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ORTHODOX LONDON: 
 
 PHASES OF EELIGIOTJS LIFE IN THE CHURCH OF 
 ENGLAND. 
 
ORTHODOX LONDON; 
 
 OB, 
 
 PHASES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ' 
 
 REV. C. MAURICE DAVIES, D.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OS 'UHOKTHODOX LONDON.' 
 
 ' SIEB, YB AEE BBETHEEN ! ' 
 
 Sftffttb' ®biti0it, ^ebmh. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 TINSLEY BEOTHEES, 8, CATHEEINE ST., STEAND. 
 
 1876. 
 
 lAll rights of Translation and Reproduotion are reserved.'} 
 H 
 
 m 
 
cA.lLbX 
 
 JOUM CHILES AHD BOH, FBINIEEB. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ThjI present volume contains the whole of Orthodox 
 London, parts I. and 11., witli the exception of a few- 
 chapters that possessed no permanent interest, and with 
 the addition of some portions of Heterodox and Mystic 
 London. The Annual Eegister for 1873, when com- 
 menting on these books, flatteringly supposes that they 
 may one day possess historical interest. ' What would 
 we not give,^ it asks, 'for an equally fair and graphic 
 picture of the religious bill of fare furnished for the 
 England of two or three centuries ago ? ' Perhaps the 
 purport of this particular volume could not be better 
 described than by quoting some subsequent words in 
 the same article. ' Dr Davies,' it is added, ' finds 
 differences as great among the " orthodox " divines 
 themselves as among some of the "unorthodox" and 
 those on the other side of the border.' It is even so ; 
 and the discovery need not shake faith in the Church 
 of England as by Law Established ; rather the reverse, 
 suggesting Tennyson's words : — • 
 
 ' Not like to like, but lihe in difference' 
 
 Matieice Davibs. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERIES I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EEV. F. E. HAWEIS AT ST JAMES's CHAPEL . . 1 
 
 FATHER STANTON AT ST ALBAn's . . . . 15 
 
 ME FOBEEST AT SOITTH KENSINGTON . . . . 24 
 
 EEV. T. TEIQNMOUTH SHOEE AT EEEKELET CHAPEL . . 34 
 ME LLEWELYN DATIES AT CHEIST CHUECHj MAEYLEBONE 42 
 
 ME MAGUIRE AT CJ,EEKENWELL . . . . . . 52 
 
 DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTEE ABBEY . . . . 62 
 
 CANON LIDDON AT ST PAITL's . . . . . . 74 
 
 AT THE GOLDEN LECTURE . . . . . . 82 
 
 FASHIONABLE EVANGELICISM . . . . . . 91 
 
 DE EVANS AT ST MAEY-LB-STEAND . . . . 97 
 
 THE CHDECH OF ENGLAND ' PUEE AND SIMPLE ' . . 104 
 
 CANON MILLER ON MORAVIANISM . . . . 113 
 
 ME STOPFOED BROOKE ON BYROn's ' CAIN ' . . 119 
 
 A SEEMON TO MEDICAL STUDENTS . . . . 124 
 
 A SECOND ADVENT CONFERENCE AND PROPHETICAL MEETING 131 
 
 EARLY MASS . . . . . i . . 139 
 
 THE 'twelve days' MISSION' . . . . . . 144 
 
 MASS AT MIDNIGHT AND MID-DAY . . . . 155 
 
 DOING DECORATIONS . . . . . . . . IGO 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 MIDNIUHT MASS 
 
 WATCH-NIGHT 
 
 NEW year's eve at ST ALBAn's 
 
 A SILENT SEEVICE 
 
 innocents' DAT 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CONVOCATION . , 
 
 AN EAST-END MIDNIGHT MEETING 
 
 A bishop's BUEIAL 
 
 A children's SEEVICE . . 
 
 166 
 170 
 175 
 180 
 183 
 188 
 193 
 199 
 205 
 
 SERIES II. 
 
 THE ABOLITION OP TTNOETHODOXT 
 
 THE PRIMATE IN THE CITY 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOP OP YORK AT THE TEMPLE CHURCH 
 
 THE BISHOP OP LONDON AT SOUTH KENSINGTON 
 
 THE BISHOP OP BATH AND WELLS AT ST PAUl's 
 
 THE BISHOP OP ELY ON CHUECH MUSIC . . 
 
 THE EISHOP OP CHICHESTER ON COMPASSION 
 
 THE BISHOP OP MANCHESTER AT THE EAST-END 
 
 THE BISHOP OP LINCOLN ON ART . . 
 
 THE BISHOP OP OXPORD ON MISSIONARY MOTIVES 
 
 THE BISHOP OP EIPON AT THE SAV5y 
 
 THE DEAN OP NORWICH ON ST PEANCIS DE SALES 
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS ON REVIVALISM . . 
 
 CHUECH OF ENGLAND MONKS 
 
 A SERMON ON PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE . . 
 
 TWENTY MINUTES ON PRAYER 
 
 A HOME OP COMPASSION 
 
 215 
 224 
 233 
 243 
 248 
 259 
 270 
 279 
 288 
 303 
 307 
 312 
 318 
 326 
 331 
 337 
 351 
 356 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 A MAYFAIE MISSION . . . . . . . . 361 
 
 AN ANGLICAN TENEBE^ SEEVICE . . . . 368 
 
 THE LONDON MISSION OF 1 874 : — 
 
 I. THE PEEPARATION FOE THE MISSION . . 372 
 
 II. THE DAY OF DEVOTION POK THE CLEEGY . . 380 
 
 III. THE MISSION PEOPEG . . . . . . 386 
 
 IV. A CALL TO CONFESSION . . . . . . 390 
 
 V. SEEVICES FOE V70MEN . . . . . . 395 
 
 VI. THE FINAL SEEVICE OF PEAISE . . . . 399 
 
 THE CHUECH IN THE NEW CUT . . . . . . 407 
 
 A HAEVEST FESTIVAL IN WALWORTH . . . . 415 
 
 AN OEGAN EECITAL . . . . . . . . 422 
 
 AN ANGLICAN MASS . . . . . . . . 429 
 
 A CHOEAL WEDDING . . . . . . . . 434 
 
 A CHOEAL PONEEAL . . . . . . . . 439 
 
 THE FLOWEE SEEMON . . . . . . . . 443 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 449 
 
SEEIES I. 
 
OETHODOX LONDOK. 
 
 EEV. H. E. HAWEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. 
 
 AMONG the revelations of modern science none are 
 more wonderful than those which tell of the richness 
 and complexity of nature. Everywhere there is life 
 within life, there are worlds beyond worlds. Not only, 
 as we were made uncomfortably aware by visits to the 
 Polytechnic in childhood^ has the smallest drop of 
 drinking-water its multitudinous inhabitants, but the 
 parasitic animal whose world is the body of an insect 
 has its parasite ; not only again are there ' more worlds 
 than one/ but, outside the limits of our own planetary 
 system, science begins to probe the suns of the galaxy 
 and to delve into the mysteries of nebular as well as 
 stellar cosmogony. Such are among the disclosures of 
 the microscope and telescope respectively. 
 
 And something analogous to this is discoverable in 
 the' social and religious world. Where all seemed 
 heretofore ' simplex et unum,' we are daily finding out 
 distinctions of which our forefathers never dreamed. To 
 take a single instance from political life. Parties can 
 no longer be ranged under the two divergent standards 
 of Whig and Tory. We are obliged to coin such terms 
 as Liberal-Conservative, &c., which would, a generation 
 ago, have sounded about as comprehensible as White- 
 Black or Hot-Cold. The same may be said of the re- 
 ligious world. The comprehensive distinctions of Pro- 
 
2 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 testant and Catholic seemed to our good old illogical 
 ancestors quite sufficient to embrace all possible forms 
 of thought — that special term ' Catholic ' being quietly 
 conceded to the most protesting creed of Christendom. 
 Now we have discovered that even Catholicism is not so 
 much at one as it claims to be. There are Catholics 
 and Catholics^ even within the fold of St Peter. Out- 
 side, the Anglican claims to be Anglo-Cathohc too, 
 tolerating the incongruity of the title for the sake of 
 the 'protest'' against Roman assumption which it in- 
 volves; and, to pass by the multiform 'variations of 
 Protestantism,' the Established Church herself numbers 
 at least three great parties, the High Church, the Low 
 Church, and the Broad Church. Satire still further 
 subdivides them, cataloguing High Church, Dry Church, 
 Low Church, and Slow Church. It was reserved for a 
 Ritualistic Review some time since to add yet another 
 branch in ' Fast Church,' to which it consigned the 
 author of a certain obnoxious publication. But even 
 this is not all. 
 
 I myself was employed, a year or two ago, as special 
 commissioner of a widely-circulated London newspaper, 
 to describe the various phases of religious life in the 
 metropolis ; and not only was I amazed at the undreamed- 
 of fertility of the subject, which seemed literally to grow 
 as I wrote — not only did I meet with strange outlying 
 sects, such as Christadelphians, Sandemanians, &c., of 
 which the very names sounded foreign, but within the 
 bodies of Protestantism themselves I still found that 
 marvellous complication — that system of wheel within 
 wheel alluded to above. Plymouth Brethren were not 
 simply Plymouth Brethren — they were Kellyites, 
 Darbyites, or Newtonites. Even Jews, who seemed the 
 very representative men of Unity and Indivisibility, 
 were split up into the two sections — Orthodox and Re- 
 formed — differing in practice, if not in faith, almost as 
 widely as Catholics and Protestants. There were varieties 
 of doctrine or discipline even among Quakers and 
 Jumpers. I feel sure all is not one even in Mr Prince's 
 Agapemone. 
 
REV. H. R. HA WEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. 3 
 
 And this remark, whicli I here make of other reli- 
 gious bodieSj comes strangely home to ourselves. The 
 differences which fence off certain Nonconformist com- 
 munities from the,., ^Establishment are, I find, often 
 smaller :, than those' which separate sections of the 
 Establishment itself. It were invidious to mention 
 nameSi tjip.ugh they rise almost instinctively to one's lips; 
 but the differences between a moderate Unitarian and 
 an advanced Broad Churchman — or between an ultra- 
 Evangeliisal and the star of some little Bethel — would 
 be considerably less than between the Broad Churchman 
 and the Bethelite themselves. St Alban's, ■ Holborn, 
 resembles the Eoman Catholic Church in Field Lane or 
 Moorfields far more nearly than it does the 'Established^ 
 places of worship in Bedford Row or Islington. 
 
 It occurred to me, then, that an interesting and 
 possibly not unedifying stpdy might be entered upon 
 without wandering beyond the pale of ' the Church of 
 England as by law established.' To portray the various 
 nuances of belief and their embodiment in practice 
 among the different strata of the Church of England 
 might be no unworthy subject even for the pen of an 
 ecclesiastical Ulysses who has wandered so widely, seen 
 the dwellings of so many men, and studied their customs ! 
 It is such a series of papers I now commence ; and, as 
 on the previous occasion, I would premise, first, that I 
 use the term ' Orthodox ' colloquially and half under 
 protest to signify simply forms of faith and practice 
 which are comprised within the elastic limits of the 
 Established Church ; and secondly, that I by no means 
 presume to adopt the term etymologically, or to say 
 who is right and who wrong, or even whom I think to 
 be right and wrong. My mission is, I feel, only to 
 describe, not to sit in judgment. Were the latter in 
 any sense my function, I should certainly shrink from 
 so delicate a duty as the portraiture of Orthodox London. 
 Sects external to the Church I might have ventured to 
 pass in review — though I did not,; but es'prit de corps, 
 if nothing else, would have shut my mouth on the 
 subject of the Church in which I am an ordained and 
 officiating minister. 
 
4 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 The ordinary and proverbial diflBculty of a 'beginning' 
 scarcely attaches to me in the execution of my present 
 mission. To inaugurate an attempt so thoroughly 
 eclectic in its nature as the present series, I felt at once 
 that I must select a Broad Church clergyman for my 
 ' representative man ; ' though I shall at once make the 
 amende honorable by following up my sketch with a 
 typical High Churchman and Evangelical ; but the 
 Broad Churchman must plainly be to the front. Where, 
 in surveying the metropolitan horizon, should I find the 
 most pronounced individual of the genus ? I might 
 have fixed on a well-known dignitary of the Church, 
 which I did not, because he was a dignitary and had 
 been ' done ' to death. I might even, without being 
 untrue to my title, have selected a clergyman of the 
 Church of England whose breadth has proved as fatal 
 to him as it did to the frog in the fable, yet who still 
 claims to belong to the larger Church of England which 
 is not, for the nonce, any national church. There were 
 one or two well-known names which put in a claim, and 
 whose claim I ignored for the very reason that they 
 were well-known, choosing in preference a gentleman 
 who, though well-known too, is not as widely or gener- 
 ally known as he deserves to be ; and who, in my 
 judgment, is incomparably best qualified to represent 
 advanced thought in the Church of England at the 
 present moment — namely, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, In- 
 cumbent of St James's Chapel, Westmoreland Street, 
 Marylebone. 
 
 There is one book, lying a little way out of the beaten 
 track of literature, which I am constantly surprised to 
 find unknown even by reading people : I mean Bailey's 
 ' Pestus.' Considering the intrinsic character of the 
 poem and the way in which it has been lauded by such 
 men as Tennyson, Thackeray, and Lord Lytton, it 
 seems marvellous that any intellectual person should be 
 ignorant of the book. Yet such I constantly find to be 
 the case, as also with one or two other works I could 
 name. So, too, not to know Mr Haweis might seem 
 in the case of Londoners at least, to argue yourself 
 
■ REV. H. R. HA WEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. 5 
 
 unknown. Yet so it is. I am constantly asked, ' Who 
 is Mr Haweis ? Where is St James's, Marylebone ? ' 
 Writing, not for the initiated few, but exoterically for 
 the uninformed many, it is a visit to St James's Chapel 
 and a characteristic sermon by Mr Haweis I would 
 make the subject of my present paper. 
 
 Westmoreland Street is a turning out of Weymouth 
 Street, in that network of central London known prin- 
 cipally to- cabmen, and forming part of the purlieus of 
 Manchester Square. It must, I am very much afraid, 
 be set down in Cockney parlance as a slum, and the 
 exterior of the sacred edifice is thoroughly in keeping 
 with its surroundings. An zesthetic High Churchman 
 might deem he had come to the Ultima Thule of religious 
 London, indeed, as his cab deposited him before the 
 unsightly doors of St James's. Should the plans of 
 the incumbent be carried out this .will not be the case 
 beyond the present season. The sepulchre is at all 
 events to be whitened. The facade is to be made as 
 sightly as it can be short of utter demolition, and a 
 bell-tower is to replace the present rickety belfry, which, 
 it seems, is not only hideous but dangerous. Presenting 
 myself at this unattractive portal one Sunday morning, 
 I was confronted by the orthodox beadle in his Bumble 
 livery, who passed me on to the conventional pew- 
 opener, with cap perhaps a trifle, but only a trifle, more 
 jaunty than at the neighbouring Evangelical churches. 
 There were evident symptoms of a congregation. Camp- 
 stools lay in ambush, and there were flaps at the end of 
 the pews ready to put up in cases of emergency. The 
 attendance at St James's I found was pretty nearly co- 
 extensive with its capacities, and numbered something 
 like fifteen .hundred. Some men cannot be hid, and Mr 
 Haweis is evidently one of them. It was some time 
 ■before I got a seat, and as the chapel was not nearly 
 full during the service, I formed uncharitable opinions 
 as to the venality of the pew-opener, which I found from 
 subsequent explanations were decidedly wrong, as so 
 many of our hasty judgments often are. 
 
 If the exterior of the chapel was ugly, the inside tried 
 
6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 to make amends by being slightly over-decorated. It 
 was a hopeless task. It was like a plain old lady getting 
 herself up with the ' latest additions and improvements;' 
 but it was no use. St James's, inside as well as outside, 
 was irremediably ugly. What paint could do had been 
 done to brighten up the edifice. The east end— there 
 is no symptom of a chancel — was oak-stalled, floored 
 with the conventional Minton's tiles, and adorned with 
 cushions evidently worked by the fair fingers' of ladies 
 of the congregation, for there are, in these strong- 
 minded times. Broad Church ladies as well as clergymen 
 and gentlemen. The Communion Table was richly 
 draped, though small ; and on a super-altar were the 
 unexpected adjuncts of jewelled gilt cross, four vases 
 for flowers, and two large red tapers. The east window 
 was filled with Munich glass, and represented the 
 Transfiguration, the ■ legends — ' When He shall appear 
 we shall be hke Him, for we shaU see Him as He is ! ' 
 and, ' He was transfigured before them ' — running above 
 and below. The rest of the windows in the chapel, or 
 at least the greater portion of them, though of the 
 ordinary court of. justice or Little Bethel type, were 
 filled with English stained glass. The figures were 
 unorthodox, because they looked human, and the 
 legends were legible ; but there was evidently an 
 aesthetic element in St James's for which I was not 
 prepared. It put me in mind all along of an old Roman 
 basilica Christianized under difficulties. A surpliced 
 choir of eight men and twelve boys entered at eleven 
 o'clock, with Mr Haweis and an Assistant Minister, 
 who was bearded as became a Broad Churchman. After 
 a preliminary hymn, this latter gentleman commenced 
 Morning Prayer in what might, by some stretch of 
 imagination, be termed a monotone ; though I could 
 not quite discover to the end whether, as far as the 
 clergyman was concerned, the service was meant to be 
 choral or not. I fancy not. The responses were sung 
 and accompanied. Ms- Haweis is a musician, and there 
 were evident signs of the fact in the details of the service. 
 The Te Deum and Nicene Creed were very simple and 
 
REV. H. R. HA WEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. 7 
 
 effective J the anthem, a bass solo and chorus, was 
 Nares's ' Rejoice in the Lord.' 
 
 The service proceeded straight to the end of Morn- 
 ing Prayer, which was over at 11.45 ; and then there 
 was a pause, during which the bell was rung and the 
 organist played the slow movement from one of Weber's 
 sonatas. Then I saw why the jaunty pew-openers left 
 so many seats untenanted. A large moiety of the 
 congregation came ' to hear Mr Haweis,' and did not 
 arrive until noon, when Communion Service was com- 
 menced by that gentleman himself. After the Nicene 
 Creed there was another pause, while the preacher 
 went to the vestry. He returned anon, having ex- 
 changed his surplice and hood for academic gown, and 
 entered the pulpit, in which, by the way, is no ap- 
 paratus for a MS. I was exercised to think what the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury did, who was one of the 
 select preachers at this church last year, or what any- 
 body did who did not happen to be a fluent extempore 
 preacher like Mr Haweis. The thought recalled to my 
 mind an incident which occurred in this chapel on the 
 occasion of my only previous visit. Dean Stanley was 
 preaching, and the rostrum was then a venerable velvet- 
 cushioned three-decker, instead of the elegant open 
 pulpit of to-day. The Dean had three or four MSS., 
 evidently venerable as the pulpit itself, besides the 
 one he was using. He put these aside on the treacher- 
 ous velvet cushion, having probably selected the one 
 most appropriate to his congregation. By and by, in 
 obedience to the laws of gravitation, the MSS. went 
 flying down on the devoted head of an old lady in a 
 little pew-box below, as I had seen for full five minutes 
 they must inevitably do. This was bad ; but a liveried 
 Bumble made matters worse by coming from, the very 
 bottom of the chapel, carefully collecting the disjecta 
 membra from the old lady's box, and taking them up 
 the pulpit stairs to the Dean. I shall never forget the 
 look with which that dignitary regarded the oflclcious 
 Bumble as he cast the unfortunate MSS. on the pulpit 
 floor) and proceeded with his discourse. 
 
8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Mr Haweis, according to what I found to be his 
 frequent custom, took no text. He selected for his 
 subject the wreck of the Northfieet, which had occurred 
 during the previous week, and plunged at once in 
 medias res. 
 
 He often wondered, he said, why people thought 
 so much of going to church, where prayers were too 
 frequently formal, and sermons had no bearing on 
 every-day life. It seemed as though religion were a 
 Sunday matter, and irreligion belonged to the rest of 
 the week. Surely Sunday studies ought to prepare us 
 to look with calm eyes on the trials of life. When any 
 great calamity has happened during the week, he said, 
 I always consider what people think about it when 
 they read of it. Are they perplexed at it ? In the 
 great calamity of last week, I thought. Now here is 
 a case of difficulty. People might say. There, I told 
 you so! There is no God who cares for 'man. He 
 sees people smashed in railway trains. He lets great 
 speculations fail and ruin good and bad alike. He sees 
 unmoved ' from His cold hard sky ' the great ship go 
 down in the hungry sea. It is at times hard to realize 
 a God of Love ! 
 
 Worldly people are constantly perplexed by this ; 
 but • religious ' people find no difficulty here or any- 
 where. They have a cut-and-dried theology to account 
 for it all. If you don^t believe it, they say it is because 
 you are not ' regenerate.' To account for such a calamity 
 as this, they take up the Bible and quote a text, and 
 then they feel comforted. Is it not written, ' My 
 thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor My ways as 
 your ways ! ' God, they say, is diflFerent from man. 
 These things would be cruel in man, but they are the 
 essence of love in God. Have nothing to do, said the 
 preacher, with explanations of this kind. If goodness 
 and love mean one thing on earth and another in 
 Heaven, then better leave off talking about them alto- 
 gether. Love in Heaven may be gi-eater than on earth, 
 but it must be the same in kind. The language of 
 Heaven and earth do not conflict. If they do, have 
 
REV. H. R. HA WEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. 9 
 
 done wifcli theology, and confess that we know nothing; 
 but don't, in God's name^ let us cheat ourselves with 
 words. Remember the context of the passage just 
 quoted, ' My ways are higher than your ways, and 
 My thoughts than your thoughts.' God's love is only 
 greater than man's. Then how can God look down 
 calmly on sufferings which He might obviate ? To 
 justify God's ways to my own heart I fall back on the 
 element of mystery which we find in the world. Make 
 up your mind to two things : first, that there is over- 
 powering evidence to prove God a God of Love. There 
 may be difficulties in realizing this, because you are 
 short-sighted. You have not all the facts before you. 
 We work in a narrow circle on account of the limita- 
 tions of our own minds. We don't understand what is 
 going on under our own noses. Let me give a homely 
 illustration pf how differently things look when we 
 have all the'facts. I accept the proposition ' fire burns 
 wood,' but I bring wood to fire and it is not burnt. 
 The wood was wel}, but I didn't know it. I was argu- 
 ing on insufficient premisses. It was a mystery to me 
 that the wood did not burn. Tell me it is wet, and all 
 becomes clear. So it is we are continuously meeting 
 with little bits of facts in the world. We know ' in 
 part.' 
 
 There are analogies in plenty to tell me God is a 
 God of Love. God is a Father, and we are His 
 children. That is the best way of expressing our re- 
 lation to God. Now the child cannot see the wisdom 
 of a parent's severity. So, again, the decision of a 
 judge seems cruel to the family, of a man sent to prison. 
 The man was justly condemned ; but ask tJie mam's 
 wife whether she thinks it just. If one ignorant of 
 surgery saw a surgeon cutting and hacking away at 
 a patient who was already weak and ill he might think 
 the surgeon cruel. If he had all the facts before him 
 he would see that the surgeon was acting wisely and 
 kindly. If you had been present at that fearful ship- 
 wreck and seen the captain tire among a boatful of 
 poor wretches who were only trying to save their lives. 
 
10 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 you mi gilt have said the man was a brate. Not so, 
 when you are in possession of all the facts. He was 
 devoting his life for his fellow-creatures, ready to go 
 down in that devoted ship^ and so to inscribe his name 
 on the roll of England's heroes. If we had not known 
 all the facts his conduct would have seemed cruel. So, 
 too, many things which seem pitiless on God's part 
 may, from a higher standpoint, be consistent with 
 God's love. 
 
 But still, when all is said, there rises before us the 
 scene of that stern crowded with living beings, by 
 the light of the last rocket, and ready to disappear 
 beneath the waters, and you say, ' How can it be ? 
 was there no help from above in such a terrible 
 scene ? ' You are surrounded with worse misery than 
 that. Pain, death, and suifering are all around you. 
 These, however, are usual ; but when sufferings come 
 dramatically, and are, as it were, brought to a focus, 
 then you are startled and question God^s love. The 
 sufferings in that ship were less than in one London 
 district or street any single night. Take it at the 
 worst, there were forty minutes of suffering. Those 
 who suffered more than that were sailors. Compare 
 that with an attack of rheumatic fever, or the weeks 
 of exhaustion in a case of consumption. The mental 
 anxiety was great ; but the physical pain lasted only 
 a few minutes. 
 
 This does not clear up the mystery, I know ; but 
 it tells us we ought to check our imagination by our 
 reason. When we are led up to a great catastrophe, 
 we should say, ' This is only a concentration of what 
 is continually going on around me; and in the midst 
 of it, I still feel God cares for me.' 
 
 ' What's death ? ' he proceeded to ask, colloquially 
 as I have printed it. It is something to make Chris- 
 tians shiver with terror ; but among heathens it was a 
 good minister or angel sent to free men from troubles. 
 There is in health and strength a natural shrinking 
 from death. In sickness men become acclimatized to 
 thoughts of death. This shrinking on the part of the 
 
■ REV. H. R. HAWEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL, ii 
 
 young and healthy is greatly produced hy the force of 
 contrast. Why is it that the Christian fears death ? 
 Because he has had preached to him a gospel of Damn- 
 ation^ instead of a gospel of Salvation. He has had 
 pi-eached to him a God who, after threescore and ten 
 yearSj plunges people into an imaginary Heaven or 
 Hell, for each of which they are equally unfitted. So 
 we may say that, by all the laws of dogmatic theology, 
 a great many people are going to be burnt in the 
 fires of aij All- Merciful God, and if we escape, it will 
 be ' by the skin of our teeth,' 
 
 We grasp with difficulty the fact that God's judg- 
 ments are going on now. God does not punish man ; 
 man punishes himself Man, however, is not going 
 to be let off ! ' Whatsoever a man soweth, that 
 shall he also reap.' The fire that is not quenched 
 will be within him. The drunkard and the volup- 
 tuary reap their rewards here. So does the dishonest 
 man when he is cut off from society, and so too shall 
 it be in the next world. The thought that we are in 
 the hands, not only of a good, but also of a ' philo- 
 sophic' God, should reconcile us to the idea of 
 death. It is only a change from room to room. It is 
 only the mounting another step in the ladder. Only 
 the removal of life from one fit stage to another fit 
 stage. 
 
 What reck I, he concluded, if this be slow or 
 sudden ? In any case I go to Him who made me. 
 And, looking at this catastrophe, you have no right 
 to say, ' My God, why hast Thou forsaken them ? ' 
 unless you are ready to look up into the Pace of the 
 Father, and say, ' Father, unto Thy Hands I commend 
 their spirits ! ' 
 
 Such will probably be confessed on all hands a some- 
 what exceptional sermon to be preached within the 
 walls of a church of the Establishment. It was de- 
 livered extempore, and with such rapidity as almost 
 to puzzle a shorthand writer to report verbatim. 
 But Mr Haweis is thus exceptional, both in his preach- 
 ing and his theology. The following are two of his 
 
12 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 utterances in a sermon, entitled, ' Worship and 
 Praise : ' — 
 
 ' Supposing the Athanasian Creed damns the greater 
 part of the human race, as we are told it does, why, so 
 much the worse for the Athanasian Creed. It cannot 
 do the world a.ny harm. The laity have seen that all 
 along, and have said it in thousands of ways. In the 
 first place no one knows who wrote it, or what its precise 
 ecclesiastical authority is ; they don't even seem to 
 know what it means : but if its assertions are as 
 monstrous as they are generally understood to be, any 
 man with common sense would give it up, and say that 
 if the Athanasian Creed has damned the world, Christ 
 has redeemed the world, and there is an end of it.' 
 
 ' People make a great deal of fuss about the ex- 
 travagant luxury of the present age. God knows, there 
 is plenty of selfishness, and where luxury is the out- 
 come of selfishness, it is damnable and bad, and has the 
 mark of Cain on its voluptuous brow. But why, I ask, 
 are our people selfish and luxuriant ? Why are the 
 pursuits and pleasures of the world curses ? Why is 
 poetry immoral ? Why is the theatre or opera-house, 
 to a great extent, still unp'urified ? Why are all these 
 things, I say ? I will tell you why. It is because the 
 Church has turned its back upon them. As far as the 
 Church is concerned, that is the reason. The Church 
 has cast out of secular life the esthetic instincts which 
 it has not crushed, which it never will crush. The 
 Church has gone round to every place of amusement 
 which was a little unclean, and cried out " Unclean ! 
 unclean ! " until the hard and fast line between good 
 and evil has been drawn, and the bad has become worse 
 without the good becoming any better ! If you, in the 
 name of religion, neglect the great human perceptions 
 intended to refine, to elevate, and re-create society, 
 that neglect will bring degradation along with it • for 
 
 it will bring the most fatal of all kinds of corruption 
 
 the perversion and abuse of naturally wholesome in- 
 stincts.' 
 
 On the unpopular subject of ' Modern Spiritualism ' 
 
! REV. H.R. HA WEIS AT ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. 13 
 
 (whicli, rightly or wrongly, claims Mr Haweis as at 
 Jeast a partial convert) he has thus delivered himself 
 in a volume of sermons called, ' Thoughts for the 
 Times,' which, unlike the general run of those com- 
 positions, went through three editions in a short space 
 of time. 
 
 ' In some circles, the veiy rumour that spiritualism 
 is to be scientifically investigated raises, a hoot of in- 
 dignation throughout vast Philistine communities, who 
 pride themselves on common sense. Yet there has 
 never been an age — this age least of any^when we 
 have not heard a great deal about the supernatural — 
 when things have not happened which nobody could 
 explain ; nor can it be maintained that the sort of 
 explanations which the scientific world has offered us 
 are at all adequate to account for the phenomena of 
 spiritualism. The explanations which have been put 
 forward sufficiently prove the amount of imposture that 
 is associated with the word " ^iritualist ; " but then we 
 knew all that before. We wanted the scientific men to 
 explain the residuum which puzzles most people who 
 have paid any attention to the subject, but they prefer 
 to discourse beside the mark to people who are already 
 satisfied that the whole thing is imposture. We will 
 not say " They are all dumb dogs ; they cannot bark ; " 
 they are rather like shy horses — they refuse 'to approach 
 the hand that is stretched out to them, for fear of being 
 caught. 
 
 ' I am propounding no theory about spiritualism. I 
 hardly know what it means, or why it is Called spiritual- 
 ism. I merely affirm that occurrences which cannot be 
 confounded with conjuring tricks — seeing that conjurers 
 and men of science are alike phallenged to investigate 
 them — seem to me to occur, and they certainly seem to 
 me still to await some adequate explanation. I will 
 commit myself to no theory. I have none. I merely 
 aspire to be honest enough to admit what I believe — 
 that a class of phenomena are daily occurring in our 
 midst which have not been explained ; and perhaps I 
 may be allowed to indulge in the vague hope that many 
 
14 ORTHODOX' LONDON. 
 
 hundreds of thousands who are so far of my opinion 
 throughout the civilized world, are neither born fools 
 nor confirmed lunatics, although I regret to say that 
 some who are believers are impostors as well. But 
 whatever truth or untruth there may be in these opin- 
 ions, one thing is tolerably evident to my mind, and it is 
 this — that if you accept the Christian miracles, you 
 cannot reject all others/ 
 
 Mr Haweis is also author of the well-known work 
 ' Music and Morals ; ' is himself an amateur violinist 
 of no mean celebrity, musical critic on at least one 
 journal, and — mirabile dictu ! — writer also of a pretty 
 little tract called ' Amy Arnold, a Sketch from Life,' 
 which is not on the Anglican Index Expurgatorius, 
 if such exists, but on the Hst of the Society for Pro- 
 moting Christian Knowledge. Altogether, Mr Haweis 
 is a very exceptional ' parson ' indeed. 
 
 Without merging in that criticism which we have 
 forsworn, it may be sai# that it is in a manner the 
 speciality of Mr Haweis to combine with the utmost 
 breadth of doctrine those aesthetic elements which were 
 for a long time without any assignable reason held 
 to be incompatible therewith. Evangelical opinions, 
 and anything like Eituahsm, we can easily understand 
 to be incongruous ; though even Evangelicism and Non- 
 conformity are, coyly and shyly so far, ' going in ' for 
 modest beauty in this respect. But with an eclectic 
 system like the Broad Church, there seems no sort of 
 reason why beauty of ritual should be ignored. It is 
 not at St James's, Marylebone ; and it is precisely this 
 combination of breadth with beauty that constitutes the 
 claim of Mr Haweis to be the representative man we 
 have made him. 
 
FA THER STANTON AT ST ALBAN'S. 1 5 
 
 FATHER STANTON AT ST ALBAN^S. 
 
 THE one effort which I shall keep steadily before me 
 ill these peripatetic papers is to be appreciative ; to 
 keep clear of the vulgar error which can discern no 
 excellence beyond its own particular clique or coterie. 
 True, my mission is to be descriptive, and not critical ; 
 but we all know that there are two ways of looking at 
 a thing. One method is to regard all with a jaundiced 
 eye that does not square with one's own prejudices ; the 
 other is to look at all, however uncongenial it may kt 
 first sight appear, with a calm and philosophic gaze ; and 
 I feel I should be acting unworthily if I did not resolve 
 to be as eclectic — that is, in the' best and truest sense, as 
 Catholic — as possible. True, I commenced my studies 
 with a typical Broad Churchman. There seemed a 
 natural fitness of things in doing so. Now I go to quite 
 another extreme, and select a representative man of the 
 advanced Ritualistic school. 
 
 But then, again, the peculiar character of the mission 
 I have proposed to myself prevents me from selecting 
 those individuals, at all events in the first instance, 
 whose names are usually associated with the different 
 bodies I describe. I take rather exceptional than 
 representative men perhaps. I might have taken 
 Dean Stanley for my Broad Church portrait, and Mr 
 Mackonochie for my Ritualist. I do not ; first, because 
 I want to open up new ground ; secondly, because in 
 some cases the fact of a man being the recognized head 
 of a movement or a party gets him into a groove or 
 rut, which is fatal to originality. The monstrari digito 
 prwtereuntium often has a paralyzing effect on such a 
 man's powers. It stereotypes him to the Shibboleths of 
 his party. Such men are not to my purpose ; at all 
 events, not yet. 
 
1 6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 The admirers of Mr Stanton, or ' Father ' Stanton as 
 they delight to call him — and their name is legion — will 
 think I am dwarfing his dimensions if I seem thus at all 
 to concede the point that he is not a typical man ; not 
 so Mr Stanton himself. He quite ridiculed the idea of 
 being put forward, and almost refused information about 
 himself, though in the most courteous and genial manner: 
 so that all I can give will be a sort of pen-and-ink 
 portrait of one whose influence extends much more 
 widely than is suspected, even by himself. 
 
 Father Stanton, then, differs about as widely from the 
 ordinary run of ' High Church ' curate as is possible. 
 We are accustomed to think of such as a rather limp 
 individual ; — ' tender-eyed ' as Leah, and with a falsetto 
 voice perpetually monotoning on Gr. He is strongly 
 ascetic and severe against ' all the pomps and vanities 
 of this wicked world.^ Not so this young ' priest.^ As 
 one of the assistants at St Alban^s, Holborn, he is, of 
 course, a pronounced and advanced Eitualist. But he 
 is — erediiepostei'i ! — a member of the Liberation Society ! 
 His bugbear is Establishment. ' Mention Church and 
 State to me,' he says, ' and it is like shaking a red cloth 
 before a mad bull.' Some time ago, aU the Mrs Grundys 
 of the country were attacking him, and a good many 
 male, or, at all events, clerical Grundys, too, because, 
 when he established the St Alban's Club for working 
 men, he allowed spirits and beer to be sold there, and 
 did not prohibit the use of cards. ' I like my rubber of 
 whist and night-cap ; why shouldn't they ? ' he asked. 
 ' As long as they don't get drunk or gamble, where is 
 the harm in a glass of grog or a game at cards ? ' 
 
 Father Stanton, then, it will be perceived, thinks for 
 himself, and dares to act as he thinks. He does not run 
 in a groove. He presents the apparent anomaly of an 
 excessively High Churchman, strongly seasoned with 
 Democracy. 
 
 This peculiarity gives, of course, a tinge to his ministry. 
 He is demonstrative almost to the limits of rant in his 
 preaching, and in other respects has a supreme disregard 
 of little clerical convenances. He has organized the 
 
FATHER STANTON AT ST ALB AN' S. 17 
 
 watch-niglit service at St Alban's on tlie eve of the 
 New Year, which is like a ritualistic Methodist meeting 
 more than anything else. The first time I heard him 
 preach — several years ago — I could not help thinking of 
 Sydney Smith's imprecation on a bishop who had 
 offended him. He wished he tnight be ' preached to 
 death by wild curates,' and Father Stanton appeared to 
 me the very curate to have cast the first stone. It was 
 on Good Friday — a day of all others when there is least 
 to rave about; but there was method in the madness. 
 He has toned down since that, though without losing 
 his peculiar characteristics. 
 
 If one may venture to speak of the personnel of one's 
 portrait, there are in Father Stanton's outward man 
 many elements of the pet curate. He is youthful in 
 appearance, with dark, almost olive complexion, and jet 
 black curling hair — not shaven and shorn, after the 
 manner of the ordinary Ritualist; and, softly be it 
 spoken, pretty divouees do like to carry Father Stanton's 
 photo about with them ; but Father Stanton is the very 
 reverse of a ladies' man. With all his physical capa- 
 • cities for such a r^fe, he is infinitely above its little- 
 nesses, and is every inch ' a priest.' 
 
 The morning 1 chose for my expedition to St Alban's 
 was the unpropitious one of the 2nd of February, the 
 Feast of the Purification, when the first snow of 1873 
 fell, and winter virtually commenced. I had ascertained 
 that Father Stanton was to preach 'at mid-day mass;'' 
 and so, though omnibuses had struck and cabs retired 
 into private life, I struggled along against a biting east 
 wind and blinding snow, eventually reaching Brook 
 Street, where St Alban's is situated, when 'Matins,' 
 which immediately precede ' High Mass,' were only 
 about half over. Mr Mackonochie was intoning on a 
 wildly wrong note, and the choir sang a hymn on the 
 Purification to a distressing Grregorian tone as I entered. 
 There was a fair congregation, far larger than one would 
 have expected from the nature of the weather, which 
 was calculated to act as a decided damper on any esthetic 
 proclivities one might have had. I scarcely think I 
 
 2 
 
18 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 should have struggled to St Alban's save for a special 
 purpose. 
 
 The altar was vested iu white, and there was just a 
 soupcon of the smell of incense about the church, but 
 no signs that Candlemas was to be made a high festival 
 of. In fact. Ritualism seems to have dropped out of 
 its philosophy much of the ' Mariolatry ' that was sus- 
 pected in its rudimentary form of Tractarianism. When 
 morning prayers were over, two persons in surplices 
 advanced and censed the altar, leaving their censers, I 
 believe, in a side chapel, so as to keep up the fragrance, 
 for I could see clouds rising a quarter of an hour after 
 the operation was over • but the result was eminently 
 satisfactory. An introitwas sung, and then the procession 
 of acolytes, celebrant, epistoler, and gospeler entered 
 the chancel, preceded by a large cross borne aloft. 
 Father Stanton, habited only in surplice, hood, and 
 small white stole, passed to the clergy stalls, while the 
 rest went to the altar. The celebrant had a huge gold 
 cross on the back of his cope, and the acolytes were 
 gorgeous in scarlet cassocks and white surplices. Mr 
 Mackonochie himself occupied the humble position of 
 epistoler. The celebrant intoned the Commandments in 
 so low a voice as to be scarcely audible ; but what I do not 
 mean to call offensively the mise-en-sckne of the ' Mass ' 
 was magnificent ; and the effect of all the congregation 
 kneeling, when the incarnation was asserted in the 
 Nicene Creed to deep and solemn chords of accompani- 
 ment, was solemn in the extreme. The sign of the 
 Cross was devoutly made when ' the Life of the World 
 to come ' was mentioned ; and so, at the close of the 
 Creed, Father Stanton mounted the pulpit. His hood 
 was fearfully and wonderfully put on ; and the effect of 
 his dark fine-cut face against the deep crimson silk was 
 very monastic indeed. Bat the sermon soon removed 
 all impressions of the kind. He prefaced his discourse 
 with the publication of banns, prayers for the sick, and 
 also ' prayers for the repose of the soul ' of one departed. 
 Then he gave out his text, which was from Mai. iii., 
 part of the Scripture appointed for the Epistle of the 
 
FATHER STANTON AT ST ALBAN'S. 19 
 
 Festival — ' The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come 
 to His Temple/ He dwelt on the peculiar character of 
 the Festival under its double aspect of the Purification 
 of 'our Blessed Lady,' and the Presentation of our 
 Lord in the Temple. It was, he said, like a last look 
 at Christmas, over which was beginning to be cast the 
 dark shadow of the Passion. The curtain was lifted 
 for one moment, and the spectacle showed us the power 
 of Christian heroism. We saw ' our sweet and blessed 
 Lady ' carrying in her arms her Divine Son. It was, 
 as he had said, a last lingering glance at Christmas, 
 and a spectacle dear to every Catholic heart — that 
 Mother with that Child at her breast. To-day she is 
 passing, with St Joseph, the foster-father, through the 
 streets of Jerusalem. There are the dark shadows of 
 the houses, and the glare of the eastern sunshine, and the 
 passers-by going to and fro. How often has she come 
 before to the same place. Now, though a mother, she 
 is ' spotless as the driven snow.' — Father Stanton 
 cleverly pressed this image into his service. What 
 thoughts must have been in her mind as she held in 
 her arms her Son, the Everlasting God, the Prince of 
 Peace ! Yes, she bore the Eternal God, as she ascended 
 those steps. 
 
 In the Temple, how simple was the scene ! An old 
 man takes the Child, and a thrill of joy passes through 
 his heart. He had waited for the consolation of Israel. 
 He speaks a few words ; and then a woman stricken in 
 years comes in. She utters her prophecy. She re- 
 cognizes the Lord of lords in the Child. The offering 
 is made, the purification is over, and they leave. Night 
 closes, and the Temple doors are shut. The Lord had 
 suddenly come to His Temple. He whom they yearned 
 for had come. Heaven and earth had met together : 
 God and man had met. The glory of the latter House 
 had exceeded that of the former. The latter outshone 
 its predecessor. The glory of the Temples had come. 
 Only two persons recognized it. It had come — and 
 gone. 
 
 The great thought of this festival is the superhuman 
 
20 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 manifestation of God to those who watch for Him. He 
 ■was not recognized by the scribe who knew the law, 
 by the Sanhedrim^ the rulers, the learned, or the mighty. 
 Two old people who had long been waiting were the 
 only ones who knew Him. That Babe who was set for 
 the fall and rising again of many in Israel is the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Those who saw Him 
 were ' full of the Holy Ghost.' To them it was revealed 
 that they should see the Lord's Christ; and a light 
 greater than that of the sun came to their hearts. 
 That old man saw what the wise could not see. He 
 took up the Lord of life in his arms ; and he felt that 
 now he could depart in peace, for he had seen the Lord's 
 salvation. 
 
 Dear friends, he said, this realization of Jesus Christ 
 is far beyond all learning, art, or science. There is 
 given to those who seek it, a light above that of the 
 sun. Christ communicates Himself in His Divine 
 Personality as well as Essence. Religion is unsatis- 
 factory unless we can thus have personal intimacy with 
 Christ. If we have but heard of Him through men 
 and books. He only exerts a secondary power on us. 
 Our conception of Him merely amounts to a moral 
 certainty, as with any other great hero we read of in 
 history. We have seen Him only through the shadow 
 of ideas. We have not taken Him in our arms and 
 gazed on Him with ineffable joy. 
 
 There is, you know it well, a special light, transcend- 
 ent and transluminous. The converted man will say, 
 ' I have read, and heard, and argued laboriously about 
 Christ, but some day there came to me, at the comer of 
 the street, or at my own fireside, or during some sermon, 
 a mystic certainty about Him. The scales dropped 
 from my eyes. I saw my Lord as I had never seen 
 Him before. I felt the power of salvation. I went 
 back again to my books, and, as I read the old pages, 
 a new light flashed upon me. New arguments came 
 which I had never seen before ; and Faith got from that 
 mystic light confirmed them. I never can deny this; 
 for to do so would be to ^eny the secret of my life.' 
 
FATHER STANTON AT ST ALBANS. 21 
 
 No one can say tliat Jesus is the Christ but by the 
 Holy Ghost. You may say you think so ; the Child 
 niight be God. But to see it with the light of the 
 superhuman day is another thing. Far different to 
 know that the Lord whom you have looked for has 
 suddenly come to His Temple. Then you can say — 
 
 ' Oh. ! my sweet Jesus, come to me, 
 
 My longing heart's desire ; 
 With tears of love I've -wept for Thee, 
 Thee doth my soul require. 
 
 ' A thousand times I'va yearned for Thee ; 
 Jesu ! when wilt thou oome ? 
 When will Thy presence gladden me, 
 And inake in me a Home ? ' 
 
 If the Eevelation of Christ is not so, if it depends 
 on knowledge or reading, where is the Sacred Demo- 
 cracy of the Faith ? It would be an oligarchy of genius. 
 How could the little child make the sign of the Cross ? 
 How could the poor man be lifted up from the dunghill ? 
 Jesus Christ Himself /seemed to burst into enthusiasm 
 when . He thought of this, saying : ' I thank Thee, 
 Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that Thou hast 
 hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed 
 them unto babes.' 
 
 Of course, the great question is. Have all these people 
 conscious communion with God ; this mystic knowledge 
 of things about which we hear so much and see so little ? 
 Yes. Wherever God has created life. He has given 
 certain powers, going out beyond the organism of the 
 life itself. .Plants have powers which seem to trench on 
 animalism. The vine throws out its tendrils for support, 
 and roots pierce down to a, congenial soil. Animals 
 show powers which seem beyond instinct. We speak 
 of the sagacity of the dog and the cunning of the fox. 
 So in the higher life of man, there are strange instincts. 
 There are impressions we cannot account for ; there are 
 moments when we seem to stand out beyond ourselves. 
 We feel intelligence within us we cannot explain, such 
 . as prognostications and presentiments. 
 
 When God makes His faithful ones partakers of 
 
22 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Himself, He gives them a certainty far greater than 
 that which is arrived at by logic and science. We can 
 see this in the lives of the Saint's,' in the annals of the 
 Church. People lead lives of extraordinary faith, which 
 neither they nor you can account for. ' By the Grace 
 of God I am what I am/ is aU they can say. 
 
 But, you will still ask. Is it likely I shall ever feel 
 like this ? I have heard of conscious conversion and 
 intercourse with God, but it seems far above my head. 
 I never felt it, though I have practised religion for 
 years. I cannot put my hand on a particular day of my 
 life, and say, ' On that day I became converted.^ How 
 is it I cannot do as others ? Do not be distressed. Go 
 on waiting for the consolation of Israel. Do you not 
 see that they in the Temple had been doing so ? That 
 old man had been promised that he should see the Lord^s 
 Christ. He waited patiently, ' full of the Holy Ghost,' 
 and at last the Lord suddenly came to His Temple. He 
 did depart in peace. 
 
 So, too, that old woman ; she had long fasted and 
 prayed. Day and night, Scripture says, she had waited 
 for the consolation. It had not come, but day after day, 
 and night after night, she still went on — still fasted and 
 prayed. ' In eternity time struck the hour,' and Jesus 
 Christ came. She had not waited in vain ; and hence- 
 forth she could talk of nothing else to those others 
 who were waiting too. And have you not felt this ? 
 You groan and pray to see God ; to press Him to your 
 heart and feel Him yours. You want to grasp ' what 
 Hes behind all your Prayers, Communions, and Confes- 
 sions.' You want religion to be a personal affection for 
 Christ, something you can never let go. It shall come 
 to you : when or how I cannot tell ; but it shall come. 
 Perhaps it may be at the end of your Ufa, when the 
 shadows of this world pass away, and the morning 
 breaks over the everlasting hills. You shall see the 
 King in His beauty, whom you had tried to follow at 
 such a distance off. Then will you say, ' God, Thou 
 art my God. Jesus Christ, Thou didst come to earth for. 
 me.' And you wiU be able to add, ' Lord, now lettest 
 
FA THER STANTON AT AT ALB AN' S. 23 
 
 thou Thy servant depart in peace ; for mine eyes Iwrne 
 seen Thy salvation ! ' 
 
 A translation of the hymn ' quam glorifica ' followed, 
 and the usual choral communion or ' mass ' was pro- 
 ceeded with. During Communion, Keble's exquisite 
 hymn ' Ave Maria ' was sung to music, consisting of a 
 tenor solo, with chorus of the words 'Ave Maria' only. 
 Very few persons communicated. 
 
 The cuUus of St Alban's has been too often described 
 to need reiteration here. It was bright with colours, 
 odours, flowers, and music. According to the theory of 
 the Ritualist, these were, of course, no foreign adj uncts 
 supervening on the English system, but simply what 
 the English ritual was and would have been had the 
 Reformation never run riot into Puritanism. When 
 the great bell of the church boomed out among the 
 snow-clouds at the moment of Consecration, a Broad 
 Churchman might not be able to realize the fact in its 
 intensity ; but to those who knelt, or rather prostrated 
 themselves there, the Sacramental act was a great fact. 
 
 When I ' interviewed ' Father Stanton in his any- 
 thing but monastic room in the clergy house, he said, 
 ' The only two points in which we have made con- 
 cessions are, that we do not light the candles or burn 
 incense during celebration. All else is as before.' 
 The great influence at St Alban's is, he says, in the 
 Confessional ; and that influence he attributes to the 
 fact that confessions are made openly in church, not in 
 the vestry with closed doors. 
 
 As an instance of the geniality which overlies the 
 whole system at St Alban's, he told me, after de- 
 scribing the numerous guilds, sisterhoods, erhhe, 
 orphanage, &c., that at the Mothers' Meeting a titled 
 lady once came in and said — ' I suppose. Father 
 Stanton, you read these women a chapter in the Bible 
 while they are at work ? ' ' Not so,' he said ; ' I am at 
 present reading " Nicholas Nickleby," and have just 
 finished ' ' Adam Bede." ' ' Then you begin, at least, 
 with the Collect for the week.' ' As that Collect 
 happened to be " Blessed Lord, who hast caused all 
 
24 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning," &c., 
 I did not think it quite appropriate to " Nicholas 
 Nickleby," ' he said. 
 
 And the congregation who listened to the earnest 
 words of this -young preacher are not, be it under- 
 stood, boys and girls. There were grizzled men, and 
 young men in plenty. The women were in excess 
 that snowy morning, it is true ; but the congregation 
 was more evenly balanced than in most London churches, 
 and the poor were decidedly in the ascendant, and 
 fully on a par with the rich. One very aged sister in 
 ecclesiastical dress particularly attracted my attention 
 by the way in which she hung on the words of the 
 preacher and followed the beautiful music. Her face 
 might have been that of a Mater Dolorosa or St Anna. 
 It had a history in itself. 
 
 Father Stanton, young as he is, combines, in a very 
 singular degree, the opposite elements of Ritualism 
 and popularity, too often antagonistic, but why ? His 
 sermon might have, with few alterations, been preached 
 in a Conventicle. Preached in the ultra-ritualistic 
 Church of St Alban's, Holborn, it was a very ex- 
 ceptional one indeed; and, though not promising, 
 from its subject, to be a distinctive one, proved, per- 
 haps, as fair an example as I could have met with of 
 the apparently incongruous personage — the Democratic 
 Ritualist. 
 
 MR FORREST AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 
 
 TO an anxious inquirer bent on an excursion into 
 regions Evangelical, it might seem that Clapham or 
 Islington would afford unbounded attractions, since 
 it is in these that the so-called 'Low- Church party' 
 traditionally ' most do congregate.' But, rightly or 
 
MR FORREST AT SO UTH KENSING TON. 2 5 
 
 wrongly, I have determined in these ecclesiastical 
 rambles to wander a little out of the beaten paths. 
 Just as I avoid men whose names proverbially head 
 the different schools of thought, so also do I eschew 
 localities consecrated to special sects, and try, as far 
 as possible, to break up new ground. Thus was it 
 that, avoiding both north and south, I turned due west 
 for my typical Evangelical. 
 
 For in western London, as the focus of metropolitan 
 civilization, just as in Alexandria of old, where the 
 schools of philosophers jostled the Christian churches, 
 every shade and colour of religious belief may be found. 
 Around the beautiful Pro-Cathedral at Kensington a 
 Catholic population has sprung up just as around the 
 cathedral-close in ancient times. Ritualists in every 
 stage of advancement throng the frequent services and 
 swell the teeming coffers of St Mary Magdalene's, 
 Paddington. The synagogue and the kirk stand wall 
 to wall in the Harrow-road, and the New Jerusalem 
 Church has stationed its apostle, Dr Bayley, almost 
 under the shadow of the Vicarage-elms in the old Court 
 suburb. It is, of course, only with the Establishment 
 that I am at present concerned; but our National 
 Church is represented in its every phase. From the 
 beautiful Kensington Parish Church lately raised out 
 of the ashes of its ugly and venerable predecessor, as 
 from a centre, one might exhaust the theological ther- 
 mometer, ranging from fever-heat at St Matthias, 
 Earl's Court, to zero at St Matthew's, Bayswater, 
 where Archdeacon Hunter elects to 'blush unseen.' 
 I had half resolved to make him my representative man 
 of Evangelicalism ]pur et simple, but the Archdeacon 
 begged so hard not to be ' done ' that I had, in mercy, 
 to let him off and seek another type among the fertile 
 pastures in this land of the West. The fact was that 
 since his return from his twenty years' work in Rupert's 
 Land, the Archdeacon had thought fit to retain ' the 
 archidiaconal title' even when not discharging ' arch- 
 deaconal functions,' At this the penny local papers 
 were wroth, and discharged upon the Archdeacon the 
 
26 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 vials of their anger, and quieta non mover e became the 
 Archdeacon's policy forthwith. 
 
 The world was all before me where to choose ; and, 
 though limited now to a single department of religious 
 thought, I absolutely suffered from an embarras de 
 richesses. Should I seek the shrine of -the Rev. Daniel 
 Moore at Holy Trinity, Paddington? No, I would 
 reserve him for the Golden Lecture. Messrs Moor- 
 house and ^milius Bailey presented strong attractions, 
 but these were still too much men of the old school ; 
 men like Daniel Wilson, of Islington, whose very name 
 has an Evangelical smack about it. I would none of 
 these. I wanted a man who should represent the 
 Evangelicalism of the hour, not the coitus of my great- 
 grandmamma ; who should be to his system what Mr 
 Haweis and Mr Stanton were to the old conservative 
 Broad Church and to ordinary Ritualism respectively. 
 Such a man, I was given to understand, was the Rev. 
 R. W. Forrest, late chaplain at that nursery of evan- 
 gelical orators, the Lock Hospital, and now vicar of 
 St Jude's, South Kensington. To South Kensington, 
 accordingly, I went, via the Metropolitan District 
 Railway, near the Gloucester Road Station of which 
 St Jude's is situated, being one of those handsome 
 new structures locally termed the ' Ten-thousand- 
 pounders,' from the traditional cost of their erection, 
 which is very likely quite a false estimate. 
 
 St Jude's lies upon the very outskirts of civilization, 
 among the fast disappearing lanes and market gardens 
 of a receding rusticity. Long reaches of green fields 
 lie incongruously among streets, while here and there a 
 veritable old farmhouse crops up, and Cockney lovers 
 were gazing spoonily into the cabbage-gardens as I 
 sped through the mud and snow on Septuagesima Sun- 
 day to church. Crowds of well-dressed worshippers 
 were defiling through those lanes, disturbing Corydon 
 and Phyllis in their conversation, and making Mr 
 Forrest's advent a very death-blow to their billing and 
 cooing. The church is a handsome Gothiq one, well 
 worth the somewhat heavy price alluded to above, which 
 
MR FORREST AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 27 
 
 is understood to be the cost of locating in tlie wealthy 
 parish of Kensington. 
 
 Neither outside nor inside did St Jude's bear the 
 slightest resemblance to what used to be a Church of 
 ' the strictest sect ; ' but then were not Nonconformists 
 so far 'trimming ' as to come out with organs in their 
 worship and crosses on every available point of vantage 
 in their buildings ? St Jude's was so far only keeping 
 pace with the times, or perhaps going ahead just one or 
 two steps in advance. There certainly was not a trace 
 of orthodox ugliness in its rather gorgeous altar, or 
 ' Communion Table,' as I suppose it would still be termed. 
 It was surmounted with glaring Minton tiles, inlaid 
 mosaic-wise, in the wall, and surmounted with an east 
 window, whose grotesque figures and Dolly Varden kind 
 of costumes were all that the Ritualist would have 
 desired. Within its enclosure were two highly aesthetic 
 Glastonbury chairs, and a light airy kind of rail cut off 
 the penetralia from the handsome oak-studded chancel. 
 Here, again, all was as.' proper ' as possible. There was 
 a low reading-desk and a not very high pulpit. There was 
 a lectern with bookmarkers as wide and as gay as a 
 ritualistic stole, and a graceful coloured corona hung 
 suspended from the roof. Certainly it was never so seen 
 in Islington or Clapham. I had almost forgotten to add 
 that the very Palladium of old Evangelicalism — the Ten 
 Commandments — had been conveniently disposed of by 
 dwarfing them to the smallest possible dimensions, and 
 setting them up in orthodox ecclesiastical hieroglyphics 
 in a corner, where they obtruded as little as possible on 
 the public gaze. The body of the church was seated 
 with low pews for a vast congregation, and the galleries 
 retired modestly into the aisles, as if protesting against 
 the necessity of their presence. Most of all unlike the 
 Evangelic arrangements of my boyhood, the pew-openers 
 were not the mob-capped widows and spinsters I had 
 remembered, but male attendants in white ties, bearded 
 like Broad Churchmen, but smiling seraphically as they 
 handed the initiated to their seats, or pointed a new 
 comer and prospective ' renter ' to the advantages in 
 
28 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 point of pulpit range commanded by some well-placed 
 pew. However, they were courteous and obliging^ not 
 waiting until after the second lesson before they gave 
 one a seat, or lingering for a 'tip^ when they had done 
 so. There was a good deal of nodding and conversation 
 among the congregation during the quarter of an hour 
 whilst they were assembling; but then is it not pre- 
 scribed in the horn-book which contains the legend of 
 Tommy and Harry, that it is a necessity of etiquette to 
 bow to one's friends on entering church ? The St Jude's 
 people were punctilious in this respect. There was even 
 a little giggling among the young ladies, and some skir- 
 mishing about seats and hassocks among the old. The 
 ladies were largely in excess, and the bulk of the 
 congregation were of the upper middle class. It was 
 scarcely what one would call a fashionable or intellectual 
 congregation, but they were, to a spinster, devout 
 ' Forresters.' I could see that. 
 
 At eleven o'clock a voluntary was played, and so ornate 
 were the appendages of this Evangelic Church, that one 
 would not have been at all surprised to see a surpliced 
 choir stream in from the vestry. They came, however, 
 a long file of men and boys in the ordinary garb of every- 
 day life, and with a slow and measured step that re- 
 minded one of a cheerful funeral. A curate followed, 
 in ordinary surpUce and hood, but with the now almost 
 obsolete bands as big as a barrister's. Then came Mr 
 Forrest in episcopal-looking surplice, with largely deve- 
 loped DubUn M.A. hood, but still that badge of orthodoxy 
 the Geneva bands, which always were, for some un- 
 accountable reason, the mainstay of the Evangelical body, 
 seeing they are among the most ' Catholic ' of all 
 possible appendages. 
 
 The responses were given in a monotone, and of the 
 chanting I can only say it was to my mind the perfection 
 of Anglican antiphonal singing. I marvelled to hear 
 that the Psalms were sung instead of being read as they 
 used to be. Surely this is only a concession to common 
 sense ; and I must repeat I never heard the florid 
 Anglican chants so perfectly sung as at St Jude's, South 
 
MR FORREST AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 29 
 
 Kensington. Mr Forrest read tlie lessons somewliat 
 pompously, and, like Mr Bellew, with a considerable 
 difference. The canticles were sung to several chants, 
 which made them almost as complicated as Cathedral 
 ' services,' and the hymns were taken from the Hymnal 
 Companion to the Book of Common Prayer, compiled 
 by the Rev E. II. Bickersteth, of Hanipstead, a sort of 
 compromise between Tate-and-Brady and Hymns 
 Ancient and Modern, omitting, of course, the objection- 
 able Catholic translations, and preserving most of the 
 chef-d'aeuvres of the popular manual. 
 
 The criterion of the state of feeling in St Jude^s was 
 evidently given in the recitation of the Apostles' Creed. 
 It was sung on G by the choir, and of those gentlemen 
 three out of seven on one side turned to the east, the 
 other four remaining in statu quo anti, with a rigid look 
 on their face as though they would die sooner than yield. 
 A larger fraction bowed at the Sacred name. One could 
 gauge the state of the theological temperature pretty 
 clearly from this fact. St Jude's was Evangelical in 
 point of doctrine perhaps, but ' a little high,' as is vjil- 
 garly said, in point of ritual. 
 
 There was no Litany, but the final prayers of the 
 morning service were read after the third collect, and 
 the General Thanksgiving was recited full-voiced by 
 the whole congregation, no longer on a single note, but 
 with the natural intonation ; and I venture to think that 
 full unmusical sound had more of the old Puritan ring 
 in it than the elaborate, service of which it formed an 
 almost incongruous portion. I do not say I liked it 
 better, or that it was the worthier expression of worship 
 — that is not mine to judge — but it was certainly •more 
 ' Evangelical.' 
 
 The Communion Service was read by Mr Forrest, and 
 I was still more reminded of Mr Bellew in his delivery 
 of the Commandments. A musical kyrie was sung, but 
 it was painfully slow, and then Mr Forrest passed to the 
 pulpit, arrayed not in the academic gown of ancient 
 times, which has ceased to be a symbol with any but 
 very lag-behind Evangelicals, but in surplice, hood, and 
 
30 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 stole, whicli lie had worn during tlie service. Prefacing 
 his discourse with a simple collect, and after a brief 
 announcement of an impending lecture, Mr Forrest gave 
 out as his text a passage from Revelation xxi. 5 — ' He 
 that sat upon the throne said, " Behold, I make all things 
 new ! " ' Now, an Evangelical sermon, though easy to 
 transcribe verbatim, is difficult to analyze ; and this was 
 especially the case with Mr Forrest's. There was great 
 copia verhorum, but there were frequent repetitions and 
 no very logical arrangetnent. It was, however, to the 
 following purpose : — The compilers of the new Lection-' 
 ary had, he said, an evident purpose for placing in 
 juxtaposition on Septuagesima Sunday the opening of 
 Genesis and the close of Revelation ; the old and the 
 new creation, and he proposed to draw out some point 
 of resemblance between the original creation and the 
 spiritual regeneration of man's soul. 
 
 1. Both the old and the new creation were the pro- 
 duction of a new order of things. The world before 
 the Mosaic account of creation was said to have been 
 void and dark. These opening chapters of Genesis had 
 been made the subject of keen controversy, and some 
 thought them in hopeless conflict to science. Even 
 " professed believers " sometimes held — ^it might be 
 properly so — that the Bible was a book for the masses, 
 and that you must not expect in it scientific accuracy. 
 Others, again, thought the Mosaic account of Creation 
 and the I'all allegorical. But, be this as it might, the 
 opening words of Genesis implied a previous ruin of the 
 world, possibly by evil spirits. It had become dark 
 and void when God uttered the fiat of Creation. 
 
 The spiritual parallel was at hand. Before regenera- 
 tion, like the world before ' creation,' the soul was 
 without form and void, and darkness was upon the face 
 of the deep. The peerless form of its Maker's image 
 was lost. It was ' destitute of its pristine beauty, and 
 the crown had fallen from its head into the dust.' (Mr 
 Forrest garnished his long discourse with frequent 
 flowers of speech like this to an extent it would be 
 impossible to convey in a brief analysis.) The soul 
 
MR FORREST AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 31 
 
 was void, ' like a house without furniture.' The body, 
 once a temple of the Holy Ghost, had become a cage 
 of unclean birds, a haunt of satyrs and dragons. The 
 house might be swept and made alluring to the eye, 
 but there was still about it an appalling vacuity. 
 
 But our view of Nature affected our acceptance of 
 the Gospel. If we said, as many did, that sin was only 
 a form of ignorance, we were blinded as to its nathre, 
 and were not able to value aright the intervention God 
 found it 'imperatively necessary' to make when His 
 Son died. We must, he said, discard the idea that the 
 seeds of good were in man requiring only education 
 to foster. The work of the Holy Spirit was not the 
 resuscitation of dying sparks, but the introduction of a 
 new fire, a new life. 
 
 2. There was a Divine Agent both in the old and new 
 creation. Very sublime were those words : ' In the 
 beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' 
 None could tell when the beginning was : possibly 
 hundreds of thousands of millions of years before ! But 
 those words exposed the fallacy of erroneous systems, of 
 Atheism, Polytheism, Pantheism, and Fatalism. So, 
 too, was there a Divine Agent in the spiritual creation. 
 Man, he said, had no inherent spiritual excellence. 
 There was about as much truth in the idea as in the 
 poetic fiction of ' forms of loveliness in unhewn stone.' 
 Man cannot create. He can only combine. All is the 
 work of the Spirit, who — the old Hebrew says — 
 ' brooded ' over chaos. We, as St Paul puts it, are his 
 workmanship. We cannot take a step without the Holy 
 Ghost ; and yet every step we take is our own, in holi- 
 ness even more than in acts of sin. As spring flowers 
 will soon be drawn out of the earth by the sun, so are 
 our souls by the love of God. Oh ! (It is impossible to 
 convey by any spacing the length of this ever-recurring 
 interjection.) Oh ! stupendous miracle of love. In the 
 creation, God only spoke, and it was done ; but when 
 He made the new creation. He 'must needs' come 
 down, take flesh and blood, and die. The Third Person 
 of the Trinity, too, ' must ' descend to remove obstacles 
 
32 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 to the purposes of tte Most High. If the heavens 
 show the handiwork of God^ shall not the redeemed be 
 to His glory for ever ? 
 
 3. There was also a Divine plan in each creation. It 
 was not the effect of chance. God said of the old 
 creation that it was ' very good.^ It was a deliberate 
 act of intelligent wisdom answering to the archetypal 
 pattern of the Divine mind. So, too, in the new crea- 
 tion, in the plan of salvation. ' Now look here,' said 
 the preacher, becoming colloquial for the moment, 
 ' deny that doctrine and you throw the Gospel into con- 
 fusion, like touching the law of gravitation in the natural 
 world. Deny the plan of Redemption, and you snap 
 the adamantine chain that binds my soul to the Throne 
 of God r 
 
 4. Lastly in the order of events, there was a striking 
 parallel between the natural and spiritual creation. 
 Light was first created. Elohim said ' Let light be, and 
 light was ! ' Even the heathen admired the sublimity 
 of that utterance. It was not that light was then first 
 created ; but light already existing was shed in this 
 lower sphere. The spiritual pai-allel was again at hand. 
 God shines into our hearts. The eye is not the cause 
 of sight, but the light shining on the retina ; and so is 
 God the source of illumination. With regard to the 
 distinction between light and darkness, too. Darkness 
 was only negative. So God only created goodness. 
 Sin has no positive being ; it is the defect and destruc- 
 tion of being. Philosophers might talk very finely 
 about virtue and vice being relative terms only, and say 
 there was no absolute standard. ' The Lord deliver us 
 from such philosophers and their philosophy. It will 
 be the curse of society.' ' If the planets,' Mr Forrest 
 proceeded to say, ' refuse to obey the sun, they would 
 become wandering stars, and so should we if we did not 
 reflect the light of Christ. Like the Apocalyptic angel, 
 stand in the sun. Shed forth life-giving light. Christ 
 rules you, and you, as lesser lights, should rule the 
 world.' But ' whatever you do to elevate people up to 
 you,' he added towards the conclusion^ ' take precious 
 
MR FORREST AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 33 
 
 good care that they do not drag you down to their level.' 
 At the conclusion of this very lengthy address Mr For- 
 rest said a few words on the subject of the collection then 
 about to be made for the choir. The nature of this 
 brief address was even more remarkable than that of 
 the sermon which had preceded itj as evidencing the 
 power of the Evangelical clergy over their people through 
 the pulpit, scarcely exceeded by that of another school 
 in the confessional. The words were authoritative as a 
 Papal Bull, brusque as a direction by Abernethy, He 
 was aware, he said, that some of the congregation 
 objected to so much music, and especially tb the chant- 
 ing of the Psalms ; but it was his opinion that the 
 Psalms should be sung, and while he remained vicar 
 such would be the case. He begged the congregation 
 to contribute, or, if they had not come provided, to 
 send him their subscriptions. So they paid their con- 
 tributions like good people, and the organist played us 
 out of church to a jaunty air which would have made 
 an old Puritan of Islington or Clapham shiver in his 
 shoes. 
 
 . Now, here surely is a very exceptional, yet possibly 
 a transitional, Evangelicalism, heralding, it may be, a 
 vast change. On that very morning the Rev. Capel 
 Molyneux was holding his first ' Liturgical Service ' in 
 St James's Hall; and the next evening Mr Mason Jones 
 was to inaugurate a series of meetings for the Disestab- 
 lishment of the Church of England. Is such the tend- 
 ency, viz., towards fusion of thought and practice in 
 the Church, and the elimination of those rigid bodies 
 and original minds who refuse to adapt themselves ? 
 We may not augur, but certainly there has been evi- 
 denced in these three preliminary sketches an unex- 
 pected consensus, in practice, if not in precept, between 
 three bodies generally supposed to be diametrically 
 opposed either to other — the Advanced Broad, the De- 
 mocratic EituaHstic, and the Transitional Evangelical 
 Church of England. 
 
34 REV. T. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE 
 
 REV. T. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE AT 
 BERKELEY CHAPEL. 
 
 WHEN one of our leading scientific men was asked 
 to sit on the Committee of the Dialectical Society 
 for investigating Spiritualism, he replied that he would 
 as soon take tea and spend the evening with the curate 
 of the parish ; which was his particular form of ex- 
 pressing intense disinclination to accept the proflFered 
 honour. There is a wide-spread idea that clergymen 
 are, as a rule, what one of our literary papers termed 
 ' fatally uninteresting ; ' nay, there is a sort of notion 
 among the faithful that it is not right for parsons to be 
 interesting, or do anything but preach and attend 
 mothers' meetings. To play any instrument but the 
 flute or pianoforte is wicked for a curate — a guitar 
 occupying debatable ground, but savouring too much 
 of the serenade. To write, or, as the elect term it, to 
 be a ' literary character,' is ' Bohemian.' I verily believe 
 many good but narrow-minded persons think that 
 writers, actors, and poets — except, of course ' goody ' 
 ones — live in daily defiance of the rules of morality, and 
 are what they group under their wide category of ' im- 
 proper persons.' 
 
 There is no doubt, however, that the class of clerical 
 contributors to our London journals and magazines is a 
 large and increasing one. Many a secular editorial chair 
 is filled, and ably fiUed, by a gentleman in orders. The 
 rationale is not far to seek. With many University 
 graduates a hberal education constitutes the sole stock 
 in trade, and it is a fact beyond dispute that Providence 
 always seems to bless with a special benediction the 
 domestic quivers of those on whose heads have rested 
 episcopal hands. Failing interest for ecclesiastical pre- 
 
AT BERKELEY CHAPEL. 35 
 
 ferment, or a ricli maiden aunt or thriving papa to build 
 a church, there are two courses open to such clerical 
 'Bohemians' — tuition or literature. Some combine 
 both. 
 
 And such men, in the metropolis and most large 
 towns, constitute almost a class by themselves. They 
 are generally poor, or not rich, men; and consequently 
 cannot indulge in the 'luxury of private opinions' to 
 the extent of becoming advanced Ritualists or pro- 
 nounced Broad Churchmen. As Evangelicals they may 
 make it pay if they go in for hymns or pious leaders ; 
 but, as a rule, your literary or scholastic parson is not a 
 man of extreme opinions. He brings to bear, however, 
 on orthodox dogmas, a vigour of thought for which the 
 Church, perhaps, is not sufficiently grateful. Curates 
 in regular harness, especially the bachelors and incapa- 
 bles, denounce him as ' irregular,' because he does not 
 go in for school-treats and tea-drinkings ; but he is 
 generally to the front on a collection Sunday, or when a 
 national Thanksgiving or other exceptional event de- 
 mands something out of the ordinary grooves and ruts. 
 The literary parson is eminently free from ruts, and 
 will bear printing. The stock curate is often open to 
 the suspicion of thirteen-penny-halfpenny ' sermons in 
 stone.' 
 
 It was some such literary cleric I determined to ' do ' ; 
 but in order that my lucubrations might not be too 
 advanced for ordinary sympathies, I avoided Mr Stopford 
 Brooke's afternoon lecture at York Chapel on ' Theology 
 in Shelley,' and determined to visit another of those foci 
 of the lettered parson, Berkeley Chapel, where the Eev. 
 T. Teignmouth Shore, a clergyman whose literature is 
 duly tempered with ecclesiasticism, had recently made 
 his debut. Mr Shore won better than golden opinions 
 — viz., gold medals at Trinity College, Dublm — for 
 English composition and oratory ; has since, for reasons 
 best known to himself, exchanged his Hibernian degree 
 for an ad eundem Oxford M.A. ; has wielded the pen 
 successfully in many departments of literature, and now 
 fills the editorial chair of the Quiver in Messrs Cassell's 
 
36 REV. T. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE 
 
 giant establishment at Belle Sauvage Yard, E.G. But 
 Mr Shore has never been ' Bohemian ' to the extent of 
 merging the cleric in the litterateur. He has, I believe, 
 always preserved the odour of sanctity by retaining 
 parochial work in connection with his literary labours. 
 He was senior curate to Archdeacon Sinclair at Kensing- 
 ton for a time, but disappe9,red suddenly beneath the 
 horizon, greatly to the regret of the congregation. He 
 then worked up the Church of St Mildred, Lee, Black- 
 heath; and eventually, through the munificence of a 
 private patron who recognized his abihty, and was not 
 staggered at his literary proclivities, was presented to 
 the incumbency of Berkeley Chapel, a place of worship 
 in the very heart of fashionable London. But, alas ! 
 the antecedents of Berkeley Chapel have not been so 
 happy as those of its present incumbent. For many 
 years it has been 'in the market,' and the price asked 
 for this piece of preferment has been such as to scare 
 aspiring parsons, insomuch that I know it to be a fact 
 that, in answering the advertisements of ecclesiastical 
 'agents^ for Episcopal chapels, many a clergyman has, 
 to avoid unnecessary correspondence, declared himself 
 at the outset ready to treat, provided always the 
 position were not Berkeley Chapel. A series of un- 
 satisfactory incumbents lowered what ought to have 
 been a sort of clerical Paradise to the very abyss; it 
 being reserved for an ex-colonial prelate to complete 
 the faeilis descensus. It seemed a hopeless task to 
 rescue Berkeley Chapel from its low estate ; but Mr 
 Shore set himself with characteristic and commendable 
 energy thereto. 
 
 When I visited this fane, some three or four weeks • 
 after Mr Shore's instalment, I was struck first of all by 
 the ' downy ' aspect of the place. A cheerful fire was 
 burning in a stove placed right in the centre of the 
 middle aisle, which was carpeted with cozy Brussels. 
 The front row of the galleries looked like a series of 
 pulpits, for there were three or four pulpy-looking 
 cushions in each, with tassels hanging over the front, 
 tempting the occupants of the seats to pound them. 
 
A T BERKELE V CHAPEL. 37 
 
 The pews in the body of the chapel had been so evi- 
 dently and so recently cut down some three feet tha;t 
 the basement gave one the idea of a man with his hair 
 cropped, or a sheep a day or two after shearing. In 
 factj some of the old pews remained, in the side aisles 
 under the windows, of primitive height; and with curtain 
 rods like the tester of a four-post bed round them, but 
 the drapery removed. Here, at least, was a reminiscence 
 of the 'Devotion made easy,' which characterized the' 
 dear soporiferous old times of one's boyhood. It was, 
 perhaps, the last lingering relic in fashionable London ; 
 but even Berkeley Chapel was yielding to the genius of 
 the age. The chancel, since last I saw it, had been 
 raised several gradual paces, and Minton's tiles, which 
 Cover a multitude of sins, like charity, bedecked its floor. 
 The east wall was polychromous, and the Commandments 
 things of the past, as though the venerable old Con- 
 venticle had outgrown the Decalogue. The pulpit, once 
 white as a Jewish sepulchre, blazed in flatted colours 
 and gilt ; and the organ had walked, like Aladdin's 
 Palace or furniture at a spirit- seance, from the three- 
 story gallery at the west end to a position behind the 
 choir at the east. The tiny altar was over-draped, like 
 a little old lady in a red velvet gown; and a mixed 
 choir of ladies and gentlemen were squeezed into the 
 apology for a chancel, in an awkward corner of which 
 stood also a lectern. Berkeley Chapel tried hard to be 
 picturesque under difficulties. 
 
 At half-past eleven — the easy hour at which Berkeley 
 Square begins its devotions — Mr Shore entered, gor- 
 geous in Oxford hood and tiny black stole, preceded by 
 ! sueh a funny little old gentleman in a green wig, 
 and scarf half a yard broad, who seemed to represent 
 the genius of the chapel itself in its earliest times. He 
 took the first part of the service in a feeble twitter, and 
 the choir responded musically according to the ' use ' of 
 Helmore, with an organ accompaniment. The Psalms 
 were chanted to a separate Anglican chant for each; 
 and it was quite evident that the old gentleman who 
 officiated had not had any Valentines that year, for he 
 
38 REV. T. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE 
 
 gave out the 15th instead of the 16th morning of the 
 month, and made Mr Shore look very uncomfortable by 
 so doing. The congregation was small and evidently 
 aristocratic, far too much so, indeed, to be thrown out 
 by any such trifling contretemps. Mr Shore read the 
 Lessons. The first was the difficult one of the Fall, in 
 Genesis iii. He read it rapidly, and rather as though 
 he was glad to get over it; but in the second, which 
 contained the account of the Last Supper, he displayed 
 considerable pathos without the slightest theatrical 
 eflfect. The funny little gentleman 'gave out' the 
 Collect for ' Sexagesima Sunday, or the second before 
 Lent,' like a parish clerk. A rather ' high ' hymn was 
 sung from the ' Ancient and Modem ' collection, com- 
 mencing ' The Church's one foundation,' and speaking 
 of the Establishment by the feminine personal pronoun 
 all through. In it, too, occurred the significant stanza 
 which seemed to say Berkeley Chapel was 'looking 
 up : ' — 
 
 ' Thoiigli mth a scornful wonder 
 
 Men see her sore opprest, 
 By schisms rent asunder, 
 
 By heresies distrest ; 
 Yet saints their watch are keeping ; 
 
 Their cry goes up, " How long ? " 
 And soon the night of weeping 
 
 Shall be the mom of song.' 
 
 By way of making it a ' morn of song ' at Berkeley 
 Chapel, Mr Siiore proceeded to intone the Litany, the 
 responses to which were made in unison by the choir to 
 organ accompaniment ; a needless waste of strength, it 
 seemed to me, as the ladies and gentlemen were quite 
 equal to harmony. The hymn ' O Paradise ' followed, 
 sung to the former and less satisfactory tune in ' Hymns 
 Ancient and Modem.' Next came the sermon, which, 
 I honestly confess, was what I had come to hear and 
 report. 
 
 Mounting the polychromous pulpit, in surplice, stole, 
 and hood, as before, Mr Shore, without premonitory 
 collect, gave out as his text the words from St Matthew 
 
A T BERKELE. Y CHAPEL. 39 
 
 xiii. 31 — 33 : 'The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain 
 of mustard- seed which a man took and sowed in his 
 field ; which indeed is the least of all seeds ; but when 
 it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh 
 a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the 
 branches thereof. .... The kingdom of heaven is like 
 unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three mea- 
 sures of meal till the whole was leavened.' 
 
 No subject, said the preacher, did the Master oftener 
 dwell on than the nature of the kingdom which was to 
 bear His name. He explained it by all kinds of parable 
 and illustration; and there could scarcely be two more 
 dissimilar than those quoted ; one referring to an out- 
 ward visible progress, and the other to an inward, in- 
 tangible, invisible, subtle influence. There was some- 
 thing to be learnt as to the nature of the kingdom from 
 the very dissimilarity of the allegories. There was a 
 lesson in each separately, and another in their juxtaposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Looking back by the light of Church History we could 
 not but be struck to see how the little seed became 
 a great tree, whereto the nations of the earth flocked 
 for shelter. The fact of success argued the Divine 
 nature of Christ's religion. Everything was opposed to 
 it. Over against the selfishness of the heathen world 
 stood the Christia,n doctrine of self-sacrifice. Christi- 
 anity came to the intellect of Greece, and told it there 
 was something greater than intellect in man ; and yet, 
 when Paul preached in Athens, there was not a man in 
 tattered tunic or with broidered sandal but felt that he 
 spoke with a power not of this world, and taught a 
 morality purer and diviner than any they could learn in 
 the schools of their philosophers. So, too, with regard 
 to the brute force of Rome. Christianity, first flung to 
 the beasts, came to wear the diadem of the Caesars. It 
 never pandered to the vices of heathenism ; nay, it op- 
 posed all that was dearest to it. A fiercer opposition to 
 Christianity came from the Jew. He looked for a tem- 
 poral ruler to bring back the splendour of the old tra- 
 ditional faith, and drive Rome from the dearly-loved 
 
40 REV. T. TEIGNMOUTH SHVRE 
 
 land j but instead of this the Jew found One who ' was 
 led as a lamb to the slaughter.' He looked for an ex- 
 clusive Messiah, but Jesus of Nazareth opposed exclu- 
 siveness. All was against Christianity ; and yet she 
 triumphed over the prestige of Judaism as over the in- 
 tellect of Greece and the.brnte force of Rome. The cry 
 of Divine agony that came from those pale lips beneath 
 the awful shadow of the crown of thorns, shattered for 
 ever her altar, and rent the vail of Jewish exclnsiveness ; 
 and ever since, for eighteen centuries, the .tide of suifer- 
 ing humanity has flowed in above that prostrate altar 
 and through that torn vail, and broken with its surf of 
 sorrow upon the very footsteps of the Throne of God. 
 How could we explain the historic marvel of this growth? 
 Only by another aspect revealed in the Parable of the 
 Leaven. 
 
 There was nothing outwardly to account for it. 
 Twelve men, only two or three, of whom were educated, 
 and none of whom had any social or political influence, 
 efiected this miracle. There was no appeal to processes 
 by which other creeds had grown. We must look for 
 it in the leaven that worked in their hearts. The Divine 
 Power was greater than the opposing forces, as spirit is 
 more potent than matter. It was greater than prejudice, 
 greater than intellect, greater than material force. What, 
 in a word, he asked, was the essence of Christianity ? 
 What, ' in cant phrase,' was the ',one thing needful ' ? 
 Some say it is a particular church system ; some a creed 
 or shibboleth. Turn to the history of the early Christians, 
 and we -find the one thing represented by the leaven was 
 faith. ' One's almost afraid,' he added, ' to use the word. 
 It is just as though you should take a leaf from a tree, 
 and put it between the pages of a book. Tears after, 
 you would find only the dry and dusty skeleton of what 
 was once so full of life. So faith has had all the life 
 crushed out of it by ponderous volumes of theology, in 
 which it has been discussed. To us it means now too 
 often the cry of a party, or the standard of a sect. To 
 an Apostle it meant personal trust in Christ, absorption 
 . of will in His. It was no mere assent to intellectual 
 
AT BERKELEY CHAPEL, 41 
 
 propositions. It was a deathless trust in Christ the 
 Saviour ; and this was the secret of success in early- 
 teachers.' 
 
 Mr Shore then proceeded to draw two practical les- 
 sons. First, this was still the best defence of Christi- 
 anity. People told us of their difficulty in believing 
 miracles. But what was this compared with the huge 
 difficulty of believing that the world was converted by- 
 twelve men without Divine help — basing a pure morality 
 on lies ? ' I could believe any miracle, in or out of the 
 Bible, sooner than that twelve impostors went about — 
 living the purest lives — teaching the noblest morality, 
 and basing it all upon what they knew to be false. 
 ■ The second lesson was that, now as then, the progress 
 of the leaven in individual hearts was still the condition 
 of the Church's success. If she was to transform 
 national and political life it would be outwardly in direct 
 proportion to the influence existing in the heart. 
 
 ' Try,' he concluded, ' to let the God-given leaven 
 leaven the whole man, not only one day in the week or 
 at religious services, but always and everywhere. We 
 have heard too much of outward ceremonies, forms of 
 words, Bible and Prayer Book and Sundays. We want 
 the whole man — every faculty, intellect as well as soul — 
 pressed into God's service. We want everything con- 
 secrated by being done for God's sake, and in God's 
 name. If Christianity is to triumph, it will be when 
 such Christians — not Sunday Christians or Bible Chris- 
 tians, but Christian men and women, consecrate all their 
 work by doing it in the spirit of our Lord. Then the 
 Church will fulfil her high and holy mission. Then she 
 will rise to something of the dignity of her true position. 
 Then she will be no longer the scorn of the infidel, or 
 the tool of the politician, but the Bride of Christ, passing 
 on from victory to victory only to lay all her spoils at 
 the Feet of Him who has redeemed her with His blood.' 
 
 Berkeley Chapel has had much to bear, and may seem 
 to have entered on a quasi-Millennial era. I question if 
 the walls have ever echoed to a better sermon. At least 
 it has entered on a respectable condition of existence 
 
42 MR LLEWEL YN DA VIES 
 
 botli in a social and intellectual sense. Let us hope that 
 the good time so long coming has come, that Mr Shore 
 may be the leaven to leaven this long unferraenting 
 edifice, and that it may not be said of Berkeley Chapel as 
 of Trafalgar Square, that one of the finest sites in Europe 
 is being wasted. 
 
 MR LLEWELYN DAVIES AT CHRIST CHURCH, 
 MARYLEBONB. 
 
 IT is, perhaps, inevitable that there should be in a 
 movement like that of the Broad Church party in the 
 Church of England an element which shall seem de- 
 structive, and wear the aspect of aggression. It is the 
 case with all influences which break in upon routine and 
 ruffle the calm of the established order of things. Even 
 the Tractarian and Ritualistic movements may be viewed 
 in such a light if taken from their point of antagonism 
 to the Protestant position ; but these systems are to a 
 great degree dogmatic, and therefore, apparently at 
 least, affirmative and constructive, if not altogether con- 
 servative. The Broad Church position, however, being 
 really eclectic, though termed by its male critics latitu- 
 dinarian, and by old ladies 'infidel,' does, no doubt, con- 
 tain an element of negation in that it protests against 
 the dogmas of all system— notably thoseof Protestantism 
 itself — being regarded as exhaustive of truth. And this 
 g'Masi-destruetive element has grown around both poles 
 of thought. The advanced Broad Churchman of to-day 
 differs as widely from the conservative BroadChurchman 
 of some years ago as the pronounced Ritualist from the 
 original and undeveloped Tractarian. It is in the nature 
 of some mindSj and so of the schools they influence, to 
 
AT CHRIST CHURCH, MARYLEBONE. 43 
 
 become arrested at a certain point in any inquiry, beyond 
 which, the bolder spirits push recklessly on, while these 
 more cautious ones pause and become fossilized, as has 
 always been the tendency in such cases since the days 
 of Lot's wife. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, I had got to associate the well- 
 known name of the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies with this 
 conservative Broad Churchmanship. I remember the 
 time when Mr Davies was thought ' dreadful ' — the 
 epithet Mesdames Partington and Grundy always attach 
 to advanced opinions of any kind. I am amused to 
 remember why it was those venerable ladies were so 
 scandalized in Mr Davies's particular case. In those 
 ancient days, before Essays and Reviews were born, or 
 Bishop Colenso thought of, it was deemed worldly to 
 wear a beard, and Mr Davies ventured to assume to 
 himself that hirsute adornment of manhood. Thereat 
 the said ladies waxed wroth, and spread abroad — as their 
 sex is so capable of doing — what I have no doubt was 
 an egregious canard in reference to a former Bishop of 
 London and Mr Davies's beard. It was proposed to 
 hold a Confirmation at Christ Church, but his lordship 
 declined to officiate unless the Rector shaved ! I beg it 
 to be distinctly understood that I only give this anecdote 
 on the authority of my revered friend Mrs Grundy. 
 But, just as they say of the Apocryphal Gospels — even 
 if they are not canonical, they are interesting as showing 
 something of the opinions held at an early age of Church 
 History ; so Mrs Grundy's legend about Mr Davies's 
 beard is interesting under the same aspect — viz., as 
 showing what monstrous opinions could be entertained 
 in an incipient era of Broad Churchmanship. Now, 
 when a man's orthodoxy may almost be measured by the 
 length of his beard — unless he is very correct, and shaves 
 clean — and when none but fashionable Evangelicals 
 nurse shoulder-of-mutton whiskers, it seems incredible 
 that even the fertile imagination of the old lady could 
 have invented such a myth as that of the Bishop of 
 London and Mr Davies's beard. Mr Davies's beard is 
 now — I am sure he will excuse my saying it — beginning 
 
44 MR LL&WELYN DAVIES 
 
 to look grizzled, and he sees the 'movement' he was 
 one of the first to inaugurate almost universal among his 
 clerical brethren: sees how they have outstripped him, 
 both in hirsute adornments and in the doctrines they were 
 then supposed to symbolize. 
 
 To Mr Davies's church, then, I went on Quinqua-. 
 gesima Sunday, in the hope of finding my model man of 
 the more primitive Broad Church school, as a geologist, 
 if he did not know his labour would be in vain, might 
 search for fossils in the primary strata. Mr Haweis had 
 been what we might describe in the same language as a 
 ' later deposit.' Christ Church, Lisson Grove, is a huge 
 old-fashioned London parish church, standing in an un- 
 fragrant neighbourhood near theEdgeware Road station- 
 of the Metropohtan Eailway. It is strange into what 
 apparently uncongenial latitudes fate seems to cast 
 parsons. Here was a ripe scholar and former Fellow of 
 Trinity, Cambridge, pitchforked into one of the least 
 desirable situations of West London, for Lisson Grove 
 must be baptized strictly on the principle of \u(ms a non 
 lucendo. There is no grove around Christ Churchy and 
 the neighbouring streets and alleys — 'among them nota- 
 bly James Street — are laid down to the sale of semi- stale 
 fried fish, cretaceous sweets, and photographs of a 
 ghastly and half spirit-like character. Rows of little 
 brass bell-handles, one above the other, decorate the 
 doorposts, and sages femtnes there ' do congregate,' 
 apparently out of all proportion to any increasing popu- 
 lation. The old Marylebone Theatre is hard by ; and 
 marvellous penny exhibitions of distorted babies and fat 
 ladies invite the wonder of the little pagans of the 
 Grove. But the temple is doing its quiet work among 
 those same little pagans. Not only is Mr Davies an 
 active member of the School Board bent on reclaiming 
 those little heathens from their wanderings in the Grove, 
 but go where you will in this unsavoury metropolitan 
 parish you find the name of 'the Rector' spoken of 
 familiarly as one seldom hears it in London, but con- 
 stantly finds it in a country parish. The Rector is 
 recognized as an entity, and as a centre of influence. 
 
AT CHRIST CHURCH, MARYLEBONE. 45 
 
 Christ Churcli I found had^ like the rest^ 'developed' 
 from the condition of pristine ugliness in which I had 
 last seen it, so that when I entered from the east end 
 alongside the chancel I scarcely recognized the place. 
 I remember years ago going to hear Canon, then Mr^ 
 Kingsley preach, and found all 'flat' except the sermon. 
 Now, however, the chancel was stalled for a choir and 
 raised, so that I was on quite a different level when I 
 came in. I fancy the ritualistic condition of a church 
 might almost be gauged by the height the sacrarium is 
 raised above the nave. A moderate and essentially 
 middle-class congregation had begun to gather, and was 
 straggling sparsely over the miles of pew in the body of 
 the church and obtrusive galleries, which seemed able to 
 hold the whole of Lisson Grove on an emergency. No 
 such crisis occurred during that morning. Good, sober, 
 old John-Bull people, with their wives and families, kept 
 dropping in and bolting themselves securely within the 
 high-backed pews, which had only partially succumbed 
 to modern tendencies by being cut down a little. An- 
 other test of adaptation is the height of the pew. One 
 is about up to the neck in those at Christ Church, Lisson 
 Grove. Those sturdy patres familmrum would evidently 
 object to anything in the shape of an ' innovation ; ' in 
 fa;ct, everything was so conservative at Christ Church 
 that the pew-opener, who was arrayed in the ordinary 
 russet gown and dismantled bonnet of James Street, 
 rather looked on me as an intruder, I think ; for, despite 
 my white tie, which generally carries weight with such 
 officials, she put me into a side pew nearly out of sight 
 and quite out of hearing of the pulpit, where a lot of 
 other people, and especially one awe-stricken but pain- 
 fully polite little girl, prevented me from taking my notes 
 in peace and comfort. This arrangement was more un- 
 necessary, as there were acres of room in the church. 
 So I think stray parsons must be looked on as interlopers, 
 and thus tacitly recommended to stick to their own 
 church. Of the other adornments of the place I need 
 not say more than that the elevated chancel was paved 
 with the inevitable Minton, and the altar richly draped 
 
46 MR LLE WEL YN DA VIES 
 
 with velvet ; but the Ten Commandments stood full in 
 the centrOj flanked by the Creed and Lord's Prayer in 
 fullest conservative fashion. The pulpit was of the 
 orthodox tumbler-glass kindj which makes yon wonder 
 why the position of the centre of gravity does not 
 necessitate its tumbling over, and calculate what harm 
 it would do the orator to fall from such a height. There 
 was, however, a gorgeous hanging of red velvet in place 
 of a cushion, to match the altar, and with an intricate 
 cross beautifully embroidered upon it. That was nearly 
 aU I could see from my retired position, though I craned 
 my neck to catch a glimpse until, I fancy, the pohte 
 little girl, who kept plying me with sacred hterature, 
 thought I was practising for an acrobat. 
 
 At eleven o'clock soft music commenced, and a quaint 
 effect was produced by two surpliced processions simul- 
 taneously entering the church at its extreme ends, and 
 walking towards each other as though they were white 
 dragoons advancing to the attack. From the east, 
 behind the altar, came the clergy, preceded by a beadle 
 with an aggressive-looking mace ; and from the west a 
 surpliced choir. They met in the centre by a brass 
 lectern, and thence filed into their positions in the 
 sacrarinm. 
 
 Mr Davies's curate was one of those disappointing 
 men who, being of stalwart proportions, lead one to 
 expect a ftasso pro/owiio voice, but who treat one instead 
 to a feeble falsetto. The prayers, as far as he was con- 
 cerned, were read ; and though his voice was singularly 
 clear, only its feeble echoes reached me in my hermit 
 cell. Perhaps that was why it seemed so thin and weak. 
 The responses were sung to an accompaniment, and the 
 Psalms chanted. I even noticed that more favoured 
 pews than mine had printed lists of the music arranged 
 for the whole month ; and this it was, no doubt, which 
 produced what I so seldom find in my ecclesiastical 
 wanderings, an agreeable consentaneity of the hymns 
 with the rest of the service. Too often they seem taken 
 at haphazard. I really hope my presence has no mag- 
 netic or mesmeric effect in making curates give out the 
 
AT. CHRIST CHURCH, MARYLEBONE. 47 
 
 wrong psalms; but just as on the previous Sunday 
 the old gentleman had done at Berkeley Chapel^ so 
 this thin-voiced young gentleman at Christ Church 
 threw everything into confusion by announcing the 
 twenty-sixth morning of the month instead of the 
 twenty-third. It seems like going back to an unlettered 
 age to give these things out at all ; and yet one con- 
 stantly finds it done, even where notices are freely circu- 
 lated in the pews, especially in the case of an impending 
 collection. After the second lesson, a number of banns 
 were published by the Eector; and I could not help 
 thinking (though I suppose Mrs G. would say it was 
 ' wrong ') that if I wanted to marry on the sly, I should 
 like to have the interesting fact of the approaching 
 ceremony announced at Christ Church, and any dis- 
 sentient relative of the bride-elect located where I was. 
 I heard nothing but the ' bachelors ' and ' spinsters.' 
 All faced due east at the Creed, and bowed reverently 
 at the sacred name ; and a somewhat ludicrous effect 
 was produced by the organist accompanying the Creed 
 on a single high note with a stop which made it shrill 
 as a railway whistle. I am aware this is done to prevent 
 the choir losing the pitch ; but I would humbly suggest 
 a little softening down. It was quite a relief to the 
 ear when we subsided into harmony at the final ' Amen.' 
 We went on straight to the Litany after the third 
 collect, thereby losing the chance of utilizing our really 
 good choir for an additional hymn. This was a pity ; 
 for the sermon was a little heavy and Would have borne 
 more music. The Litany itself was read, but the 
 responses ' sung to an accompaniment. It was well 
 done on the whole, but dragged. The congregation 
 was not up to the responses — at least the male portion. 
 The ladies sang the tune, but the patres famiUariim 
 growled under the impression they were singing bass ; 
 just as an evangelical lady always sings in consecutive 
 thirds to the air, and terms it ' singing second.' It is, 
 I believe, an article of religion with puritanical ladies to 
 do this. Mr Daviesread the ante- Communion Service, 
 and then, the choir having sung hymn 333 from the 
 
48 MR LLE WEL YN DA VIES 
 
 ubiquitous ' Ancient and Modem Collection,' the clergy- 
 left the altar, arid Mr Davies retired to the vestry, re- 
 appearing soon after in conservative black gown and 
 cassock, and got up into the tumbler-glass pulpit. I 
 looked anxiously for bands under the historic beard, but 
 there were none. 
 
 The text was taken from 1 Thessalonians iii. 12 : 
 ' The Lord make you to increase and abound in love 
 one toward another and toward all men.' The discourse 
 was little more than a moral essay, or at most a homily. 
 It was evidently meant to be no more ; but was scholarly 
 and practical, and listened to with marked attention, 
 though not with the overstrained anxiety and paren- 
 thesis of pent-up coughs that accompany the inflated 
 utterances of favourite ' divines.' As to coughs, the 
 little semi-pagan school-children, who were dangling 
 between earth and heaven somewhere up about the 
 apex of the organ, seemed to be universally affected 
 with asthma or croup, and coughed without ceasing. 
 ' On this day, Christian brethren,' said the preacher, 
 ' love was commended to our admiration ; and it was a 
 great thing to be said of love that it commands the 
 general approval and assent of mankind. It was an 
 emotion which was most useful to the world. It included 
 all virtues, and guaranteed fellowship with God, for we 
 were told that " God is Love." Love, therefore, ac- 
 cording to the Christian doctrine, secured holiness. 
 We were told to be holy, as He is holy.' One of the 
 first things taught us about love, was that it was the 
 gift of God. As such we can but pray for it, as, he 
 trusted, they had prayed that morning in reciting the 
 collect for Quinquagesima Sunday. The more we 
 simply confessed love to be the gift of God, the more 
 likely we were to have it. We could not too thoroughly 
 believe that we were dependent on God's grace. Such 
 faith would be proved by inward tests ; and no gift was 
 so much to be desired as this gift of love. ' Do you 
 believe this ? ' he asked. ' Then pray to God for this 
 most precious of His gifts.' But then, he went on to 
 say, prayer is the ' Godward aspect of labour.' So it 
 
AT CHRIST CHURCH MARYLEBONE.^ 49 
 
 was tliat St Paul said, ' Follow after charity.' But how 
 could we confess this to be the gift of God, and yet 
 strive to attain to it ? This was a mystery to be solved 
 only by the experiences of life ; but our whole relation 
 to God was of this inexplicable character. It came to 
 be natural to us to pray as if we could do nothing, and 
 at the same time to act as if we could do everything. 
 Another difficulty which could not thus easily be put 
 aside was. Can we increase love by effort ? Was it not 
 a gift ? Without making difficulties, thoughts like 
 these would, he said, occur. Love was drawn out by 
 some object that we deemed lovable. The most genuine 
 love was the least self-conscious. Was it wholesome, 
 then, to try to love what we ought to love ? He would 
 answer thus : that charity was in this sense to be 
 followed, not directly, but indirectly. It was possible 
 to resolve on certain modes of following love. For 
 instance, we might studiously fix our minds on what 
 was most lovable, such as the grace of God, and then 
 whatever in man reflected this grace. To the first 
 Christians the preaching of this love of God which cul- 
 minated in the voluntary self-sacrifice of Christ, eclipsed 
 everything else. This reconciliation drew out the 
 affection of man to God more than anything. The act 
 of creation was nothing on God's part compared with 
 the giving up His Son to live as a servant and die as a 
 malefactor. If this death of Christ could be brought 
 home to thoughtful minds, it must touch them, and so 
 kindle a genuine devotion. As men's thoughts were 
 fixed on the Cross, their hearts became softer and their 
 lives less selfish. It had been said that nature revealed 
 the goodness of God ; but nature was not exclusively 
 beneficent. There were destructive forces at work in 
 it. We might, from nature alone, doubt whether the 
 Creator was perfectly good; we might be perplexed 
 by social ills ; but in Christ on the Cross we see heavenly 
 love put forth with an emphasis that carries all before 
 it. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. 
 In loving God the Father, then, we were led to love 
 man, our brother, also. Let us fix our attention on 
 
 4 
 
50 MR LLE WEL YN DA VIES 
 
 what was best in man. Let us remember what was good 
 and great in the ages past. Let us look forward to the 
 glory that shall be revealed. Look, he repeated, at 
 what is good in man ; not at the sins and follies which 
 keep the world back. A second mode of following 
 charity was practising ourselves in kind actions. There 
 was, he urged, nothing unnatural in the discipline of 
 doing our best to those around us. Those who did 
 kindness grew more kindly. Men were ever wont to 
 hate those whom they had injured, and to love those 
 whom they had benefited. Efforts to relieve those in 
 necessity had, in point of fact, come to monopolize the 
 name of ' charity ; ' and one of the saddest things in our 
 experience was that efforts to relieve the poor constantly 
 brought out in them mendicancy and deceit ; so that 
 people got to think they must harden their hearts to a 
 tale of Woe. It was, however, firmness, not hardness, 
 that was required. The desire to do good might often 
 be disappointed; still we must not harden our hearts. 
 But there was an old saying, that charity began at home ; 
 and it might even be necessary to remind those who 
 had just used the Quinquagesima collect that forbear- 
 ance was often necessary at home. It was not 
 diflficult to be pleasant to one's friends ; but it was 
 difficult to get on with the uncongenial : and it was in 
 such discipline as this Christians should exercise them- 
 sel\res. True, there was no respect of, persons with God, 
 or those who were most hke God, most truly His 
 children ; they held themselves bound to honour all 
 men ; but still, in another sense, there was ' respect for 
 persons.' They respected every person. Thirdly, this 
 love needed protection. There were hostile influences 
 from which love needed to be shielded. For instance, 
 there were continually occurring petty incidents cal- 
 culated to interrupt harmony. A word or a look might 
 give offence, and thence might spring up resentment. 
 Was it too much to ask that such should be avoided ? 
 Nothing was needed beyond a little self-control. ' You/ 
 he said, 'young or old, who desire to follow after 
 Christian love, can keep watch over your tongues ; can 
 
A T CHRIST CHURCH MAR YLEBONE. 5 1 
 
 suppress the look or tone of defiance ; can beware of 
 the first symptoms of anger.' A more subtle influence 
 still was self-indulgence. If any loved the world, it had 
 been said, the love of the Father was not in him. Those 
 who loved the world and tried to combine with it the 
 love of God found such to be not incompatible with a 
 certain good nature, but fatal to anything like self- 
 sacrifice. This demanded a labour which the self- 
 indulgent were unable to render. On the whole, we 
 might encourage ourselves in the conviction that there 
 was no insignificant aid to love in watchfulne_ss. It 
 was not in vain to keep watch over the doors of our 
 life, and wh3,t goes out and comes in at them. These 
 were the methods he suggested — Contemplation, Prac- 
 tice, and Defensive Watchfulness ; not forgetting that 
 love was God's gift, nor, on the other hand, neglecting 
 to put ourselves in the way of the gift. 
 
