
Let me now speak of their order. They meet every Sunday for worship, and
for the purpose of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and have, besides,
occasional meetings for the exposition and study of Scripture. The
executive consists of a presiding elder and deacons elected by the
members. A candidate for church membership is required to make a written
confession, and every one joining the Ecclesia, either by immersion or by
admission from other Ecclesias, is to sign the articles of constitution
and order of which I have given a brief outline.
As regards the service, any brother is at liberty to take a part. Of
course this is the defect of this system—as of all such, where the public
are concerned. As a rule, nothing can be more inedifying or dreary or
repelling than amateur preaching, and this is manifestly the weak point
of all the good people who find preachers so unprofitable, and who so
delight in the sound of their own voices. As evangelizing agencies they
are a failure. They produce no impression on the world. Men of sense
want something more thoughtful, more in accordance with the facts of
life, and the young are driven to the other extreme. I believe this
remark will hold good of most of these super-refined Christians. They
have a wonderful command of Scripture language. They can talk by the
hour, and they are intensely ignorant, as all people who shut themselves
to one book and ignore God’s Word in His works must be. They may edify
each other, they certainly have no power of edifying any one else.
The rules of their Sunday service are—Prayer, singing, comprehensive
prayer, offered up by one of the brethren at the instance of the
presiding brother on behalf of the members of the one body, the
administration of the Lord’s Supper, exhortation from or exposition of
the Word by any brother who wishes to respond to the invitation of the
presiding brother, and the Lord’s Prayer in conclusion. After the
communion, there is a box placed on the Lord’s table to receive, at the
close of the service, the free-will offering of the brethren for the
common good of the Ecclesia in every work of faith and labour of love.
Besides, there is a monthly charge made to each of the brethren which is
handed over to the brother responsible for its satisfaction on the last
Sunday of every month. I find I have omitted to state that one article
of faith is the restoration of the Jews, and the reign of Christ and His
saints upon the earth for a thousand years. Already there has been, as
was natural, division in the camp. The Christadelphians are an offshoot,
as I understand. They are very adventurous people, these
Christadelphians. They welcome strangers in their midst. The original
Ecclesias contend for the application of the principle of separation in
communion worship.
THE CHRISTADELPHIANS.
The love of names is one of the strongest passions of which human nature
is susceptible. In starting a newspaper, in publishing a book, in
opening a shop, a good name is half the battle. Years and years ago
there was an individual advertising his academy as Hogflesh. How
disgusting! Respectable parents objected, and the name became Hoflesh.
A little while since a poor fellow, tortured by the jeers of the world,
advertised that, for the future, instead of bearing the monosyllable
unpleasantly suggestive bequeathed him by less scrupulous or
thicker-skinned parents, he would henceforth call himself, and be called
by others, Mr. Norfolk Howard. (I should not wonder if by this time,
with his new name, the man has married an heiress.) Poor Charles Lamb
once wrote a farce, but as it turned out that the hero of it was Mr.
Hogsflesh, good society would have none of it, and straightway it
vanished into limbo. Our fathers can remember what ridicule was showered
down on Dissenters by the _Edinburgh Review_, and what laughter there was
at them all over the land when the Rev. Sydney Smith told how Mr.
Shufflebottom was ordained at Bungay. It is to be feared that in the
religious world names have had even a greater influence than amongst the
profane. What good men have been persecuted and suffered wrong because
they bore the name of a sect distasteful to an imperious majority! How
the mob have thirsted for their blood! “These are Christians—away with
them to the lions,” said they of old Rome. “Down with the Roundheads!”
was the cry of country squire and rural parson when a few devout men such
as Richard Baxter and others more or less known to fame met in a small
room to keep alive the spirit of piety and prayer amongst themselves. It
was the same when Wesley and Whitefield, often at the peril of life,
proclaimed in parishes of England sunk in ignorance Gospel truths. There
are thousands who, like the late Isaac Taylor, of Ongar, could tell how a
“Church and King mob” kept them in perpetual fear, because they were
“Meetingers.” There are yet parishes in Suffolk and Norfolk where to go
to chapel is to insure your being despised as a “Pogram,” and cut by all
the dignities of the village, even if you have the learning of a German
professor and the piety of a saint. In the Babel of London, however, it
is different; here, there is a rage for new names, and there are
preachers and people ever ready to resort to a new name, as if novelty
were a possibility in our day, after eighteen hundred years of
theological hair-splitting and threshing of straw. The Christadelphians
are the latest production in this way. They meet in Crowndale Hall,
Crowndale Road, St. Pancras Road, every Sunday; in the morning, at
eleven, for the breaking of bread, and worship; in the afternoon at
three, when there is a Bible-class especially for inquirers, when
opportunity to ask questions respecting the one faith is afforded; and at
seven in the evening, when we are told the Word of God is expounded in
harmony with the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of
Jesus anointed. One of the most active teachers is Mr. Watts, late of
Vernon Chapel, King’s Cross Road. The Athenæum Hall, Temple Road,
Birmingham, seems to be the headquarters of Christadelphian publications.
There are published there the _Christadelphian Shield_, the _Biblical
Newspaper_, and the _Ambassador_, monthly periodicals, and other
publications more expensive, and aiming to be standard works.
This, I take it, is the epitome of their faith:—
“One God, the Eternal Father, dwelling in heaven in light of glory
inconceivable; one universal irradiant Spirit, by which the Father
fills all and knows all, and when He wills, performs all; one Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, begotten by the Spirit of the Virgin Mary,
put to death for sin, raised from the dead for righteousness, and
exalted to the heavens as a Mediator between God and man; man a
creature of the ground, under sentence of death because of sin, which
is his great enemy—the devil; deliverance from death by resurrection,
and bodily glorification at the coming of Christ and inheritance of
the kingdom of God, offered to all men on condition—1, of believing
the glad tidings of Christ’s accomplishment at His first appearing,
and of His coming manifestations in the earth as King of Israel and
Ruler of the whole earth at the setting up of the kingdom of God; 2,
of being immersed in water for His name; and 3, of continuing in
well-doing to the end of this probationary career.”
This is the teaching of the new sect. They rejoice in their emancipation
from the bondage of orthodoxy. Mr. Watts says:—“My past nineteen years
of religious life I regard as so much lost time taken up with the fables
and follies of man’s fleshly mind, systematized upon a pagan theology;
and although I honestly thought myself right, and strove hard to lead
others, yet I am now fully persuaded it was all done in ignorance of the
true knowledge of God.” He tells us the Evangelical party in the Church
or Dissent do not know the Gospel. “Nothing can be more clear,” he says,
“than that this (their doctrine of the resurrection) first item of the
Gospel as preached by Jesus and the Apostles does not form any part of
the teaching either of those who pretend to be the successors of the
Apostles, or the sects and parties of Dissenters who have imbibed their
system of theology from the same polluted stream.” The doctrine of the
soul’s essential and inherent immortality is a pagan myth. For the
heathen there is no future life; for them what Macbeth wished has come to
pass, and life is indeed
“The be all and the end all here.”
The mere belief of this doctrine relieves orthodoxy of the perplexing
problem, What becomes of the heathen? and of course strikes at the
foundation of the doctrine of purgatory. Yet we are not to suppose there
will be no punishment for the wicked and the disobedient; they shall
beaten with stripes, and then, according to the righteous Judge, enter
upon that second death state, from which there shall be no
resurrection—an opinion the direct opposite of that of Origen and
Archbishop Tillotson, first promulgated in modern times by Dr. Rust,
Bishop of Dromore. The Calvinistic formula is also, in the opinion of
the Christadelphians, a mere travesty of the subject of the atonement.
As to man in general, he is born to die. God treated the first man
federally. He put him on probation, and in him all his successors stood
or fell. We never read of immortal, never-dying souls in Scripture, and
to foist such a meaning on 2 Cor. v. 8, as that it proves the existence
of a separate state of disembodied spirits, is to handle the Word of God
deceitfully. Once Mr. Watts believed in a kingdom in the sky, a throne
in the heart, a seed of Israel, a New Jerusalem and promised land, all
mystically referring to something at present existing in the so-called
Christian Church. He does so no longer. His eyes are opened, the light
is come, and he and his friends, chiefly juveniles, rejoice; and if they
have the true light, who shall say they have no reason to rejoice?
Farewell, writes Mr. Watts, in a poem considered poetically of doubtful
merit—
“Farewell to the false, I welcome the true,
And begin the year with Christ anew.”
This reference to poetry reminds me that the Christadelphians have a
hymn-book of their own, to frame which appears to have been a matter of
no little trouble. With the hymns used by Christian churches in general
they find much fault. They require something manly and robust, whereas
the churches of all denominations rejoice in what is sentimental, and
their songs of praise and devotion are described as “oceans of slops.”
Whether the Christadelphians have much improved theirs, I leave the
reader to judge. As a specimen I quote one verse from Montgomery’s
well-known poem, “The Grave.” In their hymn-book I find it printed thus.
I quote from memory:—
“There is a calm for saints who weep,
A rest for weary Weyyah found;
In Christ secure they sweetly sleep,
Hid in the ground.”
At present the Christadelphians do not seem very flourishing. In their
little room—which is miscalled a hall—there are about forty of them of an
evening, quibbling earnestly, and to the best of their ability.
In taking leave of the Christadelphians, let me refer to a passage in our
Church history. It is notorious that the celebrated Henry Dodwell,
Camden Professor of History in the University of Oxford, in order to
exalt the power and dignity of the priesthood, endeavoured to prove that
the doctrine of the soul’s natural mortality was the true and original
doctrine, and that immortality was only at baptism conferred upon the
soul by the gift of God through the hands of one set of regularly
ordained clergy.
CHAPTER XVII.
SOME MINOR SECTS.
There are two classes of people of whom a wise man should be wary. He
who comes to you in a jolly, confidential sort of way, and tells you that
you know that he never pretended to be much of a saint, and he whose
saintship is so sublimated that he finds all denominations in grievous
error, and must form a new sect for himself. It is to be feared that
such men are in a very bad way, and have most erroneous conceptions of
God and His dealings. It is certainly remarkable that they are chiefly
to be met with in the most ignorant sections of professors—amongst the
“Petulant capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts.”
Any liberal culture seems fatal to them. As soon as they manage to
pronounce their h’s and to talk grammatically, they can worship with
other Christians, can rejoice in the magnificent inheritance which has
come down to the Church of our day from the sanctified intellect of
former times—can derive edification from an educated ministry—possibly
may sing the songs of a Keble, and may be able occasionally to join in a
form of prayer which was found adequate for the expression of the
spirituality of a Martyn or a Wilberforce.
THE PECULIAR PEOPLE.
In London, if we are to believe what we hear in some quarters, the real
seat of true and undefiled religion is to be found amongst the small body
who meet in an obscure street leading out of the Walworth Road. The
neighbourhood is not a very attractive one, and is inhabited chiefly by
retail tradesmen, who must find it in these hard times a struggle to make
both ends meet. You must look sharp to find the place of which you are
in search. In a row of shops opposite Lion Street you will see one in
the day-time with the shutters up. On the shutters you will see one or
two little bills headed Christian Meeting House, containing an
invitation, as follows:—“Dear friend, you are affectionately invited to
the following meetings.” Then you have a list of the times of meeting,
an announcement that all seats are free, and the text, “For both He that
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all one, for which cause He
is not ashamed to call them brethren.” If you enter, you see a few
benches in what is meant for a shop, and a few more in the room behind.
Where the window is there is a desk, at which the chairman or conductor
of the meeting sits. By the door is a little box into which the
offerings of the faithful are poured. As a rule the place, which cannot
hold more than forty or fifty adults comfortably, is well filled by very
poor people. It is the only place of meeting of the sect in London.