 Such a season as Lent, he said — and I pricked up my 
 ears to hear the Broad Church deliver itself thereanent 
 — was designed for this purpose,. to aid efforts for the 
 attainment of Christian love. Some of the traditional 
 language as to the observance of Lent might cause a 
 stumbling-block, such as the advice to suspend all re- 
 laxation for so long a time, or the discipline of fasting. 
 Many were far from believing in that discipline ; but a 
 season of contemplation, practice, and watchfulness, in 
 respect of Christian charity, might bring a blessing 
 with it. If Christian love could possibly be made more 
 energetic, what would we not do to compass such an 
 end ? ' Do ' — such was the purport of the peroration — 
 ' whatever God shows you to be most conducive to such 
 an issue.' 
 
 A little jog-trot perhaps, and savouring of the idea 
 that Lisson Grove was a grove indeed, and its pagans 
 true to the etymology of that name ; but suited still 
 to the genius loci. A destructive criticism would cer- 
 tainly not have suited those pewfuls of Tory-looking 
 patres familiarum. Frothy eloquence they were, I am 
 sure, far too sensible to stand. 'The Rector' was evi- 
 dently — 'true to his name too — the right man in the 
 right place. 
 
52 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 So, ere these lines saw tlie light, Carnival was over, 
 our pancakes eaten, our annual banquet of unascetic 
 salt-fish discussed, and we were landed in Lent. It is 
 a season greatly to be desired by the student of ecclesi- 
 astical development. We may have to take our parsons 
 no longer singly, but in groups or bouquets. The world 
 of Orthodox London was before us where to choose our 
 place of rest, and we laid in a goodly stock of note-books 
 and pencils for chronicling the salient features of the 
 Lent of 1873. 
 
 MR MAGUIRE AT CLEEKENWELL. 
 
 SO far, our studies of representative men in the Church 
 of England have been confined to what we may term 
 the sphere of positive opinions. The Broad Churchman 
 rests on his basis of common sense; the Ritualist relies 
 on the aesthetic element in worship and the sacrificial 
 doctrine in matters of faith; the Evangelical preaches 
 the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gos- 
 pel. But there is a wide and well-defined sphere of 
 what may without offence be termed negative religion. 
 It is best described by its own self-chosen title of Pro- 
 testantism. Without, of course, for one moment saying 
 that its professors ignore or neglect what is positive in 
 faith or morals, that which differentiates the one and the 
 other is hostility to Rome and whatever is Roman in 
 genius or tendency. It is quite consistent with fidelity 
 to the Church of England to entertain each or any of 
 these different theories — to hold, that is, that at the 
 Reformation she elaborated for herself a system based 
 upon or divergent from the old faith. The two elements 
 are there, beyond a doubt; and it is no disrespect to 
 the Established Church to confess her the result of a 
 
MR MAGUIRE AT CLERKENWRLL. 53 
 
 compromise; but there are many of her most earnest 
 members who will not allow this. On one side the hne 
 between Rome and England is only the shadowy one of 
 the supremacy. In all other respects the systems are 
 one and the same. On the other, ' No peace with Rome ' 
 is the one badge of profession. Among endlessly vary- 
 ing details of faith and practice this, which I have ven- 
 tured to call a negative characteristic, forms a common 
 bond of union. I term the school that of Aggressive 
 Protestantism, and I take the Rev. Robert Maguire, 
 Vicar of Clerkenwell, as beyond a doubt the represent- 
 ative of this school. In point of actual divergence from 
 Rome, it would, of course, be quite true to say that the 
 Broad Churchman differed toto ccdo, but it is not on that 
 difference he elects to take his stand. The Aggressive 
 Protestant does, and it makes me feel very old indeed 
 when I recollect how many years ago it was I heard Mr 
 Maguire, then Secretary of the North London Protestant 
 Institute, preach a sermon in the parish church, Isling- 
 ton, on the Romish doctrine of Intention. I was then 
 coquetting with the mild Puseyism of a quarter of a 
 century since, and thought Mr Maguire, if not an actual 
 heretic, at least very unsesthetic and unappreciative. I 
 gloried at that time in my title of Anglo-Catholic ; but 
 I still see him ' in my mind^s eye,' surrounded by piles 
 of folios, in the lofty three-decker of St Mary's, Isling- 
 ton ; and I recollect how very clinching his arguments 
 were against that little understood doctrine of Roman- 
 ism. It is not many sermons a man can recall after 
 twenty years; but I have a distinct recollection of that 
 discourse, and on renewing my acquaintance with Mr 
 Maguire on a recent Wednesday evening I found him 
 still dealing very hard blows indeed at the old enemy. 
 
 I selected a week-day instead of a Sunday for my 
 visit to Clerkenwell, because I had seen announced in 
 the Times the opening of a series of historical lectures 
 on ' The Martyrs and Reformers of the Church,' to be 
 followed by an examination and distribution of prizes 
 awarded by the Protestant Educational Institute. Now, 
 here was a certain opportunity for catching my Aggres- 
 
54 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 sive Protestant in full protest. Accordingly, being 
 informed by tte printed announcements that Clerken- 
 well Cburcli was only four minutes from Farringdon 
 Street Station, I availed myself once more of the Metro- 
 politan Eail, which serves to link together the most 
 opposite poles of religious thought^ and soon found 
 myself, only about half-an-hour too early, in the fine 
 parish church by the Sessions House, where a cheery old 
 verger was just lighting up. I invariably go thus early, 
 to get the genms lod well into my constitution, and, if 
 possible, to confab with the beadle or pew-openers if 
 they happen to be, as at Clerkenwell, civil and com- 
 municative. 
 
 St James's Church must be capable of accommodating 
 a very large congregation, with its double tier of gal- 
 leries, which so gladden the eyes of an ultra-Protestant. 
 Of course, it was not full on the occasion to which I 
 refer. In fact, the galleries were not used, but the 
 body of the church was well filled, the congregation 
 consisting mainly, but by no means exclusively, of 
 young men. Prizes ranging from £1 to £10 were 
 offered for the competitors who should pass an examina- 
 tion to be held in April. So there was a novel element 
 of studentship in the congregation which lent an addi- 
 tional interest to the gathering. Having 'interviewed' 
 Mr Maguire in the vestry beforehand, I was installed in 
 a vast oflBcial pew, sacred to the churchwardens and 
 sidesmen, but occupied on this occasion by myself, a 
 curate, and the vicar's wife, both of whom took volum- 
 inous notes. 
 
 The fine old chimes rang out for a quarter of an hour, 
 and then Mr Maguire entered and took his place at a 
 lectern, which stood in front of one of the old-fashioned 
 pulpits and reading-desks in the centre of the church 
 at the east end. He was clad in surplice, Dublin M.A. 
 hood, and bands, and commenced the brief initiatory 
 sei'vice with a hymn from a small collection which was 
 used at open-air services, and circulated in little sheets 
 in the church. The congregation joined heartily, the 
 curate mildly, as became a curate ; but the vicar's wife. 
 
MR MAGUIRR AT CLERKENWELL. 55 
 
 if she will pardon the personality, sang like a whole 
 congregation rolled into one. There is nothing more 
 characteristic of the Evangelical school than this power 
 of hymn-singing, often combined with a faculty of 
 eloquent prayer, which is traceable throughout the lay 
 community much in the same proportion as extempore 
 preaching prevails among the clergy. I take this as an 
 evident symptom of sincerity. They have their religion 
 always ready to hand. We may not like the quality of 
 the article ; in fact, we may think it often savours too 
 much of one Article — the 17th; but there it is, such as 
 it is. In professions of other branches of the faith one 
 too often finds the faculties of prayer and praise well- 
 nigh paralyzed. 
 
 To return to my narrative. After the hymn had been 
 sung the Apostles' Creed was recited ; several collects 
 were read, including those for St John Baptist's, St 
 Peter's, St Mark's, and All Saints' Day; the General 
 Thanksgiving was taken full-voiced by the congregation 
 — as it surely ought to be — in conjunction with the 
 Minister ; the Apostolic Benediction was given, a second 
 hymn sung, and the brief service, appropriate for its 
 character aS well as its brevity, was over. After a 
 voluntary, the lecture began, Mr Maguire having pre- 
 viously arrayed himself in his academic gown, and 
 delivering his discourse in a slow and quasi-professorial 
 style, so as to allow of notes being taken by his student- 
 congregation. The first lecture was purely introductory 
 to the course, and was to the following effect. It is, of 
 course, necessary largely to condense, as the discourse 
 'was very long. It was always practical, often eloquent, 
 and if it erred at all it was only in the way of prolixity. 
 God, said the lecturer, has ever sought the service 
 of true men. All loyal service is the service of the 
 heart, and God is satisfied with nothing short of this. 
 And although all hearts are known to Him, yet, for 
 many reasons, God will have men's hearts, and affections 
 proved. (1) For His own sake, that His work should 
 be honoured in the testimony; (2) for the individual's 
 sake, that ' the trial of faith, being much more precious 
 
S6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 than of gold that perishethj may be found unto praise, 
 and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ ; ' 
 and (3) for His Church's sake, that, by the ' cloud of 
 witnesses,' each may be encouraged to run with patience. 
 Thus, amidst the illustrations of faith, in the Church's 
 history, there are none more interesting, more bracing, 
 or more pertinent than those recounted in Heb. xi., and 
 since continued in the lives and deaths of ' martyrs ' in 
 the Church of Christ. 
 
 The EngHsh word ' martyr,' he said, is purely a Greek 
 word (ndpTvp), signifying a ' witness.' The Latin word 
 is testis, from whence our word Profesf ant, a vritness for, 
 or in behalf of, Truth. The word ' martyr ' did not 
 originally mean one who had witnessed unto death. It 
 is used in its ordinary sense (a witness) in the following 
 passages : — Matt, xviii. 16 ; Acts i. 8 ; vii. 58 ; Heb. xii. 
 1. Yet, even in the Holy Scriptures, it came ere long 
 to be used in its more limited sense, but then always 
 with some intensifying expression, indicating suffering 
 and death — e.g., Acts xxii. 20, ' the blood of thy martyr 
 Stephen ; ' Rev. ii. 13, ' Antipas, my faithful martyr, 
 slain among you ; ' Rev. xvii. 6, ' the hlood of the martyrs 
 of Jesus.' In modem language the word has come to 
 be applied to that class of witnesses only who suffered 
 unto death. These were called ' martyrs ; ' short of 
 death, they were called ' confessors.' 
 
 Martyrdom is a voluntary death for a cause — dying 
 for testimony; not as culprits and felons, who would 
 escape if they could, and elude the sentence of their 
 punishments. The men of whom we speak in these 
 lectures, suffered willingly, joyfully, and ' counted it all 
 joy ' when they fell into these fiery trials. When John 
 rrith was told he might escape if he liked, and his 
 gaolers were disposed to leave him and give him a chance, 
 he said, ' If you go away, you will find Frith at your 
 heels.' Rogers was offered pardon at the last, and 
 under the most tempting circumstances — in the presence 
 of his wife and ten children — and he declined to accept 
 deliverance, so that Fuller, the witty historian, says of 
 him — ' Rogers had eleven good reasons to favour himself 
 
MR MAGUIRE A T CLERKENWELL. 57 
 
 — namely-j a wife and ten children ! ' If ever a cause 
 Was honoured in its adherents, it was the Reformation. 
 Science and Philosophy afford no such testimonies ; it 
 is only religion that has the witness of blood ; and for 
 this motive — ^'Having respect uuto the recompense of 
 the reward/ 
 
 The deaths of martyrs were not expiatory, but only 
 exemplary; not for atonement, but for witness and 
 example. There is every possible difference between 
 the two, and it is important to bear this in mind, lest we 
 confound things that differ. It is in this wise ; there are 
 some who would discredit and depreciate the atoning 
 death of Christ, by urging that it was a distinguished 
 martyrdom. But it is not so : Christ was not merely a 
 martyr ; an infinitely higher value attaches to His death 
 — He died not merely to attest a doctrine, but to atone 
 for sin. Jesus was a sin-offering ; and hence the dis- 
 tinction between a martyrdom for testimony and a 
 sacrifice for atonement. The death of Christ was utterly 
 unlike a martyr's death. He died in agony, with strong 
 crying and tears ; praying that his ' cup ' might pass 
 fi-om him ; Me sought deliverance from the bitter end, 
 and cried out agamst his pains ; not so the Martyrs — 
 they endured all gladly, smiled at approaching death, 
 embraced the pyre and clasped the faggots, welcomed 
 their awful death, and rallied each other in the flames. 
 With Jesus it was not so ; witness the ' seven cries from 
 the cross.' What was like to that in the martyr scenes ? 
 In agonizing pain he died ; and above all, that cry that 
 martyrs never uttered — 'Mt God, my God, why hast 
 thou forsaken me ? ' The martyrs never felt themselves 
 forsaken. God was never so near to them as at the 
 burning stake. And why was all this ? Because in 
 Christ God found sin that day ; and wherever God finds 
 sin, ' He must visit it.' He found it that day in His own 
 sinless Son, who ' was made sin for us ;' and He smote 
 him — ' The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.' 
 His was a vicarious offering — ' The just for the unj ast.' 
 Christ Jesus bore our sins, the sins of the whole world ; 
 but martyrs bore only their own cross, in their testi- 
 
58 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 mony for wtich they died. ' Divine justice was satisfied ' 
 in the death of Christ, while human malice triumphed in 
 the death of martyrs. 
 
 The history of the martyrs, he continued, begins early 
 — ' from the blood of righteous Abel.' Some of the 
 earliest impulses of the Christian faith were from the 
 same cause. The child Jesus Himself emerged as from 
 a sea of blood, in the martyrdom of the holy innocents 
 — Herod's first-fruits, the first droppings of the storm. 
 John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded for his 
 bold testimony. Stephen's death was for witness ; and 
 its immediate effect was to strike deeper the fibres of 
 the Church, and to scatter the seed as it ripened, to re- 
 produce itself in other fields. Thus, even then it was 
 true that ' the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the 
 Church.' Nearly all the Apostles testified by their death 
 to the truths they preached, and thus has it been from 
 time to time ever since. 
 
 And for what cause, he asked, was persecution then ? 
 and from whence did it proceed ? The religion of Christ 
 was to pervade the world, and, to this end, it must an- 
 tagonize every false system. Therefore, it provoked 
 opposition from the first. It brought ' not peace, but a 
 sword.' Christianity was a new revelation, setting up 
 new interests, new duties, new responsibilities. With a 
 determined future, as living leaven it was to work till 
 the whole was leavened; and it gave early signs of its 
 living power. It was sent forth to convert the world, to 
 pronounce all existing religions worthless or effete, to 
 cast down imaginations, to abolish idols, and to establish 
 a spiritual religion. The effect on such heathen religions 
 was great and vital. This overturning of long-cherished 
 institutions and beliefs would be sure to be unwelcome, 
 and to be opposed with might and main. Against two 
 opposing forces Christianity had to contend — against 
 the Jew, with all his legal and national prejudice of 
 religion and of blood ; against the Gentile, with all his 
 numberless superstitions, backed up by the power of im- 
 perial Rome. Christianity, as it was then preached in all 
 the fervour of its first love, would admit no compromise. 
 
MR MAGUIRE AT CLERKENWELL. 59 
 
 Dagon must fall and Christ be exalted; Aaron's rod 
 must blossom though all other rods be barren and bare ; 
 the image that fell down from Jupiter must be shown to 
 be but the work of the craftsman. 
 
 Accordingly Romej the chief seat of government, 
 became the chief place of persecution. Csesar was the 
 scourge of the Church of God. All hatred and malice 
 and disaffection to the cause of Christ culminated there. 
 The Cohseum bears its terrible testimony to the suffer- 
 ings of Christians. Every cause, ev^ry reason, every 
 pretext, was laid hold of to quicken or renew the 
 persecutions. If a plague fell upon the city, if defeat 
 discomfited the Roman legions in the battle-field, if the 
 Tiber was swollen a foot or two by sudden rains, ' Bring 
 out the Christians to the lions ! ' was the order of the 
 day. Our great martyrologist, Foxe, reviews that 
 period at some length. It forms the suitable beginning 
 to his great and world-famed book, which is, for the 
 evenings of this course, to supply us with most of our 
 studies and reflections. 
 
 Biographical notes of Foxe were added, and mention 
 made of the sanction accorded by Convocation to his 
 ' Book of Martyrs ' — a copy of which was ordered to be 
 placed in every church and in every episcopal residence 
 in England. ' And why,' it was asked, ' should we not 
 enforce this order on both Bishops and Clergy in these 
 days ? ' 
 
 Altogether, my previous good opinion of Mr Maguire, 
 as a controversial preacher or lecturer, was more than 
 revived by this introduction. Broad Churchman as I 
 may be called, un-Protestant as I am bound to be, still 
 a little tilt with the dogmatists is wonderfully attractive 
 and invigorating sometimes, and there was a real old 
 Roundhead smack about this lecture ; so much so, that 
 I was even induced to attend a discourse on a second 
 evening, when fate led me to penetrate the unattractive 
 regions of Bagnigge Wells in the midst of an awful fog. 
 All was bright at St James's. The congregation was 
 still large, though, for evident reasons, not quite of such 
 proportions as on the previous occasion. In the first 
 
6o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 place, Clerkenwell is not quite the place one would 
 select for a walk during a fog ; and then, again, it is in 
 the nature of things that enthusiasm should subside. 
 The Protestant young men, however, were note-taking 
 with unabated energy, and Mr Maguire had now got well 
 into his subject. Having given a clear visumi of the 
 Three Centuries of Persecution, he proceeded to show 
 how, after Christianity became the established faith of 
 the Empire, 'the sword only changed hands; from 
 Caesar it passed to the Pontiff, and the suicidal policy 
 was adopted of Christian hands shedding Christian 
 blood.' Contemporaneously came a declension from the 
 faith of the Gospel which had been kept pure under the 
 stress of persecution. The Church grew luxurious under 
 patronage. It is true of communities as of individuals ; 
 the bitter tonic of persecution is preferable to the 
 luscious draughts of prosperity. 
 
 Then he proceeded to show how — ^having sheathed 
 the sword of controversy — the Church entered into a 
 series of compromises with the heathen world. Then, 
 as now, the Church was perverted. The salt began to 
 lose its savour. It followed thus iu the wake of the 
 Church of Israel, and the defection was twofold. There 
 was a declension both in the way of faith and doctrine, 
 but, greater even than this, in the way of outward wor- 
 ship. This tendency towards esd;emal objective adoration 
 was an ever-present temptation. Human nature always 
 gravitates, he said, towards sensuous worship, and 
 against this both the Old and New Testament are equally 
 strong. Prom the worship of external objects, the 
 Church passed to the demi-god system of Lords many 
 and Gods m.any. Image-worship, the worship of relics 
 and of the dead, were among its earliest symptoms. 
 But with the first dawn of error came the first protest ; 
 came the reaffirmation of the old faith. Hereupon 
 followed a spirited and minutely detailed account of the 
 controversy between Vigilantius and Jerome, both of 
 whom, the lecturer said, were head and shoulders above 
 their fellows ; one in defending the old faith, the other 
 the new state of things. The discipline of celibacy 
 
MR MAGUIRE AT CLERKENWELL. 6i 
 
 followed ; tapers began to be burnt in broad daylight ; 
 shrines were venerated, and monastic institutions 
 organized. There was a strong undergrowth of error ; 
 but the Cottian Alps became filled with the seeds of 
 Vigilantius, and are bearing fruit to the present day. 
 
 Such are only shreds and patches of a 'series of lectures 
 which can scarcely with greater fairness be taken as 
 samples of the whole, than the brick which, in the old 
 joke-book, the man carried about as a specimen of a 
 house he wanted to sell, could be regarded as a fair 
 sample of the edifice. 
 
 Surely, whatever we may think of the principles being 
 advocated, this is the fair and manly way of standing up 
 for them. There is another man, at quite the opposite 
 pole of religious thought, of whom I have spoken laugh- 
 ingly, but whom I honour for his pluck in defending by 
 the historical method what I, of course, believe to be an 
 untenable position. I mean Father Ignatius. Mr 
 Maguire would have us all good, hard-headed Protest- 
 ants like himself. Mr Lyne thinks we ought to affiliate 
 the Benedictine system on Anglicanism. Can anything 
 be more delightfully evidential as to the comprehensive- 
 ness of our Establishment than the fact that both these 
 gentlemen hold Anglican orders, and have officiated in 
 the metropolis beneath the very nose of the Bishop of 
 London and the Archbishop of Canterbury contempo- 
 raneously ? That is not to our actual purpose, though 
 the fact of such variety alone makes possible our present 
 series of papers. What one rather wishes to urge is the 
 perfect legitimacy of this aggressive Christianity in a 
 Church system where private judgment is an ingredient. 
 As Broad Churchmen, of course we don't ' aggress ' 
 anybody ; but if I should ever want to ' aggress ' any 
 one courteously but completely, I would attend any 
 number of Protestant lectures at St James's, Clerken- 
 well, and strive that a double portion of Mr Maguire's 
 spirit might rest upon me. 
 
 It would not be giving a fair summary of Mr Maguire's 
 different modes of influence did one omit to mention 
 that he is a poet as well as a Protestant controversialist. 
 
62 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 To an outsider there does not seem much, in common 
 between poetry and aggressive Christianity. ' No 
 Popery ' seems antagonistic to Parnassus. Two gaily- 
 bound little volumes — published (need it be said?) 
 by Messrs Beeley^ Jackson, and Halliday — attest the 
 fertility of Mr Maguire's muse ; and the fact that an 
 edition of a thousand of each was exhausted beforehand 
 by subscription among his congregation shows that he 
 does not pipe in vain or ' waste his sweetness on the 
 desert air.' ' Lyra Evangelica' consists mainly of poems 
 on Scriptural subjects, one series being ' Footsteps of 
 Jesus,' another ' The Parables of our Lord.' The other 
 volume is of a mixed character, and is entitled ' Sighs 
 and Songs of Earth.' No room can be found for a re- 
 view in these pages. Let it suffice to have enrolled — ■ 
 Maguire among the poets ! 
 
 DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
 IT has been too much the fashion to suppose that, while 
 sects have each one their own particular feature of 
 interest and shade of colour, the Church of England is 
 simply colourless and uninteresting : just as Mr Lowe, 
 in accounting for the want of coherence in the Liberal 
 party, laid it down that Conservatism was stagnation ; 
 and there was, he said, only one way of standing still, 
 while there were infinitely varying methods of ' moving 
 on.' Unless I greatly mistake, however, we shall find 
 within the comprehensive walls of ' the Church of Eng- 
 land as by law established,' quite as much complexity, 
 quite as delicate nuances, as in any, or amongst all, 
 religious bodies. In fact, an objection from the other 
 side tells us that the complications are too many, and 
 the differences of parties too internecine, for us to pre- 
 
DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 63 
 
 dicate unity of their aggregation ; and when we speak 
 of the Church of England, facetious outsiders derisively 
 ask ' which Church of England ? ' An honest and ap- 
 preciative examination of these different shades of faith 
 and practice may possibly have the effect of assuring 
 us that they are no more than might be expected as 
 evidences of vitality ; that they are, in fact, only analo- 
 gous to Mr Lowe's different methods of ' moving on ; ' 
 and that we may still, notwithstanding, fearlessly and 
 unhesitatingly pronounce the accustomed words of our 
 grand old symbolum — ' I believe in one Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church/ 
 
 If any one were inclined to question the characteristic 
 of the Church of England as a living power in society, 
 he could scarcely do better than pay a visit to St Paul's 
 or Westminster Abbey, whether at an ordinary serv- 
 ice or when some great preacher — such as Canon Lid- 
 don in the one case, or Dean Stanley in the other — is to 
 preach. In the vast throngs which then crowd the 
 aisles he would see, in the form of an object-lesson, as 
 it were, the best argument in favour of the Church of 
 England in general, and the cathedral system in particu- 
 lar. It is a stock objection of outsiders that the Church 
 is only ' respectable,' and the attendance of worshippers 
 mostly perfunctory. Better give back the cathedrals 
 to the Catholics — meaning the Roman Catholics — say 
 they ; you don't know what to do with them. They 
 want them for their big processions, such as they had 
 down at St Edmund's College, Ware, the other day, 
 when the Archbishop of Westminster opened the 
 ' Fourth Provincial Synod of Westminster. •" Let such 
 detractors absent themselves one single Sunday from 
 the special attractions of Mr Spurgeon's tabernacle, or 
 their own particular conventicle, whatever it may be, 
 and fairly appraise the congregations that gather in those 
 two great ybci- of metropolitan devotion, the Abbey and 
 St Paul's. They will see that the Church is not dead, 
 or even sleeping. Dormant it may have been. I can 
 remember when a service at either of these places was 
 a soporiferous thing enough ; when the lay vicars lolled 
 
64 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 about in the most undevotioiial way, the choristers open- 
 ly played their ' little games ' during service, and the 
 clergy — softly be it spoken — did not set them a particu- 
 larly good example of reverence in the House of God. 
 I myself recollect sitting close to the singing-men one 
 day, and distinctly hearing the alto sing to the tenor, 
 
 instead of the verse in the psalm, the words, ' A , 
 
 I've got a fine Cheshire cheese at home. Come with me 
 after service and taste it.' But all this is changed, thanks 
 to such men as Dean Stanley, Canon Gregory, &c. Not 
 only are the services at our metropolitan cathedral and 
 abbey perfect as specimens of musical art, but as 
 examples of reverent and devout worship ; and, what is 
 more to the purpose, they are thoroughly appreciated as 
 such by vast masses of worshippers, drawn from ' all 
 sorts and conditions of men.' Never, perhaps, was the 
 true ideal of Catholic worship more thoroughly realized, 
 for the poor man and the peer sit side by side; the fine 
 lady with her jewels, and the poor seamstress in her 
 scanty Sunday best, are equally well cared for by the 
 courteous attendants. 
 
 Finding that Dean Stanley was to preach on the 
 Sunday after the Bishop of Winchester's funeral, I went 
 betimes to the abbey, knowing by experience the 
 crowds that were accustomed to gather on such occasions, 
 but I really was not prepared for the scene that awaited 
 me. The cold gray stone of the magnificent Gothic 
 arches contrasted gratefully with the glare of the July 
 sun outside, which stole in, subdued and softened, 
 through the deep colours of the ' storied windows.' A 
 solemn funeral- march marked the entrance of the clergy 
 and choir, and the whole service was of a chastened 
 character, .the plaintive De Profundi's forming one of the 
 psalms of the day. The anthem was the appropriate 
 one of Handel, ' When the ear heard him, then it 
 blessed him,' &c. 
 
 After the third Collect, Dean Stanley ascended the 
 pulpit, and read in his sonorous voice from MS. a long 
 sermon, mainly on the subject of Bishop Wilberforce's 
 death, though glancing incidentally also at that of Lord 
 
DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 65 
 
 Westbury. The Dean took as Lis text the 27th verse, 
 1st chap. 2 Samuel, ' How are the mighty fallen, and 
 the weapons of war perished ! ' After alluding to the 
 circumstances under which this lamentation over Saul 
 and Jonathan was uttered by the Psalmist, he remarked 
 that it was a dirge which had become the model of all 
 like lamentations. Its strains had been wedded to the 
 ■ immortal music of the Dead March of Ba%d, which since 
 the days of Handel had always been associated with the 
 departure of illustrious Englishmen; and the words of 
 the text were inscribed in Latin over the door of the 
 chapel which contained the ashes of the Spanish Cid — 
 ' Quomodo ceciderunt fortes ! ' .It was the expression of 
 true patriotic instinct which binds a nation together, 
 and calls each one of us to feel pride in the gifts and 
 graces of those of our most famous countrymen with 
 whom we had the least connection, and with whom 
 perhaps we might have been in perpetual conflict. It 
 described also, in language as true as pathetic, the shock 
 with which we received the tidings of the tragical close 
 of any brilliant or eventful life. It was a song that 
 sanctioned and sanctified the irrepressible instinct of the 
 human heart, which at such a solemn moment refused 
 to speak of the dead anything but that which was good. 
 Of the great lawyer who has gone from us, said the 
 preacher, this is not the occasion to say more than a 
 very few words. To those who feel the majesty of 
 human law, to those who know the divinity of that 
 justice which guards alike the humble wants of the poor 
 and needy and him that hath no helper, and also the 
 eager struggles of the soul after spiritual truth and 
 freedom, it can never be a matter of indifference when 
 the Most High sends to this earth or takes away from 
 it one of those keen intellects which burst through the 
 entanglements of prejudice and the mists of passion in 
 common life, and by whom crooked ways are made 
 straight, and the false is shrivelled up and passes away 
 like a scroll of parchment when it is rolled together. 
 But of the great Churchman whom the nation deplores 
 it is impossible not to speak more at length within these 
 
 5 
 
66 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 walls, in the presence of those to whom his face, his 
 voice, his every look and tone, were so familiar as almost 
 to form a part of our existence. Over this abbey he 
 presided for a short time in the early days of his famous 
 career. Many a time and oft within these walls his 
 eloquence has touched the hearts of thousands. Beneath 
 the floor of this church lie the remains of his yet more 
 illustrious father, in a grave which, but for overruling 
 family affection, would have contained his own at this 
 moment. In the awful suddenness of his departure 
 there is something, even without going beyond the 
 event itself, that cannot but strike the most careless. 
 The stroke of death, which came in the very midst of 
 life, has, as by a lightning flash, transfigured with a 
 preternatural vividness the whole course and character 
 of the departed. The wide-sweeping cataract of ubi- 
 quitous vitahty has been checked midway in its head- 
 long course. That figure which stood confronting us at 
 the end of almost every avenue and prospect of public 
 and social life has disappeared from our gaze. Those 
 bright and keen weapons of war, which made his 
 opponents feel that in him they had found a 'foeman 
 worthy of their steel ' — 
 
 ' Experto credite, quantus 
 la clypeum assurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam,' 
 
 have , crumbled into dust. The spirit of boundless 
 energy has passed from the very height and fulness of 
 earthly existence into the unseen spiritual world; has 
 passed, if I may so apply the sacred words as they were 
 applied in the last week by one who was all but a 
 witness of the fatal catastrophe — ^has passed away in a 
 moment, in the twinkling of an eye, as at the last 
 trump. On the personal graces and accomplishments 
 of the departed it is not for a comparative stranger to 
 dwell, nor to intermingle with the grief which wrings 
 the heart of' many a mourning friend at this moment 
 over a loss which, to them, is beyond repair. Of his 
 opinions it will be useless on this occasion to say a 
 single word ; of the complex result of that marvellous 
 
DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 67 
 
 mixture, as of many men's personalities in one ; of tlie 
 various aspects thus presented to those who viewed his 
 course most nearly ; of its ultimate effects on the 
 spiritual development of the English Church — history 
 must judge at leisure. We are not here to-day to 
 criticize, but to learn. We are here not to condemn or 
 be condemned, but to be instructed, to be touched, to 
 be elevated to those spheres where no jarring thoughts 
 will intrude, and where, speaking as in the palace of 
 truth, we could speak only of the incontestable and the 
 indestructible. What was there, then, in his career as 
 a Churchman which has an enduring value beyond all 
 questions of opinion or party, and beyond all analysis 
 of motives ? There was, first, deep planted in him a 
 sense of the grandeur of the profession of an English 
 clergyman. This was quite irrespective of any views 
 which he might have held for or against the sacerdotal 
 or sacramental virtue of the clerical order. It was 
 something far deeper, wider, higher. It was the con- 
 sciousness that the English Church and the ministry of 
 the English Church were institutions reaching far down 
 into the vitals of our constitution and our welfare, em- 
 bracing all the elements of our domestic, political, and 
 social life. To this consciousness, no doubt, his own 
 extraordinary geniality and versatility gave wings and 
 feet and hands ; but, from whatever cause, it enabled 
 him to combine, as in one focus, all the characteristics 
 and capacities with which God had so richly endowed 
 him. It enabled him to regard the ecclesiastical office, 
 not as do many gifted men of our day, with contempt 
 or indifference, but with pride and affection. He repre- 
 sented, as in a visible shape, the conspicuous, many-sided 
 character of the English Church, and which every 
 national Church ought to seek for itself. When we 
 admire this in him, we claim it as the heritage of the 
 Church itself. When we recall the innumerable points 
 at which he touched the circle of intellectual and social 
 interests, we see as in a figure the richness and variety 
 of the gifts which the English Church must absorb if 
 it would hope to maintain its influence. We see in the 
 
68 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 general admiration bestowed on this aspect of his course 
 the pledge and assertion that, for all such gifts, for all 
 such manifestations of eloquence, grace, and knowledge, 
 the great ecclesiastical order ought to find a place if it 
 is to hold its own among the ruling powers that guide 
 mankind. The world in our day is sometimes tempted 
 to regard the clerical profession as too narrow and too 
 insignificant to be worthy of national concern or world- 
 wide interest. The Church of our day has been some- 
 times tempted to regard the mighty gifts of genius, 
 prudence, common sense, patriotism, and wide knowledge 
 as too secular to be worthy of a spiritual man or a spiritual 
 order. Such was not the view either on the one side or 
 the other by which alone the admiration of a course like 
 that which has now been closed can in any degree be 
 justified or explained. If the Church of England is to 
 be a civilized Church, and not a barbai-ian sect ; if it is 
 to be ruled by a reasonable religion and not by a false 
 superstition — then, and then only, it can draw wisdom 
 and strength from such ecclesiastics as him whom all 
 parties now unite in deploring. Further, this hold on 
 the vast outer world and on the general policy of the 
 Church was in him united with an undeviating and 
 punctual fulfilment of all those laborious duties which 
 his Episcopal functions imposed upon him; rather, I 
 would say, which his own magnificent conception of 
 what the Episcopal oSice should be, created for him. 
 Keen as was his perception, insatiable as was his enjoy- 
 ment of the intellectual and social pleasures which were 
 open to him in an unusual degree, partly through his 
 great historic position, but yet more through his own 
 unbounded receptivity, and his own inexhaustible en- 
 dowments ; yet in spite of those distractions, and not- 
 withstanding those temptations, he devoted himself to 
 the tedious details of administration, lent himself to the 
 incessant calls on his time, patience, and judgment, ever 
 increasing in proportion to the growth of his fame and 
 usefulness, as though he had no other occupation or 
 concern. Indefatigable, with the indefatigability which 
 has sometimes been called the sure sign of genius ; filled 
 
DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 69 
 
 witli that strong sense of public obligation wliich belongs 
 to every genuine Englishman ; transformed, shall we 
 not venture to say, with something of that loftier 
 spiritual inspiration which to- him was almost a birth- 
 right, and which blended itself inextricably with the 
 lights and shades of his manifold character, he employed 
 bis singular gifts and penetrating influence in the service 
 of the humblest of his curates and the homeliest of the 
 parishes under his charge, as unsparingly, as cheerfully, 
 as effectively, as on behalf of the highest in the land. 
 When he turned his face towards his diocese, then, in 
 the language of the ordination service, he ' drew all his 
 studies that way.' Perhaps it was that the office of an 
 English Bishop grew, as it were, under his hand almost 
 into a new institution. His example became, perforce, 
 contagious. No Bishop, no clergyman, we might almost 
 say no layman, within his reach, could stand still with- 
 out feeling the touch, the stimulus, the magic atmosphere 
 of an activity which could neither rest itself, nor, as has 
 been well said, suffer those around him to rest. No 
 doubt, in this respect, he was but one instrument among 
 many in the work of reanimating a slumbering Church. 
 He inherited the forces of that religious movement, 
 which, beginning with Wesley in the last century, was 
 continued, in all the simplicity of Christian zeal, in his 
 father's home at Clapham. In that fresh re-invigora- 
 tion of the Episcopal office other prelates now gone to 
 their reward had preceded him in the conscientious and 
 laborious discharge of hitherto unpractised duties. 
 Others, still living, have followed him with an energy 
 no less vigilant and even more self-denying. But it was 
 reserved for his splendid gifts to crown this course with 
 a halo of its own which once kindled can never be 
 extinguished. This is a part of his example which, 
 alike from its homeliness and its brilliancy, all of us, 
 however remote from ecclesiastical affairs, however 
 differing, whether from his means or his ends, can 
 appreciate and admire. It derives also an additional 
 solemnity from the reflection that he laboured thus in- 
 cessantly, with a constant and an increasing forethought 
 
70 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of the sudden end whicli at last came in so unlooked-for 
 a form. ' I must work the works of Him that sent me 
 while it is day. The night cometh^ when no man can 
 work.' And night has come upon him as on the sun 
 in the tropics. There was no twilight ; no preparation. 
 It may come to each of us in like manner : may it find 
 uSj as it found him, working and watching. His life 
 was a glorification of industrious work ; his death was 
 the seal set upon it. 
 
 Of the details of that work there is one point upon 
 which I may be allowed to dwell for a moment ; because 
 it is drawn from our own experience in this place, and 
 because it applies with special force to one particular 
 portion of my hearers. It is the custom of this abbey, 
 in consequence of the peculiar independence of its 
 ecclesiastical position, that when a confirmation is held 
 for the Westminster scholars, the dean selects some 
 bishop, formerly connected with Westminster, to ad- 
 minister the sacred rite. It has been my lot for nine 
 successive years, with one exception, to request on these 
 occasions the aid of the departed Bishop, both because 
 he once ruled as chief officer over this body, and also 
 because of the singular and surpassing grace with which 
 he discharged this particular function. The confirma- 
 tion office, as thus administered amongst us, was gradu- 
 ally moulded through his influence, and it was in order 
 to consecrate the effect of his presence in those who 
 came to be confirmed, and to bring them more directly 
 within the thrilling tones of that sweet silvery voice, 
 sinking on those occasions into a familiar conversation 
 or solemn whisper, that the service was transferred from 
 its ordinary place in the choir to the chapel of King 
 Henry VII. And there year by year the successive 
 generations of Westminster scholars heard the words 
 atherly counsel from those marvellous lips, which 
 never spoke with more gracious simplicity and unaffected 
 pathos than in those addresses. The slightest hint 
 conveyed to him a moment before would be caught up 
 and transformed into some striking figure or precept 
 that could never be forgotten. The advice, the warn- 
 
DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 71 
 
 ingSj the consolations, though always on the same 
 subject, were always varied, always fresh as from the 
 ' womb of the morning/ You, my young hearers, who 
 three weeks ago knelt in that chapel to receive his 
 benediction, will remember in future years that you 
 heard on that now memorable occasion the parting ad- 
 monitions of one of England's most famous prelates. 
 May you reflect even now, in the days of your youth, 
 that it was the inspiring sight of your young faces, the 
 peculiar interest awakened in him by the trials, the influ- 
 ence, the tenderness, the innocence of boys at school, 
 that were the means of drawing forth from that most 
 eloquent son of a most eloquent father words and argu- 
 ments more persuasive, more affecting, and therefore 
 more truly eloquent, than any that were ever heard from 
 his mouth either by the lesser or the greater congrega- 
 tion. Upon you he poured forth all that was in him of 
 his nobler and finer nature. Be it yours to bear it away 
 as his latest legacy from this glorious abbey, which he 
 so deai'ly loved, and which delights to rank his name 
 among the most brilliant of those who have presided 
 over its destinies. And now, in concluding, amidst the 
 uncertainty and insecurity of all judgment formed under 
 the shock of such a catastrophe, one thing is absolutely 
 certain : the shock has left a blank, and has opened a 
 void which cannot but be felt in a greater or less degree 
 through the coming fortunes of the whole of English 
 Christendom. In the public meeting, in the religious 
 assembly, in the social gathering, one face will be looked 
 for that now will be seen no more; one voice that 
 charmed all hearers is for ever silent ; and not only so, 
 but an existence is extinguished which was the chief 
 stimulating or retarding force of almost every movement 
 of ecclesiastical policy. New necessities, new duties, 
 new opportunities for good crowd into the vacant space ; 
 and of the weapons by which th6 war or the peace of 
 the Church has been maintained for the last thirty years, 
 not a few, whether spear or sword or bow, are buried 
 v^ith him in his grave. It was said by one who loved 
 him dearly and knew him well when he left his first 
 
72 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 episcopate — ' Tlie romance of the diocese is gone ! ' 
 The same in a large and more varied sense may be said 
 now that he has left us altogether. The romance, the 
 conflict, the dramatic interest, the multifarious excite- 
 ment, the trumpet's silver call, the phosphoric, electric 
 atmosphere, the iron sharpening iron, the magic of dis- 
 solving views — all these are gone : we have turned over 
 a fresh leaf in the history of the English Church. It is 
 for those who remain to weigh well what are the charac- 
 ters which should be written on its future pages. We 
 have been warned in various tones that such as he was 
 is not likely again to paint or adorn the tale of our 
 eventful annals. It may well be so ; for such a i-are and 
 at the same time such an intricate combination of quali- 
 ties comes once in the age of a nation, and comes not 
 again. ' The mighty are fallen, and the weapons of war 
 are perished,' and no art or effort can recall or recon- 
 struct them. But the materials out of which these 
 weapons were forged, and the stage on which the heroes 
 of the world and of the Church -have acted, still continue, 
 and will continue as long as goodness is to be promoted, 
 as long as freedom is to be secured, as long as truth is to 
 be vindicated, as long as selfishness, indolence, and 
 falsehood have to be combated on the face of this dis- 
 tracted earth. In the weariness of life's struggles we 
 are sometimes tempted to think. Blessed, thrice happy, 
 are they that have fallen in the fulness of years and of 
 honours, that have gone beyond the reach of miscon- 
 struction, of failure, of temptation. Blessed, thrice 
 blessed, to have passed at one bound from the midst of 
 toilsome labours, arduous duties, and eager aspirations, 
 into the presence of Him who knows whereof we are 
 made, and in whose light we shall see light. Yet for 
 those who are left behind in the dull wear and tear of 
 those earthly scenes, there is a call that reverberates 
 from the grave. True, there is not, nor will there be 
 for many a year to come, one of like gifts with him who 
 has now been removed, as neither was there for many a 
 long year before. The race he ran is not yet over. 
 England and the English Church have still a course 
 
DEAN STANLEY AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 73 
 
 before them, larger, wider, than any individual career. 
 We know well that there have been in other times and 
 countries revivals of religious life, not for good, but 
 evil, or at least for very mixed and partial good ; zeal 
 without knowledge, life without light, faith without 
 charity ; revivals not of living and eternal truths, but 
 of ancient errors and dead superstitions. Let it be our 
 aim and prayer that our departed brother shall not have 
 laboured in vain in his efforts to reanimate this Church 
 of England. . Let our tribute to him be in the years 
 that are coming that there shall be imparted to the 
 future movements of the English Church an upward 
 spirit that shall ever more and more direct our wander- 
 ing efforts rightly, which shall lead useven through the 
 valley of the shadow of death to the green pastures and 
 beside the waters of comfort. Let us remember that 
 the true and only purpose of every religious institution, 
 and of every religious revival, is to make earth like 
 heaven, and man like Jesus Christ. Let us remember 
 that the glory of the clergy is not to set themselves 
 apart as a separate caste, but to make themselves one 
 with their fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians. 
 Let us remember that the chiefest and noblest weapons 
 of war with which error can be subdued are those which 
 are forged, heated, and burnished in the furnace of un- 
 flinching inquiry, of absolute love of truth, of unshrink- 
 ing and unswerving, sincerity, wielded with discrimin- 
 ating forbearance, strict impartiality, and boundless 
 charity. Let us not seek to exterminate differences, 
 for differences are the essence and fruits of life, but to 
 prevent differences from becoming divisions. Let us 
 be sure that in every effort to enlarge our borders, to 
 open our gates, to retain whatever there is of true and 
 holy among ourselves, and to welcome whatever there 
 is of true and holy among our estranged brethren, is the 
 strength of a Church whose boast it is that it is the 
 Church of England, the Church of the Eeformation, the 
 Church of Him who said, ' When I am lifted up I will 
 draw all men unto myself,' and who also said, ' Him 
 that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' 
 
74 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Many members of both Houses of Parliament were 
 present at this service ; and the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, not robed, but simply as a member of that mighty 
 congregation, occupied a stall next to the Dean. As 
 we filed slowly out to the majestic strains of Handel's 
 Dead March in Saul, the most unimpassioned must have 
 felt his soul stirred within him^ and may have learned 
 to his profit the same lesson that was taught even more 
 solemnly still by that open grave in the quiet Sussex 
 churchyard, that there is more of real pathos in the 
 simple ritual of the Church of England, properly carried 
 out, than in all the meretricious adjuncts of the costliest 
 spectacle ever presided over by a master of the cere- 
 monies. 
 
 CANON LIDDON AT ST PAUL'S. 
 
 IF one of our ancestors were suddenly to start into re- 
 animation, he might, on certain Sundays in the year, 
 fancy that the old glories of Paul's Cross had continued 
 undimmed to the present day. He might even deem 
 those ancient splendours enhanced as he saw the Metro- 
 politan District Railway disgorge its laden trains at 
 Blackfriars to hear Canon Liddon preach ; for it is of 
 his period of residence at St Paul's we speak. This 
 preacher gained what is for most of us an unenviable 
 notoriety by delivering sermons of an hour and a quar- 
 ter in length ; but the strangest phenomenon of all was 
 that he got people to listen to him — got vast congrega- 
 tions to sit at St James's, Piccadilly, and actually wish 
 there was more coming, instead of hailing the ascription 
 as a relief. I saw Canon Liddon advertised to preach 
 under the dome at St Paul's -one Sunday — no smaller 
 area is capable of accommodating his congregation — -and 
 determined I would take him as my representative man 
 
CANON LIDDON AT ST PA VL'S. 75 
 
 of tlie day. In a general way there can scarcely be im- 
 agined a greater contrast than Fleet Street on a Sunday 
 and Fleet Street on a week-day. For six days the tide 
 of life goes ebbing and flowing without pause, but Sun- 
 day is generally dead calm. The very press-men do not 
 make their appearance until people are well in church at 
 their morning or evening devotions. Then, in the for- 
 mer case, the luxurious leader-writers, in the latter the 
 night-working owls of sub-editors, surge up to the sur- 
 face. But for these, Sunday would be a breathless calm 
 in Blackfriars ; but Canon LiUdon makes a very palpable 
 ripple on the surface when he is the afternoon preacher 
 at Paul's Cross. 
 
 Studiously avoiding to use my privileges, either as a 
 journalist or a clergyman, by pushing to the front seats, 
 I determined I would go in with the crowd to St Paul's 
 that Sunday afternoon, and see whether I could analyze 
 its component parts, and in any way test the effect of 
 the Canon's sermon on them. Sitting beneath the shade 
 of Samuel Johnson's monument, I saw gathered before 
 me one of those vast seas of human beings which it is so 
 exceptional for a preacher to get together without mere- 
 tricious aid of some kind. There were large numbers 
 of ladies, old, young, and more middle-aged, of course j 
 but the female element was far from being so largely in 
 the ascendant as we often see it in congregations. There 
 were young men — from shopmen and City clerks to 
 West-end "blood" — and grayheaded men of all ages 
 and classes. Clergymen abounded, coming in — many of 
 them late, like myself, and evidently hurrying thither 
 after a long morning service — to take a lesson in pulpit 
 oratory, or simply to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of 
 being preached to. Inflexible spinsters tried to occupy 
 two or three chairs each, and gave infinite trouble to the 
 gigantic gentleman in spectacles acting as an amateur 
 Suisse de cathedrale, and his attendant vergers, who 
 flitted about in gowns and silver maces, and did their 
 best politely to pack that huge gathering. 
 
 The Psalms, I regret to say, were being sung as I en- 
 tered ; but it was ' duty,^ and not inclination, that had 
 
76 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 broken in upon my habifcnal and inherent punctuality. 
 Very sweetly did the cadences come from the large sur- 
 pliced choir, and seem to "roll from side to side of the 
 peopled nave as the congregation took up their verses 
 antiphonally. Then a venerable gentleman, with long 
 white beard, read the lessons from a lofty eagle in the 
 centre of the space under the dome. I had thought it 
 would be impossible for him to make himself audible, but 
 he did so with apparent -ease by pitching his voice in a 
 high key — in fact, almost monotoning the words of Holy 
 Scripture. There was great reverberation, but I should 
 think every one heard. The anthem was the exquisite 
 one from Elijah, ' If with all your hearts you truly seek 
 Him, ye shall ever surely find Him ; ' and as I listened, 
 spell-bound, to the touching solo, or the soft and chast- 
 ened chorus with which it was supplemented, I could 
 not but think of the dead master-musician who had been 
 moved to tears there where I was sitting, when he heard 
 the little charity children sing their simple melodies 
 at their annual gathering, reminding one of Keble's 
 beautiful lines : — 
 
 ' Childlike though the voices be, 
 And untunable the parts, 
 Thou wilt own the minstrelsy, 
 If it flow from childlike hearts.' 
 
 I can remember the time when a service at St Paul's 
 was a very dreary, and, withal, a somewhat slovenly 
 performance ; but some good genius has waved his wand 
 over the arrangements, and simply but effectually 
 changed all that. The sermon was preached, not after 
 the third Collect, as is customary in many cathedrals, 
 but in the more usual place, at the conclusion of evening 
 prayers. The pulpit is at the south-eastern portion of 
 the vast circumference, and is surmounted by a huge but 
 somewhat tawdry-looking sounding-board, supported 
 from on high by a chain so slender as to give it the ap- 
 pearance of being likely to fall and crush any incautious 
 preacher who should give way to extra enthusiasm in 
 his discourse. There was no hymn or pause of any kind 
 
CANON LIDDON AT ST PA UL'S. yy 
 
 between the prayers and sermon ; which was unfortunate, 
 not only because an opportunity was lost of utilizing 
 that splendid choir, but also because it obliged the 
 preacher to leave his stall and mount the pulpit while 
 the prayer of St Chrysostom was being read ; but we 
 Scarcely noticed the incongruity. We had emphatically 
 come to ' hear Canon Liddon/ as the Clapham people 
 speak of going to church, and our Chrysostom was now 
 in his pulpit. His sharp-cut, shaven, and monastic- 
 looking face peered out wistfully over the great as- 
 sembly ; and in a voice slightly forced, but quite audible, 
 and with the unmistakable accent of a quondam aca- 
 demic ' don,^ he gave out as his text the two opening 
 verses of the Parable of the Unjust Steward — the Epis- 
 tle for the day : — ' There was a certain rich man which 
 had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that 
 he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said 
 unto him, '' How is it that I hear this of thee ? Give an 
 account of thy stewardship ; for thou m'ayest be no 
 longer steward." ' 
 
 First of all, the preacher noticed how this parable, like 
 that of the Unjust Judge, was probably taken from some 
 event in the current history of Palestine, and how vivid 
 and effective such a circumstance would make the teach- 
 ing if the hearers were well acquainted with the details. 
 He then passed rapidly in review the familiar points of 
 the story as one of ' clever rascality,' and showed how 
 our Lord only reported, without endorsing, thecommend- 
 ation of the landlord. Probably the steward had a 
 legal, though not a moral, right thus to tamper with his 
 master's rental ; but the approval of the master consti- 
 tuted what we might reverently describe as the surprise 
 of the parable. We should expect the master to be 
 angry, and so, no doubt, he would have been had he been 
 an English landlord ; but the course he took was just 
 what we should expect to find taken in the East now. 
 The Oriental mind is struck, not by right or wrong, but 
 by audacity and success ; by a triumph of force or cun- 
 ning. If not absolutely ruined by it, he would, as an 
 Eastern, admire this stroke of clever rascality ; and this 
 
78 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 touch had much to do in making critics beh'eve the story 
 a real one. 
 
 The point enforced by this commendation was the 
 necessity of prudence in matters that touched the soul. 
 We must practically recognize two obvious truths. I. 
 Every human being is simply a trustee. From the Queen 
 down to the poorest person this is true ; there is no such 
 thing as human ownership. This seemed. Canon Liddon 
 said, a mere truism ; but all our gifts were either in- 
 herited or earned ; and in the first instance we did not 
 give the energy of acquisition to those who bequeathed 
 them to us, or in the second we did not give ourselves 
 the strong arm or active brain by which we had earned 
 them. Life itself was a gift. We were still only 
 stewards. How little we made of this truth ! We spoke 
 as if God was bound first to make us, and then to give 
 us what we had ; as if we had substantive claims on God. 
 Or else we complain that God had not done more for us, 
 having done so much. The fundamental idea in our 
 minds was, that as a matter of bare justice no one had 
 claims on us. We transferred to our relations with God 
 the privileges given us by human law. If we spoke out, 
 we should say that, as God had rights in heaven, so had 
 we rights on earth. There were some case's — as, for in- 
 stance, that of landed property — where men did recognize 
 the fact of responsibility. It is not a mere possession of 
 the owner, to do what he will. He holds it on trust for 
 the poor, or for his country. His bit of land was naturally 
 intended to support a certain population, and those rights 
 were not set aside because that population were his 
 tenants. If he cleared his land and sent the poor into 
 some adjacent city, so as to lower his own rates, he 
 would be condemned by the conscience of the country. 
 This principle, like all truths, might be exaggerated 
 and pushed to extremes ; but what was true of landed 
 property in this country did apply in a certain degree 
 to property of all kinds, ' in the funds, in foreign fnnds 
 — in nobody knew what funds.' We were stiU trustees. 
 If we lost sight of this fact, we wasted goods which were 
 not ours, but our Master's. This waste was ' one of the 
 
CANON LIDDON AT ST PA UrS. 79 
 
 sad mysteries of God^s moral creation/ and it kept pace 
 curiously with His bounty, as the activity of error seemed 
 to keep pace with the spread of truth. The waste of 
 property was most palpable when the young heir squan- 
 dered it on the turf or at the gambling-table; but 
 property was often wasted in a less ostentatious way — 
 as, for example, when a man spent all on himself, or 
 hoarded his money as though he were going to keep it 
 for ever. The man who did not make a conscience of 
 what he had by giving a tenth, or some fixed proportion, 
 to God and his fellow-men, was wasting it, because he 
 was treating it as his own, and not as what would have 
 to be accounted for at Christ's throne; and this funda- 
 mental error vitiated all his use of it. Then there was 
 the waste of mental gifts ; for genius and talent were the 
 same as money under this aspect. Having sharpened 
 his wits by education, a man thought he might do as he 
 liked with them, and wrote in ' clever newspapers ' or 
 periodicals which sacrificed morality to sensation. 
 Mashes of genius were thus wasted, because nothing 
 was done for the glory of God or the progress of the 
 human soul. Talent was given for one supreme end, 
 and that end was God's glory. 
 
 There was the waste of influence, too : the power 
 given to all of us of guiding others. It was wasted by 
 indolence, timidity, or seeking popularity instead of 
 truth. Fathers of families, heads of establishments, 
 chief servants, teachers, clergymen. Bishops, and Arch- 
 bishops — all these had. a great account to give. All 
 which they might do fell within the area of their re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 Greater still was the waste of grace. It does not tell 
 like property or ability ; and therefore, walking by sight 
 and not by faith, as we did, we were apt to think less of 
 it. But it was incomparably greater than money or 
 talent. It cost more, and could do more. It was 
 earned by Christ's Blood. It touched not our material 
 life, but our real selves ; not this world, but the next. 
 How piteous was the waste of opportunity in reference to 
 prayer, instruction, the sacraments ! Each opportunity 
 
8o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 was a property. Of such we were stewards ; and what 
 such stewardship involved we should only know here- 
 after. 
 
 Incidentally we might speak of the waste of health 
 and time. Even sickness itself was sometimes an 
 opportunity. 'I would not for all the world/ said a 
 great sufferer who had led a careless life^ ' suffer one 
 pang less than I have for the last five months.' But 
 health was God's best gift. Time was charged with 
 irrevocable opportunities. Time, said a great Christian 
 writer, should be made the most of every hdur, as men 
 sip a liqueur, drop by drop. No life could be wasted 
 with impunity ; for as waste proceeded on earth, it was 
 being pleaded as an accusation before the Lord of Life 
 in the courts of heaven. 
 
 II. A time would come, said the preacher, when an 
 account would be demanded. It was not always the 
 life that was taken. The literary man who had sacrificed 
 truth to sensation might lose his sight. The waster of 
 property found himself a pauper. The abuser of power 
 saw that power collapse, and become a byword for moral 
 impotence. Now and then there was a pause in the 
 history of the world, as if for us to see the withdrawal 
 of great endowments, brought about by what was called 
 the force of events. Five times in the present century 
 had it thus been said to France, ' Give an account of 
 thy stewardship.' So was it with Solomon in the lesson 
 of the day. He was humbled, yet spared. It was a 
 mercy when God thus withdrew His gifts, but left time 
 for repentance. In view of this last account it might be 
 better to end life at St Helena than at the Tuileries. 
 
 But the call to account was not always merely one to 
 retirement. Men were often summoned to appear before 
 ■the throne. We had been solemnly reminded of late 
 about these swift passages from bustling life to the still- 
 ness of the presence-chamber. We might be sitting in 
 the last carriage of a train that got detached from the 
 rest, nobody knew how. We might be cantering on 
 our horse chatting to a friend, when, lo ! a slip from 
 the saddle, and in a moment all was over. The chasm 
 
CANON LIDDON A T ST PA UL'S. 8i 
 
 that parted time from eternity was passed. He would 
 not imply that sudden death was penal ; ifc was often 
 the act of a peculiarly tender love. All depended on 
 whether those who were so summoned were living in 
 thoughts of death or not. It was impossible not to 
 think of that prelate who, one short month ago, had 
 been administering one of our greatest dioceses ; and 
 it was a comfort to know that he lived habitually in the 
 prospect of death. When a friend, some short time 
 since, was speculating about a bishopric, he said, ' Pro- 
 bably I shall make the vacancy.' Those who only knew 
 him in public scarcely guessed how he carried this idea 
 into all the departments of life. Yet so it was; and 
 now there rose around his grave ' a chorus of encomium/ 
 aflSrming that he above all others had taught what the 
 stewardship which was committed to an English Bishop 
 might mean. While we were seeking how to perpetuate 
 his memory, it was impossible not to ask where was 
 that keen inquisitive mind now ? It mattered little to 
 him, said the eloquent preacher, with most solemn em- 
 phasis, what we should do, now that he had seen the 
 everlasting realities ; now that he had passed the thres- 
 hold of the worldj and gazed, as a spirit might gaze, on 
 the face of Christ. If he could speak, he would say, 
 what his life and death said, ' Be you who you may, you 
 are stewards ; and the one thing is so to live that you 
 may give account.' 
 
 It had been said, he concluded, that public men»were 
 divisible into two classes : those who believed in the 
 Day of Judgment, and those who did not. That meant 
 that some had a sense of responsibility which others 
 lacked ; and the observation was true of all of us. All 
 had a stewardship. And with the majority of us all 
 would soon be over. In thoughts of death, and of the 
 account after death, we learnt healthy views of life and 
 duty. 
 
 The sermon occupied something less than an hour in 
 delivery, and at its conclusion the Canon gave out, in 
 simplest, homeliest fashion, the hymn, ' When morning 
 gilds the skies,' which was sung by the choir in a way 
 
 6 
 
82 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 to make us regret that metrical hymns are not more 
 usual in cathedrals. 
 
 As I passed out and saw the crowds filing from each 
 . separate door, I could not but recognize the fact that, 
 with all odr advance since the days of Paul's Cross, 
 preaching might be still a great power amongst uSj and 
 the palpit vie even with the press as an influential force 
 on society. 
 
 AT THE GOLDEN LECTURE. 
 
 I SCARCELY know which is the more striking effect, 
 that produced by the shining of a solitary light in 
 the gloom of a Cathedral at night, or by the silence of a 
 church in the midst of the noise and din of a great city. 
 I once entered the nave of an English Cathedral during 
 a winter's evening, when the sexton was digg'ing a grave 
 by the light of a solitary candle, and actually saw him 
 shovel out a skull of some ancient canon or other 
 dignitary, just like the grave-digger in ' Hamlet ; ' and 
 I know not how it is, but when I attend a City church, 
 as I did on the first Tuesday in -Lent at St Margaret's, 
 Lothi)ury, I am conscious of a kindred sensation. There 
 is a feeling of awe which it would be very difficult to 
 analyze or explain. As' I paced the busy thoroughfare 
 of Moorgate Street from th.e Metropolitan Terminus to 
 my destination, and by and by the bell of St Margaret's 
 clashed noisily out above the din of traffic, there seemed 
 something incongruous in the combination of sounds. 
 It was the same when I entered the building, and heard 
 the roll of waggons and omnibuses, which even double 
 windows were unable to exclude. The stillness and 
 solitude within seemed perfectly terrible in comparison 
 with the noisy tide of life without. I had of course 
 expected the silence, but I was not, I own, quite 
 
AT THE GOLDEN LECTURE. 83 
 
 prepared for the solitude. I remembered wkat the 
 Golden Lecture had been in the days of Henry Melvill, 
 ^,nd how necessary it was to be in good time to get a 
 seat. I recalled the unwonted spectacle of business-men 
 leaving the receipt of custom to listen to the eloquent, 
 even if somewhat stilted and artificial, periods of the 
 celebrated preacher. I thought the mantle had fallen 
 on his successor, the Rev. Daniel Moore; and it was 
 with some surprise that, after something like a rush from 
 the station, and only arriving about a quarter to eleven, 
 I found the church virtually empty. A dilapidated 
 verger, in a dress coat worn with age, was walking 
 pensively about, and seemed really quite glad to see me, 
 put me in a centre seat, and supplied me at two several 
 journeys with prayer-book and hymnal. He seemed 
 not to be happy except when walking about, did that 
 ancient verger, and only comparatively so even then. 
 He looked as though he had something on his mind; 
 perhaps it was the memory of olden times, when the 
 Golden Lecture, the Laureateship of the pulpit, was 
 more attractive than now. He left me to the contem- 
 plation of the sacred edifice, which, empty as it was, 
 bore reference to better days, in the fact of numbers of 
 now useless chairs being stacked on either side of the 
 Communion Table, above which were portraits of, I 
 fancy, Moses and Aaron, in garments which resembled 
 gowns with high stomachers. By the time the bell 
 ceased, there were, I was amazed to find, only fifteen in 
 the congregation. Three of those, including myself, 
 were parsons, and one a maiden aunt of my own, who, 
 I believe, feels bound in conscience to attend every 
 Evangelical week-day sermon preached within an access- 
 ible radius of London. Most of the fifteen were gray- 
 headed, and some dilapidated, like the verger. All were 
 evidently Conservative and Evangelical to the very 
 marrow. 
 
 At eleven o'clock a procession of two emerged from 
 the vestry. One was a bearded gentleman, arrayed in 
 surplice only, which he seemed to have put on in a hurry, 
 forgetting his hood and stole. The other was the 
 
84 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Eeverend Daniel Moore, in a M.A. gown, brown with 
 age as the verger's coat itself. The surpliced gentleman 
 mounted the second story of a portentous pulpit-erection, 
 and Mr Moore subsided into a pew. The service was 
 the reverse of ornate, there being no singing even at 
 the ' Glorias/ and the reader still giving one the idea 
 that he was pressed for time. One of the gray-headed 
 gentlemen in the congregation took the responses, 
 officiating as amateur clerk, while the dilapidated verger 
 walked about like a wandering undertaker vexed with 
 depression of business at a healthy time of the year. 
 
 There was a little unobtrusive lectern at the foot of 
 the pulpit staircase, and I fancied the reader would have 
 read the Lessons from thence ; but he remained on the 
 second etage, and appeared to find the Hebrew names in 
 the First Lesson — Numbers x. — rather obstacles to his 
 progress. He threw more fire into the Second, and 
 read the dialogue of Herodias and her daughter almost 
 dramatically, but certainly well, showing how nicely 
 the rest of the service might have gone if he had had 
 more leisure at his command. In fact, if I may be 
 allowed to anticipate, this was the idea uppermost in 
 my mind all the time, — what this Golden Lecture might 
 be, and if might, surely should be. I could not help 
 comparing the scanty gathering at St Margaret's with 
 the crowds that thronged St Edmund the King's hard 
 by, to hear the eccentric young Anglican monk, Ignatius, 
 deliver himself Surely, with such an endowment, 
 the Golden Lectureship should draw business men — as 
 I know it did once draw them — from their business by 
 presenting them with an ideal service and sermon. If 
 it does not do so — ^if men are really so much more 
 material than they were in Canon Melvill's time, then 
 it suggests the further thought, why not transplant this 
 lecture to the "West? Mr Moore would have got a 
 congregation — of ladies, at all events — in his own 
 church of Holy Trinity, Paddington. But I am digress- 
 ing, and perhaps verging on criticism, which latter I 
 am resolved to eschew, except so far as facts speak for 
 themselves. 
 
AT THE GOLDEN LECTURE. 85 
 
 When the service was over, I wondered whether we 
 should be included in ' choirs and places where they 
 sing/ We had not been after the third Collect ; but 
 the impetuous gentleman carried us breathlessly on to 
 the prayer of St Chrysostom before we knew where we 
 were. Then, however, he gave out the doleful hymn, 
 ' From lowest depths of woe,'' which seemed vastly 
 appropriate, however, and which the aged people sang 
 with all the little twiddles and turns and passing notes, 
 as they always do in country churches. We were very 
 primitive and behind the age that day in St Margaret's. 
 I hope I am not wronging the organist; but I very 
 much Suspected that functionary of rushing in to play 
 the De profwicHn for us, and decamping as soon as it was 
 over. Mr Moore left the pew and retired to the vestry 
 during the hymn, though he was arrayed in full acade- 
 mical costume for the pulpit already. The only change 
 which I could see he had effected was the removal of 
 his gloves during his absence. He then mounted the 
 pulpit, and commenced the first of a series of sermons 
 on the Apocalyptic addresses to the seven Churches of 
 Asia, which we were informed by printed notices in the 
 church would be continued each Tuesday during Lent. 
 
 That day was devoted to the Church of Ephesus ; and 
 Mr Moore took for his text Rev. ii. 4 : ' Nevertheless, I 
 have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy 
 first love.' Referring to a previous course of sermons 
 on the subject of the Church of Laodicea, the preacher 
 said that all these addresses to the Asiatic Churches 
 ■were very instructive to bodies of Christian worshippers, 
 as showing how they were regarded by Him whose eyes 
 'were as a flame of fire, in whose hand were the seven 
 stars, and who, to search the heart and test the sincerity, 
 is ever walking amid the seven golden candlesticks. 
 These messages varied in tone ; in some the elements 
 of commendation prevailed, in others that of censure. 
 In the Address to the Church of Ephesus there was 
 much commendation. In no niggard spirit there was 
 set forth what she had done and suffered; but still 
 there was a great blot on the picture ; a ' huge fly ' — 
 
86 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 such was the peculiar imagery employed — ^had made its 
 way into the ointment of a good name. She had left 
 her first love. Let us, he said, glance at her history. 
 There were reasons why she should take a precedence 
 of all the other Churches. Ephesus was the civil and 
 ecclesiastical centre of the Asia of the Revelations. She 
 was, as she liked to be termed, the ' Light of Asia,' 
 beyond Smyrna and Pergamos, and the other cities. 
 She was distinguished, in a secular point of view, for her 
 commerce, and for her Oriental and Greek culture. 
 There was the temple of her tutelar goddess Diana. 
 But she was more distinguished still under a Christian 
 aspect. Thus Ephesus stood out conspicuously. Here 
 it was St Paul laboured successfully for three whole 
 years. So long a period of his mission life was given 
 to this one place, and his success was attested by the 
 fact of the sorcerers bringing their magical books and 
 burning them. Here the number of converts awoke 
 the selfish jealousy of Demetrius and his fellow-crafts- 
 men. Here Timothy was ordained to the episcopate, 
 and Apollos taught. Here, too, the beloved Apostle 
 spent the last few years of his protracted life, when he 
 had left Jerusalem to superintend the Asiatic Churches. 
 Down as far as the second century her bishops had 
 borne faithful witness to the truth ; but from this point 
 she had decayed, had gone from dark to dark, until sh« 
 came to the untraceable blank and void. The glory 
 passed away, and only few relics of her ancient Chris- 
 tianity remained. Attempts had been made on the spot 
 to gather some traces of her former success; but in 
 vain. Modern travellers told us that there were few 
 Turks on the site of ancient Ephesus, and only one 
 Christian ! A cloud had passed over the place. Green 
 corn grew amid her ruins ; so truly had been fulfilled 
 the words, ' I will come quickly, and will remove thy 
 candlestick out of its place.' 
 
 And yet witness was borne to the self-denying efforts 
 of the Ephesian Church. ' I know thy works,' &c. 
 The works are specified ; and they are those common 
 to the other messages. This, the preacher said, showed 
 
AT THE GOLDEN LECTURE. 87 
 
 us that no act of self-denial, 01* resistance to sin, or 
 endeavour after higher life, passed unnoticed. Bphesus 
 was not an idle Church, or an indifferent one, like 
 Laodicea. The people were in earnest for the Gospel 
 of Christ, and for the salvation of souls. What flaw or 
 vitiating element, then, was there ? We should see 
 '. presently.' So far, it was enough for us to know that 
 Grod might see our good works, and yet know that there 
 was something faulty in them. Men might labour, 
 might compass sea and land, might work night and day, 
 might spend and be spent in a good cause, and yet not 
 be actuated by a right spirit, even as the sons of 
 Zebedee when they would call down fire from heaven. 
 The lesson was that zeal in a good cause, earnestness, 
 devotedness, labours even to fainting, might be no 
 more than ' an Ephesian grace.' Their practical Chris- 
 tianity received honourable mention as far as it went ; 
 but the commendation was neutralized by the words of 
 the text, ' Thou hast left thy first love.' 
 
 Tne Ephesians were commended for their invincible 
 patience. They had not fainted under rebuke. They 
 had not given up heart and hope when there were 
 enemies on every side. This was still a higher attain- 
 ment than the former, for it was easier to work than to 
 forbear. Many had the lesson of sitting still to learn, 
 ,ahd found the limits of a sick chamber the boundaries 
 of their mission-field. This was the advanced point of 
 spiritual discipline to which Ephesus had attained. 
 
 Again, there was a sensitiveness to all dishonouring 
 companionships : 'I know how thou canst not bear them 
 which are evil.' Like testimony had been borne in the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians ; and after thirty years the 
 lesson had not been forgotten altogether, but still — once 
 and again the text was repeated^she had ' left her first 
 love.' There was a righteous intolerance of false 
 doctrines, a purging out of all teachers who did not 
 hold ' the truth as it is in Jesus,' and in keeping all liars 
 out of the apostolate. Such was the honourable testi- 
 mony borne ; but before there was time for congratula- 
 tion, all was marred by the occurrence of the oft-quoted 
 
88 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 text, 'Thou hast left thy first love.' Hence, we could, 
 he said, see the signs and the source of religious de- 
 olension in the alteration of religious affection, in the 
 leaving of the first love. Let us try how far this holds 
 good with ourselves. 
 
 I might mention that by this time the congregation 
 had perhaps increased to thirty ; that all wore a stolid, 
 resigned, rather than an interested appearance ; and 
 that two of the clerical gentlemen had their eyes fast 
 closed, whether in slumber or deep thought it is not for 
 me to determine. 
 
 The preacher then described at length how, on the 
 early unity of the Christian Church, had grown up 
 the evils Christ Himself had foretold — divisions, heart- 
 burnings, jealousies. Men were no longer of one heart • 
 and one soul. They began to live for self, each caring 
 only for himself and his own. The same spirit marked 
 religious declension now ; an isolation from' the Com- 
 munion of Saints, a declining sympathy with the trials 
 of God's people, a decay of Intercessory Prayer, and 
 diminished anxiety for souls, limiting spiritual effort to 
 our own salvation. This was the great sign of leaving 
 first love — a lessened interest in the spiritual welfare of 
 others. Then, both in the case of the Ephesians and 
 ourselves, such leaving of the first love was evidenced 
 by a cooling down of the soul's affection for Chrislkf 
 Himself. The love of the first Christians for Christ was 
 no barren feeling, but a sublime passion. It was the 
 ardour of consecrated enthusiasm. The love of Christ 
 constraining him, sustained the Apostle in all he did. 
 'Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee,' said Peter. 
 ' We love Him because He first loved 'tis,' the beloved 
 disciple St J.ohn. 
 
 He would ask, then, as far as we could recall our first 
 sensations, did not one of the earliest after conversion 
 take the form of personal love and gratitude towards 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ? Had we not here 
 a central object for faith, love, and joy, so that we could 
 say, ' Whom not having seen, we love ? ' This feeling 
 was deepened by many sacred memories, by many kind 
 
AT THE GOLDEN LECTURE. 89 
 
 assurances in times of dejection and sorrow, by many- 
 deliverances from danger to our own souls. On the bed 
 of sickness we felt Christ's sympathy. He stood by us 
 in danger. If our heart was right we must love Him 
 supremely, with all the freshness of first love. 
 
 But how if our heart was not right ? We cared less 
 to please Him. We had less delight in thinking of Him 
 and imitating Him. The work of spiritual declension 
 had begun, nay, had advanced. In this case there 
 remains the malediction, ' Anathema Maranatha.' We 
 are not leaving Christ, but we have left Him. 
 
 Once more, the sign of commencing religious de- 
 clension was when' the things of Christ grew less at- 
 tractive, and we began to give the first place to things 
 of the world. Between going forward and going back 
 the text supposed no medium. The carnal mind was not 
 indifference, but ' enmity against God.' Therefore we 
 might well take as our first Lenten lesson the warning 
 to the Church of Ephesus. We might see from what 
 a height she had fallen. We could judge what a 
 spiritual Church she was, and yet a few centuries after 
 she had ' neither candlestick nor name.' At that little 
 ' somewhat ' the gold changed, one of the seven stars 
 disappeared, and Ephesus comes before us in the way 
 of a warning of the danger of swerving from Grod. Let 
 us, he suggested in conclusion, be honest in carrying 
 back our thoughts to some period when our spiritual love 
 was fervent, and testing whether of Us too it might not 
 be said that we had ' left our first love.' 
 
 Now, I have quoted more largely from this discourse 
 than might appear necessary, because I wanted honestly 
 to apply it to the case of the Golden Lecture itself. I 
 could see a decided falling away from first love in the 
 case of all save the somnolent clergymen, the volun- 
 teer parish clerk, and the devoted maiden ladies. It 
 seemed hard to account for, just as an outsider might 
 have deemed that the sermon meted out ' hard lines ' to 
 Ephesus. There was evident effort on the part of the 
 preacher to keep to the old grooves and ruts of Evan- 
 gelical style; but at the same time there was the 
 
90 • ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 self-evident fact that these Evangelical attractions did 
 not 'draw' as heretofore. Only these faithful thirty 
 stood, or rather sat, faithfully where the hosts used to 
 gather. There was all the old prestige, all the genius 
 loci, and no small personal influence on the part of the 
 preacher ; for Mr Moore is a fortunate and, in a certain 
 sense, a famous man. His church at the top of West- 
 bourne Terrace is more than full ; but then Tyburnian 
 churches always are, even if golden lectures are a howl- 
 ing wilderness. It is clear that some special attraction 
 is necessary to draw men from their business at the 
 busiest portion of the day. Ignatius does it by his 
 preaching; and I am told Mr Rodwell does it at St 
 Bthelburga's, Bishopsgate, by his advanced Ritualistic 
 service. Mr Moore simply does not do it at St Marga- 
 ret's, Lothbury, with his unattractive, not to say prosy 
 or slovenly service, and his intensely orthodox evan- 
 gelical discourse. One felt disposed to stir up every- 
 thing except the dilapidated verger, who appeared to 
 walk restlessly about just in order to avoid becoming 
 subject to the prevailing stagnation, and affording to a 
 scandalized Christendom the spectacle of a sleeping 
 beauty in a snuffy black dress-coat. 
 
 This is a terribly practical age, when everybody has 
 to submit to the cui bono test, and it is quite certain that 
 a rich endowment like the Golden Lectureship will not 
 pass uncriticized if the clerical Croesus who holds it be 
 not able to entice more than thirty old-fashioned people 
 to Pactolus. 
 
FASHIONABLE EVANGELICISM. 91 
 
 FASHIONABLE EVANGELICISM. 
 
 OF all the different Churches of England it had been 
 my lot to chronicle there was none which I pictured 
 60 piquantly to my imagination — neither High Church, 
 Dry Church, Low Churchy nor Slow Church — as that 
 exceedingly genteel form of godliness of which I had 
 seen some glimpses in my Age of Innocence, when an 
 Byangelical relative bore me, unwillingly, to the shrines 
 of a then rising Molyneux, Noel, McNeile, or Close. 
 Alas ! how times change ; two out of my celebrities have 
 ' secessed ; ' while the third has been fossilized into a 
 canon, and the last annihilated in a deanery. I lived in 
 Gower Street at the time when I had these infantile 
 ' experiences ; ' and I vow that, to this day, I cannot 
 pass that locality, even in the bowels of the Metropolitan 
 tunnel, without shuddering in the midst of my asphyxia 
 as I recall them. They were excruciatingly genteel and, 
 of course, proportionately uncomfortable. 
 
 Symptoms of a return to pristine innocence must, I 
 fancy, have developed themselves in me of late without 
 my consciousness thereof, for on two occasions I have 
 been favoured with a card, of which the following is an 
 exact transcript : — 
 
 Mr 
 
 and Miss : propose (D.V.) to hold a Bible Bead- 
 ing on Evening, , at 7| 
 
 o'clock, when the Company of Friends is requested. 
 
 Subject, Eev. ii. 
 Beading from 7f to 9|-. 
 Morning Dress. 
 
 I meant to go, but mundane circumstances prevented 
 me, so I suppose I shall never have the chance again. 
 By the way, 1 did go to something of the kind years ago. 
 
92 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and recollect that, after one of the usual talkee-talkee 
 evenings, Bibles were handed round on a tray, like re- 
 freshments, and we wound up with prayers. A worldly- 
 minded acquaintance also told me that he got an invita- 
 tion to something of the same sort once, which, as far as 
 the body of the card was concerned, might have applied 
 to a dance, or even a card-party ; but in the comer were 
 the characters, ' Tea and P.' It was only after length- 
 ened study he gathered that the cabalistic signs stood 
 for ' Tea and Prayers. ' 
 
 Experiences, then, of what I would venture to call 
 the Lavender Kid Glove School of Theology, were things 
 of the distant past with me when I proposed to renew 
 them by visiting some shrine of Fashionable Evangelic- 
 alism. But whither should I go ? The world — that is, 
 the western world — of London was ' all before me where 
 to choose.' There is plenty of evangelicalism at the 
 East-end ; but it was not of the sort I . wanted — not 
 fashionable. There could be no doubt that lavender kids 
 were dying out of the Establishment — scarcely, perhaps, 
 to its loss ; becoming extinct like the Dodo, and giving 
 place to a more masculine and intellectual system. Its 
 last stronghold was in certain Proprietary Episcopal 
 Chapels, clustering in a narrow radius round the Marble 
 Arch. To one of these I would go ; and it was perhaps 
 an unconscious piece of flunkeyism that guided my steps 
 to the particular shrine. I saw ^at the Rev. J. W. 
 Reeve, of Portman Chapel, Baker Street, was gazetted 
 a Queen's Chaplain. By the way, it struck me what a 
 remarkably eclectic system the Royal theology must be 
 if it was directed by the Royal Chaplains. But this is 
 not to the purpose. Mr Reeve was a new-fledged regal 
 director, and from his mouth I would hear a fashionable 
 evangehcal utterance. I may not see lavender kids 
 upon the hands, bat I was sure of the theology that 
 would emanate from the pulpit. So, as Sam Slick says, 
 ' I up and went. ' 
 
 Portman Chapel, well known to travellers going south 
 by Atlas omnibuses, is as unecclesiastical-looking an 
 edifice as the veriest Puritan could desire. The interior 
 
FASHIONABLE EVANGELICISM. 93 
 
 reminded me, for some reason or other, of a County 
 Court ; and the facade surmounting the communion 
 table — I must not say ' Altar ' now — at the west-end 
 was exactly like a sepulchral monument at Kensal 
 Green ; but every precaution had been taken to veil its 
 'Ugliness by the erection of a monstrous bireme of a 
 pulpit and reading-desk right in front. Not knowing 
 that the bireme was located due west, I entered at that 
 extremity, thinking I should be taking the lowest seat 
 in the synagogue ; when, alas ! I found myself among 
 the very elite, and the pew-opener, who was a sturdy 
 little woman, looked at me quite fiercely, so that I was 
 fain to beat a retreat, and retire among the livery- 
 servants at the back. There were some beautiful uni- 
 forms, and' I had every opportunity of observing them, 
 for the sturdy little woman kept me a long time standing 
 — I suppose to punish my presumption. She was not in 
 the least awed by my clerical attire — they never are at 
 Episcopal Chapels — though I had been somewhat careful 
 in my toilette that morning, so as not to look like an 
 undertaker's man or a waiter out for a holiday. Perhaps 
 I rather overdid it, and the little official thought me 
 'High.' When she did give me aseat,itwas the unkindest 
 cut of all ; for instead of putting me in among the gentle- 
 men's gentlemen or the pretty ladies'-maids, she handed 
 me into a small deal box, containing three voluminous 
 evangelical ladies, the outside one of whom scowled 
 fiercely as the little pfew-opener apologized for inserting 
 me. Not only so, but she walked right outside the box 
 into the aisle, carrying lots of wraps and two huge 
 volumes with her, so as to allow me to pass. Of course, 
 I was covered with confusion, and also by the evangelic- 
 al lady when we sat down. She did so with averted 
 face — perhaps she thought I was a Broad Churchman — 
 and never offered me her hymn-book, though it was large 
 enough for a whole pewful ; but a nice little girl in the 
 pew in front sympathized with my destitute condition, 
 and handed me back hers. 
 
 The curate who was reading the service introductory 
 to the sermon, was a delicate-looking gentleman, with 
 
94 ORTHODOX LONDON: 
 
 a voice very tigli up in his head, and a deliveiy that 
 suggested plums in the mouth, '^his I find to l?e a 
 frequent characteristic of evangelical clergymen, and I 
 fancy it is some occult sign of orthodoxy. The school 
 children, who were placed in a rickety-looking gallery 
 fearfully near thereof, sang the Femie sweetly ; but the 
 Te Deum was taken to a tune like ' Rule Britannia.' 
 The music, however, was above par on the whole. The 
 first hymn, which had a semi-legal refrain, ' We have 
 an Advocate above,' was set to the beautiful tunei 
 arranged ' for tho ;e at sea ' in ' Hymns Ancient and 
 Modern.' But ' Hymns Ancient and Modern ' had no 
 place in Portman Chapel. We sang from the more 
 orthodox Mercer. The.secohd hymn was something 
 about ' lowest depths of tribulation,' taken to Luther's 
 tune. Then the little pew-opener drew down the sun- 
 blinds and the warm curtains over the doors, and we 
 settled to the real business of the meeting — the sermon. 
 
 There was an immense congregation, and the sturdy 
 woman had to bring in camp-stools for serious grooms 
 and awakened footmen. Before the sermon Mr Reeve 
 came from the communion table to the reading-desk or 
 basement of the bireme, and read a long notice as to 
 confirmation from the Bishop of London ; in which I 
 was struck by the dexterity with which that prelate 
 avoided any direct statement as to the doctrine of the 
 Established Church on that rite. One party, as we know, 
 elevate it into a sacrament • the others deny all signifi- 
 cance of the imposition of hands. But this by the way. 
 My business is with the sermon. 
 
 Mr Reeve is an elderly, comfortable-looking gentle- 
 man, and entered the rostrum in the old-standing cos- 
 tume of black gown, large bands, and double eye-glass, 
 but without the lavender kids. I presume, therefore, 
 they have quite 'gone out,' as the ladies say. -He read, 
 as his text, words from the First Lesson, Exodus iii. 7 
 and part of verse 8 : ' And the Lord said, "I have surely 
 seen the aflB.iction of my people which are in Egypt, and 
 have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters : for 
 I know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver 
 
FASHIONABLE EVANGELICISM. 95 
 
 them." ' I was much surprised to see lie was not going 
 to preach extempore, for he bore along with him a 
 ponderous MS. I should have fancied extemporaneous 
 oratory was a sine, qua non at Portman Chapel. I always 
 find it difiicult to analyze a very evangelical discourse, 
 but I will do my best. 
 
 The preacher began with a picture of the burning bush 
 on Horeb, which he characterized as not only wondrous, 
 but ' gracious.' He then passed on to an application of 
 the figure to the Church. It should be holy, as the place 
 of God's presence. Moses was bidden to take the shoes 
 from ofi" his feet, because the place was holy. The 
 character of a house depended upon that of its occupant. 
 Now the way in which this fact was communicated 
 showed God's power; but the fact itself showed His 
 grace. He had come to save. It was not because they 
 deserved salvation; it was enough that they needed it. 
 What a view did this give us of the grace of God ! It 
 was the same with us that morning. God knew we 
 needed grace. He didn't come down because we were 
 good, but because He was gracious. He would not leave 
 the Israelites one hour too long in Egypt. Four hundred 
 years was the appointed time. Egypt was to be their 
 school, and Pharaoh their school-master. Then the people 
 were brought out with a mighty arm. How this ought 
 to quiet us under discipline. There was a purpose in all 
 things. There was not one tear in the eye of which God 
 did not see the necessity. Only let us rest all on God's 
 ' character.' Then of us, as of Israel in Egypt, it should 
 be true that God would come and deliver us. 
 
 Though- all were His people, yet some were specially 
 so. In the text His people represented the Church, 
 where the wheat and tares were growing together. The 
 deliverance was common to all, good and bad; but all 
 did not get to Canaan. So many bad men enjoy some 
 privileges, but yet never get to know full privileges. 
 So there is a Spiritual people, who rest all on grace, 
 accepting salvation in Jesus Christ, patiently waiting in 
 submission to God. 
 
 Let us, he said, dwell on that expression, 'My people.' 
 
96 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 They were separate from tte world. It was even as 
 Christ saidj ' They are not of the world, as I am not of 
 the world.' Yet still God's people were often an afflicted 
 people. In the 5th chapter Pharaoh refused straw, but 
 demanded the full tale of bricks. In the 6th chapter we 
 found the despondency of Israel so great that they 
 ' ceased to care.' So our heart often failed. But let us 
 look to the history. God was still God, notwithstanding 
 all the troubles of His people. 
 
 One would not speak untenderly, he continued. God 
 knows your afflictions (though I must say the congre- 
 gation looked as little 'afflicted' as any I ever saw ; still 
 he harped upon that string). All their afflictions were 
 light compared with that caused by a sense of sin which 
 man could not bear. This made the Gospel so precious. 
 It was one thing to be cast down by sorrow, but quite 
 another by the sense of sin. Time wore out the one 
 sorrow, but nothing save the Gospel alleviated the other. 
 It was only by the blood of Jesus Christ that a man, 
 weighed down with the sense of sin, was ever made to 
 smile again. If he was brought under the dominion of 
 sin, he soon ' ceased to care.' Still, whatever was the 
 cry — whether of the blood of Abel, or the sin of Sodom, 
 from the oppressor or the oppressed — God heard and^ 
 helped. This should be our comfort, ' I have seen,' &c 
 God, he said, heard to some purpose where oftetf we did 
 not. Hundreds lived without preaching the Gospel as 
 they ought; hundreds, who were rolling in wealth, did 
 nothing to alleviate misery. They might, perhaps, 
 adopt the cheapest form of all charity, by tossing a little 
 money to the poor. That was not what Was meant, 
 ' Blessed is the man that ccmsidereth the poor.' It was 
 not enough to give ' great lumps ' of money. Men 
 might be the very ' pink ' of morality, the very ' pink ' 
 of amiability; but as long as their thoughts revolved 
 round self as a centre all this would be as nothing. The 
 text was a comfort for those who were waiting on the 
 Lord. He was not like the gods of the heathen, who 
 had eyes and saw not, ears had they and heard not. He 
 was all-seeing, prayer-hearing and prayer-answering. 
 
FASHIONABLE EVANGELICISM. 97 
 
 God's people in tlie world were in worse than Egyptian 
 bondage^ and God sent His Son for their redemption, not 
 to mahe us sons, but that we might receive the adoption 
 of sons. All the privileges of the New Testament were 
 shut up in Jesus Christ. The question was not what 
 place we deserved, but what place Christ deserved, for 
 Christ took the place of sinners. 
 
 ' If spared until the evening ' (tod I must say there 
 seemed every reason to hope it would be so), the preacher 
 proposed to follow out the subject yet further. I did 
 not go, though I trust he was spared. But — if I must 
 be candid — though all this was, I am sure, the very 
 ' pink ' of orthodoxy, it was slightly uninteresting. One 
 could bear it once in the way ; but I marvelled' as I 
 looked at that large congregation — the voluminous lady 
 and the serious servants — and thought ' those people 
 come here every Sunday.' 
 
 There was a collection after the sermon, deferred from 
 the previous Sunday, which the preacher naively observed 
 had been wet, so that a good many of the congregation 
 were ab^nt. Then I passed out ; and as I did so 1 was 
 greatly exercised to observe that, despite his proximity 
 to Portman Chapel, one Robinson, who was building a 
 big shop opposite, had placarded it with an announce- 
 ment, ' Robinson will open these premises,' &c., but in 
 the &c. no symptoms of a ' D.V. ' ! 
 
 DR EVANS AT ST MART-LE-STRAND. 
 
 THE great temptation against which one has to con- 
 tend in these sketches of ecclesiastical men of mark 
 is the adoption of something like a Vox Populi, Vox Dei 
 principle, or the giving a man a place simply because 
 people run after him. I forswore such a principle at 
 
 7 
 
98 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 tie outset, and studiously took Comparatively unknown 
 men in preference to celebrities ; and yet it is difficult 
 always to keep to one's resolution. If people would 
 only run after the right men there would be no necessity 
 to do so ; but just as the most deserving cases for 
 charity are those which avoid publicity, and which it is 
 almost impossible to find out, so does it often happen 
 that the best men, in ecclesiastical, even more than 
 other walks of Hfe, fail to realize their commercial value, 
 and lie quietly beneath the sui-face of society, on which 
 some blatant, bombastic nonentity gaily rides afloat. 
 
 I remember, when Dr Evans and I were each of us 
 twenty years younger than we now are, writing an 
 article on him in a then popular but long since defunct 
 magazine, whereinto, after paying what I considered, 
 and still consider, due tribute to his merits, I infused a 
 great deal of genuine indignation on account of his 
 being only an evening lecturer at St Andrew's, Wells 
 Street, on an exceedingly homoeopathic stipend, and — 
 what was still worse — in a sphere much too confined for 
 his energy and talents. Dr Evans was then, in my 
 estimation, a sort of refined Mr Spurgeon. Each of 
 those gentlemen was at the zenith of his fame ; but Mr 
 Spurgeon's star was so recently in the ascendant that 
 the Church of England clergyman could scarcely be 
 suspected of imitating' him, as I fancy a good many 
 Church of England clergymen have not scrupled to do 
 since. He was the first clergyman I had then known 
 who was able to draw a large congregation of men, old 
 and young. .Myself and my old schoolmaster used often 
 to sit side by side in the same pew on a Sunday evening 
 at St Andrew's to listen to the then somewhat juvenile 
 preacher. Of the service it used to be said by sarcastic 
 young devouees that Mr Murray sang the priest's part, 
 while Forster laughed at him on the organ. For many 
 years this talented preacher drew vast congregations as 
 a lecturer and a curate, deriving nothing, or next to 
 nothing, but empty honour from his efforts. He was a 
 High Churchman, a very High Churchman for those 
 days, and much too independent and plain-spoken to 
 
DR EVANS AT ST MARY-LE-STRAND. 99 
 
 trim or hide liis most extreme opinions. Consequently 
 lie had to wait out in the cold a good while ; butj in 
 course of time, the authorities were ashamed of them- 
 selves, and shelved him with a Lambeth D.D., and the 
 incumbency of St Mary-le- Strand, the church opposite 
 Somerset House. Now a C#y church — or one as near 
 Temple Bar as St Mary's — requires a good deal of 
 metamorphosing to fit it for Ritualistic purposes : and 
 Strand wardens and congregations are the reverse of 
 SBsthetic. Taking all things into consideration, Dr 
 Evans must have had a trying time of it to make his 
 church as presentable as it is. If the truth must be 
 spoken, it has taken kindly to its new character, and 
 looks almost as though it had been built by Tractarians. 
 ■It is oak-stalled, and richly, but not altogether ecclesias- 
 tically, adorned throughout; while the apsidal chancel 
 is quite large enough to accommodate the surpliced 
 choir Dr Evans has installed there. It is lighted by 
 three handsome stained windows, and a rich corona 
 hangs suspended from the ceiling. The altar is chastely 
 ornamented, with two large tapers and two bouquets of 
 three smaller ones each upon it, as well as a cross or 
 crucifix, I could not see which, for it was Palm Sunday 
 when I paid my visit to St Mary's, and the sacred 
 symbol was veiled in purple. I cannot imagine what 
 time service begins at this church ; I should think it 
 must be at a quarter to eleven ; for I got there at five 
 minutes to the hour, thinking I was remarkably punc- 
 tual, but found they were in the middle of the Venif.e. 
 ' Matins,' however, form only a sort of prelude to the 
 real service, which is the celebration of the Holy Com- 
 munion, for Dr Evans is an advanced Sacramentarian. 
 He was arrayed in surplice, scarlet doctor's hood, and 
 purple stole, when I entered, and looked rather gorgeous 
 on the whole. There was the same bright, piercing eye 
 that used to scan the vast congregations at St Andrew's ; 
 but the frame was considerably bent, aged, and signifi- 
 cant of hard work. When he came to intone the 
 prayers, his voice was musical still, but shaky, and 
 almost more than twenty years older since- 1 heard it 
 
100 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 last in cturcli. It was a bright, cheerful choral service, 
 though there was no congregation to speak of; and it 
 stopped short after the third Collect, jumping at once 
 to the prayer of St Chrysostom; the big lion and 
 unicorn over the chancel arch probably standing in 
 place of the ' State Pray^s/ When it was over, the 
 choir went out at the west door in procession, pre- 
 ceded by a cross-bearer, and singing as they went. 
 The clergy passed out at a door in the sacrarium, and 
 the church bell tolled for the mid-day celebration. 
 Shortly afterwards Dr Evans re-emerged, walked down 
 the nave to the choir vestry, and presently returned 
 with them as before, the curate dressed in rich Euchar- 
 istic vestments joining the procession as it entered the 
 chancel. There was a sprinkling of people in the 
 church now ; but only a small congregation from first 
 to last. During the absence of the clergy and choir, 
 a youth in a puce cassock had lighted the two large 
 bougies on the altar, and covered everything that could 
 be covered with purple drapery. The curate acted as 
 celebrant, Dr Evans and the purple-cassocked youth 
 kneeling on either side of him in the Epistle and Gospel 
 places. And here may it be permitted to make one 
 critical remark in the kindest possible way ? It is 
 simply this, that full Bucharistic vestments look incon- 
 . gruous with large whiskers, and hair parted down the 
 middle. Some sacrifice must be made when clerical 
 gentlemen go in for Ritualism ; and the line between 
 the Church and the world must be drawn at whiskers. 
 Dr Evans's curate wore large whiskers, which spoilt the 
 •mise en schfie. This gentleman intoned the somewhat 
 complicated service passably well, but made a mistake 
 or two sometimes in the pitch, whereat the choir smiled 
 openly and irreverently. There was one cub of a boy, 
 whose head I felt a most unaesthetic longing to ' punch ; ' 
 for a broad grin suffused his cellar-door of a mouth 
 whenever the curate made a mistake. It is one great 
 disadvantage of the clergy facing East that they cannot 
 see the delinquencies of these irrepressible boys. I am 
 unorthodox enough to think boys out of place alto- 
 
DR EVANS AT ST MARY-LE-STRAND. lor 
 
 gether. Not only do boys lose their voices before they 
 have any chance of appreciating what they are doing in 
 the service, but woman is so much the other way — so 
 naturally the worshipper. Why has no one tried a choir 
 of snrpliced girls ? They would improve every year, up 
 to a certain point, of course. At all events, they would 
 not fail just when the trouble had been taken with 
 them. All this, however, far pare?ithise. I hope Dr 
 Evans's choir will take the hint, and remember that 
 there is something in a phoral service infinitely more 
 important than the music, and that is devotion. 
 
 After the Nicene Creed, the banns were published by 
 the curate at the altar rail, and Dr Evans gave out 
 notices from the pulpit, after which he began his 
 sermon. Taking no text, he commenced by saying 
 that self-examination, which was always a duty, was 
 now more so than ever, when Lent was ebbing away, 
 never to return to some of us. It was a duty not too 
 frequently undertaken ; but there was another as im- 
 portant and as infrequent, that was examination, or re- 
 examination, not of self, but of principles. 'The one 
 more or less involved the other j and it was imperative, 
 lest what had been taken for principles should turn out 
 to be only opinions, or, having been accepted as theories, 
 should remain inoperative. The many were willing 
 enough to talk rightly, and to leave it to the few to act 
 rightly, and to the still fewer to suffer wrongly. They 
 might think, from what he said, that he had been re- 
 examining his principles ; and they were not far wrong. 
 He had been doing this with good reason. He then 
 referred to the first years of the ' Catholic ' revival, now 
 thirty years old, and spoke of Dr Newman and those 
 who, at the peril of their pei'sons, undertook the work 
 of Restoration. John Wesley, he said, looking back 
 on his work after a like period of some thirty years, 
 said that his religion wanted restoring. It would be 
 well, too, that we should examine whether we were 
 holding our principles as earnestly as at first. 
 
 After long and earnest consideration, which had been 
 forced upon him, he had come to the conclusion that 
 
I02 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the view taken of the Eucharist was that it was only 
 meant to benefit or ward off ill from man ; but that it 
 was no offering to God, no act of homage. This was 
 about as low and defective a view as could be taken by 
 a royal priesthood of the household of faith ; and that 
 such a view could content Church people with a Catholic 
 revival nearly half a century old in their midst, was 
 simply marvellous. The remedy for non-communicating 
 attendance had strangely enough come to be non-com- 
 municating non-attendance. [That was a sentence that 
 put us in mind of the old antithetical St Andrew's 
 sermons.] The people would be scandalized, he said, if 
 priests omitted to celebrate on , the chance of ' their 
 highnesses' ' attendance. ' Can you conceive such 
 inconsistency ? ' he asked. ' If your communicating be 
 all, why do you not g^ve notice, as the rubric directs ? ' 
 These views, he went on to say, were far more defect- 
 ive than those of our Evangelical forefathers. How 
 did tliey speak of the Eucharist ? They called it ' The 
 Ordinance.' They referred to the day of its adminis- 
 tration as ' Ordinance Sunday ; ' and they always con- 
 sidered it a high day, though they were not High 
 Church, and the discovery had not then been made that 
 it was not respectable to be a Low Churchman. They 
 spoke of it as commemorating their Saviour's dying 
 love ; and this took their thoughts off at once from 
 themselves to Him. They felt they were obeying their 
 Bedeemer's dying commands, and this took the act out 
 of the category of will-worship. It was a direct act of 
 obedience to Christ ; and that is never without a bless- 
 ing. True, their Eucharist only came round once a 
 mouth; but, when it did come, every communicant was 
 present and communicated. ' I speak of things which 
 I know, and I testify of that which I have seen,' re- 
 peated the preacher, very solemnly and emphatically. 
 ' If they had felt it their duty to celebrate every Sunday, 
 they would have done it.' While such was the case 
 with outlying bodies of Christians, what, he asked, 
 were we doing at this hour ? This was the conduct of 
 these men with only their New Testament in their hands. 
 
DR EVANS AT ST MARY-LE-STRAND. 103 
 
 ' Yes ; but then they don't believe what we do/ some 
 might be inclined to suggest ; and this was what edu- 
 cated ignorance called argument. Were they not all 
 the more praiseworthy for doing what they did simply 
 because Christ willed and commanded it ? Which was 
 the worse, he who with higher views omitted, or he 
 who with lovy^er views never neglected, his duty ? ' Go 
 and do thou likewise,' he added, and gave the ascrip- 
 tion abruptly, after having preached scarcely more than 
 ten or twelve minutes. It was a striking sermon, with 
 several scintillations of the old style about it, and de- 
 served a better congregation than came to hear it ; but 
 it is too true, people don't like plain-speaking or definite 
 doctrine, even when it is of their own sort. I could 
 not help picturing the throngs that could be stuffed 
 into the pews of Portman Chapel that same Sunday 
 morning ! 
 
 There was no break or pause between the prayer for 
 the church militant and the actual communion office ; «o 
 that all the congregation, as far as I could see, remained 
 for the celebration, though comparatively few persons 
 communicated. There was a beautiful Eucharistic 
 hymn sung during the administration. Indeed, the whole 
 service was chaste and good, though of course of a 
 very pronounced Eitualistic type. During the cleansing 
 of the vessels and consumption of the elements the 
 Nunc Dimittis was chanted, the choir leaving the church 
 in procession to the concluding verses. ' Non est qualis 
 erat ' will possibly be the verdict of those who knew Dr 
 Evans ' in the brave days of old ; ' but none can hear him 
 without feeling conscious that he is in presence of a man 
 of mark. He deserves a better locale and a more sym- 
 pathetic auditory. In the Strand he is the round man 
 in the square hole. Probably the only act of his which 
 un aesthetic parishioners will appreciate is the widening 
 of the thoroughfare in front of Somerset House ; a cir- 
 cumstance which will, no doubt, perpetuate the memory 
 of his incumbency in distant days, when perhaps one of 
 the other Churches of England has got hold of St 
 Mary's-in-the-Strand, and an ' occasional preacher ' 
 
I04 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 vents ultra- Calvinism from the pulpit which re-echoed 
 to Ritualistic utterances this present Palm Sunday. 
 
 .As I left the church I read an announcement that a 
 mission service is held by the curate every Thursday in 
 Drury Lane^ to which the poor were invited to come in 
 their ' working clothes.' This recalled to my mind the 
 title of a volume of sermons by Dr Evans which I read 
 ' ages ago/ and liked. It was called ' Christianity in 
 its Homely Aspects.' 
 