They are numerous, so they say, in Essex, Sussex, and Surrey, but in the
Walworth Road they are few and not popular with their neighbours, who
possibly know no better. Now and then up comes a street-boy and makes a
hideous noise through the keyhole; but the Peculiar People have got used
to that. I should fancy with the keen-witted artisans of London they
make but little way. The reader may remember that a little while ago
some of these people figured in a police-court. They had refused all
proper medical aid for a child, and it died in consequence. They have
great faith, these poor people. They have great scorn also for people
more benighted than themselves. They speak contemptuously of the time
when they knew no better, when they trusted in forms, and attended on a
one-man ministry, and were humbled and dejected on account of sin, and
called themselves miserable sinners, and confessed that they had done the
things they ought not to have done, and left undone those things which
they should have done. All that sort of feeling and talk is all wicked
in their opinion; for theirs is the glorious liberty of the sons of God
and joint heirs of heaven. Religion has no difficulties for them, no
mysteries; nothing beyond the reach of man, heights to which he cannot
ascend, depths which he cannot fathom. To come together and declare
their unspeakable joy is all that they have to do. For this the beginner
is as competent as the grey-headed believer, the sister as well as the
brother, the ignorant man as well as he who has had a college education.
Triumphantly they ask—
“When the Lord would speak,
Think ye he needs the Latin or the Greek?”
Of course not. And thus in turn they all preach and pray with a zeal
which literally is not according to knowledge. If a man cannot say he
lives without sin, they set him down as no Christian. At one time they
held that as the Spirit of God only teaches one thing, that if true
so-called Christians disagreed in Church matters, one of them was a child
of the devil; and as they were not at all backward in applying this
doctrine, they were split up as fast as they gathered together. They
have a great deal of the Methodist leaven amongst them, and at prayer, or
while speaking is going on, express their feelings in a way which, to a
stranger, may be considered unnecessarily noisy. Their leaders seem to
be a small tradesman in the Southwark Road, and a little, pale, wizened
female, whose utterances and prayers are of the most extraordinary
character—a sort of sing-song, now rising and then dropping, in a way
which in a secular personage and on secular subjects would be ludicrous
in the extreme. But they profess to have no leaders. They have elders,
who are simply elders. They become such by lapse of time alone.
As to their organization, I much question if they have any. One brother
assured me there were rules, but as the price was fourpence, and as trade
was slack, he had been unable to procure a copy of them. In answer to
our appeal, an elder said there were such, but they were under lock and
key, and he could not find them for us; whereupon another brother reached
out a New Testament, with the assurance that there, and there alone, were
their rules. What information we could get we had to fish out by
questions. As to Church membership, they have no preliminaries. All who
come are of the Church; those whom the Lord calls will join them, and if
the Lord has not called them they will soon drop away. They consider
that every service is the sacrament, and they have no special form. In
the same way they have no baptism—infant or adult, creeds, confessions of
faith, forms of prayer, ministers set apart and trained to preach;—all
these things they have done away with. By communion as brother with
brother, and sister with sister, they can cherish the true Christian
life. If one of them lack anything, let him or her ask of God. How
familiarly and at times irreverently they pray, the reader can well
imagine. It is difficult to say common things with propriety, says the
old Latin proverb. It is more difficult to introduce them into prayer,
to inform the Lord that Brother Jones would have been present had he not
been unable to come, and to explain the peculiarly distressing
circumstances of Sister Smith. For acting on the world outside, they
have great faith in out-of-door preaching, an exercise in which they take
great delight, and for which they consider themselves peculiarly
qualified. They forget, as one has wittily remarked, that if the Lord
does not need man’s learning, still less does He need man’s ignorance.
As to the financial question, they get over that without much difficulty.
Their expenses are next to nothing, and each brother or sister is ever
ready to contribute his mite. They have nothing to pay for pew-rents;
they have no minister’s salary to collect; they have no educational
institutions to support; the rent of a room in a back street is no
serious item; and as to church furniture, that is easily supplied—a
door-mat, a dirty desk, half a dozen old forms, a second-hand Bible or
so, a greasy hymn-book that has done duty many times, and they have all
that they require. It is not for me to judge my brother. To show him
how fatal is his fluency of tongue, how presumptuous his hope, how
unfounded his joy, is a thankless task. All I would suggest is, that he
should exercise a little of that charity of which he stands in need
himself, and not fancy that to him has been revealed what men of greater
piety and higher intellect have been unable to discover. Another
objection may also be taken. In an ancient town, with a fine old castle,
many, many years ago, there was an attempt to form a volunteer regiment.
Unfortunately all wanted to be officers; the consequence was, the
regiment came to grief. The Peculiar People have too many officers.
Where every one has an equal right to teach, the number of the taught
will be small indeed.
THE SANDEMANIANS.
In this our day one of the expiring sects of Christendom is that of the
Sandemanians. At no time have they been a very powerful denomination
either from their numbers, their influence, or their wealth. They have
never yet made their mark upon the world, nor are they likely to do so
now. The late Professor Faraday was one of their elders, and for a time
conferred on them a little of his world-wide reputation; but one swallow
does not make a summer, nor does one great man confer greatness on a
church. The eccentricity of men of genius is proverbial. Sharp, the
engraver, believed in the lunatic Brothers and the impostor Joanna
Southcote; Irving in the gift of tongues and the power of working
miracles; Swedenborg in his faculty of piercing the veil which envelopes
all sublunary affairs and realizing what we are taught to consider will
only be revealed to us when the heavens and earth shall pass away as a
scroll, and time shall be no more. Even our great emancipator Luther,
the Moses who led forth—to borrow a figure from Cowley—our modern Israel
from its house of bondage, and brought them into the promised land,
testified to a visible appearance of the Prince of Darkness, to get rid
of whom he had to dash his ink-bottle, a type, as it always seems to me,
of the victory yet to be achieved by means of print over the devil and
all his works. But Faraday is gone. No longer can the Sandemanians
boast the possession of one of England’s greatest philosophers; and they
have now little power of influencing or predominating in society. They
seem to me a very plain and humble folk, aiming at keeping up in their
own hearts Christian love, and in their own circle primitive practices,
rather than in aggressive movements, without which no church or
denomination can expect in this busy age long to live.
There is one Sandemanian church in London, up in Barnsbury, at the corner
of one of the streets running out of the Roman Road. The original church
was founded in the year 1760, in the Barbican. City improvements
necessitated its removal to this site, where it has now been erected four
or five years. It was in the old chapel that Professor Faraday used to
take his turn in preaching. In the new chapel his widow is still one of
the worshippers. As you pass the place you would not see anything very
extraordinary. It is a neat, simple structure, of white brick, with no
architectural pretensions of any kind. It only differs from other places
of worship in having no board up announcing to what denomination it
belongs, nor the name of the preacher, nor the hours of assembly, nor
where applications for sittings are to be made, nor to whom subscriptions
are to be paid. Indeed, the only reference at all to an outside world
seems to consist in the putting up a caution intimating that the building
is under the guardianship of the police, and persons evilly disposed had
better mind what they are about. Thus, and thus only, is the recognition
of an outer world lying in darkness and needing the true light of the
Gospel in any way acknowledged. They have service twice on Sunday, in
the morning and afternoon, and a week-day meeting on Wednesday evening.
They have no Sunday or day-school, no tract distribution, no district
visiting, no minister, and no other means of acting on the world or
forming religious opinion. Indeed, I fancy they are averse to anything
of the kind. “We are utterly,” I read in one of their publications,
“against aiming to promote the cause we contend for either by creeping
into private homes or by causing our voice to be heard in the streets, or
by officiously obtruding our opinions upon others.” Even if you enter
their place of worship there is no pew-opener to show you to a seat.
They claim simply to obey the commands of the Bible implicitly, to be a
church founded for mutual edification and love—nothing more. The
stranger who for the first time attends will be struck with the absence
of the pulpit, instead of which he will find two large desks, one above
the other, in which are seated three or four elderly persons; the
attention which is paid to the reading of the Bible; the illiterate way
in which those who preach and pray do so; and the length and dulness of
the service. The morning service, for instance, begins at eleven, and is
never over till half-past one. No wonder the Sandemanians are not a
vigorous sect. I believe they have but one place of worship in England,
three or four in Scotland, and more, how many I know not, in America.
The chapel in Barnsbury will seat, I imagine, from three to four hundred
people, and it is always nearly full, and attended by people in
respectable appearance. Of the really poor they seem to have none at
all.
The Sandemanians originated in Scotland, in 1728, as a kind of reaction
against Presbyterianism and Calvinism. Mr. John Glass, a minister of the
Kirk, was deposed by the Presbyterian Church Courts because he taught
that the Church could be subject to no league or covenant—that faith was
simple belief—and that Christianity never was, nor ever could be the
established religion of any nation without becoming the reverse of what
it was when first instituted. Mr. Robert Sandeman, one of his elders,
however, by his numerous writings, left on the new organization the
impress of his name. In these days, when metaphysical speculation has
little encouragement amongst Christians, the Sandemanians tell us they
have no formal creed or confession of faith—that they simply follow
Scripture practice, and that is all. For this purpose they meet together
on the first day of the week, not only to read and hear the Word, but
particularly to break bread or communicate together in the Lord’s Supper;
to pray, which is done by several in turns; to listen to an exhortation
from one of the elders. They are a Christian republic. At the
conclusion of every prayer—whether pronounced by the elders or the
brethren—the whole church say Amen, according to what is intimated in 1
Cor. xiv. 16. In the interval between the morning and the afternoon
service they have their love-feast, of which every member partakes, when
they salute each other with a holy kiss. The children are all baptized,
on the plea that if one of the parents believes the children are not
unclean but holy, and because it is written in Acts, “Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and _thy_ house.” They deem it
unlawful to eat flesh with its blood; they wash each other’s feet; they
hold all things in common so far as the claims of the poor and the Church
are concerned; they forbid no amusements but those connected with the
lot, such as cards or dice; their elders are chosen from amongst them on
account of their piety and character, and are ordained by prayer and
fasting, and laying on of hands. A deacon is elected in the same way,
minus the fasting. Any one who appears to understand and believe the
truth may be admitted into their fellowship. When a person is
excommunicated the act takes place in the presence of the whole church.
Two elders must be present at every act of discipline. It may be further
stated that in every church transaction, whether it be receiving,
censuring, or expelling members, or choosing officers, or in performing
any other business, unanimity is deemed indispensable. If there is a
dissenting brother, after the reasons of the dissent have been stated,
and judged unscriptural by the church, he is expelled. The Sandemanians
allow neither government by a majority nor a representation of
minorities.
As an outsider I should say nothing was ever more uninteresting, nothing
ever more calculated to alienate from religion intelligent young people,
than the services conducted by the Sandemanians. The elders and deacons,
excellent men undoubtedly, are singularly deficient in oratorical
ability. I think the worst sermon I ever heard in my life was preached
by one of them. They cannot even read the Bible in an impressive and
edifying manner, nor is their psalmody much better. They have a literal
version of the Psalms, and they sing them through, a couple of verses or
so at a time. I give one specimen I heard, not the last time I attended
there:—
“Moab I will My Wash-pot make,
O’er Edom cast my shoe;
Do thou, O land of Palestine,
Triumph, because of Me.”
The modern hymnology, of which all sections of the Church are justly
proud, exists in vain for them. Their church seems utterly destitute of
intellectual vigour; and when, as in these days, brains are beginning to
rule, the piety that rejects or ignores them is in danger. There is a
relation between the Bible and modern thought of which the good people
who preach dull sermons and make dull prayers up in Barnsbury have no
idea.
THE SOUTHCOTTIANS.
Incredible as it may seem, there are, in these days of penny newspapers
and universal enlightenment, Southcottians in London. They may be met
with in the neighbourhood of Kennington Common, and in one of the
forlornest spots in Islington, Elder Walk, Essex Road. Thence they issue
documents worthy of Bedlam. I have now before me their “Midnight Cry,
Behold the Bridegroom cometh.” And this august warning and bruising and
inviting announcement is “to and for whomsoever it may concern of
Mammon-crushed Israel.” One extract I fancy will suffice—one at any rate
I must give, otherwise such religious lunacy will be held incredible.