 THE CHUUCH OF ENGLAND 'PURE AND 
 SIMPLE.' 
 
 AMONG the many and various Churches of England 
 with which I have been brought into contact, I 
 have been greatly exercised to find out which was the 
 Church of England far excellence. Supposing Lord 
 Macaulay's New Zealander should so far antedate his 
 own existence as to live in the present day, and ask me 
 to take him to a typical Church of the ' Establishment,' 
 whither should I, and that interesting alien, bend our 
 steps ? My process of abstraction seemed to be so 
 exhaustive as to render any subsequent generalization 
 impossible. By the time I had abstracted my Ritualist, 
 my Evangelical, my Broad Churchman, where would be 
 the residuum from which to generalize ? The question 
 was solved somewhat unexpectedly for me on Easter 
 Eve of the year of grace 1873 by an article in the Daily 
 Telegraph on Easter Church Decorations. The ubi- 
 quitous gentleman who does the Churches for that 
 journal, and whom the Guardian pictured as a 'fearful 
 and wonderful person,' informed his multitudinous 
 readers that the Rev. John Robbins, D.D., of St Peter's 
 
^PURE AND SIMPLE.' lo^ 
 
 Churchj Kensington Park, was a representative of ' the 
 Church of England pure and simple/ Eureka; ! T had 
 found it ! My problem was solved, like the Grordian 
 knot, at a stroke. I would lose no time in bringing 
 myself face to face, at'this typical Church of St Peter's, 
 with the purity and simplicity of the Church of England 
 as by law established. 
 
 The locale of St Peter's, Kensington Park — which 
 must on no account be called Netting Hill — is best 
 described as emphatically and excruciatingly genteel. 
 If the social hemisphere were divided into zones 
 analogous to the vegetabla belts of physical geography, 
 I should call Kensington Park the zone of stucco and 
 veneer. Life in Kensington Park is artificial to a degree ; 
 but it is pre-eminently genteel. In such a sphere, some 
 sixteen years ago, did the unecclesiastical-looking fane 
 of St Peter's grow up, an offshoot from the Gothic St 
 John's hard by. Outside it might be anything, from a 
 Metropolitan Railway Station upwards ; but inside, at 
 least on Easter Sunday, 1873, it was very gorgeous 
 indeed. It is classical to the backbone, a sort of 
 miniature Madeleine ; but its comforts, conveniences, 
 and, I am bound to add, its sesthetical beauties, tempt 
 an utilitarian critic to ask. Why are our pure and simple 
 Churches of England so persistently Gothic ? It is 
 riddled with galleries, which have the effect of cutting 
 in two its new stained windows ; but then there is the 
 very best answer to the cui bono of these galleries, there 
 is an immense congregation, who could not- be accom- 
 modated without them. 
 
 It was choke-full when I got there — I regret to say 
 so late that they were singing the Benedictus ; but the 
 pew-opener was polite to a fault, and insisted on getting 
 me a front-seat, though I professed myself ready to be 
 contented with a window-sill. It was, be it remembered, 
 Easter Sunday, and the Athanasian Creed was tie 
 rigueur ; but I am bound to say Dr Robbin's excellent 
 surpliced choir, aided by the organist, managed to have 
 that sung so as to make it resemble far more the battle- 
 song against which Mr *Burgon so strongly protested. 
 
io6 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 t 
 
 instead of the symbolum it never can be. I could not 
 but smile as I heard the sweet voices of the little boys 
 at St Peter's warbling forth the tremendous damnatory 
 clauses, while my little girl, who was with me, looked 
 up in helpless ignorance and askefd me, 'Papa, what are 
 they singing ? ' The old-fashioned Easter hymn ' Jesus 
 Christ is risen to-da,y' was sung in splendid unison 
 before the Litany, and that was intoned by the precentor, 
 the Rev. T. Evans, with full, accompaniment on the 
 organ ; an arrangement which obviated the necessity of 
 that, dreadful puUing-up of the pitch, which is sure to 
 occur where the choir, as at. St Peter's, is an amateur 
 one, however excellent. I fancy the Litany is always a 
 favourite period for meditation on the part of the wor- 
 shippers. I have heard that the ladies devote that 
 portion of the service to criticism of their neighbours' 
 millinery. There are twenty minutes safe, without 
 having to stand up or do anything where mistakes can 
 be made. I devoted it to taking stock of this pure and 
 simple Church ; but then with me, mesdames, remember, 
 it is a matter of necessity. The heavy Corinthian pillars 
 were painted with a dead flatted red, and the capitals 
 richly gilded, an arrangement which in itself at once 
 made St Peter's unique, but which is very far from 
 being objectionable. The chancel, once depressed, is 
 now elevated on three steps, paved with encaustic tiles, 
 and separated by a light rail from the body of the 
 church; the railing being, on this occasion, chastely 
 adoi'ned with flowers for the great Spring Festival. 
 The altar on a foot-pace was vested in white, and sur- 
 mounted with a beautiful bed of white and red azaleas. 
 Above these were an unobtrusive cross, and still higher, 
 a painted window consisting of a copy of Raffaelle's 
 cartoon, ' Feed my sheep.' A rich communion service 
 was on a credence table hard by. Everything was re- 
 fined, and nothing Roman. There were no candlesticks, 
 vases, or other paraphernalia ; and yet all was rich in 
 the extreme. I began to think the Telegraph was right, 
 and I had got hold of the ideal Church of England, 
 without any foreign or meretricious adjuncts. The 
 
- ' PURE AND simple: iq; 
 
 stained glass in tlie dismembered windows round the 
 church, though by well-known Gothic artists, was 
 equally realistic. There were no splay-footed saints or 
 impossible backgrounds'. They steered a middle course 
 between the grotesque and the commonplace. I de- 
 cidedly liked Bt Peter's. Mr Evans's intonation of the 
 Litany was like the glass ; so was the accompaniment. 
 They were artistically correct, without a symptom of 
 degenerating into a mere musical performance. I really 
 began to think of consulting the polite pew-openers as 
 to the prices of sittings at St Peter's, only my mind 
 misgave me whether there were any to let ; and I also 
 remembered that I myself was a bird of passage, a very 
 Arabian among churchgoers, pitching my tent to-day 
 only to strike it next Sunday. 
 
 By another exceedingly judicious arrangement the 
 sermon is placed immediately after the Morning Prayer 
 and Litany, so that the Communion is made an entirely 
 distinct service. A bell is rung to summon those who 
 wish to be present, and those who do not are dismissed 
 ' with God's benediction upon them ; ' not sent off as at 
 most churches in a state of semi-disgrace after the 
 prayer for the Church militant, while perhaps some 
 young curate, with more zeal than discretion, hurls after 
 them the Exhortation to Communion as a sort of ' procul 
 ite profani.' Dr Bobbins — who will, perhaps, pardon 
 my saying he looks remarkably juvenile for an S.T.P. — 
 then mounted an exceedingly ugly pulpit, which I 
 venture to hope is only temporary, and without note or 
 preliminary prayer gave us an excellent sermon, of 
 which I can only find place for a meagre abstract. 
 
 Taking his epigrammatic Easter text from St Luke 
 xxiv. 39, ' It is I Myself,' Christians, he said, rested 
 much, and justly so, on the fact that Jesus brought 
 life and immortality to light through the Gospel. 
 Reason denied that immortality was a new idea, but 
 Christian zeal in claiming that it was so undervalued 
 the power of natural theology to attain to its discovery. 
 As usual the truth lay between these two extremes. 
 Immortality was no necessary part of a. philosophical 
 
io8 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 Bcheme, and therefore pliilosopliy passed it by, as 
 natural science passed it by now, without denying it, 
 though some .systems treated the idea as a mere day- 
 dream. To Christianity it was necessary. Either 
 there was a future life or all its hopes came to no- 
 thing. If Christ was not risen then was our hope vain, 
 and we of all creatures most miserable. Christianity 
 was not against reason in this respect, because 
 an instinctive yearning told us that we lived again. 
 There was an aching void in man's heart, and Christ 
 filled it. Before Christianity philosophy had a dim 
 sort of belief, confined to a select few of the rich or 
 learned; but Christ popularized it, and brought it 
 down to the level of the poor and broken-hearted 
 mourner. He made it definite and natural by assuring 
 us that death changes nothing in the individuality of 
 the person. This, Dr Robbins said, he would take as 
 his Easter subject. 
 
 Humanity waited forty centuries in expectation 
 before this truth was revealed. Neither genius nor, 
 faith could have invented the Gospel, or forecast the 
 Saviour's career. Genius would have made it a series 
 of triumphs; mere faith would have pictured Christ 
 only as a greater Abraham or Moses, it could not 
 hav6 imagined Bethlehem, Tabor, Gethsemane, or 
 Calvary. The events associated with these were such 
 as could neither be anticipated nor repeated. And 
 this was even more true of the mystic.. Forty Days 
 that succeeded. If the New Testament had left off 
 at the empty tomb, what should we have thought of 
 the Resurrection ? Whither should we have expected 
 Christ first to go ? To Jerusalem, to confront the 
 Sanhedrim ? to Pilate, to reproach him with his 
 weak compliance ? or to Calvary, with the chosen 
 three, to overthrow the cross, and hurl back the 
 challenge : ' If He be the Son of God, let Him save 
 Himself?' He went to none of these. Invested with 
 no worldly splendour. He went back to the scenes 
 of the ordinary life He had lived before. He renewed 
 the previous relations with those who had been his 
 
' PURE AND simple: 109 
 
 companions, tte tax-gatherers, the peasants, and the 
 pious women ; those who were the true Israelites, 
 Nathaniel-like, 'without guile.' To these He gave 
 His last directions, to insure the story being truly told. 
 For this He stayed on earth, while angels and saints 
 waited to lead Him to His throne at God's right hand. 
 'Having loved His own who were in the world. He 
 loved them to the end,' and therefore, he said to them, 
 ' It is I Myself.' So, too, with His habits. He still 
 stood on the silvery strand, and on the mountain side, 
 speaking those gentle words which touch the hearts of 
 little children to this day as no other story one can tell 
 touches them. He had the same power of unveiling 
 hearts; witness the cases of Peter and Thomas. He 
 predicted the old age of St John, and the crucifixion 
 of St Peter. All was the same. Death was evidently 
 powerless to touch the spiritual individuality. On the 
 road to Emmaus, He allowed them to press Him to 
 stay, just like an ordinary man ; and when by the 
 wounds in His hands He was recognized as He brake 
 the bread, He vanished out of their sight. It was 
 just as it had ever been. He gave them enough 
 evidence to produce conviction, not to compel it. So, 
 too, was it with Thomas ; and Peter also was recalled 
 to his Apostleship by the power of love, in the very 
 same place where he had first received his commission. 
 So, again, in the case of Mary Magdalene : to her the 
 Saviour, who had proclaimed that love is both the fruit 
 and the condition of pardon, addressed the first words 
 of the Eesurrection, at the door of the sepulchre, 
 whose supposed violation she mourned — ' I ascend to 
 my Father and your Father, to my Grod and your 
 God.' He, the holy ambassador of mercy and love, 
 went to give account of His finished mission to a rebel 
 world, in the courts of the Almighty God of gods and 
 Lord of lords. 
 
 So, then, to come to consequences. Death, said the 
 preacher, changed nothing in fundamental existence. 
 The organs dropped away, useless as the pen when we 
 ceased to use it. But we could now say, as Christ said 
 
no THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 then, ' It is I myself.' Oiir ideatity subsisted beyond 
 tlie grave. Our Master was Himself the proof or 
 guarantee. But how was man to regain the lost image 
 of his Maker, and not only to rise to an individual 
 existence, but to an immortality triumphant and full of 
 glory ? Even by the path trodden by his risen Saviour, 
 by the way of the cross : — 
 
 ' O ! glorious cross exalted high, 
 
 Sole emblem of our faith, 
 Speaking forth from. Calvary 
 
 Of a loved Saviour's death ! 
 Wondrous tale of love to tell, 
 
 Such as ne'er was heard before ;■ 
 Give us grace to love it well 
 
 And silently adore. 
 
 ' Ages past have heard that voice 
 
 In loving kindness sent. 
 Truthful souls it bids rejoice 
 
 And erring souls repent. 
 Ages yet to come shall hear 
 
 That voice on land and sea, 
 Lo ! the cross cries everywhere 
 
 That Jesus died for thee ! 
 
 ' Yes, for thee, spoilt child of clay, 
 
 Thy long-lost soul to -rtrin : 
 Darkest night to turn to day 
 
 To guard thy steps from sin. 
 Through the cross thou mayest adore 
 
 The Christ who died for aU : 
 May we ever heavenward soar 
 
 TlU time be past recall.' 
 
 ' By the way of the cross despised,' says an old writer, 
 ' is the road of destruction j by the way of the cross 
 obeyed lies the path to life eternal.' ' He has left us 
 an example, that we should walk as he walked,' and 
 only if we are made conformable to the likeness of 
 His death, might we hope for the likeness of His 
 resurrection. 
 
 What a magnificent destiny was this ! Our eyes 
 were dimmed with the dust of millions of sepulchres, 
 yet ' could we be perfect as He was perfect.' When 
 
' P URE AND simple: i i i 
 
 our dear ones faded, we could feel sure of meeting 
 them, recognizing them, and being saturated with 
 their presence, as we had never been in this life-. 
 This was insured to us by sacramental grace. Indeed, 
 they *vere around us everywhere, in all ages of the 
 world's existence, though unperceived by the dull 
 and heavy senSiOs of mankind, and now they were 
 specially left us in His own ordinances in His mystic 
 body the Church, that so we might, as by external 
 means, become already partakers of the Divine nature, 
 and escape the corruption of the world. If this were 
 not so, if the physical and moral nature were changed 
 at death, it would not be we who should rise. All 
 must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; but 
 how could we say ' we ' if, we were thus essentially 
 different ? How could we long for the day when we 
 should throw ourselves at the Great Absolver's feet, 
 and say, ' It is I — with all my weaknesses, my tempta- 
 tions, my repentances too soon forgotten, my promises 
 of amendment too soon belied ? ' How could our 
 works follow us ? When our beloved ones died we 
 could not say, ' Though they shall not return to me, 
 yet I shall go to them.' But it is not so ; man sliall 
 live_ again : and his first exclamation shall be, ' It is I — 
 myself! ' 
 
 But should the life that succeeded, he asked, be a 
 mere repetition of the present ? Not so ; the dif- 
 ference presented itself to the mind of St Paul as 
 analogous ' to that between the corn seed , and the 
 wheat plant. It was the difference between the tiny 
 acorn and the stately oak. The corruptible must 
 then put on incorruption. Yet this would not affect 
 identity. We might call it 'progress' rather than 
 ' change.' Look at man now, ' Every inch a King,' 
 and yet that man had been once a child, which a 
 mere breath of wind might kill in its nurse's arms — 
 that same wind which he now utilized to turn his 
 mill sails, and speed his ships over the sea. Here 
 the change was but one of progress, and so would it" 
 be after death. It would be like the change between 
 
1 1 2 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Moses in his little ark of bulrushes^ and the stately 
 patriarch with whom God spoke as man speaks with 
 his friend. 
 
 We should, he said in conclusion, be hereafter beings 
 with consciences, but without that double nature ■sie now 
 feel within us, ' to know the right, and yet the wrong 
 pursue.' We shall be worshippers still, but in face of 
 the Great White Throne ; loving still, our love would be 
 pure, our passions purified. There would be no heart- 
 burnings in the world to come. ' Think you,' he asked, 
 ' that those who loved us have died, that their affection 
 has ceased ? No ; or the words of the text would be 
 impossible. If creation be a continuous act, and not a 
 mere transitory and mocking exhibition of the so-called 
 sovereignty of God, I must be able to use those words 
 as my Master used them. If love be the law of God, 
 and progress by love God's object in creation, I must 
 be able to say to them that love me, and they to me, 
 " It is I." Such is the magnificent vista of to-day. The 
 grave and heaven, death and immortality, linked together 
 in Christ's revelation. Life is an exercise to fit us for 
 immortality ; our very sufferings have their appointed 
 work; the cradle is but the passage, the world but a 
 journey ; the grave only the gate ; the end is a home in 
 our Father's courts ; and as we pass each, either with or 
 without Christ, so shall we say with triumphant joy or 
 the bitterest remorse the words of the text, and hear 
 from. Him the awful sentence, "Depart, ye cursed," or, 
 " Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom 
 prepared for you from the foundation of the world." ' 
 
 Criticism I have elected to forego ; but I could not 
 help thii;iking, as I saw that vast congregation file out 
 from St Peter's, that, apart from all extremes, one might 
 venture to say, in I hope a not very heterodox para- 
 phrase, ' there's life in the old Church yet ! ' 
 
CANON MILLER ON MORA VIANISM. 1 1 3 
 
 CANON MILLER ON MORAVIANISM. 
 
 FROM the rigidity and exclusiveness which are by 
 some persons wrongly supposed to be of the essence 
 of orthodoxy, it is indeed refreshing to turn to any in- 
 stance where a vital Christianity leads its professors to 
 keep clear of a mistake at once so silly and so ungrace- 
 ful. If the Church of Rome be commonly represented 
 as a lady in scarlet attire and of questionable propriety, 
 the Establishment too often resembles one of those gaunt 
 wallflowers one sees decorating every ball-room, whose 
 very glance is sufficient to scare mankind from them, 
 yet who assume a noli me tangere attitude, as though each 
 one thought herself a Helen, and all the ' genus homo ' 
 a Paris bent on her destruction. From this coy and 
 maiden propriety the Ritualist and Evangelical cast in- 
 deed furtive sheep's eyes at their 'Roman' and "^Non- 
 conformist brethren' respectively; but it is only coyness; 
 and if the Papist or the Dissenter dare to approach too 
 near, the dear old creature bristles up again, and flies 
 in dismay, like an old and far from graceful fawn. 
 
 As I pace the London streets, I find myself regarding 
 every dead wall and hoarding with interest, to see 
 whether anything orthodox or unorthodox is going to 
 happen within or without the pale of our virgin Establish- 
 ment. Mr Willing is my tower of strength, and I run 
 my eye down the list of impending sermons in the 
 Saturday evening papers as a gourmand glances over his 
 bill of fare. Doing so on a recent occasion, I saw that 
 Canon Miller was to preach a sermon on Thursday even- 
 ing at St Matthew's, Bayswater, on behalf of the 
 Moravian missions. Now I had always taken an interest 
 in the little congregation in Fetter Lane. I liked to 
 drop in and hear their quaint old chorales, from time to 
 
 8 
 
114 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 time. There is a warmth, and geniality about them, from 
 their minister down to their pew-opener, which is sadly 
 rare, and on which I depend very much in my Bedouin 
 condition of religious worship. I was glad to see Dr 
 Miller coming to the front in their behalf, and made up 
 my mind I would hear what he had, to say about their 
 missions, the story of which I had found as interesting 
 as the Crusoe of my boyhood. Then again St Matthew's 
 was the very centre and focus of orthodoxy, with a 
 colonial archdeacon for its presiding genius. The little 
 Moravian body in London seemed to start into unwonted 
 promise, when an archdeacon and a canon held out 
 brotherly hands to it from the Church of England as by 
 law established. 
 
 Travellers unacquainted with the purlieus of St 
 Petersburg Place, Bayswater, might easily mistake the 
 Church of St Matthew, with its unecclesiasticaUooking 
 outlines and queer campanile, for a station of the neigh- 
 bouring district railway; but on that Thursday evening, 
 the bells which some eccentric old lady has lately bestow- 
 ed on St Matthew's — to the discomfiture of the neighbour- 
 hood — were ringing out too palpably to permit the error. 
 The ladies flocked thither in goodly numbers, but the 
 male sex was sadly deficient. Altogether the congrega- 
 tion was a sparse one ; and as I was shown into a seat un- 
 necessarily in the rear by a grim Gorgon of a pew-opener, 
 with a portentous cap like Mrs Gamp's, and shawl pinned 
 fiercely round her throat, I felt she was indeed a repre- 
 sentative of orthodoxy, and dreaded lest she might deem 
 me a Moravian in disguise, against whose patronage by 
 her incumbent she protested by bolting me into that 
 back pew. The church inside struck me as resembling 
 a chapel that had seen the error of its ways and become 
 converted. A pulpit of dizzy height stood full in front 
 as you entered to the total eclipse of the communion 
 table, if there was one. I never saw it. Inside the 
 rails Dr Miller was sitting in an old-fashioned black 
 gown, guarded by a little phalanx of charity girls drawn 
 up in open square in the chancel. These sang the hymns 
 and canticles very sweetly. Archdeacon Hunter read 
 
CANON MILLER ON MORA VIANISM. 1 1 5 
 
 the prayers simply and unaffectedly ; and altogether 
 there was something very tranquillizing in the whole 
 thing, after the exceptional services at which it is too 
 often my fate to be present. I always like a week-day 
 service. The ladies do not seem to have on their best 
 bonnets, or the atmosphere to be redolent of light kid 
 gloves £|ind gentility. It is like going to a cathedral in 
 the heart of the week. When I do drop in, I always look 
 with a sort of awe on the regular congregation, and think 
 ' How good these people ought to be ! ^ There were 
 indeed one or two symptoms of St Matthew's recent 
 conversion. The chancel was diapered all round the 
 Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments in the 
 vulgar tongue, and the reading desk had slid away from 
 its position under the precipitous pulpit, as if it had been 
 at a dark seance and got ' moved,' leaving the rostrum 
 high and bluff as the rock of Gibi-altar. 
 
 When service was over, and we had sung the in- 
 evitable hymn ' Prom Greenland's icy mountains, from 
 India's coral strand,' the lights were raised for the 
 sermon, and a verger conveyed the Doctor up the ascent 
 as though to guard him against mischief on his Alpine 
 excursion. He might have recited ' Excelsior ' en route, 
 but did not, at least not audibly. As a rule, charity 
 sermons are a delusion and a snare. The preacher reads 
 the collect for Quinquagesima Sunday, and takes some 
 stock text which he twists round more or less violently 
 at ' thirdly ; ' you give your threepenny-piece if there are 
 offertory bags, your shilling or half-crown if it is an 
 open plate, and go your way, forgetting what manner 
 of sermon it was ; but Dr Miller's was terse, logical, and 
 to the point. It was worth reporting; and I report it 
 in miniature. It was preached fluently, without notes, 
 and with just enough gesticulation to make what was 
 said comprehensible. Taking his text from 2 Cor. xiii. 
 4, ' Though He was crucified through weakness, yet He 
 liveth by the power of God,' the preacher said there was 
 an immediate scope of these words which was local and 
 personal, applying to those who impugned the apostle- 
 ship of St Paul, whilst he vindicated his claim in this 
 
ii6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 particular epistle, comparing his own position ■with, that 
 of Christ, who often as it were held back the powers of ' 
 the Godhead in His incarnate nature during His life and 
 ministry on earth. The context, ' for we also are weak 
 in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God 
 toward you,' had been wrongly interpreted as applying 
 to a futffre life, whereas they were merely wijtten in 
 allusion to local circumstances. ' We,' that is, ' I,' kept 
 back my power, ' but I shall live with Him.' This, again, 
 was explained by v. 2, ' If I come again I will not spare.' 
 As much as to say, if those impugners of my apostle- 
 ship remain obstinate, I shall put forth my power. We 
 know, he said, what this referred toj the exercise of 
 Church discipline, whereby the offender was handed 
 over to Satan, a sentence which would no doubt be rati- 
 fied by God in the infliction of some bodily chastisement. 
 Such was the immediate meaning, said the Canon, and 
 it could not fail to strike me how complacently he ac- 
 cepted this tremendously sacerdotal explanation ; but 
 the Apostle rose from this to a great general truth, in 
 following out which a gradual order was necessary. It 
 was as important to believe in the true humanity as in 
 the Deity of Christ. The true humanity of our Lord 
 was as necessary a qualification for His being our 
 Saviour as was His Godhead. Sin only excepted, as 
 being no integral part of humanity, Christ was a real 
 man. So we found in Him all the sinless weaknesses of 
 humanity. A long journey, or a hot sun in that Eastern 
 climate, had the same effect on Him as on any ordinary 
 man. Except during the supernatural fast of forty days. 
 His body was nourished with food like our own. So 
 among the death agonies on the cross was included the 
 deep thirst. All this culminated in the ability to die. 
 Yet this was the leading idea ; underlying this were 
 glimpses of power. He was so weak as to be unable 
 to save Himself against a few soldiers sent to take Him, 
 and yet they all fell to the ground. He said He could 
 pray to His Father, who would send Him twelve legions 
 of angels. So in the dream of Pilate's wife, there was 
 an evidence of supernatural power at work. At His 
 
CANON MILLER ON MORA VIANISM. 1 1 7 
 
 death there was the great symbolic incident of the 
 rending of the temple-veil. All along there were 
 glimpses of power in combination with weakness. Then 
 we came to the Resurrection of Christ in power. Some- 
 times the Resurrection was ascribed to the Father, as 
 being the work of God on. the Son of Man. Sometimes 
 it was ascribed to, or claimed by, the Son. Jesus 
 assumed the power of self-resurrection, when He said, 
 ' Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
 up.' Under either aspect, it was an exercise of the 
 power of God. Passing from Easter to Ascension-tide, 
 we came upon a new phase of work, upon new offices, 
 and a new energy of Christ. He undertook the effusion 
 and diffusion of the Holy Spirit. He was the Great 
 High Priest within the veil. Hence He was the source 
 of life and author of salvation. Our life was hid with 
 Christ in God. This applied not only to present, but 
 future life, and would be consummated, when at Christ's 
 second coming our bodies should be raised, and our 
 souls brought from Hades or Paradise. Life in Holy 
 Scripture was a great word, and embraced both these 
 stages. Paul never wrote a grander truth than that 
 ' your hfe is hid with Christ in God.' We must under- 
 stand that all life out of Christ was only death — intel- 
 lectual, physical, social, or political. There was no life 
 before God, save that which was lived by union with 
 Christ. 
 
 Thus we might pass on to the immediate subject 
 under consideration. We had got at a principle. We 
 had evolved a law, apparently paradoxical, as many of 
 God's laws were, of combined power and weakness in 
 the Gospel. We saw the law at work in Christ's own 
 ministry. Weak as He was, He cured disease by a 
 touch, gave' sight to the blind, made the deaf to hear 
 and the dumb speak, cast out devils, raised the dead, 
 and by the moral force of His utterances, made those 
 who were sent to take Him say, 'Never man spake as 
 this man.' It was so afterwards. It was an insignifi- 
 cant handful of men sent out to convert the world j and 
 yet, as Paley said, they overthrew every idol and temple. 
 
ii8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 They paraded their own disgrace by preaching Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified. As a great preacher, still in 
 God's mercy spared to us, said, this was, in plain, honest 
 Bnghsh, preaching a man who had been hang. Of 
 course this was a stumblingblock to Jew and Greek. 
 And so it was still — power in combination with weak- 
 ness. ' What,' he asked, ' can we do by our preaching ? 
 We have no more power to convert your souls than we 
 have to stand at a grave and tell a dead man to rise. 
 We are simply agents, and here is the law again dis- 
 cernible — the weakness of man working, but at the 
 back of it the power of God. We can only keep clear 
 of the devil and disgrace by the same grace as stands in 
 stead the weakest of those we address.' Passing on 
 thence to the object of his special appeal. Canon MiUer 
 said if his hearers knew anything of the Moravians, they 
 would be aware that this law of which he had been 
 speaking never had a more marvellous illustration. 
 Their orig;in took us back beyond the Reformation, and 
 they had been almost extinguished by the cruelty of 
 Rome ; but in the eighteenth century they revived. 
 They possessed in a special degree the two marks of an 
 Apostolic church, missionaries and mai-tyrs. There had 
 been no such missionaries since the time of the Apostles 
 as the Moravians. This was no transitory effervescence, 
 but a staid missionary spirit. They were, in fact, a 
 warning to us that if there was life in our Church it 
 must take this shape of mission-work. As an instance 
 of their self-denying zeal, he quoted the case of two 
 Moravian missionaries, who were ready to sell them- 
 selves as slaves, so as to get at slaves. They were 
 working amongst the very lowest class of Hotten- 
 tots, and even amongst the lepers in the East. A 
 Moravian brother and sister were in attendance at a 
 hospital, devoted to this most loathsome of diseases. 
 For a hundred and two years their ship, the ' Harmony,' 
 had gone out year after year to the icy regions of the 
 far North. It might not be deemed superstitious if he 
 took this as a sign that God blessed their work. They 
 had been in friendly communion with the Church of 
 
CANON MILLER ON MORA VIANISM. 1 19 
 
 England for many years. There was this special ad- 
 vantage in helping the Moravians thatj when it could 
 be done without sacrificing fundamental principles, it 
 was good to help others. No large-hearted Christian 
 would grudge assistance to those who had been so 
 markedly helped by God, in their great work of evan- 
 gelizing the world. 
 
 It was, I confess, a new sensation to hear a clergyman 
 — ^more ^specially a dignitary of the Church of England 
 — plead the cause of a body other than the Establishment. 
 We are living in strange times, when all sorts of time- 
 honoured institutions are becoming obsolete. Possibly, 
 though it sounds Utopian to say so, our remote descend- 
 ants may live to see grown into an anachronism the 
 now too prevalent odium theologicum. At least, I 
 seemed to get some far-off glimpses of such a millennium, 
 when I listened, that quiet Thursday evening, to Canon 
 Miller on the Moravians. 
 
 MR STOPFORD BROOKE ON BYRON'S ' CAIN.' 
 
 THE Liberal Churchman is always fain to protest when 
 he is obliged to use the words orthodox and unor- 
 thodox. Make the terms as elastic as he may, the writer 
 who employs them introduces of necessity a theological, 
 if not a polemical, element into what may profess, and 
 honestly essay, to be only a descriptive account of serv- 
 ice or sermon. But surely it is possible to look at these 
 matters in a social, and not at all in a theological way. 
 It is so I endeavour to make , my Sunday excursions 
 among the different places of worship in London, revers- 
 ing the motto, ' Measures, not men,' and singling out 
 for notice men of mark, no matter to what body they 
 belong. Though having, of course, my own opinions, 
 
I20 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and holding them, I dare say, as tenaciously as other 
 people, I am for the nonce innocent of all distinction 
 between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. My mind is a 
 tabula rasa prepared to receive impressions, come they 
 whencesoever they may. It was in such a spirit I 
 scanned one Saturday evening the ecclesiastical bills of 
 fare for the morrow. Should I go and hear Canon 
 Lightfoot demolish the drama at St James's, Piccadilly, 
 or Father Ignatius discourse on ' Nineteenth Century 
 Devils' at St George's HaU ? Should the Rev. Capel 
 Molyneux entice me to a ' Liturgical Service,' or Mr 
 Voysey allure me with his ' Sling and Stone ' ? The 
 world of ecclesiastical London was all before me where 
 to choose my place of rest. My only difficulty was an 
 embarras de richesses, but I finally decided in favour of 
 Mr Stopford Brooke, at York Chapel, St James's, who 
 for several Sundays had been lecturing on Theology in 
 Shelley, and on the preceding Lord's Day had com- 
 menced an equally untheological poet, as far as popular 
 estimation goes — namely. Lord Byron. That particular 
 Sunday was to be devoted to the study of Cain ; and it 
 struck me that to get theology out of either Byron or 
 Cain was a somewhat hopeless task ; but to get it out of 
 the two together^ — out of Cain as represented by Byron 
 — was about as original an idea as the extraction of 
 poetry out of Coke upon Lyttleton, or Stephens's edi- 
 tion of Blackstone, would be. 
 
 Unsightly as to its exterior, York Chapel, St James's, 
 looks within like a Quaker establishment, so uncompro- 
 misingly drab has it been painted over every square inch 
 of its surface. It is ugly and old-fashioned, with cavern- 
 ous pews, and queer oil-lamps slung up at rare inter- 
 vals. An effort has been made to adapt it to modem 
 taste by squeezing a few oaken stalls into the chancel, 
 but they look out of place, and over the little depressed 
 altar rises a funny basso relievo like a miniature Parthe- 
 non. There are capacious galleries all round, and the 
 front of these, as well as the roof of the building, is co- 
 vered all over with fidgety little drab festoons. But then 
 one did not come to York Street for architectural beau- 
 
MR STOPFORD BROOKE ON BYRON'S 'CAIN' 121 
 
 ties. A goodly congregation filled the douohe-baths of 
 pews, and by and by a tiny procession of surpliced boys 
 and men — only a half-dozen in all — came from the west 
 end of the chapel to the oaken stalls, and in its rear fol- 
 lowed Mr Brooke, who took his place in a stall too, and 
 read a very short form of evening prayer, the choir re- 
 sponding musically, though somewhat too ambitiously 
 for their slender numbers. During the whole of this 
 service, which was evidently looked upon as only pre- 
 liminary to the lecture, people kept dropping in, and 
 by the time it was over the basement was full. There 
 was a far larger proportion of men than one generally 
 sees in a congregation, but an adequate contingent of 
 ladies too, and I could not see that they looked in the 
 least strong-minded females. 
 
 Having ascended the pulpit in surplice, hood, and 
 stole, Mr Brooke read the staple collect, ' Prevent us, 
 Lord,' &c., and then proceeded to his subject. Byron, 
 he said, was less interesting then Shelley, because he 
 was more selfish and personal. Shelley's range was 
 larger and more human. With him personal theology 
 was a secondary matter. He argued. If the whole of 
 humanity be right, I, as part of it, shall be right. If God 
 Himself is just. He will be just to me. That was how Shel- 
 ley would have spoken had he been a Christian. Shelley 
 was always going out of himself for man ; but in Byron 
 the interest was overridden by his gigantic personality. 
 He was interesting, as all vivid self-representation must 
 be. It was, in fact, a curious question why we did not 
 weary of finding Byron over and over again in his works. 
 We should weary if he were not so intensely modern, so 
 thoroughly of the present day. In describing himself he 
 described so much more than himself He was a type 
 of his own modern world. Shelley represented men as 
 he thought they ought to be, and the world as he be- 
 lieved it might be ; and so, in proportion as people were 
 practical or ideal, they would prefer Byron or Shelley 
 respectively. Shelley had to speak or his heart to break ; 
 but he lost self in the expression of his deepest self — 
 the very highest mark of genius. Byron seemed always 
 
122 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 to retreat from the canvas to see how self looked when 
 he had painted it. 
 
 The fatalistic theology of Calvinism in which Byron 
 was brought up encouraged this self-contemplation. 
 Dooming a great portion of the world to destruction, it 
 produced either despair or indignation. Some natures 
 it made take pride in their isolation, and say, ' Fate, I 
 thank thee I am not as other men, believers.' This type 
 of character had its representation in Cain. The man 
 was filled with this dark, haughty, indignant pride. The 
 theory of Shelley was that, when he passed away, his 
 individuality would be lost ; and, however infidel this 
 doctrine might be, it was far less selfish than Calvinism. 
 It could not lead to Pharisaism. It would have been 
 impossible for Shelley to have written Cain. There was 
 the widest difference between that and his ' Prometheus 
 Unbound.' Again, there was in Byron a belief in ori- 
 ginal guilt, in an infection of nature which could not be 
 got rid of unless God interfered. Shelley said all that 
 was evil in him was of the nature of an usurper, and 
 could be got rid of He was in this respect infinitely 
 nearer Christianity than Byron, even without believing 
 in original sin. 
 
 Cain was a vivid concentration in one poem of the 
 results of such a doctrine. Others might rest satisfied 
 with the Augustinian theory ; but Cain felt all the un- 
 solved problems — What was evil ? Why was there 
 death ? Why did God make us so cruelly ? What sort 
 of a God could He be ? This gave us a most interesting 
 insight into the character of Byron. If he did not feel 
 these doubts, he evidently sympathized with those who 
 did, for they recurred continually in his poems. And 
 the temperament of Cain was, the lecturer said, common 
 now as pebbles in the field. It was a direct result of 
 Calvinism ; and scarcely a week passed but he was 
 brought face to face with such questionings. At their 
 very root lay the fatalism of the Calvinistic system, and 
 the doctrine of original sin. How could a man feel who 
 believed, and yet detested, those doctrines ? Of all things 
 said by pious people to sceptics, the most foolish was 
 
MR STOPFORD BROOKE ON BYRON'S 'CAIN.' 123 
 
 that scepticism was a crime ; whereas it was only the 
 logical inference from Low Church theology. 
 
 How often men said this — ' God's power is His only 
 law. I am condemned for Adam's sin^ and I am bound 
 to say it is just. Is power necessarily good? Why 
 was I born ? I did not ask to be. I will not bear it 
 patiently. There is nothing for me to love.' What 
 wonder was it that men rushed into Infidelity and Athe- 
 ism ? Their noblest feelings were outraged, and there 
 were only two courses, either to find a nobler theology 
 or to become like Cain. And yet Byron rightly re- 
 presented Cain as good and lovable. Adam simply did 
 not think of these things; but Cain did. And when 
 this was said the dogmatic answer came that all these 
 traits of character were not good — were only splendid 
 sins. ' I call that detestable teaching,' said Mr Brooke, 
 'to look on the good and call it evil. It is the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 What wonder, he asked, if men rushed into immorality 
 when the power of loving God was taken from them, and 
 they felt compelled to /lafo God ? The whole soul became 
 devilish, because God was represented as a devil ; and 
 no channel being left for the highest love, the whole 
 man turned to the intellectual sphere. If he cannot love 
 he will know. There could be no rest until all was clear 
 to the intellect. God was made hideous by a dreadful 
 theology, and the love of God being gone, only thirst 
 for knowledge remained ; but intellect could not touch 
 these questions. And yet this was the common position 
 of educated men. It was nothing less than a mutilation 
 of their humanity. The only remedy was a teaching of 
 theology which would enable men to love God again. 
 It seemed as though Byron wished to teach that know- 
 ledge without love gave only increased power of doing 
 ill. Lucifer gibed against Cain's love for Adah and his 
 child, and nothing could be finer than the fight of human 
 afiection against the tempter. But the mischief was 
 done. Human love was overwhelmed ; Cain lived years 
 in hours. At last all reverence, faith, love, and hope were 
 gone. In Abel he found once more the representative of 
 
124 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 apathetic piety, and the deed was done. At last he knew 
 what death was. 'Look on that deed/ he concluded, 
 ' you who are teaching doctrines that take all the good- 
 ness out of God, and ask yourselves what you are 
 doing.' 
 
 Strong words, perhaps ; but words that set one 
 thinking. Dainty carriages waited to convey the hearers 
 home, and bearded men passed out of the queer little 
 slummy chapel with signs of thought upon their brow 
 other than those that often mark the hearers of sermons. 
 For the life of me I could not help thinking as I passed 
 up Piccadilly and saw the throngs coming out of St 
 James's after Canon Lightfoot's diatribe against the 
 drama, I wonder how many Cains there were in those 
 congregations ! 
 
 A SERMON TO MEDICAL STUDENTS. 
 
 THERE is a seeming disadvantage in the adoption of 
 a title such as mine, for it appears to cut one oflF 
 from the consideration of individuals or societies which 
 fail to satisfy the arbitrary definition of orthodoxy, or 
 the reverse, based on their conformity or nonconformity 
 with the National Church. The seeming drawback, 
 however, is more than compensated by a real advantage. 
 In these days of railroad speed, it is something to have- 
 selected titles which shall at once attract readers to 
 subjects likely to be congenial with their tastes, and 
 warn them off from contrary topics. Without for one 
 moment venturing to define orthodoxy or heterodoxy, 
 or to pronounce in favour of one or the other, the titles 
 have been all along used in the most vague and popular 
 manner, as implying only connection on the one hand, 
 or nonconformity on the other, with the Church of 
 England as by law established. Now whilst to a large, 
 
A SERMON TO MEDICAL STUDENTS. 125 
 
 and perhaps increasing, body of readers the mere absence 
 of such conformity constitutes a bond of sympathy, there 
 is anothef and far from inconsiderable class who limit 
 their interest in religious questions of the day within 
 the bounds of the Church of England — who simply, 
 without of necessity being bigoted or exclusive, feel 
 their sympathies bound up indissolubly with the National 
 Church, in the more restricted sense of the word, having 
 neither time nor inclination to busy themselves with 
 those numerous bodies and widely varying schools of 
 religious thought which lie outside. 
 
 Some years ago, during the progress of the now 
 historic ' Twelve Days' Mission,' religious London was 
 startled oub of its complacency by the tidings that the 
 mantle of Whitfield had fallen upon the shoulders of a 
 young preacher in the Established Church — the Eev. . 
 George Body, then curate of St Peter's Church, Wol- 
 verhampton. There was more than the mere fact to 
 render such a phenomenon worthy of notice ; for this 
 rare gift of preaching was found in connection with a 
 school of thought in the Church which had, rightly or 
 wrongly, been supposed to depreciate in some degree 
 the use of preaching, and to rest rather on the sacer- 
 dotal and sacramental functions of its ministers. The 
 locals of Mr Body's ministrations was the unlikely one 
 of All Saints', Margaret Street. Two gentlemen only — 
 if even these — had essayed to 'prelude the way^ in 
 which Mr Body was going : Dr Evans, now rector of 
 St Mary's-in-the-Strand, and formerly evening lecturer 
 at St Andrew's, Wells Street ; and Mr Stanton, of St 
 Alban's, Holborn. But Mr Body appeared to many to 
 combine in a remarkable degree the qualifications of 
 each of these gentlemen ; the clear logical precision 
 and pure eloquence which drew such large congrega- 
 tions to hear Dr — then Mr — Evans, at Wells Street, 
 and the unmistakable zeal and impetuosity which 
 marked, and still mark, Mr Stanton's preaching at St 
 Alban's, Holborn. Such, in brief, are the public ante- 
 cedents, during the last few years, of the somewhat 
 noteworthy gentleman whose sermon I have selected 
 
126 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 for my present paper. It should be added that, presume 
 ably in recognition of his powers as exhibited during 
 the Mission, an ecclesiastical benefice was at once 
 offered to Mr Body by Lord Faversham, and by him 
 declined ; but he has since accepted preferment at the 
 hands, I believe, of the same patron. 
 
 The following announcement in a clerical paper ap- 
 peared to me to mark a noteworthy epoch in current 
 Church history, and, at the same time, to afford a good 
 opportunity for a notice of Mr Body : ' All Saints', 
 Margaret Street, Wednesday next. — Festival of St 
 Luke. — A service for the Brotherhood of St Luke, the 
 Physician and Evangelist, will be held at seven p.m., 
 with a sermon by the Rev. George Body. The Brother- 
 hood will hold a conference after the service on the 
 means of promoting the moral and spiritual welfare of 
 medical students. Students, practitioners, and others 
 interested in the subject are requested to attend.' 
 Accordingly, long before the appointed time I made my 
 way to Margaret Street, and as early as a quarter-past 
 six I found a considerable crowd assembled at the doors 
 of the church. Of course, the ladies were in the 
 majority, though I am free to confess that I do not 
 believe all, if any, of those ladies were either medical 
 practitioners or medical students. By the time the 
 service commenced the sexes were pretty evenly 
 balanced, and the congi'egation was large, though not 
 crowded. There was a fair sprinkling of those who 
 looked like medical men, and a few who might pass for 
 medical students, but scarcely the type, 'pur et simple, 
 who will probably gain their first information of the 
 proceedings from these pages. The 'Brethren of St 
 Luke ' — if such they were — are a very exceptional order 
 of medical students indeed — quite a new creation since 
 the days of Mr Bob Sawyer and Mr Benjamin Allen. 
 The service was an ordinary choral one, of no very 
 ornate character. The clergy, six in number, including 
 the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie, Rev. Upton Richards, and 
 the preacher, were habited in short surpUces with red 
 stoles, and walked in procession,. from the vestry, pre- 
 
A SERMON TO MEDICAL STUDENTS. 127 
 
 ceded by a cross-bearer. The processional hymn was 
 ' Onward, Christian soldiers/ sung to a tune from one 
 of Haydn's symphonies. 
 
 At the conclusion of Evensong Mr Body ascended 
 the pulpit and preached, at considerable length, from 
 the text, Colossians iv. 14, 'Luke, the beloved physi- 
 cian.' He first proceeded to sketch briefly the few 
 particulars known of the life of him whom, by a singular 
 lafsus, ho once or twice during the discourse termed 
 the Apostle and Evangelist. St Luke was born, he 
 said, probably at Antioch, which was midway between 
 the great medical schools of Alexandria and Cilicia, at 
 one of which he no doubt received his education. 
 Tradition made him belong to the Seventy Disciples, 
 and even fixed on him as one of the two met by Christ 
 on the road to Bmmaus ; but the opinion of TertuUian 
 was probably nearer the truth, when it set down St 
 Luke as the convert of St Paul at Antioch. His subse- 
 quent history was not known, neither could it be 
 positively asserted that he died a martyr's death ; but, 
 wherever and however he died, he died ' enveloped in 
 the odour of sanctity.' St Luke had special qualifica- 
 tions for that companionship with St Paul which we 
 find running through the Acts of the Apostles. In the 
 first place, he could share Paul's sympathy with Gentile 
 converts ; and secondly, he had, like St Paul himself, a 
 liberal education. So was it that he was chosen to give 
 St Paul's gospel to the world. In that gospel there 
 were evident traces not only of the liberal, but even of 
 the medical, character of his training. 'Whilst this 
 man was practising a profession like yours,' said Mr 
 Body, addressing specially the medical element in his 
 congregation, 'a vision burst over his path, which, 
 without removing him from his former calling, sent 
 him forth to advance the cause of Jesus and the good 
 of human souls. This is the picture Luke's life afibrds 
 us — the physician's life lived, the physician's toil toiled, 
 beneath the shadow of the throne of God.' Dwelling 
 on the fact that St Luke did not abandon his profession 
 after his conversion, the preacher asked why should he 
 
128 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 give up that ' grand profession ? ' Where could he 
 realize a better idea of creaturely — that is, of angelic — 
 existence, toiling for man with the gaze fixed on God ? 
 After drawing a graphic picture of the nobleness of the 
 physician's calling, he set down as the ideal of that 
 calling the toil for man's good with ' the gaze riveted 
 on the face of God.' There were, he said, many special 
 reasons for endeavouring to realize this great ideal. 
 Nothing could be more disastrous for society, for the 
 Church, or for medical men themselves, than a divorce 
 between their calling and faith in God. First as to 
 society, he reminded his hearers how they had entrance 
 into English homes from palace to cottage, and how 
 their position made them confessors to whom burdened 
 hearts were opened. If their influence was to be 
 healthy, the moral character of the profession must be 
 kept up. Let the suspicion of that mental sin of which 
 we were beginning to recognize the possibility exist, 
 and, though the door might still be open to the medical 
 man for the sake of his skill, he would no longer be the 
 friend or confessor, but only the servant of the public. 
 This would be the case if science was divorced from 
 religion. His hearers might be inclined to tell him 
 that some of the leaders in so-called liberal thought 
 had, to a certain extent, made this divorce ; but these, 
 he would remind them, were exceptional men, and you 
 could not expect from the majority of medical men and 
 students, any more than you could from the general 
 body of the clergy, those powers of restraint which 
 exist in a few prominent individuals. You must expect 
 only a moderate degree of moral as of intellectual 
 strength. There were special temptations incidental to 
 the medical calling more than to any other. There was, 
 then, only a moderate degree of strength to be expected, 
 and there were 'intense temptations.' Individual 
 morality, therefore, must be secured by supernatural 
 motives. So, too, with regard to the Church. St Luke 
 was the companion and helper of St Paul ; and it was 
 only a truism to remark what a blessing in a populous 
 parish was a medical man who would ■pity the priest, 
 
A SERMON TO MEDICAL STUDENTS. 129 
 
 and labour with him. 'You/ he said^ 'can drop the 
 word of warning when danger is at hand; and immedi- 
 ately the barred door is opened to the priest — opened 
 through your casual word/ 
 
 There were two ways especially in which members 
 of their profession might help the priest. First : In 
 a study which must force itself on the mind of the 
 priest more and more every day — namely, the ' Patho- 
 logy of the Spirit.^ He was convinced that disease was 
 in almost all cases a type of sin. There were palsies 
 and dropsies and fevers of the spirit as well as of the 
 body. ' The principles on which you would deal with 
 the body would help me in dealing with the soul. 
 There must be laws of spiritual as well as of natural 
 .pathology. You/ he added, ' can be our masters, 
 whilst we are classifying the diseases of the spirit, if 
 you will only meet us on the ground of faith in a 
 common Master.^ Secondly : There was another point 
 in which the medical man could aid the priest — namely, 
 in discriminating those diseases incidental to times of 
 religious revival. Mr Body instanced the cases of the 
 Flagellants in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and 
 the Irish revival a few years ago ; and said that, as our 
 mission work proceeded, we should probably meet more 
 of these phenomena. Here the medical man might 
 help the priest, who was often puzzled to know where 
 the spiritual manifestations ended and the physical 
 began. But to do so the medical man must believe in 
 the supernatural. Only from the medical man who was 
 the child of faith could the priest accept guidance. 
 Lastly, as to medical men and students themselves, and 
 the dignity of their calling : tracing this from its 
 earliest mention in Egypt, where the physician embalmed 
 the body of Jacob, the preacher indulged in a quotation 
 from Homer on the subject : — 
 
 Aiyvirriri, ry irKuara ^spti ZiiSwpog dpovpa 
 (papfiaKq, TroXXd; /iev acOXa /if/xiy/x^va, TroWd Sk Xvypa' 
 irjTpbg de eKafTTOi; eTritrTctiievog inpl iravTiav 
 avOptinriaV ^ yap IJairiovog tiai ysvidXtig' 
 
 Odyssey, iv. 229—232. 
 9 
 
I30 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 In the Incarnate this ideal of the physician was 
 realized. It was for the medical profession to extend 
 His ministry to these times and to this land. He went 
 about healing sickness and disease. They were tread- 
 ing in His very steps. They were God's own ' natural 
 priests.' Their gifts were like the 'orders' of the 
 priest; their medicines — God-given medicines — like 
 the holy bread and the chalice. The surgery was God's 
 own temple, the table God's altar, the drugs were 
 visible signs of God's own sacraments, they themselves 
 God's own priests. If this grand ideal was to be 
 reahzed, they must be clean, as those who bear the 
 vessels of God. 
 
 Finally, it might be asked, how ? There was only 
 one way : the Son of Mary. A motive was wanted ; 
 a sacrifice had to be made, especially on the part of 
 medical students. The preacher had been privileged 
 to see something of their life. If they were going to 
 live for God, some good, strong motive was necessary 
 to enable them to resist temptation. Power and grace 
 were needed. ' Go to the blessed Sacrament,' he said, 
 'and thou shalt have strength to realize thine ideal.' 
 Nay, a deeper need was met. Some young man might 
 say, ' How dare I come to Christ ? ' 'I almost wish,' 
 said the preacher, in this most effective portion of his 
 address, ' that I only had one-half of my congregation 
 here ' — alluding to the presence of the ladies — ' so that 
 I could speak of things I dare not speak of now. But 
 I would stake my life there is some young man hei^ 
 now who, in the power of sin and uncleanness, feels it 
 impossible to love God. "How can I love God," he 
 asks, " when my flesh is defiled, when my thoughts are 
 unclean, and poison my very rest at night ? I can't 
 live for my God. Unclean ! unclean ! " He can meet 
 it. He can meet even that case. He can bring a clean 
 thing out of an unclean. I know it. He dees it day 
 by day. Put yourselves under the discipline of penance. 
 Confess. Come to the pure Son of Mary. So shall 
 your soul be cleansed in the crimson tide that flows 
 
A SECOND ADVENT CONFERENCE. 131 
 
 from Jesus, and you shall be emancipated from the 
 power of this horrid sing' 
 
 The sermon was concluded by an eloquent appeal to 
 young men to join the Brotherhood of St Luke. A 
 conference of the fraternity was held in the schoolroom 
 after service, and the offerings in the church were 
 appropriated to the All Saints' Convalescent Home at 
 Eastbourne. 
 
 A SECOND ADVENT CONFERENCE AND 
 PEOPHBTICAL MEETING. 
 
 FOE those situated at either pole of the ecclesiastical 
 hemisphere. May is eminently a religious month. 
 With the ' Catholic ' it is the Mois de Marie, the month 
 he consecrates to his ideal womanhood. With the 
 Evangelical Protestant it is the Mois de Meetings, devoted 
 to Exeter Hall and much speaking. It is a time when 
 passers along the Strand see unctuous gentlemen in- 
 tensely in earnest go in and out at those portals of 
 Orthodoxy. Country parsons of Evangelical ' persuasion ' 
 time their visit to Babylon then, when it is leavened with 
 the little leaven of Gospel ministry, sadly inadequate to 
 leaven its whole lump, seething as it is with the opposite 
 elements of Rationalism and Romanism, and all the other 
 minor isms that ecclesiastical flesh is heir to. Then the 
 Church and Conventicle meet together, the Platform and 
 the Pulpit kiss each other. The Record is in large 
 demand, and the Rock runs into special editions. The 
 hearts of Evangelical London in general, and of Evan- 
 gelical spinsters in particular, are in a flutter of excite- 
 ment. And in that, which might seem to be specially 
 termed the year ' of grace,' 1873, the excitement was 
 special too. There was a creme de la crime of orthodoxy 
 present in the metropolis, a subUmer ■ height than the 
 
132 A SECOND ADVENT CONFERENCE 
 
 Hall of Exeter; it was St George's Hall, Langham 
 Place, where was found the v|py centre and focus of 
 Evangelical truth. Synchronizing by no mere coin- 
 cidence, but by studied arrangement with the period of 
 the May meetings, a series of conferences was organized 
 for considering those tremendous clauses of the Evan- 
 gelical creed, the nearness of the Second Advent, and 
 the fulfilment of Prophecy in current history. I write 
 these words in no spirit of levity. They are tremendous 
 clauses, and this school of religious thought holds them 
 with a fearful tenacity. No one could be present, as I 
 was, at the opening conference on Monday, May 5th, 
 without feeling that these doctrines had become ingrained 
 in the very being of the speakers, as one spoke of his 
 forty, another of his three and twenty years' study of 
 them. With their earnest grip of doctrines, though we 
 cannot accept them, we still, from our standpoint, must 
 sympathize if we are consistent. It is only where, from 
 individual conviction, they pass , into indiscriminate 
 denunciation of all who differ from them that we feel 
 equally bound to part company with them. To this 
 opening conference I went, then ; and I have a particular 
 reason for stating under what circumstances I went. In 
 obedience to publicly advertised announcements I com- 
 municated to the secretary my wish to be present, add- 
 ing — and it is to this fact I draw particular attention — 
 that my object in coming was to write an account of the 
 proceedings for a London newspaper. From that gentle- 
 man — a clergyman of the Church of England — ^I received 
 a courteous reply, informing me which would be the best 
 evenings to suit my purpose, and enclosing a dozen 
 tickets of admission — these tickets, be it also observed, 
 being publicly offered for sale. This I took as a per- 
 mission to write on the subject of the Conference, and 
 engaged to do so. When I entered the hall I found, a 
 goodly assemblage already gathered, the act-drop being 
 raised, and a pious parlour-scene set, with table, green 
 cloth, conventional water-bottle, and Glastonbury chair 
 for the president. I had always looked upon Glastonbury 
 chairs as rather ' High.' As I went in, I was asked by a 
 
AND PROPHETIC MEETING. 133 
 
 polite attendant, if I would take a seat on the platform. I 
 declined, and I think a glance at my M.B. waistcoat, 
 showed him h e had made a faux pas. But still, though he 
 wore a splendid blue rosette, he showed me to a front 
 place, and gave me a copy of the hymns that were going 
 to be sung. I wonder whether he would have done so 
 if I had been honestly labelled Broad Churchman. An 
 elderly gentleman with a firmly-set mouth, and no voice 
 to speak of, took the chair, and gave out a hymn which 
 a stentorian clergyman on his right immediately voci- 
 ferated, and all the audience or congregation (I never 
 know which to call them) took up full-mouthed. As I 
 looked up on the platform or back upon the assemblage 
 I could not help contrasting the gathering with what 
 I had seen at the shrine of Mr Voysey or Professor 
 Clifford. There is — satire apart — noticeable in such a 
 meeting — 
 
 ' A certain curling of the nether lip, 
 A certain raising of the nose's tip,' 
 
 which are quite sui generis. A gentleman, whose name 
 I did not learn, offered up prayer and asked for a blessing 
 on the ' gethering ' and the ' brethren ' who were to 
 speak. Then the chairman read a few verses from 
 Matt. XXV., about ' Foolish Virgins,' which I thought 
 might possibly have seemed personal to some present, 
 only nobody could hear him. He then made a remark- 
 able request to the effect that, if any newspaper reporters 
 were present, they would refrain from noticing the pro- 
 ceedings. I immediately entered a silent protest against 
 such a request, by taking my notes coram publico more 
 than ever, not only because I felt myself bound so to 
 do, but because I saw two shorthand reporters com- 
 missioned by the Conference, and located in a private 
 box, reporting the whole proceedings verbatim. I did 
 not see why they should enjoy a monopoly in a public 
 meeting, so I continued to report proceedings, though 
 I saw the eyes of the whole assembly fastened upon me 
 as I did so. 
 
 Mr Dibdin, a divine in a most orthodox dress-coat, then 
 
134 A SECOND ADVENT CONFERENCE 
 
 came to the front, and said that though there be minor 
 differences amongst Evangelicals, there were really no 
 differences at all. This was not the case, for instance, 
 between himself and a High Churchman. ' I think him an 
 idolater, and he thinks me an infidel,' said Mr Dibdin. 
 So, too, with the Broad Churchman. He thinks the 
 Bible a myth. Professor Jowett says, in 'Essays and 
 Reviews,' that Christ made mistakes in quoting His own 
 Scriptures. If the Broad Churchman was right, he 
 must be wrong. His subject was that of a Personal 
 Antichrist. Here there was room for great divergence 
 of opinion. Was He'.a man, or was He the Papacy ? Now 
 no one, he charitably observed, in the world had a 
 greater hatred of the Papacy than himself. He believed 
 Cecil was right when he called Popery the masterpiece of 
 Satan. It was not even a corrupt Christianity, but ' a vile 
 and devil-invented substitute for Christianity.' He did 
 not wish to be misunderstood (and I really don't think 
 there was much danger ; for he was plain-spoken to a 
 fault). He denied the claim of the Pope to be a Christian 
 at all ; but yet he held that the Pope was not the Man 
 of Sin. The most striking passage on this subject was 
 2 Thess. ii. 3. Here it was not a system or succession 
 of men spoken of, but one man. St Peter's at Rome 
 was not the ' Temple of God,' but a temple of devil- 
 worship. There had been fanatics in that Synagogue of 
 Satan, that Devil's Church, who held the Pope to be 
 God ; but his own claim was that he was the ' Servant 
 of the Servants of God.' On a certain day in the year 
 (left conveniently vague by the speaker) he washed the 
 feet of a lot of beggars ; but still Mr Dibdin did not 
 hold that even the assumption of infallibility amounted 
 to saying that he himself was God. ' It seems to me ' 
 — such was ever the final appeal of this speaker — ' that 
 this must apply to some man possessed by the devil, who 
 will say, " Christ is not God, I am God." ' He believed 
 that soon — we know not how soon — such an one would set 
 up himself as God, and find worshippers. He would not 
 rely on false miracles, but would work real wonders, like 
 Jannes and Jambres. He believed, moreover, that i£ 
 
AND PROPHETIC MEETING. 135 
 
 such a man started as God to-morrow, he would find even 
 Evangelicals to follow him. ' I do not think,' he con- 
 cluded, ' that the Pope is the Man of Sin, because he, at 
 least, professes to be Christian ; but,' he concluded in 
 an eloquent peroration, ' whatever we may think of the 
 Man of Sin, we are all agreed as to the Man of Sorrows, 
 we look forward to His Personal Reign, and pray in His 
 own words, " Thy kingdom come.'' ' 
 
 After a brief prayer by a gentleman in blue spectacles, 
 rejoicing in the ineuphonious name of Skrine, Dr Nolan 
 took up as his proverb, ' The Second Advent, the central 
 point of every promise, and the basis of every duty,' and 
 very eloquently did he treat his great subject. He pro- 
 tested mildly and sensibly against the veto laid on re- 
 porters, possibly because he saw I was pursuing the even 
 tenor of my way, and then went on to show how all 
 mysteries culminated in the Second Advent ; the 
 mystery of God manifest in the flesh ; and also the 
 antagonistic mystery of sin. He differed from his ' dear 
 brother ' Dibdin in thinking that mystery had. an in- 
 choate fulfilment in the Papacy. The sun never pho- 
 tographed an object more plainly than the doctrine of 
 infallibility and the syllabus described the state of things 
 spoken of in 2 Thess. ii. Yet prophecy might be ' headed 
 up,' as described by his ' dear brother.' Then there 
 was the mystery of the Jew — mystery meaning a truth 
 partially revealed — and it being (as Eobert Hall said) the 
 glory of God to conceal things. If we knew nothing of 
 God, there could be no association with Him. If we 
 knew all, we should say He was only like ourselves. A 
 limited horizon was best. Then there were the mysteries 
 of the Gentile, and of the Church, and finally the mystery 
 of the Resurrection. It had been objected that there 
 was nothing practical in these views, but every grace 
 was quickened by a reception of the doctrine. Among 
 the ' thickening signs of the times ' there was no reason 
 why Christ should not come to-day. Might it be ours 
 when He said, ' Lo, I come quickly,' to reply, ' Even so ; 
 come. Lord Jesus.' 
 
 Another hymn was then sung, one of those strange 
 
136 A SECOND ADVENT CONFERENCE 
 
 doctrinal effusions which sound like a theological treatise 
 in long metre. It was taken to the tune usually assigned 
 to Keble's exquisite ' Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear/ 
 and one could not help noticing the difference between 
 the two compositions. The assembly sang it with one 
 voice, like the old Puritans on the hill-sides, and in a slow 
 measured cadence that was very impressive. Then 
 followed a little amicable passage-at-arms as to who had 
 got up the Conference. One gentleman said that Mr 
 Skrine had taken aU the liability on himself, and then Mr 
 Skrine put in a modest disclaimer and said it was all Mr 
 Baxter, and Dr Nolan said Mr Baxter was just the man 
 to do such a good deed on the sly. The ladies sniggled 
 at this, and the gentlemen applauded; and then Mr 
 Haslam, the gentleman who had led the singing with the 
 mouth of a Stentor, girded up his loins and began to 
 speak. Some people did not believe in second conver- 
 sions, he said, but he believed in third as well as second. 
 We were converted once when we believed in the Christ 
 of grace; again when we believed in Christ Himself; 
 and yet again when we believed in Christ as our basis of 
 hope. That was his subject — 'Hope in the Second 
 Advent.' He had once been spending a happy day in 
 the country (it put one in mind of the Eosherville adver- 
 tisements) with a 'dear brother;' and they had talked 
 much about Jesus. The time came for them to part, and 
 just as the train was coming up, his dear brother some- 
 what eccentrically asked him if he believed Christ was 
 coming. He said, ' Yes ; ' and his dear brother asked 
 ' What for ? ' ' What for ? Why, to judge the quick and 
 dead,' he replied. ' Oh no ! ' said the dear brother, and 
 then got into the train and went off, leaving him in a state 
 of wonder as to what he meant to say. Soon after he re- 
 ceived by post from his dear brother a book which made 
 him understand his Bible for the first time. He had 
 been brought up in that ' old Popish tale, ' that Christ 
 was coming as Judge, but he had not yet looked on the 
 Advent as the source of hope. He did not like to hear 
 people talk of views or opinions about this. He could 
 only think of it under the aspect of hope. Philanthro- 
 
AND PROPHETIC MEETING. 137 
 
 pists who tried to better tlie world forgot the curse, for- 
 got the blight there was upon all creation. Here the 
 gentleman waxed so intensely earnest, that he made 
 even that well-seasoned auditory smile, but he pursued 
 the uneven tenor of his way to far greater length than I 
 can follow him. He had immense coipia verborum, but 
 singularly little to say. In fact, that was one great 
 characteristic of the whole proceedings. Two or three 
 more or less trite maxims summed up the whole doctrines 
 brought forward, and each speaker had to fall back on 
 quoting the last 'dear brother' who had spoken. Far 
 from noticing or magnifying the minor differences be- 
 tween the speakers, which had been the chairman's 
 reason for tabooing reporters, and which I suppose made 
 him look so cross at me all the evening because I pur- 
 posely took my notes by way of protest, I was struck by 
 the remarkable consensus, a circumstance which some- 
 times threatened to reduce the meeting to a sort of 
 Mutual Admiration Society. A slight skirmish, or a 
 few words on the other side, would have been positively 
 refreshing ; but the utmost limits of divergence among 
 ' the dear brethren ' were whether the Pope was the 
 Man of Sin, or whether there was something coming 
 worse than a Pope — probably some ideal Broad Church- 
 man, possibly a gigantic Dean Stanley or Professor 
 Jowett. As Mr Haslam continued long speaking, I con- 
 fess I felt inclined to the Eutychian heresy (as somebody 
 has termed it), but his more than Pauline vehemence kept 
 me awake. There were no signs of Christ's coming, 
 except those which were analogous to the signs of sun- 
 rise in the world of nature. When the sun was just 
 about to appear above the horizon, we saw the light, we 
 heard the song of birds. So was it now. Never was 
 there so ' full ' a Gospel as at present ; never did the 
 ' birds of God ' — whoever they may be — sing as they 
 sang now. This very energetic gentleman went all over 
 his subject again two or three times, and then, discover- 
 ing that time was up, subsided, and brought the length- 
 ened proceedings to a close. Three gatherings were 
 announced for the morrow, and Prayer and Benedictioa 
 
138 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 dismissed the assembly. It was only when I passed out 
 that I could fairly assess its dimensions, and I perceived 
 it had been, truly as the speakers described it, a noble 
 meeting. 
 
 One might not sympathize with all the views ex- 
 pressed. One might not think those fifteen or sixteen 
 rather amiable than intellectual-looking gentlemen on 
 the platform represented a power likely to move the 
 world ; but both they and the auditory, hugging their 
 well-thumbed Bibles, were so evidently in earnest, that 
 one forgot all else in that supreme fact. In one point 
 the Evangelicals have succeeded to a miracle. They 
 have practically disestablished the Church. I had no 
 idea who were ' clergymen,' and who merely ' ministers.' 
 They all had the gift of a common speech. What 
 matter though' it sound foreign to us ? What matter 
 who it be — High Churchman, Low Churchman, or 
 Broad Churchman — who shall revive the now obsolete 
 comment, ' See how these Christians love one another ? ' 
 We do not even call one another ' dear brother,' still 
 less those outside our pale. Fancy the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury talking of his ' dear brother ' Manning, or 
 Deau Stanley openly parading his affectionate fraternity 
 with Mr James Martineau. It may be all coming ; and 
 possibly the first to give the impetus, and even to make 
 it extend more millennially than they wish, shall be some 
 such conclave as gathered for their Prophetical Con- 
 ference in the pious parlour-scene on the stage of St 
 George's Theatre. 
 
EARLY MASS. 139 
 
 EAKLY MASS. 
 
 r^ would be a curious subject of speculation to guess 
 the different causes which operate to bring people out 
 upon the flags of ' stony-hearted London ' at six o'clock 
 on a November morning. One class, indeed, there is — 
 the Bedouin of that desert — whom, despite our Social 
 Congresses, we always find there, and probably always 
 shall find there. The morning sees him, or, worse still, 
 sees her, where the night left each of them, on doorstep, 
 under railway arch, or in some one of the many lairs 
 where lurks the human animal whose misfortune it is to 
 find itself ' houseless by night.' There is yet another 
 species of the genus homo always represented, too, in 
 that inclement locality, no matter whether we make our 
 observation in November or August, and this species 
 will always be so represented whilst Babylon the Great 
 is what she is — the roysterer or debauchee sneaking 
 home, red-eyed and hot-breathed. Then there are 
 those whose occupations draw them from bed at un- 
 timely hours j the 'professional' early risers, such as 
 the greengrocer, butcher, and fishmonger, going to or 
 returning from the markets, rattling nimbly over the 
 greasy, fog-damped stones in light spring-carts. There 
 is the milkman, not now waking the echoes with his 
 peripatetic caterwaul, but driving with dignity in a cart 
 laden with cans which have just come in by an early 
 train ; himself clad in a property smock-frock and hat 
 labelled with some such intensely rustic title as ' The 
 Vale of Taunton Dairy Company (Limited) .' There is, 
 again, the British workman par excellence, no longer 
 trudging off with his basket of tools to walk to his 
 ' work,' but — such is the levelling effect of our iron 
 roads — footing it quickly to the nearest station, to catch 
 
HO ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the ' ■workman's train.' There are the early breakfast 
 people, and others whose occupations are called into 
 existence by these involuntary early risers ; and then 
 come those eccentric folks, the voluntary early risers, who 
 are up and out on the flags, not because they are obliged, 
 but of their own free will. There is the mercilessly 
 muscular Christian who takes his dip in the Serpentine, 
 or his before-breakfast plunge at the bath, all the year 
 round, and who goes along flaunting his towel as if to 
 apprize everybody of the fact. There is the ' young 
 man from the country,' who, for the life of him, cannot 
 get out of his bucolic habit of taking a mouthful of 
 tresh air before breakfast, and who deludes HmseU that 
 he is getting it amid the fog of a November morning in 
 London. Between these two fixed poles, however, the 
 people who have not been in bed at all, and the people 
 who get up simply because they like it, there is a class, 
 the special one now ' wanted ' — the people who get up 
 from duty rather than from inclination — though still not 
 from necessity ; the large and certainly growing popu- 
 lation who attend early service, or ' first mass,' at the 
 difierent London churches. A glance at the ' Guide to 
 Divine Service,' published by Mr Masters, will show 
 those who are curious in such matters that more than 
 one hundred churches in London have daily service, 
 many of these at the small hours of the morning ; 
 whilst in more than a dozen the Holy Communion is 
 celebrated each morning. Many, if not most, of the 
 latter, are advanced Ritualistic Churches, and the Holy 
 Communion is so generally termed ' Mass ' by those who 
 attend them, that it has seemed to justify the heading 
 of this article. Tinie was, of course, when that ex- 
 pression, 'early mass,' would have applied only to a 
 small section of our fellow-citizens, those to whom the 
 term ' Catholic ' would have been assigned as signifying 
 members of the Romish Communion j but, as all 
 Anglicans now claim the title of Catholic, so they are 
 beginning, at all events, to borrow the term ' mass ' for 
 their Communion Service. The ' Anglo ' Catholics now 
 go to ' mass ' as religiously as, and in much larger 
 
EARLY MASS. 141 
 
 numbers than, their ' Romisli brethren ' went twenty- 
 years ago. If any person would check this assertion, 
 he has only to attend ' early mass ' at one of the more 
 advanced churches of London, such as All Saints', 
 Margaret Street, or St Alban's, Holborn. 
 
 I chose the former of these two churches as my locale, 
 and the Festival of All Saints (November 1st) as the 
 time for my observations. Setting out on the raw 
 wintry morning, amid such sights and scenes as I have 
 described, I found a few distressingly punctual people 
 like myself awaiting the opening of the iron gates that 
 lead into the imposing structure. Being at length ad- 
 mitted, we saw that the church was decorated for what 
 is, of course, as much the Festival of the year to the 
 Margaret Street folks, as the Toussaint is abroad. The 
 Church of All Saints is never over-decorated : what is 
 done is sure to be in good taste. A wreath of white 
 camellias was fixed upon the altar-cross, and upon the 
 altar itself were six vases filled with flowers. The can- 
 delabra on each side of the altar were also adorned with 
 the richest floral decorations. A wreath of flowers ran 
 along the low marble screen which separates the chancel 
 from the body of the church ; and this was all, save 
 that the banners were ranged against the chancel walls, 
 ready for the high celebration at eleven o'clock. 
 
 Soon after we had taken our places, a religieuse entered 
 the chancel and removed the covering from the altar, 
 making profound obeisance every time she had occasion 
 to pass it. A fair congregation had assembled; and, 
 exactly as the clock struck seven, a tall, red-bearded 
 ' priest,' clad in white silk vestments, entered with two 
 chorister boys. He commenced, in a low monotone, 
 the ordinary Communion Service of the Church of 
 England, from which there was no deviation whatever — ■ 
 no hymns or music of any kind. The only points 
 noticeable in the demeanour of the congregation, 
 beyond extreme reverence, were the kneeling at the 
 clause in the Nicene Creed which refers to the Incarna- 
 tion, the crossing of themselves at that portion which 
 asserts belief in the ' life of the world to come,' and 
 
142 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 prostration during the act of consecrating tlie elements. 
 One matronly lady in the front seat was absolutely 
 prone on the ground at this, which is, of course, th& 
 climax of the solemnity. The position of the celebrant 
 was in front of the altar, with his back to the people, 
 and the elevation of the elements was as undisguised 
 as though no Mackonochie case had ever been decided. 
 Just after the Prayer for the Church Militant, a second 
 priest entered from the vestry, took his place in the 
 stalls, and assisted in the administration, leaving im- 
 mediately at its conclusion, and before the Post-Com- 
 munion. There may be some occult meaning in this ; 
 but to the uninstructed it looks slightly irreverent ta 
 see the priest defer presenting himself until the last 
 moment, and at the first opportunity take off his stole 
 and leave the church. I am ' ill at numbers,^ as Shak- 
 speare says ; but there must have been, I should think, 
 some two hundred people at this early Communion or 
 ' early mass,' and — I still speak vaguely — about in the 
 proportion of one man to five or six women. There 
 were forty-one Sisters of Mercy, and a great many of 
 the girls from their schools, and so forth. Nearly all 
 this congregation communicated; and, to judge from 
 some of the girls with the Sisters, there must be con- 
 siderable laxity as to the age for confirmation, for some 
 were mere children. The men communicated first, then 
 the women, then the religieuses, and lastly the children. 
 As the forty-one Sisters filed up the centre aisle to- 
 wards the altar, kneeling whenever there was a pause, 
 the grouping of the sombre habits, in the dimly- 
 lighted church and .amidst the stillness of early morn- 
 ing, was most effective. There was a blind man led to 
 the altar, and another sorely paralyzed, who had to be 
 supported ; as had also one of the Sisters, whose thin 
 white face peered out from her black veil as she was 
 led back tottering to her seat. There seemed few 
 poor, except domestic servants; but then it must be 
 remembered that the All Saints' congregation is a 
 special and mostly a wealthy one, so that the 
 absence of the poor by no means proves that the 
 
EARLY MASS. 143 
 
 sacramental system, as it is there carried out, does 
 Bot tell upon the lower classes. I myself have never 
 seen many poor even at St Alban's ; but the fact has 
 probably resulted from deficient opportunities of ob- 
 servation. 
 
 The ceremony lasted until nearly eight o'clock, and 
 then the bell began to ring out for the second celebra- 
 tion, which would still be followed by a third at eleven. 
 At the same time the bell of St Andrew's, Wells Street, 
 was tolling for early celebration there. What would 
 our grandfathers and grandmothers, in good old 
 soporific times, have said to all this ? Truly there 
 is vitality, at all events, in this movement. People do 
 not face November fogs at dawn without meaning 
 something by it. We form a very superficial idea of 
 the genius of Ritualism if we judge it only by seeing 
 young ladies and gentlemen go to choral service at 
 easy hours with pretty gilt crosses on their Prayer 
 Books. There were few young gentlemen or young 
 ladies at this early mass, and I saw no pretty gilt 
 crosses at all. The congregation was largely composed 
 of steady middle-aged men and matrons. Whatever 
 else it might be, the service was intensely real. Much 
 as the Ritualist mislikes the word ' Protestant,' he 
 does protest, and that with justice, against the idea 
 that ceremonial is everything, or even the principal 
 thing, in his worship. Its essence is the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence in the Eucharist. Accept that, and an 
 ornate ritual follows as a thing of course. Here, how- 
 ever, there was no ornate ritual or sensuous adjunct of 
 any kind ; but one could not help feeling that there 
 were life and earnestness; while the simplicity of the 
 Anglican Communion Service contrasts well with the 
 cumbrous complications of the Roman Mass. It is a 
 pity to transfer the name. It does well enough for 
 Father Ignatius, in a religious novel, to call the Com- 
 munion Service the ' Mass according to Dr Cranmer ; ' 
 but even in its highest form of development the Com- 
 munion Service differs toto coelo from the Roman Mass. 
 There was possibly' much in this service with which 
 
144 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 an ordinary plain-sailing ' Church of England man ' 
 would fail to sympathize ; but there was no excitement, 
 nothing he would dare to call ' mummery,' only pro- 
 found revrerence for what the worshippers consider 
 the central mystery of religion. Those who would 
 honestly study the real essence of Ritualism will do 
 well to avoid 'high masses' with full bands and pro- 
 cessions, and make their observations as I did on All 
 Saints' JDay, quietly and calmly, at a morning celebra- 
 tion or ' early mass.' 
 
 THE 'TWELVE DATS' MISSION.' 
 
 BEING a Broad-Church clergyman, at that time in 
 easy harness, I was honestly anxious to discover 
 whether the sudden ' special attack on sin and Satan ' 
 on the part of the Church of England, organized some 
 years ago, was simply spasmodic or a sign of real 
 vitality. 1 had no preconceived ideas on the subject, 
 though I may say frankly I did not like the idea of 
 the Confessional grafted on the originally colourless 
 scheme so innocently sanctioned by the Bishop of 
 London. Still," if a good end be gained, it is the ex- 
 treme of folly to quarrel about the means. The question 
 to be settled was whether this ' Guerre de Douze Jours ' 
 will do . Satan any harm. If it did not do him harm 
 it would do him good in its recoil. I propose to 
 chronicle diary-wise my experiences of as many of 
 these mission-services as a somewhat busy Ufe enabled 
 me to attend. 
 
 Monday Evening. 
 
 I went to the eight o'clock service at St Mary 
 Magdalene's, Paddington, taking with me (imprud- 
 
THE ' TWELVE DAYS' MISSION.' 145 
 
 ently, as it appeared,) a lady. Determined to be in 
 time we got to the church nearly half-an-hour before 
 service. We sat down, after the heathen custom pre- 
 valent in Ritualistic churches, exactly as desired — 
 myself on one side, my companion on the other, some- 
 what in front, that is, near the pulpit. I was much 
 struck with the number of poor persons, not only 
 women but men, who came in. Perhaps they looked 
 a little too much polished up for the occasion, like the 
 shiny apples so disagreeably suggestive of pocket- 
 handkerchiefs at an old woman's stall. Their evident 
 acquaintance with the pious middle-aged ladies in 
 poke bonnets seemed also significant. However, there 
 they were, where under ordinary circumstances they 
 would not be — in church. That was something, at all 
 events. After waiting about a quarter of an hour, a 
 tall individual in a cassock, who did not seem at all 
 at home in that inconvenient garment, stalked down, 
 the aisle and picked out all the well-dressed ladies, 
 requesting them to retire to the back of the church, so 
 as to allow the poor and ill-clad to be within easy 
 range of the pulpit. My companion being thus obliged 
 to retire, I retired too, to a corresponding position on 
 the men's side, sitting humbly in a delicious draught 
 at the west end, since it seemed that I had no need 
 to be preached at, and the poor people had. I was 
 mistaken, however. Before I had been seated five 
 minutes, another individual requested me to remove 
 to the position I had just left. I suppose he thought 
 I did require to be preached at. I demurred, as I 
 did not like to leave a lady at the extreme opposite 
 end of a crowded church. A third active if not in- 
 telligent officer, however, insisted upon my proximity 
 to the pulpit. So, as my position seemed to cause the 
 good people so much trouble, and we were evidently 
 not expected there, we left without waiting for service, 
 after having sat about half-an-hour. Thus' my first 
 efibrt at witnessing a mission-service was infructuous, 
 and Satan scored one, I suppose. This, of course, was 
 a mere hitch in the working of machinery new to the 
 
 10 
 
146 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Church of England, which the tact and courtesy of the 
 incumbent of St Mary Magdalene's would soon remedy 
 by drilling the gentlemen in the cassocks. In point of 
 fact nothing can be more un-Catholic or offensive to 
 the poor than thus picking out the well-dressed ; as 
 much as to say, ' You do not want saving from sin or 
 Satan, only those poor folks.' The very essence of 
 Catholic worship, or of a mission-service, surely is that 
 rich and poor shall meet without distinction. The 
 Roman Catholics realize this. The Anglo-Catholics 
 will learn it when they get a little more wu, fait at their 
 new work. 
 
 A second remark which it occurs to me to make is 
 that the ' bowing to the altar' is not yet satisfactory 
 at this church. If it be done at all, it should be pro- 
 perly done. At present it looks as though the genu- 
 flectors were ashamed of themselves. It put me exactly 
 in mind of the awkwardness of my countrymen in 
 lifting their hats to the lady at the comptovr in a French 
 restaurant. Contrast this awkwardness with the inimit- 
 able grace of the thorough-bred Parisian diner, and you 
 know the difference between the genuflexion at St Mary 
 Magdalene's and St Mary of the Angels. The fact is 
 I know from a poor parishioner, who appealed in the 
 most honest ignorance for the rationale of the proceed- 
 ing, the poor people fancy they are bowing to the 
 magnificent brazen eagle which serves as a lectern. 
 This I know is literally and simply true. The question 
 was put to a member of my household by a poor woman, 
 ' Why do they bow to the brass eagle ? ' In point of 
 fact, until the reservation of the sacrament is allowed, 
 there is nothing else to bow to. The genuflexion of the 
 Eomanist means something — that of the Anglo-Catholic 
 can mean nothing as yet, for devoutly as he may believe 
 in the Real Presence in the consecrated elements, there 
 are simply no consecrated elements there, and I venture 
 to presume the most advanced Ritualist does not hold a 
 special presence in the chancel more than in the body 
 erf the church. These, however, as we have said, are 
 merest details, about which it would be unwise and. 
 
THE ' TWEL VE DA KS' MISSION. ' 147 
 
 wicked to quarrel, if the great end is attained of dimin- 
 ishing sin, and so diminishing sorrow and suffering. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 Attended the five o'clock service at All Saints', 
 Margaret Street. There seemed no doubt that this 
 mission was doing good in the way of calling out the 
 preaching power of the Church of England. The old 
 objection (true enough in its degree) of clinging to the 
 MS. sermon will probably not attach to us much longer. 
 All praise to those who help to make us natural. The 
 method will probably be by running violently into the 
 opposite extreme for a little while. A sharp bend in a 
 contrary direction will straighten the crooked stick, I 
 got to All Saints' [' sicut mens est mos ') half-an-hour 
 before service, and found myself in the thick of a 
 sermon. It was a sermon, and no mistake. A young 
 man, whose name I could not ascertain (but whom I 
 afterwards found to be Mr Body), was habited simply in 
 a cassock, and occupied a chair in the middle of the 
 chancel-^that is, there was a chair there for him, but 
 he ran about, fell on his knees, &c.— --in fact, was every- 
 where but in the chair, and poured forth a torrent of 
 fervid words with the voice of a Stentor. He was 
 thoroughly in earnest, thoroughly practical, and cer- 
 tainly very striking. There was nothing to offend the 
 most sensitive ; yet still there was no doubt that his 
 sermon came under the popular denomination of ' rant.' 
 Widely different was the discourse of the Rev. R. M. 
 Benson, ' Superior of the Society of St John the 
 Evangelist,' which followed the beautiful five o'clock 
 service. Scholarly and monastic in style, it formed a 
 thorough contrast to our energetic friend of half-an-hour 
 previous. The preacher was remarkably fluent. His 
 subject, ' The Love of God,' was admirably set forth, 
 and his delivery decidedly imposing ; quiet yet earnest, 
 and at times warming into eloquence. But, O Rev. 
 Father ' Superior,' is it true to say that love was un- 
 known to earth from the fall of Man until the time 
 
148 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 when, as you so eloquently said, apostropliiziiig the 
 matchless group over the altar, 'yon blessed mother 
 stood by her Son's cross ' ? Was all else ' lawless 
 passion ' ? Even you were forced to name parental love 
 as a possible exception. Altogether the impression left 
 on me — Broad Church as some of my friends term me — 
 was eminently favourable. All Saints' was, it appears, 
 the centre from which this mission radiated. I could 
 not help thinking as I listened to the hymn ' Paradise,' 
 so exquisitely rendered, and afterwards to the refined 
 discourse of the reverend 'superior,' why cannot we 
 ' agree to differ ' ? Why is it that some good people of 
 the Evangelical sort sniff Popery in the most innocent 
 ceremonial 't Why, again, would these scholarly men, 
 who have done so much for our worship and Christian 
 work, utterly and scornfully repudiate the merely 'esthe- 
 tic approval which alone such as I could give to their 
 ceremonies ? I wonder whether this mission will teach 
 the High Churchman toleration for the Broad, and the 
 Low sympathy with the High ! What other reunion of 
 Christendom can we ever hope to compass ? I had in- 
 tended going to an eight o'clock mission service, but 
 got lost in' the fog ; I mean literally the November 
 London fog — nothing to do with the mission. 
 
 Thuesdat. 
 
 Mission Service, 8 p.m., at All Saints', Margaret 
 Street. I have learnt much from this service. 1st. 
 The energetic preacher I heard the day before yesterday 
 was the Rev. George Body, vaguely described as ' of 
 Wolverhampton.' He deserves his name. There is 
 considerable body in his discourses. 2nd. That was 
 not a sermon, but the fag-end of a. Bible-class at which 
 I was present. The mission service consisted only of a 
 few prayers, read in the pulpit. Its essence was the 
 sermon. The subject chosen by Mr Body was ' Blind 
 Bartimeeus.' It was ably and eloquently treated, but 
 with all the excessive action, and (there is no other word 
 for it) 'mouthing' noticeable on a previous occasion. 
 
THE ' TWELVE DA YS' MISSION. ' 149 
 
 This sermon, and the study of Isaiah, which succeeded 
 it in the Bible-class, left no room for doubting the 
 preacher's earnestness. He thoroughly believes what 
 he preaches, and is sure that the making others believe 
 it will benefit them. He has, and urgss, a noble scorn 
 of all ' proprieties,' all mere book devotion. But there 
 is the making so much more of the Death that was died 
 than the Life that was lived in Holy Land, which seems 
 to me, and such as me, to give a tone of unreality to 
 the teaching. If any one could make that form of 
 preaching practical, I believe it would be such men as 
 this. ■ The question remains. Is it practical ? Can it be 
 made so ? 
 
 Feidat. 
 
 I find there was an article in the Times this morning 
 on Mr Body's preaching. I was glad I had not seen it. 
 The Echo reproduced the substance of it in a paragraph 
 headed ' The English Hyacinthe.' They compared Mr 
 Body to Wesley and Whitfield, but failed to notice the 
 ' confessional ' element in his teaching, which certainly 
 narrows its usefulness. He announced that he would 
 ' receive confession from men on Saturday evening next 
 from six to eight,' in the sacristy of All Saints'. 
 
 Satuedat. 
 
 Attended the 5 p.m. service at St Paul's, Wilton Place, 
 Knightsbridge, where the Rev. W. J. B. Bennett, of 
 Prome, was preaching a course of sermons. It was 
 amusing to notice how the former generation of so-called 
 ' Puseyites,' represented by such men as Messrs Liddell 
 and Bennett, was completely distanced by the modern 
 Ritualists. They cannot get out of their old habits of 
 rigidity and formalism, which these young Titans have 
 thrown to the winds. The sermon was exceedingly dry, 
 and not preached, but read from a MS. In fact, both 
 time and place lifted, it out of the category of ' Mission ' 
 sermons. It was a Belgravian discourse pur et sim.ple, 
 and even made distinct reference to the sins of the 
 
I5<J ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 London ' season.' The only symptom of the Mission 
 was a collection introduced into the service, and a certain 
 jaunty^ not to say rollicking, air about the hymn tunes, 
 which is always assumed to be a characteristic of a 
 EevivaJ. '0 Paradise' was thus sung to a jumpy 
 measure in six-eight time, about as alien from the spirit 
 of the words as could well be imagined. 
 
 Eight P.M. — ' On reoient tovjours,' &c. To All Saints', 
 Margaret Street, again. I found at least fifty people 
 waiting outside the gate at seven o'clock for a service 
 which was to commence at eight. Mr Body preached 
 on the Magdalene at the house of Simon, though he was 
 so nearly voiceless as to be obliged to forego his Bible- 
 class. His subject naturally led him to speak much of the' 
 ' social evil,' par excellence, and he was just enough to 
 address his sharpest remarks to the men's side of the 
 congregation. He told a somewhat sensational, story of 
 a poor creature from the streets who the evening before 
 had been attracted to St Alban's simply by seeing the 
 large cross at the head of the Mission bill outside, and 
 went in to ascertain its meaning. The ' priest' saw her 
 and spoke to her; the result being that she left her 
 course of life, and 'that night, instead of sleeping 
 in a haunt of sin, slept in a house of penitence.' He 
 truly said, if no other result than this came of the Mis- 
 sion — supposing this to be permanent — that Mission 
 had not been in vain. After the sermon the men were 
 again invited to stop to confession. 'Do stop now. 
 Won't you stop ? ' But alas ! they didn't stop. It was 
 rather too much for our English reserve just yet to ex- 
 pect one or two individuals to come out in the face of 
 that congregation, and undergo the unaccustomed ordeal 
 of confession. I do not think the preacher expected it; 
 for he was so Very urgent in his invitation. He said he 
 had no difficulty with the women, but he wanted the 
 stronger sex. I fear it wiU require a great deal of Mis- 
 sion work before any of the stronger sex, really deserv- 
 ing the name, will be up to confession point. * 
 
THE ' TWELVE DA YS' MISSION: 151 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Attended the Mission service at St Alban's, Holborn, 
 where for the first time I found the form of service 
 followed out as it stands in the little penny books with 
 the big- crosses outside. It was very doleful. The 
 Penitential Psalms were chanted slowly to the most un- 
 mitigated Gregorians, and the prayers monotoned very 
 low down in the gamut. One cannot help wondering 
 whether a little cheerful music written in round notes on 
 five lines would not suit these simple folk as well as the 
 dreadful square-headed notes on four lines. Why must 
 we go back to imperfect musical notation when we want 
 to sing about religion ? The hymns, however, were 
 more lively, and ' There is a fountain,' followed by its 
 refrain of ' I do believe, I will believe,' &c., put one in 
 mind of the meeting-house. In fact, the whole affair is 
 a wonderful congeries of the Roman and Ranter elements 
 grafted on the stock of ' the Church of England as by 
 law established.' By all means let us be eclectic. We 
 cannot afford to neglect any means for ' evangelizing the 
 masses,' as the phrase goes. The sermon of the Rev. 
 'Father' O'Neil was on the Sacrament of Penance ! 
 Think of that and weep, ye orthodox, who teach your 
 little children to answer the question, ' How many 
 Sacraments?' 'Two only.' The 'Rev. Father' 
 preached on ' the Sacrament of Penance.' He was a 
 a little stiff and unnatural, labouring under a conscious 
 effort to popularize an unpopular and unpalatable subject. 
 It failed utterly, because it was unnatural ; and the con- 
 gregation, not large at the beginning, dribbled away 
 perceptibly on the women's side. It was surmised that 
 the second week of the Mission would prove more at- 
 tractive than the first ; but one fails to see much sign 
 of it here. There were a dozen or two of outsiders, 
 evidently, like myself, come to see what it was all about, 
 who had to be plied with little mission-books by an at- 
 tentive priest in a long cassock, who walked about all 
 service and sermon time for the purpose. I kept look- 
 
152 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ing back, aronndj and about me, in real curiosity, but I 
 could not see the faintest trace of enthusiasm, or any- 
 thing suggestive of a revival service. In fact, to my 
 mind the characteristic of the service was listlessness ; 
 of the sermon, effort — and effort unsuccessful in attain- 
 ing its end. In plain words, the whole affair at St 
 Alban's on Monday night hung fire. 
 
 Still, however, the question recurs — Is not the flexi- 
 bility thus induced upon our previously rigid euUus a 
 good symptom ? We may not believe in the preaching 
 of penance, in the regimen of confession, or the efficacy 
 of 'celebrations^ at uncomfortable hours of the morning. 
 To us it may seem that the honest but fervent inculca- 
 tion of moral and religious duties, with hearty free 
 services — English without a tinge of Romanism — would 
 be means at once more simple and efficacious. But. still 
 those means exist as yet only in theory. The ' Church 
 of Progress ' is but in embryo, and at present scarcely 
 adapted to individual needs. These people, on the con- 
 trary, have put their theory into practice. They have 
 begun to work whilst we are talking. Honour to whom 
 honour is due. The work is worth noticing curiously, 
 if only to see whether its tendency be, as its friends 
 think, to diminish sin, or — as its adversaries allege-^to 
 play into the hands of the Pope. The question will 
 obtrude itself — K you use thus all the machinery of 
 Rome, why do you not go to head-quarters for it ? Why 
 not embrace a system of which all these are the normal 
 developments, instead of trying to force them on the 
 Church of England, where they are so evidently foreign, 
 and so likely to break up the institution upon which it 
 is sought to graft them ? They will never suit the 
 ' Establishment.' Will not the choice lie ultimately be- 
 tween a Free Church — that is, according to ' Catholic ' 
 ideas, a schismatical Church — and that One Church from 
 which those who use almost all its dogmas and discipline 
 seem to stand so unnecessarily apart — towards which 
 plain folks Uke myself seem to see these well-meaning 
 people so unconsciously (if unconsciously) drifting ? 
 
 So, then, the much-talked-of Twelve Days' Mission 
 
THE ' TWELVE DA KS" MISSION. ' 153 
 
 was at an end, and became matter of history. As it does 
 so, we cannot but pause for a moment, and, with, the 
 experiences fresh upon us, inquire — will it prove to have 
 been only a violent spasm, or a real epoch in Church 
 history ? Happy — on the suave mari magna principle 
 — those whose lot it is to stand, like myself, on the 
 bank, watching the current of events, without danger 
 of being carried away by it. Seeing at the end of the 
 Mission-book a form of service for the ' Renewal of 
 Baptismal Vows,' I sallied forth on Wednesday evening, 
 prepared to renew mine ; though I had never formally 
 renounced them, and fancied they were renewed once 
 for all at confirmation. I must look up my theology. 
 However, the difficulty did not occur, for the service was 
 ignored. My last Mission evening was spent — shall I 
 own the soft impeachment ? — still at the shrine of Mr 
 Body at All Saints', Margaret Street. Perhaps no 
 stronger proof of the fascination exercised by mere 
 fluency of speech and earnestness of purpose could be 
 adduced than this man's power to bring me thither 
 evening after evening at the sacrifice of so much valuable 
 time, and amid influences not altogether congenial. If 
 I, who could sit there coldly criticizing even his most 
 telling ' bits,' felt this fascination, what of the sensitive 
 females, and men more impressionable than myself, 
 whom I saw there with the tears they tried to conceal 
 actually bursting through the hands with which they 
 covered their faces ! I certainly never saw such a sight 
 outside or inside the walls of a church as I have seen at 
 All Saints'. One hour and a quarter before sermon- 
 time there was a crowd in Margaret Street. At ten 
 minutes past seven, when the. outer gates were opened, 
 the rush resembled a Jenny Lind night in olden 
 time at the Opera. The church was filled in a few 
 minutes ; for many persons — members of the regular 
 congregations we will presume — were admitted through 
 the clergy-house. Then ensued a time of conversation ; 
 not light flippant talk — I witnessed no one single 
 instance of that — but, both before the service and also 
 between the sermon and Bible-class, there was deep. 
 
154 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 earnest conversation of men on religious topics. The 
 sermon, to my thinking, was Mr Body's chef fl'ceuvre. 
 Its subject was Perseverance ; its text the suggestive 
 one, ' Let us run with patience the race that is set 
 before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of 
 our faith.' It was a discourse not to be forgotten; 
 more quietly delivered, and truer to its logical divisions, 
 than any that had preceded it. Its subject was charac- 
 teristically summarized by the preacher as ' Christian 
 Pluck:' The Bible-study that succeeded was an eloquent 
 picture of the condition of the Departed in Paradise, 
 and an appeal by that softest of all sanctions to per- 
 severance. When the mother was pointed to the arms 
 of her dead baby-boy beckoning her forward, or the 
 young man urged by the love of a lost mother, one can 
 well understand the sensation (I wrote that word un- 
 advisedly, and not with its new meaning) produced. 
 Looking round analytically, I could not but confess I 
 had seen as much feeling evoked by a powerful drama. 
 I have seen grg,y-headed men weeping at Mrs Mellon's 
 impersonation of the mother at the foot of the guillotine 
 where her son is to be executed, in Mr Watts Phillips' 
 ' Dead Heart.' Will this prove more lasting ? I 
 believe each does good ; but one, we know, is ephemeral. 
 I am only echoing the preacher's own anxious and 
 often-expressed doubt. Will this ' sensation ' prove 
 more permanent ? 
 
 The experiment of this Mission has been cleverly 
 elaborated and successfully worked out as far as imme- 
 diate result goes. I saw strict Roman Catholics and 
 ultra-Evangelicals, in whose nostrils All Saints' has 
 been hitherto unsavoury, gathered in last night's con- 
 gregation. Will the cohesive power last ? 
 
 Whatever else be the upshot of all this, it proved we 
 had at least one Boanerges amongst us, the Rev. Mr 
 Body, ' of Wolverhampton.' I felt a little like Iscariot, 
 I must confess, when, passing out by the side door, I 
 found Mr Body, arrayed in priest's cloak, standing there 
 to shake hands with members of the congregation as 
 they passed. I thought I might get by unobserved ; 
 
MASS AT MIDNIGHT AND MID-DA Y. 155 
 
 but no, he insisted on a shake, and said, in a cheery tone, 
 ' Good'bye ; your face is very familiar to me at this 
 Mission, though I don't know your name. Are you 
 ■forking in London ? ' I did not tell him my name ; I 
 only told him half my work ; and omitted to mention 
 that I was doing the Mission for a Daily Paper. I 
 wonder whether, had you known my mission, you would 
 have felt as I did, that I was grasping the hand of an 
 honest man, at all events. 
 
 MASS AT MIDNIGHT AND MID-DAY. 
 
 TO those who attentively study worship as the ex- 
 pression of religious thought, it will be even more 
 interesting to trace the realization of those ideas under 
 ordinary than under exceptional aspects; just as the 
 physician, instead of devoting himself entirely or 
 principally to the pathology of the morbid subject, 
 studies hygiene and the ordinary working of the healthy 
 system. So it is that, having recently chronicled in 
 these pages my experiences of the Twelve Days' Mission, 
 I append on account of two Christmas-day ' Masses ' at 
 which I was privileged to ' assist.' The former subject 
 represented even Ritualistic religious life at fever heat ; 
 the latter presents us with the normal and equable 
 course of religious worship in a body which, whether 
 we choose to realize the fact or not, is a large and con- 
 tinually-increasing element in the Church of England. 
 Such undesigned evidence is more convincing than that 
 which is somewhat obtrusively volunteered at Revival 
 Services, or elicited in a one-sided, and therefore un- 
 satisfactory manner in religious prosecutions. It is 
 worth while to see what these people have to say for 
 themselves in those expressions of their religious 
 
156 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 thouglifc which, whatever else we may think of them, 
 we caanot doubt to be perfectly genuine and con- 
 scientious. 
 
 On Christmas-eve, then, at an hour when most 
 reasonable people were thinking of retiring to bed, I 
 turned my face eastwards for the purpose of attending 
 midnight ' Mass ' at St Albaa's, Holborn. I was told 
 that service began at eleven o'clock, so made a point of 
 being in church a quarter before. Although I found on 
 arriving there that Mass did not begin until half-past 
 eleven, there was a considerable congregation of both 
 sexes assembled even then ; and my punctuality enabled 
 me to witness one or two interesting matters. For 
 instance, I saw all the floral arrangements and draping 
 of the altar, which occupied a full half hour, and were 
 perfect of their kind; only I fancy the white frontal 
 never gives quite an adequate idea of the richness and 
 costliness of the material. The white hangings on 
 either side of the altar, as well as the draperies for the 
 stands containing the Epistle and Gospel, being of white 
 thick material with deep red edges, were very suggestive 
 of blankets. Then again, although the candles at St 
 Alban's are now matter of history, and the whole 
 sacrarium was one blaze of light, I do not think I could 
 have formed an idea of the number of those candles had 
 I not seen the actual lighting up. It took three gentle- 
 men in puce cassocks a quarter of an hour by the clock 
 to light the candles only, the gas being undertaken by 
 another. The post of tallow-chandler to St Alban's 
 must be a lucrative one. Then again, from being so 
 early, I had an opportunity of seeing the Confessional 
 at work. There are three or four in the church, con- 
 sisting simply of a screen curtained off from the con- 
 gregation, and suggestive of little privacy. I was also 
 amazed at the short time the penitents took to confess. 
 It appeared to me, if I had only had to confess the sins 
 of one single day, it would have taken me much longer ; 
 but then we ordinary people do not understand these 
 things yet. On the stroke of 11.30 the procession 
 entered with four large banners. It consisted of forty 
 
MASS AT MIDNIGHT AND MID-DA V. 157 
 
 persons in all, the majority being ' nice little singing 
 boys' 'in surplices white/ some with red cassocks, 
 others black. Singing men followed ; then three 
 'priests,' including Mr Mackonochie, who were not 
 going to take part in the celebration, and were therefore 
 vested only in uncomfortably short surplices with what 
 looked to my uninitiated eyes like rumpled Oxford hoods 
 twisted round their necks ; after these followed the 
 celebrant, with epistoler and gospeller in gorgeous 
 golden vestments that certainly would have stood up- 
 right without any priests inside them. So they passed 
 to the sacrarium, which I ought to mention had been 
 previously well fumigated with incense by one of the 
 men in puce. No incense was used during the celebra- 
 tion. The processional hymn was Gregorian and dreary, 
 suggesting a cheerful funeral ; but when the processional 
 cross and banners reached the chancel, and priests and 
 choir were 'posed' amid those brilliant lights and 
 gorgeous flowers, the scene — as a spectacle— ^was per- 
 fect. The Communion Service of the Church of England 
 was then proceeded with, and little variety introduced, 
 except in so far that everything was as ornate as possible, 
 and every opportunity of musical adjunct was seized. 
 Novello's ' Adeste Fideles ' was well rendered by the 
 choir, and ' Hark, the herald angels sing,' by choir and 
 congregation before and after Communion — or rather 
 one ought to say before and after the place where the 
 people usually communicate ; for, strange to say, out of 
 that vast congregation not a single person partook of 
 the Sacrament at that Christmas-day celebration ! It 
 was evidently understood that we were present at a 
 Sacrifice, not at a Communion. There, surely, lies the 
 revolution of all our old-fashioned ideas on the matter. 
 We are not there to do something ourselves, and to get 
 help therefrom to do our duty better and make our lives 
 more what they should be ; nous avons ehangS tout cela. 
 Something is done for us by the Priest, and ex opere 
 operato, we are to be the better for it. Surely there is 
 no lack of charity in saying that this theory overlies 
 every detail of the ' Mass ' where, out of so many assist- 
 
iS8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ing, not one communicates. Accept this theory, and 
 the most elaborate ceremonial is, of course, intelligible. 
 To me, who cannot accept it, and to those who think 
 with me, perfect as we confess the performance on 
 aesthetic principles, it is overlaid with ceremonies that, 
 until we develope considerably, must for us be meaning- 
 less. The genuflexions, changes of pose, &c., were in- 
 tricate to a degree. One dreaded to' think of the amount 
 of f drill ' they must involve. Then, again, the Lord's 
 Prayer in the Post Communion is sung to a florid air, as 
 was the Gospel to a monotonous Gregorian melody. 
 Positively, I did not know what was going on until 
 they got nearly to the end of it. Fancy the Lord's 
 Prayer sung ! Mr Mackonochie himself preached a ten 
 minutes' sermon ; but evidently made no point of it, or 
 else the text, ' Full of Grace and Truth,' might have 
 inspired him with words worth listening to at that par- 
 ticular hour, when the greatest event in all the world's 
 history was being commemorated. But, I repeat, we 
 had not come ' to hear sermons.' We were there to 
 attend a gorgeous sacrifice — the sacrifice of the Mass. 
 And gorgeous it was. I could not, however, but con- 
 fess to myself, as the interest culminated with the great 
 bell of the church ringing out into the midnight at the 
 climax of consecration, that such a ceremony no more 
 embodied my own religious life than Traviata does the 
 ordinary life of thousands who are thrilled by it at the 
 opera. 
 
 Coming home through the populous streets-^populous 
 at 1 A.M.^-I could not but think as I met sot after sot, 
 male and female, anticipating Christmas in their own 
 swinish manner^-surely it is well to have them rather 
 anticipate it as I saw them by hundreds at St Alban's, 
 sitting clothed and in their right minds ! The method 
 seems to us a bit roundabout and un-English; but 
 surely the end is good, if it oi^ly saved one such man or 
 woman from self. Such a contrast makes one very 
 ' broad ' indeed. 
 
 Twelve hours later I found myself attending mid-day 
 Mass at St Mary Magdalene's, Paddington.. I might 
 
MASS AT MIDNIGHT AND MID-DA Y. 159 
 
 "have chosen a 'higher' celebration had not my religious 
 dissipation of the previous night told upon my morning 
 dreams. At St Mary's Ritualism was in embryo only. 
 The vestments were seen there in all their native ugli- 
 ness, for they were made of white linen, which, to use 
 a milliner's term, does not 'hang' well; and, moreover, 
 lacking the accessory of coloar, they spoil the tout 
 ensemble. The altar was artistically arranged with 
 flowers, drapery, and candles, and a modest procession, 
 with two banners, commenced the High Celebration. 
 The service itself wandered more widely from the Prayer- 
 book than at St Alban's, and I counted no less than 
 eight interpolations in the shape of Introit, Gradual, 
 Offertory, ' Communion,' Nunc Dimittis, Sacramental 
 Hymns, &c. The effect of this continual introduction 
 of texts of Scripture, often irrelevant, and repeated with 
 wearisome iteration, is fidgeting in the extreme, and 
 quite mars the severe beauty of our English Communion 
 Service, by assimilating it to the Romish Mass. This 
 is, of course, intended. Again, the number of com- 
 municants was compa,ratively small. Speaking roughly, 
 I should say that, out of a very large congregation, not 
 more than twenty-five men and a little over fifty women 
 presented themselves. Of the rest, a large number were 
 evidently less impregnated with the sacrificial theory 
 than attracted by curiosity and the musical service, 
 which is decidedly above par. You could judge this by 
 noticing the number who sat during celebration instead 
 of kneeling in the unmistakable posture assumed by 
 Ritualistic habitues. 
 
 However, here is the fact, illustrated almost at anti- 
 podes in the two churches I selected. The sacrificial 
 theory of the Eucharist — that is^ the Romish doctrine of 
 the Mass — is flourishing, in various grades, in the Estab- 
 lished Church. Those who have adopted and intro- 
 duced it have done so energetically and in evident good 
 faith. It is an anxious question for the unbiassed 
 moralist to determine whether or not the result will be 
 enervating to the moral sense, leading men to rely on 
 something external to themselves, a merely mechanical 
 
iQo ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 transaction on their behalf by a priest, instead of 
 trusting to that purity of life and faith which the Church 
 of England requires in the worthy communicant, as 
 constituting the very means by which he communicates 
 in any real or practical sense. This appears the great 
 danger of the theory. That it will drive devotees to 
 Rome there seems little cause to fear, in fact it ought to 
 act as a safety-valve for their enthusiasm. They have 
 here at home all they could possibly desire in Rome, 
 save the Pope's authority and the vaunted Catholic 
 unity ; and surely the (Ecumenical Council has already 
 opened their eyes on these subjects. Possibly, therefore, 
 the moral effect on individuals is all that need concern us ; 
 and with regard to that we may perhaps safely use 
 Gamaliel's argument : ' Refrain from these men, and let 
 them alone ; for if this counsel or this work be of men 
 it will come to nought ; but if it be of God ye cannot 
 overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight 
 against God.' 
 
 DOING DECORATIONS. 
 
 THERE are two well-defined and widely differing types 
 of young-ladyhood, who gravitate respectively to- 
 wards the world and the Church. The former think 
 officers ' ducks ; ' the latter speak of the curate as ' dear ' 
 Mr So-and-so — dear 'Father' So-and-so, if they are 
 sufficiently 'advanced.' The one are great at mess- 
 balls, floral fetes, and walking in the Zoo — are, for the 
 most part, handsome, dashing girls, perfectly alive to the 
 fact, and dressing accordingly. The latter are best de- 
 scribed by the epithet ' pretty,' not always young, and 
 invariably reckon frumpishness as a cardinal virtue. The 
 military young lady is an honest, open, undisguised flirt. 
 
DOING DECORATIONS. i6i 
 
 The ecclesiastical sister does lier flirtation circuitously 
 by means of district visiting, Sunday schools, and — which 
 is to 1 our present purpose — church decorations. As 
 Eastertide and Christmas come round the mind of the 
 ecclesiastical young lady is exercised on the subject 
 of 'monograms,' 'legends,' and other curious para- 
 phernalia of piety. Her goodness breaks out in ever- 
 greens and floral emblems ; and on one and all of these 
 important subjects her ' guide, philosopher, and friend ' 
 is naturally the curate. She journeys with him to Covent 
 Garden Market and buys camellias, at ruinous rates, 
 sufficient to dine a poor family for every flower; but it 
 is nice for the curate, and looks pretty in church, and so 
 the young devotee 'goes in,' as she terms it in mild 
 ecclesiastical slang, for the camellias, determining to 
 ' save it in something else.' 
 
 Now it has been my habit for several years to ' do ' 
 the Christmas decorations of the metropolitan churches, 
 and chronicle the same for the delectation of a too un- 
 assthetic British public. I have described, that is, the 
 ecclesiastical transformation scene as it burst upon my 
 astonished gaze on Christmas morning. This year I had 
 determined to portray what may be — I hope not irre- 
 verently — termed the dress rehearsal, or putting up the 
 decorations on Christmas Eve ; but, in the course of my 
 peregrinations, I saw the ladies, old and young, at work. 
 I went — if I may preserve my histrionic metaphor — be- 
 hind the scenes ; and what I saw is so characteristic of 
 a peculiar but growing type of English life, that I will 
 even substitute a full, true, and particular account 
 thereof for what I had previously determined to write. 
 Let not my fair devotees be alarmed, or the frequent 
 blush mantle the cheek of the reverend Lothario. Not 
 by the faintest clue will I give an index to the locality of 
 my several descriptions ; though, at the same time, I 
 guarantee that every portrait shall be faithfully drawn 
 from a living model. 
 
 Here is, first of all, a church we will call St George 
 and the Dragon, Camden Town, principally for the rea- 
 son that it lies as nearly as possible in another ecclesi- 
 
 11 
 
i62 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 astical hemispliere. St George's is Higt and Dry, the' 
 incumbent being considered ' Broad ' — in doctrine, not 
 dimensions — by the young ladies, and the curate grow- 
 ing the beard of a muscular Christian. St George's goes 
 in for decorations all over the sacred edifice ; and the 
 unenlightened lay people will perhaps be surprised to 
 hear that their profusion is rather a sign of unorthodoxy 
 than the reverse. As the doctrinal thermometer rises 
 the decorations gradually retire into the chancel, or the 
 ' sanctuary ' as it is termed — a slender wreath of green 
 stufi" up the gas standards being deemed sufficient for 
 the laity, while the curate in the stalls sits quite uncom- 
 fortably upon holly, and the preacher in the pulpit looks 
 like a jack-in-the-green on May Day. Nothing of the 
 kind at St George and the Dragon's. From the east 
 window right down to the western porch every square 
 inch is bedizened. For weeks before, fair fingers have 
 been cutting out the most uncomfortable-looking hiero- 
 glyphs, orthodox in proportion to their illegibility, and 
 the ' mess,' which has hitherto driven housemaids to dis' 
 traction, culminates in the school-room, where the dear 
 creatures stint themselves of their natural refreshment, 
 and stain their fingers with twisting wreaths, happy if 
 they can only get a soft-voiced clerical gentleman to 
 'hold the other end' for them. They picnic ofi" soup 
 brewed in the soup-kitchen hard by, and brought in hot 
 and hot by the curate, and afterwards regale themselves, 
 seated on heaps of green stuif, with impromptu tea, going 
 home dead tired at night, only to commence their weary 
 round the next morning. St George's goes in greatly, 
 for cotton-wool letters and powdered alum on the ivy 
 leaves, meant to look like frost and snow, but making 
 the church rather resemble a large Twelfth cake. Here 
 is one young lady who has made her pretty hands 
 rough as a washerwoman's by dabbling in the alum 
 water ; and the worst of it all is, her ivy leaves look 
 rather as if they had grown on a house that had been 
 recently whitewashed, and the bearded curate might 
 have been wrapped up in cotton- wool for the rheumatism, 
 
DOING DECORATIONS. 163 
 
 he is so flufFy all down his long black coat from the 
 letters he has been superintending. 
 
 St Margaret the Martyr is an advanced Ritualistic 
 church, where the ' Sisters ' wear ' habits/ consisting of 
 skimpy petticoats, poke bonnets, and surreptitious beads. 
 They only decorate the chancel at St Margaret's ; and 
 the architect has been so lavish of adornments in the way 
 of painting and sculpture at the beautiful east end^ that 
 he has left little space for further ornamentation. You 
 would fancy from the semi-conventual condition of St 
 Margaret's, and the demure looks of the Sisters as they 
 draggle their linsey-woolsey skirts through the street 
 mud, that decorating would with them be a very dismal 
 process indeed. Not a bit of it. At untimely hours on 
 Christmas Eve the fair sisters bear their green and fra- 
 grant burdens from their own ' Home ' to the monastic 
 shades of the ' Clergy House,' where, after compline, a 
 very toothy little supper, by no means of the parched- 
 pea order, is served up in refectory, and much is the 
 mirth that goes on between the cassocked ' Fathers ' and 
 the Sisters. Right through the small hours do they 
 work with a will, putting holly berries in all sorts of im- 
 possible places, and even climbing to the top of a tall 
 ladder to blazon the chancel arch with the sweet old 
 Christmas legend. The Fathers — delicate creatures ! — ■ 
 drop off one by one to bed in their cells, as they have to 
 be up at three for the ' first oflSce ; ' Sister Seraphine 
 presides at the teaboard for early breakfast, and all as- 
 semble at matins as though nothing had happened ; the 
 church ablaze with decorations, and the souls of the 
 faithful refreshed with the nocturnal work of these clois- 
 tered Fathers and Sisters. Rumour does say that when 
 Father Arthur turned into his cell he found an apple-pie 
 bed made for him, and the sleeves of his monastic night- 
 gown sewed up, and that sly little Sister Alice looked 
 very red when he talked about it in refectory next morn- 
 ing; but rumour always did draw the long bow, and 
 Father Arthur is, I believe, far too sweet a preacher, 
 and has much too nice eyes, for Sister Alice to play such 
 a Gruel trick upon him. 
 
1 64 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 St- Simon Stylites is an Evangelical cliiircli, which the 
 profane and the Puseyite vilify by calling a preaching- 
 shop. By some occult law of ecclesiastical nature. Evan- 
 gelical curates nearly always have red shoulder-of-mutton 
 whiskers ; and the Perpetual Curate of St Simon's is no 
 exception to the rule. He is single, adored by the 
 ladies old and young, and a distant relation of a colonial 
 bishop. There is no schoolroom at St Simon's. The 
 Perpetual Curate does not believe in the schoolmaster, 
 and deems all worldly knowledge ' carnal ; ' so they have 
 to ' decorate ■" in the church itself. The raw material is 
 brought up to the very porch in a greengrocer's cart, 
 and woven into wreaths and interlaced triangles on the 
 actual spot where it is to be used. Many of the decorators 
 of St Simon's are veterans in the cause — grim females 
 of a weird and determined aspect, who would scare any 
 one except a very Evangelical parson indeed. But our 
 Perpetual Curate is equal to the occasion, and makes 
 them work like converted niggers, on the weakest tea, 
 and without, I believe, entertaining the most distant 
 matrimonial ideas as to any one of their number. There 
 is a certain Maria Jane — a combination of names not 
 uncommon among elderly spinsters — who has been at- 
 tached to St Simon's from early girlhood, when she was 
 employed, as a gaunt hoyden of six feet, all arms and 
 legs, to do the twiddly wreaths on the top of the gas- 
 burners. She is now a grizzled spinster, promoted to 
 the glorification of the pulpit, and sits on the top step 
 all Christmas Eve labouring her poor old scraggy bird's 
 claws of fingers off, while the Perpetual Curate rekindles 
 long dormant flames of jealousy in her bosom by flirting 
 with pretty Miss Jones at the suggestive altar rail 
 below. 
 
 The Episcopal Chapel of SS. Boanerges, or the Sons 
 of Thunder, is Broad and ugly, and its staff of clergy are 
 muscular Christians of the most pronounced type, beard- 
 ed, and prone to pipes and the 'Fortnightly.' Up to the 
 present year the Sons of Thunder have deemed their 
 unbeauteous edifice 'when unadorned adorned the most; ' 
 but ah aesthetic element has found its way even in among 
 
DOING DECORATIONS. 165 
 
 the dingy high-backed pews and three-decker which 
 stand like ecclesiastical anachronisms at SS. Boanerges. 
 Fair fingers of matrons and maidens have this year 
 worked into a simple scroll, above the communion table, 
 the old happy Christmas legend of ' Peace on earth, 
 goodwill to men,' which the voices of little children will 
 sing so appropriately on Christmas morn in the gloomy 
 old chapel. It is well, surely, that some little softening 
 influence should find its way even into our churches and 
 chapels on that one day at least in the year, lest our 
 theology grow as cold and hard as the every-day life out- 
 side the church porch. The time has gone by for railing 
 at every little adornment which goes to make the church 
 the poor man's home, snifiBng incipient Popery in every 
 new gaslight, or Ritualism in each simple decoration. 
 Even the judicious Hooker protested against God being 
 ' served slovenly.' We may smile at our enthusiastic 
 ladies, young and old, at Christmas, but they are uncon 
 sciously exercising a softening influence upon society ; 
 overdoing it a little perhaps sometimes — as who does 
 not ? — but still labouring appropriately and more in their 
 place than on the platform or in the senate. 
 
 A word in conclusion to the curates. They looked 
 at me as fiercely as curates can look when I invaded the 
 sacred territory of schoolroom, refectory, and church to 
 see the ladies 'doing decorations.' Bach and all glared, 
 as much as to say, ' What can that fellow want here ? ' 
 They thought, perhaps, I was an archdeacon in disguise 
 come down to check their pretty devices. They see now 
 what I wanted, and will, 1 hope, in future years, take 
 care to keep me posted up as to the last new things in 
 Christmas decorations. 
 
i66 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 MIDNIGHT MASS. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE may be appropriately described in 
 modem ecclesiastical language as ' The Great Day 
 of the Preparation.' It is the time when those branches 
 especially of the National Church which build upon 
 objective teaching set themselves in order "to welcome 
 the dawn of the Incarnation, of the greatest event but 
 one which is connected with the history of humanity. 
 From this fact as a centre have radiated all those social 
 influences which make Christmas essentially the Family 
 Festival of the year, and which have to a large extent 
 merged its religious in it.s merely festal character. For 
 weeks before Christmas the ladies, old and young, who 
 are attached to the different churches, have been — 
 metaphorically, at' least — working their fingers off at 
 monograms, texts, and legends for the decoration of the 
 sacred edifices; and Christmas Eve is the time for 
 putting them up. A peep into the different London 
 churches on that evening — and I peeped into a good 
 many — was a sight not easily to be forgotten. Here was 
 a lady standing on a ladder, decorating the chancel arch ; 
 here another twisting wreaths round a gas standard, or 
 blazoning a stall-head with inimorteUes. In all I found 
 the clergy and their fair friends full of preparations for 
 the morrow. The more advanced Ritualistic churches 
 confined their adornments to the chancel, and some few 
 eschewed floral decorations altogether ; but in most — in 
 all but one, in fact — I found them up and doing, and 
 ready, moreover, to give all information as to the plans 
 for the morrow. The single exception was All Saints', 
 Margaret Street — once the coryphaeus in choral services 
 and bedizenments of all kinds. I found, the church in 
 gloom, with the single exception of one gas-jet at the east 
 
MIDNIGHT MASS. 167 
 
 end, and at tlie door I was met by an ascetic-looking 
 verger, who might have been Gabriel Grub prior to con- 
 version. He said the clergy of All Saints' objected to 
 publicity, and declined — so he phrased it — ' affording 
 any facilities ' to those who would chronicle their doings. 
 I am bound in justice to say that All Saints' stood in a 
 minority of one in this respect. 
 
 The great event of Christmas Eve is Midnight Mass, 
 as it is termed in the more advanced churches — or mid- 
 night communion, in those of a less pronounced type. 
 It may be remembered that the present Roman Catholic 
 Archbishop of Westminster has discountenanced mid- 
 night masses as tending to irregularities, and some few 
 churches of the Establishment have done the same ; but 
 in others the custom still exists, and, by way of going 
 to the very head-quarters of Ritualism, I selected St 
 Alban's, Holborn, as the basis of my operations for that 
 evening. Going, according to my custom, to reconnoitre 
 in the afternoon, I found a few persons in the church 
 engaged in private devotion, and two priests receiving 
 confession. I presented myself at one of the confes- 
 sionals, and learned the evening's programme. There 
 were to be no floral decorations, the reason given by the 
 Father with whom I conversed being the very practical 
 one that they ' smelt.' Oialy the lights in the sanctuary 
 would be augmented, no inapt symbol of the great event 
 to be commemorated — the first shining of the Light of 
 the World ! 
 
 At half-past eleven o'clock the sonorous bell of St 
 Alban's rang out above the more than secular sounds of 
 Brooke Street, Gray's Inn Lane, and a large congrega- 
 tion filled the spacious church for the First or Midnight 
 Celebration. The chancel only was decorated, with the 
 single exception of the font, which had a few flowers on 
 it. The east end, however, blazed with lights, and was 
 rich with white silk hangings. Choice flowers were on 
 the altar, and about a hundred tapers surrounded the 
 central crucifix, while some fifty in each of two large 
 candelabra flanked the Sacred Table at the north and 
 south. Banners of rich device were also placed at fre- 
 
i68 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 quent intervals^ and a large picture of the Yirgin and 
 Child on the south chancel wall had pots of flowers in 
 front. There was no procession, strictly so called ; but 
 a small choir entered from the vestry, consisting of ten 
 or twelve boys and men, the preacher, a cross-bearer, 
 the celebrant, epistoler and gospeller, with acolytes. 
 The vestments of the officiating priests were rich in the 
 extreme, while that of the preacher was quite plain. 
 An Introit was sung from the 2nd Psalm, and the 
 Commandments recited in monotone, a bright Kyrie 
 succeeding each. The Collect for the Festival and the 
 Gospel were given in full inflection — that is, they were 
 sung instead of being read, the congregation prostrat- 
 ing themselves at every clause therein, as also in the 
 Nicene Creed, where the mystery of the Incarnation 
 was enunciated. The sermon was preached by a Father 
 who was habited in simple surplice, hood, and stole, 
 and took his text from St John i. 11, 12: 'He came 
 unto His own, and His own received Him not.' Com- 
 mencing with a graphic sketch of the details of the 
 Nativity, he dwelt on the quietness and poverty which 
 marked the advent of the Messiah ; and yet the same 
 characteristics are often reproduced now ; the same 
 carelessness is in the world, and Christ, as it were, 
 thrust into a comer. He reveals Himself even now to 
 a narrower circle than of old. He comes to His Church 
 — the world rejects Him. Even in the hearts of many 
 of the elect the witness is true, ' He comes to His own, 
 and His own receive Him not.' In the retired cell of a 
 collected heart, free from earthly distractions, God now 
 finds a home. When the heart becomes an oratory, 
 then Christ dwells in it. This is the great lesson to 
 learn, that Jesus dwells in the heart of the lowly. A 
 chain of miracles is expressly adapted to the special 
 needs of each — Judsean shepherds and Chaldean astro- 
 nomers. So now does He manifest Himself in ways 
 exactly adapted to the charapter of all. The desire to 
 know Him secures the knowledge. 
 
 The sermon, which was extempore, was brief and 
 telling in its character, and was followed by the hymn 
 
MIDNIGHT MASS. 169 
 
 ' Adeste Fideles/ sung as soloj duet^ trio, and quartette 
 for the principal voices ; each verse being followed by a 
 full choruSj in which all of the vast congregatiou appeared 
 to join. The Communion OfiB.ce was then proceeded 
 with. The consecration of the elements was performed 
 in so low a tone as to be almost silent, and the great 
 bell of the church rang out long and loud to tell outsiders 
 that the climax of the sacramental worship had come. 
 The congregation prostrated themselves reverently ; and 
 the long silence which ensued was perhaps the most 
 telling efifect of the whole ceremony. At length the 
 organ played a few soft notes, and a sacramental hymn 
 was sung by a single soprano voice, followed by chorus. 
 The Communion strictly so called followed, a small 
 fraction only of the large congregation receiving the 
 elements, and each being interrogated by a layman, 
 standing at the chancel rail, before being permitted to 
 present himself or herself. There could have been 
 scarcely twenty communicants out of so large a congre- 
 gation. It was a midnight mass or celebration rather 
 than a Communion. 
 
 But, however it might differ from the theory or practice 
 of the majority in the National Church, there could be 
 no doubt but that it was as a spectacle impressive — one 
 had almost said perfect; and certainly a more satisfactory 
 way of welcoming Christmas morn than that which met 
 one's eyes and ears on emerging into Brooke Street and 
 Holborn, where the roysterers were, at the small hour of 
 the morning, already anticipating Christmas mirth — alas, 
 the term ! — in their own unholy way. There were many 
 poor in the congregation. Had there been only one 
 rescued from the squalor and vice surrounding the House 
 of God it would have been a result worth all the effort 
 of the Midnight Mass. 
 
I70 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 WATCH-NIGHT. 
 
 THERE is a noticeable tendency at the present day to 
 revert to the old method of parable-teaching for the 
 conveyance of moral and religious truths — of catching, 
 that is, at any circumstance or event of common life 
 likely to arrest men's attention, and making'it pave the 
 way to something beyond itself. This used to be called, 
 disparagingly, 'improving the occasion,' and was rather 
 looked down upon than otherwise in the Established 
 Church. But a happy change has supervened in this 
 respect, more due, perhaps, to influences outside than 
 within the pale of the Church, Just as Rowland Hill 
 grudged giving all the good tunes to secular composi- 
 tions (he used a stronger and coarser expression, by the 
 way), so has it been seen unwise to abandon as the mark 
 of a party that method of instruction which had the 
 direct sanction of the highest authority of all. He 
 preached amid the hills of Galilee, with birds and flowers 
 for His text. The seedsman scattering his grain on the 
 fields by the lake-side gave a turn to the discourse ; and 
 so, too, it is no longer thought undignified to let passing 
 events inspire the address from the pulpit, or even afford 
 occasion for special services. One need do no more 
 than instance the frequency of Harvest Festivals in sup- 
 port of such assertion. So, too, with reference to New 
 Year's Day, and its Vigil, here called Watch-Night — a 
 name, again, which a few years ago would have seemed 
 to restrict our remarks to Nonconformity, but is far from 
 doing so now. In the Church of England nothing was 
 more common than to be reminded from the pulpit that 
 the commencement of the civil year was unimportant in 
 the Church's .regards ; that the first of January was her 
 Feast of the Circumcision ; and that Advent Sunday was 
 
WA TCH-NIGHT. 1 7 1 
 
 the Churck's New Year's Day, when we turned back in 
 our Prayer-books to the old Epistles and Gospels, and 
 in our Bibles to the old Lessons once more. But, as we 
 well know, the New Year has a deep and solemn signi- 
 ficance for us all. The mere reading or writing this new 
 date is full of meaning. The most thoughtless become 
 for the moment thoughtful when he hears the ' wild bells 
 ring out in the wild sky — ring out the old, ring in the 
 new ! ' Strange, perhaps, that the mere passage from 
 December 31st to January 1st should have this signifi- 
 cance — a significance which, 120 years ago, did not 
 exist ; but it ]xas such significance, and the Church of 
 England lately, in common with other religious bodies, 
 has recognized the fact, and celebrated Watch-Night, or 
 the Vigil of New Year's Day, with solemn services and 
 suitable addresses, a few of the more noteworthy of which 
 are subjoined. A distinguished Nonconformist minister, 
 in dwelling upon the infiuence which these epochs and 
 their observance have upon men's minds, assured me 
 that many members of his congregation would choose 
 Watch- Night for renewing vows, say, of abstinence from 
 intoxicating drink during the year. The ceremonies 
 connected with its observance are of a simple, but inter- 
 esting, kind. Few sermons, comparatively, are preached 
 in the chapels, but homely addresses take their turn 
 with earnest prayer. These go on until about five 
 minutes to midnight, when silent prayer is engaged in. 
 The clock strikes midnight, and, after a brief pause, 
 viva-voce prayer is again resumed. Customs vary with 
 varying churches and denominations. In the Established 
 Church there is generally a sermon. The 'high' churches 
 have, of course, celebration of the Holy Communion, and 
 some content themselves with a solemn Te Deum, after 
 evening prayer. Such a method of observance, however 
 difiering in detail, cannot fail to strike one as an appro- 
 priate way of commencing a New Year; and the fact of 
 the Vigil occurring this year on a Sunday afforded, of 
 course, increased opportunities of solemnity, and secured 
 larger congregations at the various churches and chapels. 
 Let us visit a few such churches and chapels, taking 
 
172 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 them vmllo ordine sed confasi. It is impossible, when all 
 the interest culminates on one particular hour, to be 
 very discursive in our observations ; but we can glance 
 at a few different places of worship. 
 
 Here is, first of all, a church of the Establishment 
 decorated just as it was last Sunday for Christmas. 
 It is interesting to notice how the preacher is blending 
 the old ecclesiastical ideas of Advent with the newer — 
 at least newer in that particular locality — notion of 
 Watch-Night. ' Standing now,' he says, ' as we do, on 
 the very frontier-line that separates two years, it is 
 thus I counsel you in the spirit of David's couplet, to 
 " remember the past," to " muse upon " God's works 
 in it. Do this with reference to the immediate past — 
 the year we have pictured as lying like a dead man 
 before us, whom we are about to bury in the crowded 
 cemetery of Time. Before you do so; — before you look 
 your last upon its outward semblance, do what none 
 can do for you, look honestly, in genuine self-examina- 
 tion, at its lights and shadows, and pray to God to 
 enable you to eschew the evil and to follow the good. 
 Do it especially with regard to the life you have lived 
 here in church. This is incomparably your highest 
 life, the life that will lengthen out into eternity, when 
 the little " summer " of earthly life is " over and gone," 
 passed away, as one year is passing into another. Go 
 back to the Advent of last year; and, comparing it 
 with that just past, see if you have truer views of your 
 duty here as preparing you for that life of which 
 Advent teaches. See if one more year's study of the 
 perfect life of Jesus has had its due effect in perfect- 
 ing your life. Did your views of Christian duty in the 
 year that is gone come out clearer and stronger from 
 the light you had gained in the great objective teach- 
 ing — the Church's yearly object-lesson — of our blessed 
 Lord's Incarnate Life and History ? ' This sermon 
 concluded with a wish that the night's watching might 
 be instmmental to the hearers carrying out in the 
 future the great command, * Be vigilant.' It is now 
 the hour when church-folk are turning out of church 
 
tVA TCH-NIGHT. 173 
 
 and gciing home — some to stay at home, others to 
 await the ' late service.'' Let us ' look in/ it is all we 
 can do, at this little chapel in a back street. It belongs 
 to a sect called the ' Particular Baptists,' and about a 
 dozen people who have been at evening service are 
 sitting there to wait for the Watch- Night devotions — ■ 
 some hours off yet. The minister's desk is empty; but 
 a homely man standing below it, at what would be the 
 parish clerk's desk in a church, is reading verses of a 
 hymn, which the congregation sing after him. People 
 come and go, almost as in a Roman Catholic church ; 
 and curious passers-by peep in, and wonder what it is 
 all about, come out, and go on their way as ignorant as 
 before. Here is ' Providence Hall,' in another obscure 
 locality, the proprietor and minister of which place of 
 worship pursues the old traditional trade of the ' car- 
 penter,' his shop standing at the very door of his 
 chapel. The congregation gathered at seven o'clock, 
 and mean to remain until midnight, ' to pray the Old 
 Tear out ; ' and a board at the entrance invites all to 
 ' come and be welcome.' 
 
 Eleven o'clock. A ' High ' Church in the suburbs, 
 bright and cheerful, preparing for late Evensong, with 
 Midnight Mass to follow ; and a vast congregation 
 assembling. Not so in town ; there is a nest of ' High ' 
 Churches around the Portland Road Station, where the 
 congregations are assembled — in the street, but the 
 churches are diligently shut. They have not yet got 
 to recognize 'Watch-Night;' and the would-be con- 
 gregations return home disappointed. Not so at the 
 High Church far excellence of London (we are not 
 specifying names or localities) . There the building at 
 half-past eleven is dark and sombre, and a popular 
 ' Father,' habited only in a cassock, mounts the pulpit 
 to preach. But we pass on, for we have determined to 
 see the Old Tear out elsewhere. This is the little 
 chapel of the Moravians in Fetter Lane. Abroad, and 
 in the larger settlements of England, Watch- Night is 
 a ' night to be much remembered ' among these simple 
 folk. ■ .The Moravians, as we know, are great at hymnsj 
 
174 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and this is the one they select to sing the Old Year 
 out and the New Year in. It is sung to a magnificent 
 old chorale, which has been impressed by Mendelssohn 
 into one of his best known works : — 
 
 ' Now let us praise the Lord, 
 
 With, body, soul, and spirit, 
 Who doth such wondrous things 
 
 Beyond our sense and merit. 
 Who from our mother's womb, 
 
 And earliest infancy, 
 Hath done great things for us — 
 
 Praise him eternally ! ' 
 
 Entering the chapel at ten minutes to twelve, I found 
 a minister reading a kind of homily to a largish con- 
 gregation. He proceeded until the clock in the chapel 
 ticked the hour, and immediately, with an almost electric 
 effect, the whole congregation fell on their knees and 
 sang the above verse. A short prayer followed, and 
 then the second verse was sung, the congregation 
 having risen to their feet : — 
 
 ' O, Gracious God, bestow 
 
 On us, while here remaining, 
 An ever-cheerful mind ; 
 
 Thy peace be ever reigning. 
 Preserve us in the faith 
 
 And Christian holiness — 
 That, when we go from hence. 
 
 We may behold Thy face.' 
 
 The usual order of proceedings is that a Love Feast 
 is celebrated, the ' Memorabilia ' of the past year are 
 read, and then the congregation engage in singing 
 hymns and prayer until close upon midnight. Directly 
 this sounds a blast of trumpets, trombones, and other 
 brass instruments ushers triumphantly in the new-bom 
 year. This applies to the Moravian settlements abroad, 
 and also to the more important, such as Fulneck, &c., 
 in England. London, I was informed, was ' only a 
 town-settlement.' After the hymn a brief benediction 
 followed ; and the minister, in the name of the pastes. 
 
WA TCH- NIGHT. 1 7 5 
 
 dismissed the congregation, wisliing them ' A Happy 
 New Year.' 
 
 Thus was it that, in one at least of its Protean 
 phases of life, the great city passed from one year to 
 another. The principal fact which seemed to strike 
 one was the presence of life — a moving of the dry 
 bones on all sides. Another was the gradual removal 
 of old landmarks in the shape of narrow and exclusive 
 lines of thought and practice. We have seen this to be 
 the case in the adoption of the idea of ' Watch-Night ' 
 into the Church of England. Another noteworthy 
 instance was mentioned by the Nonconformist minister 
 quoted above, who boasted that the Society of Friends, 
 who stand aloof from human ordinances of aU kinds, 
 had permitted him this year, in the very centre of their 
 local influence, to preach Baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper at one of their chapels. Without being chimeri- 
 cal or enthusiastic, or at all taking these things to 
 mean more than they do mean, one may be pardoned, 
 at least on Watch-Night, for regarding them as, to 
 some extent at least, symptoms and evidences of ' A 
 good time coming ! ' 
 
 NEW YEAE'S EVE AT ST ALBAN'S. 
 
 AMONG the promptings of what may be called, in 
 the truest sense of the term. Natural Religion, none 
 surely is more instructive than that which leads men 
 to observe with peculiar solemnity the entrance upon 
 a new year of life. It is, if nothing else, the making 
 a step in the dark. It is the entrance upon a new 
 epoch in existence, of which the manifold ' changes 
 and chances ' prevent our forecasting the issue. True, 
 the demarcation line is but an arbitrary one; yet 
 
176 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 there are few, even of the most thoughtless, who can 
 set foot across the line which separates one year from 
 another without feeling in some degree the significance 
 of the act. The ' wild bells ' rung out ' in the wild 
 sky ' warn even the midnight reveller of the lapse of 
 time ; and the new date which we have to write is in 
 itself a silent monitor that we are one stage nearer the 
 end of our journey. It would seem, then, that at least 
 a brief pause and a passing season of thoughtfulness 
 should be to responsible beings a purely spontaneous 
 act, and certainly one of those opportunities which no 
 form of religion could afford to miss. And yet, for a 
 long time, that which may perhaps, without ofience, 
 be termed ecclesiasticism, sternly refused to recognize 
 this occasion. The line Was rigidly drawn between 
 the civil New Year and the Church's New Year. We 
 were told that Advent was the beginning of our sacred 
 year, and that then was the time for those serious 
 thoughts and those good resolutions which proverbially 
 accompany them. Or if not Advent, Christmas Eve 
 was the fitting era for Christians to work with most 
 profound self-searching. Even now that one body of 
 Christians which represents the most advanced sacer- 
 dotalism, the Eoman branch of the Church Catholic, 
 refuses to endorse this prompting of natural religion. 
 Though New Year's Eve is also the vigil of the Cir- 
 cumcision, yet that vigil is kept with no special observ- 
 ances. The Catholic, as he delights exclusively to call 
 himself, is not encouraged publicly, at all events, to 
 hallow the entrance on a new year of existence with 
 devotional observances. The Anglican branch of the 
 National Church, however, which at one time showed - 
 this Romish exclusiveness, has shaken from itself the 
 trammels of imitation, and taken its own independent 
 stand upon instincts which it sees must not be ignored. 
 An old disciple of the now well-nigh obsolete Puseyism 
 or Ti'actarianism would have shuddered at the idea of a 
 Watch-Night service, as symptomatic of the conventicle. 
 Even now, whilst adopting the idea, the Ritualist pro- 
 tests against it as un- Catholic; but wisely adapts him- 
 
NEW YEAR'S EVE AT ST ALB AN' S. 177 
 
 self to circumstances since he cannot adapt circum- 
 stances to himself. With that larger Church of England, 
 especially with the Wesleyan branch, which, numerically 
 at least, represents the National Church, Watch-Night 
 has ever been the especial festival of the religious year. 
 Though no Saints' Days stud the simple calendar of 
 that body, though even the solemn seasons of Christ- 
 mas, Good Friday, and Easter are ignored — still the 
 vigil of the New Year is a Festival of Obligation : and 
 the adoption of this idea by the most advanced school 
 of Ritualistic thought may possibly turn out a develop- 
 ment that shall pave the way towards an end which all 
 tacitly or avowedly seek to compass — the reunion of a 
 now divided Christendom. 
 
 In projecting any survey of religious London on the 
 last night of the year, one naturally visited that which 
 is regarded as the acme of ecclesiasticism — St Alban's, 
 Holborn. If any of the London clergy held themselves 
 aloof from observances, which could possibly be called 
 ' un-Catholic,^ it might fairly be expected to be the band 
 of priests ranged under the banner of that uncompro- 
 mising champion of Ritualism, ' Father Mac ' — as his 
 adherents elect to call the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie. 
 But the priests of St Alban's are wise in their genera- 
 tion, and know that their Church, above all others, 
 situated in one of the poorest neighbourhoods, cannot, 
 without extreme unwisdom, let slip so golden an oppor- 
 tunity of appealing to the sympathies of the people. 
 Consequently, St Alban's is thrown open for a midnight 
 service on the last day of the year. ' No bell is rung,' 
 said the Rev. Father Stanton, the chief promoter of 
 this and many other methods of getting at the poor of 
 Baldwin's Gardens, ' and yet the people come.' Come 
 they did, at all events, that night. They did really, at 
 the ultra-Ritualistic church of St Alban^s, recollect, 
 what they only do by a pleasant euphemism to meetings 
 by limelight at Charing Cross or Sunday demonstrations 
 in Hyde Park — the working men, and still more the 
 working women and children, came literally ' in crowds,' 
 notwithstanding the pouring rain. Nay, more; Father 
 
 12 
 
178 ' ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Stanton succeeded in what it had been supposed only 
 Eoman Catholics and Dissenters could get them to do 
 — namely, come ' in their working clothes.' And what 
 did this zealous young priest do with them when he got 
 them tliere ? Did he receive them with a correct and 
 ' aesthetic service,' which certainly would have driven 
 them all out again, and prevented their ever coming any 
 more ? By no means. There was not a symptom of 
 Kitualism to be seen. The beautiful chancel was not 
 used. The hymns were special ones culled from the 
 Wesleyan manuals. There was no choir. Father 
 Stanton was the sole ' minister,' and he wore no vest- 
 ments ; not even the possibly obnoxious surplice. It was 
 the most simple, unornate, but, on that very account, 
 the most Catholic and appropriate service that could 
 have been devised for the occasion. 
 
 Precisely at half-past eleven, Father Stanton mounted 
 the pulpit and requested the congregation to follow him 
 in the first hymn, after he had sung it to them, which 
 he did in a not very musical solo ; but the chorus was 
 very effective. It was as follows : — 
 
 ' Shall we meet beyond tlie river, 
 Wiere the surges cease to roll, 
 Where in all the bright for ever 
 Sorrow ne'er shaU. press the soul? 
 Shall we meet ? Shall we meet ? 
 Shall we meet P Shall we meet ? 
 Shall we meet beyond the river 
 "Where the surges cease to roll ? ' 
 
 After the hymn, Mr Stanton read Psalm xxvii. 15, and 
 delivered a brief extempore address on the duty of 
 recognizing the goodness of God while ' in the land of 
 the living.' The problem started by the preacher was. 
 How is it, if God be good, that anybody has a chance 
 of going to hell? In solving this problem by the 
 answer of free will, I make bold to say this Eitualistic 
 preacher out-preached any Wesleyan in the great 
 metropolis. Matter, manner, and energy were of the 
 very essence of the conventicle ; and the congregation, 
 which was essentially a poor one, literally hung upon 
 
NEW YEARS EVE AT ST ALB AN' S. 179 
 
 iis lips as he contrasted God's goodness with man's 
 misrepresentations of Him. Lest men should only fear 
 God, he turned their attention to the story of the In- 
 carnation — God at Christmastide, cradled at Bethlehem, 
 crucified on Calvary. In a Dissenting chapel I am very 
 much afraid Father Stanton's sermon would have been 
 called ' rant.' At St Alban's, Holborn, it was a very 
 energetic and effective sermon indeed. ' Do not say 
 you must be damned, dear friends,' he concluded ; ' do 
 not harbour the black sin of despair. It is a lie. Say, 
 " God, Thou art my God." If a fellow only hates his 
 sins because he thinks they will pitchfork him into hell, 
 that is not repentance. Love God as perfect goodness ; 
 then you will see all with a new light. Then you will 
 be truly penitent, as frosts melt and flowers spring up 
 when the sun shines.' 
 
 A long silent prayer ensued as the church chimes rang 
 in the new year, followed by an extempore prayer by 
 the minister ; after which the common hymn, ' Guide 
 us, Thou great Jehovah,' was sung to the tune of 
 ' Rousseau's Dream.' At the last verse, ' Gome, Lord 
 Jesus, take Thy waiting people home,' Mr Stanton 
 desired us all to ' sing out loud ; ' and I can answer for 
 it that every man, woman, and child followed his in- 
 junction. He then continued his address. So did the 
 congregation at St Alban's inaugurate the new year of 
 grace. ' Go either to church or chapel.' Such was the 
 practical advice with which the address concluded. ' I 
 know many reasons why you may not like church. But, 
 at all events, put yourselves on the side of God. Be on 
 the side of the good, good God.' 
 
i8o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 A SILENT SERVICE. 
 
 FOR some time past the attention of passers along 
 Oxford Street— especially of those all-wise philo- 
 sophers who study society Ae ha/ut en has from the knife- 
 board of an omnibus — had been arrested by a placard at 
 the corner of Queen Street, near the Marble Arch, an- 
 nouncing the site of St Saviour's Church for the Deaf 
 and Dumb, the foundation-stone of which was to be 
 solemnly laid by his Royal Highness the Prince of 
 Wales. No doubt the question of Gui bono ? occurred 
 even to other than very determined utilitarians; they 
 asked themselves, very probably, what instruction could 
 possibly accrue from a public service to those who could 
 neither speak for themselves nor hear others speak to 
 them. It may be also that this placard caused others 
 besides myself to look for the first time in something 
 more than a cursory way into the condition of those 
 whom Dr Johnson truly described as suffering from ' the 
 most desperate of human calamities '-;— the deaf-mutes. 
 Beyond a general feeling of commiseration, it had not 
 perhaps occurred to them to realize in what a complete 
 prison-house the deprivation of speech and hearing shuts 
 up the unfortunate sufferer ; how utterly it exiles him 
 from the society of his fellow-creatures; or, on the 
 other hand, how advanced a period of his education is 
 implied in the need or mere possibility of a church. It 
 has been truly said, that the uneducated deaf and dumb 
 are practically atheists; and through what a weary 
 course have they to go, from the first conception of the 
 noun, or 'name of anything,' its expression in gesture 
 and on the fingers, up through the intricate mazes of 
 that language which our little ones imbibe so easily by 
 hearing, and imitate so cleverly with their facile tongues. 
 
A SILENT SERVICE. i8i 
 
 until at last they come to realize the idea of God, as 
 abstract, perfect goodness ! It has been well observed 
 by an experienced teacher of deaf-mutes, that the most 
 difficult idea to convey to them is that of simple existence, 
 signified by the verb ' to be ' — the very title, we may 
 recollect, by which God revealed Himself to the ancient 
 Hebrew. Thanks, however, to the loving labours of 
 those who have devoted life to this most forlorn portion 
 of the human family, not only has this idea been grasped, 
 but Ecce signum ! — through the liberal charity of others, 
 it has been put in the power of these poor brothers and 
 sisters of ours to serve God with a ' reasonable service.' 
 Should any be still inclined to doubt the practical 
 utility of such a temple as this, or even be simply in 
 search of a new ' sensation,' I would counsel them to 
 attend, as I did, a Tuesday Evening Service for the 
 ' Silent People,' in the Church of St Lawrence, Jewry, 
 at eight o'clock. Arriving there early, I was surprised 
 to find the fifteen or twenty- deaf-mutes who had got 
 before me engaged in a general ' conversation.' Though 
 they were scattered at pretty wide intervals over a large 
 church, the ' gossip ' was general and animated, by 
 means of gesture, sign, and even attempted articulation. 
 One gentleman was evidently quite facetious, and 
 amused the others with a running fire of pleasantries. 
 A young mother had her baby with her, the only living 
 thing that was able to articulate ; and, I am bound to 
 say, it used its power as a British baby should under 
 the circumstances. Eventually, some fifty or sixty 
 deaf-mutes assembled ; and at eight o'clock the service 
 was commenced by the Rev. Samuel Smith, A.K.O., 
 chaplain and secretary of the Association. It was a new 
 and strange sight — the immense digital dexterity, the 
 evidently copious vocabulary of ' signs,' and the ex- 
 pressive facial changes on the part of the chaplain ; and 
 in the congregation the almost painful attention with 
 which every member of that quiet community followed 
 the service. There was none of the listlessness that 
 attaches to ordinary preaching and congregations, seeing 
 that this speaker had to express every word and letter 
 
1 82 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 by means of gesture and sign, whilst the hearers were 
 forced to keep on the qui vive to follow him. Most of 
 the faces were intelligent-looking enough, though there 
 was on one or two that dull expression which we can 
 well understand to result from congenital deafness. In 
 fact, it would seem that, without the education provided 
 through the instrumentality of this ' sign-and-finger 
 language,' the hopeless sufferers must inevitably drift 
 into idiocy. 
 
 Up to this time the labours of the Association in 
 Aid of the Deaf and Dumb have been to hold as many 
 as twelve services per week in different parts of London ; 
 to visit the deaf and dumb at their own homes; to 
 assist those of good character in obtaining employment ; 
 and even to relieve them, when necessitous, by gifts or 
 loans of ifioney. And last, but not least, the object is 
 to encourage the early training i of deaf and dumb 
 children preparatory to their admission into educational 
 institutions. The principal Sunday service has hitherto 
 been held at the Polytechnic Institution ; but the great 
 want of the Association has been a ' local habitation,' as 
 well as a name — a nucleus for its good works such as 
 that now provided, or shortly to be provided, in the 
 building of which the Prince of Wales laid the founda- 
 tion stone lately. This is to consist, not only of a 
 church capable of accommodating 250 worshippers, but 
 also of a large lecture hall 38 feet square, so that secular 
 as well as religious instruction may be carried on within 
 its walls. 
 
 Thus, then, this church of the Silent People forthwith 
 takes its place among the institutions of London. 
 Though so much has been done, and a large moiety of 
 the estimated cost is already provided, much yet remains 
 to do, both to complete the building and also to enable 
 the Association to extend its operations. To state that 
 fact will be enough to stimulate those who let not their 
 left hand know the good their right is doing — who need 
 no exciting addresses any more than they sound a 
 trumpet before their good deeds — whose charity, like 
 
INNOCENTS' DAY. 183 
 
 that which will be celebrated at St Saviour^ s, is literally- 
 Silent Service ! 
 
 INNOCENTS' DAY. 
 
 WE scarcely realize to what an extent children are, at 
 Christmastide, masters of the situation. Setting 
 aside educational matters as inappropriate to that holi- 
 day season, there is perhaps no single branch of social 
 progress in which we have developed so much or so 
 satisfactorily as in all that relates to the youngsters. 
 Take the department of juvenile literature, for instance. 
 When we look at the gaudy gift-books crowding the 
 shop windows— not only handsome outside but whole- 
 some within — and then think of our wretched horn-books, 
 our doleful legends of Tommy and Harry, and the lion 
 and the mouse, with the few really eligible exceptions in 
 the way of ' Eobinson Crusoe,' or ' Sandford and Merton,' 
 or the ' Arabian Nights,' we seem almost to have real- 
 ized one of the fairy tales in the last- mentioned work. 
 The bitter pill is indeed cleverly gilded, and we are 
 beguiled to learn in spite of ourselves ; that is, we who 
 have the good fortune to be boys and girls just now. 
 So, too, in the matter of these Christmas pantomimes of 
 which we always hear so much. Do our little masters 
 and misses at all conceive the work that has been doing 
 for them throughout three months, during which, no 
 doubt, they fancied they at school were the only work- 
 ing folks, and those lazy fellows did nothing but take a 
 play or pantomime down from the shelf at Christmas 
 and put it straight on the stage ? Do they dream of 
 what authors and artists and mechanists and ballet- 
 masters have been devising and executing for their 
 amusement ? It is literally true that it is for iheir 
 
i84 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 amusement, and that they are our masters. To whom 
 else are those elaborate critiques addressed, but to those 
 who, even more literally than the gods in the gallery 
 themselves, are arbiters of the fate of each Christmas 
 piece ? Paterfamilias runs his eye down the newspaper 
 page- — why ? To see which pantomime is likely to please 
 the children most. Hear a hlasi juvenile commending 
 or condemning a pantomime — calling it ' awful jolly,' or 
 ' no end stupid ; ' and the fate of that pantomime is 
 sealed in the little coterie where that juvenile acts as 
 oracle. And this truth of the gradual growth of juvenile 
 supremacy extends to Sunday matters too. How many 
 of us were carried back to our own childhood when poor 
 little David Copperfield narrated his experiences in his 
 pew at church ! Who ever thought of making Sunday 
 books other than didactic and dreadful then ? Well, 
 John Bunyan — yes, in his delicious story about Christian ; 
 but then the very exceptional character of the ' Pilgrim's 
 Progress,' and the fact of its being the only story-book 
 tolerated on a Sunday, made us half suspect it was an 
 allegory, though we had no idea what that was. We 
 looked at it suspiciously, as we did at the spoonful of 
 raspberry jam which was too nice not to have an awful 
 powder hidden somewhere underneath. With many of 
 us, no doubt, the Bishop of Winchester's ' Agatha,' and 
 other Sunday stories, marks an epoch when religious 
 literature became tolerable ; and for how long did that 
 volume stand almost as alone and monumental as the 
 glorious allegory of Bunyan itself ? ' The Distant Hills,' 
 and ' The Old Man's Home,' and ' The Shadow of the 
 Cross,' were the portal, as it were, by which we passed 
 into the happy present. Sunday services for children, 
 too — whoever thought of those when we were young ? 
 How hopelessly over our heads the sermon used to fire ! 
 That was why we thought the clergyman such a dreadful 
 character, second only to the doctor. He physicked us 
 mentally as the doctor did bodily ; and the worst of it 
 was, his doses came round with distressing regularity. 
 Now, Sunday services for the young, and sermons for 
 children, are institutions. The compilers of 'Hymns 
 
INNOCENTS' DAY. 185 
 
 Ancient and Modern ' have found it necessary to have a 
 special section of ' Hymns for the Young/ but probably 
 until the present time none ever thought how appropriate 
 it would be to pray and praise as children and have ser- 
 mons for children, on that day which is so thoroughly 
 their own — Innocents' Day — the day when King Herod, 
 to compass the death of that Child whose birthday 
 we keep at Christmas, slew the little children at Beth-' 
 lehem. 
 
 Dean Stanley, who has done so much towards utilizing 
 the great Abbey Church at Westminster, originated the 
 truly happy idea of calling the London boys and girls 
 together in that historic place on Innocents' Day. 
 Despite a sloppy, rainy day, the Dean's invitation was 
 readily responded to by old as well as young. The 
 grown-up people mustered too strongly for it to be 
 called a juvenile congregation; but still those for whom 
 the service was specially designed were present in 
 good force. Anticipating the spirit of those changes 
 which are coming on our once rigid and inflexible ritual, 
 Dean Stanley introduced special psalms and lessons — 
 the former being Psalms viii., xv., and cxxvii. ; the 
 latter, 1 Samuel iii, and Luke ii. 40 — 52, all most 
 appropriate to the occasion. The anthem was from. 
 Ecclesiastes xii. 1 — 13, by Professor Sir Wm. Sterndale 
 Bennett, consisting of a duet for treble voices and full 
 chorus, 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy 
 youth,' &c. The service was intoned by Canon Trout- 
 beck, and the lessons read by the Dean. Before the 
 sermon, the hymn, ' Jesu, meek and gentle ! ' was sung ; 
 after which the Dean ascended the pulpit, and preached 
 a short but impressive sermon from St Luke ii. 40, 
 ' The child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with 
 wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon Him.' 
 
 By the time the sermon commenced evening had 
 begun to fall, and the dim light of the few candles fell 
 upon the upturned faces of little ones crowding the 
 lectern and altar-steps in a most satisfactorily unortho- 
 dox manner; whilst the two large tapers on the altar, 
 and the two by the side thereofj were just enough to 
 
1 86 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 shed a ' dim religious light ' round the noble old 
 sacrarium. 
 
 ' Innocents' Day/ said the Dean, ' besides being an 
 appropriate day on which to call boys and girls to- 
 gether, was historically famous in the annals of West- 
 minster Abbey ; for it was on that day, eight hundred 
 years ago, it was finished by King Edward the Con- 
 fessor, himself an innocent, guileless man — in many 
 respects like a child. It was with special reference to 
 them as children that the various portions of Holy 
 Scripture had been chosen for the service — the 8th 
 Psalm, which showed how children might find out God 
 in nature ; the 1 5th, teaching them to be humble, pure, 
 and honourable; the 127th, telling parents what gifts 
 their children were to them. The anthem put before 
 them " the whole duty of man ; " the hymn showed how 
 the very youngest might come to Christ. The First 
 Lesson presented to them the child Samnel, waiting for 
 God's voice ; and the Second gave them the great 
 example of Christ as a little child.' In adopting this 
 last as his text, Dean Stanley pointed out that Christ 
 grew in character and goodness as well as in stature. 
 Christ was taught ' by father meek and mother mild.' 
 So must they advance. The world is moving, and we 
 must move with it. God is continually calling us to 
 higher spheres of duty. ' You and I,' said the preacher, 
 'must advance.' There were three noteworthy stages 
 of Christ's education, each adding to His childish 
 powers. 1. He 'grew and waxed strong in spirit.' 
 ' Boys,' said the Dean, ' honour the strong limb, the 
 sturdy arm, and they do well ; for these are God's gifts. 
 They like the body that can endure blows, or win the 
 race, or conquer in the game.' All wished for this ; but 
 there was something else to be wished for — a stout 
 heart to resist temptation, to scorn a lie, never to be 
 betrayed into wrong-doing. They would be stronger 
 and stronger every year — not stronger in body perhaps : 
 that we cannot say — it depends on God — but we can 
 say in character, mind, and spirit. The stout heart 
 comes by trying to get it. 2. Next came wisdom. 
 
INNOCENTS' DAY. 187 
 
 Christ imbibed wisdom from those around Him, and at 
 the same time drank in that Heavenly wisdom which 
 comes from the fountain and source of wisdom. So, too, 
 you who are at school gain wisdom from books — from 
 looking about you. You need not be old before your 
 time ; but recollect these golden days never come back. 
 There was nothing King Alfred regretted so much as 
 the fact that his wandering life had prevented his having 
 regular instruction in his youth. Try to gain wisdom 
 by being teachable, humble, modest, and often cross- 
 questioning yourselves, and God will give it to you. It 
 was thus Christ, as a boy of twelve, gained it — by 
 ' hearing and asking questions.' 3. Lastly, there came 
 ' grace.' ' The grace of God was upon Him ; ' or, as it 
 is said, farther down in the chapter, ' He increased .... 
 in favour with God and man.' Christ did what His 
 parents told Him. He was kind and courteous, and all 
 were glad to see Him. ' So,' added the preacher, ' do 
 you look up to God as your Father, and on your com- 
 panions and school-fellows as brothers. Especially do 
 you, who are a little older, look on your younger com- 
 panions as being put under your protection. Any 
 unkindness done to a little companion, or brother or 
 sister, is remembered by them years after you have for- 
 gotten it ; whilst kindness from a stronger to a weaker 
 boy is equally treasured up. Years part you, perhaps ; 
 but when you are quite old, some one presses your hand 
 kindly, because you befriended him when you were boys 
 together at school. When you say your prayers,' the 
 Dean concluded, ' remember you are speaking to a kind 
 Friend. Grace cannot come to a hard heart ; but on the 
 childish heart it falls like rain upon the grass. So the 
 grace of childhood grows to the grace of manhood, and 
 the grace of manhood to the grace of age, and all to the 
 Grace of God. As this beautiful building is made up of 
 small stones, each helping to build up the whole, so all 
 the world is made up of the graces, not only of full-grown 
 men and women, but also of children. Eemember, 
 children, this day. If you are tempted to be idle or 
 rudOj to do wrong, or to leave .off saying your prayers. 
 
1 88 OR THODOX LONDON. 
 
 think of your Saviour's good example put before you to- 
 day in Westminster Abbey,' 
 
 As the last words of the Benediction fell on their ears, 
 and the organ pealed forth the Hallelujah chorus, that 
 mighty congregation — mighty in nujnbers though made 
 up mostly of tiny atoms — passed out through the dim 
 aisles and silent cloisters, more than one of the grown- 
 up portion, it may be, impressed with the genius loci, as 
 well as by the simple words just listened to, and thinking, 
 mayhap, what mistakes in after-life might have been 
 avoided. had such been the fashion, in their golden age, 
 of keeping Innocents' Day. 
 
 THE BATTLE OP CONVOCATION. 
 
 THERE was fought out, in the theatre at Oxford, 
 what is destined, perhaps, to be the most important 
 conflict in which the Broad Church party has yet 
 engaged, on the occasion of Dean Stanley's appoint- 
 ment as Select Preacher. Hitherto they have tried 
 their strength against the Evangelical and Ritualistic 
 bodies in detail ; but, on the occasion of which I write, 
 these two formidable opponents were massed against 
 them. For some days past angry words had been 
 bandied between the contending forces, and the pre- 
 parations showed that the contest was to be more than 
 a verbal one. From an early , hour the station at 
 Paddington gave one the idea of a sort of academical 
 Derby day. By ten o'clock the platform was crowded 
 with unmistakable M.A.s, with here and there a 
 dignitary of the Church or higher graduate. The 
 Establishment was represented in its every phase of 
 thought. Here was a smooth-shaven Ritualist in cassock 
 corded round the waist, priest's cloak, and clerical 
 
THE BATTLE OF CONVOCATION. 189 
 
 wideawake ; here an Evangelical clergyman, in volum- 
 inous white necktie ; and here, again, a Broad Church- 
 man, who, with a more or less correct clerical attire, 
 combined the hirsute appendage of a Barbarossa, and 
 other symptoms of the muscular Christian. Lawyers 
 had impressed their brief bags into service for carrying 
 their cap, gown, and hood ; while young M.A.s, whom 
 one knew about town, swaggered into smoking car- 
 riages, with the audibly announced intention of ' giving 
 Stanley a lift.' Friend and foe faced each other in the 
 narrow confines of a railway carriage, scarcely daring 
 to utter a word either to the other, lest they should 
 betray their tactics to the enemy. I can conscientiously 
 say that the half-dozen men who filled my compartment 
 never spoke to one another beyond the ordinary civility 
 of passing the morning papers ; and it was only by the 
 titles of their journals I could guess the proclivities of 
 my fellow-travellers. So we sped along the swollen 
 Thames, and over the long backs of the Berkshire 
 Downs, to the fair University city. At Eeading we 
 took in a large contingent of bucolic parsons, each of 
 whom, as he sought to find a place in an already 
 crowded train, bustled anxiously up and down as though 
 he thought the whole Church Militant was in danger if 
 his single vote should fail to be recorded. 
 
 Oxford was fairly startled from the serenity which 
 usually marks the fag-end of Michaelmas term by this 
 sudden irruption of the outer world. Recognitions 
 took place at every street corner ; the hotels were put 
 upon their mettle ; the porters' lodges of colleges were 
 besieged; and Bofi&n's' Refreshment Rooms ran over 
 with hungry curates from the country. As an evidence 
 of the interest the question of Dean Stanley's appoint- 
 ment excited beyond the walls of the University, I may 
 mention that even the guards and porters at the rail- 
 way hallooed to each other to know what 'was the state 
 of the betting;' but even they did not seem quite to 
 have calculated on the matter being so warmly taken 
 up in London and by the country at large. At half- 
 past one o'clock the bell of St Mary's gave notice to 
 
igo ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the combatants to prepare for the fray, and immediately 
 the floor of the theatre was sprinkled with a few repre- 
 sentative men of all the schools. The non-residents 
 appeared in gowns of various degrees of rustiness, with 
 chimney-pot hats, and now and then a wideawake. 
 These early comers conversed in small groups, hugging 
 instinctively those sides of the building on which were 
 written respectively 'placet' or 'non-placet,' giving 
 thereby an inkling of how they meant to vote. The 
 gathering increased every moment, and soon the 
 Docbors in their scarlet and black began to dot the 
 seats around the Vice- Chancellor's chair. Prince Leo- 
 pold, by right of his royalty, .entered the sacred en- 
 closure with Dr Acland, and afterwards took his seat 
 among the Doctors. Before two o'clock every inch of 
 the floor was full, the occupants standing in anticipation 
 of the coming encounter. Still they gravitated towards 
 their respective voting doors ; and on the ' placet ' side 
 one descried the scholarly face of Professor Jowitt, the 
 sharply-cut features of the Eev. Mark Pattison, and the 
 well-known physiognomy of Professor Max Miiller; 
 while on the opposite side Mr Burgon was marshalling 
 his forces, and Dean Goulbum, from the Doctors' 
 benches, looked out over the seething mass of M.A.s 
 below him. At two o'clock, or a little after, the Vice- 
 Chancellor arrived, and forthwith commenced proceed- 
 ings in Latin, which must have been exceedingly 
 edifying to the ladies, who, in some numbers, occupied 
 the Strangers' Gallery, backed by a narrowish fringe 
 of undergraduates. The object of the Convocation was 
 stated as being the appointment of Select Preachers, 
 and the names were then submitted to the doctors and 
 masters for approval. 'Placetne igitur vobis hnic 
 nomini assentire?' being the form in which the question 
 was proposed. The name first on the list was that of 
 the Rev. Harvey Goodwin; and a faint buzz in the 
 Assembly was interpreted by the Vice- Chancellor, 
 habituated to such sounds, as an expression of approval. 
 Thereupon he passed on to name number two, which, 
 with some agitation, but with clear, resonant voice. 
 
THE BATTLE OF CONVOCATION. 191 
 
 nevertheless^ he read out as ' Arthur Penrhyn Stanley.' 
 Immediately there ensued a scene of the wildest con- 
 fusion. On the Placet side cheers and waving of 
 trencher caps ; on the Non-placet side feeble hisses ; 
 and from all sides, undergraduate as well as graduate, 
 mingled shouts of 'Placet' and 'Non,' with cheer and 
 hiss a discretion; until the ringing voice of Dean 
 Liddell Weathed peace over the troubled waters by 
 pronouncing the magic words, ' Fiat scrutinium ! ' 
 Thereupon the two proctors proceeded first of all to 
 take the votes of the doctors on their benches, and 
 when this was done they took their station at the 
 doors labelled 'Placet' and ' Non- placet,' the Vice- 
 Chancellor directing the voters thus : ' Vos quibus 
 placet hoc propositum per fores ad dextram discedatis ; 
 vos quibus non placet per fores ad sinistram.' During 
 the process of polling, which was brief considering the 
 numbers, one had an opportunity of criticizing the 
 constituents of that truly exceptional gathering. It 
 was certainly not true to say, as some did say, that only' 
 the younger Masters voted for Dean Stanley. There 
 was quite a fair proportion of white and bald heads on 
 the ' Placet ' side. The country contingent was not so 
 numerous as one had expected, and I do not believe 
 that all of these went out at the left-hand door. Evi- 
 dently, however, parties were pretty evenly balanced; 
 and when the Non-placets had all recorded their deci- 
 sion, there were about twenty-five left on Dean Stanley's 
 side, which probably would have, nearly represented the 
 actual majority, but at the last moment some stragglers, 
 who had only arrived in Oxford by the 2.25 train, 
 hurried in, and so swelled the numbers. One late- 
 comer arrived without his academicals, and some zealous 
 supporter of the Dean had to denude himself and pass 
 his cap and gown outside to enable this gentleman to 
 vote. By and by it was over. The proctors presented 
 their lists to the Vice- Chancellor, who, amid breathless 
 silence, pronounced the words, ' Majori parti placet ! ' 
 Then there was indeed a cheer, which rang through the 
 building from basement to upper gallery, and was taken 
 
192 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 up outside in. a way that reminded one of the trial of 
 the Bishops. The hisses, if there were any, were fairly 
 drowned. Oxford had given its approval to Dean 
 Stanley. The Prince, who had continued during the 
 whole of the proceedings in conversation with Doctor 
 Hawkins, the venerable Provost of Oriel, now left the 
 theatre, as did the Vice- Chancellors, Doctors, and 
 Masters, and in a short time it was as empty as though 
 no Battle of the Creeds had been lost and won there. 
 The names of the other three Select Preachers were 
 quite inaudible, but evidently approved. On leaving 
 the theatre I ascertained that the majority in favour of 
 Dean Stanley's appointment was. 62; the numbers 
 voting being— Placet, 349 ; Non-placet, 287. Over 600 
 members, therefore — something like a full House of 
 Commons — recorded their votes on this memorable 
 occasion. 
 
 On the up platform, for the 4.10 train, gathered 
 once more the high and the low, returning to their 
 cures in town and country, crestfallen, sadder, and, we 
 will hope, wiser men than when they set out in the 
 morning, bent on stamping out independent thought 
 and scholarship, as if alien ingredients in the National 
 Church of England in the nineteenth century. I had 
 the felicity of announcing the majority to the inquisitive 
 guards and porters, whose interest told plainly that 
 this question has a relevancy far beyond the walls of 
 the University. One and all were ' glad to hear Stanley 
 was in.' 
 
 As we sped along through the flooded fields and 
 amid the shimmering moonlight, one eminently Con- 
 servative old gentleman — for whom the times, like the 
 up-express, were doubtless going a good deal too fast 
 — expressed to me his decided opinion that non-resident 
 members had no right to interfere in these matters. It 
 ought to be purely a question for the University. Hav- 
 ing delivered himself thus, he calmly fell asleep, in 
 blissful unconsciousness of his own illogical position, 
 seeing he had journeyed down from the metropolis that 
 
AN EAST-END MIDNIGHT MEETING. 193 
 
 morning and back again in the eveningj on the fruitless 
 errand of opposing Dean Stanley. 
 
 AN BAST-END MIDNIGHT MEETING. 
 
 THAT man essays a difficult task wko would write of 
 London's ugliest vice without calling up a blush to 
 the cheek of virtue and innocence — who would let 
 decent English maids and matrons read the story of 
 their ' erring sisters' shame ' without pandering to a 
 depraved curiosity or a vulgar appetite for horrors. 
 Let none who seek such prurient details be at the pains 
 to run their eye down these pages; nor^ at the same 
 time, let those who dread to hear of the special sin of 
 great cities veil them from the sight even of the purest 
 and most blessedly ignoi-ant in the household. Let each 
 be well assured that, while a plain, unvarnished state- 
 ment of things heard and seen is given, much must of 
 necessity be suppressed. The whole of the , stern, sad 
 truth cannot be told, but from what is told, let those 
 who read guess what might be revealed were no such 
 wholesome restraint enforced. Neither, again, is it of 
 West-end vice — painted, enamelled, almost refined — 
 that we would now speak. No Lais or Aspasia is the 
 model at present. No Formosa lures us to scenes 
 of gilded vice. It is vice with the paint off, or so 
 clumsily patched as to heighten its deformity, that we 
 are to see. Here is the programme : ' Midnight Meeting 
 Movement. — Admit to St Matthew's Schoolroom, 
 Princes Square, St George's Street, E., at eleven o'clock;' 
 whilst a written addendum states that ' this meeting is 
 among the sailors' girls of Ratcliff Highway, a distinct 
 class of the fallen.' Fallen, and in Ratcliff Highway ! 
 
 13 
 
194 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 That announcement, coupled with the assurance that 
 every unpleasing detail shall be delicately veiled, will 
 surely be enough to scare all but genuine good Samar- 
 itans from the too true story. 
 
 On leaving the silent city behind to go eastward at 
 night, I have a feeling as though I had passed beyond 
 the haunts of civilization into some desert. Nor is the 
 idea quite hyperbolical ; for that district lying along the 
 Thames east of London Bridge is a country in itself, and 
 towards midnight it has many of the unattractive aspects 
 of a wilderness. Along Thames Street, so busy by day- 
 time, you hear the echo of your own footsteps. Pass 
 the postern gate of the Tower, and you are in the sailors' 
 quartier ; on into Ratcliff Highway — euphemistically 
 termed St George's Street — ^where, amid frequent pubhc- 
 houses and dancing-rooms, low vice keeps perpetual 
 saturnalia. Leaving for a moment this noisy thorough- 
 fare, I find myself in one of those queer^ quiet nooks so 
 numerous in London, Princes Square, with the little 
 Swedish church in the centre, looking picturesque in 
 the moonlight. Among other buildings is St Matthew's 
 Schoolroom. I enter, and find the clergyman and a 
 couple of the society's officials. The company have not 
 yet arrived, though ample preparations are being made 
 for a large number in the shape of a comfortable tea. 
 It is proposed that we should pass the time before the 
 hour of assembling in visiting the public-houses of 
 RatcUff Highway ; and, in charge of a gentleman who 
 has the entrie, I sally forth. If you look narrowly into 
 each low gin-shop, you wiU find that it has a long room 
 at the back, with tables running round, the centre being 
 left open for dancing, and the end occupied by a small 
 stage. In the first we enter a man is singing a comic 
 song to a small audience ; or rather the audience and he 
 are singing it together, and the young ladies of the 
 company, in a sort of ballet attire, with a tendency to 
 scarlet boots, are mingling freely with the audience. A 
 word with the smart barmaid as to whether she has 
 read the last book he left, and my guide marshals me 
 into the danciag-room, the manager of which, attired 
 
AN EAST-END MIDNIGHT MEETING. 195 
 
 as a clown, is lounging in the doorway. The wonderful 
 thing is the excellent footing on which my friend, who 
 is a City Missionary, stands with the publicans, diame- 
 trically opposed as their callings seem. He shakes 
 hands with all the girls, calls them 'lassies,' and 
 •scatters his invitations broadcast among them. They 
 are largely accepted too. There is an utter difference, 
 he tells me, between these sailors' girls and the soldiers' 
 girls of contiguous quarters. They hold no communica- 
 tion with one another. These girls have a distinctive 
 attire. They go bareheaded, greatly leaning to orna- 
 ments in their hair ; they wear low dresses and a shawl 
 cast about them to look like an opera cloak. On many 
 a breast I saw — strange to say — a large cross ! As we 
 passed one dismal lane leading out of the main thorough- 
 fare, my guide asked me to come down. ' This is Gravel 
 Lane,' he said; 'at the bottom is the Dock bridge, 
 where so many of these poor girls throw themselves 
 over. It has been found necessary in consequence to 
 keep a policeman there from seven in the evening all 
 night. I call it the " Bridge of Sighs," ' he added. We 
 went down ; and, sure enough, there was the policeman 
 at his gloomy vigil. It was a quiet nook, with the bows 
 of two big ships looming over the moonlit water. ' They 
 find it very convenient,' said the Missionary, with a 
 touch of grim humour, 'to come down here and drop 
 into the water.' But it was time to get back to the 
 schoolroom. When we did so, we found somewhere 
 about eighty girls assembled, sitting on the school forms, 
 and taking tea with evident gusto. There was some 
 little noise of course — where did ever fourscore females 
 of any class gather without noise over the cup that 
 cheers ? — but still all was orderly and decorous, so far. 
 From the brazen-face harridan who had been ' out ' for 
 long years (such is the technical term), to the girl of 
 fifteen, whose 'outing' numbered only weeks — there 
 they were, human wrecks, body and soul, stranded on 
 the cruel shoals of society, and only beginning to be 
 recognized as material for the social reformer to work 
 upon. Some half-dozen gentlemen connected with the 
 
196 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Midnight Meeting Society, and two or three Bible- 
 women, were waiting on these strange guests ; and the 
 clergyman, a youngish man, with quite white hair and a 
 silvery voice, was going up and down the ranks, making 
 cheery remarks, and ministering to appetites that were 
 by no means delicate. I ingratiated myself , by taking, 
 round that highly popular condiment, the plumcake ; 
 and whilst I did so, not one indecent or even discourteous 
 word was spoken, no indelicate act or look met my eye 
 amongst those fourscore of the very oJSfscouring of 
 Ratcliif Highway. ' It is astonishing what relics of 
 humanity one finds here,' said the clergyman. 
 
 With instinctive horror naturally experienced for what 
 is new or strange, I felt myself shrinking from these poor 
 girls in the dancing-room, whilst my merry Missionary 
 shook each one by the hand and greeted her with his 
 ' Well, lassie ! ' But when brought face to face with 
 them, I was utterly ashamed of such a feeling, and 
 wondered why people should shake them off roughly or 
 give them hard speeches, instead of imitating the good 
 Missionary's efforts to say a word that shall save them. 
 One of the first girls to whom I spoke had just made the 
 ' great experiment ' of a leap from the Bridge of Sighs. 
 She had been rescued from the water and taken to prison, 
 where she was kept for seven days ; and when I saw her 
 she had only that morning come out of gaol. She had 
 evidently been drinking during the day ; and there was 
 a fierce light in her eyes, as she kept saying, in answer 
 to protests against her attempted suicide, and advice that 
 she should try to right herself, 'No,no; I am fallen too low 
 — too low. I shall try London Bridge to-night.' ' Do you 
 think she will ? ' I asked of one of the oflicials. ' Likely 
 enough,' was the business-like reply. In a quarter of 
 an hour I came round to her again, and she was roaring 
 with laughter and 'taking a sight' at a friend on a 
 neighbouring bench. When tea was over a hymn was 
 sung, and considerable giggling was caused by its being 
 pitched so high that the key had to be changed. That 
 was the great interruption — in fact, the only interruption 
 — of the evening, the irrepressible proneness of the girls 
 
AN EAST-END MIDNIGHT MEETING. 197 
 
 to giggle ; but I fancy I have observed tbis proneness 
 elsewhere than in the, purlieus of Ratcliff Highway. 
 For instance, to show how a casual word will lead these 
 impetuous people astray — the clergyman read a portion 
 of Scripture to them, and related the parable of the Ten 
 Virgins. The title was received with a regular guffaw. 
 His address, which was perhaps a little too scholarly, 
 described the marriage ceremonies of the East, and the 
 ' ornament of grace ' worn by the bride, at which the 
 girls giggled again, and quite lost the point of that alle- 
 gory. They sang lustily, and many of them had melodi- 
 ous voices. A few could sing the hymns without book 
 — relic of a decent childhood, not yet lost ! One old 
 stager, who prided herself on her vocal powers, managed 
 to get an arm-chair all to herself, and sang really an 
 excellent alto with the air of an Alboni. Another gentle- 
 man followed the clergyman, and took tbe invitation 
 ticket above quoted as his text, repeating, over and over 
 again, the question, ' Have you got tickets for Heaven?^ 
 and receiving pointed, but sotto voce replies. Strangely 
 enough, the noisiest and most troublesome section were 
 not the sailors' girls, but some work-gii'ls — sack-sewers 
 — who kept to themselves, and did their best to disturb 
 proceedings, leaving noisily so soon as they had disposed 
 of a very heavy tea, and had a brief ' lark ' during the 
 preliminary proceedings. There were several more 
 hymns, and a brief address was given by the secretary 
 of the society, who urged the girls to leave the bad life 
 at once behind. They could, if they chose, go away 
 from that room, and be taken in cabs to homes where 
 they would be qualified to lead decent lives for the future, 
 and eventually, out of a total of eighty-eight, io\xy girls 
 did so remain, and a good many others promised to come 
 to the office in the morning. One fresh-looking country 
 lass wanted to be sent home to attend her mother's 
 funeral. Her father, who had been a farmer, was in 
 independent circumstances ; but the daughter was an 
 outcast, though only six weeks ' out ' in Ratcliff High- 
 way, and as comely and well-spoken a girl as one could 
 wish to see. Decidedly the noisiest and most giggling 
 
198 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of the whole fourscore was, to my surprise, one of the 
 four who remained ; but I was informed that those who 
 thus remained are often disappointing cases. Either 
 they act on impulse, which cools down before the morn- 
 ing ; or they will sometimes go to the Home because it 
 is late, and they may be locked out of their lodgings ; 
 or even they will go simply for the ' lark '. of having a 
 ride in a cab. The ordeal of having to walk up from 
 Ratcliff to the office in Red Lion Square in the morning 
 is, as one can well understand, a much better test of 
 sincerity. Two other interesting ' cases ' may be men- 
 tioned, each confirming the good clergyman's remark 
 that relics of humanity exist even here. One girl lin- 
 gered long and anxiously about the door; and the cause, 
 I was told, was that she had a little child, two years old, 
 whom she wished to have cared for. Clinging to the 
 old, vile life herself, she still sought, like Dives in the 
 parable, that the one to whom Nature had bound her 
 with such strong ties might not come to that place of 
 torment. The second case was that of a middle-aged 
 woman, on whose face, it perhaps sounds hard to say. 
 Nature seemed to have graven the stigma of her calling. 
 I had noticed her as one of the few who shed tears when 
 allusion was made to.the fact that some of the girls pro- 
 bably had mothers who had cared for them and prayed 
 over them, and might even now be watching them from 
 the world beyond. ' That woman,' said my guide of the 
 evening, 'is a veritable missionary for me. She has been 
 " out " eleven years ; and though she wont leave her 
 bad life, she protects me from being insulted, and gets 
 the younger girls to listen to me.' As the girls passed 
 out of the room, a card was presented to each with the 
 following words : ' Dear Friend — If you will call at the 
 office of the Midnight Meeting Movement, 5, Red Lion 
 Square, Holborn, W. C, any day, from Monday to Fri- 
 day, between ten and four, and Saturday, between ten 
 and twelve, advice will be given you, and, if possible, 
 assistance for the future.' 
 
 Such were some of the presentable particulars of the 
 Midnight Meeting. They may serve a good purpose if 
 
A BISHOP'S BURIAL. 199 
 
 they convince the most forlorn wanderer on the wild 
 London streets that there is still such a word as 'home' 
 for her; that she need not say^ in Hood's graphic 
 words — 
 
 ' Oh, it was pitiful, 
 Near a whole city full. 
 Home she had none.' 
 
 Christian charity is not so rare as it was. There are 
 among us those large-heayted ones who can pity the 
 sinner, whilst they loathe her sin. If one such Sister 
 of Mercy — in the truest sense of the words — can learn 
 from what we have now said a new mission and mode of 
 doing good, another sphere of serving Him who did not 
 disdain to work among the publicans and harlots, this 
 brief record of the Midnight Meeting will not have been 
 written in vain. 
 
 A BISHOP'S BURIAL. 
 
 SCARCELY could a more incongruous gathering be 
 imagined than that of which I made one in the sum- 
 mer of 1873. For myself I went in the cold-blooded 
 way of ' business ; ' but, in this respect, I was almost 
 alone in my glory — if glory indeed it were. We were 
 going to bury the Bishop of Winchester, whose death 
 had recently startled us out of our serenity, and made us 
 ask, whose turn would come next ? 
 
 Steaming along as we did by special train, through 
 the balmy July morning towards the breezy Sussex 
 downs, it might have been asked us, as of Wordsworth's 
 ' tender child,' what could we know of death ? Every- 
 thing around seemed so exuberant in life that no thought 
 of death obtruded itself. We might have been a large 
 party, mainly clerical, running down to Brighton for a 
 
200 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 summer day's holiday xmdpr episcopal supervision. We 
 were, however. Bishop Wilberforce's great funeral party. 
 We were going to lay in the earth the mortal remains 
 of one who — we could not help thinking of it — was that 
 day week as full of life, fuller of animal spirits, than we 
 at that'moment. 
 . The departure of the train from Victoria Station was 
 marked by the heterogeneous appearance which always 
 characterizes a gathering of the English clergy — for the 
 occupants were mainly clerical. Now one saw a bishop, 
 now a bronzed clergyman from the country — ^here a well- 
 known London incumbent, and there a young curate. 
 Some few assumed a square cap and cassock, but most 
 were clad only in the ' sober livery •" of mourning. The 
 train seemed quite full, and, punctually at the hour ap- 
 pointed, sped out of the station with its strange occu- 
 pants. There was, as may well be imagined, but one 
 topic of discourse on the journey. All spoke solemnly, 
 but happily and kindly withal, of him to whom they had 
 come to pay the last poor offices of respect that summer 
 morning. At Petworth Station it appeared as if every 
 vehicle in the neighbourhood had been impressed into 
 the service for carrying us over the two miles that inter- 
 vened between that place and our destination. The drive 
 was a beautiful one j and, as we defiled from the road 
 into the umbrageous glades of Lavington Park, where a 
 long stretch opened across the meadows, our cavalcade 
 showed in its true dimensions, and was a veritable funeral 
 procession indeed. Anon we reached the house of 
 mourning, and, passing the veiled windows, entered 
 through the hall into the apartment where the body was 
 lying. The cdffin was covered with a rich velvet pall, 
 on which lay the crosier of the departed bishop, and the 
 insignia of his order, but all surmounted by exquisite 
 floral wreaths and several crosses of flowers, one of great 
 size ; whilst on the top of all was a large black and white 
 crucifix, another standard one being also placed near the 
 head of the coffin. Silently we passed around the nar- 
 row bed where he was sleeping so calmly in the sunshine, 
 and out again on to the crisp sward of the lawn, up the 
 
A BISHOPS BURIAL. 201 
 
 slopes of which we mounted to the tiny church hard by, 
 whose tinkhng bell warned us of the approaching cere- 
 mony. By noon the little building had been filled, so 
 far as its humble space could afford accommodation for 
 those who did not form the actual funeral party. Hum- 
 ble villagers sat side by side with clergy, all bearing on 
 their faces signs of the deepest emotion, and looking 
 wistfully at the bier within the rood screen on which the 
 bishop's cofiBn was to rest. The altar was draped with 
 violetj and had upon it throe candles and two vases of 
 white flowers, the pillars of the chancel screen being 
 wreathed with lilies. The holy table was vested for com- 
 munion, and the elements stood ready on a credence 
 hard by. 
 
 Soon, then, we heard the words, ' I am the Resurrec- 
 tion and the Life,' resounding from the neighbouring 
 lawn, to tell us that the mortal remains of the Bishop 
 had set out on their last journey ; and the long, white- 
 robed procession, having passed round the green sward, 
 entered at the portal of the little church. The choir of 
 St Mary Magdalene's, with the Rev. Richard Temple 
 West, headed the cortege; then came one bearing the 
 pastoral staff of the Bishop reversed ; next the coffin, 
 still covered with its floral adornments, and borne by 
 eight men in white frocks. Close by came the members 
 of the Bishop's family and other mourners, and then the 
 long line of clergy and dignitaries, who completely filled 
 the body of the church as they passed to their seats, 
 when the burial service commenced. The funeral psalm 
 was chanted to a Gregorian tune with harmonium accom- 
 paniment ; and then was read Paul's wonderful treatise 
 on the Resurrection, from 1 Cor. xv. — whose marvellous 
 analogies had been that morning illustrated for us in the 
 golden fields ripening for the harvest, and the summer 
 woods only beginning to be dashed with autumnal 
 tints. 
 
 At the conclusion of the lesson, Hymn 191 (Ancient 
 and Modern) was sung — 
 
 ' Christ will gather in His own 
 To the place where He is gone, 
 
202 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Where their heart and treasure lie, 
 Where our life is hid on high. 
 
 ' Day by day the Voice saith " Come, 
 Enter thine eternal home ; " 
 Asking not if we can spare 
 This dear soul its summons there.' 
 
 Then followed the Ante-Communion Service, the 
 Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for St James's Day being 
 used. 
 
 As the Offertory Hymn, the beautiful composition, 
 ' Who are these like stars appearing ? ' was sung, fol- 
 lowed by that great gathering — 
 
 ' Who are these like stars appearing, 
 
 These, before God's throne who stand ? 
 Each a golden crown is wearing ; 
 Who are all this glorious band ? 
 Alleluia ! hark they sing, 
 Praising loud their heavenly King. 
 
 These, the Almighty contemplating. 
 
 Did as priests oefore him stand. 
 Soul and body always waiting 
 Day and night at Hjb command ; 
 Now in God's most holy place 
 Blest they stand' before TTia Face. — Amen.' 
 
 not a heart there but thrilled at the appropriateness of 
 many of the expressions, as also at the long and express- 
 ive pause in the Church Militant Prayer, where God's 
 holy name was blessed for all who had depariied this life 
 in His faith and fear. Then came the celebration of the 
 Communion, reminding one of the way in which the 
 Primitive Church celebrated the anniversaries of their 
 martyrs' departure, not as their death-days, but as their 
 birthdays, by offering the Eucharist, or sacrifice of 
 thanksgiving and praise. There was no element of sad- 
 ness, though every element of solemnity, in the service. 
 It was a service worthy to be held over a Christian 
 Bishop for whom we dared not ' sorrow even as others 
 which have no hope,' 
 
 When the Communion Service was ended, the 130th 
 
A BISHOP'S BURIAL. 203 
 
 Psalm, or ' De Profundis/ was chanted while the body 
 was being moved to the churchyard. Thither, to a 
 most sequestered spot, proceeded that vast assemblage, 
 the choristers surrounding the grave, and the rest 
 forming a deep circle around. The coffin was now un- 
 covered, and was seen to be a handsome .oak one, with 
 a simple inscription, over which again were laid the 
 crosses and wreaths, while fresh garlands were thrown 
 in by ladies. As the service progressed, the hymn, 
 ' Brief life is here our portion,' was sung ; and then 
 came the solemn finale as, at the words, '^ Ashes to 
 ashes, dust to dust,' was heard that dull sound of the 
 clods on the coffin-lid, so often taken to be the death- 
 blow to hope. But in Bishop Wilberforce's case there 
 seemed, as I have said, to be none of this hopeless 
 element. In that most beautiful and peaceful church- 
 yard that bright summer morning, with children sweetly 
 singing round his grave, and scented flowers heaped 
 upon his coffin, we left our good Bishop sleeping, and 
 felt that the close of that life was a fitting sequel of 
 what had gone before, the bright eventide of a life that 
 had been bright and happy as well as useful throughout 
 — dashed, indeed, with a few shadows at sundown and 
 wetted with the dew of ' some natural tears,' but still 
 the appropriate closing in of life's little day, the com- 
 mencement, as all present felt, of one brighter still that 
 should never know eventide, shadow, or tears ; for the 
 former things had passed away, and there would be no 
 night there whither he had gone before us. The last 
 hymn, with which was concluded this truly happy 
 ceremony, was very fitting. It ran thus — 
 
 ' Shepherd of the sheep, 
 High Priest of things to come, 
 Who didst in grace Thy servant keep, 
 And take him sweetly liome ; 
 
 ' Chief of Thy faithful band, 
 He held himself the least ; 
 Though Thy dread keys were in his hand, 
 O everlasting Priest. 
 
204 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ' So, trusfing in Thy might, 
 He won a fair rencwn ; 
 So, waxing valiant in the fight. 
 He trod the lion down. 
 
 ' Then rendered up to Thee 
 The charge Thy love had given, 
 And passed away 'thj Face to see 
 Eevealed in highest heaven.' 
 
 • Before the company separated, it was proposed that 
 some memorial of the late Bishop should be got up. 
 The Bishop of Chichester presided at an extemporized 
 meeting on the lawn of Lavington House, when it was 
 stated that a monument would be raised on the spot 
 where the accident happened, and a committee, including 
 all the bishops of Great Britain and Ireland, waa ap- 
 pointed to meet on the following Thursday, at the 
 (S. P. G. Rooms, at three o^ clock, for the purpose of 
 deciding on the memorial. Lord Granville and Mr 
 Gladstone were also to be added to this committee. 
 Some reference was made to the division of the diocese, 
 and the foundation of a new diocese of Southwark:as a 
 fitting form for such memorial to take. Clapham was 
 named as the seat of the diocese, but the proposal was 
 not favourably received. 
 
 Among the many affecting incidents connected with 
 the Bishop's funeral none is more worthy of mention 
 than the presence of an American clergyman from the 
 diocese of Connecticut. He landed on Saturday last, 
 and the only introduction he brought in England was 
 to Bishop Wilberforce. Too late to present his creden- 
 tials to the living prelate, he stood among the mourners 
 around his grave. There was also in the procession a 
 coloured clergyman, named Gordon, of the purest 
 African type. Altogether there could have been 
 scarcely fewer than two or three hundred clergy pre- 
 sent ; and the assemblage was a striking instance of the 
 effect that can be produced by the simple ritual of the 
 Church of England properly carried out. In fact, the 
 beauty of the ceremonial consisted in its simplicity. 
 There was every variety of opinion as to the proper 
 
A CHILDREN S SERVICE. 205 
 
 vestments in whicli to attend a funeral. The large 
 majority of tlie clergy were in surplice, hood, and stole ; 
 some few wore collegiate caps ; one only — Dr Monsell, 
 of Guildford — a biretta ; many wore wide-awakes more 
 or less ecclesiasticalj some tall hats, a very few black 
 gowns ; but aU were evidently possessed of one heart 
 and one soul, and animated by a single desire to show 
 respect to the memory of the deceased prelate. The 
 special train returned from Petworth at five o^ clock, dis- 
 persing that large funeral party over London about 
 seven, and our principal topic of discussion as we went 
 back — so strangely does life ever trench on death, and 
 action supervene on anything like sentiment — was who 
 will be the Bishop's successor ; and to whom will the 
 inevitable translation hold out a prize in the Church in 
 the shape of the ' vacant mitre ' ? 
 
 A CHILDREN'S SERVICE. 
 
 I CAN remember the time when a Church of England 
 service was made positively repulsive to a child. My 
 only wonder is, when I cast back njy thoughts over the 
 annals of my own childhood, that the experiences of that 
 portion of my existence did not permanently disgust 
 me with all the influences of so-called 'religion.' A 
 wretched schoolboy with twenty minutes' walk between 
 me and school, I was doomed to sit each morning of the 
 weary year, and hear the Bible read through seriatim, a 
 chapter each prayer time, as though there was some 
 talismanic virtue in those arbitrary divisions, and — worse 
 than that — all Browne's lengthy ' Reflections ' after- 
 wards. How devoutly I used to wish Browne had died 
 when he was a poor little scrub like myself, instead of 
 living to punish me with his weak dilution of Bible-and- 
 
2o6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 water. The household where I hved never emerged 
 very early, and when it happened to be a long chapter 
 in OhronicleSj with lots of hard names over which the 
 reader broke his shins, or the 119th Psalm, I passively 
 resigned myself to the twofold misery of going without 
 my breakfast and getting an ' imposs ' for being late ; 
 while, when the reading was over, and Thornton's 
 Family Prayers were drawled through, I learnt my 
 Horace repetition on my chair, or varied the proceedings 
 by pulling the cook's cap off, and making her gurgle 
 with suppressed laughter. The servants — especially 
 one particular cook I can recall from the numbers of 
 new faces we saw during the year — hated Browne as 
 much as I did, and never used to call me to Family 
 Prayers, but phrased her summons thus, ' Now, then, 
 come to Reflections.' 
 
 But it was on Sunday my agony culminated. We 
 had 'Reflections' in the morning; then service at an 
 Evangelical church ; that is, we ' sat under ' Mr So-and- 
 so. The sitting was, in fact, the main portion of our 
 attendance ; for Mr So-and-so preached for an hour and 
 a quarter, and habitually raved himself blue-black in the 
 face. It was expected of him, and he did his duty con- 
 scientiously, and died early. In the afternoon we had 
 Catechism — Sacraments and all — which was simply 
 ' not understanded ' of me. I wonder we did not have 
 the Thirty-nine Articles and the Athanasian Creed. 
 Evening Service was.a minor misery, it was shorter, and 
 a weak curate was sometimes allowed to preach, thoupfh 
 my people said there was nothing feeding in ' poor ' Mr 
 Such-and-such's ' discourses.' I was glad to get to bed, 
 even with the prospect of the morning's ' Reflections.' 
 
 How different the service which it is the object of this 
 paper to describe ! I will not name the particular 
 church where it took place, because I have my doubts 
 whether it was quite ship-shape, orthodox, legal, accord- 
 ing to Act of Parliament and all that kind of thing ; but 
 it was very nice, and I would not for the world get the 
 good people who organized it into trouble. Let us call 
 the church St Asterisk's, and the officiating clergyman 
 
A CHILDREN'S SERVICE. 207 
 
 Mr Blank. It was an afternoon service, which, is 
 generally a soporiferous affair. The service is long, and 
 we know it will all have to be gone over again under 
 happier auspices in the evening. The choristers are 
 sleepy and sing flat, and the organist deputizes ; while 
 fifty form a large congregation, including the sponsors 
 for the subsequent baptisms. To-day, however, there 
 was a large congregation, composed of small, not to say 
 infinitesimal units. The front blocks of the centre aisle 
 on both sides, some six or eight pews deep, were filled 
 with school-children; the seat-holders having relin- 
 quished their vested interests .pro tern, in favour of the 
 juveniles. Poor little bantlings in faded bits of showy 
 finery were in the chief seats of the synagogue, and the 
 people in the gold rings and goodly apparel had volun- 
 tarily gone behind, or located themselves in the free 
 seats. There were lots of children here too, more 
 heavily costumed. They were, I grieve to say, talking 
 undisguisedly, and altogether promised to be as fidgety 
 a congregation as ever gathered within the walls of a 
 church; but, as soon as the bell stopped, the organist, 
 a lady volunteer, struck up some bright little symphony, 
 and then enter the Eev. Mr Blank, to lively music. 
 He did not frown at the talking children, though his 
 own surpliced choristers were as demure as mutes. 
 There were no men; they stood aloof from the after- 
 noon service as inartistic and infra dig. After a very 
 short silent prayer Mr Blank gave out Hymn No. 361, 
 Ancient and Modern, and there was no more talking. 
 All the little ones sang it full-voiced, for it was one they 
 knew in school. It commences thus — 
 
 ' Once in royal David's city 
 
 Stood a lowly cattle shed, 
 Where a mother laid her baby 
 
 In a manger for Hia bed. 
 Mary was that mother mild. 
 Jesua Christ her Uttle child.' 
 
 If in the days of my childhood I had heard a choir 
 suddenly start that cheerful tune, I should have thought 
 
2o8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 they had all turned ' wicked,' or that I was asleep and 
 dreaming it was a week-day. But it was very touching, 
 actually screamed out as it was by most of the school- 
 children. The choristers either smiled, .or looked scan- 
 dalized, and some of the bigger ones remained mute, 
 feeling their reputation at stake. When it was done, 
 the clergyman sang the Litany, which had been omitted 
 in the morning, the children making the responses very 
 sweetly and correctly, and then there was another hymn, 
 which Mr Blank had found, I fear, in some very unor- 
 thodox collection, and had a few copies struck off by 
 the church-printer, himself teaching the air to the 
 school-children and choristers. It was called ' Only 
 beginning the journey,'' and it struck me so much that 
 I must print it. I devoutly hope I am infringing no- 
 body's copyright. If I am, I apologize beforehand. 
 
 ' Only beginning the journey, 
 
 Many a mile to go ; 
 Little feet how they patter. 
 
 Wandering to and fro. 
 Trying again so bravely. 
 
 Laughing in baby glee ; 
 Hiding its face in mother's lap. 
 Proud as a baby can be. 
 
 Only begimiing, &c. 
 
 ' Talking tbe oddest of language 
 
 Ever before was heard, 
 But mother — you'd hardly think so — 
 
 Understands every word. 
 Tottering now and falling, 
 
 Eyes are going to cry, 
 Kisses and plenty of love-words, 
 Willuig again to try. 
 
 Only beginning, &c. 
 
 ' Father of all, O guide them. 
 
 The pattering little feet, 
 WhUe they are treading the uphill road. 
 
 Braving the dust and heat. 
 Aid them when they grow weary, 
 
 Keep them in pathways blest ; 
 And, when the journey is ended, 
 Saviour, give them rest. 
 
 Only beginning, &c.' 
 
A CHILDREN'S SERVICE. 209 
 
 When it was over I found myself rubbing my eyes — 
 I suppose because it was so unlike an ordinary hymn — 
 ' From lowest depths of woe,' ' There is a fountain filled 
 wijih blood/ or anything of that kind — and I wanted to 
 see if I was wide awake. I have a notion a good many 
 mothers with their children and one or two big bearded 
 fathers were rubbing i/ieir eyes. too. Mr Blanks singing ■ 
 out lustily himself, seemed to float in a sort of mist up 
 into the pulpit, and, before I could quite realize that he 
 was not in an aquarium, he had commenced the touching 
 collect for Innocents' Day. This, again, is worth tran- 
 scribing — 
 
 ' Almighty Grod, who out of the mouths of babes 
 and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest 
 infants to glorify Thee by their deaths : mortify and kill 
 all vices in us, and so strengthen us by Thy grace that 
 by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our 
 faith even unto death, we may glorify thy Holy Name : 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen' 
 
 Now here, again, I had expected, "^ Prevent us, 
 Lord ! ' — how that word 'prevent' used to perplex me 
 as a child ! — or, ' Blessed Lord, who hast caused all Holy 
 Scriptures to be written for our learning,' &c. The 
 idea of making the different parts of the service dove- 
 tail one into the other, or bear any sort of reference 
 either to other, had never occurred to us then. The 
 parson had ' Prevent us ' and ' Blessed Lord ' pasted 
 . into his sermon-case, so why should he ' fash ' himself to 
 hunt up new Collects ? 
 
 Hereupon ensued what I suppose must in courtesy be 
 termed a sermon. I had dreaded a ' catechizing,' that 
 awful process of extracting from unwilling juveniles in- 
 formation which has been carefully drilled into them 
 during the previous week. But no; we had this 
 ' address.' To me it sounded more as though Mr Blank 
 was reading the Death of Little Nell or Paul Dombey 
 than preaching a sermon. But the children certainly 
 listened to him. The parents were the most attentive, 
 though. 
 
 ' Children/ he said — without giving out the ghost of 
 
 14 
 
210 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 a text — ' I want to ask you to listen wMle I read a part 
 of one of the most beautiful ctapters in the Bible ; the 
 words of the Ecclesiastes or Wise Preacher — the last 
 chapter of the Book that bears his name, and which, 
 along with the Proverbs of Solomon, comes immediately 
 after David's exquisite Psalms, just as our sermon 
 follows our hymns. The chapter opens thus — 
 
 ' Eemember no'W' thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while 
 the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt 
 say, ' ' I have no pleasure in them ; " while the sun, or the light, or 
 the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return 
 after the rain.' 
 
 What a description that is of childhood ; of the time 
 of life through which you are passing, and which we, 
 your parents and teachers and clergymen, have left so 
 far behind, yet have not forgotten. As we look back to 
 the old happy days of home — our earhest homes — and 
 childhood and youth, we feel, I dare say, more than you 
 do, how truly the words of this golden-mouthed preacher 
 describe them, as the time when the evil days had not 
 come, nor the years when we should say — as some of us 
 have learned to say — 'I have no pleasure in them.' 
 Though of course we had, and you have, little passing 
 sorrows, yet they were only like the shadows that flit 
 across the fields on a day of April or autumntide, and 
 which appear sent there to make the sunshine more en- 
 joyable. It seems now, at all events when we look back, 
 as though it had been always Sunday then (I groaned 
 as I thought what rwy Sundays had been, and how in- 
 finitely I preferred the Monday mornings), as though 
 the days were always sunny and the nights moonlit 
 or starry ; and when the little showers of tears cleared 
 away it was a long, long time before the clouds came 
 down again. You see I am only putting into slightly 
 different words what Ecclesiastes says about childhood ; 
 and I repeat it because I want to fix those words in 
 your memories, and make you understand something 
 at least of what a good thing God gives you in your 
 childhood. You will not understand all about it until 
 you get to look back upon it as we do. The writings of 
 
A CHILDREN'S SER VICE. 2 1 1 
 
 most poets are full of these recollections of home and 
 childlioodj and the contrast between early and later days 
 in life. Some very plaintive ones^ which I dare say 
 many of you recollect, come into my mind as I speak to 
 you. They were written by one who, amidst much pain 
 and trial and sorrow, still made his life and the lives of 
 those around him bright and cheerful and happy — 
 
 ' I remember, I remember, 
 
 The bouse where I was bom, 
 The little window where the sun 
 
 Came peeping in at mom ; 
 He never came a whit too soon. 
 
 Or brought too long a day. 
 But now I often wish the night 
 
 Had borne my breath away.' 
 
 And he concludes by some words which sound sadder 
 than they really are — 
 
 ' Now 'tis little joy. 
 To feel I'm farther oflf from Heaven 
 Thau when I was a boy.' 
 
 Tempora mutantur ! I thought. Fancy quoting Tom 
 Hood in a sermon ! 
 
 Now those of you — continued Mr Blank — who are 
 old enough to look a little forward in life, and think 
 what a fine thing it will be to be men and women, will 
 perhaps be surprised and discouraged to hear me talking 
 thus, as though it were really a bad thing to grow up, 
 as though it were literally true, as those of old time used 
 to say, that the persons Grod loved best died young. I 
 am not saying that, and this chapter, with its solemn 
 ' Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,^ does not say so either. 
 I would not, and the Bible would not, ask you to forego 
 one bold plan, or cheat yourselves of one smile in life, 
 provided it be a good and holy one. Religion was never 
 meant to bring clouds on your young lives, but to be a 
 sunshine all life through. 
 
 Again, I could not help thinking, parenthetically, of 
 the chapters in Chronicles and Browne's Reflections. 
 
 It is not a little way the Ecclesiastes is looking for- 
 
2 1 2 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ward, but a long way — from one extreme of life to the 
 other, from golden childhood to gray silvery old age. 
 And then how beautiful and perfect the conbrast is ! It 
 is the contrast between morning and evening, between 
 spring and winter. Shadowed evening and snowy winter 
 seem sad in comparison of brilliant morning and bloom- 
 ing summer ; and so they are, very sad 'and solemn. 
 Their joys are joys of quite a different sort. This is the 
 Preacher's picture of old age. He has a purpose in 
 putting it close beside his J)icture of childhood, in run- 
 ning the one actually into the other. 
 
 ' In the day when tie keepers of the house stall tremble, and 
 the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease be- 
 cause they are few, and those that look out of the windows shall be 
 darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the 
 sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of 
 the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low. 
 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears 
 shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the 
 grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, because — 
 and here follows his picture of death — man goeth to his long 
 home, and the mourners go about the streets.' 
 
 I wish I had time to tell you how well this perfect 
 picture describes the failure of the different powers and 
 faculties in old age, and the going back of the old to 
 second childhood. But one great point the Preacher 
 wants to bring before you is how soon the oae state 
 passes into the other, childhood to age, life to death. 
 It seems such a short time ago since I was sitting a little 
 child like one of you, and listening to a preacher, not 
 thinking I should ever come to preach myself ! 
 
 And another lesson — the great lesson of all, in fact — 
 is, that this failure of the powers, this passing from life 
 to death, does not only take place in advanced age: 
 sometimes it really is a very little while, as it always 
 seems a very little while, before the rest of Ecclesiastes' 
 picture is realized — 
 
 ' Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, 
 or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel be broken 
 at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was. 
 