“Oh, dutifully observe now, O all Israel, (namely) O Judah and
Ephraim, that this Universal Marriage overture unto you, together
with these Proxy Marriage lines and record, are made and offered you
entirely because ‘I am’ and Jesus Christ is Life, Love, and Light
everlasting, and because of His power and right to give, and the Son
of Man’s to receive, and the worthy Woman to bring Him forth, and
Israel’s to inherit,—viz., the promises unto Adam, Eve, Noah,
Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and all their seed, who were originally
the void waters and dark-faced deep until God said, Let there be
Light and there was Light. And from henceforth there shall be Light,
and both Light and Love abundantly in Heaven, here below as in Heaven
above, for in the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, and did,
and is, and will finish on the sixth day the same and all the host of
them.”
The main instrument in the above precious compilation is Whatmore, one of
Joanna Southcott’s chosen apostles. The paper referred to is issued from
No. 9, Elder Walk, Essex Road, Islington, London, of Britannia Zion. It
states, as far as I can gather, that in August last year something of
importance was to take place. “A month since and the gauntlet has been
successfully run; therefore, Whatmore, now has Thy lowly instrument
Watmore Whatmore, John, to submit of and by Thy worthiness, O Lord God.
Oh, shall I submit a Song of Solomon, or a Lamentation of Thy Prophet
Jeremiah, or a sermon of Thy immortalizing mount, unto Thy flock, O, O,
O! Submit, love,” &c., &c. I gather that the mystery of God is to be
finished speedily by unveiling His Bible word, and His codicil thereto by
His spouse, “the wonderful Queen of prophets, Joanna Southcott, that thus
sons and daughters by her womanhood may greatly replenish the earth, and
that the poor now suffering from the murdering love of money in
consequence of unjust stewardship may fare better in time to come.” This
seems to be the only idea I can extract from the Southcottians. All
mammon laws are to be abolished, money currency is to be destroyed, there
is to be no more selling, martyring, and bartering of humanity and their
requirements, “thus saith the Lord Jehovah, by J. Watmore Whatmore, and
J. G. Grant, of Zion.”
As these prophets speak of the spouse of God, Eve the second, called
Joanna Southcott, Queen of the prophets, who in 1802 opened her
commission, and declared herself to be the woman spoken of in
Revelation—“the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, and clothed with the sun”—let me
briefly tell her story:—
Joanna was born at Gettisham, in Devonshire. Her parents were in the
farming line, and members of the Established Church. She herself was in
service or in industrious employment, “without,” writes her biographer,
“any other symptom of a disordered intellect than that she was attached
to the Methodists.” Nevertheless, it was Mr. Pomeroy, the clergyman
whose church she attended at Exeter, who appears to have encouraged her
to print her prophecies and to assume spiritual gifts. The books which
she sent into the world were written partly in rhyme, all the verse and
the greater part of the prose being delivered in the character of the
Almighty. Her discourses were nothing else than a mere rhapsody of
texts—vulgar dreams and vulgar interpretations. Her fame spread, and
seven wise men from different parts of the country, the seven stars, came
to believe in her. Among the early believers were three clergymen, one
of them a man of fashion, fortune, and noble family. As her followers
supplied her with money and treated her with great reverence, the more
extravagant were her assertions and the loftier her claims. The scheme
of redemption was completed in her. If the tree of knowledge was
violated by Eve, the tree of life was reserved for Joanna. Her greatest
triumph was a conflict with the devil, which lasted a week. According to
her own account the devil had the worst of it. She gave him ten words
for one, and allowed him no time to speak. Very ungallantly, at the
termination of the dispute he remarked no man could tame a woman’s
tongue; he said the sands of an hour-glass did not run faster. It was
better to dispute with a thousand men than one woman. After this dispute
Joanna is said—and her followers believed it—to have fasted forty days.
Shortly after commencing her mission, she published the following
declaration:—
“I, Joanna Southcott, am clearly convinced that my calling is of God,
and my writings are indited by His Spirit, as it is impossible that
any spirit but an all-wise God that is wondrous in working, wondrous
in wisdom, wondrous in power, wondrous in truth, could have brought
round such mysteries so full of truth as in my writings; so I am
clear in whom I believed, that all my writings came from the Spirit
of the Most High God.
“JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.”
One of her means of making money and increasing her influence was the
sealing of such as signed their names to a declaration intimating a
desire for Christ’s kingdom to be established upon earth, and the
destruction of that of the devil. Whoever signed his or her name
received a sealed letter containing these words:—“The sealed of the Lord
the elect. Precious man’s redemption to inherit the tree of life, to be
made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.” To this document
Joanna’s name was appended. In December, 1813, she declared her
pregnancy, and prophesied that she should have a son that year by the
power of the Most High. Her followers now increased rapidly, and chapels
were opened for promulgating her doctrines. As the time drew nigh
presents of all descriptions, it was said, came in unasked. There was a
magnificent cot for the expected Messiah, manufactured by Seddons. All
the articles used on such occasions—as laced caps, bibs, robes, papboats,
caudle cups, &c.,—were lavishly supplied; and when it appeared that the
poor woman had died, asking pardon for her late blasphemous doctrines and
past sins, the delusion was still kept up, and her followers believed
that she would reappear. It was only after a _post-mortem_ examination
that the fiction of a miraculous conception was dispelled. Joanna was
sixty years old at the time of her death, and was buried privately in
Marylebone Upper Burying-ground, near Kilburn.
The present leader is John Whatmore, formerly a smith, but who has been
led in a marvellous way, according to his own confession, to believe in
Joanna. He is an open-air preacher, and may be met with in London
Fields, Somers Town, and elsewhere pursuing his calling, which apparently
is not very lucrative. He has two boards joined together, on which some
unintelligible jargon is printed, which he calls his two sticks. These
he holds up to view, at the same time calling out, “Britannia! Ephraim!
Judah!” Then he commences his oration, a strange medley of Scripture and
nonsense. According to him the world is in the worst possible way; and
the devil has a fine time of it. The present commercial system of
society by no means meets with Whatmore’s approval. The poor are rotting
off, and woe to them to whom such a catastrophe is due. There are many
disciples, he tells us; but fear of this world and a false sense of shame
prevent them from declaring themselves. There must be some, otherwise
the man could not get a living. His library seems to consist chiefly, if
not exclusively, of the New Testament and his own absurd hand-bills,
which a printer supplies him with on the chance of his selling them. In
answer to my inquiry as to where he attended when not preaching himself,
his reply was that he sometimes went to the Agricultural Hall; but they
were not advanced enough for him, and so he falls back on himself, and
goes about to do what he thinks is—or at any rate what he says he thinks
is—the Lord’s work. There is no bounce about him. He is apparently a
muddle-headed, well-meaning mystic; about as mad or sane as others of his
way of thinking. That he is wretchedly poor, that he is ignorant, that
his language to ordinary folks seems simply unintelligible, perhaps in
certain quarters may be accepted as signs of his Divine commission. At
any rate, he is a representative man. If he is ignorant and talks
nonsense, what must be the ignorance and the nonsense existing in those
who listen to him? How dense must be the ignorance, how crass the
nonsense cherished in his hearers! It may be asked, and this is a
question I put to the religious public, is not the manifestation of such
religious folly a reproach to our age? If the Church had done its duty,
would such a folly have been possible?
THE SPIRITUALISTS.
Somehow or other the Spiritualists are under a cloud in this country, and
their leader—Mr. Home—has been compelled, in consequence of the decision
of a highly-prejudiced and extremely ignorant jury, to hand over to Mrs.
Lyon a very handsome sum of money which she had conveyed to him in
consequence of representations made by him to her that such was the
desire of her deceased lord and master. Up to that time Spiritualism was
making great way, and Mr. Home, as its high priest and apostle, was in
request with the nobility, and was the friend of kings and emperors. He
had married a Russian Countess; he wore a diamond ring on one hand, given
by the Czar, and on the other hand another, the present of the Emperor of
France. His speaking eye and melodramatic manner made him in society a
really charming man; literary ladies were enthusiastic in his favour. A
spiritual Athenæum was opened in Sloane Street, Chelsea, at which a very
eminent man gave the inaugural discourse, and at which there were spirit
drawings displayed, and spirit poems read—all suggestive of the fact that
the spirits were very ordinary people, after all. But it was not so much
there as at the houses of his friends that Mr. Home tried best to display
his powers. At such times there was a wonderful parade of religion.
Previous to his attending a _séance_, a friend of the author was asked
whether he believed in the doctrine of the Trinity; “because,” said the
fair questioner, “we find that the spirits do not like to appear before
sceptics;” and the Bible was read, and prayer offered up in apparently
the most reverent, and earnest, and occasionally the most tiresome
manner. Then came a few childish tricks, such as a handkerchief conveyed
by spirits _under_ the table, the accordion played by spirits _under_ the
table, and other intimations of what was said to be spiritual agency, but
all equally out of sight. A few marvellous things were said by
Home—secrets occasionally—which the hearer thought no one knew but
himself, but secrets of the most uninteresting and unimportant character.
And then the unbeliever passed out, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or
weep; whether he had assisted at a religious meeting or a farce; whether
he had been in the company of a mortal fitted for a solemn mission to an
idle and adulterous generation seeking after a sign, or whether all he
had seen and heard was but the clever manœuvring of a clever professor of
legerhave to take his stand with the Brothers Davenport and other
doubtful mediums who have had their day.
The Spiritualists in this country set great store by Home. They have
never been able in our cold climate to raise mediums worth talking about.
The latter have been chiefly American importations. Mr. Harris came as a
preacher of Spiritualism, and, after a few Sundays at Store Street,
vanished like a spirit, and was heard of no more. A _Spiritual Magazine_
was started. Mrs. Marshall and her niece, of 22, Red Lion Street,
Holborn, were declared by that—we presume official authority—to be
“Media.” Then came the solid testimony of a learned American judge,
declaring “the first thing demonstrated to us is that we can commune with
the spirits of the departed; that such communication is through the
instrumentality of persons yet living; that the fact of mediumship is the
result of physical organization; that the kind of communion is effected
by moral causes; and that the power, like our other faculties, is
possessed in different degrees, and is capable of improvement by
cultivation.” But the sect did not prosper. Then came grotesque
indications of spiritual presence. Not content with table-rapping, the
spirits had recourse to all kinds of antics, and the subject of
Spiritualism became more and more distasteful to the intelligent, and
more and more popular with that large class of idle wealthy men and women
who have no healthy occupation, and are always in search of excitement.
The climax was reached when the _Cornhill_ told how Mr. Home floated in
the air, how heavy tables would leap from one end of the room to the
other, how music was produced on accordions, “grand at times, at others
pathetical, at others distant and long-drawn,” when those accordions were
held by no mortal hands. “I can state,” wrote Dr. Gulley, of Malvern,
“that the record made in the article ‘Stranger than Fiction’ is in every
particular correct; that the phenomena therein related actually took
place, and moreover that no trick-machinery, sleight of hand, or other
artistic contrivance, produced what we heard and beheld. I am quite as
convinced of this last as I am of the facts themselves.” Well might the
Spiritualists crow; had not Robert Owen and Lord Lyndhurst also believed?
Was it not uncharitable to say that they were in their dotage? The
testimony of such men settled everything.