A CHILDREN'S SERVICE. 213 
 
 and tlie spirit shall return unto God -who gave it. Vanity of 
 vanities, saith th.e Preacher, all is vanity.' 
 
 Go to any of the crowded cemeteries around tHs 
 great city, where the sleepers in Jesus lie waiting for 
 the Resurrection, and you will see what I mean. You 
 will see how many graves of little children there are 
 amongst those of aged persons and people in what 
 we call the prime of life. I don't consider this a sad 
 subject, or I should not mention it here. I call it the 
 happiest subject we could talk about, if it only im- 
 presses on your minds the moral of the great Preacher's 
 sermon — ' Eemember now thy Creator in the days of 
 thy youth.' 
 
 I have known what it is to follow one of my own 
 children, who a little while before was healthy and well, 
 to that same quiet sleeping-place. I have seen his 
 little pale face looking up at me out of his coffin, and, 
 sad as I was to lose him, I assure you I don't think 
 sadly of him now. I take his brothers and sisters 
 every now and then to hang flowers on the little cross 
 above his grave ; but I do feel with regard to him what 
 a dead writer wrote of a little lost child : If one weak 
 wish of ours could call that child back again, which of 
 us would dare to utter it ? 
 
 There — Mr Blank as nearly as possible quoted Dickens 
 in church ! We must, I felt, be on the eve of some 
 great change tantamount to the Deluge, or the Battle 
 of Armageddon, or something of the kind. 
 
 Eemember your Creator, he concluded. Think on 
 God, and try to live like your Saviour now ; and then, 
 whenever you die, in childhood or old age, the day 
 need not be a dark one for you. I am not trying to 
 put old heads on young shoulders. I am only telling 
 you to do what yon promise to do every time you say 
 your Catechism. Be good, obedient, teachable child- 
 ren, as Jesus was, sO that whether you die young or 
 live to be ever so old, it may be written of you as it 
 was of the child Christ at Nazareth, ' He increased in 
 wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and 
 man.' 
 
214 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 And so Mr Blank's little congregation resolved itself 
 into atoms. They did not file out two and two, as I 
 had expected to see them. There was a miniature 
 Babel for a few minutes, and then all was quiet ; while 
 I sat still there, and saw Mr Blank pass to the font, 
 and take some smaller fragments of humanity still in 
 his arms, saying over each when gifted with the Chris- 
 tian name — 
 
 'We receive this child into the congregation of 
 Christ's flock, and do sign it with the sign of the Cross, 
 in token that hereafter it shall not be ashamed to con- 
 fess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight 
 under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil, 
 and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant 
 unto its life's end. Amen.' 
 
 And so — as Bunyan says — ^I passed on my way. 
 I felt that Mr Blank, parson though he was, had 
 given me an idea or two, that had never been in- 
 spired by Browne's Reflections or the chapters in 
 Chronicles. 
 
SERIES II. 
 
 THE ABOLITION OF UNORTHODOXY. 
 
 ON the 17th of June, 1875, there took place, at the 
 City Temple, a meeting which, if it accomplished 
 its ends, and those ends were pushed to their purely 
 legitimate issues, would have the effect of breaking 
 down the middle wall of partition between the Church 
 of England and Nonconformity, and so gradually 
 abolishing the very term Unorthodoxy in reference 
 to the National Church. The meeting was called in 
 consequence of adverse decisions being given by Mr 
 Pitzjames Stephens and Mr Benjamin Shaw as to the 
 right of the Hon. and Rev. R. Premantle to preach in 
 the City Temple, as he had been advertised to do in 
 the early part of the year, but was prevented by the 
 Bishop of London. Each of these legal gentlemen 
 arrived at the same conclusion, though by different 
 courses of argument, as will be seen in the course of the 
 discussion which ensued. Viewed especially in conjunc- 
 tion with the suspension of Mr Mackonochie, which took 
 effect on the preceding Sunday, and elicited a remarkably 
 plain-spoken sermon from Father Stanton at St Albany's, 
 it is scarcely too much to say that this experiment 
 as to the elasticity of the Church of England system 
 was a very crucial one indeed, especially since it oc- 
 curred on the very eve of the time when the Public 
 Worship Bill came into operation. It is difficult, of 
 course, when writing during such a period of transition, 
 
2 1 6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 to calculate the probable issues on tlie fortunes of the 
 Church of England ; but, taking our stand towards the 
 latter end of the month of June, 1875, and glancing 
 round the religious horizon, there are not wanting signs 
 of the times to assure us that the epoch is a very critical 
 one indeed. We stand upon the eve of that grand 
 panacea the Public Worship Bill coming into action. 
 Will that suffice to bind us all in the rigid bonds of 
 an artificial uniformity ; or will the free spirit of the 
 National Church break out in manifold varieties of 
 action ? Such were the thoughts that were coursing 
 through the minds of the more thoughtful amongst us 
 when the meeting was convened in the City Temple. 
 Among those present were the Dean of Westminster, 
 Mr Samuel Morley, M.P. (who presided), Sir Thomas 
 Chambers, M.P., Sir Charles Reed, Chairman of the 
 London School Board, Sir Henry Havelock, Mr Thomas 
 Hughes, Q.C., the Hon. and Eev. W. H. Fremantle, 
 the Rev. Samuel Minton, the Rev. Dr Stoughton, the 
 Rev. Dr Parker (minister of the City Temple), the Eev. 
 Newman Hall, the Rev. Thomas Aveling, and the Rev. 
 Alexander Hannay, Secretary pf the Congregational 
 Union. Mr Aveling being asked to open the proceed- 
 ings with prayer, displayed admirable tact .by using 
 only the Lord's Prayer, which was certain to offend no 
 one. Then the chairman, in a singularly temperate 
 speech, said that this subject needed the calm con- 
 sideration of all earnest men. It was important that 
 the state of the law should be known ; it was not 
 the common law which forbade this .interchange of 
 pulpits, but the ecclesiastical law, which dated back 
 before the time of the Reformation. Nothing, he 
 urged, would so strengthen the hands of the Epis- 
 copal Church as the abolition of the present restric- 
 tion ; but still even a bad law must be obeyed as long 
 as it was the law. The question was whether this 
 really did represent the law; and Mr Morley offered 
 to .hold any clergyman harmless who would try the 
 experiment. If Mr Fremantle, for instance, would try 
 it, he would guarantee him against pecuniary loss. He 
 
THE ABOLITION OF UNORTHODOXY. 217 
 
 did not ask him to decide on sucL. a course then ; but 
 he wished it to be understood that he was ready with 
 his contribution. 
 
 Writing as we do from the Orthodox or Church of 
 England point of view (for the term is only employed 
 in its most technical and artificial sense), our interest 
 naturally hinges upon the utterances of the clergy of 
 the Establishment. The Hon. and Eev. K. Fremantle 
 then said that, all his life long, he had felt growing 
 within him the desire for Christian unity. At the 
 Oxford Union his first speech had been made in favour 
 of admitting Dissenters to the Universities, apd nine- 
 teen years afterwards he saw that point carried. He 
 himself was a loyal Church of England man — if not, 
 his words would have no significance — ^it was his Church 
 by birth and profession, and he was most anxious to 
 obey those in authority; but still he could see its 
 defects. He was not a revolutionist, but he was an 
 enthusiastic Church reformer, and he thought the one 
 great defect that needed a remedy in the Church of 
 England was her exclusiveness. The opinions, it was 
 true, were adverse, he said; but he added, in a crisp, 
 pleasant voice which characterized his whole speech, 
 there were crumbs of comfort in them. It was a con- 
 solation to know that though we were not free in this 
 respect in England, yet we were in Scotland, Ireland, 
 and America. The canons could not carry across the 
 Channel. The fact of the Archbishop of York and the 
 late Bishop of Winchester having officiated in Presby- 
 terian Churches on the other side the border, threw 
 a great shield over him and his coadjutors in their 
 present proceedings. It was not on dogmatic grounds 
 that this exclusiveness was maintained; not because 
 Dissenters were schismatics, but because an ancient 
 law of discipline only had been allowed to come down 
 from the Middle Ages f&r incuriam, and now we were 
 beginning to feel the pinch. Mr Pitzjames Stephens 
 thought such services were against the Act of Uniform- 
 ity, and therefore^ argued Mr Fremantle, ' Not only 
 must X not come to the City Temple, but all services 
 
21 8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 such as those of Messrs Moody and Sankey must be 
 illegal for clergymen to attend. Theatre-services must 
 be illegal ; and even prayer-meetings and family prayer 
 itself would come under the category of conventicle 
 services.' According to the opinion of Mr Shaw, all 
 authority flowed from the Bishop's licence, and this 
 made Nonconformists mere schismatics. Now all this 
 was simply an anachronism. In the Middle Ages Non- 
 conformists were dangerous ; but could we regard them 
 as dangerous, or even as separatists, now ? Were we 
 not thankful for the work done by such men as the 
 pastor of the City Temple ? Clergymen who clung to the 
 territorial system might ignore Dissenters; but fraternity 
 was the root of all Christian practice, and exclnsiveness 
 was the source of all evils. The greatest questions 
 coming on for decision were now religious ones, and 
 this lack of union fomented superstition on one side 
 and rationalism on the other. 
 
 The City Temple, though it was the busy noontide 
 hour of a working day, was thronged with a mingled 
 crowd of church and chapel people; and loud cheers 
 greeted bhis liberal Churchman as he resumed his seat. 
 They were renewed, too, when the Rev. Samuel Minton, 
 another Chm'ch of England clergyman, formerly incum- 
 bent of Eaton Chapel, took Mr Premantle's place. He 
 was at one, he said, with Mr Fremantle, but they were 
 not in exactly the same circumstances. He had himself 
 often interchanged pulpits with Nonconformists. Happily 
 for himself, he had been no party to taking counsel's 
 opiaion. There had been no legal decision on his own 
 practice, and he believed there never would be. They 
 now knew the worst, and he felt sure that the doctrines 
 enunciated in the opinions that had been obtained could 
 never be upheld by the Courts in this free country. 
 They seemed to have ransacked everything ; but no 
 legal acumen was wanted to show that their opinion 
 would never be tolerated. Was it likely that 20,000 
 clergymen would consent to be tied hand and foot, and 
 never to open their mouths except by permission of the 
 bishop, and in certain prescribed ways ? ' Are we pre- 
 
THE ABOLITION OF UNORTHODOXY. 219 
 
 pared/ he asked, ' to be bound down by this iron Act of 
 Uniformity? ' and very audibly tlie assemblage answered, 
 ' No ; ' for Mr Minton was an impetuous speaker, and 
 meant to have his questions answered when he asked 
 them. . Should we fraternize with Presbyterians in the 
 Scottish suburb of Berwick-on-Tweed, and believe it 
 illegal to fraternize with them in the English suburb ? 
 How long would the Church of England hold together on 
 such terms ? As it was said in ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' so 
 might it be said here, ' You can screw the safety-valve 
 down if you like and sit upon it, and see where it will 
 land you, and how long it will be before you are all 
 caught up to meet one another in the air.' How long 
 would it take to burst the ecclesiastical boiler under such 
 circumstances ? If the water were lukewarm, as it used 
 to be, then things might go on for ever ; but now it 
 was at boiling point, and — he needn't finish the sentence. 
 There was one of two courses, either we must accept 
 this phantom of hierarchical power from the Middle 
 Ages, or we must appeal to the nation to decide by 
 Parliament what is the position of the National clergy. 
 We should have to pass an Act to Remove Clerical 
 Disabilities, just as we had in the case of Roman Catho- 
 lics, Jews, and Dissenters. It was time to think of our- 
 selves. Let us unite in free, open communion the 
 common Protestantism of this country, and it would be 
 the mightiest power in the world. He preferred the 
 Gospel to the law in these matters, and held with Dr 
 Cuyler, that the best way of doing a thing was to dbO it. 
 In the words of Norman McLeod, he would say — 
 
 ' Trust no party, cliurcli, or faction, 
 Trust no leader in tlie fight ; 
 But in every word and action, 
 Trust in God, and do the right ! ' 
 
 Mr Minton was the very man for the Templars ; and, 
 indeed, there was a vigour in his speech which would 
 have backed up even a worse cause. He was followed 
 by Dr Parker, who looked at the matter from a Noncon- 
 formist's point of view. Into this it would be out of 
 
220 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 place under present circumstances to follow \can., when 
 we are rather ganging the opinions of Churchmen them- 
 selves. The Doctor^ however, in a telling speech, sug- 
 gested that if fifty clergymen would make the experiment 
 suggested by Mr Morley, and preach simultaneously in 
 fifty Nonconformist pulpits, the battle would be won. 
 He did not think Disestablishment was the only solution 
 of the difficulty. ' Gentlemen of the Church of England/ 
 he concluded, ' we do not undervalue your Church as a 
 religious institution. Do not let a Church so glorious 
 die of mediaevaHsm.' 
 
 The Dean of "Westminster moved the only resolution 
 that was proposed : — 
 
 ' That this meeting is of opinion that the restrictions 
 placed upon the clergy of the Church of England, 
 according to the opinions of counsel now given on the 
 subject of conforming ministers taking part in services 
 other than those prescribed by the Acts of Uniformity, 
 are injurious to the fraternal intercourse between the 
 various Protestant Churches of this land, which is im- 
 peratively required in the interests of Catholic Christi- 
 anity.' 
 
 Dean Stanley said they might imagine that, speaking 
 as he did with stammering and uncircumcised lips, after 
 eloquent men who had preceded him, he felt some diffi- 
 culty in approaching the delicate questions referred to in 
 the opinions of counsel and in his resolution. The diffi- 
 culty they had to deal with had nothing to do with either 
 the question of an establishment or with that of episcopacy 
 or any other system of Church government. It came 
 down to them from very old times, and belonged to a 
 very widespread feeling. On one occasion, when he had 
 the honour of conversing with the most celebrated 
 Statesman in Europe — he meant Prince Bismarck — that 
 famous man had remarked that the ecclesiastical struggle 
 in which he was engaged was not only the same as that 
 in which England had fought and conquered under the 
 Plantagenets, but was much older. ' It goes back,' he 
 
THE ABOLITION OF UNORTHODOXY. 221 
 
 said, ' to the time when the High Priest Calchas con- 
 fronted King Agamemnon over the sacrifice of Iphigenia.' 
 In like manner, the principle out of which these restric- 
 tions grew went back to the time when the Jews had no 
 dealings with the Samaritans, and was deeply seated in 
 every Charch throughout the world — not only in mediee- 
 val, but in Protestant Churches-^not only in the breasts 
 of Churchmen, but of Nonconformists, and it had its 
 root in the inveterate desire of every communion to be 
 shut up in itself — to hold aloof from all who separated 
 from it and from whose opinions it differed. But even 
 from early times, and even in Catholic countries, the best 
 spirits had struggled against it. Thus, take the case of 
 excommunicated individuals. The most Christian and 
 enlightened men of the age recognized as heroes the 
 barons of England, who, although at the time under 
 Papal excommunication, had extorted Magna Charta 
 from King John ; Columba, though an excommunicated 
 Irish outlaw, evangelized Scotland; and Robert Bruce, 
 in spite of his being under the like ban, was honoured 
 as its king and liberator. Books, again, were circulated 
 and read, notwithstanding their being placed in the 
 Index ; and there had been not very long ago a case in 
 Canada, in which a Catholic had been denied Christian 
 burial for belonging to a society on wliose catalogues 
 were prohibited works, but the Supreme Court of Law 
 in this country redressed the grievance. Here in Eng- 
 land, Churchmen and Nonconformist? make no scruple 
 of reading one another's books, and he hoped he should 
 never be precluded from enjoying Dr Watts's writings 
 and Dr Stoughton's excellent works on ecclesiastical 
 history. And he even knew a high dignitary in the 
 Roman Catholic Church who belonged to a reading club, 
 many of whose books were in the Index, and who, there- 
 fore, by the strict law of his Church would be denied 
 Christian burial unless it was granted by the grace of 
 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Dean 
 Stanley adverted to the participation of Nonconformists 
 in the benefits of church architecture ; to the dying out 
 of the Quaker prejudice against church bells ; to the 
 
22 2 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 abolition of exclusiveness in education through the ad- 
 mission of Dissenters to the Universities. These barriers 
 of separation had been broken down to the great benefit 
 of Churchmen and I^onconformists alike. At one time 
 clergymen and Dissenting ministers would not have 
 been seen together on the platforms of the same religious 
 societies^ but now the Archbishop of Canterbury had 
 been welcomed on that of the Bible Society. Many 
 restrictions had disappeared, leaving comparatively few 
 remnants of the old exclusiveness behind. Such a relic 
 was their present difficulty. He would not underrate the 
 objections to a more liberal policy. In the case of 
 foreigners social relations and amenities might be suffi- 
 cient in their intercourse with fellow- Christians, when 
 distance or difference of language made official inter- 
 changes impossible. But it was not so at home, where 
 they spoke the same glorious tongue, and held the same 
 great national traditions. They had been parted by 
 nothing but the grievous mistakes of their forefathers, 
 and they might surely reunite again, if not in organic 
 union or always, at least occasionally. It might be 
 asked why could not the Dean of Westminster be con- 
 tented with ministering in his own glorious Abbey. He, 
 doubtless, had enough to do in his own sphere, still he 
 could not forbear the desire to show at times that he 
 was not parted altogether from the spiritual descendants 
 of Howe and Owen, Baxter and Calamy, Penn, Wesley, 
 and Robert Hall. He would not perplex the audience 
 or himself with the discussion of technicalities. The 
 novelty of the opinions given might remind them of a 
 case not very long ago, in which the litigant startled the 
 Court by demanding the wager of battle. His strange 
 demand was found to be so far legal that a short Act of 
 Parliament had to be passed in order to repeal the custom 
 which enabled him to challenge the plaintiff to single 
 combat. The law, as they all thought, and as the counsel 
 no doubt thought at the bottom of their sleeve, was a 
 remnant of an ancient law which now remained in shreds 
 and tatters. In trying to remedy the state of the law 
 let them guard themselves from setting themselves up 
 
THE ABOLITION OF UNORTHODOXY. 223 
 
 against the law of this country, because there was no 
 liberty without law, as there was no good law without 
 liberty. Let them remember the laws of England were 
 imposed by the people of England, and so, in his opinion, 
 the great advantage of a National Church was that it owed 
 nothing to any law except that which the people of Eng- 
 land imposed upon it. And, if it should so happen, after 
 mature weighing of the subject, that these ancient re- 
 strictions should be continued, he should not be the one 
 to say he would set himself up against that decree, nor 
 would it be for him to say he had forfeited his liberty. 
 His liberty would be restricted in one particular, but 
 still, on the whole, he was satisfied they were more likely 
 to obtain these changes, which they all so much desired, 
 by constant appeals to the public opinion of England 
 and of Parliament. They would, perhaps, require a 
 fresh Act now. But in any case they were all bound to 
 obey the law, although they might appeal again and 
 again to public opinion to conform it to what was right 
 and charitable. He was glad to be among them that 
 day. He concluded by saying that in their presence he 
 never lowered his flag as a clergyman who gloried in the 
 ' freedom of the freest, the learning of the most learned, 
 and the reasonableness of the most rational Church in 
 Christendom.' 
 
 Sir Thomas Chambers, the Eev. Newman Hall, Dr 
 Stoughton, and Mr T. Hughes supported the resolution, 
 and the Dean of Westminster, probably on the principle 
 that the best way of getting rid of a bad law is to keep 
 on breaking it, gave the Benediction. Surely if the 
 mere act of preaching is illegal in the City Temple, a 
 fortiori- must the act of pronouncing the Apostolical 
 Blessing be ! 
 
 It is at this point we elect to rest, and casting our re- 
 gards over the Established Church, see what is the status 
 quo of things in 1875. Possibly if they go on as they 
 have begun in this chapter, the old land-marks may ere 
 long be broken down between orthodoxy and unortho- 
 doxy, and our occupation in consequence be for ever 
 gone as a chronicler of Unorthodox London at all events. 
 
224 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 THE PEIMATB IN THE CITY. • 
 
 A TACIT concession appears to have been made, I 
 know not on what grounds, that in order to discover 
 anything like preaching power, you must be outside the 
 limits of the Established Church. I entirely demur 
 to that position. I have had, I suppose, as much oppor- 
 tunity of judging as any man living. My mission, for 
 several years past, has been to hear rather than to preach, 
 or simultaneously with preaching, sermons ; and I can 
 confidently say that the idea is altogether a fallacious 
 one. Its origin is not far to seek. We are still, in our 
 degree, like the Athenians in the Agora, fond of hearing 
 or telling some new thing ; and whilst every sect outside 
 the pale of the National Church has either some new 
 thing to tell, or some new method of telling it, the clergy 
 of the Church of England are kept, and happily so, to 
 the ' old, old story ' — if one may quote those words in 
 such connection ; while even their mode of telling it is 
 hedged round with salutary restrictions, elastic enough, 
 it is true, since freedom of speech appertains equally to 
 Mr Magee and Dean Stanley, Mr Haslam and Mr Haweis ; 
 but still there is a line of circumvallation, and within 
 that line I am bold to say there is at least as much pul- 
 pit power as outside. Mr Spurgeon or Mr Moody may 
 each have his own particular way of putting things which 
 will attract many, but which repels just as many ; while 
 Mr Voysey may strike us with such announcements as 
 that of a sermon on the Immorality of the Doctrine of 
 the Atonement. All these things draw ; and half the 
 secret of a clever advertisement depends upon striking 
 announcements such as these. If, however, we can be 
 content to look a little below the surface, and- to value 
 edification rather than excitement, we shall find that the 
 
THE PRIMATE IN THE CITY. 225 
 
 point is most unwisely conceded as to pulpit oratory 
 having died out from the Church. It has developed 
 wonderfully outside, beyond a doubt. Congregational 
 bodies simply must sustain this power, or become effete; 
 but we are stating only a half-truth when we say that 
 the power within the Church has quite kept pace in its 
 development with the power outside. So much, how- 
 ever, is sufficient for our present purpose. 
 
 It was in such a frame of mind and feeling, perhaps 
 just a little blase withh eretical utterances, that I re- 
 solved to go one Sunday morning to the very fons et origo 
 of our Church of England Christianity, and hear the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury preach at the City church of 
 St Lawrence, Jewry. 
 
 There is no sight more striking than the appearance 
 of the City on a Sunday morning. The streets are 
 emptied of their week-day throngs, and only a' few folks 
 in their Sunday best journey along the desolate thorough- 
 fares, while bells chime out with strange clangour from 
 the numerous steeples. Everybody seemed bent . for 
 St Lawrence, Grresham Street, for were not the Lord 
 Mayor and Sheriifs going to what I suppose is the parish 
 church for the Mansion Hou se ? At all events a huge 
 square pew stands in the very middle of the nave at St 
 Lawrence's, as large as a moderate room,, with a table 
 and chairs in the centre, besides the ordinary seats round, 
 and with the civic insignia in wrought-iron surmounting 
 it. There was a good congregation assembled at twenty 
 minutes to eleven, and very soon the City Marshal ar- 
 rived, and made everything straight for the expected 
 magnates. At eleven they entered in procession pre- 
 ceded by a sword and mace-bearer, and ladies — where 
 are ladies not ? — mingling with the scarlet robes and court 
 dresses of the civic potentates. Soon after, a choir of 
 about fifty boys and men in surplices came in, followed 
 by the Inc'umbent (Mr Walrond) and the Archbishop. 
 During the brief period of waiting, I had ample time 
 to admire the handsome church, and note the curious 
 mosaic of the Ascension over the altar, as also the 
 epitaph running beneath the south-east memorial 
 
 15 
 
226 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 window, ' Thomas de Kelleseye, Citizen of Milk Street. 
 Died A.D. 1300. Domine, dilexi decorem doinus tuae.' 
 
 Knowing the recent changes which had come upon 
 the cultus of St Lawrence, I was agreeably surprised to 
 hear the prayers admirably intoned by the curate, the 
 choir taking the harmonized Confession, and altogether 
 rendering the musical portion in the most effective way. 
 The Venite was sung to a Gregorian tone, the Psalms 
 to florid Anglican chants, as was also the Te Deum, the 
 last being taken without accompaniment. 
 
 I could not help whispering to a loquacious gentleman 
 next to me who had been talking before service began, 
 'I thought you had no congregations in the City?' 
 'It's all talent, sir,' he replied. ' Get the right men and 
 you could fill forty more churches in the City. You 
 should have seen Mr Rowsell's church before he left us.' 
 
 There was no Litany ; and as an Introit was sung the 
 appropriate hymn — 
 
 ' We give Thee but TMne own, 
 "Wlate'er the gift may be.' 
 
 After the Ante-Communion Service had been read by 
 the Incumbent, the Archbishop ascended the pulpit to 
 plead the cause of the Bishop of London's Fund, an 
 appeal which was most interesting as coming from the 
 very prelate who had originated that practical measure 
 of beneficence. 
 
 His Grace took as a text, Proverbs xxii. 2 — * The rich 
 and poor meet together, the Lord is the Maker of them 
 all.' Plunging at once into his subject, the Archbishop 
 bespoke our attention to the Fund after ten years of its 
 existence. It had been found, by accurate examination, 
 ten years ago, that, incredible as it seemed in the centre 
 of the world's civilization in the nineteenth ^entnry, 
 there were a million people in the metropolis for whom 
 there was no church provision. The object of the 
 Bishop of London's Fund was to extend the parochial 
 system of the Church of England in the metropolis. 
 The overwhelming majority in this milHon of people be- 
 longed to the poor. The rich could look after themselves. 
 
THE PRIMATE IN THE CITY. 227 
 
 They had no difficulty in finding a place in church, no 
 difficulty in getting spiritual instruction, if they were 
 anxious for it. But with the poor the case was different. 
 It was the wish of his Grace's predecessor in the See of 
 London (Dr Blomfield) to extend the means of grace 
 especially to the poor ; and now, after ten years' trial of 
 the scheme^ it would be asked what had been done ? It 
 was calculated that half the evil had been met. They 
 began with a million for whom there was no church : 
 now, by God's blessing, they were reduced to 500,000. 
 But this was still a large number, and they dared not 
 cease in their work. 
 
 The peculiarity of great centres like London, the 
 Archbishop said, was that they were growing every year. 
 When he was first Bishop of London there were 40,000 
 persons added to the population every year. So in the 
 ten years over which their efforts extended there had 
 been an increment of 400,000. Recent changes in the 
 diocese had reduced the annual increase to about 36,000, 
 which gave a prospective increase of 360,000 for the 
 next ten years. The method adopted, his Grace repeated, 
 was the extension of the parochial system, adding em- 
 phatically, 'I know no other by which to meet these 
 wants. The Congregational system will never do. I 
 mean the system which appoints a minister for those who 
 choose to come to him. The effort must be one of a 
 missionary character. We must map out the metropolis, 
 and in each district have a minister and schools. The 
 parochial system is the only mode of dealing with the 
 evil.' The desire was to attend to the poor without 
 neglecting the rich ; and the parochial system brought 
 the rich and poor together ; and if it came to having 
 two nations in England, one rich and the other poor, 
 then, not only in a spiritual but a temporal sense, 
 society would be destroyed. 
 
 This proverbial saying of the text, continued his 
 Grace, can hardly be quoted as characteristic of our 
 congregations in London churches. The rich and the 
 poor meet together in the streets : to a certain extent 
 they meet together at the theatre. It is but a sprinkling 
 
228 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of the poor that meets the rich face to face in most of 
 our houses of God. Yet God certainly is the Maker of 
 them all : — they are equal in His sight : their souls 
 equally precious — their worship equally acceptable. 
 The poor are not a less' religious body than the rich. 
 Considering their many trials and disadvantages they 
 would stand very favourably in a comparison. 
 
 If in many cases, as Solomon says, the destruction 
 of the poor is his poverty, yet have they privileges as 
 well as trials. It is a characteristic mark of the dignity 
 of the Gospel that it is preached to the poor. In many 
 of the abodes in the manufacturing districts the rich and 
 the poor are locally separated to a gi'eat distance ; and 
 then of course it is natural to expect that they wiU not 
 frequent the same church. But there is no such separa- 
 tion in London parishes. There must be a great number 
 at no great distance from your doors. And it must be 
 from some great defect in our system that they appear 
 in such small numbers in our churches. No doubt 
 much is owing to insufficient and improper arrapge- 
 ments. The labourers in our country places are not 
 habitually absent from church, though their life is as 
 laborious, making their bodies crave for rest after 
 the six days' toil, and the wages are in many places 
 as scanty, making it equally difficult for them to supply 
 themselves with such clothing as they rightly deem 
 fitting for the decencies of the House of God. There 
 are two things that make the poor ready to go to church 
 in the country and not in the town : first, they are wel- 
 come if they do come ; the familiar place is ready for 
 them. The old parochial system, whereby the church- 
 wardens as the officers of the bishop and the parish are 
 bound to seat all the inhabitants, has not become a fiction 
 through the rapid growth of population. 
 
 I am speaking of the old stationary agricultural 
 parishes, where the church that was large enough to 
 hold our fathers some hundred years ago is large enough 
 for their descendants still ; such quiet places as a parish 
 I had in Oxfordshire, where the names of many of the 
 cottagers and farmers are stiU the same as we find 
 
THE PRIMATE IN THE CITY. 229 
 
 written in the account of the place in Doomsday Book. 
 This is one cause of their coming to church, that there 
 is room for them and they are welcome. And though 
 the squire and the chief farmers may occupy their old 
 stately pews, this is not done to the exclusion of the 
 poor. The second point is, that their coming or staying 
 away is known and remarked on. In these country 
 places they are not lost in a crowd. If it be said 
 even of the rich that no man knows or cares who is 
 his next-door neighbour, what shall we say of the poor ? 
 Ever migrating from one lodging to another, crowded 
 often so closely together that it is almost as difficult to 
 know who lives with you in the same tenement as who 
 the people are whom you meet habitually by hundreds 
 at certain hours of each day in the great thoroughfares, 
 the generality of the poor feel in London that no man's 
 eye is upon them. Their parish church is not for them 
 a place where it is respectable and pleasant once a week 
 to see the familiar faces of their various neighbours, 
 poor and rich, and to interchange neighbourly greet- 
 ings as they pass under the church porch. Unless 
 these evils are remedied, and our parochial system 
 made a reality, we can scarcely expect to see the poor 
 in church. 
 
 Perhaps you will say these are not high motives for 
 going to church; but we apeak of them as helps to 
 church-going, helps so important that the want of them 
 is a serious and almost invincible difllculty. Country 
 people, if you take the proportions of the two kinds of 
 population, may be very little if at all better than town 
 people, but they are better church-goers ; and it is no 
 light advantage you gain when you bring people habitu- 
 ally to church. If a man habitually neglects the ordi- 
 nances of Christ's religion, depend upon it there is a 
 perpetual tendency to degenerate. Those who frequent 
 God's house are periodically kept under softening, 
 humanizing, spiritualizing influences. The man for 
 whom the Lord's Day has no outward marks of sanctity, 
 who loiters all through it in his working clothes, only 
 distinguishing it from other days by a freer indulgence 
 
230 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 in the common bodily, perhaps sensual, relaxations in " 
 which he seeks refreshment at the intervals of toil on 
 other days ; perhaps not smoking or drinking to excess, 
 but still seeking nothing higher on the Lord's Day 
 than the rest of the week ; certainly this man is under 
 a great disadvantage compared with his church-going 
 neighbour, and we need not be surprised if he rapidly 
 degenerates. 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus Christ places all who listen to its 
 summons under great spiritual advantages. This very 
 fact necessitates that those who, living within the circle 
 of its influences, habitually pay no heed to their Maker, 
 degenerate. 
 
 I trust, said the Archbishop, that a more genial Chris- 
 tian feeling of brotherhood will grow up between rich 
 and poor, and that they will meet together oftener to 
 worship the one Father who is the Maker, the one Lord 
 Jesus Christ who is the Redeemer, and will seek the one 
 Holy Spirit who is the Sanctifier of them all. 
 
 It is this which gives such importance to all efforts 
 made in Christ's name for extending the parochial sys- 
 tem in our crowded London. By bringing our people 
 into our churches, tending their children in oiir schools, 
 visiting and helping them at their homes in sickness and 
 distress, we desire to make them all live together as 
 Christian neighbours sympathizing with each other. We 
 desire to save them from' debasing influences and a per- 
 petual tendency to degenerate. We desire to bring 
 them within the reach of other influences which, viewed 
 in the commonest worldly aspect, must be elevating, and 
 which, through the blessing of the Holy Spirit, must be 
 a fertile source of good. 
 
 ' The rich and the poor meet together, the Lord is 
 the Maker of them all.' They are equal in His sight. 
 'Christianity,' sfeys Chalmers, 'is in one sense the 
 greatest of all levellers.' Those false distinctions which 
 old philosophers drew between Greeks and barbarians, 
 •freemen and slaves, the educated and mechanic class, 
 even between man and man, were all obliterated in the 
 great ingathering of the Christian Church, which knows 
 
THE PRIMATE IN THE CITY. 231 
 
 no difference but that of piety, of growth in the graces 
 of the Holy Spirit — knows no difference between bar- 
 barian and Scythian, bond and free, but acknowledges 
 Christ as their all in all, whatever the race, condition, 
 or degree, if they strive to follow Him in simplicity and 
 truth. Strange that common sense, to say nothing of 
 common natural religion, should not have suggested 
 that in one sense all men are really equal — alike in the 
 helplessness of their birth, alike in the temptations of 
 their lives, alike in the loathsomeness of their decay. 
 All have one beginning, while, wide as adventitious 
 circumstances may keep them apart one from the other 
 in their days of worldly prosperity or adversity, they 
 have all one end. All begin in helpless infancy : all end 
 in the helplessness which leads them to one inevitable 
 grave. And wide as they are apart while they live, how 
 alike are they in their temptations, which proceed from 
 their one common human nature, and affect them with 
 wonderful similarity, however different be their lots. 
 The king's and the beggar's sins spring from the same un- 
 restrained animal propensities, to be resisted and disci- 
 plined through the same grace of God. Again, how like 
 are they, after all, in their degrees of happiness ! It is 
 not wealth or station that secures contentment. It is 
 an old story that misery creeps alike into cottages and 
 halls ; that happiness — worldly happiness — is for poor 
 as well as for rich, if they have a good conscience, good 
 health, and are not in debt. Indeed it is wonderful, 
 considering the vast difference of men's worldly circum- 
 stances, how near we are brought to each other in the 
 degree of enjoyment they secure. Wonderfully alike, 
 too, are they in their sufferings. What is the most 
 common cause of suffering in the world ? I will say 
 failure of health. What guarantee have the rich that 
 their health will be better than that of the poor ? Is 
 there not a wonderful similarity between the pains that 
 rack the well-cared-for body on its couch of down, and 
 the one that lies stretched on the pallet in the hospital ? 
 And if we are so alike in our bodily sicknesses, what 
 of our soul's ailments ? Young men of the upper and 
 
232 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 lower classes, there is no perceptible difference in tlie 
 sort of, sin into which they fall. The arrangements of 
 society may establish a different code in the case of 
 young women, poor and rich ; yet is there the family 
 resemblance between all the daughters of Eve. 
 
 We might run through villages and find it the same — 
 men and women wonderfully alike. The difference 
 which marks them is not difference of station, age, or 
 sex. There is a great and real difference between 
 health and sickness, and still greater between a life of 
 belief and of sin — a life in which much is done for God's 
 service, and one in which time and talents are wasted 
 for the world and the devil. My friends, let us con- 
 sider our hkeness and our ■ difference. Alike sinners — 
 alike trusting to the Blood of Christ — alike sanctified, if 
 sanctified at aU, by the one Holy Spirit. This, according 
 to the. Gospel, is the one condition of rich and poor, all 
 alike capable of being members incorporated into the 
 blessed company of Christ's redeemed. 
 
 Thus ended a very eloquent, as well as a very prac- 
 tical discourse. 
 
 As a sign of the largeness of the congregation, the 
 curate had to read all the offertory sentences through, 
 and then stand a long time silent and blushing while 
 the collection was being made. The very bell-ringers 
 grew impatient, and had to be stopped in the middle of 
 a merry peal they had struck up when they thought 
 the Lord Mayor ought to have been coming out of 
 church. 
 
233 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK AT THE TEMPLE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 BY a happy combination of events^ I had the oppor- 
 tunity of hearing, on two consecutive Sundays, the 
 two Archbishops of the Church of England, under cir- 
 cumstances to a great extent characteristic of each. I 
 heard Dr Tait discourse on the Bishop of London's 
 Fund, of which he was the originator, and reported his 
 sermon above ; while, on the following Sunday, I found 
 the Archbishop of York would preach at the Temple 
 Church, before a congregation which I ventured to 
 think very well adapted to his style of pulpit oratory. 
 Having only discovered late on Saturday night that the 
 Archbishop was to preach, I had no opportunity of get- 
 ting a bencher's order ; and therefore, determined to be 
 in time, I got to the Temple Station before half-past 
 ten o'clock. Quite a small procession piloted me over 
 the well-swept crossing leading up to the Temple 
 Gardens, but the wicket was not yet open, so we par- 
 ticularly early birds had to enter via Essex Street. It 
 seemed a queer combination of the Law and the Gospel 
 as one went through the quiet courts to church, and the 
 tardy spring made the plash of the fountain amid the. 
 delicate green leaves in the garden quite enjoyable. 
 But our small procession passed quickly on, and we 
 found a little crowd round the entrance, while ladies, 
 red-faced and panting, kept arriving and adding to the 
 numbers. I told a verger, whom I saw habited in gown 
 of russet and yellow, that I had no order, but directly I 
 stated my mission all difficulty vanished, and he placed 
 me in about the best seat in the church. While we 
 waited we could hear the choir practising in the distance ; 
 and the unseen chorus, combined with the surroundings 
 
234 THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 
 
 of gray arelies and storied windows, gave quite a 
 dramatic character to our position. 
 
 Precisely at eleven o'clock, while the organist played 
 ' In native worth/ the surpliced choir entered, followed 
 by Mr Aiiiger, the Reader at the Temple, and the Arch- 
 bishop, who wore his doctor's hood over his episcopal 
 vestments. I was surprised to find that the sentences 
 and exhortation were read, and so, as I afterwards dis- 
 covered, were all the portions of the service where the 
 choir did not join with the minister. The Confession 
 was intoned, and an old gentleman next me, incapable, 
 I presume, of singing on the upper Gr, took it an octave 
 lower, and growled out his responses in a tremendous 
 hasso profondo. The Venite was sung to a Gregorian, 
 but the Psalms were chanted first to double Anglicans — ■ 
 the jubilant melody of Beckwith alternating with the 
 plaintive one of Cooke in Psalms 44, 45 — while Psalm 
 46 was taken in a single Gregorian, sung in unison, the 
 eSect of such alternation being, to my thinking, 
 exceedingly agreeable. I do not for one moment see 
 why we should draw a hard and fast line between the 
 two styles, or why the Gregorian music should be re- 
 served for penitential psalms. Psalm 46 is a joyous one, 
 and the massive cadences of the unison Gregorian suited 
 it exactly. The Canticles were taken to the tuneful 
 ' service ' of Arnold in B flat, where, ever and anon, the 
 melody is given on the organ, the choir singing, so to 
 say, the accompaniment with very pleasing effect. The 
 Apostles' Creed was in harmonized monotone. My old 
 friend did the soprano part of the suffrages that followed 
 in his original iasso profondo, with very remarkable 
 result indeed. 
 
 The anthem was, ' Thy mercy, Lord,' by Mr E. J. 
 Hopkins, organist of the Temple, and contained a 
 beautiful quartet, ' continue forth Thy loving-kind- 
 ness ! ' which was all the more telling from its contrast 
 with the choruses which preceded and succeeded it. 
 The Litany was somewhat hybrid in character, the 
 priest's part being read and the choir's portion sung. 
 This is a pity, because the reader in this case has no 
 
AT. THE TEMPLE CHURCH. 235 
 
 sort of reason, save and' except persistent custom, for 
 adhering literally to his name, since he chants the 
 service very effectively indeed. The metrical hymns 
 sung as Introit and before the sermon were very fine. 
 They always are when a first-rate choir will condescend 
 to sing them, and why should they not ? The collection 
 of tunes used at the Temple Church is a very eclectic 
 one. The former hymn was the well-known one, ' Erect 
 your heads, eternal gates,' and the second was sung to 
 a quaint old air from the Scotch Psalter. 
 
 The Archbishop read the Ante-Communion Service in 
 a fine manly voice, almost in monotone, taking his 
 reciting note deftly from the kyrie which was still 
 Arnold in B flat. The Archbishop read in what might 
 be termed an imperceptible G, not by any means singing, 
 but still reading, so that his pitch should not jar with 
 the refrain of the choir. I noticed, too, that his Grace 
 sang thekyrie himself. 
 
 After reading a ' Bidding Prayer ' in the pulpit, which 
 my conscientious old neighbour repeated sotto voce, Dr 
 Thomson gave out as his text 1 Cor. xv. 14, 15 ; and 
 upon it preached one of the most able sermons to which 
 it has ever been my good fortune to listen. Such a 
 congregation as that at the Temple must be almost a 
 source of inspiration in itself. Whether it inspired the 
 Archbishop or not I cannot say, but I noticed that, 
 although he had a . MS. before him, he scarcely ever 
 referred to it. The sermon was, in fact, virtually an 
 extempore one. We were standing, said the preacher, 
 on that Sunday after Ascension Day, between two great 
 parts of the Christian Dispensation, the former being 
 the great supernatural facts of Christy's Incarnate life 
 recorded in the Gospel, and the second the fact of 
 Pentecost, which proved that Christianity was still a real 
 power in the world. People were prone to talk in these 
 times of ' Supernatural Religion,' as if it were possible 
 to have a religion that was not supernatural. It was 
 scarcely possible to conceive a revelation of God's will 
 that should not include miracles. In considering the 
 evidence for the acts of Christ, such as His Eesur- 
 
236 THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 
 
 recfcion and Ascension, it was not necessary to debate 
 as to whether, every word in the Bible was inspired, be- 
 cause a very small portion of it would be sufficient for 
 this purpose. , 
 
 We now, said his Grace, turn to discuss the case 
 with those who do accept the Holy Scriptures. For 
 them I now proceed to speak of — 1. The conscious 
 witness of the Apostles; 2. Their unconscious testi- 
 mony ; 3. The witness of St Paul ; 4. The connection 
 and consistency of the whole history. 
 
 1. Now of the conscious testimony of the Apostles, 
 it is only necessary to say that the Apostles began in 
 the midst of Jerusalem, within a few weeks of the 
 Crucifixion, among the very people who had seen Jesus 
 borne along to His death, and where contradiction 
 would have been easiest, to preach of Christ as one 
 whom ' God hath raised up, whereof we all are wit- 
 nesses,' and that this, the burden of the first sei-mon on 
 the day of Peitecost, was the subject of every later 
 utterance. They had no fear that in Jerusalem such a 
 notion would.be laughed to scorn; nor did they think 
 of keeping it back, in Ephesus or Corinth, as a thing 
 less interesting to those distant places, which had never 
 known Him. Belief in a risen Saviour was evidently 
 that which they expected from all their hearers alike. 
 On this point it would be a waste of time to insist ; no 
 one who looks at the New Testament even carelessly 
 can doubt it at all. 
 
 2. But the unconscious testimony of the Apostles 
 requires a few words of explanation. They saw their 
 Master taken away. They were appalled at the cruelty 
 with which men assailed his life. They knew not what 
 to think, when He allowed the wicked to prevail against 
 Him even unto death. They were scattered when He 
 was first taken ; but they watched Him still with feel- 
 ings of hope. Peter and John were not far off; but 
 the others also watched, hoping that before the con- 
 summation of the deed the power of heaven would 
 interpose. Instead of this there came Jeath. Upon 
 the Cross He hangs, that had led them and cheered them 
 
A T THE TEMPLE CHURCH. 237 
 
 with hopesj a dead man. The lips that taught them 
 are Hvid and motionless. The eye whose glance of 
 kindness they had relied on to sustain them is void of 
 speculation. The priests turned homeward content 
 with their complete victory; and the disciples have 
 nothing to console them in the completeness of their 
 defeat, except the recollection that the death was one 
 full of patience and of God. But their hopes are gOne. 
 It is useless now to speculate on the nature of His 
 kingdom ; there shall be no kingdom more. 
 
 Amazed and confounded, they cannot collect their 
 thoughts so as to form a new opinion of Him who has 
 so disappointed them. 'We trusted that it had been 
 He which should have redeemed Israel.' That is the 
 temper in which the disciples, perhaps without excep- 
 tion, enter into the eventful period between the Cruci- 
 fixion and the Ascension, known often as 'the great 
 forty days ; ' and at the end of that period they emerge 
 — brave, confident, ready to face death for their con- 
 victions, and ready to make the death of Christ, which' 
 so destroyed their hopes, the centre of their teaching 
 unto the end. Now you will confess that this change 
 was great. They had lost the hope of their life ; they 
 found it again. They had given up all attempts to 
 understand the ways of God in such a grievous blow ; 
 they understood His plan now completely. What had 
 passed in the intervening time ? The Lord Himself 
 had come back again and changed their mourniug into 
 joy. On the very day of His resurrection strange 
 reports came to them. Pious women who had loved 
 Him much had seen Him again. Two disciples, not of 
 the twelve, going wearily and heavy of heart, had been 
 joined by a stranger, who revealed Himself to them at 
 last as the Lord Himself. After an interval he appeared 
 to the eleven. One of them doubted yet : but Jesus 
 gave him special proofs. He appeared to five hundred 
 brethren at once. Enough is told us in the Gospels to 
 show that the forty days were spent in teaching them 
 to accept this momentous miracle, and it needed much 
 pains. They saw him at first with astonishment and 
 
238 THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 
 
 fear ; their very powers of knowing Him were disturbed; 
 for neither Mary nor those that went to Bmmaus recog- 
 nized Him as of old. When that short period was over, 
 all the disciples, not the Apostles only, admitted not 
 merely the fact of the Eesurrection, but had grown 
 accustomed to the proofs of it. They had seen Him 
 themselves; they knew where to find others who had 
 seen Him. Ten or more appearances are on record, but 
 there were probably more than these. Recognize well 
 the completeness of the change. The death of Jesus 
 almost overturns their reason. A month passes, and 
 they appear again, not only believing the Resurrection, 
 but having ceased to be surprised at it. 
 
 3. Now consider the testimony of St Paul. It stands 
 a'^art for several reasons. His is the only case where 
 an eye-witness tells us that he has seen Christ. 'Last 
 of all He was seen of me also as of one born out of due 
 time.' If the disciples of the Lord may be supposed to 
 be prejudiced, and to determine to find for their Master 
 some high and singular destiny, that does not apply to 
 St Paul. He was wholly without and beyond the circle 
 of Christ's influence as a teacher. He was protected 
 from that by a most fierce prejudice against the Chris- 
 tians, rooted deep in his heart along with his Pharisaic 
 zeal. The Lord appears to him on his way to Damascus, 
 and he becomes an Apostle instead of a persecutor. 
 You cannot say in his case that ' the wish was father to 
 the thought ; ' that a strong desire to see Jesus was 
 transformed into a fancy that he had seen Him. Upon 
 that very journey where he saw Him, Paul had set out 
 resolved to persecute to the death all that called on 
 Christ. He beheved that Christ Himself was beyond 
 the reach of .persecution — dead, departed. And lo ! 
 Christ met him by the way, spoke to him, and changed 
 his whole life. It is quite out of the question to say 
 that this was the result of a wish and an imagination. 
 His wishes lay the other way. Had he been the sport 
 of dreams, some vision of Moses or of Elijah would 
 have formed itself in that teeming brain, and the voice 
 that spoke to him would have said, ' Well done, faitliful 
 
AT THE TEMPLE CHURCH. 239 
 
 servant ; smite homej and consume those who are 
 changing the law of your fathers.' All attempts to 
 analyze in some natural way the fact of St Paul's con- 
 version seem to any fair mind signal failures. The 
 consequences to the Church were incalculable. To St 
 Paul, under God, we owe the foundation of all the 
 Churches in the West; that is, of all the Churches 
 wherein the faith is most active at present. To assign 
 ■ to a delusive vision of an overwrought mind an act so 
 laden with mighty consequences is contrary to all 
 analogy. No life of mere man has ever been greater 
 than his — so ardent in zeal and so calm in judgment ; 
 so heavenly in its aims and so practical in its methods ; 
 so untiring in its devotion and yet so self-possessed; 
 so full of dignity and yet so humble.' Could we have 
 known him in the flesh, how we should have respected 
 his opinion, and how his ardour would have stirred us 
 up ! To none of us would it have occurred that he had 
 set out upon his noble mission under a delusion, the 
 sport of a dream. A life, like a tree, should be judged 
 by its fruits. Out of a dream come dreams ; out of a 
 deep conviction and belief will come words and acts 
 that accord with that conviction. Never was there a 
 life lived on earth of which it would be more natural to 
 say — this man has known and seen Christ : and when 
 he tells us that so it was, no one was -ever more entitled 
 to belief. 
 
 The witness of this Apostle to the existence of 
 miracles in the first age is very remarkable. When he 
 writes to the Corinthians on the subject of the variety 
 of spiritual gifts, he mentions as a matter well known 
 to them that the gifts of doing miracles, and of speaking 
 with tongues, and of healing are there in the Corinthian 
 Church. He does not say that it is wonderful, or that 
 it is not ; he does not argue from it that Christianity is 
 true ; he mentions it as an illustration of another 
 subject, to those who know the facts as well as he does, 
 just as one of you might say that one clergyman in your 
 Church read the service more distinctly' and another 
 was the better preacher. St Paul came into the Church 
 
240 THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 
 
 late, as one bom out of due time. He had no predis- 
 position to Christian miracles; but he found them in 
 the Church, and recognized their existence. Admit 
 that the First Epistle to the Corinthians is genuine, as 
 indeed all, even the sceptical, admit that it is ; and you 
 must also admit that miracles and gifts of healing were 
 familiar as hoasehold words in the Corinthian Church. 
 
 4. Such is a sketch of the testimony on which mira- 
 cles, especially that great one of the Resurrection, seem 
 to rest. Eleven men gave themselves up to preach the 
 Gospel of the Redeemer risen. They began to preach 
 this immediately in the place where they could best be 
 refuted if the tale was false, and thousands believed them. 
 They did so because they had actually seen Christ after 
 His death ; and a great change had certainly taken place 
 in their temper and behaviour exactly at the time when 
 they said they had been seeing Christ. In less than a 
 hundred years there are bands of believers all over the 
 civilized world, worshipping the Risen Redeemer, and 
 the very foundations of society shook at their presence. 
 They rested on a miracle or upon nothing. Soon St 
 Paul was added to the list of Apostles. The miracle of 
 Christ's appearance had changed him, or else his whole 
 life and Christian activity were a delusion. That he 
 found miracles beiug wrought in the Church he treats 
 as a fact known to all. 
 
 But it is time now to take in a few words a general 
 survey of the whole argument. 
 
 We have said that the question whether miracles have 
 been wrought would depend on another — whether a 
 revelation of God had been given to man. When the man 
 of science tells us that the laws of Nature are invariable 
 and cannot be broken, we answer that this imposing 
 formula is, after all, only the sum of our experience in 
 common times, and if we decline to extend it to times 
 of God's nearer dealing with His people we are quite 
 consistent, for experience is only good for cases of the 
 same kind. ' To say that natural laws, as we have ob- 
 served them, can never be broken through is most un- 
 -scientific. When space was void, silent and dark, it 
 
AT THE TEMPLE CHURCH. 241 
 
 would be against experience that God should set spin- 
 ning therein a myriad shining worids ; but God spake 
 the word, and all the worids went forth on their course, 
 and the formula of experience must receive an enlarge- 
 ment. Every step in creation might have been opposed 
 by the same formula — ' Contrary to observation.' On 
 the rocky ball of earth it is against experience that 
 forests should wave, and the spring with throes of life 
 give forth its marvellous growth. But it came about. 
 Still it was against experience that the bird should float 
 with the cloud, and the large fish roll with the wave, and 
 the wild beast leap in the forest, but these were made. 
 Each of these accessions of experience stretched its 
 boundaries even to breaking. But experience would 
 have to accept the enlargement. I grant you that the 
 laws of nature are sure. I do not expect that they will 
 be broken or defied to-morrow or next day by any living 
 man. But the question really is, whether a revelation of 
 God to man was possible. If you say ' impossible,' then 
 you are right to cling to your view of the laws of nature. 
 But we say, on the contrary, that after the round world, 
 the kingdom of plants, the kingdom of animals, the king- 
 dom of man, came a fifth kingdom, even the kingdom 
 of God. The laws of nature are but the laws which God 
 has used for His government of the world, after all. The 
 history of creation, as far as we see it, has been a suc- 
 cession of steps, at each of which the less has had to find 
 room and to harmonize with the greater. Now comes 
 the greatest of all — Christ Himself has come, and God's 
 laws must harmonize with the acts of the Son of God : 
 we need not be careful for their observance. Yes, you 
 reply ; but is it the greatest of all ? Is it more than a 
 natural development of man's history ? Is it in the true 
 sense a revelation ? We have come to the place where 
 the two ways separate. Have we indeed received a re- 
 velation ? All seems to turn on this. 
 
 Why, then, was there such difBculty attending belief 
 in this testimony ? ' I am not here to rail at science,' 
 said Dr Thomson, ' but a right conception of science 
 should find room for new truths. We are told that the 
 
 16 
 
242 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 laws of nature are inviolable, and that miracles are vio- 
 lations of these laws. But that formula is only a sum- 
 ming-up of our experience in common times/' It would 
 not, for instance, cover the act of creation. There was 
 a time when all was chaos, and (had there been any to 
 observe) it would have been ' contrary to experience ' for 
 God to set spinning those myriads of shining worlds. 
 The formula would have to be enlarged. So, too, at 
 every stage of creation — when the rocky ball was clothed 
 with forests — when birds floated in the clouds, fish in 
 the waves, and wild beasts roamed the forest — aU were 
 contrary to experience. Bach concession to experience 
 had to be extended. The laws of nature were sure. It 
 was not likely that one of them would be broken to- 
 morrow ; but the question was whether revelation was 
 possible. If you say it is impossible, then the formula 
 stands. But after all the kingdoms of creation there 
 came another kingdom — the kingdom of God ; and in 
 every case the less had to make room for the greater. 
 
 Is it a revelation ? The question was one of more 
 than mere logic. From the great past we turned to the 
 future. Pentecost was a new miracle. The Lord's 
 Spirit came back to work in the world. When Ignatius, 
 before the Church was a century old, was asked why he 
 called himself Theophoros, he answered, because he bore 
 in his heart the Lord Christ. His judges were surprised, 
 and asked, in ridicule, how he could bear the Crucified 
 in his heart ; but it was a true answer. ' I do not under- 
 stand,' said the Archbishop in conclusion — and we were 
 all sorry to hear him say so after glancing at his watch 
 — ' how any one, looking at the history of Christianity, 
 can doubt whether it is the work of God in the world. 
 If you do — if you doubt the things that are without — go 
 to the Throne of Grace, kneel and ask God's Spirit that 
 you may become a Theophoros, and your critical doubts 
 about religion wiU disappear. Christ will send back 
 His life into your heart. You will/eeZ it. The bulk of 
 the argument may sometimes seem against you ; but 
 (you will be ready to exclaim) as I cannot, whatever the 
 metaphysicians may say, deny the existence of my will. 
 
BISHOP OF LONDON AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 243 
 
 or of matter, so neither can I deny that Christ is my 
 Lord. I have dealt with Him. I have spoken to Him. 
 I have not only seen Him in the history of the Past, 
 but I know Him in myself, and cannot doubt that He is 
 my Lord and my God.^ 
 
 ' A very able sermon, sir,' said my good old hassopro- 
 fondo friend, as I was brushing my hat previous to de- 
 parture. ' I shouldn't like to have to tackle Archbishop 
 Thomson on the scientific side of Christianity.' And I 
 thought my hasso profondo neighbour was perfectly 
 right. 
 
 THE BISHOP OF LONDON AT SOUTH 
 KENSINGTON. 
 
 IN no quarter of the metropolis is the growth of 
 modern London more evident than in that portion of 
 the Old Court suburb which surrounds the site where, 
 from time to time, international exhibitions have formed 
 the centre of attraction. Exhibitions may come and 
 exhibitions may go, but the Old Court suburb goes on 
 for ever increasing. South Kensington is a fashionable 
 but an eminently church-going neighbourhood, and, 
 despite a more than usually wet Sunday morning, a 
 very fair congregation assembled at St Stephen's 
 church to hear the Bishop of the diocese plead the 
 cause of the National Society. St Stephen's is one of 
 the many churches which grew up under the late Arch- 
 deacon Sinclair's auspices, and were familiarly termed 
 ten thousand-pounders, that being about the qualifica- 
 tion which was required to enable a clergyman to 
 acquire the incumbency. The church reflects very 
 fairly the culture and refinement of the neighbourhood. 
 It is a handsome Gothic structure, the east end being 
 pierced with three lancet windows representing St Paul 
 
244 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and St John on each side, with the patron St Stephen 
 in the centre. Above these there is a somewhat florid 
 Catherine-wheel window representing Christ walking 
 on the water. The lower part of the walls is diapered, 
 and rather resembles what is popularly known as Tun- 
 bridge ware. The choir is a surpliced one, and the 
 service is monotoned by the clergy. The incumbent, 
 the Rev. J. P. Waldo, took the prayers very musically 
 on the occasion of my visit. The choir is very efficient 
 indeed ; and I noticed that the chief effort seemed 
 centred — appropriately, as it struck me — on the Jubilate 
 as a climax. A, boy, who sang a soprano solo in this 
 canticle, had a reallyjmagnificent voice. The service 
 used was that for the 20th of June ; and it was quite 
 amusing to notice the despair of the congregation when 
 they got lost at the Venite. I believe they thought it 
 was a special service for the Bishop. The hymns used 
 at this church are from the collection called ' Church 
 Hymns,' and I especially noted the beautiful one 
 numbered 484, ' Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven.' 
 The Bishop read the Ante-Communion Service very 
 solemnly indeed. I noticed that he did not read, but 
 recited the commandments. His lordship got into a 
 difficulty in this way at the Nicene Cre^d, as he merged 
 into the Apostles' Creed at the end, and had to be set 
 right by the choir. There was no Litany, and the 
 sermon followed immediately on the Nicene Creed, 
 without the interpolation of any hymn. This abridged 
 the service very judiciously. The Bishop took as his 
 text 2 Timothy iii. 15, ' From a child thou hast known 
 the Holy Scriptures,' &c., and proceeded to show how 
 this applied to young Timothy himself -in the case of 
 the Jewish Scriptures read to him by his mother and 
 grandmother, and afterwards more fully explained by 
 St Paul himself. He was simply to continue in this 
 faith in the perilous times in which his lot fell. Human 
 nature was the same at all times. Our Scriptures were 
 the same as those learnt by Timothy at his mother's 
 knee, and it was not easy to assess the value of a 
 Scriptural education. That would be a subject in keep- 
 
BISHOP OF LONDON AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 245 
 
 ing with the claim he had to make, no lesa than with 
 the loyal thoughts inspired by the anniversary of the 
 Queen's Accession. First, the Bishop said, he would 
 speak of the apparent disadvantages and dangers of 
 such an education. The mind by early familiarity lost 
 sometimes its interest in sacred subjects. All came as 
 a mere matter of course, and motives were apt to be 
 slackened in consequence, but this fact should only lead 
 to more earnest self-examination. Practise the truths 
 of the Bible, and so you will keep them vital. And 
 the advantages were far. greater than the dangers. 
 Th6se dangers attended all God's gifts. The early 
 acquaintance with the Bible was — to take the lowest of 
 all grounds — a means of mental culture. Education 
 should draw out all the faculties, the moral as well as 
 the intellectual powers. The Greek epics had been 
 imperfect methods in ancient times ; so had the study 
 of the classics proved in modern days. To the great 
 mass of people the Bible was the means of culture. 
 Even apart from its Divine origin, it was most univers- 
 ally applicable for drawing out the various faculties of 
 man, and that not only in the lower but the higher 
 strata of society as well. Nothing so induced the upper 
 classes to think and feel right as the Bible. Even 
 bouiiding our view by the present life, he who best 
 knew the Holy Scriptures was most 'thoroughly, fur- 
 nished unto all good works.' But to pass on to holier 
 ground. What, the Bishop asked, was this life but an 
 education for eternity ? Up to the time of death the 
 man had to be always learning, and, besides this inner 
 teaching, the Church had her school for baptized souls. 
 Besides her daily prayers, her frequent sacraments, and 
 the too much neglected method of catechizing, there 
 was the ordinance of preaching. The baptized person 
 was to ' hear sermons.' The value, of this method of 
 instruction would not be known until the Last Day. 
 People sometimes wondered why the results were not 
 larger ; why, when sermons were preached from 20,000 
 pulpits, people listened so languidly. The fault was 
 said to be in the clergy, because one man could not 
 
246 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 combine the gifts of Pearson and Jeremy Taylor witli 
 those of modern literature and science. He did not 
 undervalue such gifts, but he recollected how, in the 
 days of Greek science and Jewish learning, God saved 
 man by the foolishness of preaching. Surely another 
 cause of non-success was the unpreparedness of the 
 soil. This must be the case unless the persons had 
 from childhood known the Holy Scriptures. Again, 
 early acquaintance with the Bible was the best method 
 against some of the phases of modern infidelity. Some 
 phases, indeed, rested on the minutiae of criticism ; but 
 most of them appealed to ignorance. The arguments 
 fell dead and pointless when confronted with Holy 
 Scripture. Many an infidel tract was quietly put aside 
 by an artisan who, from a child, had known the Holy 
 Scriptures, and so saw the fallacies of infidel arguments. 
 It was easy, of course, to controvert the position that 
 Holy Scripture made people wise unto salvation. 
 Thousands who were baptized and taught in the Church 
 schools showed no signs of such wisdom. These were 
 in truth results which saddened one, but they were the 
 ordinary issue of the struggle of good against free-will 
 in a corrupt world. Even when Christ Himself taught, 
 disciples were few, and churches only like oases in the 
 desert of ungodliness. On the other hand, many did 
 show- good results, and all this was clear gain. Texts 
 learnt at a mother's knee, or in the Church school, 
 became a part of self. Men and women learnt to live 
 and die by them. How many did so we could not tell, 
 foT piety was often content to dwell in the shade. We 
 should know at the Judgment Day. Even when the 
 good seed seemed to have struck no root, the tillage 
 was not always lost. Often the heavenly wisdom was 
 only latent, waiting for some son'ow or suffering to 
 waken it into life. Once more : early acquaintance with 
 Scripture stored the mind with notions ready for all 
 emergencies. It was a resource in times of doubt and 
 despondency. In temptation it supplied the very weapon 
 wielded by Christ when He was tempted. It had a 
 soothing power in afliction. And here his lordship 
 
BISHOP OF LONDON AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 247 
 
 told, most pertinently and pathetically, an anecdote of 
 one he had known, who for two days was deprived of 
 the power of speech and motion, and the bystanders 
 spoke of her as unconscious ; but the senses were acute 
 though the will was impotent. While she lay thus every 
 text she had learnt passed through her mind like links 
 in a chain. Through these two strange days of seclusion 
 they were her only comfort, and she lived to tell the 
 secret of the unearthly solace, and to express her grati- 
 tude for the early lessons which had supplied it. How 
 many felt this, but died without being able to tell us ? 
 The familiar words of Scripture blended imperceptibly 
 in their case with the choruses of angels. On this the 
 Bishop based his claims for a society to which hundreds 
 of thousands owed their acquaintance with Scripture. 
 It was difficult in these days of School Boards to realize 
 the condition of things fifty-five years ago, when the 
 National Society came into existence, Many good 
 people then doubted whether it was well that the lower 
 classes should be educated. But the great work which 
 the Society did was to struggle against the exclusion of 
 religious education. Other bodies within and without 
 the Church had done the same, but the National Society 
 was the greatest educational agent of the nineteenth 
 century; now, when education was a function of the 
 State, the society's work was still important. By Church 
 schools being built and aided, the necessity for Board 
 Schools was done away with. He counselled managers 
 of Church schools not to hand over their schools to the 
 Board in a panic, which, two years hence, they would 
 see was needless. His lordship concluded by detailing 
 the work of training teachers and inspecting schools, 
 which, he said, constituted a claim on behalf of this 
 Society for every one who held the truth of the text. 
 
248 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 THE BISHOP OP BATH AND WELLS AT 
 ST PAUL'S. 
 
 ONE can scarcely imagine a more characteristic sight 
 than the interior of Wren's Metropolitan Cathedral 
 filled with a week-day afternoon congregation. The- 
 roar of the great city outside forms the most complete 
 contrast to the quietijde that pervades the sacred 
 building, and we are pretty sure that those who gather 
 there have their hearts in the work they are doing. 
 Of course there are a few countiy_ cousins who have 
 come to see the cathedral, as in duty bound, and who 
 adapt themselves to circumstances by waiting until 
 the service is over to recommence their pilgrimage 
 among the monuments, but they are, for the most part, 
 reverent and patient, even if not enthusiastic wor- 
 shippers. There seemed a larger sprinkling of them 
 than usual when I wenb one afternoon in early spring 
 to hear Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, plead the cause of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society. 
 
 For some reason or other, known only to the in- 
 scrutable mind of a verger, the choir of the cathedral 
 and the front rows of the seats under the dome were 
 rigidly guarded against occupancy. ' Have you a card, 
 sir ? ' said a grim official to me as I prepared to pass 
 to the front. I was fain to confess I had not, and 
 down went the silver-gilt mace to oppose my entrance, 
 quite unnecessarily, for I retired unresistingly to the 
 back seats, and the ' reserved ' ones were, as a fact, 
 only partially occupied during the entire proceedings. 
 
 Just before four o'clock the organ sounded forth a 
 sweet voluntary, and one of those queer Protestant 
 processions that always look so funny dribbled in 
 
BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS AT ST PAUL'S. 249 
 
 from the vestry to the choir. The officiating clergy- 
 took their places in the choir stalls, and the service 
 was very efficiently performed^ the only drawback 
 being the lessons which were read from a lectern close 
 to the jealously guarded seats, but so as to be quite 
 inaudible, except in that advanced position, where 
 there was scarcely anybody to listen to them. I do 
 not know whether I am wrong, but it seemed to me as 
 though the clergyman who read them hardly exerted 
 himself as he might have done, for he had a strong 
 voice; but I might have suffered from my position. 
 The intonation of the prayers, as well as the rendering 
 of the anthem and of two metrical hymns which were 
 introduced into the service, struck me as a great im- 
 provement on what I could recollect of old St PauFs 
 experiences. It was a thorough type of the Anglican 
 cathedral service, and the preacher, an equally typical 
 Anglican bishop, passed to the pulpit under the dome, 
 and delivered an excellent sermoii in a voice audible to 
 the furthest limits of his large congregation on the text 
 Luke iii. 2, ' The Word of God.' 
 
 This is a phrase, said the Bishop, very freely scat- 
 tered through the pages of the Bible. We find it in 
 the Old Testament, and we find it in the New Tes- 
 tament. The prophet Isaiah has somewhat to say 
 to the people, and he prefaces it by, ' Hear the Word 
 of the Lord^ (i. 10). Jeremiah tells us again and 
 again ' The Word of the Lord came unto me ; ' the 
 Word of the Lord came unto Bzekiel ; the Word of 
 the Lord came unto Hosea; the Word of the Lord 
 came unto Jonah ; the Word of the Lord came to 
 Micah ; it came to Zephaniah, it came to Haggai, it 
 came to Zechariah; and it was in the mouth of 
 Malachi. Four hundred' years and upwards pass 
 away, and the Word of God came to John in the 
 Wilderness; and yet, a few months, and One stood 
 preaching on the shores of the lake of Gennesaret ; 
 and we are told that the people pressed upon Him to 
 hear the Word of God from His mouth. What is 
 this Word of God which thus found its way among 
 
250 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 men through so many centuries ? How came it here ? 
 What is its mission and its meaning ? Is it any longer 
 heard among us ? Do we need it in these days of 
 widespread knowledge and advanced civilization ? 
 These and a hundred other like inquiries naturally 
 crowd upon the human mind when it sets .itself to 
 think about the Word of God. 
 
 When the idea ' The Word of God ' first presents 
 itself to the mind, its reception, of course, depends 
 upon the state of the mind to which it is so presented. 
 
 (1) One state of the human mind I will characterize 
 as the independent or self-sufficient state. Such a 
 mind looks upon itself as having at its own command 
 powers sufficient to cope with all the difficulties, and 
 to meet all the demands that it will encounter through 
 life. For all matters of conduct it relies upon its own 
 virtue, on its own strength of will, on its own wisdom, 
 prudence, and sagacity, upon its own ability to refuse 
 the evil and to choose the good, for all matters of 
 knowledge it relies upon its own intellectual resources. 
 It has power to decipher the pages of the Book of 
 Nature ; it can penetrate the depths of physical science ; 
 it can track its way through the intricate windings of 
 metaphysics; it can acquaint itself with the natural 
 history of man ; it can master the science of language ; 
 it can expatiate in the fair fields of art and letters ; it 
 can improve the economy of human society, and can 
 tend continually towards perfection in the great busi- 
 ness of civil and political life. In a word, it is self- 
 sufficient within that circle by which its aims and 
 energies are bounded, and scorns to be beholden to 
 external help for that which it thinks itself competent 
 to supply to itself. To a mind in this independent 
 state the Word of God, with its claim for absolute sub- 
 mission and obedience, comes as an unwelcome intruder 
 and usurper, and such an one is ready to ask, with 
 Pharaoh, ' Who is the Lord, that I should obey His 
 voice ? ' 
 
 (2) But there is another state of the human mind 
 which I will characterize as the dependent or non- 
 
BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS AT ST PAUL'S. 251 
 
 self-sufficient state. And this dependency arises not 
 from any deficiency in mental or moral power, as com- 
 pared with the other state of mind which we have just 
 been considering, hut, on the contrary, from a far 
 wider, deeper, and juster range of thought moving in 
 a far larger circle of truth. I will indicate what I 
 mean in as few words as possible. A mind, such as 
 we are now speaking of, feels intuitively that as it is 
 not self-existent, it cannot be self-sufficient. As it 
 derives its being from God, the self-existiDg, so it must, 
 in the very nature of things, depend upon God. And 
 as its thoughts embrace the eternal future, and its own 
 powers at best extend only to the brief present, so 
 must it needs depend for that future upon One who is 
 Eternal, One thai was, and is, and is to come. But it 
 notices further that even in secular and present things 
 there is constant evidence of the Providence of an 
 unseen Will, and the working of an unseen Power : 
 that man is not master, even in the narrow range of his 
 own dominion; that the wisest schemes fail ; the most 
 deep-laid plans are frustrated; the most sober hopes 
 are disappointed ; the highest worldly wisdom is turned 
 to folly. Therefore independence and self-sufficifency 
 are not the proper attributes of man. 
 
 But further still, such a mind as we are now speak- 
 ing of deals with its own moral condition as something 
 unspeakably more important than the truths of science, 
 or the whole range of secular knowledge. To be holy 
 as God is Holy : to be really pure in heart ; pure in 
 thought ; pure in aim, pure in motive, pure in Ibllow- 
 ing out the motives; pure in the midst of impurity, 
 unspotted from the world ; to attain all the moral per- 
 fection of which man's nature is capable, and entire 
 freedom from the bondage of sin in all its kinds and 
 degrees, such one feels to be the great task to which 
 he ought daily and hourly to set himself. And he has 
 a very keen sense that the first and highest of his 
 duties as a man is his duty to God ; a duty not to be 
 paid by any mere outward bodily service ; but to be 
 rendered only in perfect lov.e, in the spiritual worship 
 
252 . ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of the heart, in the entire obedience and consecration 
 of the whole inner man, and the conformity of .the will 
 to the will of God. And he knows that every depart- 
 ure, every falling short from this spiritual obedience 
 of love, is sin.' But when he aims at that purity of 
 heart and that moral perfection which he admires and 
 desires, when he strives to i-ender to God the service 
 of perfect love which he knows is His due, he is con- 
 scious at every step of sjiameful failure and incapacity, 
 and inexcusable short-comings. Where then is in- 
 dependence and self-suflBciency ? But that is not all. 
 Failure of duty is sin, and conscience winces under a 
 sense of sin. Reason is bewildered under a conscious- 
 ness of sin. What is the penalty of sin ? What are 
 the relations of a sinful man to the Holy Almighty God ? 
 What is the sinner's future ? How can sin be undone 
 and taken away ? Will there ever be the opportunity 
 or the power of paying the unpaid debts to God ? Can 
 there be a recoveiy of righteousness to those who have 
 lost it, or is it gone for ever ? Such questions crowd 
 upon the mind, but reason is dumb to answer them. 
 It may guess and flounder in hopes and conjectures, it 
 cannot satisfy the terrible doubt. Where is there room 
 for independence and self-sufficiency in the mind that 
 is busied with such thoughts ? There is none. But 
 now if the Word of God comes to such a mind with its 
 resolution of every doubt, with its revelation of the 
 mind and will of God, with its glorious discovery of 
 the riches of God's grace in Jesus Christ, with the 
 doctrine of the Cross and the atoning Blood, and the 
 all-sufficient sacrifice for sin, and the Resurrection and 
 the Judgment, and the Eternal Kingdom ; if the Word 
 of God comes with its promise of the Holy Spirit, to 
 write God's blessed laws in the fleshy tables of the 
 heart, and to give power to perform what the Word of 
 God commands ; if the Word of God comes with its 
 explanation of the mystery of evil, and its disentangle- 
 ment of the perplexed and tangled skein which has 
 baffled all the reason of mankind in their attempts to 
 explain it, then with what joy will that Word of God 
 
BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS AT ST PAUL'S. 253 
 
 be received, what a welcome will it meet with in the 
 secret chambers of the heart ! 
 
 And, my brethren, it is thus that the Word of God 
 finds us, and we are dependent upon that Word. Just 
 as our earth with all its admirable apparatus, its soil 
 teeming with herb and tree, its varieties of animal life 
 in man and beast, its infinite resources, its stores and 
 heaps of things useful and pleasant, its grand machinery 
 of human society, its nations and states, its cities and 
 governments, its land and sea, its mountains and its 
 mines, its fire and water, yet could not exist an hour 
 vnthout the distant sun to shine upon it, and hold it in 
 its place by gravitation ; so it is that all the excellences 
 of our human nature, rate them ever so high, must 
 utterly fail of accomplishing their end without the 
 mighty aid of the Word of God. And God has given 
 us His Word. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable 
 gift! 
 
 But what do we mean by the Word of God ? We 
 mean the communication to us of the mind of God. In 
 the mind of God there is knowledge, and there is a will, 
 and there are purposes, and decrees, and counsels, and 
 laws of procedure. And who can guess the infinity of 
 these ! They have relations to all time, to all space, 
 and to all creatures that ar6, or have been, or shall be. 
 But a portion of them relates to us men. A portion of 
 them it is essential to our happiness, and our well- 
 being, and our fulfilment of the end of our existence 
 that we should know, and so God speaks to us, and 
 by His Word reveals these things to us. Exactly as 
 the word of man is the medium of communication be- 
 tween mind and mind, so is the Word of God the in- 
 strument by which God communicates His mind to man ; 
 and if we ask how came the Word of God among us, 
 we have only to turn to the pages of Holy Scripture to 
 learn. There we read how God spake to man, some- 
 times by visions of the night, sometimes by Urim and 
 Thummim, and oftener still by His holy prophets, to 
 whom the Word of the Lord came. But in all these 
 cases, and in all these instruments, there was the com- 
 
254 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 munication of tte mind of God to man. Last of all, God 
 spake to us by His Son, the brightness of His glory, 
 and the express image of His person, in whom dwelt 
 all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, whose every Word 
 was the Word of God, and whose whole life and death 
 and resurrection from the dead was the full revelation • 
 of the mind of God to man. And what is its mission to 
 us ? It is like the mission of the sun to dispel darkness, 
 to gladden the face of nature, to diffuse light and heat, 
 to stimulate all the latent powfers of life and growth, to 
 fertilize the earth's bosom, and to make life joyous. 
 There are regions of the earth where darkness and 
 death prevail through the long winter months of gloom, 
 where life cannot be sustained, where the earth yields no 
 produce, where the shriek of the wild bird is not heard, 
 where ice-bound hardness locks up everything in its 
 stern embrace, because the bright warm sun shines not 
 upon them. Even so it is the mission of the Word of 
 God to come amongst us, and to gladden our hearts with 
 the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, to shine upon 
 our sin-bound hearts and to awaken spiritual life and 
 stimulate spiritual growth, to cause the light of promise 
 and sure hope to shine upon our path, to turn human 
 society into a fellowship of loving brethren, to make our 
 natural powers of mind and all our natural energies and 
 affections minister to each other's comfort, instead of 
 being employed in each other's hurt. And, brethren, 
 let me add, that however much of this blessed mission 
 of the Word of God has been hindered and frustrated 
 by the wickedness and unbelief of man, yet even the 
 heathen world is witness, and this great metropolis is 
 witness, that its mission is not in vain. There are those, 
 blessed be God, and not a few, who, in obedience to the 
 Word of God, and under its holy influence, are living, 
 not for themselves, but for Christ and their brethren, 
 who seek out ignorance, want, and sorrow, to apply the 
 remedies to such misfortunes, and whose own souls are 
 gladdened by the sunbeams of God's love. The heathen 
 world and the dark courts and alleys of our half-heathen 
 cities, as well as our country villages, bear witness that 
 
BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS AT ST PAUL'S. 255 
 
 the Word of God is still heard amongst us, because we 
 daily see or hear of some turning from darkness to light, 
 in obedience to that Word, putting off the old man, 
 which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and 
 putting on the new man, which, after God, is created in 
 righteousness and true holiness ; and for farther proof 
 that we require the Word of God now, in spite of all our 
 boasted knowledge and civilization, as much as ever we 
 did, we need only turn to the dark pages of our own 
 infidel writers, the apostles of annihilation, on the one 
 hand, and the superstitions which are the teaching of the 
 word of man, on the other. Nothing is more instructive 
 as to the paramount value of the Word of God than to 
 observe, on the one hand, the utter darkness into which 
 the most gifted minds fall when they reject tht^ wisdom 
 of the Scriptures, and the utter insufficiency of the 
 loftiest infidel teaching for the personal or social wants 
 of mankind ; and, on the other, to notice how invariably, 
 as soon as ever the Word of God is lowered from its 
 supremacy as the sole fountain of religious truth, 
 human truth, though professing to be religious, de- 
 generates into corruption and error. 
 
 Whether then we consider our own and other lands 
 where human learning and civilization are at their 
 height, or whether we think of those nations where the 
 blight of Heathenism or Mahometan imposture still rests 
 upon the nations, we see that there is just the same need 
 for the Word of God to be proclaimed aloud, as there 
 was in the days of the Hebrew Prophets, or when Jesus 
 of Nazareth preached the Word with His own blessed 
 lips. 
 
 How truly wonderful it is that the providence of God 
 has pi-ovided for the continuance of His Word among 
 us ages and ages after the cessation of prophecy, and 
 the withdrawal of fresh inspired teaching from among 
 us ! As long as the Church of God was shut up within 
 the four walls of the courts of the Jewish dispensation, 
 it sufiioed that the Word of God should come to the 
 prophet of the day and be communicated by his mouth 
 to the people. Samuel and Elijah and Elisha^ and Isaiah 
 
256 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and Jeremiah, and Daniel, delivered their sacred mes- 
 sages, and they ran through the land of Israel, and it 
 sufficed. And the same favoured land was filled with 
 the yet richer tones of the everlasting Gospel when the 
 incarnate Son of God dwelt amongst men, and the Word 
 of God distilled like dew from His gracious lips, and 
 from the lips of His Apostles. But when the tabernacle 
 of the Church was stretched so as to take in all lands 
 under its widespread curtains ; when God's Word was 
 to be made known to three or four hundred different 
 nations, speaking different languages, and dwelling in 
 remote and opposite quarters of the world, it is obvious 
 that some different machinery was required. Well, 
 then, during some 4000 years not only did the Spirit 
 of God speak from time to time (rarely at first, much 
 more frequently later on), but during all that time God's 
 providence took care that such portions of that spoken 
 Word as seemed good to Him, should be gathered up 
 and carefully laid by in the sacred treasury of -the Book, 
 for the use of future ages, and generations of believers 
 yet unborn. What God spake to Moses, what He spake 
 to Samuel, what He spake by the mouth of David and 
 all the Prophets, was gathered up into the Book. The 
 people to whom the word was spoHen, so God ordered 
 it, was a writing people ; their sons were Scribes : and 
 so God's words were gathered up and written; written 
 as with a pen of iron in the eternal rock, not to be blotted 
 out for ever. The Prophets died, David saw corruption, 
 Israel was carried into captivity, Jerusalem was made a 
 heap of ashes ; dynasties were swept away by War and 
 Revolution; the Hebrew tongue passed away from 
 among the living languages of mankind; but the Word 
 of God once spoken, and then engraved in written 
 characters, has survived all the crash of empires, has 
 lived through all the storms and tempests of time and 
 change, and remains in its integrity to this very hour. 
 And I can scarcely conceive a more striking effect of 
 the special providence of God providing for the wants, 
 of His Church to the end of time than this formation 
 first and then preservation of the volume of the Old 
 
BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS AT ST PAUL'S. 257 
 
 Testament. Its careful writing in those remote and 
 darksome ages; its translation into the Greek language 
 just at the time when Greek was becoming the language 
 of the civilized world, and then its perfectionment and 
 completion by the addition of the New Testament, with 
 its fuller revelations, its glorious interpretations and 
 culminating chapters of the Love and G-race of God in 
 Jesus Christ, now fully brought to light, is such a 
 standing miracle of Divine prescience as seems to set 
 God visibly amongst us, holding out to us His written 
 Word for our grateful acceptance. And the result is 
 this — that whereas the supply of prophets, always very 
 limited, has wholly ceased, the volume which contains 
 the trusty record of the pure and undefiled Word of 
 God can now be multiplied to any extent. In point of 
 fact the Bible Society has distributed between seventy 
 and eighty million copies of Holy Scripture since its 
 foundation, and in upwards of two hundred languages. 
 The art of printing has come in as a supplemental act 
 of the Providence that fails not. And see how this 
 works. Of old the Word of God came to the Prophet 
 or the Apostle, and they proclaimed it with their own. 
 lips as the Spirit gave them utterance. But now, though 
 this inspiration has ceased, the living teachers and 
 ministers of the Church have their common treasury to 
 draw from, and are sure when they speak in accordance 
 with Holy Scripture that they are preaching this very 
 Word of God. The Scriptures are the Church's well 
 from which she ever draws, in all their freshness and 
 purity, the living waters of truth and salvation. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to show you, my brethren, 
 the need that we men have of the Word of God, and the 
 unspeakable blessing it is to us, and the wonders of that 
 gracious Providence which has so marvellously supplied 
 us with it. I should like, in conclusion, to say a few 
 words about the Bible Society. 
 
 If I have in any degree succeeded in placing before 
 your minds the Word of God in its relations to human 
 wants, and our own possession of that Word as a signal 
 result of God's prescient care for His Church and for 
 
 17 
 
258 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 mankind, and if you feel with me that the possession of 
 a great power and opportunity for good is equivalent to 
 a Divine call to do that good, I shall not need to press 
 upon you the conclusion that the Bible Society has a 
 claim upon your support; I see in my mind's eye the 
 three hundred nations and tribes of the earth in all their 
 various stages of civilization, in all their varieties of 
 clime and colour and knowledge and government. I 
 seem to hear their discordant accents and manifold 
 tongues and dialects, the polished tongues of the East, 
 the rude jargon of Laps and Finns, the guttural utter- 
 ances of Celts, the soft dialect of the South Seas. As I 
 look, there arises in the midst of them a fair figure, 
 crowned with charity, girt with knowledge, and clothed 
 with Christian faith. A great chest is at her feet, which 
 she unlocks and opens, and from which she draws forth 
 countless volumes of great price. Without distinction 
 of race or creed, of barbarians, Scythians, bond or free, 
 she freely distributes them to all the nations and peoples 
 around her. And as each opens the book he has re- 
 ceived, he finds it is a copy of the ' Word of God ' 
 written in his native tongue wherein he was bom. 
 And as I watch those who receive this precious boon — 
 whether the process takes years or centuries matters 
 not — I see a gradual and most blessed change. It is 
 like the morning mist dispersing before the sun. The 
 knowledge of the truth takes the place of ignorance, 
 superstition, and error. The savage warrior glorying in 
 bloodshed becomes the tender-hearted brother loving 
 his neighbour as himself. Oppression and cruelty yield 
 to justice and mercy. Christian civilization springs up 
 in the barren wilderness. Human nature, with its 
 wonderful gifts and powers, is directed to its true end. 
 The Word of God has done its work, and has leavened 
 humanity with the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Such an image represents, I believe, fairly, the work 
 of the Bible Society. Nothing can be more simple than 
 its design. Seeing that the Word of Grod in Holy 
 Scripture is needful alike for teachers and for taught, 
 seeing that it is God's great gift to man, seeing with 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELY ON CHURCH MUSIC. 259 
 
 what care God has preserved it for man's use through 
 many centuries, seeing what an injury is done to men 
 when the Scriptures are hidden and unknown, and 
 what an immense blessing was bestowed upon England 
 when at the Reformation the Bible was unchained, and 
 given freely to the people. It seeks simply to bring 
 the Bible within the reach, not of our own people only, 
 but of every nation and language on the face of the 
 whole earth. At the bidding of charity it places all the 
 resom'ces of learning at the disposition of faith, and 
 makes the wonders of modern art subservient to the 
 distribution of the Word of God. 
 
 May this metropolis of the wealth and commerce of 
 the world not be wanting in her part in so great a work, 
 and may this Cathedral church, the centre of the Chris- 
 tian life of England, which has witnessed such great 
 vicissitudes of truth and error, be among the foremost 
 to help it forward ; and may Almighty God bless the 
 endeavour to honour and diffuse His Word, for our Lord 
 Jesus Christ's sake. 
 
 THE BISHOP OP ELY ON CHUECH MUSIC. 
 
 FACING Kensington Gardens, and seeming to stand 
 amid a very city of palaces, is Christ Church, Lan- 
 caster Gate ; and time was when, under the auspices of 
 Mr Frederick Archer, now organist of the Alexandra 
 Palace, Christ Church had one of the finest choirs and 
 heartiest services in suburban London. Consequently 
 the announcement that Dr Woodford, the Bishop of Ely, 
 would preach on behalf of the choir on the First Sunday 
 after Trinity had a double attraction for me, as I thought 
 I should renew acquaintance with the choir, and hear 
 one of the most eloquent prelates on the Bench. The 
 
26o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 hawthorn was only just beginning to fade, and the 
 laburnum to lose its early spring-tide loveliness, when I 
 passed amid the umbrage of Kensington Gardens, and 
 realized to the full the truth of Mr Disraeli's remark, that 
 no city in the world has such gardens on its outskirts as 
 London. 
 
 When I gained the vestry of Christ Church — half an 
 hour before service- time — I am sorry to say I experienced 
 one of those bits of, not exactly discourtesy, but brusqvs- 
 rie, that we scarcely expect in the Church of England, 
 though we are not surprised to meet with it from the 
 representative of some little unmannerly sect. I had 
 taken the precaution of sending, the day before, a special 
 messenger to the incumbent of Christ Church, the Rev. 
 Richard Wood, saying that I was about to write an 
 account of his choir, and should be obliged for any in- 
 formation he could give me. He sent a verbal message, 
 saying he would arrange with the organist. To my sur- 
 prise, then, when I went to the vestry, he said, ' I can- 
 not take any steps in the matter. My choir is entirely 
 altered. We only do a plain service.' He added, partly 
 in his words, and still more by his manner, sundry reflec- 
 tions anything but complimentary to the Fourth Estate. 
 Then he said, ' If you are going to report the Bishop's 
 sermon, please sit where he can't see you.' I mentioned 
 that I had taken down many bishops' sermons already, 
 and received every aid from their lordships j whereupon 
 Mr Wood said, with the most charming innocence, 'I 
 should think they must find it very disagreeable to have 
 their sermons taken down. I know I should.' There 
 are, possibly, special reasons why Mr Wood should object 
 to having his sermons reported, but these have no sort 
 of application to the Bishop of Ely. However, our con- 
 versation was interrupted by the arrival of his lordship, 
 followed by a footman with his canonicals ; so I retired, 
 and a sly old pew-opener, who knew me from having seen 
 me officiate at Christ Church, put me well in front ; but 
 I cannot say the Bishop of Ely seemed at all discon- 
 certed by my occasionally jotting down a note of one of 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELY ON CHURCH MUSIC. 261 
 
 the most masterly sermons it was ever my good fortune 
 to hear. 
 
 But tirst for the service, which seemed scarcely to have 
 degenerated so much as I had expected. The opening 
 voluntary was the ' Preghiera ' from ' Mose in Egitto,' 
 and during its performance a large surpliced choir took 
 their places. I never could discover whether the prayers 
 at Christ Church were read or monotoned. The curate, 
 who has been there from time immemorial, has a musical 
 voice, and reads mostly on a single note, varying pro- 
 ceedings by occasionally dropping about a third when 
 you least expect it. As Tallis's responses were sung, 
 and the choral portion of the services recited on Gr, the 
 effect of this was hybrid and grotesque in the extreme, 
 and was the more unfortunate as the curate has a magni- 
 ficent reading voice. His delivery of the narrative of 
 crossing the Jordan, and of the closing in of Christ^ s 
 Life, which formed respectively the First and Second 
 Lessons, was very eloquent indeed. The Venite was 
 sung to a single, the Psalms — for the 30th day — to ap- 
 propriate double Anglican chants. The boys recited too 
 fast to be quite distinct in their articulation ; but the 
 singing was very much above par, and I still failed to 
 notice the degeneracy the incumbent asserted. The Te 
 Deum was in like manner set to three Anglican chants, 
 which modulated very happily at the diflFerent portions 
 of the Canticle. I could scarcely help smiling to notice 
 the different attitudes of the three officiating clergymen 
 during the Creed. The curate and choir turned to the 
 east ; the Bishop, who was at the north side of the Com- 
 munion Table stood about three-quarters round j but the 
 incumbent faced due north, as if he had been bound for 
 the Arctic regions. During the Lessons I noticed that 
 he seemed to tuck the whole of his surplice behind him, 
 and left his legs exposed to view as he lolled in his cozy 
 arm-chair. There was no Anthem or Litany, and the 
 prayers after the Third Collect were considerably 
 abridged, so that the service was short. The congrega- 
 tion, I ought to add, was not only what would be termed 
 
262 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 large and fashionable, but what I call a solid one, con- 
 sisting largely of substantial middle-aged men with their 
 wives and families. At the end of morning prayer the 
 choir sang the beautiful hymn, No. 164, from the 
 Ancient and Modern Collection, ' We love the place, O 
 God/ and the last verse but one seems now, as I write 
 after the event, as though it might have formed the text 
 of the sermon, or been arranged to lead up to it — 
 
 ' We love to sing below, 
 
 For mercies freely given ; 
 But O, we long to know 
 The triumpli-song of Heaven ! ' 
 
 The Bishop read the Ante-Communion Service in a 
 fine manly voice, which seemed, if one, may so say, 
 younger than I should have expected, for his Lordship 
 walks with a slight scholarly stoop, and this gives more 
 or less the semblance of age. The Kyrie which followed 
 each Commandment was an exceedingly sweet one; but, 
 cut off as I was by a veto at head- quarters from all asso- 
 ciation with the organist, I know neither who the com- 
 poser is, nor who manipulates the instrument at Christ 
 Church. To me the reading of the Commandments is 
 one of the most crucial tests of a clergyman's powers. 
 Too often they are hurried over; but the Bishop's 
 slightest intonation was always well placed, as, for 
 instance, in the second, where he read, ' Thou shalt not 
 bow down to ih&m, nor worship ihew, ; for I the Lord thy 
 God,' &c. One of the late Mr Bellew's finest specimens 
 of elocution used to be the Fifth Commandment. 
 
 The Kyrie after the last Commandment, when the 
 words so often fail to suit the melody, was, in this case, 
 the most effective of all ; the tenor part containing some 
 beautiful passages, and the splendid sostenuto of the 
 boys' voices at the end showing that they still had 
 some good training, even in these days of their Decline 
 and Fall. 
 
 Mr Wood's portion of the morning service was limited 
 to the Epistle, so there was no danger of one's ' report- 
 ing ' him, except so far as to mention that he gave it out 
 as ' the fourth chapter of the First Epistle General hy 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELY ON CHURCH MUSIC. 263 
 
 St John/ &c. Then, after the Nicene Creed, was sung 
 Hymn 303 ; and once more I was struck by its mar- 
 vellous adaptation to the impending sermon, as in the 
 verse — 
 
 ' With His seraph train before Him, 
 
 With His Holy Church below, 
 Thus unite we to adore Him, 
 Bid we thus our anthem flow.' 
 
 After reading a collect. Bishop Woodford gave out 
 his text, Revelation xiv. 3, ' And they sung a new song 
 before the throne/ There was, he said, a double danger 
 attaching to the mystical portions of the Bible; first, 
 that we should make too much of separate sentences or 
 words; secondly, lest we should pass over, as though 
 they were mere ornaments, passages pregnant with 
 meaning. 
 
 The words of the text, he said, occur in a chapter, in 
 .explaining which we have especial need to beware of 
 this twofold peril. It records one of the most sublime 
 of all the visions vouchsafed to St John. He had just 
 before had presented to him in his trance the spectacle 
 of some dread forms of evil, usurping the place of God in 
 the world ; and then the scene changes, and instead of the 
 monstrous shape called a wild, Beast coming up out of 
 the sea, the image of unrest, appears the form of a 
 Lamb, the emblem of innocence, standing on Mount 
 Sion, the type of stability and duration, surrounded with 
 a vast company, having on them the stamp, not of the 
 principle of evil, but of the Author of all righteousness. 
 '■ And I looked, and lo ! a Lamb stood on Mount Sion, 
 and with Him an hundred and forty and four thousand, 
 having His Father's name in their forehead.' We can- 
 not interpret the number here defined further than by 
 saying that it involves two grand ideas — the first of 
 vastness, the second of completeness. 'And I heard,' 
 proceeds the Apostle, ' a voice from heaven as the voice 
 of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder ; 
 and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their 
 harps.' And then follows that part of the description 
 upon which we now desire to fix your thoughts : ' And 
 
264 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 they sung, as it were, a new song before the throne.' The 
 phrase itself occurs more than once in the Psalter. Thus, 
 ' Sing unto the Lord a new song ' is the commencement 
 of the 96th and 98th Psalms. And Isaiah says, 'He 
 hath put a new song in my mouth.' But the expression 
 appears to have a more special significance in this chap- 
 ter of Revelation, for it is emphasized by what follows : 
 'And no man could learn that song but the hundred 
 and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from 
 the earth.' What then, we ask, is this new song, to be 
 learnt only by those of human lineage, which is heard 
 in heaven, but only from the lips of those who have 
 been translated thither from this under world ? 
 
 This is our subject to-day. 
 
 I. We begin by noticing that there is a slight flaw in 
 our English version that somewhat mars the sense of 
 the passage, 'And no man could learn that song.' It 
 should be 'And wo one' could learn that song. The 
 distinction drawn is between the human race and the 
 residue of the creation of God. The new song is the 
 song of the children of Adam alone. 
 
 Now let us pause for awhile on this picture. Our 
 own instincts tell us that other worlds and other beings 
 are comprehended within the universe of God. No one 
 would imagine that the solicitudes of Deity are con- 
 centrated upon man alone. We see with the naked eye 
 innumerable stars and planets around us. Science has 
 told us something of their dimensions, their fabric, their 
 climate. 
 
 It is almost impossible for us to believe that all are 
 but desolate wildernesses, that man is the only rational 
 creature of the Lord God. And what the promptings 
 of reason anticipate revelation distinctly affirms. It 
 represents the human race as one amongst many spiritual 
 creations. It sets forth the heaven above and the hell 
 beneath as peopled with intelligence. All those words 
 — angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim — convey to 
 us, and we must beHeve are meant to convey to us, the 
 idea of many families of reasoning, conscious beings, 
 various in gifts and powers. 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELY ON CHURCH MUSIC. 265 
 
 And hence follows another thought. Of all these 
 creatures of God there must be a history — a history of 
 their Maker's providence towards them. They have 
 their own relations towards Him diverse as their natures 
 are diverse. The Bible does not enter upon their 
 histories, except so far as we are concerned therein, but 
 it does sufficiently lift the veil to show that there is a 
 moral history of other creatures besides man. Thus 
 we read of the Fall of Satan and his Angels, of a 
 temptation presenting itself to the Princes of Light — 
 of their apostasy from God and God's visitation upon 
 them. We are told of this because it is a fact essential 
 to the right understanding of the moral history of men, 
 and it indicates the reality of a history of God's judg- 
 ments and mercies with reference to other departments 
 of the universe, although we know it not. 
 
 Every world then has its story. Every order of 
 angels has its annals — its tale. We may not doubt of 
 interventions of Divine power and goodness, each ex- 
 actly adapted to its capacities and needs. And amongst 
 these various chronicles of the government of God over 
 the several provinces of His empire, mankind have 
 their own special history to relate. Do you ask what 
 is the peculiar manifestation of God to man ? The 
 reply must be, ' The Incarnation of Jesus Christ.' The 
 difference of human history from that of principalities 
 and powers is the fact that the Second Person in the 
 Godhead was made man. Here is the full force of St 
 Paul's words, ' He took not on Him the nature of 
 Angels.' How God has revealed Himself to others — 
 what exhibitions of love and of power He has vouch- 
 safed to them, we know not ; what mysteries of grace 
 they may weave into their anthems we cannot tell, any 
 more than we can image their own nature and endow- 
 ments. The burden of the New Song which can be 
 sung by the Eedeemed from the earth alone is the Song 
 of BedempUon. To elucidate this truth aright, yoa 
 must observe how all history twines itself around the 
 Birth and the Death of the Lord. How, while the first 
 man and the first woman are yet alone upon this globe. 
 
266 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the Promised Seed is annonnced as the object of hope ; 
 how all the changes of the world make as it were unto 
 Christ ; how, since Christ came, all that has happened 
 has been more or less an unfolding of the consequences 
 of His Life and Resurrectionj so that the Son of Grod 
 is the very centre round which the entire machinery of 
 human action revolves — the hinge upon which earth's 
 whole story turns. 
 
 You must notice again how all our ideas of sin, of 
 atonement, of justice, flow out of the doctrine that He 
 lived and died to reconcile man to Grod — to restore 
 what was broken — to purify what was defiled. Nay, 
 more than this. The constitution of the Christian 
 Church, as well as of other religious systems which 
 involve a standing ministry, the setting apart of a 
 certain class to minister to their brethren, what is this 
 but the projection into Time of that mystery of Eternity 
 whereby the Second Person in the Trinity became 
 from the beginning the Patron of the human race — 
 the Mediator between God and man ? 
 
 The sacramental system in which earthly elements 
 are made the veil and the channel of unearthly grace, 
 what is this but the shadow of that secret of the Lord — 
 God hidden in the Flesh ? Thus the history of Adam 
 is the volume in which it is written how the Universal 
 Father dealt with a race, partly material, partly imma- 
 terial, which had fallen through the temptation of an- 
 other, just as the story of Satan, little as we can read 
 it, is the record of His providence towards a spirit who 
 was his own tempter. And this is the representation of 
 St John in the text. He sets forth the Thi-one of God 
 girt about by myriads of sentient beings, every different 
 order uphfting its own strain of praise, having its own 
 confession to make of the Almighty's wisdom and good- 
 ness towards them. And now into the boundless ocean 
 of thanksgiving the human race casts its own tribute of 
 praise. Into the great assembly man is brought. What 
 can he add to the mighty anthem ? What can he, a 
 creature lower than the 'angels, do to swell the general 
 diapason ? It .may be perhaps that what man has to 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELY ON CHURCH MUSIC. 267 
 
 tell is the most marvellous tale of all. He mingles his 
 worship with the worship of angels — but his Hymn is 
 not their Hymn ; he has to speak of innocence lost and 
 God's favour forfeited, of God taking to Himself a 
 human body and a human soul, living the life, dying 
 the death, of His offending creatures. He has to tell 
 of the nobleness of self-sacrifice, of the glory of suffer- 
 ing for the sake of others, of dying in order to live, of 
 humiliations, toil, and sorrow proved to be greater than 
 majesty and rest and joy. Verily is it a New Song un- 
 dreamt of before — the contribution of the Eedeemed to 
 the worship of the height. 
 
 II. But observe, secondly, that whilst there is one 
 common Psalm sung as it were with one consent by the 
 children of Adam, because of that unity of the human 
 family which makes them all partakers of the same grace, 
 so that one system of Divine Providence overshadows all 
 — one salvation embraceth all ; yet, as in a great anthem 
 every singer contributes a special modulation according 
 to the quality of voice which God has given him, so does 
 every member of Christ's Church, every servant of the 
 Lord Jesus, cast into the general treasury of heaven 
 something which he himself and he only can bring. 
 
 Let me mention two truths which lead to this : — 1st. 
 Every soul is a distinct and independent creation of 
 Almighty God. This follows almost necessarily from the 
 diversity of character amongst us. Whenever in a work 
 there is unbroken uniformity you trace the presence of a 
 general law, or general mechanical action. When you 
 see infinite variety you recognize the presence of a per- 
 sonal will in what is produced. So, therefore, because 
 no two men born into the world are precisely alike in 
 temper and capacity, therefore must we consider every 
 one to be the distinct work of a Personal Creator. 
 ' Each man,' it has been said, ' is the embodying of a 
 distinct idea of the mind of God. Bach one is ordained 
 to accomplish some one distinct purpose of God. God 
 left unnumbered multitudes of creatures whose existence 
 was possible. He left them to remain in their nothing- 
 ness. They might have served him far better than those 
 
268 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 who are teeming around us. But there was something 
 which determined God to form the souls which He has 
 formed, and none other.' This is that wonderful gift 
 of individuality by which every soul is in itself a separate 
 world, having something in common with others, but 
 much also in its primal elements unlilce any other, God's 
 gift to itself alone. 
 
 2nd. Observe next that every age of the Church and 
 the world varies. It needs but a cursory glance back 
 to perceive how the probation of the Christian body has 
 changed. Now it is a season of persecution. Now it is 
 a time of repose. Now it is the luxury of a soft and in- 
 dulgent age. Now it is the roughness of a half-civilized 
 period. Now it is the debasing influence of superstition. 
 Now the vanity of increased knowledge, which con- 
 stitutes the furnace of trial. 
 
 Thus every separate generation has its own part to 
 play in accomplishing the purpose of God in creating 
 man upon the earth. And more even than this. Each 
 soul moves in a separate orbit of its own; it has its 
 own tri^s, temptations ; its own circle of friends and 
 connections, upon whom it acts. And so we believe God 
 expects from each a distinct, definite task. There is an 
 outline of Christian goodness which each individual soul 
 has to fill up, the perfecting of which is its portion of 
 labour in the vineyard of the Great King. 
 