In America, Spiritualism is more prosperous than in England. In the
“Plain Guide to Spiritualism” Mr. Clarke tells us there are in that
country 500 public mediums who receive visitors; more than 50,000 private
ones; 500 books and pamphlets on the subject have been published, and
many of them immensely circulated; there are 500 public speakers and
lecturers on it, and more than 1000 occasional ones. There are nearly
2000 places for public circles, conferences, or lectures, and in many
places flourishing public schools. The decided believers are 2,000,000,
the nominal ones nearly 5,000,000; on the globe itself it is calculated
there are 20,000,000 supposed to recognise the fact of spiritual
intercourse. In Paris and the different parts of France the
manifestations have been almost of every kind, and of the most decisive
and distinguished character. “Great numbers of persons have been cured
by therapeutic mediums,” writes William Howitt, “of diseases and injuries
incurable by all ordinary means. Some of these persons are well known to
me, and are every day bearing their testimony in aristocratic society.”
Writing thus, Mr. Howitt defines Spiritualism “as the great theologic and
philosophic reformer of the age; the great requickener of religious life;
the great consoler and establisher of hearts; the great herald to the
wanderers of earth starved upon the husks of mere college dogmas.” “I
believe,” says Mr. C. Hall, “that as it now exists, Spiritualism has
mainly but one purpose—to confute and destroy Materialism, by supplying
sure, and certain, and _palpable_ evidence that to every human being God
gives a soul, which He ordains shall not perish when the body dies.”
This, as good old Isaak Walton says, in narrating Dr. Donne’s Vision,
“this is a relation that will beget some wonder; and it well may, for
most of our world are at present possessed with an opinion that miracles
and visions are ceased.”
What is Spiritualism? Ask its opponents. They regard it as necromancy,
a practice not only forbidden under the Old Testament, but which even in
the New we find classed by St. Paul under the general denomination of
witchcraft, with such works of the flesh as idolatry, murder, adultery,
and drunkenness, concerning all of which the Apostle Paul adds the solemn
declaration (Gal. v. 19–21), “That they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God.” Such undoubtedly is the feeling entertained
with regard to Spiritualism by the great majority of orthodox Christians,
who are quite satisfied by Scripture testimony, who accept what they
think God has revealed to them in His Book, and who seek or require
nothing more. In a weak but well-meaning work just put into my hands
(“Spiritualism and other Signs”) I read: “The whole system is essentially
opposed to faith in, and walking with, Jesus Christ, and the Spiritualist
knows it.” The writer quotes the well-known text: “Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking
lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” At
the same time there are many in the Christian Church of undoubted piety
and intelligence who are believers in Spiritualism. After all, however,
they are the exception rather than the rule. Amongst all sects there is
a condemnation of Spiritualism of a very sweeping character. In this one
thing Wesleyans, Low Churchmen, and Congregationalists are agreed. The
outer world, the Secularists and the Positivists, of course regard
Spiritualism with the same scorn and unbelief with which they regard all
religion, whether true or false, whether old as the hills or but
yesterday’s creation.
“It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the
Creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has
ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death.
All argument is against it, but all belief is for it.” Such is a
sentence I borrow from Dr. Johnson. It is as applicable to the present
time as to that in which he lived.
In conclusion, let me add, as a distinct organization, hitherto
Spiritualism has failed in this country. I hear nothing of the
_Spiritual Athenæum_ now, nothing of Mr. Harris, either as preacher or
poet, very little even of Mr. Home. Strange that a man who could not
write an ordinary note decently should have been a favourite medium of
the spirits. I am aware, however, the Spiritualists will extract an
argument out of that last remark of mine in favour of Spiritualism. A
young Jewish convert it is said would go to Rome. His teacher, a priest,
feared, knowing Rome too well. On his return he questioned his pupil as
to what he saw in Rome. “Ah!” said he, “I am persuaded now your religion
is of God, otherwise it would have perished of the wickedness of its
professors.”
THE CAMPBELLITES.
In America of late years there has been an enormous increase of what are
called the Campbellites. They now number in that country 500,000, have
fifteen colleges, and a large university with 800 students; they have
2000 churches, and 1000 regular ministers. They are also well
represented as regards literature. They have one quarterly, six or seven
weeklies, two ladies’ magazines, and several Sunday-school papers. In
London they are not a numerous class. They have places of worship in the
Milton Hall, Camden Town, and in College Street, Chelsea. The truth is,
as regards chapels and churches, public worship is as much a social as a
religious institution. Fashion has a great deal to do with the
attendance. It is the fashion to go to church. It is not the fashion to
run after new sects or preachers of new doctrines. In a flourishing
church there are societies which bring people into contact with one
another—these promote in their turn, like the far-famed ale of Trinity,
“brotherly neighbourhood.” The old ladies get a habit of
gossiping—Jones, Brown, and Robinson take tea together—and then young
people form alliances in consequence often of a serious and matrimonial
character. It is uphill work, then, in London for a little isolated
cause. The odds against its permanent success are infinite. Still the
Campbellites are making way. They have a fine base of operations in
America, and they are spreading over England,—if they are not doing much
in the Metropolis. They are good, pious people, and earnest in the
conviction that they alone understand and maintain apostolical charity;
and deeply deploring the present divided and unhappy state of the
Christian Church, and with a view to unity, they increase the number of
divisions by withdrawing from all other religious bodies, and forming a
fresh one of their own.
Who are the Campbellites? I will endeavour to answer the question.
Their creed, as they tell us, is simply the Messiahship. According to
them, the Christian creed thus presents for individual and immediate
acceptance the one living, personal, loving, Divine, all-wise and
omnipotent Saviour from ignorance, sin, and rebellion. Humanly devised
and written creeds demand faith in abstract metaphysical, theological,
ecclesiastical, and political propositions, and have so effectually
supplanted the good confession, that though admitted as a doctrine, few
churches or professors of the present day would consider themselves safe
in depending solely on its saving faith or belief in God’s testimony as
contained in His Word, as delivered by apostles and prophets, and as
corroborated by signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the
Holy Spirit. Campbellism distinguishes the Gospel not only from the
words of men, but from Scripture generally—that Jesus is its subject. It
apprehends him not only as Jesus of Nazareth, but as God manifest in the
flesh—the Son and Christ of the Father consecrated to the high offices of
Prophet, Priest, and King. It recognises the applicability and reference
of the Saviour’s mission and work to the individual himself as clearly as
if he were the only sinner for whom Christ has died; nor is it a mere
intellectual assent, but a willing, heartfelt reception of the truth and
surrender of the whole man, body, soul, and spirit. Now, as I imagine
most orthodox Christians would say as much, and would state their belief
in similar terms, with the exception of the Presbyterians and
Episcopalians, who have the advantage or disadvantage, whatever it may
be, of having to repeat a creed of more scholastic character, the
question still remains, why cannot the Campbellites worship with other
Christians? I must frankly confess there is in their services nothing
more fitted to make an impression upon the world than there is in the
services of other denominations; neither at Chelsea nor in Camden Town do
you get from their preachers an idea that they are men of greater power,
higher spiritual life, deeper experience, or more usefulness than are
others. Clearly this definition of Christian belief is no warrant for
another schism, even though the aim be Christian unity, and the putting a
stop to the endless differences which are the grief of the Christian and
the laugh of the worldling. Their form of worship is eminently simple
and dissenting—a revival, it may be, of that of apostolic times—that I
cannot say as, according to some, there are remains of a liturgy in the
Pauline epistles. It is not clear how the ancients worshipped, but it is
clear the Campbellites simply sing and pray, and read the Scriptures and
deliver an address. They are Baptists, and they believe that Baptism is
essential to salvation. Baptist churches are numerous in London. No
Baptist need hire room, or chapel, or barn, or hall, and meet there to
edify himself and his friends apart from the great and active community
who feel as he does in that matter. The Campbellites maintain that many
things are wrong which are done in other churches. They assume that
there was a greater purity in apostolic times than now, and they aim to
revive it. For this purpose they exalt the power of the Church, and
depreciate that of the ministry. I don’t learn that they have all things
in common, though that was certainly one of the most prominent features
in apostolic times; but they draw a sharp line between the Church and the
world, and in their Sunday services almost ignore the latter. They have
little of that charity which hopeth all things, which thinketh no evil,
which is long-suffering. If they are building a chapel they would not
take the money of an unconverted man. If they were collecting
subscriptions for the sending out Evangelists, for the printing of
religious books and tracts, for the support of a Christian ministry, they
would refuse those of worldly men. More logical or more consistent in
small matters, they make no provision in their books of praise for the
unconverted man. I find in their hymn-book no one verse in the whole
volume is designed to be sung simply by the unconverted. Their hymns are
for those who, having the spirit of adoption, cry, Abba Father! It is
proper, says the writer of the preface to the volume to which I refer, it
is proper for convicted sinners, who do not know the way, to seek
salvation, but they are not called to sing their sorrow, much less are
Christians called to unite with them. Again, he tells us the unconverted
have no need to sing prayers for pardon. What then, I may ask, are they
to do? The answer is that, they may stand and listen and be sung at, as
well as preached at. Mr. King, the writer already quoted, says, “Though
there are not hymns for the unconverted to sing, there are appeals to the
unconverted to be sung by the church.” Practically, however, the
arrangement differs little from that of other churches. A book is put
into your hands, and the chances are, people who are in the habit of
singing sing. As only immersed adults are Christians, it is not clear
what the young people who attend their service are; that they sing I can,
however, testify. It is to be feared that the Campbellites are not
exempt from the faults of all religious worship, as manifested in
strength of expression. If men and women believed what they say or sing
in all our churches and chapels, little would remain for us but the
Millennium.
The Campbellites do seek to guard against this danger. It is the Church
that sings. It is the Church that worships. All Christian worship is in
Scripture confined to Christians, and necessarily so, for worship offered
by any one else is not Christian. Thus it is only on the faithful in
Christ Jesus that the various items of Christian worship are enjoined:
they are profaned and prostituted when applied to any others. In the
morning of the Sabbath the Church meets by itself to break bread and sing
and pray; on such occasions the members exhort and edify one another. In
the evening the service is of a more general character; appeals are made
to the unconverted, and they are invited to attend.
“All you that are weary and sad come,
And you that are cheerful and glad come,
In robes of humility clad come,
Away from the waters of strife.
Let youth in the freshness of bloom come,
Let man in the pride of his noon come,
Let age on the verge of the tomb come,
Let none in their pride stay away.”
As a matter of fact, the unconverted do not avail themselves of the
offer. It is a small place of meeting, the Milton Hall, but it is quite
large enough, and more than large enough for the church and congregation.
One brother prays and reads the Scriptures and gives out a hymn, another
brother delivers an address, another brother concludes with prayer, and
then there is a prayer-meeting after. The advantage of the Campbellites
seems to me that they are only a little duller than their neighbours.
The little ones around me, when I attended, found it hard to keep awake,
and yet the service is short. It commences at seven and closes a little
after eight. As they have no paid ministry, as their elders and deacons
take the chief parts in the service, even after supporting an evangelist
their expenses are not heavy, and in this they find a plausible plea.
If, say they, half a dozen churches are built where one would be enough,
and half a dozen ministers are kept where only one is required, clearly
in consequence of these divisions amongst brethren, there is a lamentable
waste of money and power and spiritual influence. Unfortunately, as
regards London there is no force in the plea, and will not be till the
time comes when the various sections of the Christian Church shall have
made all necessary provision for the spiritual wants of the metropolis.
THE MORMONS.
Thirty years ago, writes Hepworth Dixon, in that glowing account of
Mormonism which, next to “Spiritual Wives,” he seems to consider as the
crowning glory of his life,—“thirty years ago there were six Mormons in
America, none in England, none in the rest of Europe, and to-day (1866)
they have twenty thousand saints in Salt Lake City; four thousand each in
Ogden, Prono, and Logan; in the whole of their stations in these valleys
(one hundred and six settlements properly organized by them and ruled by
bishops and elders) a hundred and fifty thousand souls; in other parts of
the United States about eight or ten thousand; in England and its
dependencies about fifteen thousand; in the rest of Europe ten thousand;
in Asia and the South Sea Islands about twenty thousand; in all not less,
perhaps, than two hundred thousand followers of the gospel preached by
Joseph Smith. All these converts have been gathered into the temple in
thirty years.”