 And here is a further m eaning of the text, ' a new son g : ' 
 Thus is it that the redeemed from among men have one 
 common revelation of God, one great unveiling of Deity, 
 to declare which, as far as we are told, belongs exclu- 
 sively to them. Thus also is it that because every soul 
 is a separate creation, has lived in a separate epoch, 
 moved in a separate orbit, therefore every soul has some- 
 thing to tell of Almighty God's providence which it 
 alone has experienced, how it has in its individual war- 
 fare been succoured, warned, pleaded with, its own evil 
 eradicated, its own natural graces fostered ; how that 
 separate soul has through the fourscore years of its 
 earthly struggles stood to God and God to it, these things 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELY ON CHURCH MUSIC. 269 
 
 make wholly and ever new the song of the redeemed 
 from among men. 
 
 Incidentally here the Bishop pleaded the case of this 
 particular choir. It was ninety-five pounds in debt. 
 One fails to see how it could run up such a score and still 
 have, as the incumbent said, no results to show for it. 
 Had I not received the information from such an excel- 
 lent source, I should have thought the choir rather in a 
 flourishing state than otherwise. 
 
 Turning round to the choir, the Bishop delivered to 
 them an excellent exhortation to see that their week-day 
 harmonized with their Sunday avocations. Of course 
 every little boy who could hide his diminished head 
 sniggled at the idea of being talked to from the pulpit, 
 but the address was very impressive. 
 
 Such, too, was the conclusion of this most exceptional 
 sermon. Addressing once more the general congrega- 
 tion, ajid recurring to individual duties, the Bishop 
 urged these strongly. There was too much disposition 
 with us all to try to lose ourselves in the crowd, but one 
 day we must stand isolated, as though there were only 
 God and ourselves in the universe. We were alone at 
 birth — alone at death. There could be no companions 
 then. Let it be our one great object to note what 
 separate melodies our own lives were elaborating for the 
 harmonies of heaven. 
 
 If special sermons really have any effect on collections. 
 Bishop Woodford's ought to have helped the moribund 
 choir to die decently. There were no symptoms of de- 
 cadence in the nameless organist's rendering of ' The 
 Heavens are telling the glory of God,' as we went out 
 of church, and I was again struck by the continuous 
 vein of thought that seemed to run through the morn- 
 ing's service and sermon at Christ Church. 
 
270 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 THE BISHOP OP CHICHESTER ON 
 COMPASSION. 
 
 IT was appropriately said the other day that the present 
 Bench of Bishops, even if we conceded the position 
 that it contained no bright and shining lights in the w'ay 
 of exceptional prelates fit to compare with the great 
 names of antiquity, was yet a good working Bench, and 
 comprised representative men in an unusually large 
 number of different departments. This is true ; and a 
 little discrimination will enable the student of theology 
 in the concrete to hear, within the compass of a London 
 season, each of these right reverend fathers on his own 
 special subject. Let satirists say what they will of the 
 prevalence of shovel hats at the Athenaeum during the 
 week, the Bishops work hard on Sundays, and the Lon- 
 don charities reap the reward of their labours. 
 
 On a certain Sunday the Bishop of Chichester was 
 announced to preach at St Peter s, Onslow Gardens, 
 Brompton, of which exceedingly fashionable church the 
 Hon. and Rev. F. C. Byng is incumbent. There is 
 scarcely a handsomer building on the outskirts of Lon- 
 don. The stone reredos must be an eyesore and a 
 temptation to modern iconoclasts ; but though this and 
 all the arrangements of the church are exceedingly 
 beautiful, there is nothing that even the most determined 
 faultfinder could stigmatize as ' High.' I feared at first 
 that I could scarcely get a seat at all. The verger in 
 the centre of the nave resented my intrusion there as 
 though I had contemplated walking into the pulpit 
 itself, but I found a haven in a servants' gallery in a 
 transept, the only disadvantage about which was that I 
 could not see the east end of the church, but I was 
 capitally placed for the pulpit. 
 
BISHOP OF CHICHESTER ON COMPASSION., 271 
 
 The service called for no special remark, but was ex- 
 ceedingly good of its kind. The choir was a surpliced 
 one, and the members wore tight purple cassocks under 
 their surplices, the latter having, in some cases, a small 
 red cross at the neck, as at the Savoy Church. The 
 service was read by Mr Byng, the Bishop occupying the 
 opposite stall during the prayers. He managed very 
 dexterously to monotone in a convenient note for the 
 choir, yet still to emphasize his words so as quite to 
 do away with the occasional irksomeness of the single 
 tone, especially in addressing the congregation. The 
 chants were double Anglican, and the hymnal used was 
 the S. P. C. K. collection, which I find at an increasingly 
 large number of London churches. A feature, too, at 
 St Peter's, which is gaining ground, is the recitation of 
 the General Thanksgiving by all the congregation. 
 Why, it occurred to me, should the people remain silent 
 in the special clause when a person returns thanks ? 
 The congregational element seems doubly significant 
 then. 
 
 The Bishop took the north side of the Communion 
 Table. I could not, of course, see him from the servants' 
 gallery, but his clear thin voice was very audible. He 
 passed to the pulpit immediately after the Nicene Creed, 
 and I could not but notice his lordship's smooth, sharply- 
 cut face as he posed himself with folded arms and recited 
 — not read — a collect. His appeal was for the St Agnes 
 Orphanage for Children who are deprived of one or both 
 parents, and are to be trained as domestic servants, and 
 the text selected was the very appropriate one from 
 Acts X. 38, ' He went about doing good.' This, said the 
 Bishop, is the touching and simple testimony which St 
 Peter bore to the earthly life of a Master whom he loved. 
 Jesus of Nazareth went about doing good, for He was 
 very man, and felt as man for men. Again and again 
 the Gospels speak of His compassion, His tender sym- 
 pathy with human wants and weaknesses, with sufiering 
 of body and mind, with the sick and sorrowful, and even 
 with sinners. And the word which is used by the 
 Evangelist is very significant. It shows how His human 
 
272 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 frame, His bodily nature, shared in these emotions of 
 pity, for He took not on Him the nature of angels, but 
 took on Him the seed of Abraham. The false refine- 
 ment of our day would have disguised this great truth, 
 which the more pious simplicity of earlier translators 
 did not fear to set forth. 
 
 It is surely of infinite moment that our view of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ should be real and true. Systems of 
 theology and controversial arguments tend to present to 
 us the saving merits and work of Christ in a dry and 
 abstract way, and to obscure the clear vision of the Man 
 Christ Jesus. Yet this is life eternal, to know God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom He hath sent ; and how can we know 
 Him but by the records that are left us of His daily life. 
 His deeds. His words, His character shown in the Bible ? 
 And are not the four Gospels a treasure above all other 
 treasures for this reason, that in them Jesus Christ is 
 set forth, is manifested, as nowhere else in Holy Scrip- 
 ture ? He moves about — a brother among brethren, 
 the loving Jesus, a help, a comfort, and blessing. Per- 
 haps the preciousness of this testimony of faithful eye- 
 witnesses and disciples to Him at whose feet they sat, 
 whom they followed, that Word of Life whom they saw 
 with their eyes, whom they looked upon, whom their 
 hands handled, is too little regarded. If Jesus Christ 
 is to be the example of all who name His name, if we 
 are to walk in His steps, then surely a reverent study of 
 the Gospels is an absolute necessity. How otherwise 
 can we hear the greatest of all teachers ? How can we 
 be conformed to Him ? If we say such a conformity 
 must be bestowed on us by the Spirit of God, and such 
 knowledge must be His gracious gift, let this be freely 
 allowed ; but is it not the Spirit of God that moved holy 
 Evangelists to commit to writing these memorials of our 
 Lord's life ? Is it not through His outward word. His 
 letter, that He teaches the hearts of those that believe ? 
 None but fanatics expect enlightenment, except by the 
 means of grace the Lord has given them ; or guidance 
 and comfort, but through diligent use of His written 
 word. And I repeat, no portion of that Word is more 
 
BISHOP OF CHICHESTER ON COMPASSION. 273 
 
 profitable to salvation than that which brings before us 
 as in a picture the Lord Jesus — ' how He went about 
 doing good.' 
 
 One does not care to be hypercritical; but there was 
 something very striking in the position when his lord- 
 ship, who read from MS., took his sermon-case in his 
 hands, and, again folding his arms, gazed at that vast 
 congregation, still continuing his discourse. For those 
 who do not care about extempore effusions, this free use 
 of a carefully written discourse is the very ideal of pulpit 
 oratory. Certainly the Bishop of Chichester did not 
 cling (as Sydney Smith says) to his velvet cushion, even 
 if Mr Byng had been unsesthetic enough to admit such 
 an appendage into his beautiful church. 
 
 If we should say, continued the Bishop, that the 
 religion of Christ, so far as our duty towards our neigh- 
 bour is concerned, is a religion of compassion, we should 
 not err. And all who desire, like their Master, to do 
 good to their brethren can never lack opportunity. 
 Rather the difficulty is the other way — a real difficulty 
 even for those who do cherish in their hearts the spirit 
 of charity. Go where you will the world is full of objects 
 of pity — full of pain, full of poverty, both too often the 
 immediate consequence of sin, full of real bitter suffer- 
 ing. Nowhere perhaps more than in this mighty city 
 do the extremes of wealth and poverty meet together. 
 There is abject crying want almost in the same street 
 with the most pompous abundance and most lavish 
 luxury. 
 
 Some from very perplexity not knowing how to choose 
 among the innumerable schemes of charity day by day 
 presented to them ; some from selfishness refusing to be 
 troubled even with the hearing, far more the sight of 
 distress ; some from the worldliness and frivolity too 
 apt to wait upon rank and riches ; turn away their eyes 
 from the sad realities of suffering, which it is their duty, 
 and ought to be their true happiness, to relieve. 
 
 For this is the object of compassion, and Christian 
 men and women must own that is the compassion Christ 
 Himself in His Gospels teaches. Compassion seeks to 
 
 18 
 
274 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 relieve misery. It is not careful to inquire how that 
 misery is caused, for we are not set as judges of our 
 brethren, and Grod^s dealings in these matters are often 
 far beyond our ken. It does not say with the Pharisee, 
 ' Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was bom 
 blind ? ' but it accepts the fact of destitution, it recog- 
 nizes the claim of affliction, it does what it can for love 
 of Him to whom we owe all, and from whom we hope 
 for all, whom we love because He first loved us. 
 
 No doubt charity should discriminate,, and take 
 pains to discriminate, for no reckless throwing about 
 of money deserves the name of charity. And therefore 
 when you cannot yourselves visit the sick and needy, 
 then you must trust to the report of such as merit your 
 confidence. The highest charity unquestionably is that 
 which involves personal knowledge, personal labour, 
 personal sacrifice. It is the especial glory of our own 
 church and age that men and women delicately nurtured 
 make it their work to penetrate the abodes of poverty, 
 often of sin. These are indeed ministers of Christ, and 
 they bring Him and all His blessings into homes 
 whence He has been too long banished. The parochial 
 minister hails such fellow-workers as providentially 
 sent to supply his lack of service. Others with equal 
 zeal and self-sacrifice are the voluntary nurses in our 
 great hospitals, or devote themselves to the still more 
 trying work in penitentiaries. 
 
 God be thanked, the members of our communion 
 are not barren nor unfruitful in their offices of com- 
 passion. And let me say that those who are old 
 among us can almost remember the very beginning of 
 this active spirit of systematic charity. We have seen 
 its gradual growth, amid all discouragements. A great 
 cause of hope and comfort is, that more and more 
 Christians do go about doing good, and making sacri- 
 fices, carrying often their lives in their hands; venturing 
 for Christ's sake where mere hirelings would fear to go. 
 There is no denying that rehgion is a real power where 
 it shows such fruits. The faith which thus benefi.t3 
 
BISHOP OF CHICHESTER ON COMPASSION. 275 
 
 our fellow-men is more than a name, and that even the 
 enemies of Christ must confess. 
 
 It has often been urged, and with great truth, that 
 until the faith of Christ had leavened the hearts of men, 
 hospitals were unknown. There was, in the best days 
 of Greece and Rome, no small measure of medical 
 science. Even now our professors of medicine do not ' 
 disdain to study the old masters, who have recorded 
 their observations and experience with surprising 
 minuteness and accuracy. But there were no physi- 
 cians or surgeons who devoted their skill and their 
 time to the care of the poor, without fee or reward. 
 There were no hospitals, such as we now see in our 
 great metropolis, where the poorest may be tended 
 with all the appliances that the richest can command. 
 There was no such active compassion amongst the most 
 civilized and refined of the heathen. St Jerome has 
 recorded the first instance of the erection of a hospital. 
 It happened in his own time, in the fourth century. A 
 Christian lady, Fabiola, of very ancient descent, for she 
 bore a name illustrious in the annals of the Koman 
 Republic, and of large property, devoted her whole 
 means to works of charity. Foremost amongst them 
 was the house which she built to receive the sick of all 
 diseases in the city of Rome, then the capital of the 
 world. Nor was she content with founding this house 
 of mercy, but Jerome describes how she herself endured 
 to dress the most fearful wounds, to give with her own 
 hands food and medicine, to watch by the beds of the 
 sick and dying, and minister to their comfort. 
 
 It was a widow woman who set this example, which 
 has so greatly tended to mitigate human sufiering. 
 And when we are reproached with the shortcomings of 
 Christianity, and when we are told that the old idol- 
 atrous faith did as much for mankind as the faith of 
 Christ has done (and such mutterings of unbelief are 
 not unheard in our days), we may point to these very 
 refuges for afflictions of all kinds which flourish in all 
 our land ; and we may ask whence they spring, if not 
 from the faith in Him who went about doing good. 
 
. 276 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Now, my brethren, he proceeded, com/passion such as 
 the Gospel of Christ teaches turns naturally to the 
 weakest members of Christ's Body. Their very help- 
 lessness is their title to our sympathy. Fatherless and 
 motherless children, hke the widow, are the special 
 objects of God's care. And He who is the Father of 
 the fatherless (for so it has pleased Him to be called) 
 commends them to our protection. He witnesses 
 against those who shall oppress them, he declares that 
 it is true religion, that it is a part of His service, to 
 visit them in their affliction. For it is an affliction that 
 a child should be deprived of its father, and even still 
 more of a mother's care. When our Blessed Lord was 
 comforting His disciples, dismayed at His approaching 
 departure. He said to them, 'I will not leave you 
 orphans,' as though that were of all fates the hardest. 
 Our heart yearns at the sight of orphans, even in our 
 own rank, but think, my brethren, of the orphans of 
 the poor ! IS they are bereft of both parents they must 
 be left to the care of some relation little able to provide 
 for them, or the tender mercies of the parish work- 
 house. If one parent survives, and that a widow, 
 think of them exposed to want ; if a father, to neglect, 
 for he must toil to earn bread for his children. In 
 either case, unequally matched is the struggle for life — 
 that struggle in which the weak and the friendless are 
 left behind. It never can be said that it is unnecessary 
 to help the orphans. They have but too good a claim 
 to all the assistance that charity can offer. And it is 
 for an orphanage, a refuge, a home for such destitute 
 children that 1 this day entreat your help. This 
 orphanage took its rise from one of those circumstances 
 which perhaps thoughtlessly we call accidents. A fady, 
 now its head, while she was visiting, as was her custom, 
 a district in London, found a poor little child, an 
 orphan, half naked, half starved, totally neglected. 
 Like the good Samaritan she took her to her own 
 home, fed, clothed, taught, and sheltered her. And 
 then by degrees she gathered others together — a little 
 
BISHOP OF CHICHESTER ON COMPASSION. 277 
 
 family of orphans to whom she might be a second 
 mother. 
 
 It is no part of the plan that these children shall be 
 brought up in idleness. They are trained under super- 
 intendence to workj so that hereafter as household serv- 
 ants they shall earn an honest and sufficient livelihood. 
 I believe the want of house servants, well trained, well 
 principled, brought up in habits of diligence, order, and 
 obedience, is generally experienced. Here these orphans 
 are, as all who have seen them can testify, most happy 
 in this School of Industry — they come to it gladly, they 
 leave it with sorrow. Now it is no small thing to rescue 
 even a few from the trials that beset the orphans of the 
 poor ; perhaps from destitution, perhaps from wretched 
 and sinful homes. It is a greater thing still to wean 
 them from evil habits, restrain violent temper; save 
 them from present temptations, and fit them by good 
 instruction and good example to go forth not altogether 
 unprepared into a dangerous world. Such blessings it is 
 impossible to overrate, and they who see the necessity of 
 them may well be called benefactors in making them 
 objects of their charity. But what would you say if the 
 managers of this orphanage by mere want of money had 
 to close their doors against those orphans who fain would 
 enter in, or, worse still, were compelled to send away 
 one-half of the poor helpless children whose education 
 had been hopefully begun ; if, in spite of their entreaties 
 and sobs and tears, these children should be returned to 
 that state of want and neglect and ignorance and un- 
 godliness from which they had been awhile delivered ? 
 Yet this must be done unless the Committee of this 
 orphanage obtain generous and immediate help from 
 Christian people. This is not the place nor the time to 
 enter into details which can be far better furnished from 
 other sources. I can only repeat the sad necessity there 
 is for all to assist in maintaining this refuge from suffer- 
 ing and sorrow. Such a calamity as that of which I have 
 spoken must be averted. The sum that is needed is 
 small indeed compared with the work to be accom- 
 plished. 
 
278 ORTHODOX LONDON. ' 
 
 My brethren^ his lordship concludedj I suppose that 
 all of you to whom the Lord has given children count 
 them as your dearest heritage, as His most precious 
 gift. Day and night you watch over their health and 
 their growth. How anxiously you guard their bodies 
 from disease, their souls from evil ! And aU of you, 
 surely, are lovers of orphans. All who are not spoiled 
 by worldhness and vanity must delight in the freshness 
 and simplicity and the innocence of children. We feel 
 that without them this would be a weary world ! And 
 if.it please God to visit them with suffering, how parents 
 suffer with them ! and not parents alone, for it is to, all 
 one of the sorest trials to witness the sufferings of 
 children. We are almost tempted to say, ' What has 
 caused the Father of Mercies so to afflict them ? ' I 
 would only ask that some share of the tenderness your 
 own children receive should be given to these poor young 
 creatures, who have no mother to nurse them, no father 
 to labour for them, perhaps no home to shelter them. 
 They are very dear to Christ our Saviour, for they are 
 even as those little ones He took up in His arms and 
 blessed. If any work of charity can be pleasing to Him 
 it must be this. If any may hope for a blessing and in- 
 crease from Him it is this, and such as this. If any be 
 full of hopeful promise, it is the Christian training of 
 such orphans. I commend it to your love and your com- 
 passion for Christ's sake, and in His prevailing name I 
 plead for those who cannot plead for themselves. 
 Remember His own most true word, ' Inasmuch as ye 
 have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
 ye have done it unto Me.' 
 
BISHOP OF MANCHESTER A T THE EAST-END. 279 
 
 THE BISHOP OP MANCHESTER AT THE 
 EAST-END. 
 
 IT was to Oriental scenes tkat my pursuit of pulpit 
 celebrities led me one Sunday morning, when the 
 announcement that the Bishop of Manchester would 
 preach at the parish church of St George-in-the-East at- 
 tracted me to the terra incognita of the Commercial Road. 
 The route to this, which may be regarded as the focus of 
 Broad Churchism at the Bast-end, was by Moorgate 
 Street Station and thence through London Wall, past 
 the Greek Church, across Bishopsgate Street, and down 
 Houndsditchinto the Whitechapel and Commercial Roads. 
 I could not help noticing the pretty patches of greenery 
 around many of these East-end churches. The garden 
 of Bishopsgate Church, with its fountain playing, would 
 be quite romantic, were it not for an announcement of 
 Reid's Stout at the end ; and Aldgate is rapidly follow- 
 ing in its steps, where the bells were ringing a merry 
 peal as I passed ; but St George's is just about to outvie 
 them all. It has nearly an acre of ground around it, and 
 by significantly throwing down a middle wall of partition 
 between the Churchyard and a neighbouring Wesleyan 
 Chapel, it is going to develope a regular Pere-la- Chaise. 
 The little Raine charity-girls, with their pretty blue 
 habits and white caps, like those of Normandy peasants, 
 were walking among the trees in quite a picturesque 
 fashion on the occasion of my visit. 
 
 Soon after eleven the bells, which had been ringing «, 
 merry peal responsive to Aldgate, ceased, and a numer- 
 ous choir of men and boys without surplices entered from 
 the west end of the church and took their places in pews 
 apportioned to them at the eastern extremity. Two 
 
28o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 curates foUowedj then the rector, the Eev. Hany Jones, 
 late of St Luke's, Berwick Street, and lastly, Dr Fraser, 
 Bishop of Manchester. All the clergy of the church 
 were bearded or moustached ; even the verger wore a 
 moustache. The opening portion of the service was read 
 by the rector in a fine sonorous voice ; then one of the 
 curates took it up in monotone at the first Lord's Prayer, 
 and continued it in the same way until the third collect, 
 the choir responding with inflections. Both curate and 
 choir did their work well. 
 
 The Bishop occupied a seat on the south side of the 
 altar, and took no part in the Ante-Communion service, 
 which was read by the rector, with one of the curates as 
 Epistoler. Banns were published after the Nicene Creed, 
 when the Bishop passed to the pulpit. The text was 
 taken from the Epistle for the day, 1 John iii. 16 — 19 : 
 ' Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid 
 down His life for us : and we ought to lay down our 
 lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's 
 goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up 
 his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the 
 love of God in him ? My little children, ■ let us not 
 love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. 
 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall 
 assure our hearts before Him.' 
 
 In the Epistle from which the text is taken, the Bishop 
 said, many reasons are given for the manifestation of the 
 Son of God ; such as that sins might be put away, or to 
 destroy — as Wickliffe said, to undo — the devil ; or again, 
 that we might be the sons of God and heirs of eternal 
 life ; or again, as in the text, that we might know the 
 essential character of the highest form of love. A man 
 has passed from the death of selfishness into the life 
 whose source is in Christ — the life that is hid with Christ 
 in God — the love of the brethren. 
 
 • Here are no theories of the atonement, no philoso- 
 phical or theological explanation offered of the great 
 transaction on Calvary. It is appealed to as a fact. Its 
 primary, simplest lessons are stated and applied. It — in 
 the words of the writer, who speaks to us out of the 
 
BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AT THE EAST-END.- 281 
 
 depths of his experience and consciousness — proclaims 
 to us with a singular emphasis one or two great things 
 we ought to know— rthat we are the sons of a Father who 
 loves us, that there is a higher destiny yet in store for 
 us, that of this we have an earnest in that life eternal of 
 which even now we have the foretaste, and that the 
 truest token of that life is the exhibition of love in some 
 practical self-sacrificing form towards mankind. It was 
 in older, I do not wish to say better days, called a gospel ; 
 to-day it is derided as a superstition, not only puerile 
 but mischievous and degrading. A living writer, whose 
 intellectual power I would be the last to question, thus 
 speaks of it to two authors who have just put forth an 
 essay on the unseen universe, in which an attempt, the 
 success of which it is for others to estimate, is made to 
 show that even the theological principles of Christianity 
 and its array of miracles are not out of harmony with the 
 leading philosophical hypotheses — the principles of con- 
 tinuity, of conservation of energy, and of the origin of 
 life, on which the science of to-day bases its claims. 
 ' These sickly dreams of hysterical women and half- 
 starved men,' says Professor Clifford {Fortnightly Review, 
 June, 1875, p. 793), ' what have they to do with the sturdy 
 strength of a wide-eyed hero who fears no foe with 
 
 pen and club That which you keep in your hearts, 
 
 my brethren, is the slender remnant of a system which 
 has made its mark on history, and still lives to threaten 
 mankind. The grotesque forms of its intellectual belief 
 have survived the discredit of its moral teaching — of this, 
 what the kings could bear with the nations have cut 
 down, and what the nations left, the right heart of man 
 by man revolted against day by day. .You have stretched 
 out your hands to save the dregs of the sifted sediment 
 of a i-esiduum. Take heed lest you have given soil and 
 shelter to the seed of that awful plague which has 
 destroyed two civilizations, and but barely failed to stay- 
 such promise of good as is now struggling to live among 
 men.' 
 
 The 'sifted sediment of a residuum' which our authors 
 have tried to save is the belief in a personal God, and in 
 
282 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the immortality of man : when these last dregs of a 
 baleful system shall have been cleared away, then free 
 development will be given to the promise of God, which 
 in the atmosphere tainted by Christian faith and hopes, 
 can now only with difficulty be sustained in life at all. 
 
 Oh, how these terrible utterances of men of science, to 
 whom we owe so much iu their own proper field, cast 
 down the hearts of those who would fain do' something, 
 not prate about what should be done, but help to do it 
 in the department of beneficence and Christian love. 
 They leave open to us, it is true, the field of the emo- 
 tions, for religion to weave its pretty fanciful tissues ia; 
 but why should they leave us these ? Free rein it seems 
 to me may be given to the lusts and appetites, for are 
 they not natural ? And why shotdd we curb nature ? 
 Why not spend a short life and a merry one, if there is 
 no God to whom we are responsible — no hereafter to 
 which the principles of continuity as regards the in- 
 dividual will apply ? The whole brute creation groan- 
 ing already (says Paul) ia sufficient travail pangs, and 
 dumbly waiting for a redemption, is handed over re- 
 morselessly to the vivisectionist for the purposes of 
 physiological experiment, to be repeated as often as it 
 may please the scientific lecturer to re-demonstrate the 
 demonstration for the satisfaction of his class of 'wide- 
 eyed' students. And who will continue to care for you 
 on whom social arrangements, or, as they are called, 
 social necessities, press so hard, excepting as interest- 
 ing subjects for sanitary experiments and observations, 
 if the motives of that more than human love, to which 
 the Son of God gave His sanction in His life and in His 
 death, are finally and effectively withdrawn ? 
 
 If we are ' only machinery wound up by putting food 
 into the mouth ' (as in a certain sense and within certain 
 limits undoubtedly we are, for the mechanism would 
 stop if food ceased to be supplied), it surely cannot be 
 much matter in this inexorable universe whether we poor 
 human clocks go for the whole, or only the half or, quarter, 
 of our normal day. The material particles that consti- 
 tute us will pass into other combinations, and as for 
 
BISHOP OF MANCHESTER A T THE EAST-END. 283 
 
 ' consciousness,' that, Von Hartman tells us, is the great 
 mistake of the universe. And if you piteously plead 
 ' We must live,' perhaps you may be met with the answer 
 of the French cynic, ' Sirs, I dp not altogether see the 
 necessity.' 
 
 I do not feel sure what are the two civilizations which 
 Professor Clifford has in his mind as having been 
 destroyed by Christianity, whether the Greek civilization 
 of Corinth, or Antioch, or Ephesus as it existed in the 
 days of Paul ; or the Roman civilization depicted in the 
 pages of Tacitus and Suetonius, of which before it 
 reached its lowest point a thoughtful contemporary 
 writer said, ' We have gone so far that we can endure 
 neither our vices nor their remedies ; ' or the Mahometan 
 civilization of Spain. Whether they were worth pre- 
 serving, though I admit that Spain did not gain much 
 by the change which introduced the Inquisition as well 
 as the Church, is a problem I am not careful to answer 
 now ; but I do put the question fearlessly, whether a 
 wider and fuller and deeper appreciation of the grand 
 verities of Christianity is not the one thing needed to 
 redress the inequalities and remedy the evils of the 
 civilization of to-day. What contrast can be greater 
 than that between East and West London ? Officers of 
 the Guards and dainty delicate ladies each endeavoured 
 in diverse ways to seek and save the lost, the straying, 
 the fallen. The root idea is that of Christian brother- 
 hood and personal responsibility. 
 
 In the quarrels of capital and labour, even political 
 economy is obliged to treat men and women as intelli- 
 gent' beings having wills and desires, and as something 
 more than automatic machines with powers of locomo- 
 tion ; and even laws of supply and demand, of scarcity 
 and redundancy of labour, which I admit to be the ulti- 
 mate philosophy of the case, will work with less friction 
 when the pivots of the machine are oiled with equality, 
 consideration, and even (I will venture to say, weak as 
 the word may sound) with compassion. 
 
 I readily admit further, that Christianity has often been 
 presented to the world in ungracious and unlovely forms. 
 
284 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 not seldom even in caricature. And ttose who do not 
 conceal their hatred of her have not been slow to take 
 advantage of their opportunity. Take an example. 
 Professor Clifford says : ' One form of this habitual con- 
 ception is set forth by the popular and received theolo^ 
 of Christian communities. According to this the con- 
 dition of the departed depends ultimately on the will of a 
 Being who a long while ago cursed all mankind because 
 one woman disobeyed Him. The curse was no mere 
 symbol of displeasure, but a fixed resolve to keep His 
 victims alive for ever, writhing in horrible tortures, in a 
 place which his Divine foreknowledge had prepared be- 
 forehand. In consideration however of the death of his 
 Son, effected by unknowing agents, he consented to feed 
 with the sweets of his favour such poor wretches as 
 should betray their brethren, and speak sufficiently soft 
 words to the destroyer of their kindred. For the rest, 
 the old curse survives in its power, condemning them 
 to everlasting torment for a manifestation of his glory.' 
 So far the caricature, for which I admit there is some 
 justification in the language of certain theological 
 schools. Yet even John Stuart Mill felt the earth to be 
 under a curse, a relentless natural system, which pre- 
 vented his thinking of Gted otherwise than as a Being 
 limited in power, or deficient in benevolence. And the 
 great consoling and sustaining truth of the Gospel is that 
 there is a redemption from this curse. Christ hath re- 
 deemed us from the curse not only of the one law which 
 Paul had in his mind (Gal. iii. 13), but of aU law, and 
 that whatever tokens of God's severity there are in the 
 world, there are more and larger tokens of His love, 
 that where sin abounded grace doth much more abound 
 (Rom. V. 20) . I do not know how many of my hearers 
 may have read a famous book (Ecce Homo) which 
 appeared some ten years since, in which the characteris- 
 tic feature of that Divine life which was lived among the 
 towns and villages of Galilee and Jud^a 1850 years ago, 
 was pronounced to be 'the enthusiasm of humanity,' 
 the love of our race, and of the individuals of the race, 
 of oar neighbour in the simple phrase of Christ Himself, 
 
BISHOP OF MANCHESTER A T THE EAST-END. 285 
 
 pusbed to the highest pointj and burning in the soul 
 with the utmost intensity. 
 
 It is this love, this enthusiasm, which the disciple 
 who may have drunk it into his moral system in those 
 refreshing moments when he leant on his Master's 
 bosom and heard His words, and who wrote this 
 Catholic EpistlOj seems to set before us who still read 
 his words, as one of the great cardinal principles of 
 Christianity, righteousness, purity, love ; these are the 
 great fruits of the faith which believes and therefore 
 overcomes. There are antichrists, but they will have 
 no power among his little children, because they are 
 strong and the word of Grod -abide th in them. There 
 are many false prophets gone out into the world, but 
 they saw clear, they had an anointing from the Holy 
 One, whereby they could discern the spirits that were 
 of God. There were philosophers confounding the 
 colours, blurring the distinctions of good and evil, but 
 they had an instirict within, a heart which either Con- 
 demned them or allowed, telling them that he that 
 committeth sin was of that devil, whose bonds the Son 
 of God had come on earth to loosen ; and that he alone 
 who doeth righteousness is righteous even as He is 
 righteous. 
 
 Eighteousness, purity, love, John's three ; identical 
 in fact though not in phrase with Paul's three, faith, 
 hope, charity. For charity and love are the same even 
 in word, as the Apostle spoke it ; and purity is the fruit 
 of hope — ' He that hath this hope in him purifieth 
 himself even as He is pure ; ' and righteousness is the 
 only proof of a really regenerating and saving faith — 
 ' If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every 
 one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.' 
 
 And this seems to me to be a Gospel for East 
 Londoners and West Londoners, for wide-eyed students 
 and horny-handed artisans, for gentle people and coster- 
 mongers, for priest and people ; as Paul puts it, for Jew 
 and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, bond and free, for 
 there is no difference (Col. iii. 11). I do not believe in 
 the Gospel of Christ Ijeing a mere system of magical 
 
286 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 arts, a mystery entrusted to a caste, such as was at- 
 tempted to be practised at Ephesus by those sons of 
 Sceva the Jew. It may be expanded, as everything 
 made up of a vast number of related truths may be ex- 
 panded, into a philosophical system, which you may call 
 ' the queen of the sciences,' as dealing with the highest 
 subject on which the mind can occupy itself; but its 
 power over the consciences and affections of men does 
 not dwell there. It is in its simpler forms, as it can be 
 taught to babes, that it is most effective. As a rule of 
 life, bidding us be pure, and unselfish, and kindly affec- 
 tioned; as a high ideal, stimulating us to forget the 
 things that are behind and to reach forward unto things 
 that are yet before ; as an indwelling power, enlightening 
 us where we saw but dimly, enabling and capacitating 
 us when we were feeble or incompetent ; purifying us 
 when appetite or passion were in danger of blunting the 
 finer perceptions of the heart, the nobler purposes of 
 the soul ; laying the foundation-stone of an ampler and 
 higher life, first for the individual, and then for the 
 society and the race — it was thus that the Word of Life 
 presented itself to the mind of the Apostle John : it is 
 thus that I have tried to present it to you to-day. If it 
 had free course ; if all who preached it practised it ; if 
 there were less cant and hypocrisy and inconsistency in 
 the world; if men with low, selfish motives were at 
 once detected when they endeavoured to conceal their 
 motives from their fellow-men under the mask of 
 religion ; if its opponents would condescend to debate 
 the question with becoming seriousness, and its advo- 
 cates would cease to advance arguments in its defence 
 which cannot be sustained; if the failure of other 
 systems to explaia the phenomena of humanity, and 
 still more to relieve its admitted ills and sorrows, were 
 more fairly estimated and more fully known, perhaps it 
 would get to be thought and seen that even Christianity 
 had not said its last word. 
 
 The great author of the ' Analogy of Religion to the 
 Course of Nature,' for once yielding to the seduction of 
 the imagination, pictures to himself the possibilities. 
 
BISHOP OF MANCHESTER A T THE EAST-END. 287 
 
 even under the existing conditions of life, of a perfectly 
 virtuous society. Christ's most common phrase for the 
 system He was setting-up on earth was ' The Kingdom 
 of Heaven.' 
 
 Conceive St George's-in-the-Bast as a part of that 
 kingdom ! I trust it is so, even now. The gracious 
 influences are, as it were, in the air ready to de- 
 scend. 
 
 If the two great curses of our modern civilization, 
 drunkenness and prostitution, were swept away, the 
 streets in which you live would be more like heaven 
 than they are, anyhow. If men and women were true 
 to one another, and to themselves ; if they were honest 
 — and when you speak of an honest man, still more 
 when you speak of an honest woman, you mean some- 
 thing more than one who will not pick your pocket — 
 there would at any rate be more types on earth than there 
 are of what the Son of God was manifested to make 
 us all. We first frustrate the grace of God, do despite 
 to it, trample it under our feet, and then call the Gospel 
 a failure. We make Christian influence impossible ; 
 and then ask where it is to be found. We first grieve, 
 and finally quench the Spirit of God, and then say we 
 can recognize no tokens of His presence or His power. 
 And yet, under all these circumstances and disadvan- 
 tages, there are to be found in palaces and in cottages, 
 in West-end squares and in East-end slums, pure, and 
 brave, and "noble souls ; and where one such soul lives 
 and breathes, and difiuses the fragrance of a beneficent 
 influence and the power of a saintly life, there is the 
 proof of the truth of Christ's Gospel, there is the 
 witness that God still leaves of Himself in the world. 
 
 The sermon was intently listened to by a large and 
 intelligent congregation, who filled every available inch 
 in the spacious church. 
 
 Mr Harry Jones is doing a great work here, the 
 greater because of the failures that have preceded him. 
 To the riots of Mr Bryan King succeeded a long sopori- 
 ferous period, but, at the advent of Mr Jones, every- 
 
288 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 thing seemed to start into life — as the Sleeping Beauty 
 at the coming of the destined knight. 
 
 In assessing East-end congregations, it must be re- 
 membered that^it is not the fashion here to go to church, 
 as it is at the West. Those who come to church mean 
 something by it. They are in earnest. Life is terribly 
 earnest at the Bast-end of London. The prestige of 
 Mr Jones's name brings many distinguished men, such 
 as Dean Stanley, Professor Jowett, and Mr Llewellyn 
 Davies into this Ultima Thule ; and it can scarcely be 
 but that his influence should tell for good on what many 
 men would consider the most difficult stratum of London 
 Society ; but Mr Jones's peculiarity is to ignore diffi- 
 culties. He smiles at them, evidently holding the maxim 
 that the harder a duty is the more worth doing is it. 
 These are the men to leave their mark on any popula- 
 tion, but especially an East London one. 
 
 THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 
 
 A SERMON of a very exceptional kind was preached 
 by the Bishop of Lincoln, at St James's, Piccadilly, 
 as one of the series on the Use and Abuse of the World. 
 I cannot help thinking the idea must have been sug- 
 gested by the success of Mr Stopford Brooke's semi- 
 secular lectures on Theology in the English Poets. In- 
 stead of the less congenial topic of harrying Wesleyans, 
 or denouncing i-ace-horses. Bishop Wordsworth delivered 
 himself on Art. 
 
 The title of the discourse in full was, ' On the True 
 Character and Functions of the Arts of Painting, Sculp- 
 ture, and Architecture ; ' the text being taken from 
 Exodus xxxi. 1 — 5, ' And the Lord spake unto Moses, 
 saying, See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 289 
 
 TJri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah ; and I have 
 filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in 
 understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of 
 workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, 
 and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to 
 set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all 
 manner of workmanship ; and I, behold, I have given 
 with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of 
 Dan ; and in the hearts of all that are wisehearted I 
 have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have 
 commanded thee.' 
 
 Whatever is beautiful in Art, said Dr Wordsworth, 
 is from God, and tends to God. It comes from heaven 
 to earth, and aspires from earth to heaven. It is born 
 in time and lives in time, but it yearns for Eternity. It 
 is bounded by space, but it aims at Infinity. In the 
 works of Creation all genuine Art loves and adores the 
 Creator. In forms of human grace and loveliness it 
 discerns gleams of Divine beauty and glory. It deals 
 with objects of sense, but it nourishes Imagination, and 
 cherishes Faith. It acts on what is material, but it 
 holds converse with what is spiritaal. It has to do 
 with what is fleeting, but looks beyond to what is 
 eternal. It holds, as it were, a balance between both 
 worlds, and blends earth with heaven. It dwells amid 
 the changes and chances of this moi'tal life, but it calms 
 and cheers the soul by a holy discipline, preparing it 
 for the repose and blisS of a joyful immortality. 
 
 In proportion as Art is conscious of its heavenly 
 origin and immortal destiny, and accordingly as these 
 truths are more fully recognized among us, so it may 
 be expected to recover from the condition of de- 
 generacy and decay, into which, notwithstanding some 
 noble examples of distinguished merit, it seems to have 
 now fallen. 
 
 With reverence be it said, the great Architect, 
 
 Sculptor, and Painter of the Universe is Almighty God. 
 
 Hence the name * with which He was designated by 
 
 the Platonic School of Philosophy, and by the Christian 
 
 " Demiurgus, or worker for tlie people. 
 
 19 
 
ago ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Fathers. The work of the visible Creation was de- 
 signed and executed by God for man^ made in the Divine 
 image and animated with the Divine breath, and for 
 woman^ madt,e (literally huilded *) by God out of man, 
 and created for immortality. 
 
 Work is not the end proposed by God either to 
 Himself or to man. Eternity is a state of rest and 
 felicity. This was symbolized by God at the beginning. 
 Each of the six days of the week of Creation is said to 
 have an evening as well as morning, but the seventh 
 day is not said to have an e^ning ; and why ? because 
 work has an end^ but the seventh day (which alone was 
 blessed by God) is a type of that heavenly rest and 
 glorious resurrection which remain to the people of 
 God, the rest of a joyful eternity. 
 
 The first great human work of Art described in 
 Holy Scripture is the Ark, made by the patriarch 
 Noah, after the directions given him by God. This 
 work was transitory, but it foreshadowed renovation 
 and repose. The ark rode on the waves of the flood, 
 but it anchored on Ararat, and sent forth Noah and 
 his sons to repeople the world ; and it prefigured the 
 Church, tempest-tost on the billows of this world, but 
 with a sure hope of coming to the heavenly haven of 
 eternal peace and joy. 
 
 That other work, the Tabernacle and its furniture, 
 which occupies so large a space in the narrative of the 
 Pentateuch, had its origin in heaven, and from God. 
 ' See thou make it ' (He said to Moses) ' according to 
 the pattern showed to thee in the Mount.' It was the 
 abode of God's visible presence, and it was the guide of 
 His people through the wilderness of Arabia to Canaan, 
 the type of their future rest. Though the tabernacle 
 was itinerant and migratory in an earthly wilderness, it 
 tended to what is heavenly and eternal. It was re- 
 produced in an ampler form in the stationary Temple 
 at Jerusalem, made also after a pattern from God ; but 
 its true antitype is in the Body of Christ, and in His 
 Church glorified for ever in Heaven. ' Umbra in Lege, 
 * Gen. ii. 22. 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 291 
 
 Imago in Bvangelio, Veritas in coelo.'' This is true of 
 Art in the highest sense of the ^ord. Art is heaven- 
 born, and has hopes full of immortality. 
 
 Painting and Sculpture have been called imitative 
 arts. But is not this a defective and disparaging 
 definition ? It is true that Art must be a careful 
 student of Nature, and not only diligently observe, 
 but also lovingly adopt, and be able to combine, her 
 forms, colours, and graces skilfully and readily. But 
 Art is not a slave, she is freeborn ; sTie is not a servile 
 copyist ; she has a creative power. Her aim is not 
 to deceive, but to educate, to purify, to tranquillize, 
 to exhilarate, and to exalt. If it were the end of Art 
 merely to imitate, and to cheat by imitation, then a 
 statue by Bernini would be superior to a work of 
 Michael Angelo, and we should prefer a group by 
 Teniers, or a portrait by Denner, to a composition of 
 Claude and Vandyke. 
 
 Servile copying is not the end of Art, but is rather 
 its bane. Our ' Schools of Art ' (as they are called) 
 in London and in our provincial cities, may, if well 
 regulated, do much to promote the cause of Art ; but 
 unless they are on their guard, they may also impair 
 and injure it. Doubtless it is their duty to encourage 
 accuracy and precision in design, but let their aim be 
 much higher than this. A genuine artist is a good 
 man ; faithful, loving, holy, and devout ; his heart is in 
 heaven ; he is educated by careful study of nature and 
 of antique models, and of ideal beauty ; he is convers- 
 ant with poetry, history, and philosophy ; he ought to 
 have read much, and travelled much, and thought much, 
 and to have his memory stored and his imagination 
 warmed with noble deeds, and graceful forms, and 
 beautiful scenes. 
 
 It would be well, therefore, that our schools of Art 
 should be furnished with good libraries and picture 
 galleries and museums ; and that the students should 
 have opportunities of attending Lectures on Art (such 
 as the discourses delivered by Sir Joshua Reynolds as 
 President of the Royal Academy), and also on History 
 
292 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and Poetry, and on the affini.ty between Poetry and 
 the Fine Arts, and on the common principles and 
 laws which regulate them, and lead to perfection in 
 them all. 
 
 The proper function of Art is to teach, to refine, to 
 invigorate, to purify, and to elevate the mind by means 
 of what is beautiful. 
 
 But what is Beauty ? Certainly not that which 
 merely dazzles the eye, fascinates the sense, and ex-cites 
 the appetite, and inflames the passions, which are the 
 baser and coarser elements of our nature, and ought to 
 be restrained and controlled by the higher and nobler. 
 If Art forgets her true oflRce, and ministers to what is 
 sensual and voluptuous, -she degrades herself, and en- 
 feebles, depraves, and demoralizes society. 
 
 What then is Beauty ? It is what the Poet calls the 
 ' ideal form and universal mould.' It is not concrete, 
 but abstract ; not special, but general ; it informs, 
 spiritualizes, and adorns whatever is lovely in life, moral, 
 intellectual, and artistic j it is not transitory and fleet- 
 ing, but imperishable and eternal ; it is revealed, as it 
 were, by inspiration to the pure and loving heart, and 
 to the healthful imaginative faculty, and is what may 
 be supposed to exist in all its perfection in the essential 
 archetype in the Divine Mind, and in the attributes of 
 the Godhead itself. It is, as it were, ' the pattern 
 shown in the mount.' 
 
 This definition of beauty is suggested by what we 
 read of works of Art in Holy Scripture. The history 
 of the Creation, of the building of the Ark, and of the 
 Tabernacle and Temple bear witness to it. They all 
 came from heaven, and tended heavenward. They 
 were shadows of things unseen and eternal. ' Every 
 good gift, and every perfect gift,' says St James, ' is 
 from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.' 
 All true beauty is from God, and aspires to God. 
 
 This is what was taught by the greatest of ancient 
 philosophers. The language of Plato is explicit and 
 emphatic. He represents true Beauty not as earthly, 
 perishable, and sensuous, but heavenly, immortal. 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 293 
 
 ■and spiritual. It is that wkich, not being visible in 
 its abstract and ideal essence by man, but dwelling 
 in the nature of God, imparts grace by emanations 
 and gleams of loveliness to all that is beautiful in this 
 lower world ; and it is by communion with that 
 spiritual essence, revealing itself in forms of earthly 
 beauty to pure and loving hearts, and chaste imagina- 
 tions, that the mind of man is cleansed and sanctified 
 and spiritualiaed, and has visions of Divinity and of 
 eternity, a.nd is loved by God, and partakes of His 
 immortality. 
 
 The true function of Art is tO' endeavour, by a subtle 
 analysis, to discern this ideal beauty, and to present its 
 imagery to the eye by pictures of visible forms, not 
 losing their identity, but transfigured, and spiritualized, 
 and bathed in heavenly light and glory. 
 
 Such sentiments as these inspired the noblest artists, 
 and especially him who holds a high place as a painter, 
 sculptor, and architect, and also as a poet — Michael 
 Angelo. 
 
 Let me be allowed to quote his own words in one of 
 his sonnets, in which he describes the feelings with which 
 he looked upon forms of earthly loveliness, and was raised 
 by the sight to the contemplation of what is heavenly 
 and Divine. Let me give them as translated by one of 
 our own poets :* — 
 
 ' No mortal object did these eyes behold, 
 
 When first they lAet the placid light of thine, 
 And my soul felt its destiny divine. 
 
 And hope of endless peace in me grew bold : 
 
 Heaven-bom, the soul a heavenward course must hold; 
 Beyond the visible vporld she soars to seek < 
 
 (For what delights the sense is false and weak) 
 
 Ideal form, the universal mould. 
 
 The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest 
 In that which perishes ; nor will he lend 
 His heart to aught which doth on time depend, 
 'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love. 
 
 That kills the soul ': Love betters what is best, 
 Even here below, but more in heaven above.' 
 
 * Wordsworth's Sonnet xxv. 
 
294 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Again, lie says in another sonnet, also translated by 
 Wordsworth — 
 
 ' Better plea 
 
 Love cannot have, than that m loving thee 
 
 Glory to that eternal Peace is paid 
 Who sucli divinity to thee imparts 
 As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts ; 
 
 His liope is treacterous only, whose love dies 
 With beauty which is varying every hour ; 
 But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power 
 Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower 
 
 That breathes on earth the air of paradise.' 
 
 Lest sucli sentiments as these should seem fantastic 
 and visionary, let me refer to the v7ords of two writers, 
 who will not be suspected of undue enthusiasm — Win- 
 kelmann and Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 ' The perfection of beauty ' (says the former) ' rests 
 only in God ; and human beauty is elevated in proportion 
 as it approaches the idea of God, Who by unity and in- 
 divisibility is distinguished from what is material. This 
 idea of Beauty is a spiritual quintessence extracted from 
 created substances, as it were, by an alchemy of fire; 
 and is produced by the imagination endeavouring to con- 
 ceive what is human existing as a prototype in the mind 
 of God.' 
 
 ' Painting,^ says Sir Joshua, ' is not a mere gratifi.ca- 
 tion of the sight by imitation of external nature. Such 
 excellence is unworthy of regard, when the works aspire 
 to grandeur and sublimity. A mere copier of nature can 
 never produce anything that is great, he can never raise 
 and enlarge the conceptions or warm the heart of the 
 spectator; a genuine painter must strive for fame not 
 by neatness of imitation, but by captivating the imagina- 
 tion. All the arts receive their perfection from an ideal 
 beauty, superior to what is found in individual nature. 
 
 ' The genius of a true sculptor is a gift of Heaven, an 
 inspiration from above. As described by the ancients, 
 he is supposed to have ascended to the celestial region, 
 and to have imbued his mind with a perfect idea of 
 beauty. An ancient sculptor like Phidias, when he 
 would represent a Zeus or an Athen^, did not set before 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 295 
 
 Jiim any human patternj but having a more perfect idea 
 of majesty and beauty in his own mind, he steadily con- 
 templated this, and earnestly endeavoured to represent 
 
 Let us apply these principles to the arts of design. 
 
 What is it in architecture that excites admiration ? 
 
 It is something derived from the unseen and eternal 
 world, and which raises the mind upward to it. 
 
 For example, in contemplating some grand ancient 
 Doric temple, such as the stately Parthenon planted on 
 the rock of the Athenian Acropolis, as it stood of old 
 above the din of the city, and above the crowd eddying 
 in the Agora below it, — or the Cathedral Church of 
 Lincoln, rising in majestic dignity above the smoke of 
 the busy city beneath it, — we are moved by a delightful 
 sensation of something grand, solid, sublime, substantial 
 and enduring, something elevated above the atmosphere 
 "of this world, and superior to all its weary cares and 
 toils, and its restless changes and chances ; and under 
 its influence the mind is raised upward and has a fore- 
 taste of future bliss, and enjoys a calm vision of that 
 heavenly and everlasting repose, and pure unsullied de- 
 light, which we may hope to enjoy after the labours of 
 this life in the blissful Sabbath of eternity. 
 
 80 again, in the interior of Westminster Abbey and of 
 our great Cathedral Churches, the interweavings and 
 interlacings of light and shade, and the gradual reveal- 
 ings of new and ever- varying vistas to the eye of the 
 spectator, as he advances eastward from the west door, 
 suggest to his imagination the feeling that there is a 
 world ever beyond him, and give him glimpses of infinity. 
 
 In the grandest buildings also of the Itahan style, such 
 as St Paul's Cathedral, the view of the interior of the 
 dome, like a heaven suspended above us, especially if the 
 vault be adorned with beautiful forms of saints and 
 angels floating in the air (as in the frescoes of Correggio, 
 in the Duomo at Parma), and melting away into the 
 aerial abyss of the sky beyond, lead the imagination up- 
 ward, by means of the arghitectural heaven, to the pure 
 
296 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 empyrean abovSj and enable it to soar aloft to the pre- 
 sence and throne of God. 
 
 In sculpture the main purpose is to produce a feeling 
 of calm repose and joy after energetic action. The most 
 famous statue of antiquity, the Apollo Belvedere, repre- 
 sents this idea in perfection. He is not in action, but is 
 contemplating, with pleasure, the effect of his own act. 
 
 The most beautiful series of sculptured figures — the 
 Panathenaic frieze of the Parthenon — represents a suc- 
 cession of graceful forms on horseback, moving onward 
 in an ideal stream and river-like flow of beauty, in order 
 to present themselves in reverential homage to the 
 Deities, seated in serene and joyous majesty, at the end 
 of their career, and in order to participate, as it were, 
 by a spiritual apotheosis in their heavenly repose and 
 divine glory, after a course of earthly motion and 
 human exertion — like a rapid river losing itself in the 
 peaceful bosom of a pellucid lake. 
 
 The same may be said of the succession of triumphal 
 arches spanning the Via Sacra at Rome. The victor 
 stood aloft upon their summit, in his triumphal car ; this 
 was his transitory action, but it was action leading to 
 repose and joy. The Via Sacra led up to the Capitol, 
 whither he rode to render grateful praise to the Deity 
 for his victory ; and thus he was immortalized for ever 
 as a conqueror mounting upward to heavenly glory. 
 
 The triumphal Columns at Rome — such as that of the 
 Emperor Trajan — represent a similar idea of human 
 action, winding upward by an ever-ascending spiral of 
 earthly labour to a serene apex of celestial quietness and 
 victory. 
 
 The sculptured group in which Laocoon and his two 
 sons are represented as struggling to disengage them- 
 selves from the grasp of the venomous serpents, coiling 
 around and strangling them, has been the subject of 
 controversy from the time of Winkelmann and Lessing. 
 The noble expression in the father's countenance is sup- 
 posed by the former to represent parental love and pity 
 felt for the sufferings of his children, triumphing over 
 his own pain. The latter aspribes it to the genius of 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 297 
 
 Greek Art slirinking from the representation of excruci- 
 ating agony. 
 
 With deference to both these great names we may 
 perhaps be allowed to express a doubt whether (not- 
 withstanding tLe merits of this work, extolled by Pliny 
 the elder and others) it belongs to the best and purest 
 age of Greek art, and whether it was not rather a pro- 
 duction of later days, when the mind was familiarized 
 with scenes of savage cruelty and mortal sufferings in the 
 gladiatorial shows of the Roman arena. 
 
 And here let me refer to a more sacred and solemn 
 subject. 
 
 In the days of early Christian Art, the Cross of Christ 
 was naturally the symbol most dear to the heart and eye 
 of the faithful. But the Cross in their sight was not so 
 much an emblem of shame and sorrow as of victory and 
 glory. ' In hoc signo vinces.^ The Cross of Christ, 
 when viewed by the imaginative organ of faith, was a 
 banner of warfare, a trophy of triumph, a royal throne, 
 a car of victory, on which the Saviour rode in glory to 
 His palace in heaven. 
 
 But probably no instance can be adduced earlier than 
 the eighth century of that which is now so often repre- 
 sented in sculpture — in marble and wood — not only in 
 churches of foreign lands, but in crowded streets and 
 rural waysides, with the painful attributes of distorted 
 features and lacerated limbs, and bloodstained brows, in 
 the Crucifixion. Early Christian Art loved the Cross, 
 but it shunned the. Crucifix. And was there not wisdom 
 in this ? In the noble simplicity, and sublime abstraction, 
 of the Cross, the imagination is left free to crown sorrow 
 and suffering with a diadem and halo of glory. But in 
 the Crucifix the imagination is enslaved by the senses, 
 and is riveted to the contemplation of pain and shame 
 and death, which were only transitory, and were the 
 Saviour's path to the joy and glory of an everlasting life, 
 as He Himself says, ' I am He that liveth and was dead ; 
 and, behold, I am alive for evermore.^ But to fix the 
 mind — by means of such representations as I have 
 described — on the shame and sufferings of Christ, apart 
 
298 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 from the eternal glory and infinite joy to which they led 
 Hinij may be a snare, and may tempt men to impeach 
 the equity and question the love of God, punishing the 
 just for the unjust, and exposing His own Beloved Son 
 to bitter pain and ignominious shame, and so may be 
 prejudicial to faith, and give occasion to cavils against it. 
 
 Let us apply these remarks to another department of 
 sacred Art— that of stained glass windows in churches. 
 
 The glass sfcainers in ancient times acted on the 
 principle of leaving the outlines of their figures dimly 
 defined and intermingled with white glass, inviting the 
 eye to the heaven beyond it, so that the imagination had 
 fair play in helping the faith of the spectator to complete 
 the work by an ideal picture in his own heart and mind. 
 But in modern days the action of the imagination and 
 of faith is too often fettered and paralyzed, and the mind 
 is overpowered by brilliant transparencies, stereotyping 
 upon it commonplace forms, and haunting the memory 
 with prosaic and vulgar representations of sacred per- 
 sons and subjects, which ought to be veiled in mystery, 
 and to be idealized with reverential awe. 
 
 Let us descend to a lower level. The principles now 
 submitted to your consideration may be applied also to 
 landscape paintings and to portraits. 
 
 What is it that imparts a charm to the mellow tints 
 of sunset in the pictures of Claude or Turner, and to the 
 rich foliage of the trees, and to the quiet bridge over 
 the flowing river, and to the cattle reflected in the water, 
 and to the old ivy-mantled tower or ruined temple, and 
 to the calm expanse of the broad lake, and to the 
 delicate hues of aerial distance melting away into infinity? 
 Is it not the feeling that under the influence of objects 
 like these we are transported from the petty cares and 
 brief sorrows of to-day to a far-off age, and to a distant 
 land of an ideal Arcadia, a poetic Elysium, or even a. 
 spiritual Paradise ? 
 
 ' Soul-soothing Art,' the poet may well say — 
 
 ' that gives 
 To moments caught from fleeting Tim« 
 The appropriate calm of blest Eternity.' 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 299 
 
 So it is also with portrait-painting. At the present 
 day by the general use of photography (very valuable in 
 representing buildings and in reproducing manuscripts), 
 portrait-painting is in danger of being degraded to the 
 low level and servile drudgery of endeavouring to 
 execute facsimiles. It does not portray the wMidt, by 
 means of the mind, but (may we not rather say ?) it 
 copies a machine by the help of a machine. It therefore 
 fails of producing a real likeness. For a man is not 
 what he seems to the eye to be at a particular moment 
 of his existence, seized upon by the spasmodic shock of 
 a mechanical process, but what he is in his generalized 
 essence as discerned by the intuitive genius of the 
 Artist. The genuine portrait-painter will indeed be 
 careful to preserve the personal identity of the subject, 
 but he penetrates below the surface into the inner re- 
 cesses of the mind. And although his art is affected by 
 conditions of time and space, it goes beyond the limits 
 of both, and reveals some gleams of eternity. May we 
 not say that he will suggest to us some faint glimmer- 
 ings of what a beloved form may be imagined by us to 
 be in a holier and happier world, when transfigured into 
 a heavenly body by the power and love of Christ ? 
 
 Let us, said the Bishop in conclusion, now offer some 
 practical observations. 
 
 The condition of Art in a country depends on the 
 character of the people. The present decline of Art is 
 due (it may be feared) to national degeneracy. The 
 sense of what is really great, noble, and sublime seems 
 to be on the wane. The great heathen nations of an- 
 tiquity may well put us to shame in this respect. With 
 them Art was a part of religion, and religion was aUied 
 with patriotism. If a colony was to be planted in a far- 
 off land, the first thing they did was to build a magni- 
 ficent temple. The great temples still standing at 
 Psestum, at Selinunte, at Segeste, and at Girgenti, are 
 enduring monuments of their national genius and 
 national piety. When Athens recovered from the 
 incendiary ravages of the Persian invasion, the first 
 
30O ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 thing she did was to rebuild the Parthenon, her great 
 national temple, in greater splendour than before. With 
 them the temples of the deities were their national 
 palaces, and the palaces of their nobles were compara- 
 tively like huts and cottages. 
 
 It is a humiliating question for ourselves. Has any 
 great cathedral church been erected by the English 
 nation — the richest in the world — in any of her own 
 colonies ? 
 
 Loojr, again, at our national monuments. It would 
 be invidious to specify instances. But with a few 
 splendid exceptions, the public works of painting, 
 sculpture, and architecture in our own age — one of 
 boundless wealth and lavish prodigality in personal 
 self-indulgence — can hardly bear comparison, as to true 
 genius and feeling, even with those of the petty Italian 
 states of Pisaj Florence, Genoa, and Venice ; to say 
 nothing of the works of ancient artists, which even in 
 their ruined and fragmentary state are still models to 
 ourselves. 
 
 Bear with me in referring also to works of education. 
 
 Think of the grotesque and monstrous caricatures 
 which disfigure many of the books placed in the hands 
 of our children. How can they ever learn to appreciate 
 and love what is really graceful and beautiful in Art, 
 when their minds are prematurely depraved and cor- 
 rupted by familiarity with what is either hideous or 
 ludicrous ? 
 
 But let us hope for better things. And that this 
 hope may be realized let Art be mindful of her high 
 calling. Her office, like that of Poetry, is to teach, to 
 educate, elevate, adorn, to enlighten, cheer, refine, and 
 purify society. A true artist is a good man. He regards 
 his art with reverence. May we not say that he will 
 not consider himself as a mechanic toiling in a workshop, 
 but rather as a prophet and priest ministering in the 
 natural Temple of the Universe for the glory of God and 
 the welfare of mankind ? 
 
 No study, however severe, both of nature and the 
 best models, is superfluous in so noble a profession. No 
 
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN ON ART. 301 
 
 industry however unrelaxing, no observation however 
 vigilant, no accuracy however minute and precise, are to 
 be dispensed with. But these will be unavailing with- 
 out a spirit of moral self-dedication. HeAyill labour not 
 only with the eye and the hand, but with the mind, the 
 soul, and the heart. And therefore he will be conscious 
 of the need of Divine grace, and of inspiration from 
 above. The artists of the Tabei'nacle, which was made 
 after the pattern in the heavenly mount, were Bezaleel 
 and AhoJiah. There is a spiritual meaning in their 
 names. Bezaleel means one who dwells in the shadow 
 of God. And he was the son of Uri, which means light. 
 The true artist dwells under the- shadow of the wings of 
 Divine Glory and Beauty, and he is a child of heavenly 
 light. And Aholiab means, the Father is my Tabernacle. 
 The Father of Light dwells, as in a shrine, in the heart 
 of the true artist. Both of tliese artists of the Taber- 
 nacle worked after the pattern which God showed to 
 Moses in the mount. The true artist labours to produce 
 forms of ideal, heavenly beauty. Both these artists are 
 said in Holy Scripture to have been 'filled with the 
 Spirit of God, in wisdom an J understanding and know- 
 ledge, in all manner of workmanship.' The true artist 
 seeks for the gift of the Holy Spirit in the means of 
 grace. Pie seeks it in holy books, in noble histories, in 
 sublime poems, such as those of Homer, ^schylus, 
 Dante, Shakspeare, and Miltou ; he seeks it especially 
 in the Bible. The hible was the manual of Michael 
 Angelo. The true artist seeks for it in Prayer, and in 
 Holy Communion. Michael Angelo's sonnet on the 
 need of grace, and on its gift iu prayer, is one of the 
 most beautiful productions of that gi'eat poet and artist. 
 It is recorded of one of the holiest, purest, and most 
 admirable painters of sacred subjects — -Fra Angelico da 
 Fiesole — that he never took his pencil into his hand 
 without breathing forth a prayer, and that he never 
 painted the Saviour on the Cross without having his 
 eyes bedimmed with tears. The true artist will scorn 
 to minister food to the sensnal appetite by unchaste 
 pictures such as too often marred and debased the works 
 
302 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of the Venetian school, and enfeebled the manly vigour 
 of the Venetian republic ; but he will labour in a spirit 
 of pure and holy love. It was said of a great artist that 
 he would as soon put his name to a forgery as to a 
 caricature. In all that is beautiful in earthly forms he 
 "will see visions and images of heavenly glory. Earth 
 will be to him a mirror of heaven. And he will enable 
 others to see reflections of heaven in the creations of his 
 own genius. The fleeting things of time will be to him 
 shadows of eternity. His Art will be a religion. It 
 will be consecrated and Christianized, and be full of 
 happiness and joy ; and it will prepare him by holy dis- 
 cipline to ' behold the King in his beauty,' * and to 
 contemplate for ever the Lord of Glory, and to recognize 
 in Him a consummation of all that he has seen of loveli- 
 ness in this lower world, and to have a full fruition of 
 those ' things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, 
 and which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' f 
 
 This series of sermons is, I think, a salutary innovation 
 on the stereotyped subjects of the pulpit ; and probably 
 Bishop Wordsworth's contribution will pass muster with 
 the rest. By the way, ' Society ' was the subject of a 
 sermon a few weeks before. The Piccadilly folks do 
 not appear to have profited by it, for the church was 
 about two-thirds full, and yet many persons — including 
 two clergymen — were allowed to stand all the time. 
 Can it be that the notice posted on the door has any- 
 thing to do with this circumstance ? It is to the effect 
 that the pew-openers of St James's have much larger 
 salaries than is usually the case, and are therefore strictly 
 forbidden to accept gratuities from strangers for show- 
 ing them to pews. 
 
 * Isaiah xxxiii. 17. f Isaiah Ixiv. 41 ; Cor. ii. 9. 
 
303 
 
 THE BISHOP OP OXPORD ON MISSIONARY* 
 MOTIVES. 
 
 IP any one wished fairly to test the power of a preacher 
 to attract a congregation, he should make the experi- 
 ment, not on a Sunday, when there is a prejudice in 
 favour of church-going to which a famous preacher only 
 adds an additional attraction, but on a week-day, when 
 the tone of things is still in many, perhaps most, churches 
 against attendance at places of worship, at all events in 
 the daytime. I did this on St John the Baptist^s Day, 
 at St Peter's, Eaton Square, where the Bishop of Oxford 
 preached a sermon in aid of the Bishop of Capetown, 
 and for providing the income of the Bishop of Maritz- 
 burg. How many people in busy London, I mused as I 
 sped along with the City men to an eleven o'clock 
 service, even knew that it was St John's Day ? So 
 completely have the festivals of the Church faded from 
 ordinary observation that, except where they mark 
 epochs in civil and social life — quarter-day, for instance 
 — their very recurrence is unknown to nine-tenths of 
 the population. I am not saying whether this is well, 
 whether it should be so or not. I only say it is. 
 
 St Peter's, Eaton Square, is surely the most incon- 
 gruous of churches. I remember it the driest of the dry 
 in the sweet soporiferous old times ; and now at the 
 east-end of that uncomely shrine of Morpheus a gorgeous 
 chancel has dropped down as if by magic, and Mr Wil- 
 kinson has long since wakened with his eloquence the 
 sleeping beauties of Belgravia, who had slumbered in 
 their pews all through the Lethean period. 
 
 The congregation, on the occasion of my visit to St 
 Peter's, was far from large, and mainly composed of 
 ladies. This was unfortunate, because the Bishop's 
 
304 ' THE BISHOP OF OXFORD 
 
 sermon, wMcli was quite extemporfe, was very practical 
 and good, and deserved a larger auditory. One can 
 only hope that they made up in enthusiasm what they 
 lacked in numbers, but I can scarcely hope that we 
 helped South Africa much in the way of money, though 
 the appeal to do so was very direct indeed. 
 
 The bishop selected as his text 2 Cor. viii. 24, '' Show 
 ye to them, and before the churches, the proof of your 
 love, and of our boasting on your behalf.' From these 
 words he preached a fluent extempore sermon on the 
 motives that should inspire missionary efforts, with 
 special reference to the diocese of Maritzburg. It was, 
 he said, no new subject which had gathered us together, 
 to provide for the wants of Christian people in a distant 
 part of the world. To do so was to follow apostolic 
 models, and reproduce the primitive Church. It was a 
 new work then, but an old one now. The great powers 
 could combine in ancient times to subdue a province, or 
 set in order a government. For ifhis purpose the vast 
 Roman Empire had unequalled energies. There was, 
 however, but a dim shadow of the feeling now alluded 
 to in the love of country, or the Israelites' affection for 
 the Holy Land. But in the New Testament we had the 
 earliest manifestation of this Christian life. These 
 Corinthians, for instance, had once scorned Palestine, 
 but now, since their conversion, they held it dear. They 
 were ready to part with that which men loved best — 
 their money. So was it with us. Those whom we were 
 met to assist were farther off than Jerusalem was from 
 Corinth ; but the same principle was actuating us — a 
 care for those dear brethren who, though distant, were 
 near to our Christian faith, hope, and love. 
 
 This, however, did not come to all Christian converts 
 at cnce. Not in every case did charity supervene on 
 baptism, or these chapters would never have been written. 
 The two chapters embraced a series of reasons for 
 Christian charity, which it was worth while to analyze. 
 They were the Apostolic persuasions. Are they, asked 
 the bishop, the same now as then ? 
 
 The highest motive of all was stated in v. 9. It was 
 
ON MISSIONARY MOTIVES. 305 
 
 that we owed a debt to Jesus Christ. ' Though He was 
 rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through 
 His poverty might be rich.' This was the great Christian 
 argument. St Paul pleaded the poverty of the Incarn- 
 ation. This was the solid ground, the motive which 
 all were bound to acknowledge, and therefore St Paul 
 did not dwell at length upon it. He discussed it as 
 being well known, and passed on to secondary motives 
 which' seemed almost unworthy in comparison. 
 
 In the next chapter he proceeded to notice another 
 motive, namely, the thanks their liberality would call 
 forth, first to God, and then to themselves. This — not 
 the thanks to God, but to the donors — seemed at best 
 but a poor object. Then, too, he specified the prayers 
 that would be evoked. ' By their prayers for you, who 
 long after you, for the exceeding grace of God in you.' 
 In another place St Paul urged this to a degree that 
 was almost mercenary. He said, ' your carnal things 
 will come back to you.' He made it a matter of bargain. 
 The adversary could easily misrepresent it as an actual 
 traffic between carnal and spiritual things. More mer- 
 cenary still did it seem when he said he would not have 
 others easy and them burdened. He made charity par- 
 take of the nature of an investment. Another worldly 
 motive held out was emulation. He would not have 
 them outdone by the Macedonians. 
 
 Lastly, he based his claim on personal affection to 
 himself. He often did this. With his tender but 
 powerful voice he said, "^ Remember my bonds.' He 
 bade them listen to the clank of his chain ; he pointed 
 them to his furrowed cheek, and worn frame. We might 
 guess how this worked on the new converts. We saw 
 how powerfully it told on the elders of the Ephesian 
 Church when they met him at Miletus. 
 
 Now the question was, Do these elements of per- 
 suasion exist at the present time? For instance, will 
 you yourselves, asked the Bishop, gain thankfulness in 
 South Africa? Yes; it was a happy thing for the 
 Englishman iu his distant work out there to find sym- 
 pathy, when there were none of the old happy home 
 
 20 
 
3o6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 associations surrounding him. Gifts from home Aa work 
 exceeding thankfulness. The amount of the gift was 
 multiplied by afiection. They will, added the Bishop, 
 be thankful to God and to you for whatever you do on 
 their behalf. 
 
 Should we gain their prayers ? Yes ; they were not 
 behind us in praying. Our prayers were theirs, our 
 services theirs, our sacraments the same. These usages 
 of the Catholic Church were not forgotten on the other 
 side of the great se^. They would not forget us. 
 
 Should he, the preacher asked, speak of mercenary 
 expectations ? It seemed absurd that wealthy England 
 could get jiny return from the dioceses washed by the 
 Southern seas. But we did not know the future. Who 
 could tell whether the Church of Christ might not have 
 days of poverty and trouble here ? A return from these 
 distant branches might be of the greatest service in time 
 of need. Already a return had comein the earnest courage 
 displayed by the Church in South Africa. God^s truth 
 attested there had exerted an influence on ourselves. 
 A noble prelate had been raised up to defend the faith 
 when we had not the courage to do it. We had, indeed, 
 received from Capetown a gift more precious than gold. 
 
 I can but repeat my hope that South Africa may also 
 receive from England something more satisfying than 
 our gifts on that particular morning, for unless some of 
 the donors were very munificent ones indeed, I can 
 scarcely believe that the see of Maritzburg derived any 
 very appreciable advantage. 
 
BISHOP OF RIP ON AT THE SAVOY. 307 
 
 THE BISHOP OP RIPON AT THE SAVOY. 
 
 THERE is scarcely a more striking contrast to be 
 found in London than that between the bright green 
 little graveyard which surrounds the Chapel Royal, 
 Savoy, and the grimy backs of the Strand hauses which 
 hem it in on one side, while unpicturesque warehouses 
 press it on the others, and the grim old German Lutheran 
 Chapel stands between it and the river. Quite a crowd 
 of early arrivals throngs the churchyard gate of a Sunday 
 morning ; for it is a belief ingrained in the convictions 
 of the ordinary church-goer that morning service must 
 commence at eleven o'clock, whereas it did not commence 
 on the morning of my Sunday visit until half-past eleven. 
 We amused ourselves therefore by pacing round the quaint 
 little place watching the long procession of Teutonic faces 
 file past us to the Lutheran Church, and by and by, 
 listening to their chorales in the distance. I was dis- 
 mayed to find that tickets were required to gain admit- 
 tance to the Savoy Church, and that one must apply to 
 the chaplain by the previous Friday, understanding if no 
 reply was received that no seats were vacant. When 
 the door was opened one freeborn Briton was exceedingly 
 irate at being excluded in consequence of this arrange- 
 ment. I was obliged to send in my name to the chaplain, 
 and so passed through the vestry to I really believe the 
 only vacant seat in the church. 
 
 The little building was beautifully decorated for Whit 
 Sunday ; there being two vases of white flowers on the 
 altar, with vast masses in the recesses of the reredos, and 
 pots at the foot of the candelabra. The pulpit and 
 lectern were also festooned with flowers, and the altar 
 itself, which is surmounted by a coloured window repre- 
 
3o8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 senting the Crucifixion, was vested in white, and there 
 was a large mural cross above it. The choir, which was 
 a surpliced one, wore bright purple cassocks with scarlet 
 girdles, the surplices being fastened with a red cross at 
 the neck. They entered in slow procession from the 
 vestry, followed by the Rev. Henry "White, who is the 
 chaplain, and the preacher for the day — The Bishop of 
 Ripon. The episcopal vestments lopked quite sombre 
 against the coloured cassocks of the choir and the crim- 
 son of Mr White's hood. There is a sad deficiency of 
 colour in our bishops' dresses. 
 
 The service commenced with the Veni Creator, of 
 which Dryden's version was taken to a tune by Barnby. 
 I am heterodox enough to prefer Dryden's words to 
 those in the ordination service. They are the ones com- 
 mencing thus : — 
 
 ' Creator Spirit, by whose aid 
 The world's foundations first were laid, 
 Come, visit every pious mind ; 
 Come, pour thy joys on humankind ; 
 From sin and sorrow set us free. 
 And make Thy temples worthy Thee.' 
 
 The hymns at the Savoy are generally taken from the 
 Hymnary ; but there is a special supplement called the 
 Savoy Hymnary, in which this particular hymn occurs. 
 The soprano voices in the choir were very good, but 
 rather overbalanced those of the men. The singing 
 seemed general in the congregation. When the hymn 
 was over, the Bishop proceeded at once with the Ante- 
 Communion Service, reading the Commandments, be- 
 tween which the choir sang a very melodious kyrie. The 
 Nicene Creed was monotoned, the organist, Mr H. F. 
 Frost, introducing harmonies very skilfully in the spirit 
 of the difierent clauses of the ci'eed. Another hymn was 
 sung from the Hymnary, and then the Bishop proceeded 
 to the pulpit. 
 
 His Lordship, who preached extempore and without 
 any. notes, took his text from St Luke ii. 13, ' If ye, 
 then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
 
BISHOP OF RIP ON AT THE SAVOY. 309 
 
 give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ? ' The dis- 
 ciples, said Dr Bickersteth, had just asked to be taught 
 to pray, and, in response, there was given to them that 
 comprehensive prayer, called the Lord's Prayer, of which 
 it had been said that it embraced every blessing man 
 could ask or God bestow. The necessity of prayer was 
 much called in question in these days. If God were 
 omniscient, it was asked, why should we express our 
 wants to Him ? If He be immutable, how could we ex- 
 pect Him to change or alter His irrevocable purposes at 
 the cry of a feeble creature ? We might answer that 
 prayer is a privilege and a duty, not a mere method of 
 getting what we wanted. 
 
 This, continued the Bishop, was Whit Sunday, the 
 Festival of the Church whereupon we considered God's 
 gift of the Holy Spirit, and he proposed to examine 
 separately the nature of that gift, the blessing bound up 
 with it, and man's warrant to expect it. 
 
 I. His lordship at some length then stated the Scrip- 
 tural grounds for believing in the Divinity of the Holy 
 Spirit, and the important offices discharged by Him in 
 reference to man's salvation. ' There were certain attri- 
 butes of Jehovah which were termed incommunicable, 
 such as God's omniscience, eternity, and right to be 
 worshipped. All these belonged to the Holy Ghost, and, 
 therefore, we believed Him to be Divine. Then, again. 
 He was not, as some ancient heretics said, a mere afflatus 
 of the Deity. He was a distinct person, and all the 
 characteristics of a separate personality were referred to 
 Him. He was said to be ' grieved ' at our sins, for in- 
 stance. Amongst His offices were enumerated His in- 
 spiration of the prophets. His instrumentality in the 
 miraculous Conception of Christ, and the offering of the 
 great sacrifice on Calvary, as well as His ' quickening ' 
 after death. All along the plan of our salvation those 
 offices were traceable. 
 
 II. Man was a complex being, made up of an imma- 
 terial soul shrined in a material body. It was originally 
 intended that the spiritual element should govern the 
 material one ; that the body should be the handmaid of 
 
3IO ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the soul. In the ruin brought about by man's apostasy 
 this original order was reversed. The noblest faculties 
 of man's mind and spirit were made to serve the instincts 
 of the body. How could this be reversed ? Only by the 
 creative power of the Holy Spirit. The eye of faith 
 could see what to the material eye was invisible. He 
 convinced of sin. He led to Jesus. He fashioned the 
 soul for immortality. Every hope of salvation depended 
 upon Him. So far we had only noted His offices during 
 this life ; but ere long we should die, and then the spirit 
 would return to God, who gave it. The material body 
 would be sown in corruption, earth to earth, ashes to 
 ashes, dust to dust ; but then the loving guardianship 
 of the Holy Spirit would extend to the shattered ma- 
 terials. The dust should be re-formed and live again j 
 the spirit raised to dwell with Christ in glory. The 
 Holy Spirit would quicken our mortal bodies as he had 
 quickened Christ's. 
 
 in. What was the warrant for expecting thisbestow- 
 ment of the Holy Spirit ? The reason was forcibly 
 stated in the text. Where was the parent who would 
 not give anything in his power for the good of his child ? 
 We were capricious and powerless, and therefore a 
 fortiori would Grod, who was all love and power, give the 
 Holy Spirit to them who asked Him. We had the dis- 
 tinct warrant of God's own promise that if we asked we 
 should receive. Then, again, we were living under the 
 dispensation of the Spirit. There had been three dis- 
 pensations, the Patriarchal, the Legal, and the Gospel 
 dispensation. In the first the unity of God was the 
 paramount idea. In the Levitical the person and work of 
 Christ were presignified by type and ceremony ; but in 
 the last the presiding thought was the work of the Holy 
 Spirit in leading man to Christ to train for immortality. 
 We had then, above all, a special warrant under tlus 
 dispensation for expecting the gift of the Holy Spirit. 
 May it be ours ; for it was the most precious gift God 
 could bestow. 
 
 The preacher then drew a beautifully contrasted 
 picture of the condition of those destitute of this gift as 
 
BISHOP OF RIP ON A T THE SAVOY. 311 
 
 compared with those who possessed it. Possessing this, 
 they possessed all things. They had omnipotent grace 
 to stand them in stead for every difficulty and trial. 
 
 Finally, this gift was to be sought for by importunate 
 prayer. Not only so, but also by use of all the means 
 of grace. His lordship especially invited his hearers to 
 the Holy Communion then about to be celebrated, where 
 such means of grace were conveyed by the ' consecrated 
 emblems of Christ's body and blood.^ A confirmation 
 had taken place at the Savoy Church on the previous 
 day, and the sermon closed with a very earnest appeal 
 to those newly confirmed ones who were present, that 
 they should continue thus to come until the blessed hour 
 when they should pass from the ranks of the Church 
 Militant to that of the Church Triumphant, and see Christ 
 without the aid of ' memorials,' without any veil to 
 intercept the unclouded brightness of His presence. 
 
 It was said of Locke's great Essay on the Human 
 Understanding that, though it dealt with the most 
 abstruse subjects, it did so in a way which rendered 
 them plain to the simplest capacity ; and the same 
 remark might have been made of the Bishop of Ripon's 
 sermon at the Savoy. Dealing with the mysterious 
 event of the first Whit Sunday and the doctrines 
 bound up with it, the matter was so handled as to 
 bring the subject down to the level of the meanest 
 comprehension. His lordship's style is singularly 
 fluent and easy, without the slightest pause or repeti- 
 tion. The right word seems to fall easily and naturally 
 into the right place ; and the sermon of Whit Sunday 
 might well stand as a model of a plain Evangelical 
 discourse, not without the relief of occasional flights of 
 eloquence, though these were mostly comprised in 
 terse epigrammatic expressions, the subject of the 
 sermon being to a certain degree dogmatic, or, at all 
 events, doctrinal. 
 
 The" large majority of the congregation remained to 
 the Communion, and nearly all the choir partook. The 
 appearance of the long line of surpliced communicants 
 
312 THE DEAN OF NORWICH 
 
 kneeling to receive the Elements at the hands of the 
 Bishop and Chaplain was very imposing indeed. A 
 pianissimo voluntary was played during the whole time 
 the congregation were communicating; or perhaps I 
 rather ought to say half-a-dozen such voluntaries, for 
 one did not by any means suffice for the very large 
 number of communicants. The greater number were 
 composed of the wealthier classes; and, judging from 
 externals, I should fancy the old precinct of the Savoy 
 was slenderly represented. The worship, however, was 
 one of the most beautiful specimens of the congrega- 
 tional kind at which it was ever my good fortune to be 
 present. 
 
 THE DEAN OF NOEWICH ON ST FRANCIS 
 DE SALES. 
 
 MY church-going on the present occasion was a 
 chapter of accidents. In the first place I was 
 misled by an evening paper announcing that the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin would preach on Baxter at St James's, 
 Piccadilly, and, as I was particularly anxious to hear 
 what his Grace would say on the subject of the ' Saint's 
 Everlasting Rest' and its author, I plunged boldly 
 through the rain and mud of an ungenial June in 
 London, and arrived in Piccadilly just in time to be too 
 late for the service ; for I had chosen to jump to the 
 conclusion that it began at half-past three, whereas the 
 hour was three ; so that when I arrived I found, not 
 the Archbishop of Dublin — whose turn came the follow- 
 ing Sunday — but the Dean of Norwich, who was well 
 into the second portion of his sermon by the time I 
 stole furtively into the side door. When I glanced 
 around on the huge congregation which filled the large 
 church, I could not help thinking how times have 
 
ON ST FRANCIS DE SALES. 313 
 
 changed, or rather we have changed in them, during 
 the last few years. What would our good grandsires 
 have said had they heard of vast congregations turning 
 out of a Sunday afternoon to hear Dr Parrar preach on 
 the ' De Imitatione Christi ' of S, Kempis, or the Dean 
 of St Paul's handle Pascal's ' Pens^es,' and now, worse 
 than allj Dean Goulburn treat on so purely Papistical a 
 volume as the ' Vie Devote ' of St Francois de Sales ? 
 Certainly the names of the preachers were sufficient 
 guarantees that, the subjects would be handled dis- 
 creetly; but most assuredly our Protestant ancestors 
 would have been ready with the remark that you could 
 not touch pitch without being defiled. We live in 
 more liberal times, and adopt the sounder policy of 
 extracting what is good from these works — rejecting 
 what is evil. But I am anticipating the preacher. 
 
 The Dean of Norwich had, I was told, given out no 
 text before his lecture or sermon — I scarcely know 
 which to call it. The larger portion of the discourse 
 was a criticism on the 'Introduction ^la Vie Devote/ 
 and he had just reached, as I said, the second portion 
 of the work when I arrived. However, he had to refer 
 to the first part later on in his subject, so that I was 
 able to supply the hiatus. 
 
 The first part of the Introduction insisted on the 
 necessity of formal dedication of self to God ; and then 
 the work passed on to treat, in the second part, on the 
 subject of reading the Bible. Strangely enough, how- 
 ever, whilst it discussed at length how one ought to 
 read the Bible, it did not give even the name of a single 
 book of Scripture. He referred instead to Bonaveutura, 
 Augustine, Jerome, and the ' Lives of the Saints.' In 
 this respect Bishop Taylor, in his ' Holy Living and 
 Dying,' differed entirely, so that this work might well 
 be said to form a supplement to the ' Vie Devote.' Yet 
 were certain parts of the work of ' Francis ' (it was so 
 the Dean famiharly spoke of him) exceedingly beautiful. 
 The chapter on Spiritual Recollection was simply 
 lovely.' It advocated daily retreats, saying that as 
 the birds had their nests in the trees and the deer their 
 
314 THE DEAN OF NORWICH 
 
 quiet thickets, so the soul should retreat to Calvary. 
 The method prescribed was, the Dean said, one of great 
 practical value. The portion called the Spiritual Nose- 
 gay was also highly praised, running to the eifect that 
 as, on entering a beautiful garden, one wanted to carry 
 away three or four flowers, so the soul should select 
 some three or four from among many truths for subse- 
 quent refreshment. 
 
 I was somewhat surprised to hear Dean Goulburn 
 speak so highly as he did of this certainly florid style 
 of moral theology. He thought this portion of the 
 Introduction might well be extracted by some compe- 
 tent writer, and an appendix added from his own hand 
 filling up defects. He contrasted tlie system of Medita- 
 tion with that of Bible-reading, greatly to the advantage 
 of the fonner. Bible-reading had, he said, with Pro- 
 testants, taken the place of Meditation, and too often 
 consisted only of reading — ^not, as the Collect said, of 
 learning, marking, and inwardly digesting. 
 
 The third and fourth portions formed really the body 
 of the Introduction, and consisted severally of a treatise 
 on the virtues and on temptation. The arrangement of 
 the virtues, however, was not an orderly one, and was 
 inferior to that of Bishop Taylor. He arranged them 
 according to the text of Titus ii. 12, in the order of 
 sobriety, justice, and religion. The noticeable defect 
 in Francis was his silence as to faith. Roman moral 
 theology made faith consist of a passive assent to 
 certain doctrines, and therefore we had to go to the 
 Apologetica, written against sceptics and atheists, before 
 we found any express mention of faith. In other cases 
 faith was presupposed. The Reformed Communions, 
 on the contrary, believed that faith was more than a 
 mere assent to doctrines, and was something that must 
 stir the affections. Therefore the Reformed Divine 
 could not ignore faith. Taylor gave a chapter on 
 Faith, but even in his case — if one might criticize so 
 great a man — the Dean thought the order should have 
 been reversed and faith put first instead of last. Yet, 
 on the other hand, all the virtues were not to be 
 
ON ST FRANCIS DE SALES. 315 
 
 merged in faith. It was not to be in this respect like 
 Aaron's rod, which swallowed the rods of Jaiines and 
 Juinbres, and left no creature of its kind on the earth 
 besides itself. Francis warned especially against a 
 multiplicity of pursuits. He suggested that we should 
 select one or two virtues. Unity of effortj said Dean 
 Goulburn, was essential to spiritual life. 
 
 Preserving his critical style, the Dean next passed to i 
 the fourth part, on the subject of Temptation^ where he 
 seemed to think St Francis was superior to the author 
 of ' Holy Living.' Bishop Taylor, he said, rather over- 
 looked the antagonistic side, and this involved a loss in 
 Christian ethics. We wanted to practise, not merely to 
 admire, the virtues ; and directly wo did so we elicited 
 the temptations of our own hearts, of the world around, 
 and of a legion of evil spirits in arms against us. The 
 Dean here referred to a very impressive sermon Bishop 
 Bagot once preached in the Cathedral at Wells. It 
 produced an immense effect by dwelling simply on the 
 difEculty of being good. Everybody who heard it felt 
 that it was difficult; and the need of a treatise like that 
 of Taylor or De Sales was not to hide difficulties, but 
 to help the reader over them. The ' Vie Devote,' which 
 in this respect resembled Scupoli's ' Spiritual Combat,' 
 had fifteen chapters on the Antagonisms of the Christian 
 Church ; but in this enumeration Francis passed from 
 temptations strictly so-called to what we should term 
 crosses and trials, such as barrenness and dryness. On 
 this head Dr Goulburn read a very striking passage 
 where the author, deprecating self- reprobation on the 
 score of dryness, compared the soul to a rose, which, 
 beautiful as it was when fresh, was even more fragrant 
 when its leaves were dried and seemingly dead. 
 
 The fifth and last part of the Introduction threw us 
 back again on the first. It treated of the method of 
 renewing our promises. As a clock required to be 
 wound up twice a day (the mechanism of clocks, said 
 the Dean parenthetically, had improved since the days 
 of Francis), and had to be taken to pieces every year 
 and its parts oiled, so was it with the soul. The simile 
 
3i6 THE DEAN OF NORWICH 
 
 was pursued into minute details, even so far as to make 
 the oil stand for Confession and the Holy Eucharist. 
 So there should be an annual retreat, in which the 
 original protestation should be reconsidered. All this, 
 be it remarked, presupposed the formal dedication of 
 the soul to Q-od. Thus, said the Dean, this beautiful 
 work circled back to the source from whence it set out, 
 like some noble river which, after meandering through 
 a country, fell at last into the great abyss of the ocean. 
 What, then, was the fundamental principle of this moral 
 theology, the cell around which all else gathered ? What 
 was the relation of this book to the Bilale ? ■ As art was 
 but the application of some force to the purposes of life, 
 so moral theology was only the adaptation of some 
 power of Scripture. The great work of Scupoli, for 
 instance, was an unfolding of that passage in the Epistle 
 to the Ephesianis, which spoke of spiritual antagonists 
 and the panoply of God. The fundamental thought of 
 Francis was more recondite ; but it was really an en- 
 largement of the words of Christ — ' Come unto Me, all, 
 ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you' 
 rest.' So far the rest was given, not gained ; but there 
 was a second rest spoken of in the context which was 
 gained, where it was said 'Take My yoke upon you, 
 
 and learn of Me, &c and ye shall find rest unto 
 
 your souls.' That this rest was an essential of the 
 Christian life, and to be'consummated only in Paradise, 
 was the ever-recurrent thought in Francis. TJnquietness 
 was the greatest evil of the soul, and the spring of tempt- 
 ations. The soul, in this respect, was like the bird 
 entangled in a net, which involved itself the more in its 
 very efforts to get loose. In worldly business there 
 might be care, but there should not be solicitude ; just 
 as the holy angels have avocations demanding care, yet 
 their solicitude does not mar their repose. The rivers 
 which glide through the fields bear great boats of 
 merchandise, and the rain which falls gently fertilizes 
 the country ; the tornado and the tempest were de- 
 structive. 
 It was evident from the way in which the Dean read 
 
ON ST FRANCIS DE SALES. 317 
 
 his various extracts tliat he was thoroughly penetrated 
 with the beauties of his author; yet he did not shrink 
 from adverse criticism of him. No doubt Francis had 
 originated Quietism, which, fifty years aftei'wards, issued 
 in Antinomianism. He caricatured the truth as to peace 
 of mind. He said that the will should have no pursuit 
 of its own, but be simply absorbed in the Divine will. 
 ' Thy will be done ' was to drown every other note in 
 the human diapason. His followers worked this vein of 
 thought mischievously, until Madame Guyon shocked the 
 moral sense. It seemed ungracious to criticize one 
 whose spirituality was so great as that of Francis. One 
 might use his own simile, and say that the hen who flies 
 seldom *could not criticize the gyi-ations of the eagle. 
 But St Theresa's own ejaculation was here to the point, 
 ' All that is not of God is nought.' So we said, in 
 reading these saints, all that is not God's work has a 
 flaw somewhere, and the authors would have been the 
 first to acknowledge it themselves. Only the man who 
 was sectarian, prone to theological commonplaces, or 
 unused to spiritual emotions, could read this work with- 
 out feeling his heart drawn out to the author and to 
 desire for a devout life. 
 
 The address was followed by the old Jewish benedic- 
 tion, and it was only when we passed out into Piccadilly 
 that I realized what a large congregation had been 
 attracted by the Dean. I no longer felt aggrieved at 
 having missed my Archbishop, for I had heard a very 
 exceptional lecture, and could not but feel that the ex- 
 periment of these special sermons at St James's had 
 been eminently successful. I particularly noticed a 
 very large number of clergymen, and one recently ap- 
 pointed dignitary, among the congregation. 
 
3iS ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 FATHER IGNATIUS ON REVIVALISM. 
 
 HAVING made it my mission of late to hear and re- 
 port the sermons of the Bishops during the London 
 season, I found myself nonplussed and my occupation 
 for the moment gone by the occurrence of Trinity 
 Sunday. Their lordships were, for the most part, en- 
 gaged in ordinations; and I believe only one bishop 
 preached in London or the suburbs — namely, Dr Gregg, 
 Bishop of Ossory, at St Augustine's, South Hackney. 
 
 But with the commencement of the London season, 
 the Rev. J. L. Lyne, better known as ' Father Ignatius, 
 O.S.B., Monk of the Church of England,'^ generally 
 leaves his seclusion in Wales, and preaches at St George's 
 Hall, by way of recruiting the funds for his monastery. 
 He began on a Thursday evening with an apotheosis of 
 St Thomas k Becket, and the next day delivered an 
 oration on Fashionable Society ; but Sunday afternoon 
 was devoted to a service and sermon, the subject of the 
 latter being advertised as ' Revivalism and the Upper 
 Classes.' Mr Lyne is exceedingly clev6r in the choice 
 of titles for his discourses, and this proved a very at- 
 tractive one, for, by the hour appointed, a very large 
 assemblage had gathered in the hall,, though the reserved 
 places cost five shillings and half-a-crown each, the un- 
 reserved sixpence and a shilhng. The proceeds, after 
 deducting expenses, were to be devoted to 'the Religious 
 Works of the English Benedictine Order.' Besides 
 being a phenomenon as a monk in the Church of Eng- 
 land, this young clergyman (for Mr Lyne is in Deacon's 
 orders) possesses powers of eloquence and undoubted 
 earnestness which are sure to secure a hearing even 
 from those who do not sympathize with his peculiar 
 views. 
 
FATHER IGNATIUS ON REVIVALISM. 319 
 
 On a green-baize-covered table in the centre of the 
 stage stood a large crucifix wreathed with flowers ; and 
 one of Mr Sankey's sacred solos was being sung behind 
 the red curtain at the back in a melodious voice, which 
 those of us who had heard him found no difficulty in 
 recognizing as that of Father Ignatius himself. Mr 
 Lyne does his own singing as well as preaching. There 
 was a harmonium accompaniment, and a small chorus 
 took up the burden of the hymn after each verse, but 
 neither the instrument nor vocal adjuncts were at all 
 equal to the solo. The harmonium was decidedly gusty, 
 and only came in at fitful intervals — not always at the 
 right places either. There was by the time the hymn 
 was over a decidedly large and influential gathering. 
 One old lady sat quietly alongside me for a long time, 
 and then suddenly, when she discovered the crucifix, 
 got up and made a profound genuflexion to it. 
 
 Presently Ignatius entered, in the black habit of his 
 order, and bearing a large Bible. Having knelt a short 
 time at the table in silent prayer, he rose and said he 
 had a particular favour to ask of his congregation. He 
 was obliged to gather them in that hall because the 
 Bishop of London, who was a good Christian man, and 
 acted from a sense of duty, would not allow him to 
 officiate in a church. In that same place Mr Voysey 
 preached, and he denounced him as a public blasphemer. 
 He would, therefore, ask those present to join him in 
 reciting the Athanasian Creed, to counteract the devilish 
 heresies of the man who blasphemed Christ. At this, 
 as at the previous denunciation, there were loud hisses, 
 and cries of ' No personalities ! ' ' Eead the Creed ! ' 
 Mr Lyne, however, was quite equal to the occasion, and 
 defended at once the Creed as being the inheritance of 
 every Evangelical Christian, and his own words as to 
 Mr Voysey's public character on the grounds that Mr 
 Voysey himself would be ready to say that there was 
 more that was wrong than right in the teachings of 
 Christ. The Creed contained the common faith of Dis- 
 senters as well as Churchmen, and was only unpopular 
 because the so-called damnatory clauses were misunder- 
 stood. 
 
320 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 The Athanasian Creed was then chanted to the 5th 
 Gregorian tone, only about twelve persons declining to 
 stand up, as Mr Lyne requested those who did not like 
 the Creed to sit quietly in their places. At its conclusion 
 he took a seat in the centre of the stage with the large 
 Bible on his knees, and the knotted cord which bound 
 his waist dangling picturesquely at his side. He 
 selected St John iv. 43, and subsequent verses, as the 
 subject of what turned out to be rather a full exposition 
 than a sermon in the ordinary acceptation of the term. 
 
 Recurring to the episode of Christ's discourse with 
 the Woman of Samaria, he pointed out the deep mean- 
 ing involved in the comment of the Samaritans, ' We 
 know that this is Christ the Saviour of the world.' It 
 was miserable only to hope this, but there was something 
 greater than hope — there was knowledge. Mr Lyne has 
 a strange penchant for calling everybody ' dear,' and he 
 said, Dear St John had written this advisedly of the dear 
 Samaritans. The word ' know ' was a pet word with 
 St John, just as St John was a pet disciple of Christ, and 
 would not be allowed to fall into error. We might, he 
 said, well plead guilty to a special love for the Gospel 
 and Epistles of dear St John. After two days Jesas 
 departed to Gahlee, and that expression of time greatly 
 attested the genuineness of St John's Gospel. If you 
 were to ask Professor Jowett whether this Gospel was 
 written by St John, he would hum and ha. But if he 
 had any real EngHsh pluck he would speak out and say 
 he did not believe it was written by the Evangelist 
 whose name it bore. It was only on select occasions he 
 spoke plainly, but was apt sometimes to make a lapsus 
 lingua. He made a good many ' lapsus linguces ' {sic) 
 when he was preaching at St Lawrence, Jewry, last 
 Passiontide. As for Mr Voysey, he was outside the 
 pale, for he did not pretend to be a Christian ; but it 
 was unfortunate when Christians diflfered one from the 
 other on dubious terms, while they held the funda- 
 mentals of faith in common. It was one of the devil's 
 delights to see them do so. Now that little expression, 
 ' after two days,' showed him this Gospel was the work 
 
FA THER IGNA TIUS ON RE VIVALJSM. 32 1 
 
 of an eye-witness. If not, why was such a mark of time 
 introduced ? It was only wasting ink and time for a 
 writer, a long while after the event, to introduce such. 
 He himself had a habit, before he went to bed everynight, 
 to open the Bible at hap-hazard and read the seventh 
 verse of the first chapter that met his eye, and to think 
 over it before he went to sleep. One night, when he was 
 ill, he asked a brother to open the Bible for him, and 
 the seventh verse turned out to be all made up of long 
 names in one of the genealogies. ' You won't find much 
 comfort in that, Father Ignatius, will you ? ' asked the 
 brother. ' Yes I do,' he replied, ' because it is impossi- 
 ble such a passage as that could be the invention of 
 man.' These minuti^ proved the verbal infallibility of 
 the Bible. We owed a deep debt of gratitude to the 
 Jews for the ' agonizing accuracy ' with which they had 
 guarded this verbal infallibility. Reading next the nar- 
 rative of the Nobleman's son healed by Christ, he took 
 the word Galilee, and noticed that just as people asked 
 how could any good thing come out of Galilee, so now they 
 asked of Moody and Sankey. They called them fools. 
 They said Sankey had come over to sell harmoniums, and 
 why ? Only because, instead of singing ' beastly songs 
 at the Alhambra or theatre,' he sang about Christ. The 
 scientific men of the world did not believe, and they were 
 miserable. Professor Tyndall would be glad to believe 
 in Jesus Christ; and in the midst of the commotion 
 caused by his miserable Belfast address, he had written 
 to a friend, ' In my quietest moments I believe most.' 
 This, continued Mr Lyne, was an electric-telegraph and 
 first-class-express age; and yet he thanked God that 
 there were noblemen and noblemen's sons now in Lon- 
 don entering into the present revival quite as heartily as 
 the middle and lower classes. Were there such present 
 — noblemen or noble-women anxious as this father was 
 about one who was dear to them ? Was there not inany a 
 mother anxious about a son ; many a gray -headed man 
 whose face would turn ashy pale, and his hair seem to 
 grow more gray still, if you mentioned his daughter ? 
 She was sick with the unnamed disease which society 
 
 21 
 
322 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 dared not name. Such cases were continually being sent 
 to him for prayer, and over and over again he had got 
 letters saying that the son who was despaired of had been 
 found in his bedroom praying. It was all right with 
 him. He had come to himself. There was one young 
 man — this one did not belong to the upper classes, but 
 to the noble working class, a fellow with a splendid arm 
 but a slave to drink. When he had thus been brought 
 to Christ, he came and said, ' I have done with the 
 drink. Ton told me I carried Christ in my heart now, 
 and I tried to go into the public-house and couldn't. I 
 hadn't the impudence to take Him in with me ! ' It was 
 just as Monica won Augustine's soul. His mother's 
 prayer won this young man. 
 
 He had many and many stories like this one of the 
 nobleman's son. Once when he was holding a mission 
 in the North some Wesleyans came and asked his prayers 
 for their daughter, whom the doctor pronounced to be 
 dying, and she was mad with fright at the idea. He 
 asked the people from the pulpit to pray for this dying 
 girl that her end might be made peaceful. Two or three 
 nights after, as the people were going out of church, the 
 parents came again and cried out, ' A miracle ! the child 
 has died, but oh so happily ! ' He called the people 
 back again, and they all knelt down and thanked God 
 for that miracle of peace. The great hindrance to 
 revivals was that people did not believe in instantaneous 
 salvation. But the dying man had only to look on the 
 brazen serpent and there was life in the look. He did 
 not slowly get better. He lived — at once. 
 
 Of this man, further, it was written, ' Himself believed 
 and his whole house.' Such was often the case. He 
 knew a dear lady who belonged to what was called a 
 religious family, where there was plenty of bowing and 
 crossing among her husband and children. She came 
 to his mission, and was derided by her husband as being 
 a Calvinist. At length he consented, at her nrgeut 
 request, to come too-r— just, as he said, to be amused; 
 Before that service was over he was kneeling by his 
 wife's side on the altar step, making what might be 
 
FATHER IGNATIUS ON REVIVALISM. 323 
 
 called his first commuiiioii, full of the light of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Jesus, he concluded, suited all classes. There were 
 Saints of Caesar's household ; and this revival was shak- 
 ing the whole of the Valley of Death. Jesus of Nazareth 
 passed by, and that great necropolis, London, started 
 into life. They were coming from the brothels and the 
 public-houses, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Some of 
 those present had, he knew, been added that afternoon. 
 He could see a different expression on their faces since 
 they came in. These were signs of the Holy Spirit's 
 work. They were additions to the family of the Living 
 God. 
 
 While the collection was being madb after the sermon, 
 a mission hymn, 'Stand up, stand up, for Jesus,' was 
 sung, followed by Mr Sankey's now celebrated 'Hold 
 the Port,' and a very large proportion remained for more 
 private colloquy, after the fashion of Mr Moody's Inquiry 
 Room. 
 
 Father Ignatius has unbounded admiration for the 
 American evangelists. I am puzzled to know whether 
 it is reciprocated, or whether the Benedictine garb is a 
 stumbling-block in the path of common action between 
 these men. 
 
 On the occasion of his sermon on Fashionable Life, he 
 prayed with much fervour, stating that he should be 
 satisfied if only three souls were saved out of fashionable 
 life. He then sat in the front of the stage, and read the 
 2nd chapter of the First Epistle of St John, accompany- 
 ing his reading with a running commentary, and remark- 
 ing that the words had nothing to do with fashionable 
 society, because they were addressed to children of 
 God. Christians, he said, were fools in the 19th century 
 as in the first ; and then made a complimentary allusion 
 to the success of Messrs Moody and Sankey. Thus do 
 extremes often meet ! 
 
 Passing imperceptibly to his oration. Father Ignatius 
 said that fashionable society was made up of falsehood, 
 
324 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 deception, and absolute tomfoolery. It was popular to 
 burlesque fashionable society, and he had a capital pic- 
 ture from Punch in his pocket which showed how popu- 
 lar it was to burlesque it. It was simply an assemblage 
 of limatics let loose. It was uncomfortably clothed. The 
 ladies, for instance, had to wear clothes in -which it was 
 difficult to sit down ; and the costume which was only 
 uncomfortable in the morning, was disgraceful in the 
 evening. This description provoked roars of laughter, 
 and Ignatius took that as an instance of the 'lunatics 
 let loose ' laughing at themselves. It was a matter 
 of business with the ladies to dress thus for the men. 
 It was a mere 'fishing expedition.' Fashionable 
 society, he said, was brutal to the weaker sex. It 
 ruined a young girl, and then said it ' could not visit 
 her ; ' then it handed over the poor wreck to the 
 church. It was the same with the imitators of fashion- 
 able society in the middle and lower classes. It entailed 
 a shameful waste of life on the part of its votaries. The 
 mother drove her daughter from pillar to post to get her 
 married, and it was impossible to escape from such 
 clutches. Summer was turned into winter, night into 
 day. Tou are, he said, hurried from the bloom of nature 
 in the country, and allowed to see it only in its decay. 
 What a ridiculous position ! Punch or Judy would bring 
 it home, but he wanted to go one step further. Are you 
 satisfied, he asked, with the world and your place in it? 
 Some were, he knew, but these were the people who 
 were drawn by Jesus Christ out of this fashionable 
 society. Their very life was peace. Why should not 
 one heart, weary of earth and laden with sins, be won 
 to-day by these words ? ' You long after God without 
 knowing it, and now you are within reach of it. We 
 come, let our light shine on you ! ' What will the world 
 do, he continued, when you are on your death-bed? 
 There is a worldling listening now, he said, who before 
 this London season is out will be ' beneath the under- 
 taker's hammer.' Instead of going to Norway for the 
 fishing, such an one may have to stand before God. 
 What have I to ofi'er you ? Simply Jesus Christ — God's. 
 
FATHER IGNATIUS ON REVIVALISM. 325 
 
 panacea for every possible ill. I am not a quack doctor, 
 lie pursued; I speak of what I know and have seen. 
 People in multitudes have been brought in by our 
 services. Then he went on to denounce others. St 
 Andrew's, Wells Street, he said, was one of the devil's 
 places. There was plenty of lace on the altar, plenty of 
 bowing and scraping. The devil was one of the most 
 religious people in the London season, and there would 
 soon have to be introduced into St Andrew's, Wells 
 Street, Punch's patent chairs for ladies who could not 
 sit. The clergymen at St Andrew's had ho more right 
 to give the Sacrament to the people there than to a pig 
 — not so much, because the pig had not a soul to be 
 damned! Having demolished St Andrew's, he pro- 
 ceeded, amidst applause, to denounce Dean Stanley and 
 Professor Jowett, for speaking against whom he should 
 like to go to prison ; and I should think he was likely to 
 be gratified, since he alluded to them as ' devil-possessed 
 professors of fashionable religion.' And yet Ignatius 
 would have us believe that he was ' no quack ' ! He 
 could give out what he had got — and, as far as I 
 could gather, nobody had got it except himself. He 
 wished he had a certain young nobleman on that plat- 
 form, who had just come out of the darkness, so that he 
 might tell them what he did (it was a pity Ignatius did 
 not bring this sprig of nobility) ; but he drew a graphic 
 picture of how he had become convinced he was an abode 
 of demons. What was it ? Some people thought it was 
 mesmerism. If so, it was a stronger mesmerism than 
 any he knew. 
 
 Such was the admirable mixture of rant and reality 
 with which Father Ignatius regaled his fashionable 
 audience, exhorting us to go home plus the Saviour, in- 
 stead of minus. I should be curious to know whether 
 the strangely high-spiced oration did really touch even 
 three hearts of those present. 
 
326 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 CHUECH OF ENGLAKD MONKS. 
 
 THERE can be little doubt that, -with Moody-and-San- 
 - keyism on the one side, and Anglican Monasticism 
 on the other, the elastic limits of our Established Church 
 have lately been tried to their utmost ; for, whatever 
 opinions' may be held as to the edifying character of 
 each or either of these influences, they mark extremes to 
 which in our day and generation we have be-en unac- 
 customed, but which no doubt the machinery of the new 
 Public Worship Bill will keep well within bounds. There 
 is, however, one ingenious gentleman who manages to 
 combine both these extremes in his single self with re- 
 markable dexterity — I still mean the Rev. J. L. Lyne, 
 who, as Father Ignatius, has made it his mission to revive 
 Monasticism in the Church of England, and who pro- 
 fesses unbounded admiration — amid a considerable 
 amount of the ml adm irari in other respects — for the 
 character and work of the American evangelists. 
 
 Father Ignatius concluded on a Sunday his summer 
 campaign for 1875, during which he had been making 
 strenuous efforts for the replenishment of his monastic 
 coffers at Llanthony, the special object in view being to 
 erect an altar of proper splendour in the Abbey Church 
 'among the wild black mountains of South Wales.' 
 The choir and chancel were built, and Father Ignatius 
 wanted a shrine for perpetual intercession ; hence his 
 visit to rich London at the height of the season. 
 
 On Thursday, July 1st, the day when the Public 
 Worship Bill came into force, he commenced operations 
 with an oration at St George's Hall on the doctrine of 
 the real Presence in the Eucharist, the practical question 
 debated being the attitude Enghsh Catholics should as- 
 sume towards the new measure. On Friday, ' the Feast 
 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND MONKS. 327 
 
 of the Visitation of tlie B. V. M./ he discussed Mariola- 
 tpy at Westbourne Hall, and on the following Saturday 
 he took what one may well regard as his typical subject, 
 ' Monks in the Church of England,' at the same place. 
 He is singularly happy in his titles ; and devoted Sun- 
 day afternoon at St George's Hall to the consideration 
 of ' The Blind Man — not of Jericho, but of London/ 
 It is to the Saturday afternoon discourse I propose to 
 give attention, as representing a phenomenon in the 
 Church of England at the present time — the practical 
 reintroduction of monke^ry into her system. 
 
 Appearing, as usual, in the black habit of the Bene- 
 dictine Order, with tonsured head and sandalled feet, 
 Father Ignatius, in his opening remarks, claimed the 
 subject as one interesting to Protestants as well as to 
 Catholics. Monasticism, he said, was necessary for sound 
 life and morality in the National Church. He defined a 
 Catholic as one who did not accept the Protestant Re 
 formation, whether belonging to the Roman, Greek, or 
 Anglican Communion, and read a series of extracts 
 laudatory of Monasticism from a regular catena of non- 
 Catholic writers, either Protestant or sceptical, including 
 Gibbon, Voltaire, Guizot, Dugald Stewart, Leibnitz, 
 Neander, Dr Maitland (' History of the Dark Ages '), 
 and John Stua,rt Mill. All religions, he went on to say, 
 were monastic, especially Buddhism, which held sway 
 over nearly half the human race, more than all the dif- 
 ferent bodies of Christendom put together. Could we, 
 he asked, afford to pooh-pooh one half the human race 
 by denouncing or decrying Monasticism ? When he 
 himself appeared before the Court of Chancery in the 
 matter of young Mr Todd, Vice- Chancellor Malins said 
 it would never do for all the world to turn monks ; to 
 which he replied that this was scarcely more likely than 
 that all the world should turn vice-chancellors. Father 
 Ignatius then read the 19th chapter of St Matthew, 
 which he said was one of the sources from which they 
 gathered the monastic idea ; and he made his audience 
 (which, by the way, was not very numerous) laugh by the 
 manner in which he contrasted the care shown in as- 
 
328 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 suming the monastic vow, witli the precipitation with 
 which young men and women assumed the life-vows of 
 matrimony. There was no novitiate of a year in the lat- 
 ter, but you plumped into it head over heels once for all, 
 and for life. He concluded this introductory portion, 
 which might with advantage have been incorporated in 
 his subsequent address, by telling the story of a young 
 man of nineteen, who on Friday evening had come to 
 him and declared that he felt a vocation for the monastic 
 life, while his parents were only too rejoiced at the course 
 he had taken. This attitude he contrasted with that 
 assumed towards him by the Protestant Alliance. 
 
 Then he came to the main address, the subject of 
 which he thus subdivided : 1. What is a monk ? 2. 
 What is the Church of England ? 3. Is there anything 
 inconsistent with Monasticism in that Church ? The 
 word ' monk ' itself simply meant ' solitary.' There 
 were, he said, different gifts ; and it was idle to suppose 
 that they were each absorbed in any one person. ' How 
 ugly your 'face would look if it were all nose ! ' he added 
 by way of illustration. So, again, it would fare ill with 
 the Church if all were evangelists. The monk separated 
 himself from the world to live a life of prayer and praise. 
 Who would say that such a life was useless ? Scripture 
 contained many monastic passages, as, for instance, where 
 prayer seven times a day was spoken of, where the 
 Psalmist said, early he would direct his prayer to God, 
 &c. In the world there was little time for frequent 
 prayer ,- therefore God called some to devote themselves 
 to a life of perpetual intercession. Supposing twelve 
 men took a house for this purpose, could you say that 
 they were leading a wrong life ? However you might 
 appreciate an active existence, you would be disposed to 
 pray for a blessing on such a work. Those men would 
 be like Moses, Aaron, and Hur on the mountain. It was 
 they who won the battle more than those who were 
 fighting down below. So the monk never left off his 
 intercession ' until the sun went down.' Apart from the 
 ornaments of Catholicism no one could have any objec- 
 tion to such a system. The Christian monk differed 
 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND MONKS. 329 
 
 widely in this respect from the Buddhist. The work of 
 the latter was selfish. By contemplative life he sought 
 to realize the nirwana — the ideal state of perfection — in 
 himself only. So, said Father Ignatius, there are some 
 ' dear Christians ' who say we can be perfect now. ' I 
 believe that when this is the case probation will be over. 
 The woi-k of sanctification is a gradual one throughout 
 life, and the monk devotes his life not to personal per- 
 fection, but to Christ, who is all in all. He offers his 
 life to Christ. Montalembert showed how this was true 
 in history ; how the monks were the great barriers 
 against barbarism ; and it was the blood of a monk that 
 brought about Magna Charta.' 
 
 2. In the second place, what, he asked, was the 
 Church of .England ? If it were only created by Act of 
 Parliament in the Reign of Henry VIII., then he con- 
 ceded it had no place for Monasticism. But the Church 
 of England was established by the Apostles themselves. 
 It was the only representative of the Universal Church 
 in this country. Its history went back to the first 
 Christian century. Five hundred years before Augustine 
 the British Church was flourishing. SS. Clement and 
 Irenffius bore testimony to its antiquity, and Bishops of 
 London, Colchester, and York sat in a council a century 
 before good Pope Gregory sent over Augustine. Had 
 she then possessed monastic institutions ? In the fifth 
 century Pelagius said that there were in the Church of 
 England ten thousand monks, and they were as strong 
 in their repudiation of the Roman claims of Augustine 
 as the Protestant of to-day could be. They were not 
 Romanist or Popish then. But, then, they were done 
 away with at the Reformation. That was what that 
 ' dear good Christian,' the Bishop of London, had said 
 to Father Ignatius himself. But his lordship forgot 
 history. The Church of England never did away with 
 monasteries — the King did, for political and egotistical 
 purposes ; and when the Church of England mouks' 
 offered to give up the Papal supremacy he refused their 
 offer, because they would not accept his supremacy 
 instead, knowing that to do so would only be to go out 
 
330 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of tbe frying-paTi into the fire. Henry VIII. simply 
 said, he would have the Bill or their heads, and they 
 ' very naturally ' preferred the former. It was simply 
 an historical blunder on the part of that good Christian, 
 the Bishop of London. Wolsey did away with the 
 system, and the fate of those who shared in the spolia- 
 tion might be read in Spelman's ' History of Sacrilege.* 
 3. It was high time, then, that the life of prayer 
 ■ should be rehabilitated in our midst. He recurred 
 once more to those Protestant testimonials as to the 
 pure life of the monasteries, and aslced was there ever 
 a greater age of shams — especially religious shams — 
 than at present ? It was not long ago, said Father 
 Ignatius, ' that a friend of mine, who is an atheist, said : 
 " The fundamental principle of your Christianity is that 
 a man shall give up all he has and follow Christ. Can 
 you point me out one Christian who does this ? Can 
 yon picture a Lord Chancellor giving up all he possesses ? 
 No, you are behind the time. You cannot show me one 
 such practical Christian — ^not one." ■* Then it was com- 
 mon to point to the abolition of monasteries in Spain 
 and Italy ; but it was not Christianity that was -doing 
 away with them. When the sacrilegious state of things 
 was over, then the monasteries would be restored, as they 
 had been in France. ' I am not speaking of what I do 
 not know,' said the Anglican monk, ' I am speaking the 
 thoughts of twenty years, during which I have stood 
 alone contending for this principle.' Here followed a 
 tremendous burst of applause, and IgnatauB thanked his 
 audience for that mark of sympathy, and said all we 
 needed was to bring common sense to bearx)n the subject. 
 Finally he asked his hearers what they were indi- 
 vidually doing, what proofs they were giving of their 
 Christianity. Except they left aU and followed Christ 
 they could not be His disciples. That maxim was 
 literally exemplified in the monk's Ufe ; but it should be 
 illustrated in a degree by the life of every Christian. 
 He particularly exhorted Christian preachers to speak 
 thus to their congregations, and not to pander in their 
 sermons to men's feelings. ' Let men's feelings go to 
 
A SERMON 01^ PHYSIOLOGY. 331 
 
 the devil, whence they came,' was the alternative sug- 
 gested by this remarkably plain-spoken orator. 
 
 He then urged his special request for the Altar of 
 Perpetual Intercession, and pictured the prayer of the 
 watcher before the shrine at Llanthony even then going 
 up on behalf of those to whom he was speaking. From 
 five in the morning till ten at night prayer was now 
 offered at that altar, and, as their numbers increased, 
 they hoped to continue the prayer throughout the night. 
 
 The collection was then made while a hymn was sung, 
 Father Ignatius extemporizing solo verses much after 
 the manner of Mr Sankey ; but I scarcely think the offer- 
 ings of the Westbourne Hall people bore any proportion 
 to those which the American evangelists have got from 
 the British public. 
 
 A SEEMON ON PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 FOR those antitypical Athenians of the nineteenth 
 century who would fain ' spend their time in nothing 
 else but either to tell or to hear some new thing/ it is a 
 good deal to be able to say that at the Church of St James, 
 Westmoreland Street, Marylebone, of which the Rev. 
 H. R. Haweis is incumbent, they will be sure to find 
 originality, and very likely to hear some novelty in the 
 pulpit. A long pursuit of different 'doxies has, I con- 
 fess, ingrained in my being this hunger and thirst for 
 something new ; and, though I had no ' commission ' on 
 hand at the time — for was not I absorbed in the study 
 of Heterodoxy ? — I repaired to the orthodox confines of 
 St James's on a certain Sunday morning, among other 
 reasons in order to refresh my mind, wearied by long 
 experience of heresies, with something which, while it 
 was orthodox, should not be uninteresting, and which, 
 
332 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 BO I hoped, while delivered within the walls of an 
 Established Church of England, should be free from 
 that condition of stagnation which, rightly or wrongly, 
 the enemies of Establishments declare to be of their very 
 essence. The present paper is to describe how I fared, 
 and what measure of success or failure resulted from my 
 experiment on the occasion in question. 
 
 One remarkably convenient arrangement at St James's 
 for those who, like myself, consider early rising a heresy, 
 is that a break is made between morning prayers and 
 the Communion Service, in which latter, of course, occurs 
 the sermon. 
 
 From the number of people sunning themselves on 
 the flagstones that Sunday morning I should gather that 
 early rising is not considered a cardinal virtue by Mr 
 Haweis's congregation. I thought I would go in and 
 hear the fag end of the prayers, which, with their choral 
 ' amens,' sounded musically outside ; but the gorgeous 
 beadle, who is an old friend of mine, and who was con- 
 templating his al fresco congregation with much satis- 
 faction, said, like Baily junior, ominously, ' Don't,' 
 adding, for my private gratification, that the thermome- 
 ter was, sixty- four degrees in the gallery. 
 
 When I did get in I found the surpliced choir singing 
 an anthem, which was judiciously made to take the place 
 of the Litany; and I could not help thinking that I 
 should have preferred even a ' dim religious light' to the 
 heat of two large sunburners that were flaring fiercely 
 down upon our devoted heads ; but Mr Haweis evidently 
 goes in for material as well as spiritual light at St 
 James's, and he certainly gave us lots of both on the 
 morning of which I write. The only symptom of gloom 
 I discovered was in the retention of the old-fashioned 
 Geneva gown in the pulpit, in place of the now almost 
 universally adopted surplice ; but I fancy Mr Haweis 
 would be anything rather than ' High ; ' and possibly 
 the Episcopal sanction lately conferred on what was 
 once considered ' a rag of Popery ' in the pulpit has not 
 so much value in his estimation as it has with some of us. 
 
 Mounting the pulpit, then, thus attired, and without 
 
A SERMON ON PHYSIOLOGY. 333 
 
 enunciating any text^ Mr Haweis began by speaking of 
 the general indifference to sermons, the discrepancy 
 between the clerical and lay platform, and trivialities of 
 the clerical and clerical-lay mind. The acme of narrow- 
 ness was attained, he said, by the ' theological laymen/ 
 But the evil went even deeper than this. The clergy 
 and religious people were not quick to discover where 
 secular controversies impinged upon the religious life. 
 ' What can discussions on protoplasm and the origin of 
 life, for instance, have to do,' they asked, ' with religion ? ' 
 Unless the clergy could prove that convictions about 
 these matters were connected in some way with religion 
 and morals, they would have no right to introduce 
 philosophy or science into the pulpit. He had, on the 
 previous Sunday, been speaking of the mind and the 
 body. Now, the anatomist said that soul was nothing 
 but a product of matter and force. This assertion at 
 once defined the plane on which the men of science were 
 working, and served to reveal the flaw in their argument. 
 They said that the dissolution of the body involved the 
 extinction of consciousness. This was Dr Buchner's 
 assertion. But before you claim to have proved the 
 dissolution of soul together with body you would have 
 to show the links in the chain connecting the two — to 
 prove that they are essentially, not accidentally, connected 
 — you cannot ; you must show the passage from one to 
 the other— it is unthinkable ; you must show that the 
 one can be converted into the other — you cannot. There 
 is no really material equivalent for thought — it is a 
 matter and force and something more — therefore, he said, 
 ' the physiological argument, as I showed last Sunday, 
 leaves the other arguments for the soul where they were 
 before ; of course, it does not prove its independent ex- 
 istence, but it cannot prove its essential dependence 
 upon the body that now is.' 
 
 I will now speak (1) of The Tyranny of Matter ; (2) 
 The Supremacy of Mind ; and show how these subjects 
 have to do with the rehgious life. 
 
 1. People used to underrate the dominion of matter. 
 This was due to their ignorance of physiology. We, by a 
 
334 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 natural reaction, were disposed to overrate it. For 
 instance, as our knowledge of physiology increased, we 
 should deal differently with our criminals. We should 
 cease attacking mere effects, and go back to the pre- 
 ventable causes. The criminal population was created 
 in part by ignorance of natural laws. Many of them 
 were the victims of circumstances, and had never had a 
 chance. Open these people's skulls and you would find 
 a low development. What made the criminal popula- 
 tion ? Over-crowding, want of education, disease, want 
 of religion. Modern civilization was to blame for this, 
 we were to blame. We ought to support schools and 
 sanitary reform and emigration, and members of Parlia- 
 ment who tried to remedy the present disastrous social 
 conditions. When we reformed a bad man or a bad 
 woman we did not stop with them, but we helped them 
 to transmit healthier systems, sounder brains, and 
 better habits to their children; and actually enabled 
 them, through matter, to develop that which had supre- 
 macy over matter ! 
 
 '.tin some respects, Mr Haweis said, the American 
 judges were better than the English from their quick- 
 ness in catching up new legislative principles. In 
 England there was an abnormal opposition to new ex- 
 periences and new forms of truth. Even if we admitted 
 the new form, we kept it rigidly apart from the old. 
 ' Judge-made law ' treats a man as a felon even if insane, 
 when he commits a crime knowing it to be a crime ; 
 whereas Dr Maudsley said if an American judge had 
 to pronounce upon the same case, he would recognize a 
 defect of cerebral development, as influencing will- 
 power, and capacity for right action, even when know- 
 ledge was there. By and by we should learn to ti'eat 
 our criminals, partly as criminals of course, but partly 
 also as diseased ; and, still more, we should prevent 
 their coming into existence by improving the race, pro- 
 tecting the children,, and controlling the parents. 
 
 So, too, with regard to social life. We never dreamed 
 of noticing physiological laws in marriage. It never 
 occurred to us that we were to a great extent resjponsihh 
 
A SERM-ON ON PHYSIOLOGY. 335 
 
 for whom we fell in love with ! But we were equally 
 responsible for that which was called the impulsive part 
 of our lives ; and people ought to look before they leapt. 
 And after marriage, we were responsible for the families 
 we brought up. It was a subject ignored in sermons 
 and books, but we ought to exercise self-control, and 
 not sin against physiological laws of health. As to the 
 one excess of intemperance, for instance, it had been 
 proved that five different kinds of transmitted insanity 
 were the direct result of drunkenness in married men. 
 The children and grandchildren bore the stripes. The 
 fathers ate the sour grapes — the children's teeth were 
 set on edge. 
 
 Still, pursued this most original of preachers, I know 
 you won't do as I tell you. You will go and fall in love, 
 anywhere, anyhow. Self and the momeiit will win ! You 
 will then get married to the wrong people. You will do 
 it. This makes the despair of legislation; You will go 
 on ruining yourself, and blighting posterity for time and 
 eternity, because you marry wildly wrong, and when 
 you are married decline to study and obey healthy 
 conditions. 
 
 2. Walking up and down his capacious and almost 
 Spurgeonic pulpit, Mr Haweis said he would next con- 
 sider the supremacy of the mind. Some said the will 
 was not free ; but after all the will was simply a func- 
 tion of the intelligence. Healthy intelligence turned 
 on the state of the brain, and I don't assume that any 
 of you are mad, he said, but all have some little taint. 
 I address you as sane, just as I claim the prerogative of 
 sanity myself. Still all are a little touched. Body and 
 mind were mixed up, he said, and to understand either, 
 we must understand both. Now we have the power of 
 directing our thoughts ; if by acting on the body we 
 could stimulate thought, so surely by acting through 
 the mind by an exercise of will-power we could readily 
 direct a nerve-current here or there, and make an 
 arbitrary resolve and act upon it ; therefore the will was 
 practically free. Well, it was the development of these 
 nerve currents for which we were responsible if sane ; 
 
336 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 even thougli born with an insane or unbalanced nature, 
 we might control, regulate, perhaps cure it. Lamb's 
 sister knew when the next fit was coming on, and put 
 herself under restraint. So sane people could deal with 
 themselves, if they knew what they were made of. 
 
 The lessons of modepn physiology were invaluable 
 for easing the friction of social life, family feuds, ill- 
 temper, &c. 
 
 Wliat makes such misery as being quarrelsome and 
 cantankerous ? he asked. A husband — hai luck to him f 
 — had nothing to do all day long, and so constituted 
 himself a domestic nuisance. Conditions were against 
 him. Another got depressed from over-work or tem- 
 porary annoyance. If we understood the physiology of 
 the brain we should say, 'If I stop at home I shall 
 wrangle. I'll go for a walk and come home and then 
 make it up ! ' People wouldn't recommence quarrels 
 the next morning if they knew what their brains were 
 made of. They wouldn't he such fools. 
 
 I am afraid people smiled at some of these remarks. 
 I heard a young lady near me sniggle and say, "^ Pa ! ' 
 when 'the idle gentleman was alluded to. Altogether, 
 it put me rather in mind of a saying attributed to an 
 eminent Broad Church clergyman, but which I do not 
 believe he ever uttered — ' Hang theology ! ' We have 
 a good many Churches now-a-days — High Church, 
 Low Church, Broad Church — some add Fast Church. 
 It has been reserved for Mr Haweis to inaugurate 
 Physical Church. Perhaps he will bear us back by a 
 circuitous route to Thales of Miletus and his Physical 
 School of Philosophy again. Truly quot homines, tot 
 sententice ! 
 
MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 337 
 
 MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 
 
 IP there is one qualification which the British Public 
 appreciates more than another in the pulpit it is 
 pluck ; and certainly Mr Haweis is the pluckiest of 
 London preachers. Not only does he advance the most 
 tremendous theories — as, for instance, that of the mag- 
 netic character of the sacraments — but on the occasion 
 referred to in the present chapter, he solved the question 
 of preaching — or rather of lecturing — in chapels by 
 simply doing it. The Bishop, it was whispered, offered 
 a remonstrance, but in vain. 
 
 The occasion was the first of a series of ' Sunday 
 Evenings for the People,' at South Place Institute, Fins- 
 bury, and Mr Haweis was announced to lecture on ' The 
 Use and Abuse of Emotion.' The gathering was pro- 
 moted by the National Sunday League, and the building 
 was crowded, a charge of threepence, sixpence, and one 
 shilling being made for admission. It having become 
 known that some correspondence had taken place 
 between the Bishop of London and Mr Haweis as to his 
 appearing, considerable interest was excited, especially 
 as he was the first clergyman in the Church of England 
 who had publicly appeared on an occasion of this descrip- 
 tion upon the platform of the Sunday League. South 
 Place Institute is a building in which Theistic services 
 are regularly held under the direction of Mr Moncure 
 D. Conway, and from what can be gathered — consider- 
 able reticence being exhibited in reference to the matter 
 — the Bishop of London, on hearing that' Mr Haweis 
 proposed to deliver a lecture under the circumstances 
 described, wrote a letter of remonstrance to him, and 
 expressed a strong hope that he would alter his determin- 
 ation. A correspondence ensued which was considered 
 
 22 
 
338 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 to be of a private character, but in the end Mr Haweis 
 was able to write to the Secretary of the Sunday League 
 informing him that the diflBculty had been overcome, 
 that the Bishop had withdrawn, and had 'practically' 
 left him in a position to fdfil his promise. Throughout 
 the evening no public allusion was made to the subject. 
 
 Mr Haweis' s very characteristic address was delivered, 
 without notes, as follows : — 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, I am delighted to come here 
 to-night and to address you at your own invitation. I 
 believe that nothing but good can come of meetings of 
 this kind. I say, throw open the gates, let the people 
 come in ; let every one who aims at self-improvement 
 come and find it on this day — the only day that many of 
 you have to spare for reflection or culture of any kind : 
 
 ' Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But m.ore of reverence in us dwell.' 
 
 (Reverence, that is, for all that is worth reverence.) 
 
 ' That heart and mind, according well, 
 May make one music as before, 
 But vaster.' 
 
 Now, I have undertaken to address you to-night on 
 the ' Use and Abuse of Emotion ; ' but you must pardon 
 me if I leave the ' abuse ' of emotion very much to your 
 own imagination. 
 
 A great deal has been said against emotion and 
 enthusiasm generally — its danger, its futility, its 
 weakness, its want of manliness, and so forth. But 
 after all, some kind of feeling must underlie every 
 moment of life. Emotion in some shaf>e is co-extensive 
 with intelligent being. Your life is made up of in- 
 telligence and emotion. The more thought and feeling 
 you can make room for, the richer you are. The use 
 and abuse of thought would be a grand topic, but I 
 confine myself to-night to the use and abuse of emotion. 
 
 What is emotion ? Physically it is accompanied, 
 some would say caused, by the quickened pulse, the 
 rapid motion of brain-molecules, and the consequent 
 disturbance and spread of nerve-currents. Thus it 
 
MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 339 
 
 has its sensational side. But it is more tliaii sensa- 
 tion. Distinguish between sensation and emotion. 
 If you knock a man down he feels an unpleasant 
 sensation ; he brings his thought to bear on that 
 sensation, and the emotion of anger is the result — 
 that may possibly culminate in the action of knocking 
 you down ; hence more sensation, followed by reflec- 
 tion on your part, emotion of anger, action — and so on 
 over again. 
 
 Tou perceive then, that emotion demands the union 
 of thought and feeling, or, as Tennyson has it — 
 
 ' Heart and mind according well.' 
 
 Now, the great secret of a worthy life is to have the 
 emotions well in hand, and to make them do honourable 
 work ; for if you do not make your emotions do honour- 
 able work, they will be sure to degrade you. Some- 
 thing the heart must have to grind, and if you will not 
 give it good grain, it will grind chaff. In view of these 
 remarks, all sneering at emotion and enthusiasm — 
 which is one manifestation of it, is seen to be irrelevant. 
 A short time ago I happened to read in a superfine 
 paper — in an article by one of those persons who know 
 every one's business better than their own, and who 
 look down with a lofty contempt upon all modes of 
 thought and feeling unintelligible to them — this ex- 
 pression, 'Fraud, nonsense, and enthusiasm.' The 
 three were classed together as a matter of course. 
 Well, my common sense revolted against that. I said, 
 either this writer is merely showing off and does not 
 believe what he says; — in which case he is guilty of 
 fraud — or he can have no knowledge of his subject, 
 and is probably talking nonsense — or he is certainly a 
 little heated, and has allowed his feelings to run away 
 with him ; in that case he is the prey of a not very 
 respectable enthusiasm. It is even possible that he 
 himself may be ' a shocking example of the frightful 
 effects ■" of the very fraud, nonsense, and enthusiasm 
 which he so bitterly condemns. People blessed or 
 unblessed with certain temperaments are apt to con- 
 
340 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 demn enthusiasm, but they perhaps forget that no good 
 work has ever heen done without enthusiasm at the 
 bottom of it. The great heroes of the world have been 
 men capable of being lifted up with high and holy 
 enthusiasm. But emotion generally, and enthusiasm 
 in particular, has got a bad name for several reasons : — 
 First, because feeling very often stands alone, and then 
 it is not respectable ; feeling is only respectable when 
 it nerves us for action. Here is a man who has all 
 sorts of fine feelings. But we watch his life, and we 
 see nothing comes of them. Then we distrust him. 
 A person meets you unexpectedly in the street. He 
 is very gushing. He says, ' Oh ! how long it is since 
 we met ! I am delighted to see you, my dear old 
 friend ; you know we were schoolfellows together.' 
 He shakes you warpily by the hand, and continues — 
 ■ ' I never had such a friend as you, and although I have 
 not come to see you for a long time, I love you like a 
 brother.' You say — ' Oh, do you ? Lend me five 
 pounds.' If you had shot him he could not look more 
 struck. He changes colour, and stammers out — 'I — I 
 don't happen to have five pounds about me just now.' 
 The fact is, his heart is in the right place, but his purse 
 is in a very different quarter. Now we don't consider 
 that man's feelings respectable, for when the oppor- 
 tunity for acting upon it comes, he cannot find in his 
 emotion the spur or stimulus for generosity. If you 
 happen to want a little money you will soon find out 
 whether or not you have a friend in the world. 
 
 Again, feeling may be in excess j some people, not 
 perhaps of the male sex, are always in floods of tears. 
 Of course this answers very well at first, but when 
 it has been repeated too often it is very apt to lose 
 its effect. By and by the tears flow unregarded, we 
 know how little they mean, for what trivial or unworthy 
 purposes they are used. Their excess paralyzes their 
 effectiveness. The weeper wears out her welcome, and 
 at last, like the lady in Dickens, she may go home in a 
 flood of tears and a sedan-chair, and nobody will much 
 mind. Then there is what I may caU the Pecksniffian 
 
MR H AWE IS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 341 
 
 form of emotion ; there are men apparently overpowered 
 by a deep sense of moral responsibility ; they are always 
 talking about the great duties they owe to society, but 
 unfortunately they never discharge any of them ; in 
 short, said Dickens, they are like sign-posts always 
 showing the way and never going. 
 
 Well, now, when emotion comes before us in the 
 shape of enthusiasm, or any other strong feeling, we are 
 bound to ask in the interests of decency and common 
 sense. Does it stand alone ? Is it mere gush, or is it 
 ready to be backed by a five-pound note ? Is it merely 
 floods of tears ? Is it weak silly maunder ? When a man 
 who has had a little too much goes about shaking hands 
 with everybody and asking them to dine with him every 
 day of the week, what do we say ? Why we say, Go home, 
 my friend, and get sober, and we will talk to you an- 
 other day. Or is it Pecksniff? Well then, we say at 
 once this man is a humbug, take him away, put him 
 ■ somewhere, don't bring him amongst respectable people ; 
 the world has much work to do, and we have no time 
 for this vapouring and silly fellow. ^ Do you not see then 
 why emotion has got a bad name in the world ? It is 
 condemned, not because of its use, but because of its 
 abuse. Remember then emotion demands the union of 
 thought and feeling ; it is raised, it should be controlled 
 by intelligence; it involves a reflex action of the mind; 
 it is not a mere sensation as when a man feels pain, it 
 is the mind working upon a sensation. But in order 
 that emotion may be respectable, not to say useful, or 
 even sublime, it must satisfy conditions. 
 
 First. Emotion must be' true. 
 
 Secondly. Emotion must be balanced and correlated 
 with our other faculties. 
 
 Thirdly. Emotion must be dignified, that is, it must 
 be devoted to some worthy object. 
 
 Fourthly. It must bring forth the fruit of noble 
 action, it must be guided into right channels, it must 
 set in motion useful machinery, it must do honourable 
 work. 
 
 Then consider what a power it becomes in the world, 
 
342 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 how it tonchea everything from the least to the greatest. 
 There is not an act, not a thought, hardly an inflection 
 of the voice, unaffected by it. Are not the orator's 
 words weighted with emotion ? Do we not feel at times 
 how a passionate utterance will flow over a crowd, melt, 
 animate, subdue, or rouse people to the wildest activity, 
 and nerve them for reckless or indomitable action ? 
 And it is the manner far more than the matter ; one man 
 may read a sublime speech or poem, but if he betray no 
 emotion it will fall dead, while but a few simple words 
 uttered by another will thrill through and through you ; 
 you may have often experienced this in the case of a 
 great actor, his lowest whisper has done what the mis- 
 placed passionless rant of another failed to accomplish. 
 I will repeat to you a passage first with the right 
 emotion as well as I can, and then I will rob it of its 
 emotion, and leave you to draw your own conclusions. 
 Let me take that pathetic address to death and the land 
 beyond the grave, in Longfellow. The poet breaks 
 forth, feeling his soul troubled, feeling the pressure of 
 the pain and sorrow of the world, and sighing for the 
 peacefulness of death and the land where all things are 
 forgotten : — 
 
 ' Oh, land ! oh, land ! for all the hroken-hearted : 
 The mildest herald by our fate allotted, 
 Beckons, and, with inverted torch, doth stand 
 To lead us with a gentle hand 
 Into the land of the great departed, 
 Into the silent land ! ' 
 
 Now hear it another way. 
 
 (The lecturer then read the same lines in a light and 
 jerky style with highly inappropriate action.) 
 
 I have simply withdrawn the emotion, and you burst 
 out laughing ! So you see how emotion takes hold of 
 the mind — winds it up and lets it down. The same 
 thing is noticeable in music — in painting — nay, even in 
 atmospheric effects of outward nature. As when on 
 some cold day you go out and look abroad upon woods 
 and fields, life seems cheerless. ' What a dreary, chilly 
 day/ you exclaim ; but suddenly the leaden sky is rifted. 
 
MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 343 
 
 tlie sun bursts forth, and iDrings a glory upon field and 
 woodland : a thrill of emotion strikes through you, and 
 the dreary feeling vanishes ! So emotion in a thousand 
 ways shines out and illuminates the landscape of life at 
 all points. Or let us put emotional power in another 
 way. Look at a steam-engine with all its wheels, 
 cranks, and pipes. It seems a huge mass of lifeless 
 iron, and might be supposed, if seen only at rest, to be 
 absolutely useless. All this mighty mechanism wants 
 something. What is it ? Steam. If you put in the 
 steam, you will see the wheels begin to turn, and at last 
 the steam will be fully got up, and the engine will speed 
 away with an express train. What has been done ? 
 You have supplied the motive power. Steam is the 
 engine's emotion. And, if we want to get men to work, 
 we must put steam into them ; we must kindle up 
 emotion, and then they will begin to go. Every great 
 man has had this power of concentrated steam in him — 
 this emotion bottled up ; and because he has had it 
 properly under control he has been able to do great 
 things. 
 
 Would America have ever been discovered if it had 
 not been for emotion ? Think of the enthusiasm of 
 Columbus, think of the stupidity and apathy with which 
 he had to contend. Think of him burning with the 
 thought of this undiscovered land, until at last, in his 
 little boat steering in mid ocean, he finds this new 
 world. Ay ! at the very moment when the hearts of all 
 his fellow-mariners failed them — the land hove in sight, 
 and the enthusiasm of Columbus was crowned with an 
 immortal discovery ! 
 
 Or think of Wilberforce warring against the great 
 selfishness of our country until he had called up an 
 opposing force of sympathy, which ended in the sup- 
 pression of the slave trade. So that through an emotion 
 — I do not deny that duty came into play, but a know- 
 ledge of duty unbacked by feeling is very inoperative — 
 this man communicated his feelings to the whole country 
 until greedy money-loving men were willing to give up 
 their incomes in the Indies and become comparatively 
 
344 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 poor men for tlie sake of an idea, in order to put down 
 the abominable slave trade in the British dominions. 
 That was the work of Wilberforce. There was not 
 much fraud, nonsense, or misplaced enthusiasm about 
 that. 
 
 And if you look back on the great work of Cobden, 
 Bright, and other reformers, think how they were in the 
 same manner buoyed up through evil report and good 
 report. Why, there is not a political measure of any 
 importance which does not necessarily involve a vast 
 play of emotion before it can be carried. Think within 
 our own time of the repeal of the corn laws, the whole 
 code of our modern sanitary legislation, the improve- 
 ments in prison discipline, the extension of the franchise 
 — think of the kind of opposition and the kind of triumph 
 which has attended the long-sustained efforts of Mr 
 Gladstone's administration. It is to the exercise of a 
 noble enthusiasm that we owe a long list of brilliant 
 and salutary reforms, amongst them that great and 
 courageous measure of justice to Ireland — the Dis- 
 establishment of the Irish Church. And notwith- 
 standing his temporary withdrawal, I trust that we 
 shall owe a great many more good measures to Mr 
 Gladstone before he retires altogether from public life. 
 
 And quite lately we have seen an example of singular 
 elevation and purity of feeling in the person of Bishop 
 Colenso. We have seen a man come over here, already 
 suffering under a social ban through the fearless nobility 
 with which he expressed opinions distasteful to a section 
 of the religious world — we have seen him, already 
 weighted heavily with years of unpopularity, yet willing 
 to throw away in a moment the little remnant of com- 
 fort and social ease he might have enjoyed out in that 
 foreign land for an idea, a great idea of justice — justice 
 to Langalabalele ! Who cared for Langalabalele out in 
 the colony where Bishop Colenso has to live ? The 
 cause of the natives is always unpopular there, but the 
 Bishop knew he had to stand alone and fight prejudice 
 and injustice single-handed, ay, and win too. Who 
 knew anything about Langalabalele over here ? Well, 
 
MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 345 
 
 we know a good deal now, thanks to the Bishop. We 
 know that England was committing an unjust act in her 
 colonies when the Bishop of Natal got the ear of our 
 Foreign Minister, and opened his eyes. And through 
 evil report and good report did this Christian Bishop 
 persevere until he had kindled up an interest in that 
 poor savage chief ; nor did he return until he had got 
 justice done : and will any one say that he was through- 
 out this thankless work sustained by anything but the 
 noblest religious enthusiasm ? 
 
 But I will take another labourer in a widely different 
 sphere, who was equally supported by a concentrated 
 life-long enthusiasm for the good of his fellow-men, and 
 the general advancement of civilization. I allude to 
 that great and patient servant of God, whose labours 
 lay in the same far-off land — David Livingstone — whose 
 heart lies in Africa, but whose toilworn body reposes in 
 Westminster Abbey. What buoyed up that noble ex- 
 plorer but the power of a double enthusiasm — an 
 enthusiasm for science, but, far more, an enthusiasm for 
 philanthropy ? For science, because Livingstone wanted 
 to settle the vexed problem of the sources of the Nile ; 
 for philanthropy, because he wanted to open up that 
 fair land to European influence, and free it from the 
 curse of the slave trade. The terrible revelations he 
 has made will, I trust, go far to rouse English feeling 
 in the direction of African reform. In fact, you know 
 how Mr Stanley has gone out as leader of a joint 
 English and American expedition to complete the work 
 Livingstone began. None can have read Livingstone's 
 last journals without being struck by those dreadful 
 pictures of slavery that kindled his deepest emotion. 
 He frequently saw hordes of slaves driven by their 
 masters cruelly, and when they could go no farther they 
 were tied to a tree and left to die, or their brains were 
 knocked out on the. spot. Children were torn from 
 their parents, wives from their husbands ; their suffer- 
 ings from fatigue and hunger were frightful; the 
 tortures inflicted on them terrible. All this Livingstone 
 was obliged to look upon ; he could do nothing, except 
 
346 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 give his own life for these poor Africans in an attempt 
 to open up their country and heal their grievances. 
 Right and left he tried to make the natives see that 
 their country was being depopulated, that all progress 
 in wellbeing would be denied to Africa so long as the 
 slave trade continued to flourish. What he underwent 
 in this crusade it is difficult for us to realize. There is 
 a picture outside the book which fitly siims up in an 
 image Livingstone's indomitable pluck. It represents 
 him wading, no doubt in one of the last stages of his 
 illness, through one of those dismal swamps which he 
 had so often to cross, now struggling through up to his 
 chin, now borne on stalwart African shoulders with 
 his legs straight out before him skimming along the 
 surface, whilst the others followed him, bearing his pre- 
 cious provisions and trading bales of beads and cloth. 
 
 As we follow with bated breath his noble and simple 
 narrative to its sublime and melancholy close, its great 
 calmness and peacefulness win us. Those who think 
 that enthusiasm must be noisy, let them study Living- 
 stone. He stands up against adversity like a rock, his 
 will is indomitable, his resources infiaitely fertile, his 
 enthusiasm unflagging ; but not a boast, and hardly a 
 murmur, escapes his lips from first to last. 
 
 His greatest discoveries are chronicled with the same 
 simple brevity which characterizes the daily incidents of 
 his journey ; nay, some of those incidents, such as the 
 loss of his poor little dog Chitane, who swam till he sank 
 trying to follow his master, seem to have affected him 
 more deeply than greater disasters. His own privations 
 are made light of — ' took up my belt in three holes be- 
 cause of hunger.' ' This last journey has turned all my 
 hair gray.' After more than usual treachery and idle- 
 ness amongst his men, he makes all sorts of excuses for 
 them, and says meekly : ' I, too, have faults.' On the 
 loss of his medicine chest — that fatal calamity which 
 was indeed the beginning of the end — he says, quietly, 
 ' I felt as if I had received sentence of death,' and he 
 does return to this dire loss ; but even that soon passes 
 with all other lets and hindrances, and we hear no more 
 
MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 347 
 
 of it, save indirectly in tlie doctor's failing health and 
 the complication of maladies which at last wore out his 
 iron frame. 
 
 One other grand instance of the power of emotion I 
 will bring before you in the life of General Garibaldi. 
 No man has more obviously exercised immense power 
 through the propagation and discipline of patriotic feel- 
 ing than Garibaldi. When I was in Italy, during the 
 great Italian campaign of 1860, I had frequent oppor- 
 tunities "'of seeing Garibaldi as he appeared as Dictator 
 of the Two Sicilies in that strange and stormy time. 
 But what struck me most about him was his intense 
 calmness ; the unruffled serenity of the man in the 
 midst of all the turmoil about him was marvellous. But 
 along with this imperturbable repose of character he had 
 that same power of concentrated enthusiasm stored up 
 for the good of all Italy. What inspired that^man was, 
 in another form, what inspired Livingstone, a burning 
 self-sacrificing love for his kind, and a burning indigna- 
 tion against injustice and wrong. He has been called 
 a bandit and a freebooter, and much of his life and 
 activity seems to countenance the charge at first sight, 
 as though he gave way to a kind of disorderly thirst for 
 conquest and military activity ; but in Garibaldi this 
 undoubted genius for war was purified aud redeemed by 
 one grand and concentrated passion — the love of man 
 and the emancipation of Italy. When Garibaldi began 
 his work the north of Italy was in the possession of 
 Austria, a large slice out of the middle belonged to the 
 Pope, whilst the south groaned under the worst despot- 
 ism. Garibaldi has lived long enough to see the liber- 
 ation of the whole land of Italy and Sicily, and he has 
 certainly hastened that event by at least fifty or sixty 
 years, probably more. I don't say that Italy would not 
 have been free in time, but Garibaldi's enthusiasm 
 enormously hastened the movement, and has saved the 
 country a deluge of blood and money ; for again and 
 again he did with a handful of men, by a cowp de rnuin, 
 what it would have taken the King of Italy years and 
 years to do. By his concentrated enthusiasm he bowed 
 
348 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the hearts of Italians from north to south as the heart of 
 one man, and accomplished what great combinations 
 without him could not have done. 
 
 There is nothing more remarkable in European history 
 than that rapid and astonishing campaign which gave 
 Sicily and Naples" to Victor Emmanuel. You will re- 
 member the story, how pregnant with the deepest 
 emotion, so that Italians even now speak of it with bated 
 breath. Two little steamers slipped out of Genoa one 
 moonlight night, crammed with 1000 picked men. Gari- 
 baldi's famous Italian legion. They sUpped down the 
 west coast and glided over to Sicily. Everybody said, 
 ' Garibaldi is mad ; the king's government is in a fer- 
 ment ; he must be stopped ! ' But Gavour is too cunning 
 to stop him ; on the other hand, he protests and does 
 nothing; and the next news is, that after two bloody 
 fights Garibaldi has taken Palermo and is master of 
 Sicily. Over the way lies the kingdom of Naples. Poor 
 Francis II. hears with consternation of the approach of 
 the great bandit. But no one has time to speculate. 
 Garibaldi has already pounced upon the mainland, his 
 men are spread in ambush all over the hills. Then 
 it is that Francis, the king, sends to offer Garibaldi fifty 
 millions of francs and the whole of his fleet if he wiU be 
 off and capture Venice instead of Naples. An attempt 
 to arrest the earth's motion might have been more suc- 
 cessful. Garibaldi was now at Salerno, he had left the 
 bulk of his army in Sicily. With a few of his staff 
 officers, and without any army at all, he took train for 
 Naples, then in the possession of a hostile force, the 
 Neapolitan army numbering 30,000 men. What was his 
 strength, his irresistible strength, in that supreme 
 moment ? It was enthusiasm, nothing but enthusiasm ; 
 he relied upon it implicitly, it saved him, it saved Italy. 
 That last advance to the capture of Naples is perhaps 
 the most dramatic and astonishing episode in the whole 
 history of civilized war. The crowd gathered thickly 
 about the engine, and climbed upon the carriages ; more 
 than once the train had to stop, and then advance again 
 at a snail's pace. So Garibaldi arrived at Naples ; the 
 
MR HAWEIS WITH THE SUNDAY LEAGUE. 349 
 
 whole of the populace are with him, the town is in the 
 wildest tumult ; but the army is still faithful to the king. 
 Garibaldi alights from the train and occupies two 
 carriages with a few of his staff oflBcerSj and then amid 
 the shouts of the people he advances slowly into Naples. 
 Yonder lies the gloomy fort of St Elmo and the Oastel- 
 nuovo, bristling with guns manned by gunners, waiting 
 but the word of command to sweep the streets with 
 grape-shot, and shoot down the mob, for the army is 
 still supposed to be attached to the Eoyalists. Garibaldi 
 calmly approaches the great fortress ; the guns are 
 pointed at him, the matches are lighted, the fate of Italy 
 and her hero hangs in the balance. Garibaldi, as he 
 comes within close range of the guns, cries to the coach- 
 man, ' Slower ! drive slower ! ' The poor coachman, of 
 course who is shivering in his boots, seems at first 
 not to hear, when with a voice of thunder, not ac- 
 customed to command twice, the general roars out, 
 ' Slower ! ' Then the driver draws in his reins, and at 
 walking pace advances towards the castle. And now 
 comes a moment so sublime that the meniory of it will 
 be handed down to the latest posterity as one of the 
 grandest of emotional triumphs. < The general standing 
 up alone in his carriage, with uncovered head, gazed 
 steadfastly at the guns, then he surveyed the gunners 
 with their lighted matches, and silence seemed to fall on 
 the excited crowd ; the suspense hardly lasted a minute. 
 Three times the orders are given to fire. Once ! twice ! ! 
 7— but at the third time the men threw down their 
 matches and threw up their caps and shouted ' Viva 
 Garibaldi ! ' 
 
 Any persons who think that fraud, nonsense, and 
 enthusiasm have got anything to do with my love and 
 admiration for General Garibaldi, had better hold up 
 their hands, or else for ever after hold their peace. (G reat 
 applause.) ' 
 
 And now, my friends, I am reminded by that clock 
 that it is almost time for you to enjoy the selections of 
 music which are to follow this address. Music is the 
 language of emotion. I think the time will come when 
 
35° ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 music will lia.Ye an enormous power over men in rousing, 
 recreating, and disciplining their emotions. We are 
 only just beginning to learn, here in England, what a 
 great and beneficial power it wields. Wherever there is 
 music you will find the people flock to listen. Music, like 
 everything else, may be degraded, may be made the serv- 
 ant of base emotions ; it may be poor and frivolous, and it 
 may be bad. Give the people good music in order that 
 their hearts may be raised and purified by the play of 
 wholesome and recreative feeling. In choosing a selection 
 from ' Elijah ' to-night, that desire has been certainly 
 uppermost in the minds of myself and others. This 
 Oratorio of BUjah is one of the grandest pieces of music 
 that ever entered into the heart of man to conceive, or 
 of composer to record. Mendelssohn's emotion was 
 always true, balanced and dignified, and his works are 
 irradiated with these qualities, which belonged so con- 
 spicuously to his beautiful and manly character. I believe 
 myself that systematically hearing good music, when you 
 have the musical faculty, does really teach the mind to 
 balance its own emotions and keep them under proper 
 control. A great work of art, like a Symphony of 
 Beethoven, or an Oratorio by Mendelssohn, is nothing 
 but the expression of those accumulations, windings, 
 turnings, and legitimate developments and progressions 
 of emotion which, take place in the mind of a master 
 workman. Our impulse is roused, then the mind is 
 concentrated on a certain order of emotional development 
 through sound ; at a certain point yon are left suspended 
 and hanging as it were in mid air, and wonder hoW you 
 will ever come down again ; but the great composer 
 comes like a magician and leads you down through other 
 phases of feeling, until you find yourself once more on 
 terra firma, all the better for your excursion, refreshed 
 and recreated, and fit for sober and vigorous action. 
 Music, by shifting suddenly the emotional atmosphere of 
 the mind, will often do more for us in five minutes than 
 the wisest book or the soundest argument. For music 
 deals straight at first hand with the emotional region, 
 which is also the wellspring of our activity and highest 
 
TWENTY MINUTES ON PRA YER. 351 
 
 use. But this subject is too vast for me to enter upon 
 now. You may, perhaps^ feel disappointed that I have 
 not dwelt to-night at greater length on the abuse of 
 emotion. But alas, it is too rampant in this great city in 
 every form for me to wish to bring it out in painful 
 detail before you on Sunday evening. I have rather in 
 my brief address tried to show you. First, how narrow 
 and irrelevant a thing it is to sneer promiscuously at 
 emotion, and taboo enthusiasm generally ; and secondly, 
 ■what it is which alone makes emotion valuable, and how 
 irresistible it becomes when cultivated and developed in 
 sufficient quantities, and directed by duty, honour, and 
 wisdom into right channels. With these thoughts for 
 you to work out more at length for yourselves, I shall 
 now leave you to the undivided and profitable enjoyment 
 of Mendelssohn's immortal music. 
 
 The address, which was delivered without notes and 
 somewhat rapidly, occupied three-quarters of an hour, and 
 ■was frequently interrupted by applause. 
 
 TWENTY MINUTES ON PRAYER. 
 
 IT was once my fortune, or misfortune, to walk home to 
 London from Epsom Downs on the early morning of 
 the Derby Day, after spending the night on the course 
 for the purpose of observing the nocturnal mannei's and 
 customs of its temporary occupants. I found on that 
 occasion, not indeed every man's hand against me, but 
 most people's faces, and a good many of their tongues. 
 All, or nearly all, were travelling in an opposite direction 
 to myself, and they were not folks of a class likely to let 
 an eccentric traveller pass without treating him to a little 
 chaif. Barring this last item, my experiences on Satur- 
 day night were really almost a reproduction in miniature 
 
52 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of those on the Derby Day above-mentioned. I went in 
 a nearly empty train on the Metropolitan to Moorgate 
 Street, in order to hear Mr B argon deliver the Gresham 
 Lecture on Prayer. A previous lecture had been devoted 
 to a consideration of Professor Ty'ndall's Belfast address ; 
 but as I had done that pretty well to death back in the 
 summer, I did not care to recur to the subject, and I 
 rightly surmised I should get a good deal of Tyndall in 
 the Lecture on Prayer. 
 
 I had scarcely realized before what a howling wilder- 
 ness the City was on a Saturday night, or so clearly 
 grasped the conception of what was meant by its million 
 of ' floating population.' Basinghall Street, at the corner 
 of which stands the Gresham Institute, was without its 
 usual stream of busy wayfarers, only one exceedingly 
 drunken person zigzaggiag up and down the road, and 
 two clei'ks emerging from a colossal office with the in- 
 evitable brief-bags in their hands, and probably illegal 
 cigars in their mouths. These were all the occupants of 
 usually busy Basinghall Street, and all of these were 
 homeward bound, though the inebriated one was likely 
 to tack a long while before he got there. 
 
 Arrived at the Gresham, I found a resplendent beadle, 
 bound in blue cloth with gold edges, and the very Z»eait 
 Heal of a cocked hat on his majestic head. He lolled on 
 a porter's chair at the bottom of the stairs, looking in- 
 finitely bored, and probably thinking what lunatics we 
 were to come to the City on such a drizzling January 
 night to hear a Lecture on Prayer. I say we — for at 
 the door I was joined by an elderly lady and two resigned 
 youths, who were evidently being borne along as a 
 matter of unavoidable duty by their venerable protectress. 
 In the lecture theatre about a dozen not very lively- 
 looking listeners were gathered, some three or four being 
 clergymen, and the rest equally divided among the male 
 and female sexes. Precisely at seven o'clock Mr Burgon 
 took his place at the desk, ushered by the gorgeous 
 beadle — or, I rather think, a facsimile — and accompanied 
 by two or three ladies, who seated themselves in the front 
 
TWENTY MINUTES ON PRA YER. 353 
 
 row around the table^ where one generally expects to see 
 the directors of an institution. 
 
 Plunging at once into his subject, and reading, I could 
 see, from printed slips of proof pasted on foolscap, Mr 
 Burgon began by saying he should have to abridge his 
 remarks considerably, as he was to start for Oxford by 
 an eight o'clock train. I am not sure that I should have 
 dared that wilderness journey to the City had I known 
 that his remarks were to be so brief. One is tempted to 
 ask whether the Gresham arrangements are made im- 
 promptu, or, if not, by what mismanagement Mr Burgon's 
 lecture was placed on so inconvenient a night. 
 
 It was a special aspect of the subject, said the lecturer, 
 to which attention would be directed. He alluded to the 
 insolence of scientific unbelief, and denounced as mere 
 sciolists those who thus appropriated to themselves ' the 
 sacred name of science.' Philosophers, he said, knew 
 that the decrees of one science did not intrude into the 
 domains of another. One branch of physical science did 
 not insolently dogmatize about another. To do so was 
 to abandon the purely inductive method in favour of the 
 deductive. Most offensive of all was the scoffing lan- 
 guage indulged in by the 'Enlightened Christians of the 
 nineteenth century,' in illustration of which Mr Burgon 
 read a long extract from the Tall Mall Gazette of Feb- 
 ruary 16, 1866, on the subject of the Prayer against the 
 Cattle Plague. 
 
 The position assumed by these Enlightened Christians 
 of the nineteenth century was that proof was wanting 
 as to the fact of prayer being answered. It was pro- 
 posed to bring the matter to the test of experiment. 
 Let two wards of a hospital be selected with patients 
 in each suffering from diseases as nearly as possible 
 identical. Let both have precisely the same medical 
 attention ; but let prayer be offered in one and omitted 
 in the other, and see whether there would be any 
 difference in the result. 
 
 Nothing, the lecturer said, could be more foolish 
 than this proposal, or exhibit a more entire miscon- 
 
 23 
 
354 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ception of the nature of prayer. It assumed that 
 prayer was a physical or 'mechanical force. The Pro- 
 fessor of Theological Science could at once set right the 
 Enlightened Christian of the nineteenth century on 
 this subject. (There was quite a touch of satire in the 
 constant repetition of this title for his supposed antago- 
 nist.) He could at once predict disappointment, and 
 for the very reason that the proceeding was 'unscientific' 
 Ton might as well attempt to use a sun-dial to calculate 
 an eclipse. One could not hut be struck by the inge- 
 nuity with which Mr Burgon assumed for theology just 
 as clear a domain as for physical science, and for its 
 professors a ' clear stage and no favour.' 
 
 Two considerations must here be taken into account : 
 (1) that prayer was offered to the Father of Spirits, not 
 to a mere blind force, and therefore, the will and 
 affections came to be factors in the act of prayer; (2) 
 not only so — not only was it to no merely mechanical 
 force prayer was addressed, but to a 'jealous' God, 
 who would resent cross-questioning with terrible dis- 
 pleasure. The position assumed in such a challenge 
 was exactly that of the Jews who said to Christ, ' Come 
 down from the cross if Thou be the Son of God. Save 
 Thyself, and we will believe.' When a sign was 
 demanded, it was said that no sign should be given, 
 except that of Jonah. So were we quite sure that 
 ' blank silence alone would be the result of the Hospital 
 test.' It was said of Christ that He could on one 
 occasion do no mighty work because of men's unbelief. 
 So faith was demanded now. The experimental method 
 was preposterous ; and, as he had said, disappointment 
 could be predicted as its result. It omitted altogether 
 the moral state of the man who prayed. 
 
 A more formidable objection, because more subtle, 
 and more likely to impose on persons if cleverly put, 
 was that which, regarding God as a mere abstraction, 
 as the ' Great First Cause,' maintained that it was 
 derogatory to God to think that He could be influenced 
 by prayer. If Providence, unswayed by prayer, was 
 not perfect, then, it was argued, God was not perfect. 
 
TWENTY MINUTES ON PRA YER. 355 
 
 (This, I may mention in passing, was tlie position 
 taken by Mr Voysey in a recent sermon based on the 
 Hon. Auberon Herbert's letter, and called 'Rational 
 and Irrational Prayer.') How, it was asked, could we 
 expect God to 'reconsider' His arrangements? 
 
 Here again the fallacy was that we assumed some- 
 thing about the Divine Nature which we were not 
 warranted in doing. Why should not Perfect AVisdom 
 have ordered that each life should be determined by 
 the character of its will? Divine Revelation represented 
 God as making His answer to prayer depend on the 
 moral state of him who prayed. Of this the analogy of 
 the parental relation was the most perfect illustration. 
 It was no part of our idea of an earthly parent that he 
 should be inexorable, and if God was the great moral 
 governor we knew Him to be, inflexibility would not be 
 among His attributes. ' Directly I mention that word 
 "My Father!"' said Mr Burgon in some telling 
 sentences at the end of his brief lecture, 'my eyes run 
 over; and I feel that the Enlightened Christian must 
 take off his professional robes before he can argue with 
 me. If God is my Father, He must be willing as well 
 as able to answer my prayer.' 
 
 Every argument of the Apostles of Prayerlessness 
 broke down; and the Philosophers must find weapons 
 from some other armoury before they would destroy 
 man's belief in the efficacy of prayer. 
 
 It was a veritable multum in parvo, for the hand 
 pointed only to 7.20 when Mr Burgon broke off with 
 an apology, and left me conscious of two wishes : first, 
 that there had been time to deal more exhaustively 
 with his subject ; and secondly, that he would take his 
 lecture down to the Hall of Science, and with it beard 
 the Apostles of Prayerlessness in their own den. 
 
356 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 A HOME OF COMPASSION. 
 
 WHAT to do with our ' surplus ' population — in the 
 least flattering sense of that expressive word — is 
 always an embarrassing question. I allude for the 
 moment to that surplus which, unless otherwise pro- 
 vided for, finds its way to the baby-farmer, or too often 
 to a premature grave. Any compassion that might 
 otherwise be extended to these, the most helpless of 
 God's creatures, is often prevented by the idea that in 
 caring for the offspring you offer a premium on the 
 vice which calls them into existence; and so they go 
 on, either departing from life as uncared for as they 
 entered it, or growing up to swell our criminal popula- 
 tion, and so indirectly revenging themselves upon 
 society which exiles them from its regards. 
 
 I remember once, when I was living in Paris, falling 
 in, during a summer evening's walk, with a conversa- 
 tional old gentleman who occupied an influential position 
 in the mairie of one of the Southern Arrondissements ; 
 and he volunteered to show me — as a foreigner — the 
 lions of the district. Amongst other things, he took 
 me to the Hospice des Enfants Trouves, and at his 
 direction the officials initiated me in the mysteries of 
 the turning-box. I rang a bell at the entrance, and 
 immediately a box, like a little crib, projected itself 
 from the gate. Into this the ' surplus ' member of the 
 population would, under ordinary circumstances, be 
 placed by its ' parent or guardian,' the box pulled back, 
 and the superfluous member of the community with- 
 drawn into private life — cut off henceforth by a great 
 gulf from ever troubling further its anxious papa or 
 mamma. The device, my friend informed me, was a 
 clumsy rough-and-ready concession to the exigences of 
 
A HOME OF COMPASSI'ON. 357 
 
 the situation. He was by no means enthusiastic in his 
 commendation of the method; but as often as it had 
 been abandoned, in deference to those who insisted 
 that it augmented the evil it professed to diminish, so 
 often infanticide increased in such prodigious propor- 
 tions as to necessitate its re-adoption. Old liabituis of 
 the Adelphi Theatre will recollect a thrilling scene in 
 ' Janet Pride,' where Mrs AUred Mellon, having de- 
 posited her property-infant in such a turning-box, fell 
 dramatically upon the boards, amid a cruel storm of 
 white paper. This was the French method for getting 
 over the difficulty of ' surplus ' population. 
 
 I went the other day to visit, not one of these 
 colossal institutions where the stock of surplus humanity 
 is dealt with wholesale — so to say — but to a little 
 private ' retail ' establishment, where a good lady gives, 
 not her money only, but her time and herself, to the 
 work of providing for these little mistakes in our civil- 
 ization. It is a lady's humble but honourable attempt 
 to supersede the necessity of the baby-farm, and to do 
 the work of charity in a somewhat different way from 
 that contemplated in the larger institutions. In these, 
 the separation of mother and child is inevitable ; where- 
 as the good lady, whose little farm for surplus human 
 stock came under my notice in the most unpretentious 
 way, uses the child by way of lever to lift the mother 
 into that position which she has, often through her 
 ' misfortune ' rather than her fault, abdicated. JEadem 
 pcenitentia non est omnibus imponenda is the motto of 
 Miss Bagshawe's work at Park Lodge, Bath Road, 
 Hounslow, at which most exceptional little institution I 
 paid my unpremeditated visit. I found a little low- 
 built suburban cottage standing in fields, with a wide- 
 open gate abutting on the roadway, and nothing of the 
 nature of the prison about it. In fact, there was nothing 
 to prevent the access of the whole wide world to Park 
 Lodge, except a fiery little terrier, who had more bark 
 than bite in him, and who, after a merely perfunctory 
 nibble at the extremity of my inexpressibles, succumbed 
 to my remonstrances, and allowed, me to enter. 
 
358 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Another point which greatly recommended Miss 
 Bagshawe to me was that she did not dress up. She 
 was in the ordinary garb of civihzed life ; and had she 
 not told me so, I certainly should never have guessed 
 that she was residing there with twenty companions, 
 ten being children of the -surplus' character, and the 
 other ten of no character at all. Yet she informed me 
 she seldom had any difficulty with that somewhat 
 singular family circle ; and though ten children is rather 
 a large quiverful, she flattered herself there was less 
 crying than would be heard in many a lady's nursery. 
 From the little parlour where Miss Bagshawe received 
 me I passed to the children's room, where some half- 
 dozen had just come in from the neighbouring day- 
 school, escorted by the terrier who had nibbled my 
 trousers. Here was little Bob, with a strange story of 
 his own : here little Maggie and Maud, whose ' cases ' 
 might have gone straight into a sensation story. They 
 were all as merry as grigs, and skipping about their 
 room, which was still decorated for Christmas, with a 
 huge toy-bedizened tree in the middle. There was not 
 an atom of ' discipline ' in the lot. My own belongings 
 could not have crowded round me more naturally than 
 this same strange ' surplus ' Maggie, Maud, and Bob did. 
 
 Up-stairs in the infants' nursery one small superfluity 
 who had just shaved the edges of starvation was lying 
 in a cradle with its lank, thin arms extended, on which 
 the newly-developed flesh still hung somewhat flabbily 
 withal ; but this superfluity had evidently rounded the 
 corner, and was looking up with a sort of inquiring ex- 
 pression as to what this new turn in his fortune could 
 mean. ' When it came here a few days ago,' said Miss 
 Bagshawe, 'its head was such a mass of dirt that we 
 thought it was black from a blow;' but- it looked as 
 trim and neat as the average British baby then. An- 
 other was ailing, but certainly not from want of food or 
 attention ; and its mother, I was told, was as anxious 
 about its well-being as though it had not been a super- 
 fluity at all. Some of the women in good situations are 
 glad to pay five, or even seven shillings a week to have 
 
A HOME OF COMPASSION. 359 
 
 their children well taken care of. None are refused ; 
 but the Home of Compassion has no funds, and lives as 
 purely on faith as Mrs Girling and her followers in the 
 New Forest. This is a mode of meeting daily expenses 
 which housekeepers can well understand causes a good 
 deal of anxiety sometimes, but Miss Bagshawe is not a 
 lady to be discomposed by a little trouble, or she would 
 never have started housekeeping at Park Lodge at all. 
 She had a slight difficulty the morning I was there. A 
 stout, hale girl employed in the kitchen turned refractory, 
 and was told she must go to the workhouse, as she was 
 deserted by both parents. She suddenly assented ; but 
 when the moment of departure came, broke down, and 
 gave the following amusing rationale of her ill-behaviour: 
 ' You are too kind to me. Fve never been used to any- 
 thing but being cufiFed and knocked about ; and kind- 
 ness spoils me.' She was reinstated on probation, and 
 informed that she must not expect the discipline of 
 knocking about, but try to render herself amenable to 
 kindness. 
 
 Miss Bagshawe has two principal objects of ambition. 
 She feels that a cow would be useful to pick up those 
 superfluities who are apt to come in rather a feeble con- 
 dition of health to the Home, and for whom good milk 
 is a necessity. There is capital pasturage at Park Lodge, 
 but no cow. Pigs, however, form the acme of her am- 
 bition. She drew me quite a glowing picture of the 
 money she could make if she could only take to breed- 
 ing pigs. 
 
 Bedclothes, too, are covetously sought at Park Lodge. 
 One kind draper in Lambeth Walk had sent a quantity 
 of patterns of woollen goods, which were sewn together 
 and made into warm petticoats for the female superflui- 
 ties. A lady had sent, too — of all things in the world 
 — a package of old ball dresses. Balls are not given at 
 Park Lodge ; but Miss Bagshawe turned her attention 
 for the time being to the old-clothes-dealing line, and 
 proudly told me she had got eleven shillings for the good 
 lady's discarded finery ! With regard to the ' leverage ' 
 question, she pointed me to two children, one a trim 
 
36o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 girl of fourteen, who brought in the luncheon tray, and 
 another a bright boy. These had been kept most care- 
 fully by the mother, who actually, untU she heard of this 
 Home of Compassion, retained her evil life so as to get 
 resources to maintain the children. So scrupulous was 
 she lest the children should hear a word of evil, that 
 Miss Bagshawe overheard them say to the other little 
 ones as they were passing Astley's one day, ' That's the 
 only theatre ma would ever take us to. She said the 
 others weren't proper.' How it brought to one's mind 
 the anxiety of Dives lest his five brethren should come 
 to his own floAx of torment ! 
 
 In another case a child only three years and a half old 
 had been taken away from the mother in the very midst 
 of the haunts of vice, and now, when the mother came, 
 theiittle one absolutely shrank from her. The very first 
 night she came to the Home, she knelt down, and, of 
 her own accord, prayed that her mother might be kept 
 from drinking gin. She gave in the most graphic way 
 an account of her Saturday night's marketing. When 
 she had sixpence to lay out, her disbursements were a 
 farthing dip, a little bread, and — a quartern of gin for 
 mother. 
 
 In these, and in many other cases, Miss Bagshawe 
 found from facts — worth a hundredfold more than theory 
 — that the leverage does tell; and she only needs re- 
 sources to employ it more largely. She has no desire 
 for an institution. Her aim is rather to start cottages 
 around the central Home of Park Lodge. 
 
 I was somewhat surprised to find that she had a good 
 word for the baby-farmers. She did not believe that 
 they intentionally neglected the children, but the parents 
 were often irregular in their payments, and the poverty 
 of the ' farmers ' did not permit them to do their duty. 
 This, I remember, was the very plea I heard Margaret 
 Waters put in when she stood on the scaffold, about to 
 expiate with her life some little irregularities in her 
 treatment of some of those very superfluities. 
 
 I have seen a good many of these arrangements for 
 the 'surplus' population and their parents; some ex- 
 
A MA YFAIR MISSION. 361 
 
 ceedingly picturesque, and others so perfect in point of 
 discipline that most of the penitents — who are rather 
 impulsive than aesthetic — ran away; but I never saw 
 work so earnestly yet unostentatiously done as at that 
 little low-lying cottage christened somewhat preten- 
 tiously Park Lodge, Hounslow. Its title is the only 
 pretentious part of it, however ; the work is real and 
 unpretending — done, be it recollected, by one self-deny- 
 ing lady, who gives not only her means and time, but 
 herself, to the task of remedying, on however small a 
 scale, these big mistakes in our Social Science ! 
 
 A MAYFAIR MISSION. 
 
 AMONG those strange combinations of religious ideas 
 which resulted from the Tractarian revival, none was 
 more remarkable than the particular phase called, a 
 quarter of a century ago, by the name of Aitkenism. 
 It has been not inaptly described as a fusion of High 
 Church doctrine with Methodistical preaching; and, 
 perhaps, no fitter representative could be found of the 
 thing — though not of the name — than Mr Body, whose 
 pulpit utterances at All Saints', Margaret Street, 
 awakened so much attention a few years ago. The 
 mantle of Mr Aitken appears to have fallen on his son, 
 though with a difference, again exhibiting the exuber- 
 ance of religious development at the present time. Mr 
 Aitken the younger, who had been conducting a week's 
 mission at Curzon Chapel, Mayfair, has, by the very 
 locality he selected, loosened his hold on the Tractarian 
 portion of his paternal system, while retaining the 
 preaching power in, if possible, greater vigour than his 
 father. But still, though Curzon Chapel may well be 
 
362 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 taken as a representative of distinctive Evangelical doc- 
 trine, Mr Aitken is something far more than what would 
 be called an ' acceptable ' preacher of that cultus. Pro- 
 nounced doctrinal opinions alone are sufficient to gain 
 an ordinary pulpit reputation in the Low Church school 
 of oratory ; but Mr Aitken is an orator pure and simple ; 
 and by no means obtrudes any dogmatic element into 
 his discourses, which are still earnest and practical in 
 the very highest sense of the terms. The sermon which 
 I purpose to report briefly was, so to say, the aftermath 
 of the Mission, which had just concluded; and I would 
 here insert a word of warning to any person who may 
 be disposed to follow my example in these ecclesiastical 
 wanderings. They have led into considerable expenses 
 with my tailor, in this way — I am obliged to adapt the 
 cut of my coat to the church I visit, or else I find no 
 favour with the pew-openers, who are an Argus-eyed 
 race. For heretical places of worship, I assume a cut- 
 away coat made of what is termed ' diagonal,' with a 
 wide-opening waistcoat, and a black tie. At a Ritual- 
 istic church I wear ' Roman bands,' an ' M.B.' waistcoat 
 and my ordinary clerical coat ; while for Evangelical 
 churches I have had a frock coat specially constructed, 
 so as to make me look like a respectable artisan dressed 
 in Sunday best ; and this I usually combine with a vest 
 buttoned nearly up to the throat, a large white tie in a 
 bow, stand up collar, and a black mohair Albert watch- 
 guard. Now I thought Aitkenism might well be repre- 
 sented by the Evangelical frock coat and M.B. waistcoat, 
 and consequently went forth thus attired. But alas ! I 
 had not calculated on the modern development of the 
 system according to the ' use ' of Curzon Chapel. That 
 M.B. waistcoat was a fatal mistake. The pew-opener — 
 a truculent-looking lady — spotted me in a moment, and 
 put me into the worst seat in the gallery, right behind a 
 pillar. It is true she gave me a Penny Mission Hymn 
 Book late on in the service ; but even that she threw at 
 me as though I were a heathen past praying for. I could 
 only get a glimpse of the pulpit by craning my neck a 
 great deal to one side or the other; and I had to vary 
 
A MA YFAIR MISSION. '" 363 
 
 sides to prevent cramp, and sometimes to keep it straight 
 for awhile. This threw me back on myself a good deal, 
 and I found that the other occupants of the pew were 
 servants ; in fact, there were nobody but male and 
 female retainers and the choir in the extreme south-west 
 corner to which I was relegated. 
 
 The service was admirably read by a youngish curate, 
 in the most happy medium between intoning and preach- 
 ing. In fact the whole service, music and all, was most 
 hearty and congregational. Every pew was filled — ex- 
 cept mine. There was room for half-a-dozen more 
 people south of me ; but nobody else came in with an 
 M.B. waistcoat, so I had a wilderness of space on my 
 right. No Litany was read, and the service jumped at 
 once from the Third Collect to the Prayer for Parliament 
 — a very judicious abbreviation. The General Thanks- 
 giving was recited full-voiced by the whole congrega- 
 tion. I could not miss the sensation of intense reality 
 conveyed in the singing and responding at Curzon 
 Chapel. There was nothing perfunctory about it. 
 Everybody seemed thoroughly in earnest. The hymn, 
 ' Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven,' was sung to the 
 Tantum ergo tune, which requires the fourfold repetition 
 of the words ' Praise Him,'' and this always seems to 
 afford the singers great delight. The same was the case 
 with that which subsequently preceded the sermon, 
 where ' Crown Him ' was similarly repeated in a gradual 
 crescendo, reaching a veritable climax at No. 4. Mr 
 Aitken read the ante-Communion Service in a deep 
 voice, rather hurrying the Commandments, and — I was 
 surprised to find — monotoning the Nicene Creed. Then 
 he mounted the pulpit in his surplice, and, after a long 
 , extempore prayer of great power, gave out as his text 
 St Mark vi. 20, the Sunday being, it should be noticed, 
 within the octave of St John^s Day. 
 
 Expressing a hope that during the Mission then past 
 many had ' surrendered themselves ' to God, it was 
 necessary, he said, that they should, at the outset of 
 their career, have a high spiritual model, and such he 
 offered them in John the Baptist, of whom it was said 
 
364 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 on the highest authority of all, no greater was ever bom 
 of woman. He was, said the preacher, a type of what 
 you and I should be. His mission was peculiar. God 
 raises up in diflferent ages witnesses to different classes 
 of truth, but still John was one who demanded our imi- 
 tation in his pursuit of the great ideal. There were 
 several questions worth asking on this subject. 
 
 1. Whence did he derive his power? Only from the 
 Holy Ghost regenerating and sanctifying him. He was 
 prophesied of as being ' filled with the Holy Ghost.' As 
 his intelligence expanded it was consecrated by the 
 Holy Spirit. This was the difference between a real 
 and a formal Christian ; the one had all his faculties 
 taken possession of by the Holy Spirit; the other 
 troubled himself little about God the Holy Ghost as 
 long as his views were orthodox according to the con- 
 ventional standard. The world did not believe in the 
 Holy Ghost. It came to God's house with a lie on 
 its lips. Men believed in Jesus Christ as they be- 
 lieved in Napoleon Bonaparte or Alexander the Great. 
 He was a mere historic Christ ; and if we thus relegated 
 Jesus to history He was a living Jesus no longer. They 
 believed in God the Father as a mere abstraction, having 
 no connection with daily life ; but a belief in God the 
 Holy Ghost was ascribed to heated feelings and called 
 fanaticism. Show me a man who is living in such a 
 belief, and I will show you one at whom the world points 
 the finger of scorn. Here was our strength. He bade 
 his hearers not be distressed because they did not feel so 
 much of the Holy Spirit's influence as they ought. . Take 
 it, he said, as a revealed fact. There were times when 
 its presence was sensible, others when the manifestation 
 did not correspond with our desires. But if we were 
 grounded in ,Ghrist we should be conscious of the fruits 
 of the Spirit. Let us not be like impatient children 
 who pulled up plants now and again to see that they 
 were growing. » 
 
 2. This man was not afraid to speak the truth. It was 
 amazing, the influence he had over the Jewish nation 
 and over Herod. He did not begin at once with the 
 
A MA YFAIR MISSION. 365 
 
 sore point. He got hold of him by other means first, 
 and here it was Christians often made a mistake. In 
 protesting against some particular sin it was not neces- 
 sary always to bring that sin to the front. We should 
 first win influence. We did not know how John did 
 this ; but if he had come face to face with Herod and 
 said at once ' You are living in adultery,' he would have 
 lost ground. He worked up to that point, and when the 
 time came he did not blanch, though the despot, who 
 held his life in his hands, did before his tremendous 
 words. He knew he was laying his head on the execu- 
 tioner's block when he said, ' It is not lawful for thee to 
 have this woman ! ' 
 
 Dear children of God, said the preacher, until you have 
 got hold of the heart, until you have gone thus to the 
 very core, you have not discharged your duty. Don't 
 condescend to be cowards, dear children of God ; be 
 heroes. Here was the coward on the throne : the prophet 
 was bold as a lion. Herod ' feared.' Why ? Be- 
 cause John was fall of the Holy Ghost. And you may 
 count on the cowardice of the foe. You will have, the 
 calm consciousness of possessed power ; and under such 
 circumstances, wisdom often consists in the scorn of con- 
 sequences. If John had not spoken out boldly, he would 
 have been the devil's emissary, because Herod would 
 have been able to say : — ' This thing cannot be so very 
 bad, since John the Baptist never said a word against it.' 
 
 3. -His was just and holy, and so Herod feared him. 
 There was, said the speaker, no greater power in society 
 than holiness. You might take two clergymen, for 
 instance, in corresponding parishes. One possessed 
 rhetorical powers and talents of all kinds. The other 
 was a man of greater simplicity ; and it was quite possible 
 without uncharitableness to contrast their influence. Go 
 into their parishes, and you would hear flattering remarks 
 about the former, but his influence was nil. Without 
 disparaging the other it might be conceded that he was 
 a man of no power ; and yet people would say, I cannot 
 understand the secret of his marvellous influence. The 
 world is ever constrained thus to wonder at the work of 
 
366 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 tlie Invisible. So, lie went on to argue, it was in other 
 circles. Social position was a great thing ; political in- 
 fluence great while it lasted ; but it came and went. 
 The favourite politician of to-day found himself laid on 
 the shelf to-morrow. Intellectual supremacy told only 
 on a class. There were limitations in all these ; but in 
 holiness there was something which touched the hearts 
 of all. We might scorn it with our lips, but it' had our 
 heart's respect, and we could not rob God's saints of it. 
 I believe, said the preacher, that Herodias respected 
 John. There is always a latent respect for the man who 
 is living in God and God in him. If we had this power 
 of the Holy Ghost, and were also living holy lives, we 
 should speak straight out. Don't be afraid because the 
 world ridicules you. Young men, never mind if your 
 club puts you out of the synagogue as unmanly. It is 
 manly to stand by your colours, and wear the regimentals 
 of Heaven. They don't mean it. The Holy Spirit in 
 you has made them feel uncomfortable ; and whem they 
 give you the bitter sarcasm or the dead cut, they feel 
 profound respect for you. 
 
 To turn from John to Herod. His case at first seemed 
 hopeful. He was sufficiently manly to listen to John. 
 He had a heart and a conscience. Herod was told what 
 to do ; as people are told in all real sermons. The 
 darling sin was to be given up. But immediately he 
 asked, ' Won't something else do ? ' There was a syna- 
 gogue wanted at Capernaum. He would build one. 
 That charitable endowment at Jerusalem was in want of 
 funds. He would double his subscription. He ' did many 
 things,' swayed by those tremendous sermons of the 
 Desert-Prophet. If there were many roads to Heaven, 
 how sure people would b© to get there ! 
 
 Then followed a consummate reduction of the matter 
 to practice. We tried to make compromises with the 
 inexorable demands of God. God says, ' Your hearts.' 
 We say, ' Our purse.' Thus we try to 'wriggle out ' of 
 God's hands. 
 
 John told him many things first, and then in that last 
 sermon the sword went home. He said, ' Look on that 
 
A MA YFAIR MISSION. 367 
 
 ■woman. It is not lawful for thee to have her as thy 
 wife.' Then came Herod's decision. The walls of Ma- 
 chserus must shut that preacher from his presence. He 
 was wedded to that fatal sin. 
 
 Brethren, there is a John Baptist in every heart — no 
 man, perhaps, but the Spirit which convicts of sin before 
 it convicts of righteousness. We are just in the position 
 of Herod. We can give up that sin, or w-e can turn a 
 deaf ear and prison the preacher within dungeon walls. 
 Then as John grows weaker sin grows stronger. Hero- 
 dias has her quarrel with John. He is forgotten ; and 
 the daughter of Herodias dances. Herod is mesmerized ! 
 The awful moments run out. And then there is the 
 whisper in his ear, ' The Baptist's head ! ' He is sorry. 
 He would like to go on 'doing many things.' The 
 tempter seems so little stern when he comes in the guise 
 of a dancing damsel. The courtiers are looking on ; and 
 the poor wretch is the slave of conventional influences ; 
 and so ' because of them that sat at meat ' John must die. 
 So the fatal history closed (and here the stentorian voice 
 sank to a pathetic whisper). A few short months, and 
 Herod Antipas was gazing at the ruins of his army, scat- 
 tered for the very sin John had condemned, as the father 
 of his outraged wife strewed them on the plain ! 
 
 There was one picture more : a lonely fort — a dungeon- 
 keep in barbarous Gaul. Two solitary ones were there 
 — crownless, sceptreless ; the courtiers gone. There sat 
 the sinner and his sin — Herod and Herodias — sin tyran- 
 nizing over him to the very last ! 
 
 It was an awful picture of the end of a man of the 
 world. Think, he said — adapting himself curiously to 
 those whom he addressed — think of the last London 
 season; the last drive of the four-in-hand ; the last grand 
 reception ; the last paf agraph in the Court Gazette ; the 
 lonely chamber of death. You must leave all behind — ■ 
 your honour, your benevolence, your wealth, your dig- 
 nity. One shadow, shall dodge your steps still, driving 
 you to hell, and follow you to its abysmal depth. It 
 shall still be the sinner and his sin. Gaze then on the 
 Saviour's face, and say — not as a mere idle sentiment — • 
 
368 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ' The dearest idol I have known, 
 
 Whate'er that idol be, 
 Teach me to tear it from my heart, 
 And worship only Thee ! ' 
 
 The best test of the power of this sermon was that it 
 lasted over an hour, and did not seem long. It wanted 
 a little of noon when it began. Before we left the chapel 
 it was about a quarter past one, so long did the vast con- 
 gregation take to leave the building. 
 
 AN ANGLICAN TENEBE^ SEEVICE. 
 
 IT may seem an eccentric resolution wherewith to 
 start on my accustomed round of the Churches 
 during Holy Week, but I determined studiously to 
 avoid Roman Catholic places of worship. I had a 
 reason for doing so, however ; I wished in my study of 
 ceremonies and ritual to regard these as ' signs of the 
 times,' indications of the present condition of the 
 ecclesiastical thermometer; and I felt that the con- 
 servative traditions of the Papacy which had stereo- 
 typed its now familiar culture were not the signs of the 
 times now present, but the signs of a good long while 
 ago. The method of the Anglican Church, on the other 
 hand, retrogressive as some may possibly deem it, in so 
 far as it assimilates the English to the Romish Church, 
 is an innovation even in its very retrogression. I eschew 
 all controversy, and elect to be simply descriptive ; but 
 so much is necessary to be said in order to explain what 
 might appear the extraordinary process of thus cutting 
 the ground from beneath my own feet. 
 
 That some objective observance should mark the re- 
 currence of this most solemn season of all the Christian 
 year is surely but just and proper ; and I was rejoiced to 
 
AN ANGLICAN TENEBR^ SERVICE. 369 
 
 see outside a Wesleyan chapel at the West-end the 
 iinnouncement of ' Good Friday and Easter Sunday 
 services.' This is certainly as it should be ; but it is a 
 sign of the times that would have made the hair of some 
 of our good old Puritan forefathers stand on end. My 
 immediate business, however, is with certain Ritualistic 
 practices confessedly adapted from the Eoman Church, 
 which are very significant notes of the situation in one 
 branch of the Church of England; and which, should 
 the projected Diocesan Cout-ts become accomplished 
 facts, may have to be described now or never, as they 
 must certainly be eliminated as soon as those tribunals 
 come into operation. 
 
 On Wednesday evening of Holy Week, then, I ascer- 
 tained that Tenebrse Service was to be sung by the 
 Guild of St Alban in the church of St Matthias, South 
 Kensington ; and I could not help thinking again what 
 would my deceased grandfather, as a good old sober 
 Church of England gentleman, have thought of Tenebrae 
 by a Guild in the State Church. Sebastian Bach's 
 Passion music at St Paul's or the Abbey would have 
 startled him ; and so would the idea of cremation ; but 
 there were ante-Reformation — I had almost said anti- 
 Reformation — elements in this arrangement which ap- 
 pertained not to the others ; so to South Kensington I 
 went at half-past seven o'clock on Wednesday evening 
 to do Tenebrae hke a good ' Catholic' The ordinary 
 evening service was being performed as I passed from 
 the fast disappearing green lanes into the handsome 
 church of St Matthias ; but cassocked youths in the 
 porch invited me to pay twopence for the ' Office of 
 Tenebrse,' with the perusal of which I beguiled the time 
 of waiting. Prom this I learnt that the service was so 
 designated from the gradual extinguishing of the lights 
 during the singing of the OfiB.ce until darkness, ' mystical 
 or actual ' (whatever that may mean), is produced in 
 the church, commemorative of the darkness which 
 ' witnessed the Crucifixion.' It consists of the Office 
 of the last three days of Holy Week, which is now 
 usually said by anticipation, so that the matins and 
 
 24 
 
370 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 lauds of Maundy Thursday are said on Wednesday 
 afternoon. The Office, my vade-mecum went on to in- 
 form me, ranks as ' a double ; ' and I have no conception 
 what that signifies, unless it applies to its inordinate 
 length, in which case it is singularly appropriate. After 
 the Evening Prayers — I believe I ought to say Even- 
 song — the Incumbent, Mr Haines, preached a sermon 
 on the Betrayal and Agony of Christ, the Guild of St 
 Alban coming in goodly numbers just before it com- 
 menced, and sitting cassocked and cloaked at the back 
 of the church. The discourse itself was somewhat 
 remarkable. Taking as his text the words, ' If it be 
 possible let this cup pass from Me,' Mr Haines noticed 
 how men's difficulties depended on the nature of their 
 positions. Sir Garnet Wolseley had he failed on the 
 Gold Coast would have died a broken-hearted man. 
 Sir John Franklin did die, and so did Livingstone, 
 without accomplishing the tasks they had proposed to 
 themselves. Men will thus give their lives to a pur- 
 pose ; and Christ as the greatest of men, and speaking 
 of Him simply as man, did the same. His philosophy 
 had become the basis of all morality, and His courage 
 was confessed even by unbelievers. He was — I quote 
 Mr Haines's expression verbatim — ' dodged by all the 
 devils in hell ' during His earthly life ; and His human 
 sufferings were increased by His Divine prescience, 
 which intensified' the sensitiveness of His failure. These 
 failures were often repeated ; as, for instance, when 
 some true-hearted priest of the Church of England 
 gave himself heart and soul to God's service, and 
 offended his flock by the truth, so that they left him in 
 a body, and very likely built a chapel right opposite his 
 church. I did not think the illustration felicitous ; but 
 there was a good deal more in the same strain, and Mr 
 Haines concluded by saying, ' I want to ask you whether 
 you were present in Gethsemane driving a dagger into 
 your Redeemer's Heart ? ' After the sermon, two sur- 
 pliced officials — I never can tell which are clergy and 
 which laity now-a-daysin Ritualistic churches — brought 
 a large standard triangular candlestick containing fifteen 
 
AN ANGLICAN TENEBRJE SERVICE. 371 
 
 candles ' of unbleached wax ' (so said my twopenny 
 Office-book), which, they proceeded to light, and which 
 pi'oved restive and refractory as usual. Six others were 
 lighted on the altar, which was draped in deepest black, 
 with crape-veiled cross ; and then the Guild took their 
 places in the choir, entering in procession, and being mar- 
 shalled to their positions by a master of the ceremonies. 
 I was startled to see that the Office occupied no less 
 than thirty-three closely-printed pages, in an octavo 
 book, which was lent me by one of the Guild, who saw 
 I was bewildered by my twopenny investment. This 
 latter I perceived, to my dismay, was only an abridg- 
 ment. It was just half-past eight o'clock when we 
 began by chanting Psalms to Gregorian tones, the 
 matin service being, as it seemed, incongruously divided 
 into three ' Nocturns,' and followed by Lauds. Was it 
 possible all -this had to be gone through ? Slowly and 
 sadly the service progressed. Psalms were chanted ; 
 antiphons sung with endless repetitions ; and versicles 
 and responses interspersed with Lessons, the latter being 
 sung, too, in monotonous cadence. It was of course a 
 Lenten exercise, and I was not so undisciplined as to 
 expect anything lively ; but I was scarcely prepared for 
 these interminable proceedings. Every now and then 
 a sudden thought appeared to strike a young man in a 
 surplice, who went with an extinguisher on the end of a 
 pole and put out one candle, returning to his stall with 
 the air of a person who had done his duty. At 9.50 we 
 had only got through eighteen out of thirty-three 
 pages, and extinguished some half-dozen candles. People 
 began to go away very fast ; and at ten tninutes past 
 ten I did the same, leaving seven unbleached candles 
 still burning on the triangular candlestick, and six on 
 the altar, which had still to be extinguished to the 
 Gregoi'ian tones of the Guild of St Alban. The sequel 
 of the service, which must have gone on until some- 
 where near midnight, may be gathered from the rubric 
 of my vade-mecum : 
 
 All the candles upon the triangular candlestick, except that 
 i/Which is atithe apex, having-, now, been extinguished, the six altar 
 
372 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 lights shall also be extinguished, during the singing of 'Bene- 
 dictus ; ' namely, at the Terse ' That we being delivered,' the 
 outer light on the Gospel side, and at the following verse, the 
 outer light on the Epistle side, and so on, in succession, till the 
 end. In the mean time the lights throughout the church shall be 
 put out or covered. And when at the conclusion of ' Benedictus ' 
 the Antiphon ' Now he that betrayed ' is repeated, the topmost 
 candle shall be taken from the triangular staiid, and hidden, still 
 lighted, under the Epistle side of the altar. 
 
 A collect followed ; and then a slight noise is made, 
 and the lighted candle is immediately brought from 
 beneath the altar ; and all rise and depart in silence. 
 If matters went on after as before my departure, there 
 could have been, by the time darkness, actual or mys- 
 tical, supervened, very few left to rise or depart in silence. 
 But of that I cannot speak. I had often been present 
 at the Office in the Roman churches, when it seemed to 
 me much shorter, and therefore more eflfective. I have 
 forsworn criticism, but may be pardoned for saying I 
 think Anglican congregations will require a good deal 
 of educating before they will be equal to more than two 
 hours of Tenebrae. They bore it like martyrs up to ten 
 o'clock ; but even then I had ample precedent for 
 getting up and abruptly concluding my Passiontide ex- 
 perience. 
 
 THE LONDON MISSION OP 1874. 
 
 I. THE PEEPAEA.TION FOE THE MISSION. 
 
 IT is not too much to say that the Church of England 
 is at last learning the necessity of adapting herself to 
 the various wants of the people whom it is her mission 
 to influence, and the extreme unwisdom of that rigidity 
 which has been too long, but incorrectly, deemed to be 
 of the very essence of her system. In former days it 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 373 
 
 *as considered quite sufficient when twice on the Sun- 
 day the church doors were thrown open, and people 
 were allowed, if they would, to come to two or three 
 cheerless services gone over in a perfunctory manner by 
 the officiating clergyman, who thought and spoke of the 
 performance simply as so much ' duty/ There has been, 
 of late years, a vast reawakening — one may even say a 
 revival. The Church has seen, amongst other things, 
 that, if she is to leaven the masses of the people, arid 
 not leave them to Nonconformity or irreligion, she must 
 lay aside her hauteur, and, in the words of the old 
 allegory, go out into the streets and lanes of the city, 
 and compel men to come in. Such, apart from all 
 extreme views, has been the rationale of those at once 
 more frequent and more decent services, of the care with 
 . which the House of God has been adorned and beautified, 
 and also of the attention that has been given to the vast 
 instrumentality of preaching. For a recognition of this 
 need there is no doubt the Church has been largely 
 indebted to the Dissenters. It may be that from another 
 quarter she has learnt the value of home mission work ; 
 though even in this respect the Wesleyans had some- 
 thing to tell her in the way of itinerant preaching. 
 But the 'Mission,' technically so termed, has always 
 been a prominent feature of the Romish cultus, and so 
 also has the religions ' Conference.' It may be that the 
 idea has come recommended from more than one quarter. 
 But of the Clerical Conference on Missions, to which the 
 special service at St Paul's now to be described was 
 introductory, it is certainly not too much to say that, as 
 a combined method of action on the part of the Church 
 of England, it was to a great extent new. 
 
 Some years ago, when what came to be called the 
 ' Twelve Days' Mission ' was organized, the movement 
 got very much into the hands of one extreme party in 
 the Church, and the tone of teaching was what would 
 be loosely termed ' High,' confession itself being freely, 
 advocated by one of the most prominent preachers of 
 the Mission. It was essentially a party movement, and, 
 no doubt in order to prevent this, the bishops who bear 
 
374 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 rule over the metropolis took time by the forelock, and 
 issued the following invitation to a conference and 
 preliminary service among the clergy of their dioceses : — 
 
 Reverend and dear Brother, — -Assiimiiig that you are 
 prepared to take part in the Mission to he held in the metropolis 
 in February next, we would earnestly invite you to join us in a 
 special service of prayer and meditation to be held in St Paid's 
 Cathedral on Tuesday, Nov. 4, at half-past eleven o'clock, and to 
 be foUowed by a conference of incumbents, which wiU be held at 
 King's College at half-past two. Conscious as we must all be 
 that the work we have set before us will, without God's blessing, 
 be fruitless and futile indeed, let us in faith in the promises made 
 to those who shall agree on earth as touching anything that they 
 shall ask, unite our fervent prayers for a special outpouring of the 
 Holy Ghost; for the quickening of the love of G«d and of the 
 Lord Jesus in our own hearts and in those of our people ; for a 
 deeper sense of the worth of immortal souls ; for more earnestness 
 and self-denial in our efforts to win them jfor Christ ; and for a 
 great gathering into the true fold of multitudes now wandering 
 and lost in the ways of sin and death. It will not be possible to 
 include our lay brethren in this service, but we would suggest to 
 you the desirableness of inviting such of your parishioners or 
 congregation as are prepared to assist you in the work of the 
 Mission to a special celebration of the Holy Communion on the 
 morning of November 4th, or on some morning in the same week. 
 
 We are, dear Brother, your faithful servante in Christ, 
 
 J. London. 
 
 E. H. WiNTON. 
 
 London, October 21, 1873. T. L. Eochester. 
 
 A very large number of the London clergy responded 
 to this appeal, and filled the whole space under the dome 
 of St Paul's. There were men of every doctrinal section 
 in the English Church. Among the first comers was Dr 
 Nolan, with a large Evangelical contingent ; then came 
 Father Lowder, attended by a following of quite an op- 
 posite school of thought. Several laymen tried to enter 
 the enclosure, which was jealously guarded for 'the 
 clergy ; ' and one irrepressible Sisterof Mercy, after being 
 relegated to the foot of a pillar out of sight, pushed well 
 to the front, and would not be satisfied until she got a 
 seat somewhere near the reverend fathers. At half-past 
 eleven the procession of choir and clergy entered from 
 the sacristy. The boys were the only choristers present. 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 375 
 
 and were followed by the prebendaries, minor canons, 
 canons, and deans ; the rear being brought up by the 
 Bishops of London, Winchester, and Rochester. 
 
 The Bishop of London passed at once to the pulpit, 
 the choir singing the ' Veni Creator,' at the conclusion 
 of which his lordship read first the Collect, ' Prevent us, 
 O, Lord,' and then the one appointed for "Whit Sunday, 
 after which he proceeded at once to his address. 
 
 The experience of the last three years, said his lord- 
 ship, in the way of special efforts towards the lost, had 
 been that such efforts, where they did not interfere with 
 parochial arrangements, had been largely blessed. They 
 brought many into the fold ; and also, by their reflex 
 action, quickened spiritual life in congregations, and even 
 in communicants. There seemed no reason, then, why 
 the bishops of the three dioceses included in the metro- 
 polis should refuse to preside over their clergy in this 
 special effort against unbelief. Of those three bishops, 
 one gifted man, and his own dear friend, he said, had 
 been suddenly called to his account ; but his part had 
 been taken up by another dear friend, who had been 
 called in God's providence to succeed to the vacant place. 
 Experience also showed that the success of a mission de- 
 pended on the care in its organization. Do we not, he 
 asked, need preparation before we undertake such a 
 work ? The object of the present gathering was, as it 
 were, to strike the keynote of the Mission. He desired, 
 then, to speak with his reverend brethren not as their 
 bishop, but literally as their brother. Looking back 
 some twenty-one years to the time when he was in charge 
 of a large parish, he felt, if he were invited to share in 
 such a work as this, two questions would at once occur. 
 Have my ministrations failed ? If so, from what cause ? 
 Who would venture to say that his ministrations, 
 even in the smallest parish, had quite succeeded, had 
 been all that he could wish ? Not even the most faith- 
 ful pastor had quite carried out the ideal prescribed to 
 him by the Church at his ordination. Then, with regard 
 to the second question. ' I pray God,' said the Bishop 
 with much feeling, ' that none of you, when you come to 
 
376 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 look back on a ministTy of forty years, may find so mnch 
 cause for humiliation as he who now addresses you/ As 
 a general rule, defects, he said, varied more in degree 
 than in kind ; and when we came to ask ourselves why 
 — as far as lay in ourselves — we had failed, the answer 
 would be, through want of faith and love — faith in God, 
 and love to Jesus Christ and the souls of our fellow-men. 
 
 Take preaching, for instance. Did we, he asked, 
 preach as if expecting that what we preached would do 
 its work ? Did we believe that our hearers would be 
 converted ? Don't we — ^he plainly asked —preach donbt- 
 ingly ? So with the more important Kjjpvyna when we 
 were speaking face to face with man, the sick or the 
 sinful — did we believe that what we said would go to the 
 heart ? So, too, with prayers — prayer with or for others. 
 Did we believe that our prayers would be answered ? 
 Did we throw ourselves on God ? Let us try ourselves 
 by this test. Were we not surprised when our prayers 
 were answered ? His lordship here told an apposite 
 story of a clergyman who was called to the deathbed of 
 a talented man that had imbibed sceptical ideas, who 
 was, in fact, an unbeliever. He had to wait some time 
 before he could see him, and occupied the interval in 
 wrestling for him in prayer. When it expired, the sister 
 of the dying man came down with joy on her face, 
 and said, ' Oh ! he is praying — -praying hopefully ! ' The 
 clergyman's heart swelled with gratitude, but^he was 
 surprised. And who of us, asked the Bishop, dare cast 
 the first stone at him ? It might be said that this dis- 
 trust savoured of humility ; but was it not rather the 
 case that we trusted too much to ourselves and too little 
 to God ? The Christian man's phylactery ought to be, 
 ' Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith 
 the Lord.' We did not expect that God would perform 
 physical miracles. God did not grant such evidence now. 
 The greatest miracle of all was the work of the Holy 
 Spirit in regeneration, conversion, sanctification, and 
 salvation. The knowledge that they were doing God's 
 will made the boldest ventures of faith reasonable. 
 
 In eloquent periods the Bishop pictured the poor fallen 
 
THE LONDOlSr MISSION OF 1874. 377 
 
 sister staggering' along the streets with flushed cheeks ; 
 the ignorant blasphemer under the railway arch or in the 
 lecture-room vilifying the name of God, and, worse than 
 all, the mere man or woman of the world living in care- 
 lessness — God would have all these to come to repent- 
 ance. We never could aim at saving a soul without being 
 in accord with the will of God. Let this, then, he 
 urged, be our first prayer as we prostrated ourselves in 
 silence, ' Lord, increase our faith.' 
 
 Then there was a long pause for silent prayer — perhaps 
 the most impressive of all forms of worship, especially in 
 the centre of a great city. The roar of London was 
 around, and the slanting rays of the sun lit up the silent 
 congregation as those hundreds of Christian ministers 
 bent in unuttered prayer to God. 
 
 Then, as the Bishop of Winchester passed from his 
 stall to the pulpit, the choir sang the following hymn r 
 
 AlmigMy God, Whose only Son 
 O'er sin and death the triumph won, 
 And ever lives to intercede 
 For souls who Thy sweet mercy need. 
 
 In His dear name to Thee we pray 
 For all who err and go astray, 
 For sinners, wheresoe'er they he, 
 Who do not serve and honour Thee. 
 