The other day the Mormons of the London district met at the Music Hall,
Store Street, and held a conference. Mr. Franklin Richards, the
President, delivered an address. From his speech it appeared that in the
metropolis there were nine branches, one hundred and seven elders of
conference, fifty-three priests, twenty-four teachers, thirty deacons.
During the six months preceding 132 persons had been baptized, sixteen
cut off or had died; the total number in the London district, including
officers, was 1172. I imagine the Mormonites flourish better in
districts less enlightened. Around Birmingham they are very sanguine,
and I have seen the miners in Merthyr Tydfil by thousands listening to
the gospel according to Joe Smith and Brigham Young.
The principal place of worship of the Mormons or Latter-day Saints is in
the Commercial Road, but there are others; one of them is in George
Street, Gower Street. In that locality there is a very shabby dancing
saloon, from which the graces seem long since to have departed. At three
o’clock every Sunday afternoon the Mormons assemble there. On a raised
platform may be seen seated some seven or eight men, apparently decent
workmen. Below them is a table, around which are a few lads, who set the
tunes and take round the sacrament, which is administered every Sunday to
all, including any strangers and children who may feel disposed to
partake of it. Benches fill up the rest of the room, which are occupied
chiefly by females with their families—including, of course, the baby,
the inevitable feature in all gatherings of the lower orders. All seem
enthusiastic and very friendly, and wretchedly poor. Their idea of
Mormonism seems to be chiefly that of a successful emigration scheme,
only mixed up with a little of the religious phraseology, which is most
fluently uttered unfortunately by the unthinking masses to whom words do
not represent ideas. You might fancy as you enter that you had made a
mistake, and got amongst the Primitive Methodists. The hymns are very
much the same, and so is frequently the style of prayer. Sermon there is
none, but instead you have addresses, the burden of which is generally of
one kind. The speaker is thankful that at last he has known the Lord,
and wishes he had done more for Him, and hopes, if health and strength be
spared, to do more. There is also generally an address of a wider
character. The Lord is calling them out of this country, where the
Gentiles have the rule over them, and they are to hasten, old and young,
to the City of the Saints. They are to pay their debts, mend their old
clothes, save all they can, and then those that cannot pay for their
voyage will be helped to join the settlement in Utah. Apart from the
prayers and hymns, these meetings seem secular rather than spiritual,—to
have reference more to this world, than the next. If, as it seems to me,
the Mormonites in this country have had a Methodist training, they have
managed to eliminate pretty completely the Methodist theology; but,
perhaps, they treat it as they do the Bible. The Mormons profess to
believe in it, at the same time they omit its spiritual teaching
altogether. Their theology may be best explained in one of their own
hymns:—
“The God that others worship is not the God for me,
He has neither part nor body, and cannot hear and see;
But I’ve a God that lives above,
A God of power and love,
A God of Revelation,—Oh, that’s the God for me!
Oh! that’s the God for me; oh! that’s the God for me.
“A church without apostles is not the church for me,
It’s like a ship dismasted, afloat upon the sea,
But I’ve a church that’s always led
By the twelve stars around its head,
A church with good foundations—oh! that’s the church for me!
Oh! that’s the church for me! oh! that’s the church for me!
* * * * *
“The heaven of sectarians is not the heaven for me,
So doubtful its location, neither on land nor sea,
But I’ve a heaven on the earth,
The land that gave me birth,
A heaven of light and knowledge—oh! that’s the heaven for me!
Oh! that’s the heaven for me! oh! that’s the heaven for me!”
Such are the songs sung, with a fervour unknown in better attended and
genteeler places of worship.
The Mormons speak of us as Gentiles, yet in reality they take our creed
and add to it polygamy and communism. Their belief as regards Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost is almost orthodox, and if they claim to be divinely
ruled and to have the power of working miracles, do not other sects the
same? Like the Quakers, they can dispense with religious forms. Like
the ancient Israelites, they are a peculiar people, but what is peculiar
to them, and that which constitutes the secret of their success, is
this—that they preach to the poor, and wretched, and starving, that the
kingdom of God has been founded upon earth, that it belongs to the
saints, and that they are the saints. Man, they say, is part of the
substance of God, and he will become God. He was not created by God, but
existed from all eternity. He was not born in sin, and is only
accountable for his own misdeeds. Angels, it seems, from what Young told
Hepworth Dixon, “are the souls of bachelors and monogamists, being
incapable of issue, unblessed with female companions, unfitted to reign
and rule in the celestial spheres. They have failed,” said Young, “in
not living the patriarchal life—in not marrying many wives. An unmarried
Mormon fills but a low scale in the order of things.” Man being of the
race of God becomes eligible for a celestial throne: his household of
wives and children being his kingdom, not on earth only, but in heaven,
polygamy is thus his highest duty, and most glorious privilege. In the
East, polygamy does not answer. The races with one wife there breed
faster than the Turks. In the city of the Mormons, under polygamy,
births are very numerous. The actual wives of Young are twelve! the
twelve apostles own from three to four each. Young has forty-eight
children, and all have their quivers full. The women, according to Mr.
Dixon, dislike polygamy nevertheless.
In this country and among the Mormons the doctrine of polygamy is not
that on which much stress is laid. Here the Mormon preaches temperance,
sobriety, honesty, industry, the need of saving up money, and the
advantages of emigration to Utah. In the _Millennial Star_, the organ of
the community, one brother writes from Wales:—
“The Word of Wisdom is quite a text with us of late, and is producing
very good effects. We see its fruits manifested among the Saints,
several of the brethren leaving off tobacco and other things that are
injurious to the constitution. _The tea is a matter that bothers the
sisters considerably_, but in the face of this difficulty many are
leaving it off, and pronouncing it of no beneficial effect in any way
whatever. I think that much will be done by abstaining from those
things towards clothing those children that are very thinly clad.”
It is in this way that Mormonism has spread. It has come to the poorest
of the poor, and used their own language. Its phraseology is that dear
to the natural heart. We are all too prone to throw our responsibility
on others: It is the Lord who saves me. It is the devil who makes me
bad; and it is a great help to the ignorant and uneducated, not merely to
have spiritual states shadowed forth in earthly language, but to feel
that, after all, heaven is here in the shape of comfortable dwellings,
wives and children, raiment to wear, and a bellyfull. “This is great
encouragement to the saints in their pilgrimages here in old Babylon, and
stimulates them to more diligence in building up the kingdom of God, and
delivering themselves from the yoke of tyranny and oppression, to enjoy
the liberty of the people of God in the valleys of the mountains.” Thus
writes one of the elders with reference to certain manifestations of the
gift of tongues; but I quote the passage here as applicable in an eminent
degree, and as illustrating the religious phraseology, affected no doubt
for certain ends by the Mormons. The kingdom of God, for instance, of
the theologians may be difficult of apprehension to the illiterate and
the rude; but if it means to me a good house and good living in Utah, it
at once assumes an attractive form. If to live in England is to live in
Babylon, of course it is my duty to emigrate; and if Brigham Young is the
Lord’s deputy on earth, then to disobey his call is an act of sin. So
degraded are many of our brethren and sisters in this Christian land,
where we have one parson at the least in every parish, that they are
utterly unable to contemplate anything apart from its accidental forms.
Their God is a God of parts and passions; their religion is one of
sensation; their heaven a loss of physical pains and the presence of
physical delights; they become at once an easy prey to the Mormonite
preacher when for ten pounds he offers them the realization of their
hopes, not at the end of life, but now, and tells them that in the Land
of the Saints they shall hunger no more, nor thirst any more.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ADVANCED RELIGIONISTS.
The Church of Progress.
At length, if I am to believe what I hear and see, the religious problem
of the age has been solved, and I am presented with a form of worship
which is in accordance with the discoveries of science and the dignity of
man. In St. George’s Hall, Langham Place, this new association meets;
its president is Baxter Langley, Esq. It dispenses with prayer, and with
the reading of the Bible, but instead there is a performance of sacred
music by a choir of a hundred voices, with solos sung by professional
ladies and gentlemen specially engaged, and then the President himself,
smiling and buoyant as if it were an election meeting, as chairman,
performs many solos on his own account. In short, as a paper lying
before me says, “Everything will be done to make the service delightful,
whilst instruction will be secured by a popular lecture each evening from
some gentleman eminent in science, literature, or art.”
It seems to be a speciality of this Church of Progress that it disappears
in summer altogether. It is only in the winter time that its doors are
thrown open—not at all to the poor and needy, but to those who can pay.
Is not this a little hard? Life is short, and the disciple of progress
may well mourn that for him half the year exists in vain. Then, again,
this Church of Progress, as much as the oldest and most-abused Churches
of Christendom, makes very rigorous requirements on the pocket. Sixpence
is the minimum paid. If you would hear comfortably you must pay a
shilling. If you would have a seat where you can see and hear still more
comfortably you must shell out half-a-crown. Now, if a man goes with his
wife and family, it is obvious that the sum he will have to pay will be,
if he have but a scanty income, no small consideration. It is true that
a reduction is made if you take tickets for the course, but what I find
fault with is that the casual poor have no chance of being benefited by
this new gospel—that it does not appeal to them—that it ignores them
altogether. I may hear the greatest of Dissenting preachers, I may sit
under deans and bishops—nay, I may listen to the finished accents of an
archbishop—without putting my hand in my pocket, but for the lecture at
St. George’s Hall, and the sacred minstrelsy there, I must at the least
pay sixpence. The sum is a small one, but it has a tendency to narrow
the Church and to limit its influence—it must keep outside many who
otherwise would worship there. Why should the Church of Progress only
appeal to the man with sixpence in his pocket? Is it only the capitalist
whose soul is worth looking after? For common people will any old-wife’s
fable do?
A more serious fault may be found with the Church of Progress. “We are
not animated by any spirit of antagonism,” they say; “and as we propose
to occupy a new field of utility, we see no reason why our assemblies
should be regarded with hostility by other bodies.” “Our religion is
positive and constructive, not negative and aggressive.” “Our Church is
founded upon the recognition of the primary importance of human welfare;
and its purpose will be to develop the power of philanthropy by education
in the truths of science and philosophy, and by the elevating influence
of the highest and purest art.” What Protestant Church cannot say the
same? As to art, whence does the Church of Progress get its music, which
perhaps is its chief attraction, but from the Churches which it tells us
are losing their hold upon the minds of the people? It rears
philanthropy: what was Peabody? It talks of philosophy: what were such
philosophers as Sir David Brewster or Professor Faraday? Equally
delusive is its denial of antagonism. It is founded for those “whose
religious ideas find no suitable exponent in any of the existing
Churches.” The existing Churches more or less appeal to the Bible, and
to Christ as Master, and place before the mind as consolation, or
warning, or allurement, the splendours and the terrors of a world to
come. In the new Church all this is set on one side. Science, not
dogma, is to be the teacher, and they sing—
“Reason and love! thy kingdom come,
Oh, Church of endless ages rise!
Till fairer shines our mortal home
Than heavens we sought beyond the skies.”
Is it true to say that between this new light and the old there is no
antagonism? Is it honest to say, as they do in the address already
referred to, “we ask no one to adopt or deny any of the creeds of the
Churches. We shall endeavour to promulgate truth, and truth is always
Divine”? Is it not clear that no one can join the Church of Progress
unless he has ceased to believe in the creeds of the Churches? that it is
impossible to believe in Christ and Baxter Langley as well? When Pilate
said unto the Jews, “Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas, or
Jesus which is called Christ?” none but an idiot would have said there
was no antagonism between the two. Again, it may be asked, by what right
do these “earnest, conscientious men and women” in Langham Place call
themselves a Church? Is it for the sake of deceiving the public? To
teach art, or science, or literature, is not religion. Why, then, define
as a Church people who meet on a Sunday to hear lectures on science,
literature, and art? Undoubtedly, people may do worse on a Sunday night,
but in listening to such lectures they have no right to say they are at
church.
Mr. George Jacob Holyoake is also one of their lecturers; and if he be
not antagonistic, what is he? Of all irrepressible men Mr. Holyoake is
undoubtedly the most so. You meet him everywhere. Not a social science
meeting, nor a political gathering, nor a philosophical discussion exists
within reach of London but he is present at it, to take part in its
discussions as the exponent of the views, and feelings, and desires of
the British working man. If London is demonstrative, as when a Garibaldi
appears upon the stage, foremost of those who meet to do him honour is
Mr. Holyoake. In the House of Commons he is similarly prominent. In the
Speaker’s gallery or in the lobby you may see him all night long, here
speaking to a member, there listening to one as if the care of all the
country rested on his shoulders. I don’t fancy Mr. Holyoake is the great
man he takes himself to be. I deny his right to be the exponent of the
class of whom he condescends to be the ornament and shield. I admit his
boundless activity, his wonderful talent for intrusion, the cleverness of
his talk. I admit, too, the energy with which in the course of a now
extended career he has travelled the land, with a view to convince his
fellow-men that there is no future, that he who says there is but repeats
the old worn-out fiction of the priests, and that it is for this world
rather than the next that we must labour and strive. Undoubtedly for Mr.
Holyoake some extenuation must be made. A man may well doubt the
Christianity which instead of removing his religious doubts throws him
into gaol for the crime of expressing them. Nevertheless, I may doubt,
if not the sincerity,—for about that there can be no question—at any rate
the truth and wisdom of his creed; and may, after all, prefer the light
of the Gospel to that which he asks me to admire. I may admit that there
have been quacks, and impostors, and charlatans in the religious
world—that the Church has fearfully failed in its mission—that, armed
with the sword of the State, it has been often a curse and a blight—but
it does not follow that the truth, of which the Church should be the
living organization, has no existence, that it has no mission in this
world, that the Bible is to be trampled under foot, that the Saviour is
to be abolished, and that for man, instead of the narrow path and the
heavenly crown, nothing is left but that he should eat, and drink, and
die. Such, however, I believe, is Mr. Holyoake’s Gospel. As to his
utterances on Sunday when I heard him, they were of the poorest character
possible. The subject was the common people; and after describing three
or four classes of them, he finished with the inculcation of the by no
means original idea—that they were not so bad as they seem, that we had
to respect in them the humanity which, under favourable circumstances,
might be developed into something better. I never heard Mr. Holyoake
preach before, and I shall take care never to hear him again. As a
speaker, one of Mr. Spurgeon’s rawest students would beat him hollow.
THE INDEPENDENT RELIGIOUS REFORMERS.
The Theists in London are, we are told, very numerous, and yet, till
about ten years since, no steps had been taken by them to provide public
buildings in which to assemble for instruction and conversation, and no
church had been opened in which they could invite their friends to hear
the principles of Theism explained and defended. In order to supply that
want, Dr. Perfitt, a layman, resolved upon renting South Place Chapel,
Finsbury Square, for the purpose of delivering lectures and discourses
upon various religious topics. In 1858 the Society of Independent
Religious Reformers was organized out of the hearers he had thus gathered
around him. A committee was elected, rules were passed, and the
following were declared to be the objects of the Society:—
1. To secure the association and co-operation of all persons who are
desirous of cultivating the religious sentiment in a manner essentially
free from the evil spirit of creed, from the intolerance of sectarianism,
and the leaven of priestcraft; of those persons who respect the authority
of reason, and reverentially accept the decrees of conscience.
2. To discover and methodize truths connected either with the laws of
nature, the progress of thought, or the lives of good men in all ages and
countries, so that they may be rendered of practical value as guides to a
healthy, moral, and manly life.
3. To assist, as in the performance of a religious duty, in the
regeneration of society by co-operating with every organized body whose
aim is to abolish superstition, ignorance, drunkenness, political
injustice, or any other of the numerous evils which now afflict the
community.
To carry out these ideas the noble painting gallery, built by the late
Sir Benjamin West, in Newman Street, Oxford Street, was procured and
fitted up. This large hall seats 1500 persons. A good organ was
erected, and schools and a library were talked of. At this place, on
Sunday mornings, the public are treated to what is called a free
religious service, based upon the great facts and principles of
intellectual Theism. In the evenings popular lectures are delivered
bearing upon science, history, or religious free thought. In both cases
Dr. Perfitt is the orator. On many occasions the Doctor has appeared in
public. Under not very pleasant circumstances—for he had little
support—he appealed to Finsbury, but in vain, to send him into
Parliament. It is clear, then, what of success the man has accomplished,
or of good the man has done, has been chiefly in connexion with the
Society of Independent Reformers. We were told in 1863 “the church in
Newman Street is but the forerunner of hundreds which will rest upon the
same foundation.” Dr. Perfitt has been more than seven years in Newman
Street, and quite twenty at his work. A man can do a great deal in such
a space of time if he has a fluent tongue, as is abundantly illustrated,
not to go beyond our age, in the careers of Father Mathew, Father
Ignatius, John B. Gough, or Mr. Spurgeon. Irving did not last so long,
yet, metaphorically speaking, he managed to set the Thames on fire. It
is clear Dr. Perfitt has peculiarly advantageous conditions under which
to work. In the first place, as his aim is—
“To serve the truth where’er ’tis found,
On Christian or on heathen ground”—
he has a wide field over which his oratory may range. It cannot all be
barren from Dan to Beersheba. In the second place, according to the
Independent Religious Reformers, the great want of our times is such as
they are. “It is well known,” they tell us, “that although the orthodox
religious establishments are earnestly supported, they cannot gain the
hearts of the people. The intelligence of England has outgrown the old
creeds and formulas. Theism is secretly approved by thousands.” The
time, then, is ripe for such a mission as Dr. Perfitt proposes. The hour
has come, and he is the man. It is not in his negative and critical
aspect that he is to be judged. In the position in that respect he has
assumed there is no novelty. Unfortunately, the Church of England, like
all established churches, more or less lays itself open to the most
irreverent criticism. The new wine cannot be put in the old bottles. We
can quite agree with him that “the majority of the clergy have no just
conception of what, according to the nature of things, they are called
upon to do;” that St. Paul would find himself sadly out of place were he
called upon to preach to the congregation of a fashionable suburban
church; and that there would indeed be a flutter and commotion raised
were “the Archbishop of Canterbury, cutting himself adrift from the level
of Belgravia, to stand out before men denouncing woe upon the butterflies
of fashion and the Dundrearies of Parliament as Jesus denounced the
Scribes and Pharisees of old.” But the saying these things does not
constitute a man the founder of a new and better sect. Mr. Froude tells
us “the clergyman of the nineteenth century subscribes the Thirty-nine
Articles with a smile as might have been worn by Samson when his
Philistine mistress bound his arms with the cords and withs.” It is
scarcely possible to write a bitterer thing of the clergy, yet Mr. Froude
is not, so far as we are aware, an Independent Religious Reformer. Even
of the Church of which such hard things may be said, and justly said, we
may argue that its theory of the identity of Church and State is a noble
one, and that the dream of such men as “the judicious Hooker,” of
Coleridge, of Dr. Arnold, is that of all who, in stately cathedral or
humble conventicle, pray Sunday after Sunday to the common Father, “Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done upon earth as it is in heaven.” Man is a
religious animal; the heart is true to its old instincts. There is no
peace for his soul, no rest for the sole of the foot, no shelter for him
in the storm, no brightness in the cloud, no glory in the sun, no hope in
life, no life in death, unless he can believe, adore, and love. But we
have forgotten Dr. Perfitt. Well, we need be in no hurry. If you go to
Newman Street you will find very few people there by eleven. The
exclusively religious service, as one of the hearers informed us it was,
generally commences at a quarter past, where in the large hall about a
hundred may be collected together, the majority, of course, males,
chiefly of the lower section, I should imagine, of the middle class.
There is music; then the Doctor reads a chapter of the Bible, and takes
it to pieces; then there is more music; then a prayer, and a half-hour’s
sermon, from a regular text, according to the fashion of the orthodox,
but generally coming to a very unorthodox conclusion. Indeed, the former
come off hardly at the Doctor’s hands. He demolished them as easily as
if they were so many men of straw; President Edwards, Richard Baxter, Mr.
Spurgeon, the apostles, and their great Teacher, all look very small by
the side of the clear, logical, learned, fluent, sarcastic, infallible
Doctor, who is the heir of all the ages under the sun; who talks of
Zoroaster, and Vedas, and Shasters; who is as familiar with Brahma and
Buddha as if he had assisted at their birth, and who knows what’s o’clock
in Sanscrit better than you or I, my good sir, in ordinary English.
After the sermon comes the collection, and the congregational
dinner-hour, for the sale of the beer for which, the neighbouring publics
open just as the Independent Religious Reformers, exhausted by the
Doctor’s omniscience, require the refreshing fluid.
“Hae, sirs!” said an elderly female in a remote part of Scotland, as for
the first time she saw a black man; “hae, sirs, what canna be done for
the penny!” Assuredly some such feeling must be entertained by the
listener who for the first time hears Dr. Perfitt in his rostrum in
Cambridge Hall. For a pound a year you may have this pleasure every
Sunday, and become one of the Independent Reformers. What more can man
desire?
SOUTH PLACE, FINSBURY SQUARE.
The religion of humanity has been for a time dominant in South Place,
Finsbury Square. Its oldest and original teacher in connexion with the
place was the late W. Johnson Fox, M.P., a popular writer and eloquent
orator, who did much in his day and generation on behalf of freedom in
trade, in politics, and religion, and did it well. Nor did he labour in
vain as regards himself. Born in an humble position, he became a student
at Homerton College and an orthodox Dissenter. In a little while he
joined the Unitarians, and then left them for a freer and fuller
religious creed and form of worship. He had many friends. His letters,
signed “Publicola,” in the _Weekly Dispatch_, were the delight of the
working classes; and his Anti-Corn-law orations charmed all, and there
were tens of thousands who had the privilege of listening to them. He
was returned to Parliament by the electors of Oldham, and a monument
erected to his memory there still perpetuates his name. He died at a
ripe old age, ever having preserved the character of an independent and
honourable man. As a religious teacher he was no extraordinary success.
It was rarely indeed that South Place was very full. Of course, the
hearers were the very _élite_ of the human race. Wherever you
go—especially among sects not particularly orthodox or popular—the men
and women with whom you come in contact are no ordinary men and women.
By a happy dispensation of Providence they fail to see themselves as
others see them, and are as firmly convinced of their own intellectual
superiority over a benighted British public as they are of the truth of
their principles and of their ultimate success.
“There is a religion of humanity,” said Mr. Fox, “though not
enshrined in articles and creeds, though it is not to be read merely
in sacred books, and yet it may be read in all wherever they have
anything in them of truth and moral beauty,—a religion of humanity
which goes deeper than all because it belongs to the essentials of
our moral and intellectual constitution, and not to mere external
accidents, the proof of which is not in historical agreement or
metaphysical deduction, but in our own conscience and
consciousness,—a religion of humanity which unites and blends all
other religions, and makes one the men whose hearts are sincere, and
whose characters are true, and good, and harmonious, whatever may be
the deductions of their minds or their external profession,—a
religion of humanity which cannot perish in the overthrow of altars
or the fall of temples, which survives them all, and which, were
every derived form of religion obliterated from the face of the
earth, would recreate religion as the spring recreates the fruits and
flowers of the soul, bidding it bloom again in beauty, bear again its
rich fruits of utility, and fashion for itself such forms and modes
of expression as may best agree with the progressive condition of
mankind.”
It was in accordance with these ideas that the Sunday morning services in
South Place were carried on.
After Mr. Fox came Mr. Ierson, and a nearer approximation to regular
Unitarianism. But the place did not prosper; there were far too many
empty benches. He was succeeded by a gentleman formerly a Baptist
minister, but who had outgrown his sect, and for a little while there was
harmony and progress. Again there was an interregnum. “Seekers are,”
said old Oliver Cromwell, “next best to finders.” In London, especially
in these unsettled days of free inquiry, are many such, and to such the
pulpit of South Place was freely offered. I do not fancy as a rule
seekers are good preachers. To say anything effectually you must have
something to say. To make others weep you must weep yourself. With mere
negations you can never sway the minds or influence the lives of men. In
orthodox places of worship there is often much of dreariness. The
clergyman whose heart is not in his work is a miserable spectacle for
gods and men, but the dreariness of heterodoxy is infinitely greater; and
of all things under the sun the most miserable in the clerical way is the
sight of a would-be philosopher feebly diluting or expanding, as the case
may be, windy platitudes or transcendental moonshine. Under such an
infliction, as it may well be imagined, South Place did not flourish
greatly. At length, in due course, a man appeared to continue the work
which Mr. Fox had originated. His name is Mr. M. D. Conway. I believe
he is of American origin, and evidently under him the cause is in a
prosperous state. When I say prosperous, the term is not to be
understood as it would be in orthodox circles. The latter class of
religionists, when they say that a place is prosperous imply by the use
of such language that a place of worship is well filled; that men are
turned from sin to holiness, from serving the devil to serving God, that
the place is a centre of religious life and activity, and that all, young
and old, rich and poor, are to the best of their power and means
co-operating in Christian work. Prosperity in this sense cannot be
predicated of South Place. Its doors are only opened once a week. There
is no religious, or educational, or philanthropical agency connected with
the chapel; but there are more attendants than there were, and that
encourages Mr. Conway and his friends. Indeed, there is a talk amongst
them of establishing a Sunday-school. At the same time it seems to me
that the class of people who go to South Place are not socially or
intellectually what they were in Mr. Fox’s time—when the Cortaulds would
come up all the way from Braintree to hear Mr. Fox, when City lawyers
like the late Mr. Ashurst, and City magnates like the late Mr. Dillon,
were amongst the audience; when on a Sunday morning might be seen there
such men as Sir J. Bowring, or Macready, or Charles Dickens, and others
equally well known to fame. They left when Mr. Fox left. I believe Mr.
P. Taylor, M.P., still keeps up a connexion, more or less fitful and
uncertain, with the place. Sir Sydney Waterlow also still retains a
couple of sittings, but he is rarely there. Nevertheless, the
congregation has greatly increased; the chapel is quite three parts full.
Still they use the little book of hymns and anthems selected by Mr. Fox;
and the musical part of the service, always a great matter at South
Place, is as well conducted and as attractive as ever.
Mr. Conway is a very advanced thinker. The character of his preaching
and praying is purely theistic. He wars with dogmas in every form. It
may be a wing to-day, a fetter to-morrow. For him there are no sacred
books, or rather he places them all on an equality. For his motto he
goes to India, and quotes the Brahma Somaj. In this respect he is a true
follower of the late Mr. Fox, whose fascinating oratory owed very little
of its charm to that which orthodox Unitarians or orthodox Christians
hold highest and holiest; whose aim was more to pull down than to build
up, and who had a greater faculty for the exposition of Christian
fallacies than for the enunciating of truths and principles needful to
humanity in its hour of temptation, distress, danger, or death. Few have
his exquisite humour, his power of sarcasm, his acquaintance with modern
literature, his copious command of polished language, his expressive yet
calm delivery, his gentleness almost as touching as that of woman; but
that which was lacking in him often made men his inferiors in intellect,
his superiors in the art of arousing the spiritually dead, or in giving
to the moral wastes in our midst the vigour, the beauty, the fertility of
life.
THE SECULARISTS.
It is a sign of the times when Infidelity visits the workshop or the
factory, and challenges the admiration of the men in fustian—the men
whose hard labours and horny hands have helped to make England what it
is, and who in an increasing ratio are making their influence felt on the
Exchange where capital seeks investment, in the ancient halls where the
teachers of the next generation are training, in the study of the
political philosopher, in Parliaments where practical people assemble to
legislate after their necessarily imperfect fashion for the general weal.
It is said of Sir Godfrey Kneller that he was deeply shocked at hearing a
common labourer invoking imprecations on his own head. Some such feeling
must be entertained by the old-fashioned, scholarly sceptics at all times
met with in highly intellectual communities. Religion was a good thing
for the poor; it taught them to know their place, to be humble,
industrious, and not to murmur when deprived by human agency of the
rights to which all are born, or when by the same agency they were made
to bear innumerable wrongs. For such religion was intended; and for such
considerations it was right and proper that it should be accepted by
society—sanctioned by the law—its ministers rewarded and salaried by the
State. It was under the influence of some such feeling that Napoleon the
Great is reported to have said, if there were no God, it would be
necessary to invent one; and in a proportionate manner do the
philosophers feel alarm and indignation when the working man, for whom
such trouble has been taken,—for whom religion has, as it were, been
discovered,—for whom an Establishment, the most richly endowed with this
world’s goods in Christendom, rejoices to call itself the poor man’s
Church,—turns round, and, in his coarse, rough way, says, “Ladies and
gentlemen, I am much obliged to you. I see your little game. Pray don’t
take any trouble on my account. Please to leave me to go to the bad in
my own way. Give me the right to the free inquiry you claim for
yourselves, and don’t quarrel with me on account of its results.” Really
it seems to me the Secularist has the best of it. I may regret his
conclusions. I cannot blame his independent spirit.
Of the men who talk in this way it may be said, at any rate as regards
the metropolis, Robert Dale Owen was the teacher and apostle. Owen was
the first to proclaim to the masses that there was no such thing as moral
responsibility; that a man’s character was formed for him partly by
nature at his birth, and partly by the external influences to which he
was exposed. As man, there was for him no choice of right or wrong. Any
religion, and emphatically that of Christ, which proceeds upon the
supposition that man can lay hold of eternal life, can accept the offer
of God’s mercy, can believe and live, is false and to be rejected with
disdain. Owen was a man of blameless life—a man who made great
sacrifices of wealth, and time, and labour, on account of his ideas. As
his last apologist has well stated, “his condemnation of religion was not
the result of libertine excesses, nor of a philosophical conceit, but
followed honestly from the shallow theory he had adopted.” Amongst the
poor, ignorant, superficial denizens of our crowded cities he was hailed
as the regenerator of manhood, and made many converts. Nor are they to
be blamed. Owen met with an attentive hearing from such as Brougham and
Bentham, Earls Liverpool and Aberdeen, Jefferson and Van Buren, the Duke
of Kent and the King of Prussia; actually, we believe, he was presented
at Court. It is true in his old age he became a believer in spirits,
after all, and was buried in the little churchyard of Newton,
Montgomeryshire, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection
to eternal life; but by that time the truth or falsehood he had
proclaimed had sunk into many minds, had been re-uttered by many tongues,
had been commended to the working classes by no less a master of language
and argument than George Jacob Holyoake. Certainly, in the hands of the
latter, Owenism, under its new name of Secularism, lost none of its
power. The master was apt to be egotistic—dogmatic—much given to
repetition—very diffuse. Mr. Holyoake’s enemies cannot conscientiously
say he is that. His friends, many of them the cleverest of London men,
claim for him talents of no common order. A shop in Fleet Street was
opened—the _Reasoner_ was established—and Mr. Holyoake went all over the
land to emancipate the human mind, spell-bound by priestcraft, and to
roll back the double night of ages and of ignorance. In a little while
he retired from business, the shop in Fleet Street was shut up, the
_Reasoner_ reasoned no more—Mr. Holyoake ceased perambulating. Still we
have a genuine Apostolical succession: Mr. Bradlaugh takes up the
wondrous tale, and the _National Reformer_ records the triumphs of his
cause. According to him, all is prosperous. Hope paints a glorious
future—when man’s
“Regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,
And Reason on this mortal clime
Immortal dawn.”
Yet what is the fact? The _National Reformer_ costs 10_l._ a week, and
it does not pay. Its readers tell us their name is legion; yet it does
not pay. At any rate, it is constantly appealing to its public for
support. In every workshop or factory, in all our great hives of
intelligence and life, the Secularists boast their thousands. All the
intelligent operative manhood of England is, according to their own
account, theirs; yet their organ—the child of a giant—is very weak on its
legs, and very short of wind.
The headquarters of the Secularists is Cleveland Street, a street lying
in that mass of pauperism at the rear of Tottenham Court Road Chapel. In
that street there is a hall, originally erected, I believe, by Owen
himself. At any rate, it is the resort of the illuminated to whom his
philosophy has opened up a new moral world,—which, as regards
appearances, is little better than the benighted Egypt out of which they
have departed. Here you will find no free Gospel. The Secularists are
determined to make the best of this world. If you wish to enter, you
must pay; if you wish to show your gentility and sit near the lecturer,
you must pay twopence more. Previous to the lecturer commencing, a boy
goes up and down the room selling copies of the _National Reformer_, and
a table at one end is devoted to the sale of publications of a similar
character.
Cleveland Hall, every Sunday evening, then, is devoted to what are called
Popular Free-thought Lectures. The doors open at seven, the lectures
commence at half-past. The programme for the month of August, which I
have now before me, will give the reader an idea of what is meant by free
thought:—
“On Sunday evening, August 2, Mr. Charles Watts—An Impartial Estimate
of the Life and Teachings of the Founder of Christianity; on Sunday
evening, August 9, Iconoclast (Mr. Bradlaugh)—Capital and Labour, and
Trades’ Unions; on Sunday evening, August 16, Mrs. Harriet Law—The
Teachings and Philosophy of J. S. Mill, Esq.; on Sunday evening,
August 23, Mrs. Harriet Law—The Late Robert Owen: a Tribute to His
Memory, Drawn from a Comparison of Present Institutions and their
Effects, with those Advocated by that Eminent Philanthropist; on
Sunday evening, August 30, Mrs. Harriet Law, an Appeal to Women to
Consider their Interests in Connexion with the Social, Political, and
Theological Aspects of the Times.”
Let me add, discussions are invited at the close of each lecture, and
that, as may be anticipated, after a discussion the combatants remain of
the same opinion. Nevertheless, the Secularists enjoy these discussions
immensely—and no wonder, as on all such occasions they form not a
majority merely, but almost the entire assembly. It is not often they
find their match. Men who can meet them on a common platform are rare.
A sincere Christian is shocked and pained, and loses his temper. Every
cock can crow on his own dunghill; and at Cleveland Hall the Secularists
have it all their own way, and are merry at the expense of their
opponents. Nor is this all; they often indulge in a style of abuse which
sounds even to tolerant ears uncommonly like blasphemy. In fact, they
are often needlessly antagonistic, and vulgar, and coarse.
I have said Cleveland Hall is the headquarters of the society, for there
is a society of which Mr. Charles Watts is secretary. There is another
hall in the City Road; lectures are also, I believe, delivered elsewhere
in London on a Sunday evening, and there are at least four or five
secular societies. In the summer time they have open-air lectures on a
Sunday morning in different parts of London. When the writer has been at
Cleveland Hall, the room has generally been half full of respectable and
sharp working men, all very positive and enthusiastic. There are not
many women present, but, of course, there is the irrepressible baby. The
lecturers are generally the persons whose names I have already given, who
occasionally vary the scene of their labours by provincial engagements.
Their work, whatever it may be, has now been going on for some years.
This argues, on their part, some special fitness, and an adaptation of
what they say and think to the class to whom they appeal. In this
respect they set many of the clergy a good example. The people at
Cleveland Hall do not call out for quarter of an hour lectures. Nor do
they require anything in the way of music, or choral performances, or
floral decorations, or altar lights, to make the service interesting.
For children, whether they go to church or chapel, you must provide
shows. For men nothing more is needed than logic and the human voice.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE IRREGULARS.
“What do you think of the Ranters, Mr. Hall?” I quote from the life of
the celebrated Baptist orator; “don’t you think they ought to be put
down?”
“I don’t know enough of their conduct to say that. What do they do? Do
they inculcate Antinomianism, or do they exhibit immorality in their
lives?”
“Not that I know of, but they fall into very irregular practices.”
“Indeed, what practices?”
“Why, sir, when they enter a village they begin to sing hymns, and they
go on singing until they collect a number of people on the village green,
or in some neighbouring field, and then they preach.”
“Well, whether that may be prudent or expedient or not depends upon
circumstances, but as yet I see no criminality.”
“But you must admit, Mr. Hall, it is very irregular.”
“And suppose I do admit that, what follows? Was not our Lord rebuking
the Scribes and Pharisees and driving the buyers and sellers out of the
temple very irregular? Was not almost all that he did in his public
ministry very irregular? Was not the course of the Apostles, and of
Stephen, and of many of the Evangelists, very irregular? Were not the
proceedings of Calvin, Luther, and their fellow workers in the
Reformation very irregular?—a complete and shocking innovation upon all
the queer out-doings of the Papists? And were not the whole lives of
Whitefield and Wesley very irregular lives, as you view such things? Yet
how infinitely is the world indebted to all of these? No, sir, there
must be something widely different from mere irregularity before I
condemn.”
IRREGULAR AGENCIES.
Between Churchmen and Dissenters there are bodies claiming and often
receiving the support of both. The number of buildings used in London
every Sunday evening for theatre services now amounts to eleven, eight of
the eleven being engaged by a united committee, of which the Earl of
Shaftesbury is the chairman,—viz., Astley’s, Standard, Pavilion, Royal
Amphitheatre, Sadler’s Wells, Britannia, and the Metropolitan and Oxford
Music Halls. The other buildings are St. James’s Hall and the Effingham
and Victoria theatres. One result of this state of things is rather
doubtful. Of the perniciousness of some of these places there can be no
doubt. It may be that some of them would have been closed ere this had
not the money received from the Sunday preaching made up for the losses
of the week. In one year in these places 122 services were held,
attended by 190,000 persons.
The London City Mission employs 361 agents. During the last year the
number of visits made by them to the houses of the poor amounted to
1,987,259. The number of visits which they made to sick and dying
amounted to 255,102. They gave away 6000 copies of the Bible; they
circulated 2,677,901 tracts; they held more than 36,000 Bible classes and
religious services indoors; they conducted 3764 out-of-door services;
they induced 1296 persons to partake of the Lord’s Supper, 242
backsliders to return, 608 families to begin family prayer, 863 drunkards
to abstain, 141 shopkeepers to close their shops on the Sabbath, and 8297
children to attend ragged and Sunday schools.
In London there are 300 Bible women always at work; then there is the
Christian community founded in the days of John Wesley; the members of it
visit workhouses and lodging-houses in the East of London and preach in
the open air. Last year the number of open-air services held by them
amounted to 542; the number of addresses delivered, 1626; and the number
of hearers, including indoors and out, 379,370. The Society also visits
lodging-houses and the Juvenile Refuge, and gives free tea meetings,
which, as we may imagine, are very well attended. During the past year
255,477 tracts had been distributed, and altogether it had held 8573
services.
The Open-air Mission needs also to be recorded. It is calculated that in
the summer our open-air preachers address every Sunday nearly half a
million of persons in the metropolis alone. It must also be remembered
that of late, by the closing of public-houses, the number of idle,
covetous, mischievous persons thrown on our streets is considerably
increased. On Sundays it is evident that the blockage of the streets is
greater than ever. In such places as Trafalgar Square, and the
steam-boat piers, and in all our back streets, there are thousands of
boys and men gambling and demoralizing one another. The Open-air Mission
catches some of them, and in the lowest neighbourhoods—where the most
depraved live—its agents generally receive a favourable hearing; one
exception is recorded, which occurred at the Royal Exchange. Preaching
last year commenced there in April, and went on with many striking
instances of success till May 9, when a band of secularists,
humanitarians, and infidels came to oppose,—one man reading the Koran,
while the agent of the City Mission was as usual about to commence his
service. On the next Sunday the opposition was still greater, being
reinforced by Roman Catholics and their priests. Under these
circumstances preaching was suspended, only to be reopened when the
excitement and the danger of a breach of the peace shall have passed
away. The Society aims at open-air preaching, special visitation,
domestic visitation, and conferences for mutual intercourse. The visit
to Epsom belongs to the second class of these subjects. Twenty-one
agents had been there during the race week, 60,000 tracts had been given
away, many addresses had been given, and a Bible-stand erected. At this
latter place, on the last wet Friday when the Oaks was being run, they
sheltered a couple of hundred of poor starving wretches, and for five
hours kept up preaching and praying on their account. Their service on
the Sunday before the races was very interesting. On the Monday they
held a service for the benefit of the gipsies, one of the speakers at
which was the Dean of Ripon, better known perhaps as the Rev. Hugh
M‘Neile.
Of the 60,000 Arabs of London there are 20,000 in the Ragged Schools.
The Female and Domestic Bible Missions now number 230 paid agents, each
with her district and lady superintendent, and expend some 11,000_l._ a
year, exclusive of between 6000_l._ and 7000_l._ which is paid to it in
instalments by the poor themselves for Bibles, clothes, and bedding.
The Young Men’s Scripture Association has been very successful. Nearly
200 of a Sunday afternoon attend the Bible class in Aldersgate Street.
It has twelve branches in different parts of the town.
Connected with no denomination are six or seven chapels or rooms, where
as they meet they break bread in the morning and preach the Gospel in the
evening. In addition, the Plymouth Brethren have some thirty places of
worship, and their dulness and isolation from the world, which cause them
even to avoid discharging their duties as citizens as inconsistent with
the spiritual life, indicate the little they need be taken into account
as a religious body aiming in any way to influence the religious life of
London. According to the late Mr. Buckle, good people really do very
little good. I fancy this is the case as far as the Plymouth Brethren
are concerned.
* * * * *
THE END.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
* * * * *
In Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7_s._ 6_d._,
THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON.
NEW EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Concerning London—Aristocratic Amusements—The Alhambra—The Modern
Theatre—The Casino and the Argyll—The Bal Masqué—Judge and Jury Clubs—The
Cave of Harmony—Discussion Clubs—Cremorne—Life in the East—Caldwell’s—The
Strand as it was—The Police Court—Up the Haymarket—The Music
Hall—Public-houses—Leicester Square—A Midnight Meeting.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“Mr. Ritchie has with well-meant and terrible truthfulness described the
temptations to which the youth of our great metropolis are exposed. ‘The
Night Side of London’ is a fearful and, we believe, faithful
representation of the extent to which unlawful and revolting
licentiousness lays its bait and ruins its victims. . . . It is well
that our employers of labour and those who are anxious to keep up the
age-long conflict with the flesh and the devil should know how sleepless
are the powers of evil, how omnipresent the inducements to illicit
pleasure. Our author has touched this desperate evil with deep
conviction, extensive knowledge, and delicate hand.”—_British Quarterly
Review_.
“The author has revised and enlarged his former accounts of London life,
and has now brought his observations down to the present period. He has
contrived to bring within the compass of one volume all the objectionable
and disgusting sights and doings in this great metropolis, and it will
certainly astonish the reader to find what innumerable sins are committed
daily and nightly within his reach.”—_Observer_.
“Mr. Ritchie has done good service in the cause of public virtue by the
publication, and now by the enlargement and revision of this book. He
has looked upon and described some of the dark aspects of London life
with an ability and an earnestness which should secure for this hook a
cordial welcome in many homes. His heart and intellect revolt at the
awful spectacles which he has witnessed, and it would be greatly to the
advantage of our young men if they could meet with this high-minded book
in all our institutes and libraries. Mr. Ritchie’s book should be known
far and wide.”—_Literary World_.
“Mr. Ritchie is well known as a lively and amusing writer, but in the
work before us he has given us something more permanent than amusement
and more valuable than mere mirth. The facts and figures of London life
as here drawn with the shadows of night upon them are enough, and more
than enough, to rouse to greater activity the efforts of all
philanthropic and Christian souls to do more than is done for the sins
and sorrows of our modern Babylon.”—_The Rock_.
“Messrs. Tinsley Brothers publish a new and revised edition of Mr. J.
Ewing Ritchie’s very interesting and well-written sketches, entitled “The
Night Side of London.” The present issue contains some additional
matter, giving the benefit of the author’s most recent
observations.”—_Morning Star_.
“Much information is given which is both curious and interesting; and the
comments and suggestions put forward by the author are full of sound
sense and high toned morality.”—_City Press_.
* * * * *
In Crown 8vo, price 10_s._ 6_d._,
BRITISH SENATORS;
OR,
POLITICAL SKETCHES, PAST AND PRESENT.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Inside the House.—The Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Stanley Sir John
Pakington, the Right Hon. S. H. Walpole, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone,
the Right Hon. R. Lowe, the Right Hon. J. Stansfeld, Mr. Layard, the
Right Hon. E. Cardwell, the Right Hon. G. J. Goschen, Sir R. Peel, C.
Gilpin, Esq., the Right Hon. H. Brand, the Right Hon. J. Bright, Jacob
Bright, Esq., P. Taylor, Esq., J. White, Esq., G. Melly, Esq., T. Hughes,
Esq., A. S. Ayrton, Esq., E. Baines, Esq., H. S. P. Winterbotham, Esq.,
J. Cowen, Esq., Mr. Alderman Lusk, Sir F. Crossley, Mr. Newdegate, G. H.
Whalley, Esq., C. Reed, Esq., S. Morley, Esq., H. Richard, Esq., W.
M‘Arthur, Esq., Milner Gibson, J. A. Roebuck, B. Osborne, Edward Miall,
the Right Hon. J. Whiteside, J. S. Mill, Lord J. Russell, Lord Lytton,
Viscount Palmerston, Sir J. Graham, W. J. Fox, R. Cobden; T. S. Duncombe,
H. Drummond, Sir C. Napier, Sir C. Lewis, Lord Herbert.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“A critic, whether clever or otherwise, may be allowed to congratulate
Mr. Ewing-Ritchie on the sparkling and intelligent volume which he has
been able to put together out of a number of personal sketches written at
various dates within the last few years. It is difficult to write
personal sketches of living celebrities with entire good taste; but we
think the author of this book has gone near to mastering the difficulty.
The characteristics of public men are struck off with real felicity. Mr.
Ewing-Ritchie writes in a pointed, perspicuous, somewhat _staccato_
manner, and is never too long. His volume is one thoroughly well adapted
for its purpose.”—_Pall Mall Gazette_.
“Mr. Ritchie seems to have hit the happy medium in simply outlining the
characters of the men whom he touches at all. . . . Yet, Mr. Ritchie
never fails to produce a characteristic likeness, though his view of a
man seems to be always taken on the wing in the heat of action and
excitement. This of itself is a merit that adds much spirit to the
current of his criticisms. . . . In the main, his sketches are as clear
as they are brief. . . . A good feature of this book is its general
fairness.”—_London Review_.
“We can bear testimony to the fidelity of Mr. Ritchie’s representations,
the spirit of impartiality shown in his estimates of character, the
breadth and liberality of his sentiments, and the very interesting
character of his book.”—_Literary World_.
“His lively style and his avoidance of anything subtle or disputative,
though he never conceals his political sympathies, united with his ample
resources of Parliamentary and political knowledge, fit him admirably for
this modest undertaking. Mr. Ritchie has seen and remembered and
described many Parliamentary incidents, and those who want to know what
the House of Commons is like, how its principal men have gained their
positions, and how they comported themselves therein, will find him a
pleasant guide.”—_Morning Star_.
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