 There are who never yet have heard 
 The tidings of Thy hless^d Word, 
 But still in heathen darkness dwell, 
 Without one thought of heaven or hell ; 
 
 And some within Thy sacred Fold 
 To holy things are dead and cold, 
 And waste the precious hours of life 
 In selfish ease, or toil, or strife ; 
 
 And many a quickened soul within 
 There lurks the secret love of sin ; 
 A wayward will, or anxious fears, 
 Or lingering taint of hygoue years. 
 
 O give repentance true and deep 
 To all Thy lost and wandering sheep, 
 And kindle in their hearts the fire 
 Of holy love and pure desire. 
 
378 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 , That so from angel hosts ahove 
 May rise a sweeter song of love, 
 And we, with all the blest, adore 
 Thy Name, O Grod, for evermore. Amen. 
 
 The Bishop of Winchester took for his subject the 
 motive that should animate them in such a work as that 
 in contemplation. The love of Jesus crucified, risen, and 
 enthroned in Heaven inevitably resulted in love for all 
 on behalf of whom Christ died. Yet he would ask 
 whether the very refinement of Christian love did not 
 sometimes make us loathe those we ought to love. 
 Christianity had a civihzing and refining effect, and we 
 might be led to shrink from contact with that which is 
 polluted. "We must try and school ourselves to love 
 those amongst whom we laboured in mission work as 
 ruined temples of God. Ml human nature was part of 
 the nature of Christ Incarnate, but sin was no part of it. 
 Each of those fallen was among those whom He came to 
 save. He prayed for them on the Cross. He prays for 
 them on the Throne. So must we school ourselves to 
 love them. Love alone would find its way into the 
 hearts of those we ought to save. Their lives, he said, 
 were hard, and their natures impervious to fear or shame ; 
 but not to love. Next to the instinct of food and 
 warmth, the instinct of love was the most natural. 
 Scarcely any were so lost as to be insensible to love. A 
 chord might be struck in the darkest heart if there were 
 a chord in unison with it on our part. The very worst 
 case, perhaps, was those who had followed that counter- 
 feit of love, ' lust, hard by hate,' yet the victims of this 
 were sensible to love. When Howard was walking the 
 streets, one of those wretched girls put her arm into his. 
 He simply turned and said ' Poor creature ! ' and she 
 burst into tears. We try police-courts, courts of justice, 
 and penitentiaries, but how seldom love crept into the 
 poor homes of our great cities ! Love never despaired. 
 It alone could make us hope against hope. Al l had 
 seen how, when a little one was given over to die, a 
 mother would so hope, and the infant sometimes be 
 spared to her. So would the Christian pastor tend 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 379 
 
 those who to all others seemed hopeless. So he com- 
 mended this to their hearts as the motive pi-inciple of 
 action. 
 
 Again followed the silent prayer and full-voiced hymn, 
 which sounded grandly in its deep unison. Then the 
 Bishop of Rochester ascended the pulpit, and delivered 
 a most stirring and most thoroughly missionary address. 
 
 These missions to the careless and perishing, he said 
 — both respectable and outcast — in what conviction did 
 they originate ? Perhaps in this, that though the Word 
 had been preached to them with power and energy, 
 yet it had beeli evident, as matter of experience, that 
 something was needed to bring the Word closer 
 home. Our eternal happiness and misery depended on 
 our relation to God. Preachers spoke to the listening 
 crowd, but we needed something to speak to us as 
 Nathan spoke to David, ' Thou art the man.' Sympathy 
 was needed. This desire to help their fellow-sinners had 
 brought them together that day. Then the missioners 
 of the Church had met for their Lord's glory. The 
 humblest, most distrustful man might do somewhat — 
 might find some poor soul travailing under a burden 
 which he could lighten, and, by talking man with man, 
 might win him over to Christ. Let them remember they 
 were sent forth by ' the churches.' The presence of the 
 three Bishops made this a Church mission. What could 
 be less in accord with the world's mode of warfare than 
 a mission ? Yet, by this simple strategy, it was expected 
 to break up the strongholds of sin. What ! had we 
 surveyed Pandemonium, where men assemble by troops 
 in the harlot's house, the flaunting public-house, the' 
 temple of Mammon ? Yes, he answered — all this we had 
 seen. All were open to God's eye, and His word revealed 
 them to us, and at the same time told us that there was 
 in all these sinners a sense of disquietude. In the very 
 worst there was love, as in the woman in Simon's house. 
 To these, said the Bishop, we go. The result was in 
 God's hands J ours to go forth in the power of Him who 
 did not strive or cry, but won His victory by gentleness, 
 love, and patience. The Bishop concluded a very eloquent 
 
38o ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 address by a graphic reference to the work of Him whom 
 it is not irreverent to call the first Missioner. 
 
 The service — a very exceptional one indeed for the 
 metropolitan cathedral — concluded with the Lord's 
 Prayer, which was said, not sung, by the Bishop of 
 London and congregation, and the Apostolic benediction 
 also pronounced by the same prelate. 
 
 In the afternoon there took place the conference of 
 incumbents at King's College, pursuant to notice. From 
 this the laity and inferior clergy were rigidly excluded, 
 the object being presumably to decide on the details of 
 the mission work. Thus far, everything had been of the 
 most practical kind, and so gave the best promise of 
 success for the work. 
 
 II. THE DAT OP DEVOTION FOE THE CLEEQT. 
 
 Thus, with an esoteric gathering, began the London 
 Mission in the various churches of the metropolis. The 
 previous 'Twelve Days' Mission' of 1869 was an event 
 which had been up to that time undreamed of in the 
 philosophy of the Church of England, and, by an acci- 
 dental mismanagement, was on that occasion allowed to 
 fall very much into the hands of one party in the Estab- 
 lishment. Possibly that might have been the reason 
 why the idea then inaugurated has so long apparently 
 lain dormant. Now that it has been revived, the results 
 of its long gestation are apparent ; it has come forth not 
 only with episcopal sanction, but under the more or less 
 active superintendence of the Bishops of the three 
 dioceses comprised within the limits of the metropolis — 
 London, Winchester, and Rochester. These prelates, as 
 mentioned above, held a special preliminary service some 
 months before in Paul's Cathedral, and warmly com- 
 mended the work of the Mission both to clergy and laity. 
 The present Mission, as I have said, now actually com- 
 menced, and continued during the Octave. Friday was 
 the Great Day of the Pi-eparation, when the work was 
 appropriately commenced by a long series of services and 
 addresses in the metropolitan cathedral. These services. 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 381 
 
 whicli were for the clergy only-j commenced with a cele- 
 bration of Holy Communion at 8.30 a.m., followed by 
 Morning Prayer at 10, and a second celebration at 11. 
 These earlier proceedings, I am sorry to say, I neglected ; 
 but at noon I groped amid the fog to the north door of 
 the cathedral, and having replied satisfactorily to the 
 challenge of the janitor as to whether I was ' a 
 reverend gentleman,' I entered and found the area 
 under the dome already dotted over with that always 
 heterogeneous assemblage the clergy of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 Here entered successively the Ritualist in his trailing 
 cassock, surmounted either by ' priest's cloak ' or more 
 mundane greatcoat, and all the varied sections of the 
 Establishment marked broadly by expanse of ahirt front 
 and breadth of white tie, culminating in the M.B. waist- 
 coat and Roman band. Among the congregation one 
 saw the faces of many well-known missioners and 
 London clergy. The Bishops of London and Roches- 
 ter took their seats amongst us — the congregation 
 — and at 12.30 the Rev W. H. Milman, in surplice, 
 hood, and stole, conducted the missioner to the pulpit, 
 and took his own seat in the choir. The ' Yeni Creator' 
 was sung — the High Church party kneeling, the rest 
 standing, and the Bishops among the latter. Then 
 the preacher, the Rev. W. Walsham How, monotoned 
 three collects, and forthwith proceeded to his ser- 
 mon. Taking his text from the Second Epistle to 
 Timothy, he eloquently described the strength of the foe 
 with whom battle was to be done in this Mission, and 
 the weakness of the instrumentality to be employed, 
 except so far as it was strong through the Crucified. 
 From Him came to us, when we knelt before His cross, 
 the spirit of Strength and Love. He deprecated the 
 going, forth in mere power, or hope of success, and ad- 
 vocated love even for the unlovable, the cold, the rough, 
 the repulsive. Grod grant, he said, they might be 
 brought face to face with such. So would their love be 
 tried. The picture of the love of Christ brought home 
 to such a soul was consummately drawn, and, in conclu- 
 
382 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 sioiij it was strongly urged that ' sobermindedness ' was 
 not to be suspended even during mission work. Excite- 
 ment migbt be used by God to awaken the slumbering 
 soul; but there was danger lest such an element might 
 become excessive, and entail a dangerous reaction. 
 Intense, but very calm, devotion was a tone more fruit- 
 ful of good than one of somewhat unguarded excitement, 
 such as was not quite unknown in mission work. There 
 was a danger lest critics might deem the work un- 
 English, and against these they must be on their guard. 
 He concluded his brief but eloquent address with a 
 special prayer for that one element of sobermindedness 
 — about which he clearly was somewhat in doubt. Three 
 collects and the Apostolic benediction were succeeded 
 by a long interval of silent prayer, dun'ng which the 
 contrast of the roar of London city outside, at its very 
 busiest hour, was most significant in comparison with 
 the stillness that reigned around. Among the very first 
 to rise from their knees and . pass out at the south door 
 were the two Bishops. 
 
 Returning from my brief refreshment amid the fogs 
 of Ludgate Hill, I re-entered, now unchallenged by the 
 doorkeeper, who was relentlessly driving the lay people 
 from his portal — why, I could scarcely understand. 
 Inside it looked quite like a foreign church to notice the 
 clergy prostrate in silent prayer, or intent upon a book 
 of devotion. Was that widening of the space outside 
 ,the cathedral typical of a kindred process going on 
 within the walls of the Establishment ? 
 
 At two o'clock theEev. W. H. Chapman, chaplain of 
 .the Lock Hospital, entered, accompanied only by the 
 .verger ; and after we had sung the hymn called ' Rock 
 of Ages,' he proceeded, without taking a text, to con- 
 sider the hindrances to the Mission, especially that 
 resulting from the personality and special characteristics 
 ,of Satan — the God of this world. Whenever special 
 ■effort was being made, Satan's power would be put forth 
 [principally against God's ministers. Whenever the Holy 
 fGhost worked, Satan worked side. by side, and his pOwer 
 -was'felt. Faith in>the written Word of .God was the 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 383 
 
 only weapon to overcome these hindrances. Satan never 
 could stand up against the plain statements of the Word 
 of God. This sermon, which was of Evangelical tone, 
 was preached with much fervour, the preacher leaning 
 right forward on the cushion of the pulpit, until he 
 seemed in danger of falling over among his congrega- 
 tion. 
 
 The three-o'clock address was given by the Rev. G. 
 Body, who left such mark on the Mission of 1869, and 
 who has lost none of his former fire by his subsequent 
 preferment. Having given out the beautiful hymn, 
 ' When I survey the wondrous cross,' which was heartily 
 sung by us, where, he asked, could we better meet for 
 such a work as this than on Calvary, whereupon, as on 
 this day and as at this hour, the great Sacrifice was 
 consummated ? ' Brothers,' he said, ' let us go to Cal- 
 vary ! In the contemplation of the Passion we best learn 
 the secrets of mission work.' He then went through 
 some of the utterances on the Cross. Christ thirsts, he 
 said, thirsts for the tears of penitents. Jesus, as one 
 with the Father, yearns for the return of prodigals. 
 This was mission work; to seek the good of men that 
 God might be glorified thereby — to satisfy the thirst, the 
 loving thirst, of God, by speaking to men the one name 
 of Jesus ; not speaking mere doctrines, but revealing a 
 personal Saviour. We had to tell men of the love of 
 Jesus crucified, risen, and ascending. Have much faith 
 in preaching. Strike the rock and the waters shall gush 
 out to slake the thirst of God. Tell the old, old story. 
 The name of Jesus is mighty as ever. Don't work 
 yourselves up, or try to work others up, to a state of 
 excitement; but tell the old plain story. Conversion, 
 we must remember, is the direct work of the Holy Spirit, 
 and cannot be forced. We must go forth in simple de- 
 pendence on that, and then wait calmly and patiently. 
 Among the qualifications for Missioners, he specified, 
 first of all reverence — reverence for the souls amongst 
 whom they ministered ; reverence for the Sacred Name 
 and Sacred Mystery. The prayers and Eucharists of 
 England, he said, were concentrated on the London 
 
384 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ChuFcies. Secondly, there was need of confidence — 
 confidence, blended with humility, in realized weakness, 
 but confidence in the Sacred Heart. Thirdly, he added, 
 go forth in patience. Don't make up a fictitious excite- 
 ment. If success seems delayed, throw thyself with aU 
 thy disappointment at the foot of the Cross. Lastly, go 
 forth in thanksgiving, fighting beneath the Blood-red 
 banner against the foes of the Cross. Finally, there 
 must be now, as in Pentecostal times, the Baptism of 
 the Holy Ghost. The congregation — vergers and all — 
 seemed fairly taken by surprise with the fervid eloquence 
 of this marvellous preacher, which, I remember, had the 
 same effect upon me at the last Mission, and made me 
 follow him from church to church with the ardour of a 
 Mvouee. 
 
 Evensong was said at four o'clock, and an address 
 subsequently delivered by the Rev. W. Haslam; the 
 series concluding with one by the Rev. Father Benson, 
 Superior of the Cowley Fathers, at six o'clock. 
 
 In sharp, ringing voice. Father Benson said we must, 
 as mission priests, keep before our eyes the sight of 
 Jesus at the right hand of God. The Throne of God is 
 the centre of all His Church's action, wherever an 
 apostolical ministry is labouring in" His name. Let us 
 realize this gaze of the soul on Jesus as the source of 
 our power. Ours is no mere Jewish ministry, but a 
 ministry of the Resurrection life, moving in its reality 
 in the midst of this great city. We must go forth in 
 this triumphant power, conscious that our whole being 
 is instinct with His life. How can our ministry be of 
 any use else ? Think what it is to be the representative 
 of Christ among benighted people ! This demands of 
 us to separate ourselves from all that is not of Him. 
 We come hither as the prophet came to Nineveh. He 
 went on the strength of his three days' burial, and came 
 forth in the strength of his resurrection life, and struck 
 Nineveh dumb. So in the power of a like burial we go 
 forth (one could not help suspecting a side reference to 
 the monastic life in these words). We must live as 
 those who are dead to the world and alive to God. If 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 385 
 
 we call others, we must realize it in our own persons. 
 We must not sink back into the old world, which would 
 put the drag upon our efiforts, and take all the fire from 
 our words. Let us between this and Sunday seek to 
 realize that burial to earthly things which must precede 
 the resurrection life. We stand here as the angels of 
 the resurrection, as ourselves partakers of the death of 
 Christ, and having passed into His resurrection. This 
 is the grace of our baptism, a death unto sin, and a new 
 birth unto righteousness. 
 
 The sermon, redolent of the very ' highest ' thought, 
 and full of ascetic sentiment, was intently listened to by 
 a congregation which was evidently, to a great degree, 
 sympathetic with the preacher. Canon Gregory, I 
 noticed, was among the hearers. 
 
 Sunday morning, though nominally the opening of 
 the Mission, may properly be included in the prepara- 
 tion ; for in few churches was the work definitely, com- 
 menced until the evening — ^in fact, the Mission, as a- 
 whole, is far more a matter of week-day than Sunday 
 work. 
 
 At 9.30 on Sunday morning I attended a very inter- 
 esting preliminary service in the Riding School of the 
 Knightsbridge Barracks, where the Rev. T. Teignmouth 
 Shore, of Berkeley Chappl, Mayfair, addressed the 1st 
 Life Guards on the subject of the Mission. After a brief 
 service, which wds taken by the Rev. J. A. Orozier, 
 Chaplain to the Forces, and the musical portion of which 
 was admirably performed by the regimental band, Mr 
 Shore spoke a few manly words to the Guardsmen, who 
 were ranged four deep round the building, exhorting 
 them to attend the services at Berkeley Chapel, and not 
 to deem it unmanly to be religious. His words were 
 listened to with the most respectful attention, and he 
 seemed to make a deep impression. The whole service 
 and sermon occupied less than an hour ; after which I 
 adjourned to St Barnabas, Pimlico, where the Vicar 
 preached to a large congregation on the subject of the 
 Mission, which in this church was to be conducted by 
 the Revs. R. M. Benson and Francis D. Bagshawe. 
 
 25 
 
386 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 So ended the prologue to the drama — that is, let me 
 explain, the speaking before the action — of the Mission 
 of 1874. 
 
 III. THE MISSION FEOPEE. 
 
 If, as has been perhaps satirically said, the chief object 
 of a Mission is to make people go to church, it succeed- 
 ed to a marvel in my case. I lived in church, and 
 breathed an atmosphere redolent of sermons, during the 
 week. The impression remaining on my mind was a 
 somewhat commonplace one. The clergy of the Church 
 of England had, no doubt, gone manfully in for the 
 Mission ; but, save in one or two isolated cases, the 
 result seemed to have been scarcely more than a lot of 
 Sundays rolled into one. The sermons were scarcely 
 above the average, and fell more or less flat on the con- 
 gregations. Indeed, it was difficult to find in the thing 
 itself the excitement we could discern on paper from 
 the day when the Rev. Harry Jones dropped his bomb- 
 shell into the camp by declaring that he stood aloof al- 
 together from the Mission on principle, as being sensa- 
 tional or else nothing. I can fully endorse Mr Jones's 
 vaticination as far as my observation goes. Where the 
 Confessional was advocated, or Revivalism aimed at, an 
 effect was produced. Elsewhere the old proverb was 
 realized — the mountain laboured, and a mouse was the 
 ridiculous result. A conspicuous case in point was that 
 of Dr Lee, at All Saints', New Cut. I went thither on 
 Wednesday evening, and found the usual elaborate 
 service with procession being performed in presence of 
 a mere handful of people. Dr Lee preached, and 
 brought to an abrupt conclusion the ' apparently unsuc- 
 cessful mission.' He told them they would have no 
 ' ranting or roaring ' there, nothing sensational ; and, 
 ecce, sigimm ! as far as present and perceptible results 
 are concerned, the Mission was abortive, and I wasted 
 an evening. 
 
 St James's, Norland Square, Bayswater, struck me as 
 being one of the most successfully worked of the West- 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 387 
 
 end parochial Missions. The incumbent, the Rev. G. T. 
 Palmer, personally visited the public-houses, and got a 
 great many people, at all events, to come to church. 
 He had three Mission priests working with him, and 
 averaged 50 communicants at the 7 o'clock celebration, 
 while as many as 700 children were present at the after- 
 noon services. The church of St John the Evangelist, 
 Kensington (Rev. G. -Booker), also took an active part 
 in the Mission, and gathered large congregations. 
 Visiting the handsome church of All Saints, Kensington 
 Park, so famous for its musical services, I found that 
 the vicar, the Rev. John Light, was only commencing 
 the Mission on Thursday — parochial arrangements 
 having prevented his doing so before. He had just re- 
 tired to the Choristers' School-house to live ' in com- 
 munity ' during the Mission. The well-known preacher, 
 the Rev. G-. G. L. Dunbar, D.D., was taking the special 
 sermons in the Mission chapel. Two Mission priests, 
 the Rev. J. M. Conolly, curate of Tilehurst, Berks, and 
 the Rev. J. R. Buchanan, vicar of Heme, Kent, were 
 working in the church. The latter gentleman com- 
 menced with a course of children's services, in which he 
 took as his subject the ' Knowledge of good and evil,' 
 which he treated so as to secure the interest of a very 
 large number of children, whom he also catechized, re- 
 ceiving very intelligent answers from them. 
 
 My experiences of the Low Church party had not 
 been, so far, felicitous. I fancied I might take St 
 John's, Paddington, as a typical church, and the vicar, 
 the Rev. Emilius Bayley, as a representative man on the 
 Evangelical side. Accordingly on the Tuesday morning 
 I journeyed due west, and sought the church in question. 
 I confess to being attracted also by a promising list of 
 preachers, among whom were included the Archbishop 
 of York and the Rev. William Cadman, of Trinity 
 Church, Marylebone ; while the Mission preacher was 
 the Rev. C. D. Marston, who succeeded Mr Capel 
 Molyneux at St Paul's, Onslow Square. It was a bitter 
 morning, and I was obliged to array myself in over- 
 coat and respirator. Whether this exercised the mind 
 
388 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of the pew-opener or not I do not know ; but the im- 
 pression which that good lady left with me was, that I 
 was not expected at St John's and had better have 
 stopped away. The cavernous pews were rigidly ap- 
 propriated to their respective owners, very few of whom 
 put in an appearance, and those in the proportion of 
 about one man to ten women — most of them elderly, 
 and many, I fancy, unmarried. The free seats, of which 
 there are very few, were about two-thirds full, and the 
 pew-opener motioned me to one of these close to the 
 door and full in the draught. I pointed to my respirator, 
 and asked if she could not give me a seat, but she was 
 inexorable, and only moved me a row or two higher in 
 the free seats. The sermon was on ' Consecration,' and 
 was preached by the Rev. W. H. Chapman, minister of 
 the Lock Chapel; but, as I have already reported this 
 gentleman's address at St Paul's Cathei'al, I need not 
 say more here than that I do not think it would have 
 'converted' me, and I am sure it could not possibly 
 have excited any one, while the service was of the most 
 depressing character, the responses being made by two 
 charity children in the organ loft, and the singing of the 
 mildest possible description. At Quebec Chapel my 
 reception was very different. There the whole edifice 
 was thrown open to chance comers, an arrangement 
 which I had thought to be of the very essence of a 
 Mission service. But it was neither High nor Low that 
 I had elected to make my jtiice de resistance. Both 
 High and Low had shaken their heads ominously when 
 I mentioned the Rev. Llewellyn Davies, of Christ Church, 
 Lisson Grove, and assured me I should find lay preachers 
 in full possession there. Dim visions of Dr Max Miiller, 
 I confess, did float through my mind as I sought the 
 sylvan retirement, but no lay preachers were there. Mr 
 Davies, though a Broad Churchman, had not gone out 
 of town, and had complied with the injunction to keep 
 Mission by having special evening sermons by dis- 
 tinguished clergymen — not laymen. The one I heard 
 wsbS the Rev. Dr Abbott, Head Master of the City of 
 London School ; and as his subject was the exceedingly 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 389 
 
 interesting one of education, I thought I might go 
 farther and fare worse, so I stayed. The preacher for 
 the following evening was the Bishop of Manchester. 
 Evensong was sung at 8.30 — such a bright, cheerful 
 service, with Tallis's responses done in first-rate style by 
 a full choir. The congregation was a large one, includ- 
 ing many substantial middle-class folks, and a large 
 number of poor — altogether more like a Mission gather- 
 ing than any I had seen. Clad in an M.A. gown, Dr 
 Abbott gave out as his text the Fifth Commandment, 
 ' Honour thy father and thy mother.'' He deprecated 
 the idea that this commandment was ' wasted ' because 
 many of us had lost our parents. It spoke to parents 
 as well as children, bidding them deserve the respect 
 of their children. He would confine his attention to 
 one point — viz., education. He would narrow the term 
 to mere school teaching, and point out the duty of 
 parents in this respect. He showed the fallacy of draw- 
 ing a contrast between 'book-learning'' and good 
 character ; and eloquently pleaded in favour of the 
 ' three R's.' He talked colloquially without any notes, 
 and quite carried his congregation along with him by 
 his plain words. He claimed reading and writing as 
 being almost additional senses. Satan found some 
 mischief still for idle hands to do, and teaching a child 
 to read was to arm him against temptation. Reading 
 might be turned to evil purposes, true ; but, looking to 
 the grand works of English authors, we must feel there 
 was vastly more good than evil. As a matter of fact we 
 know from the statistics of crime that all but a small 
 percentage were unable to read and write. What 
 was the education of the streets, he asked (pertinently 
 enough in Lisson Grove), and was not that the only 
 alternative to the education in school ? It was more 
 true in London than in the country that to be idle is to 
 be sinful. No doubt they were obUged to send children 
 to school now ; 'but he dwelt strongly on the necessity 
 of regularity in attendance. There might be other 
 remedies not resting with parents, bat he believed that 
 the great difficulty rested with the parents, and he be- 
 
39° ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 sought them to do all they could to form a healthy 
 public opinion in their neighbourhood, so as to keep the 
 children regular and make them do their work. The 
 affectionate sympathy of a father or mother might help 
 a child wonderfully. To this was owing much of the 
 superiority of the Scotch schools as well as to the ex- 
 cellence of the institutions themselves. ' Thrice happy,' 
 he said, 'is the nation where mothers thus aid by 
 sympathy and example in the education of their children.' 
 I may be right or wrong — I think I am right, of 
 course — but this seemed to me more in keeping with 
 the real spirit of an Anglican Mission service than any 
 amount of sacerdotal ' direction,' or any fervid efforts at 
 ' revival ' — a plain manly appeal to the first duty of 
 a parent, and especially a poor parent ; and, as I came 
 out, I felt extremely grateful to Mr Davies that he had 
 not gone out of town, or, if he did so, returned in time 
 to keep, at all events, something in the shape of a 
 Mission Service at Christ Church, Lisson Grove. 
 
 IV. A CALL TO CONFESSION. 
 
 I have been all along reserving the right, if any 
 service, sermon, or ceremony of the present Mission 
 should seem to rise above the prevailing dead level, 
 to- chronicle such in my running commentary. Rightly 
 or wrongly, I believe such a crisis has arrived; if my 
 own sympathies and predilections do not quite go along 
 with it, that is a secondary and purely irrelevant matter. 
 My mission is emphatically to describe, not to pass 
 judgment, or even act as advocate. 
 
 On Saturday evening, attracted by what I had heard 
 of midnight Argyll audiences at St Peter's, Windmill 
 Street, I set out, early in the evening, to ' prospect ' in 
 that direction ; and found that, by what I consider an 
 error of judgment, there was to be no midnight service 
 on Saturday. At that particular time th'e supper-houses 
 and other places would have been shut, and there would 
 have been no counter-attractions to the missioners' 
 work. So it was, however, the fiat had gone forth. 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 391 
 
 There was to be no 11.30 service on Saturday. Foiled 
 in my immediate purpose, I acted like the man who, 
 having lost his way, gives his horse the rein and 
 trusts to its guidance. Chance led me to the church of 
 S. Thomas, Regent Street, nee Archbishop Tenison's 
 Chapel, where I heard what I have every reason to 
 believe a distinctive service; certainly one which inter- 
 ested me greatly, and seemed in its degree characteristic 
 of one aspect of the Mission. S. Thomas's may be — 
 nay, it had better own the soft impeachment, is — ugly. 
 It is an instance of a conventicle that has striven to 
 become Ritualistic, which always more or less resembles 
 that monstrum our bucolic friends describe in their 
 peculiar phrase — as an ' old lamb dressed ewe-fashion ' 
 — I mean an elderly spinster arrayed in the latest mode. 
 Tenison's Chapel pretended to be nothing more than a 
 preaching-shop. S. Thomas (I purposely omit the 't' 
 in Saint) is of the most pronounced Ritualistic type — 
 a very coryphaeus in the rising generation of 'advanced' 
 churches. Its walls and ceiling are 'flatted' red, white, 
 and blue in a way which brings its native ugliness into 
 prominence, much as do the rings and bedizenments of 
 the dowager above-mentioned. But the sacrarium and 
 altar redeem, or are meant to redeem, everything, and 
 cover a multitude of sins. The Holy Table was vested 
 in black on Saturday night, and eight tapers were 
 standing on it, divided by the central cross, and flanked 
 with two huge bougies at the north and south ends. 
 The deep galleries down the chapel looked incongruous 
 enough ; but they served to remind us that all the 
 beauty was focussed and concentrated in the chancel. 
 Perhaps they were meant to. 
 
 I entered at 8 p.m — the service being at 8.30, with a 
 second service at 11 'for women only.' A fair congre- 
 gation already dotted the chapel, many women and a few 
 men ; and groups of choristers in cassocks were chatting 
 in rather an irreverent and unmission-like way in the 
 aisles. Station pictui'es of no very high order of art 
 decorated the walls ; and altogether staid old Tenison's 
 Chapel was in a very advanced condition indeed ; how 
 
392 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 changed from the time when the oratory of Lawrell was 
 a sufficient attraction ! At 8.15 a demure young man 
 lighted six out of the eight tapers on the altar, to which 
 he bowed with that strange shamefaced air Rituahsts 
 adopt in their genuflexions as compared with Eoman 
 Catholics, much in the same way as the salutation of an 
 Englishman to the dame an comptoir of a restaurant differs 
 from that of the Parisian ' to the manner bom.' At 
 service time a procession of twenty-four filed from the 
 west end, consisting of the Rev. W. J. Richardson, the 
 minister. Rev. Mr Steele, assistant, and Mr Knox-Little, 
 the missioner, the rest being choristers. A metrical 
 Litany was sung by Mr Steele and two atolytes kneeling 
 in front of the altar, the choir and congregation taking 
 the alternate verses. It was a bright, sparkling composi- 
 tion in six-eight time, very effective and appropriate. A 
 few Collects followed, and then the Miserere or Psalm 51, 
 all devoutly kneeling, and singing to a Gregorian tune. 
 Several taking hymns were interpolated at different in- 
 tervals j amongst them the favourite, ' Daily, daily sing 
 the praises ; ' and the Mission service was over. The 
 missioner, Mr Knox- Little, passed to the pulpit, and 
 taking as his text the words ' I wiU arise and go to my 
 Pather' (Luke xv. 18), said that the Christian life was 
 one not of feeling only but of action. It was a change 
 of posture ; an energetic advance to the Father. This 
 special occasion, he reminded them, involved great 
 obligations, as it offered great privileges. To all the 
 different calls that had been made- during life, this one 
 was now added. I could not fail to notice the immense 
 fluency of the preacher, with the absence of all exaggera- 
 tion, and the mode in which he riveted the attention of 
 a large congregation ; for such had ours now grown to 
 be. The women's seats were full : the men's nearly so ; 
 and the men were quite as attentive as the women. 
 Christian life, he repeated, was not a mere dream or 
 picture. It was being realized around us in all ages and 
 stations. We ought to take God's call as a great reality, 
 and make a responsive advance. There was one induce- 
 ment which it might savour of commonplace to urge, but 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 393 
 
 wMch he could not pass over. In the silence of night 
 and in the crowd, when we were thinking or when we 
 were waking, the thought would come that this could 
 not possibly go on long. It might be commonplace, but 
 every one of us had to face the great fact of death. 
 ' Don't ask me/ he said, ' then, why you should change 
 your posture ; why you should advance towards God. 
 Ask rather the hindrances.' These he specified as pride, 
 covetousness, pleasure, indifference ; and followed up 
 with a fervid and impetuous call to confession. ' Con- 
 fession,' he said, ' was an act of the Incarnate leading 
 the soul to God. To hold back, if God calls, was most 
 dangerous to the spiritual life. If there were secrets on 
 the soul, and God gave the chance of speaking them out 
 and getting absolution, then to hold back was the most 
 terrible danger, and involved the most terrible responsi- 
 bilities.' ' Don't hold back,' he kept repeating — when 
 the end of the Mission had come, then would be the time 
 for making resolutions. If God has, in the course of it, 
 said ' Confess,' then don't hold back. In the name of 
 your Creator, don't hold back. If you do, the blood of 
 Jesus has been shed in vain. That was the one question. 
 Have I had that message in the Mission ? if so, am I 
 holding back ? If that were the case he would say, go 
 home and fall on your knees, and say, ' Iwill hold back 
 no longer.' Hold back, and that truth will haunt you 
 in the shape of the word that man spoke to you at the 
 Mission. If we accept it, all the world may argue, men 
 may ridicule or persecute, public opinion may scoff, but 
 it would not matter to us. 
 
 The preacher's manner, whatever we might think of his 
 matter, was perfect, his oratory fluent, his action telling 
 but unexaggerated, and all bearing the stamp of sincere 
 feeling. Of course the question remained — Was the 
 doctrine un-English or not ? But I am describing only. 
 He concluded with a fervent extempore prayer, and gave 
 notice that he would add a brief instruction on ' Medita- 
 tion as a mode of deepening the spiritual life ' to such 
 as thought fit to remain after the service. It was twenty 
 minutes to ten, but scarcely a score of people left the 
 
394 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 churcli, and soon after the procession had filed out, the 
 missioner and Mr Steele returned arrayed in their cas- 
 socks, and several of the choir in the same habit. A 
 hymn was sung, and Mr Knox-Little advanced to the 
 centre of the chancel, where he walked up and down 
 while delivering his instruction. This was a telling and 
 assthetic account of meditation considered in the light of 
 mental prayer. He deprecated the custom of ' reading 
 a chapter,' which so many good people did, as though it 
 were a sort of charm. Meditation was a perfect system, 
 and might be made quite ' business-like.' He sketched 
 separately at some length the Preparation, the Prelude, 
 the Divisions of the Subject, the Acts of Meditation. It 
 was necessary to, place oneself earnestly in God's 
 presence ; to realize one's ' creatureliness ; ' to resign 
 oneself into God's hands, to make the meditation what 
 He would ; to adore God ; to seek the breath of the 
 Holy Spirit. This, he said, sounded long ; but it would 
 take about half a minute, It was simply making medi- 
 tation a real act instead of a mere dream. Then fol- 
 lowed the Fruits of Meditation, the chief of which was 
 to do something or leave something undone that day for 
 God : to be strongly on the watch against some definite 
 sin. The great danger of religion was indefiniteness : 
 the great value of the Catholic Faith was that it was so 
 definite; that it made God and Christ and the saints 
 and angels real persons ; that it gave a real Presence in 
 the Sacrament, that it made the Priest real, and the 
 Blessed Sacrament of the Altar real too. It was an age of 
 appearances in secular and reUgious life. Meditation 
 gave definiteness to the latter. It made the Unseen 
 World a place in which we actually lived, made ths 
 Christian a creature living in two worlds, and gaining im- 
 mense strength from the fact of walking with the saints 
 and angels. He concluded by a renewed invitation to 
 confession. The missioners would be in church all 
 Monday, not only to receive formal confession, but to 
 talk over diflBculties with, such as cared to consult them. 
 The special service for women took place at eleven ; 
 but men were rigidly excluded. Tw;o stout policemen 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 395 
 
 took up their stations at tte door to enforce this 
 regulation. I -was informed that the attendance had 
 been good^ and many girls had been rescued and placed 
 in homes, as many as twelve in one evening. On the 
 Monday there was to be an outdoor procession at 7.30 
 in the streets immediately around the church, to get 
 people to come to the service ; and the Mission closed 
 with a Celebration the next morning. 
 
 V. SERVICES rOE WOMEN. 
 
 It is, I suppose, only another instance of men being 
 better than their creeds when I am able to state that, 
 though the Ritualistic preachers have over and over 
 again stated that it was a blessed thing to be persecuted 
 by the press, still, directly I stated my wish to be 
 present and report the services 'for women only,' and 
 from which men are, as I stated, rigidly excluded, each 
 of the priests to whom I applied, courteously — nay, 
 even anxiously — requested me to come, and afforded 
 every facility for seeing without being seen. The 
 West-end women, even more than their Bast-end sisters,- 
 are naturally sensitive as to being ' reported ; ' and on 
 all hands this feature of the Mission requires most 
 delicate treatment. 
 
 I paid, then, first of all, a morning visit to each of 
 the two churches which have combined for this raid on 
 Regent Street — namely, St Peter's, Windmill Street, 
 next door to the Argyll Rooms, and St Thomas's, late 
 Archbishop Tenison's Chapel. In each I found the 
 missioners hard at work. At St Peter's, the Rev. 
 Stephen Gladstone, son of the then Premier, was in 
 earnest converse with a man who bore the appearance 
 of an artisan. In St Thomas's a bearded priest was in 
 the same position with a middle-aged female; while 
 several younger women were waiting for an interview. 
 The Rev. Edward Steele was sitting in the vestry for 
 the same purpose ; and, in each case, I must in justice 
 say that the mere mention of the avowedly obnoxious 
 press was sufficient at once to gain me the entrie I 
 
396 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 solicited. I was anxious, however, first of all to see 
 the Mission doing out-of-door work; and for that 
 purpose repaired to St Thomas's Church at half-past 
 seven for a preliminary excursus through the streets 
 prior to the last Mission service, the object of such 
 sortie being principally to collect a congregation; though, 
 no doubt, in a secondary degree, to get at those who 
 will not come to church at all. A somewhat angry 
 mob surrounded the door of the church, and were 
 making remarks, more pointed than polite, on the 
 Ritualists in general,' and the confessional in particular. 
 The idea of a procession was wisely abandoned, for one 
 plain-spoken gentleman gave notice that if they brought 
 any of ' them rags ' out, he would ' pitch into -"em, if he . 
 got locked up for it.'' So we went out two and two to 
 a spot agreed upon down a back-street. ' I am afraid 
 there will be a row,' said the vicar. ' Then let's have a 
 row/ answered the plucky curate. We met at the 
 appointed rendezvous where a Windsor chair was forth- 
 coming; and before people knew what he was about, 
 Mr Steele had popped on a pocket surplice and mounted 
 -his rostrum. A hymn was sung, and he preached a 
 sermonette appropriate to the occasion. The people 
 were quiet ; some impressed, others inclined to suggest 
 that the gentleman was in his shirt sleeves; but the 
 assembly was quite divided; and when he made a 
 touching reference to a mother's prayers having gone 
 up to Heaven for many of those present, I saw rough 
 women moved to tears, and even men were disposed to 
 concede that 'the feller wam't a-doing any harm.' 
 Perhaps his greatest cou'p of all was when he said, ' I 
 dare say many of you ain't Church of England people ; 
 but I don't care for that. Perhaps some of you are 
 Wesleyans ; I hope you are.' He scored a point there ; 
 but lost it again when he kissed the crucifix at the end 
 of his short discourse. As we passed fi-om post to post, 
 marching to the tune of 'Daily, daily,' along the un- 
 fragrant streets and alleys, the noise increased ; but it 
 was made entirely by small boys, and, of course, the 
 smaller the lad the more noise he made. One halting- 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 397 
 
 place was near the scene of a recent fatal fire ; and Mr 
 Steele pressed that fact cleverly into his service. He 
 was a man not to be howled down on any account, or 
 by any number of infinitesimal boys. There was an 
 immense congregation collected for the eight o'clock 
 service, and the gentleman who had elected to be locked 
 up contented himself with howling ' confessional ' as 
 Mr Steele passed him on re-entering the church. Dis- 
 cretion is so often the better part of valour. But it is 
 eleven o'clock, and the bell is ringing for the late 
 service 'for women only; men rigidly excluded;' yet 
 are there not, as Sydney Smith said, three sexes, ' men, 
 women, and clergymen ' ? I am a clergyman, and enter 
 unchallenged. There were very few women present at 
 eleven o'clock ; but a good mtoy cassocked priests and 
 Sisters in their habits. When a girl did enter she was 
 pounced down upon, perhaps a little too suddenly, by 
 several Sisters at once ; but they entered quite readily 
 into conversation; and, in fact, did not seem so much 
 alarmed as I think I should have been myself, under 
 the circumstances. The 'Miserere' was first sung — 
 painfully out of tune (perhaps to express penitence) ; 
 then the Collect for the First Sunday in Advent was 
 read, and the ever-recurrent ' Daily, daily,' sung ; and 
 afterwards Mr Steele gave some exceedingly good 
 advice to those present. I wish I could think his words 
 went home. I passed out — shall I own it ? — disap- 
 pointed. I could scarcely deem the service at St 
 Thomas's a success ; and I fancy I can, without lack of 
 charity, explain the cause. There were too many 
 Sisters, and they were too forward in their attentions. 
 I think we men could have managed matters better — 
 much as I believe in ' woman's mission to woman.' I 
 was not surprised to hear the Vicar say that the ' girls ' 
 had begun to tire of the services. Magdalene is a very 
 difficult subject to deal with ; and I doubt whether they 
 have the best method at St Thomas's. So I passed 
 along that Pandemonium, the lower part of Eegent 
 Street, formerly called the Quadrant, and could not 
 help wondering how many years of Missions or Sessions 
 
398 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 of Parliamentary legislation it would take to cleanse 
 that plague-spot. St Peter's has indeed bearded the 
 lion in his den j for it is next door to the chief casino 
 of London, the band of which seemed to play me into 
 church as I passed the sacred portal. ' Father ' Pres- 
 cott, of the Society of St John at Cowley, was reciting 
 the ordinary Mission service, and there was a fair con- 
 gregation, numbering many of the obnoxious sex, while 
 cassocked priests dotted the whole church over. The 
 service was succeeded by a long interval of silent prayer, 
 during which I could distinctly hear the thud of the 
 contra-bassi in the next building, the tune of the dances, 
 and eventually the noise of the roysterers as they passed 
 from their revelry, most of them to supper, but some 
 to church. It was a strange contrast, worth sitting-up 
 once in a way into the small hours to witness. 
 
 At midnight we sang on our knees, and too dolefully 
 withal, the hymn — 
 
 Lord, in this Thy mercy's day, 
 
 Ere it pass for aye away. 
 
 On our knees we fall and pray. 
 
 Soon after twelve they came in, a motley gathering-^- 
 girls and young men with them: for the restriction 
 ' For women only,' was waived last night, and still the 
 same mistake. Wherever a giggling girl settled, an 
 estimable lady in a poke bonnet came and settled too, 
 and the poke bonnet made the girls gigg:le more. 
 Father Prescott commenced his address by giying the 
 girls addresses of the ladies who would attend them in 
 any sickness or difficulty, and then gave out a hymn, 
 which was sung to an incongruous accompaniment of 
 loud laughter as fresh bevies of girls came pouring in. 
 There was, at all events, no lack of congregation here. 
 Then followed the address by an exceedingly uninter- 
 esting, but I have no doubt estimable, gentleman. He 
 took as his subject, 'Christ, the Good Shepherd,' and 
 talked to his congregation as though they had been 
 children — which they were not. Decidedly the best 
 portion of his brief sermon was where he claimed that 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 399 
 
 the same ban that rested on them, his dear ' children,' 
 should rest on those who had led them to it. I had 
 hoped much from this aspect of the Mission, and am 
 sorry to feel it possible it may have failed. 
 
 YI. THE FINAL SEEVICE OP PRAISE. 
 
 So, then, for one more year the brief campaign against 
 Sin and Satan was over, and it remained only to sing 
 the paean of victory — if victory it shall have been. Once 
 again, despite my late exercises of the preceding night, 
 I adjourned, to end as I had begun, by imbibing the 
 genius loci at St Paul's Cathedral, where the Thanksgiving 
 Service was celebrated immediately after ten o'clock 
 morning prayer. A vast congregation filled the whole 
 space under the dome, though morning service had only 
 just begun when I got there. Here mustered the ladies 
 literally ' in their thousands,' and the ' frequent ' cleric 
 lent an air of sanctity to the scene — if that were neces- 
 sary. Prayers over, the vergers passed around papers 
 containing the order of the service, from which docu- 
 ments I could not help observing even the faintest allu- 
 sion to the Mission was conspicuously and significantly 
 absent. Was it possible the authorities were ashamed 
 of their bantling ? After the service enter a procession 
 of three — the preacher (the Rev. G. H. Wilkinson, of St 
 Peter's, Eaton Square), chaperoned by two canons — one, 
 of course, being Canon Gregory — no bishops now, no 
 dean, ' no pomp and circumstance of glorious war ; ' only 
 two canons and a verger ! I had expected a big proces- 
 sion, and dignitaries in abundance. Was it not a 'lame 
 and impotent conclusion ' for so great a work ? 
 
 Hymn 320 of the Ancient and Modern Collection was 
 sung. ' The Church's One Foundation,' in which occurs 
 the suggestive stanza : 
 
 Though, with, a scornful wonder 
 
 Men see her sore opprest, 
 By schisms rent asunder, 
 
 By heresies distrest, 
 
400 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Yet saints their ■watch are keeping, 
 
 Their cry goes up, ' How long ?' 
 And soon the night of weeping 
 
 Shall be the mom of song. 
 
 The Lord's Prayer followed, and then the 103rd Psalm ; 
 after which Mr Wilkinson appeared in the pulpit. He 
 took as his text the 2nd verse of the Psalm just sung :— 
 ' Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His 
 benefits.' 
 
 Plunging at once in medias res he asked what good 
 had the Mission done ? The answer could not be given 
 at once. We had hurried hither this morning with sword 
 still unsheathed and war-drum sounding, and were asked, 
 ' How went the battle ? ' The London clergy could, how- 
 ever, tell of souls won, and of good done to themselves. 
 They had for years been struggling, and their courage 
 had well nigh failed when the message of the Mission 
 came. They had been talking of the Gospel until they 
 had degenerated into a weak sentimentalism, when lo 
 this Mission ! A blessing had rested on Church workers 
 who had come forward in Christ's cause. ' God has saved 
 sinners, God has given saints to His Church by this 
 London Mission.' But it might be said, 'All this is 
 temporary.' There might be darker sides to the Mission 
 of which we were now ignorant. Mistakes might bring 
 down the contempt of the world. Possibly so; God 
 alone could survey the whole battlefield ; but whatever 
 mistakes there were, let the world criticize them, if it 
 had the heart to do so, when it saw men nearly broken 
 down in trying to do good. God had given re- 
 sults which no criticism could touch. Of individual 
 mercies he had no time to speak, but he called for thanks 
 because, first of all, they had been allowed to manifest 
 their belief honestly, if imperfectly, in the centre of our 
 modern Babylon. Come what might in the future, no- 
 thing could rob us of this, that the Mission was ended, 
 and that we had manifested the Name of our God ; and, 
 secondly, that this had been done, not by individuals, 
 but by the Church in its corporate capacity. Our bishops 
 had the spiritual power given them to summon their 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 401 
 
 clergy. The Dean and Chapter of St Paul's made the 
 Cathedral the centre of the Mission. The bishops — 
 he thanked God for it — had sent us out from this 
 Cathedral with words of praj'er, and hither we returned 
 to-day to thank Him. Thank G-od, who had given us 
 such bishops, and who used ' this dear old church of our 
 fathers ' for such a purpose ! Who could calculate the 
 force of those prayers which our bishops had been in- 
 strumental in suggesting ? The battle had only ju.st 
 begun. If we were wearied now, how should we hold 
 our ground in the coming Lent ? In no other way than 
 by being still and listening to the echo wafted to us from 
 the margin of the crystal sea. ' In everything, by prayer 
 and supplication let your requests be made known unto 
 Grod.' God only knew for what trials this Mission might 
 be preparing the Church, but He would fight for Judah 
 against the Moabites and Ammonites. 
 
 The sermon, which was an elegant apotheosis of the 
 Mission in general, and of the bishops very much in 
 particular, was followed first by a silent thanksgiving, 
 then by a Te Deum and Benediction ; and so the Mission 
 was formally and finally ended. 
 
 Looking over the somewhat voluminous notes I have 
 accumulated in thus ' stumping' the London Mission, I 
 find that some reference to the via, media is Necessary — 
 the Church of England pure and simple. As a type of 
 this class, I should certainly take the Rev. T. Teignmouth 
 Shore, of Berkeley Chapel. Mayfair might seem an un- 
 promising sphere for a Mission ; but Mr Shore tried it 
 with four services a day, and so far succeeded that he 
 not only got Mayfair to come to week-day services, but 
 to lay aside its exclusiveness, so that one might see 
 a colonel in the Guards and a footman sitting side by 
 side. Mayfair altered its dinner-hour, and ladies opened 
 the street doors themselves, so as to let the servants go 
 to church. Here were tangible results, at all events. 
 A Public-house Brigade of young peers and guardsmen 
 visited the different taverns, not to preach, but to get 
 people to church, where special instruction was given — 
 e.g., to domestic servants. A society of men and women 
 , 26 
 
402 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 servants has been formed to perpetuate the work of the 
 Mission. An excellent arrangement at Berkeley Chapel 
 was the providing each person with a short, printed 
 epitome of the evening sermon, to take away with them for 
 purposes of meditation and prayer. A very good effect, 
 too, was produced by requesting the congregation not 
 to leave en masse, but two-by-two, the rest remaining 
 on their knees. By this means perfect silence was kept; 
 and it was hoped that the effect of the previous service 
 would not be dispersed, as it seems to be when all the 
 congregation leave together. 
 
 The Mission, of course, had been, and will be, used by 
 parties in the Church for party purposes. Some of our 
 best men of all shades of thought have stood aloof from 
 the movement altogether, perhaps for the very reason 
 that they saw it was being used for party purposes. One 
 may venture even to surmise some such cause for the 
 conspicuous absence of the Bishops from St Paul's ; but 
 this makes it only the more interesting to notice the 
 form the Mission assumed under the auspioes of such 
 men as Mr Shore and Mr Llewellyn Davies in the widely- 
 different localities of Mayfair and Lisson Grove. 
 
 However, actum est. The curtain falls. It is, per- 
 haps, premature to look for fruits which may be stiL 
 looming only in the distant future. 
 
 The Ten Days' Mission of 1874 was over; and as we 
 lay down its voluminous records we are conscious of the 
 same emotion as that excited by a venerable wallflower 
 whom we have unexpectedly trotted out to a dance at 
 the last moment, when all the eligible partners were 
 gone. The Establishment had gushed ; the metropolitan 
 bishops gushed; the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's 
 gushed -sympathetically — for is not Canon Grregory its 
 Hildebrand ? Even Dean Stanley so far caught the con- 
 tagion as to lay on Professor Max Miiller for an unsea- 
 sonable Mission on his own account, of course in a very 
 heterodox and irregular way ; but still he went in for 
 the letter, if not for the spirit, of the movement. If dig- 
 nitaries gushed ' the inferior clergy ' could do no less. 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 403 
 
 So we had all — or nearly all — of us been gushing for the 
 last ten days. That sensationalism which had hitherto, 
 cropped up in three-volume novels and five-act pieces 
 has found its way to the pulpit ; not here and there^ as 
 it always did, but as the rule and not the exception. 
 The whole Establishment gushed with one heart and 
 one voice ; and even a few Dissenters, who could not by 
 any means be admitted within the pale, have gushed 
 humbly outside, like Jews at the ' Weeping Gate.' 
 
 Five years ago a spasm of the same kind occurred in 
 the body corporate of the Established Church; some of 
 us thought by way of make-weight over against the 
 Irish revivals. Then, however, the bishops stood on 
 their dignity, and only one portion of the ecclesiastical 
 body took the infection ; but the Ritualists had it very 
 badly indeed. In fact, they managed to monopolize the 
 movement, and utilized it in the way of working up 
 compulsory auricular confession to the place it con- 
 fessedly occupies in that cultus. 
 
 But now, as we have said, the bishops gushed. Sydney 
 Smith could not realize the idea of a bish,op flirting. 
 Had he occupied his old stall at St Paul's when the 
 Mission ball was set rolling, he would have heard Lon- 
 don, Eochester, and Winchester gush like girls. Their 
 role was to pat the Mission on the back, and so keep it 
 orthodox — keep its gushing within limits ; alas ! with 
 how little success those who have ' followed ' the Mission 
 know too well. Our right reverend fathers in God raised 
 a spirit they cannot lay, and what will be the next freaks 
 of Frankenstein it is impossible even to surmise. 
 
 It may possibly surprise the uninitiated to learn that 
 the gushings of the ultra-Evangelical school had scarcely 
 been so prominent or perceptible as those of the other 
 Protean parties into which the Church of England as by 
 law established is divided and subdivided. This, however, 
 results from the fact that gush is simply the normal con- 
 dition of those sweetly orthodox folks. Tour thorough 
 Evangelical, before she — for it is always she — has been 
 with you five minutes, gushingly asks you if you have 
 been to ' hear ' dear Mr So-and-so, or to ' sit under ' Mr 
 
404 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 or even Mrs Somebody else. It is always that dear Earl 
 of Shaftesbury, or dear Poet Tupper and his pension, or 
 dear Dr Cumming's very last Vial of Wrath, with which 
 they regale you. A gush more or less scarcely shows in 
 a real rampant Evangelical, and it needs no London 
 Mission to evoke his powers. A prayer-meeting will do 
 it any Wednesday evening; nay, family prayers at a 
 full-dress evening party, with the Bibles handed round 
 on a tray, like refreshments, will call out the gushing 
 faculties of the guests at a moment's notice. To a man 
 like Mr Ilaslam, of Curzon Chapel, Mayfair, who will 
 preach three full-flavoured sermons on a Sunday without 
 turning a hair, what need of a Mission ? He is a per- 
 manent missioner, and will feel it the greatest compli- 
 ment we can possibly pay him when we say so. 
 
 To say that the Ritualists once more marked the 
 Mission for their own, is simply another way of saying 
 that they have reached the acme of gush. They were 
 always great on coloured stoles and the last new. thing in 
 copes or dalmatics ; and to hear Father Ignatius breathe 
 a Benediction, or Father Stanton ' rant ' (it is his own 
 term) at a watch-night service, one would have thought 
 there was as little for a Mission to do at this as at the 
 other pole. But the Ritualists in general, and the Cowley 
 Fathers in particular, have arrogated to themselves an 
 exclusiveness in the matter of gush which he would be 
 a bold man indeed who would venture to dispute. 
 When that Argyll ball was over, and the female portion 
 of the assembly adjourned pretty well en masse to St 
 Peter's, Windmill Street, next door, the way Father 
 Prescott, of Cowley, addressed them as his ' dear sisters ' 
 was positively seraphic ; and though they did giggle a 
 bit when he told them the dear ladies in the coal-scuttle 
 bonnets would be happy to nurse them through any dis- 
 ease, 'even the small-pox,' still they could not, those 
 interesting Magdalens, fail to be impressed with his 
 reiterated assurances that they were his very dear sisters 
 indeed. We did indeed hear one of our poor 'sisters' 
 ask whether the fatherly gentleman who succeeded Mr 
 Prescott thought they were children, and irreverently 
 
THE LONDON MISSION OF 1874. 40S 
 
 enough compare his sermon on the lost sheep — or rather 
 its episode of the Scotch shepherd who tumbled over a 
 rock with a sheep — to a new version of Little Bopeep.' 
 The ladies in the poke bonnets were more than demon- 
 strative ; indeed we fear they laid it on a little more , 
 thickly than the girls liked; for Magdalen has had a 
 rough schooling, and, though impressionable and easily 
 moved to tears as to smiles, has a very keen sense of the 
 ridiculous ; and we should not be at all surprised if the 
 good ladies at St Peter's, in their exceedingly commend- 
 able zeal, rather overshot the mark than otherwise, for 
 the fair but frail ones were rather noisy one night, and 
 interrupted the proceedings. If we had hopes of the 
 Mission under any aspect it was under this, and we were 
 very sorry to see it in any degree fail — if it did fail. 
 We, fancy the men would have managed the matter bet- 
 ter for themselves, especially now that the art of ecclesi- 
 astical gush has been so thoroughly reduced to a system. 
 But what shall.be said of those ungnshing, ungush- 
 able ones of all schools who stood aloof from this great 
 work ? We had, we will confess it, hoped better things 
 of Mr Stuart, of St Mary Magdalene's, Muijster Square, 
 for he is generally fragrant with the odour of sanctity ; 
 but Mr Stuart's Mte noir is a bishop, and he can no more 
 help girding at a tight reverend father in God than a 
 bull can help running at a red rag. We are far from 
 wishing any harm to Mr Stuart, for we have on many 
 occasions admired his pluck; but it would have been a 
 fine piece of retributive justice if the Hon. Arthur Kin- 
 naird had accepted his offer to let him preach the follow- 
 ing Sunday at St Mary Magdalene's, with the reverend 
 gentleman himself as amateur verger to show him to the 
 pulpit. Mr Rowsell, Dr Irons, Mr Haweis, and a few 
 others we could name, have elected to become ' marked 
 men ' by abstaining from all part or lot in the Mission. 
 Dr Lee, the coryphaeus of Ritualism, ended his experi- 
 ment abruptly, confessing it abortive. He would have 
 ' no ranting and roaring' in the New Cut. He is but a 
 tyro in the art of gush ; but, very softly be it spoken, 
 we believe that, in their hearts, the bishops honour these 
 
4o6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 men, and look npon them as the small minority in Israel 
 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Moabites and 
 Ammonites, Mr Wilkinson at St Paul's called all the 
 non-missioners ; but there were no bishops — not even a 
 dean or an archdeacon — to lend a dignified endorsement 
 to this lion of Judah. Female London and clerical Lon- 
 don were there in full gush, but the bishops, who had 
 patted the Mission on the back there, in ' that dear old 
 church of their fathers,' but a few months ago, were 
 conspicuously and significantly absent, and only a pro- 
 cession of three could be got up to inaugurate the final 
 ' Te Deum.' Canon Gregory, the ever-gushing, had to 
 represent the whole Chapter on the occasion. The very 
 name of the Mission was eliminated from the programmes 
 of the service, and the vergers themselves forbore to 
 talk about it. The fact is, that there enters into the 
 composition of a bishop, besides the average amount of 
 capacity, a good deal of shrewd common sense ; and my 
 Lords of London, Winchester, and Rochester saw the 
 Mission was not going to answer. If a stamp of the 
 prelatical foot would have put out the Mission, it would 
 certainly have been extinguished ; but Ritualists take a 
 deal of episcopal stamping to put them out ; that, again, 
 is a compliment which we are sure they will appreciate. 
 From their point of view the success of the Mission had 
 been complete. It filled the confessionals ; and that 
 particular apparatus of devotion is quite safe to prevent 
 anything like a Conservative reaction. 
 
 We — heretics within and without the pale — look on 
 serenely upon the suave mari magno principle ; and Rome 
 bides her time, securely expectant of the results. In 
 the reaction which always follows any kind of gush, it 
 will certainly be found that old divergences have widened 
 out, that the Ritualists are more Roman, the Evangelic- 
 als more Methodistical, than ever. If we could beheve 
 that this would fuse difierences into one whole, however 
 heterogeneous, we might congratulate the Established 
 Church on having made the premier pas towards the 
 paraded Reunion of Christendom. We do not assume 
 prophetic power ; but our belief is that this act of the 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NEW CUT. 407 
 
 bishops has been suicidal^ and that the result of all this 
 gush — notwithstanding the accession of the stagnant 
 party to power — will be an immense impetus in the 
 direction of disestablishment. 
 
 THE CHURCH IN THE NEW CUT. 
 
 THERE is^ a prevalent and widespread idea that ad- 
 vanced Ritualism is a sort of religious luxury adapted 
 only to the needs of the upper ten thousand ; and that 
 if the poor are admitted into the circle of its influences 
 at all, it is only as a sort of raw material, on which dilet- 
 tanti Good Samaritans may exercise their easy charity 
 and specious self-denial. Possibly this idea originated 
 in the fact that what was years ago called ' Puseyism ' 
 first became familiar to us in certain Belgravian churches, 
 and the notion spread that there was something exclusive 
 and aristocratic about its culfcus. There was a time, per- 
 haps, when a good deal of spurious churchmanship — and 
 still piore churchwomanship —did expend itself in pretty 
 gilt crosses on prayer-books, genuflexions, and such like ; 
 but this was quite in the infancy of the system. As it 
 grew, whether for good or ill it is not incumbent on me 
 to say, it spread rapidly, and at the same time took root 
 downwards among strata of society who had as yet only 
 been reached by an equally pronounced Protestantism, if 
 even by that, and which probably will always require some 
 strong sensuous element to arrest their attention in the 
 direction of spiritual truth.' The fact of Baldwin's 
 Gardens, Holborn, and the New Cut, Lambeth, being the 
 very strongholds of metropolitan Ritualism, afibrds cer- 
 tain evidence that the poor discern a kindred element in 
 ffisthetic worship. After making due allowance for the 
 circumstance that some poor people maybe attracted by 
 
4o8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 tte charitable doles known to form part of the practical 
 religion of ' High Church ' people, and the corresponding 
 certainty that a gold ring and goodly apparel are not 
 necessary qualifications to secure them a seat in church, 
 there still remain cases more than enough, not covered 
 by either of these contingencies, which serve to assure 
 us that Ritualism, if it be the natural expression of the 
 religious sentiment in the rich and refined, is sometimes 
 equally so in the poor and illiterate. Extremes meet in 
 this, as in many other cases. It is a known fact that 
 your ' hard-headed Protestants ■* and ' plain sober Church 
 of England people ' are found very generally, among the 
 lower middle classes. A Ritualistic small shopkeeper 
 is as rare as a tortoise-shell torn cat or a white elephant. 
 
 But, again, in other than social respects, there are 
 Ritualists and Ritualists. The Ritualism of St Alban's, 
 Holborn, differs widely, though not perhaps essentially, 
 from that of the New Cut. I purposely name the two 
 headquarters I had already mentioned. Though Mr 
 Mackonochie and Dr Lee are probably at one on all vital 
 points of doctrine, still the system which has grown up 
 around the one differs greatly from that which finds its 
 centre in the other. There is a correctness, a rigidity — 
 I use the term inoffensively, and for lack of better — 
 at St Alban's, which are quite lacking in the equally 
 precise but more popular expression of identical ideas at 
 All Saints', Lambeth. The aristocratic element — if it 
 ever existed at all — may be supposed to be traceable in 
 the former. It is certainly banished from the. latter. 
 There is also another difference in the two systems, to 
 which one need do no more than refer in so many words 
 here. All Saints' relies principally on the aesthetic 
 elements of its worship to form pabulum for- its congre- 
 gation. The strong point of St Alban's is avowedly the 
 Confessional — each, of corfrse, in subordination to that 
 pronounced sacramental teaching which lies at the root 
 of every arrangement in the one as in the other. 
 
 The day selected for my typical visit to All Saints' 
 was the 8th qf September, when I was informed by the 
 Church Times ' the Nativity of our Blessed Lady' would 
 
TJJE CHURCH IN THE NEW CUT. 409 
 
 be celebrated by the sixteentb anniversary of the Asso- 
 ciation for Promoting the Union of Christendom being 
 held thereupon. I had, some years previously, attended 
 one of these special services, and had then got to regard 
 All Saints' as my ideal of a Ritualistic Church. Con- 
 sidering the acknowledged claims of Dr Lee to be an 
 authority in these matters, one could well understand 
 that everything that was done at all would be well and 
 correctly done ; but how he did it there, in the very 
 abyss of London poverty, was the marvel. Low trans- 
 pontine Cockneys saw a function that would not have 
 done dishonour to a Catholic cathedral. But then, I 
 thought, this was an exceptional occasion; and I was 
 really glad to hear Dr Lee say that this year they would 
 trust mainly to themselves to celebrate the festival and 
 the anniversary. I wanted to see All Saints' thrown 
 upon its resources ; and here, it seemed, was my oppor- 
 tunity. Entering the church, which is a capacious one, 
 able to contain sixteen hundred out of the six thousand 
 five hundred who form the population of the parish, I 
 found it well filled with a congregation in which both 
 the sexes and all the social elements were pretty fairly 
 divided. The building itself is plain in the extreme; 
 but a rood-screen separates it from the chancel, and this 
 is highly decorated, and arranged with every appurte- 
 nance of ' Catholic ' devotion. Six lights were burning 
 on the altar, three on either side of the crucifix, and vases 
 of bright flowers were ranged between. A row of lighted 
 tapers also ran along the chancel wall, about on a level 
 with the large cross that surmounted the roodloft. It 
 was — if I may hazard an opinion — very much what the 
 Church of the Poor ought to be, if it is to contrast with 
 the false glare and glitter of the world outside. Precisely 
 ,',t eight o'clock, a procession emerged from the vestry 
 singing ' Onward, Christian Soldiers,' to the jubilant 
 melody of Handel's ' See the Conquering Hero comes ; ' 
 and I was at once struck with the fertility of resources 
 in the New Cut. Instead of some twelve, or at most a 
 score, as I had expected, there must have been at least 
 a hundred in the procession, with cross, ta.pers, banners, 
 
410 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 and smoking censers. The clergjj three in number, 
 were arrayed in the most gorgeous vestments ; and an 
 admirable contrast to the white-robed choristers was 
 afforded by a guild which brought up the rear of the 
 procession dressed in their cassocks, with the badge of 
 their order suspended round the neck by a crimson 
 ribbon. The acolytes wore scarlet cassocks and skull- 
 caps. As they made the circuit of the church and posed 
 themselves on entering the chancel, still singing the 
 festal hymn in unison, I thought the spectacle must 
 be the very perfection of ritual. The congregation 
 joined heartily in the singing. 
 
 After the opening sentence was monotoned, the Con- 
 fession followed, to the exclusion of ' Dearly beloved 
 brethren ; ' an exhortation which no doubt loses some- 
 thing of its force by continual repetition. Their rubrics 
 are elastic at All Saints', and they omit or insert as seems 
 best for edification ; possibly the best rubric of all. The 
 Psalms and Lessons were proper to the festival, and the 
 ' Ave Maria ^ was sung as an antiphon before each of the 
 former. The interest culminated at the Magnificat, 
 which was sung while all turned to the east, Dr Lee 
 being on the top step of the altar. There were also 
 special collects, for the festival and anniversary, and then 
 the Hymn of the Office was sung, the words being written 
 by Dr Lee himself, to one of the most exquisite airs I 
 ever heard : — 
 
 OFFICE HYMN. 
 
 God tlie Father, we adore Thee, 
 
 Great Creator, Lord of Life ; 
 From Tliy heavenly home behold us. 
 
 And in mercy stay our strife : 
 As Thou art, so. Lord, Thy Church is. 
 
 One divine, and One alone ; 
 Give us here that peace Thou sheddest 
 
 O'er the ransomed round Thy throne. 
 
 Thou, O Christ, before the worlds were. 
 
 Sole-begotten of the Sire, 
 Art, True Man, by Mary brought forth. 
 
 Of aU nations the Desire ! 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NEW CUT. 411 
 
 Love Divine, like morning sunbeams, 
 
 Fell upon an outcast race, 
 From tie moment that Saint Gabriel 
 
 Hailed Tby Mother fuU of grace. 
 
 Love Divine, Hke dew in harvest. 
 
 Bested on a sinful world. 
 From Thy glorious Paschal triumph. 
 
 When the cross-flag was unfurled : 
 Yet that prayer for peace and oneness, 
 
 On Thy Passion-night of woe. 
 Now we tramp in isolation. 
 
 Seems unheard, as ages go. 
 
 Lord, then, in Thy mercy heed us, 
 
 Rule and blend our varying wills, 
 " Speak the reconciling fiat. 
 
 Darkness flees with all its ills. 
 Isolation and divisions 
 
 Shall be known again no more. 
 But on earth unbroken union. 
 
 Like the calm of Heaven's shore. 
 
 Hear us, God, Thou great Creator ; 
 
 Grant it, Mary's gracious Son; 
 Seal it. Comforter most holy. 
 
 Let the WiU of God be done ! 
 May Christ's dying prayer be wrought out. 
 
 In the Church divisions cease. 
 Till His soldiers gain their triumph 
 
 In the dawn of Light and Peace. 
 
 One or two prayers only followed — the Prayer for All 
 Sorts and Conditions of Men and the General Thanks- 
 giving being omitted. Hymn 803 from the People's 
 Hymnal, ' what light and glory ! •■ was sung, and then 
 Dr Lee entered the pulpit — where, I may mention, is no 
 sort of apparatus for holding a ' document,' as the ritual- 
 ists term written sermons in derision — and preached 
 from 1 Cor. i. — ' Is Christ divided ? '■ 
 
 Never, he said, since Pentecost had there been greater 
 necessity than now for the faithful to have belief in an 
 Incarnate God ; and by the appearance of the present 
 festival in the Prayer-Book of the Church of England it 
 was quite clear that it was intended to be observed. 
 The Incarnation could not, humanly speaking, be carried 
 
412 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 out without the co-operation of her who was predes- 
 tinated to be the mother of the Lord. It was essential 
 to have a clear and accurate view of the dogma of the 
 Incarnation as set forth by St John, well termed the 
 ' Theologian ; ' and never was statement more clear than 
 his as to the central verity of the Word made Flesh. It 
 was in reference to this that the words of the text were 
 asked ; upon this different schools and sects differed, but 
 the doctrine of the whole college of the Apostles was 
 that contained in the three creeds. 
 
 From time to time people had failed in this cardinal 
 doctrine. The Arians, for instance, in opposition to the 
 statement of St John the Theologian, that ' the Word 
 was God,' maintained that Christ was not of the same 
 substance with the Father. Arianism fought hard, but 
 it was condemned in the Nicene Creed. Then came the 
 Nestorians, a century later, who, while resembling the 
 Arians in their tone, were precisely opposed to them in 
 the fact that they denied Christ's humanity. They said 
 it was degrading for God to have been born of a virgin. 
 They made two Persons : the Word was one, the Flesh 
 the other. These were condemned by the Fathers at 
 Ephesus ; while at Ghalcedon they opposed Butychus, who' 
 refused to divide the natures, maintaining that they were 
 Confused and absorbed into one. 
 
 Now, the preacher proceeded to say, we had in ourselves 
 a shadow of the Incarnation, as of the Trinity. As the 
 latter was symbolized by the body, soul, and spirit, so 
 the former was shadowed forth in what the glorious words 
 of the Athanasian Creed called ' the reasonable soul and 
 the human flesh.' 
 
 Every feast, said Dr Lee, which guards this doctrine 
 of the Incarnation, was one that we ought to reverence. 
 Anything that hedged round this dogma was not only 
 seemly, but valuable and important. Hence we observed 
 this festival — the "birthday of our Lady, as Christmas was 
 the birthday of our Lord. This was the natal day of 
 Mary. Who was so near to Jesus as the mother who for 
 nine long months bore Him in her sacred womb ? She 
 it was who tended Him in His boyhood, and whose 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE NEW CUT. 413 
 
 presence made His home beautiful and happy. The 
 names of Jesus and Mary were closely linked together in 
 all our creeds ; and we observed this festival to guard 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation itself. The Church of 
 England, when, for good or ill, she put aside many other 
 things, deliberately retained this particular feast ; whilst 
 all antiquity was in favour of its observance. 
 
 Sixteen years ago there were those to whom the ques- 
 tion of the text came sti'ongly home, and they banded 
 themselves together for intercessory prayer that God 
 would heal the divisions of the Church; and if he might 
 state his individual opinions, he thought they had done 
 well to choose as their patroness the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
 If we wanted to secure an end, we obtained the inter- 
 cession of the influential, and so it was we sought the 
 intercession of her who was highest in heaven. It was ' 
 to her the prophetic utterance of David referred, when 
 he said, 'Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in a 
 vesture of gold, wrought about with divers colours.^ And 
 we could see the present fruits of Mary's intercession in 
 the success of the Society whose sixteenth anniversary 
 we were keeping. 
 
 In an eloquent peroration he exhorted all to go on 
 praying, for prayer would one day pierce the skies. The 
 night was passing; the morning breaking. ' per- 
 plexed and distracted ! ' he concluded, ' O worn and 
 ■weary ! Lift up your hearts, for your redemption draw- 
 eth nigh. And 0, Blessed Paraclete, our guide, our hfe, 
 our stay ! turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, 
 and of the children to their fathers, and give us peace, 
 so that when the question of the text is asked of us, we 
 may reply in the words of our Creed, " I believe in one 
 God." May that truth be with us when the crucifix is 
 held for the last time before our eyes, and we sleep here 
 on earth, to wake up in the joy of the land that is beyond 
 the grave ! ' 
 
 Filing out to the strains of ' Pilgrims of the Night,' as 
 a Recessional Hymn, the procession showed itself in its 
 true dimensions. The cross-bearer had passed into the 
 sacristy before Dr Lee left the sacrarium, thus filling 
 
414 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 three sides of the vast church with its white-robed and 
 bannered files. 
 
 This was, of course, a high day at All Saints', but the 
 work is steady and continuous there. Four celebrations 
 of the Holy Communion, and on an average four sermons, 
 take place weekly. There are National Schools, with 
 about 400 children in attendance, Sunday Schools, 
 Clothing Club, Maternity Charity, &c., all worked by 
 means of voluntary gifts. The choir consists almost en- 
 tirely of volunteers. 
 
 ' The High Church movement,' said Dr Lee to me, 
 ' has won its way in spite of opposition from without, 
 and now there is no apparent distaste or dislike for it.' 
 My own observation confirmed this as far as the con- 
 gregation on this day was concerned, for it was a hearty 
 and genial one. There are no pew-rents, or fees for 
 baptism or churchings, at All Saints'. It is, as beseems 
 a church in the New Cut, essentially a poor man's church. 
 Lambeth, added my informant, is not a church-going 
 population. It has been so long exclusively in the hands 
 of the Evangelicals that little more than 20 per cent, of 
 the people go to any place of worship. The great prac- 
 tical need is for the large employers of labour to take 
 some interest in the well-being of their workmen and 
 their families, in which they now so generally fail. 
 There is as utter a want of knowledge — either of other 
 — between employer and employed, as there is between 
 any two classes in England — e.g., the highest and the 
 lowest. 
 
 Work in such a parish, and with such surroundings, 
 can be no sinecure. The worship and the teaching are 
 ' pitched high,' no doubt, but the surrounding influences 
 are pitched proportionately low. If Dr Lee reclaims the 
 smallest fraction of the population from the abyss, we 
 should be querulous indeed to grumble at the means by 
 which he accomplishes an end so desirable yet so difficult. 
 
A HARVEST FESTIVAL IN WALWORTH. 415 
 
 A HARVEST FESTIVAL IN WALWORTH. 
 
 IT would seem that, except under its most material as- 
 pect, the dwellers in great ^cities would not take much 
 interest in the harvest. It might appear that, save in 
 the higher or lower price of a staple article of food, 
 London would barely notice the advent of Frugifer 
 Audumnus ; and perhaps of all parts of the metropolis, 
 Walworth is the least likely to be aesthetic on that or 
 any other subject. It is more than Cockney — it is 
 transpontine ; and in London across the bridges Cock- 
 neyism seems to dulminate and come to a head. Tet so 
 it is. Though Walworth is the reverse of Arcadian, it 
 is punctilious in its respect to the harvest. Its Thanks- 
 giving services have, since the appointment of Mr Going 
 to the incumbency of St Paul's, Lorrimore Square, been 
 an annual event. At the commencement of that period, 
 Mr Going told me, he had been commissioned to manage 
 a harvest festival in Devonshire ; and the idea occurred 
 to him, why should not such a celebration be transferred 
 from the coast of England to his suburban parish ? He 
 saw no just cause or impediment j and one Sunday after 
 his return from his holiday, he gave notice that a harvest 
 festival would be held in Walworth, asking at the same 
 time, for gifts of corn, flowers, and the like. Hie was 
 forthwith inundated, and his cornucopia was even more 
 full than he desired. From that time the Walworth 
 Harvest Festival has been an institution ; and it was from 
 seeing it advertised in the Times, with a sermon by the 
 Rev. Luke Rivington, that I adjourned thither. 
 
 Lorrimore Square is not easy even for a Londoner to 
 find ; and a gentle drizzle drifted in my face as I footed 
 it over Westminster Bridge, effectually dispelling the 
 last remains of harvest ideas with which I had, artifici- 
 
41 6 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 ally enough, filled my mind before starting. I arrived 
 at my destination full half an hour before time, but 
 found the church even then well filled with a thoroughly 
 Walworthian population. It is a plain Gothic edifice of 
 spacious dimensions ; and two little cocklofts of galleries 
 in the north and south aisles were stuffed so full of 
 people that they looked as if they must inevitably topple 
 over. The columns were painted half-way up with dead 
 red and a cold gray, the latter colour being greatly 
 used in the mural decorations of the church. The 
 chancel arch was diapered green, and figures of the 
 Blessed Virgin and St Paul were blazoned on the pillars. 
 This is to be the character of adornment throughout 
 the church, when funds allow ; but Walworth is poor, 
 and things have to be done by degrees. Above the 
 chancel rails, which were magnificently decorated with 
 fruits, is a roodloft richly panelled in red and blue, 
 with a huge crucifix fianked by two standard tapers, 
 and a bouquet of lights on each side suspended from 
 the roof. The rich adornments of the chancel arch, 
 compared with the plain character of the rest of the 
 church, gave it almost the appearance of a proscenium. 
 There were also two side altars at the east end of the 
 north and south aisles respectively, with tapers and 
 floral decorations. The sacrarium was dark when I 
 entered, except from the light given by seven sanctuary 
 lamps ; but presently two acolytes in scarlet cassocks 
 and white surplices lighted up first the tapers in the 
 roodloft, and then those on the three altars, . showing 
 the high altar richly and chastely decorated with white' 
 and light-coloured dahlias, but the die.f d'aeuvre of all 
 was the decoration of the chancel rails, the taste and 
 profusion of which I have . never seen approached in 
 church decoration. Two banners of rich silk were 
 resting against the north and south columns of the 
 chancel arch. 
 
 At eight o'clock a large procession of choristers and 
 clergy, preceded by a cross-bearer and two acolytes, 
 entered from the vestry, and passed to the chancel 
 without any processional hymn, the organ playing a 
 
A HARVEST FESTIVAL IN WALWORTH. 417 
 
 bright introit. With, the exception of the three in front, 
 who wore scarlet cassocks, the rest were in ordinary 
 black cassock and surplice, the clergy wearing their 
 academical hoods. I had expected to see the vestments 
 more ' advanced ' at St Paul's. Indeed, throughout the 
 service, I was continually surprised to find matters not 
 nearly so ' extreme ' as I had supposed. The choir was 
 more numerous than musical, and sang the Confession 
 in a very flat way, making, in fact, quite a descending 
 chromatic scale of it, in spite of the ofliciating clergy- 
 man, who did his best to sustain the pitch. Tallis's 
 accompanied versicles picked them up ; and they sang 
 out the psalms — which were the ordinary ones of the 
 day — lustily, and with a good courage, to Gregorian 
 tones in unison. The ' Magnificat ' was a more preten- 
 tious composition, seeming a sort of hybrid between 
 Anglican and Gregorian, and throughout the Psalms 
 and Canticles the organist perpetually introduced long 
 scales into his accompaniment, which had a very strange 
 effect, especially in the unison singing, where surely 
 the accompaniment cannot be too simple. The hymn 
 after the third collect was the usual one for Thursday 
 evening, and was also sung to a Gregorian tune. Matters 
 improved after the prayers, when the hymn ' Eaise the 
 song of harvest-home ' was sung to a cheerful air by 
 the choir, and — for the first time — by the congregation, 
 who remained mute as mice as long as the music was 
 Gregorian. Ecclesiastical and correct as the Gregorian 
 music is, it certainly does require an educated taste to 
 appreciate it ; and Walworth did not seem up to the 
 mark, despite the fifteen years' schooling of Mr Going. 
 Towards the end of the hymn, the Rev. Luke Rivington, 
 now one of the Cowley Fathers, ascended the pulpit, 
 and preached a most eloquent sermon from St John viii. 
 12, on ' The Light of the World.' 
 
 The occasion, he said, when the text was uttered, 
 might almost be described as a harvest festival. It was 
 at the Feast of Tabernacles, or ingathering, when the 
 Jews decorated their houses with beautiful boughs, to 
 remind them of the plenteous land on which they en- 
 
 27 
 
41 8 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 tered after tlieir passage through the wilderness in old 
 times. He would try, he said, to enter into the feelings 
 of those who did not believe in God's providence. He 
 did not suppose there were any Atheists or Pantheists 
 in that congregation ; but it would be well to compare 
 the advantages enjoyed by Christians with the dis- 
 advantages of those schools. A statement of their 
 doctrines need not take them out of their depth. There 
 were people, of the same flesh and blood as ourselves, 
 who could see nothing around them but dead, inert 
 matter. If you asked them what it all meant, they 
 could only say, ' I don't know. If it is only matter, 
 what concern have we in the question whence it came, 
 or whither it is going ? ' But thinking men want to 
 know this, when they look up into the star-studded sky, 
 or abroad upon earth in its summer beauty ; and then 
 comes the Pantheist and says there must be a God, 
 because the doctrine has been on the lips of people for 
 centuries. The Infinite, he tells us, rises from the 
 mineral to the animal, and up through the ascending 
 grades of animals to man ; but how, asked the preacher, 
 can the Infinite so unfold Himself ? 
 
 But when we see man put on earth as the vicegerent 
 of God, with everything adapted to his wants and 
 pleasures, instead of gazing in stupid wonderment, we 
 were filled with gratitude ; and it was in the light of 
 this revelation that as Christians we came before God 
 that night, to thank Him for His gifts in the material 
 world. 
 
 But still, we had not exhausted the story of our rela- 
 tion to this world. As there was in Eden a forbidden 
 tree, so there was to each of us a forbidden fruit ; and 
 here it was especially that the Christian enjoyed light. 
 There was indeed no forbidden tree in the sense that 
 things were ticketed good and bad ; but One had dwelt 
 in this world who told us what was the forbidden tree 
 to each of us. See Him on the Cross teaching us that 
 man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things that 
 he possesseth. His poverty dissipated the delusion as 
 to happiness depending upon the number of things on 
 
A HARVEST FESTIVAL IN WALWORTH. 419 
 
 which a man could write his name. By passing life 
 amongst earthly creatures, and yet foregoing the use of 
 them, He taught what was the forbidden fruit to each. 
 Look to Christ, then, he said, and in the inner circle of 
 His light learn what is to each the forbidden fruit. It 
 would be different to each individual. One man might 
 use what another would feel obliged to forego. 
 
 If, he continued, this forbidden fruit was not marked 
 out to the natural eye, but left to conscience, was there 
 nothing but the example of Christ to guide us ? When 
 man was created, God's image was stamped on his 
 nature ; and as long as he continued true to this, he saw 
 what he ought and ought not to do, and loved and 
 hated accordingly. But when he fell, he had still 
 wisdom; he knew his responsibilities; but he lost the 
 fellowship of the Holy Ghost. He knew what was 
 right and what wrong ; but he often loved the wrong 
 and hated the right. His affections strayed; and he 
 often hated himself for that fact — he had lost the con- 
 trol of his affections ! 
 
 And there comes, he added solemnly, to every one a 
 day when Christ would say to each one of us, as God said 
 to Adam of old, ' Where art thou ? What hast thou 
 been doing ? ' And the sinner would have to confess to 
 a wasted life. But Christ comes not only as Judge. 
 He comes as Light of the World. He comes to give 
 affection a new power, that we might not only know 
 through conscienee what we ought to do, but love to 
 do it. 
 
 In the early morning of that great festival, when the 
 night was dying out, they lighted two huge candelabra, 
 which shed a light over all Jerusalem ; and gradually, 
 as the morning dawned, the sun seemed to quench the 
 light of the lamps. That sun was mocking the Jewish 
 ritual ; and lo ! there rang through Jerusalem a voice of 
 uneai-thly grandeur, saying, ' I am the Light of the 
 World.' As the sun paled those Temple lights, so all 
 the old covenant faded away before that Light of the 
 World. 
 
 And Christ seemed to utter the words of the text from 
 
420 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 age to age. cliild ! said the preacher, in an earnest 
 apostrophe, living in self-will, you are living in darkness ! 
 There was a story of a young man who said he was 
 going to settle in life. He would mairy. ' And what 
 next ? ' asked an old man. ' Well, then, rise in my 
 profession.' ' And what next ? ' the old man asked. 
 ' Well, then, Hve on, and, I suppose, die some day.' 
 ' And what next ? ' The young man had never thought 
 of tliat. How many were living in such a state of 
 thoughtlessness ! 
 
 Why, concluded the preacher, should you hve in 
 darkness ? Yield your affections to Christ. There could 
 be, he reminded his hearers, no harvest without disci- 
 pline. The field, if endowed with consciousness, might 
 wonder why it should be ploughed and harrowed, and 
 trodden by the feet of the sower ; why the cloud should 
 loom over it, the rain fall, and the snow cover it up. 
 But in the spring morning light and heat would descend 
 together, and in July heaven seemed to have dropped on 
 each corn-stalk a golden crown of beauty; and then the 
 field would know it was well to have undergone previous 
 preparation if all were to end in this glorious golden 
 harvest. So must we look on to the blessed day when 
 we should have done with the discipline of Hfe ; when, 
 having sown in tears, we should reap in joy, and come, 
 bringing our sheaves with us. Might this Harvest 
 Festival, he prayed, be to the angels of God no mere 
 parody, no mere thanksgiving for material harvest, but 
 of deeper thanks for aU that was involved in the expres- 
 sion, ' The Light of the Worid.' 
 
 The sermon was most eloquent, and almost voluble in 
 its fluency, with enough graceful action to delight the 
 hearts of Walworth, who, as a rule, object to ' book 
 parsons.' It was listened to with rapt attention by what 
 had now swollen to a vast congregation, cramming every 
 inch of the church. 
 
 And then came the Harvest Festival in real earnest. 
 With banners borne aloft, that large choir went in pro- 
 cession round the church to the music of two hymns ; 
 
A HARVEST FESTIVAL IN WALWORTH. 421 
 
 the first being ' PraisOj praise our God and King/ of 
 which the well-known burden is — 
 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faitMul, ever sure ; 
 
 the secondj the familiar ' Onward, Christian soldiers.' 
 
 So ended this very characteristic service ; and long 
 did Walworth linger to gaze on the bright autumn 
 trophies decorating their church. From conversation 
 with the incumbent I learned that all the seats at St 
 Paul's are free, and all the decorations gifts — no money- 
 being expended on the festival. There are large schools 
 in the parish recently rebuilt at a cost of £5000 ; so there 
 is something being done at St Paul's besides frequent 
 High Church services and annual Harvest Festivals. 
 The bigger boys sat just in front of me on Thursday 
 evening, having the chief seat in the synagogue at the 
 Harvest Thanksgiving, and — as is the custom with boys 
 elsewhere than in Walworth — fidgetting me to the verge 
 of distraction during the service. They evidently looked 
 upon my note-taking in church as a heterodox proceed- 
 ing, and only appeared relieved from apprehension when 
 they saw Mr Going come out and courteously supple- 
 ment my otherwise imperfect account of the doings. 
 
 Walworth is a place of strange antitheses. On the 
 last two occasions when I had penetrated its recesses, it 
 was to hunt up Joanna Southcott's people, and to 
 chronicle the doings of the Jumpers. As I returned the 
 rain fell heavily, and amid the muggy atmosphere and 
 black mud of transpontine London it required a very 
 strong exercise of imagination indeed to keep up any 
 lingering impressions of the bright Harvest Festival. 
 
422 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 AN ORGAN EECITAL. 
 
 TINIEST of all metropolitan churches is that which, 
 sacred to St John the Baptist, does its best to blush 
 unseen in Great Marlborough Street. Good, positive 
 people, who fancy they see a little further into a milestone 
 than their neighbours, will argue stoutly that there is no 
 church in Great Marlborough Street at all ; and, short 
 of taking them down that well-known thoroughfare and 
 showing them two ecclesiastical street-lamps on each 
 side of an ordinary front door and a notice-board before 
 the window, there is no convincing them. The church 
 is a temporary iron structure (in ecclesiastical matters 
 we seem reproducing the iron age), erected at the back 
 of one of the houses in Great Marlborough Street, which 
 I believe is one day to come down, along with its next- 
 door neighbour, and form a splendid site for the per- 
 manent church. However, there is the little church of 
 St John the Baptist now, capable of holding some 200 
 people, but with a district comprising some of the dirtiest 
 of the Soho streets; and there, too, which is more to our 
 immediate purpose, is one of the best choirs in London. 
 The incumbent, the Rev. H. N. D'A.lmaine, is himself a 
 musical man, and devotes a large portion of his time to 
 the musical arrangements of his church. He is a mo- 
 derate Broad Churchman in views, and seems to make 
 it his mission to expose the fallacy which argues that 
 liberal views in theological matters are incompatible with 
 aesthetic beauty in worship. One fails entirely to see 
 why high sacramental or sacerdotal ideas should be the 
 only ones that develop logically into beauty of ritual. 
 Mr D'Almaine, however, was educated in a good school 
 in this respect, having been curate to the Rev. Harry 
 JoneSj when that gentleman was incumbent of St Luke's, 
 
AN ORGAN RECITAL. 423 
 
 Berwick Street, and the churcli stood almost alone in 
 the capacity just named, that is, as combining something 
 like ritual observances with Broad Church preaching. 
 
 The occasion when I paid my visit to this Great 
 Marlborough Street church was the festival of its patron 
 saint, which was to be signalized by a musical service, 
 followed by an organ recital. The organist for the even- 
 ing was Mr A. Tamplin, the regular organist being Mr 
 Bruce, a young but exceedingly competent man. I 
 found the little place modestly but beautifully decorated 
 for the occasion. St John's is wise in this respect ; it 
 never overdoes its ornamentation. With small churches, 
 as with small ladies, a little ornamentation goes a long 
 way, and anything like excess is a fatal mistake. The 
 first time strangers go to St John's they think it is 
 ' High,' for the Communion table is elevated and bears 
 two large candles flanking a mural cross.- These candles 
 are not lighted, it is truej but on St. John's day they 
 were wreathed with flowers, and two lai'ge bouquets also 
 stood on the altar. The little font was crowned with 
 blossoms, and over the pulpit was a white floral cross. 
 That was all. 
 
 At eight o'clock Mr Tamplin played a brilliant volun- 
 tary, and a surpliced choir soon after entered singing 
 the Processional Hymn : — 
 
 Porward ! be our watoliword, 
 
 Steps and voices join'd, 
 Seek the things before us, 
 
 Not a look behind. 
 
 This being concluded, there followed what always struck 
 me as an incongruity at St John's — the Exhortation was 
 read. It was not taken in that dubious way which leaves 
 a pleasant state of doubt as to whether one has heard 
 monotonous reading or monotone technically so termed ; 
 but was read in quite a colloquial tone, as if to show that 
 it was designedly done. Then followed the harmonized 
 confession, which was, if anything, taken too fiomo, but 
 that is a fault on the right side. Choirs sometimes show 
 their energy by screaming ; that at St John's does quite 
 
424 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 tlie reverse, and perhaps is a little disposed to rush, into 
 the opposite extreme. The Psalms and Lessons were 
 proper, the former being sung to double Anglican chants, 
 the latter read by a layman in the attire of ordinary life, 
 which I thought as incongruous as the read Exhortation 
 preluding a choral service. The accompaniment to the 
 Psalms was as much too loud as the Confession had been 
 too soft. Mr Tamplin was formerly, and until very 
 lately, organist at St Luke's Church, Redclifife Square, 
 in which large building he was able to use more energy 
 than at St John's. The canticles were an original com- 
 position by Mr Tamplin, and hit a happy mean between 
 the conventional cathedral ' service ' and the popular 
 florid style now so largely adopted. That, in fact, was 
 the characteristic of the whole arrangements at St 
 John's — a clever adaptation of the cathedral system to 
 parochial requirements, preserving all the beauty of the 
 former without losing sight of the congregational element 
 which should distinguish the latter. A cornet-sl-piston 
 had been used with excellent effect during the proces- 
 sional hymn, and would have come in opportunely at 
 sundry passages afterwards; but the gentleman who 
 played it, a clever amateur, was not too liberal with his 
 favours. The service at St John's was altogether so 
 satisfactory that it makes one's remarks sound hyper- 
 critical. One does not care to criticize a mediocre affair 
 at all. 
 
 Mr Tamplin's accompaniments to the Apostles' Creed 
 were very telling indeed ; and one small boy who occu- 
 pied a pew in front of me was so carried away that he 
 sang not only the responses, but the clergyman's part 
 in the suffrages that followed. Indeed he was continu- 
 ally breaking out in wrong places during the subsequent 
 service, and had to be forcibly repressed by his mother. 
 How that boy must have envied the little choristers who 
 could sing out to their hearts' content ! 
 
 The anthem was ' The Lord be a lamp unto thy feet,' 
 from Sir Julius Benedict's 8t Peter, and before the ser- 
 mon was sung the glorious No. 320 in Hymns' Ancient 
 and Modern — " 
 
AN ORGAN RECITAL. 425 
 
 The dmrch'sone Foundation 
 Is Jesus Christ the Lord. 
 
 For this Mr Tamplin had written a very striking and 
 appropriate special tune, affording full scope for our 
 amateur friend's brass j but these well-known hymns get 
 associated with equally well-known tunes, and any com- 
 poser who writes a new tune does it at a disadvantage. 
 People are always ready to exclaim ' The old is better.' 
 
 Mr D' Almaine has one surpassing merit ; he preaches, 
 not only remarkably good, but most exceptionally short 
 sermons. A quarter of an hour is about his average ; 
 twenty minutes his maximum length. On this occasion 
 he was at his shortest, and his address had little of the 
 homiletic about it. 
 
 He took as his text, Matthew xi. 18, 19, "^ John came 
 neither eating nor drinking, and they say, " He hath 
 a devil." The Son of Man came eating and drinking, 
 and they say, " Behold a man gluttonous and a wine- 
 bibber." ' 
 
 I feel, said Mr D' Almaine, I may with propriety 
 address you in a somewhat less formal manner this 
 evening than is usual in sermons. I shall detain you 
 but a very short time, because I have no doubt you are 
 more in a humour for the musical treat we* are looking 
 forward to after the service is over than for a homily. 
 But I venture on a few words of something like a sermon, 
 because I cannot bear on any occasion to give colour to 
 the unkind taunt that we subordinate the higher work 
 of the Christian ministry here to the cultivation of music. 
 And I am quite sure that none of you who are sincerely 
 interested in the work of this church would wish me to 
 do so. 
 
 Because the Son of Man came ' eating and drinking,' 
 malicious persons, who could find no fault with Him for 
 that, said that. He did it to excess — that He was ' a man 
 gluttonous and a winebibber.' 
 
 And in precisely the same spirit now, because we pre- 
 fer good music to bad, the uncharitable say that we carry 
 it to excess, and that we turn the house of God into a 
 consecrated music-hall. 
 
426 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 It is a taunt which is utterly untrue of us. Our whole 
 effort is to make the music here the appropriate expres- 
 sion of our devotion. We have in this church a regular 
 congregation as warmly attached and interested in its 
 services, and, I venture to say, as devout as any, hut I 
 doubt if six members of it come here for the music alone. 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that for London, where 
 the competition is so severe, it is not good enough for 
 that. With the very limited means at our command we 
 should be hopelessly distanced by our neighbours if we 
 started on so unworthy a race. It is, I am assured, pre- 
 cisely the element of quiet but sincere devotion in our 
 services to which we owe such prosperity as we may have 
 attained. 
 
 But what I want to say is, that we endeavour to make 
 the musical part of services here as good as we can, 
 and that we honestly believe we are right in doing so. 
 There are, I know, grave objections to choirs, so there 
 are to everything. There are grave objections to ser- 
 mons, and it would be idle for a man to sit down hope- 
 lessly and helplessly, with his hands before him, waiting 
 to begin any work whatever until he could find an abso- 
 lute perfect tool to do it with. Indeed, if you insist on 
 absolute puAty of devotion in those who conduct church 
 services, you would not only have no choirs, but you 
 would have no bishops and no clergy. 
 
 In this world, if we have work to do, we must do it 
 with blunt tools if we cannot get sharp ones, and a wise 
 man, instead of throwing away an imperfect instrument, 
 will try to mend it and to do his work with it as well sa 
 he can. 
 
 This I know, and am persuaded of, that Christian de- 
 votion and music are natural allies. It may be rare to 
 find them blended in due proportions, but it would as- 
 suredly be a good thing for our English Christianity if 
 religious people were a little more musical, and musical 
 people a little more religious. 
 
 For this is really the • question which underlies the 
 whole thing. ' What are our Religious Services ? ' 
 Penitential Exercises endured once or twice a week by 
 
AN ORGAN RECITAL. 427 
 
 ■ constraint of conscience ? Nothing is more remote from 
 their true intention. The stern — the penitential part of 
 Rehgion is the daily strife with evil, the conflict with 
 selfishness and all the hosts of sins, little and great, 
 which mar the image of God in our souls. Our services 
 in church should be things of natural pleasure and re- 
 freshment. In church we need some contrast to set 
 against the severity of the struggle with sin and the 
 dulness of daily toil. Life with all is more or less sad 
 and colourless, and in church we need warmth and re- 
 freshment. The hours spent here should be short inter- 
 vals of repose from strife and sorrow, when our souls 
 may rest with pleasure on the hills from whence the 
 towers of the Celestial City are seen, moments of con- 
 tentment and delight in which weary spirits may renew 
 their strength to pursue the course along the narrow, 
 stony road that leads to life. 
 
 With such a view of religious services the gratification 
 of the most refined artistic taste in them, if made sub- 
 ordinate to the thought it clothes, is perfectly consistent, 
 and art and beauty are not smuggled into them with an 
 apology, but are recognized as the lawful ornaments of 
 genuine worship. 
 
 The Son of Man came eating and drinking — that is, 
 sin excepted, leading the natural life of man on earth, 
 exalting into the service of God the gifts which He had 
 given for our subsistence and pleasure here. 
 
 There are, I know, many good people who take an 
 entirely different view of the object of religious services. 
 
 The world seems to me to be alive with persons who, 
 from their youth up, have been taught that religion 
 consists exclusively of church- or chapel-going — that 
 church-going is religion. And I- have always noticed 
 that such persons always regard it as an infinitely weari- 
 some performance; that they need to be constantly 
 nrged or bribed to it, as to a severe duty, the true notion 
 of its pleasures being a thought they have never attained. 
 And this further may be repiarked, that the steadiest 
 and most long-suffering among them seize any excuse 
 for a little relaxation of their stern discipline, with a 
 
428 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 sense of relief they can ill conceal. It appears to them, 
 I fancy, a grim foretaste of what is to come — of what 
 must surely seem to them ironically described as the 
 'joys of Heaven.' 
 
 Joy ! No ! Only a very dull and colourless alternative 
 to escape a more hideous fate ! But really such ignor- 
 ance is unworthy of an educated, to say nothing of a 
 Christian, people. 
 
 The battle of life is hard enough and stem enough, 
 God knows, to call forth all our manhood. And he who 
 has a turn for the severer discipline of religion may 
 abundantly find its exercise in trying to lead a pure and 
 simple life amidst the manifold temptations and sorrows 
 of the wdrld. And the more manfully he bears himself 
 in the fight, the more will he value those quiet moments 
 in which he may turn aside for a while to refresh his 
 soul with the beauty of worship, and its lawful access- 
 ories. 
 
 While the collection was being made, the choir sang 
 H. Smart's Te Deum, which was rather too long for the 
 place it occupied, after a service and before a recital. 
 I venture to think Mr Tamplin would have kept a better 
 auditory had this been abridged. Then Hymn 36 was 
 sung as a recessional, and the recital began. 
 
 Organ recitals are so new a feature in our English 
 churches that people do not quite know what to do 
 while they are going on. Some few solved that diffi- 
 culty by leaving altogether; but those who stayed 
 seemed to labour under exceeding doubt as to whether 
 they ought to talk or not. A few did so under protest, 
 and as though they had not made up their minds about 
 the legality of the pfoceeding, but when the choir re- 
 turned from the vestry and dispersed themselves over 
 the church they seemed to lend a professional air to the 
 occasion which set us at our ease. 
 
 Mr Tamplin is an exceedingly brilliant player, and 
 the first piece was in his most brilliant style, but I could 
 not recognize it, and there were no programmes. Then 
 followed a slow air, evidently a part of the same work. 
 
AN ANGLICAN MASS. 429 
 
 and after it a martial movement, wHch I felt annoyed at 
 not recognizing. The execution was marvellous, and I 
 a,m sure the difficulty with the listeners was now, not 
 whether to talk or be silent, but to refrain from ap- 
 plauding or in some way expressing their satisfaction. 
 Being determined to satisfy myself as to the work I had 
 heard, I applied to Mr Tamplin, who shrugged his 
 shoulders and said he could not tell me. He had simply 
 been extemporizing. If I was amazed at the lissom 
 fingers of the executant, still more so was I at the fertile 
 brain of the composer which had supplied them with 
 material. The recital was as brief in proportion as the 
 incumbent's sermon ; for Mr Tamplin only added a 
 fourth piece, which was again original, and consisted of 
 a clever fugue in four parts on the subject of the Reces- 
 sional Hymn. 
 
 I believe I am betraying confidence in stating the 
 authorship of the pieces played at this recital ; but I do 
 so deliberately, and by way of illustrating the text or 
 adage that men do not— or should not — hide their light 
 under a bushel. 
 
 AN ANGLICAN MASS. 
 
 THERE was a time, and that not so long ago either, 
 when a study of church music would have been com- 
 prised within very narrow limits indeed ; for a choral 
 service, or indeed any attention to the musical portion 
 of worship, was deemed significant of a particular set of 
 opinions, and there would have been absolutely no 
 material for such a paper as the present, except in 
 Roman Catholic and ' High ' Anglican churches : but 
 happily we may now say, nous avons change tout eela. 
 A due regard for the artistic element in worship is no 
 
43° ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 longer regarded as symptomatic of advanced opinions. 
 "Were it so that need not scare us from the subject, but 
 it would narrow our horizon. As things are, however, 
 we find some of our most distinctive services, apart, of 
 course, from cathedrals, among the Evangelical and 
 Dissenting bodies. Let me say one word by way of 
 definition. I do not of necessity mean by a choral serv- 
 ice one where the minister as well as the choir sings or 
 intones. I mean simply a service where the ingredient 
 of praise is elevated, as surely it ought to be, to a par 
 with those of prayer and preaching. With this larger 
 acceptation of the term in my mind I can think of 
 several Nonconformist places of worship where the serv- 
 ice is as truly choral as at Westminster Abbey, St 
 George's Catholic Cathedral, or the great Synagogue. 
 
 For the purpose of writing this article, then, I went, 
 on the morning of Trinity Sunday, across the unroman- 
 tic cabbage-gardens around Earl's Court station, where 
 lingering hedgerows still remain to assure us the country 
 once existed, and passing down a verdant lane fragrant 
 with hawthorn flowers, entered the spacious church of 
 St Matthias, West Brompton. I was courteously re- 
 ceived by the incumbent, the Eev. S. C. Haines, and by 
 him introduced to the organist, Mr J. Mallitt Jones, 
 who at once asked me to accompany him to the organ 
 gallery, advising me, however, to leave my hat behind, 
 as the accommodation was limited. The space allowed 
 for the organist by the builder, Mr Jones, of the Fulham 
 Road, was indeed small. It was what the theatrical 
 gentleman in ' Nicholas Nickleby ' termed ' pernicious 
 snug,' but I quite forgot any discomfort in the pleasure 
 of listening to Mr Jones's manipulation of his excellent 
 instrument, and at the same time witnessing a service, 
 for the grandeur of which I was altogether unprepared. 
 My reason for selecting St Matthias' was that I had 
 understood the service there presented a judicious com- 
 bination of the Gregorian and Anglican elements ; and 
 this I found to be the truth, though only half the truth. 
 From my point of view as a clerical critic, I may be 
 allowed to premise that I do not altogether like Grego- 
 
AN ANGLICAN MASS. 431 
 
 rianSj tiougli I recognize their utility where only unison 
 singing can be accomplished ; and when they are 
 rendered by a large body of voices, as I have heard 
 them at St Paul's and at Notre Dame in Paris, or still 
 more recently at the Abbey Church of Pontigny, during 
 the pilgrimage, the effect is very fine ; but even so, I 
 am told, since I plead guilty to liking melody, that the 
 tones I most admire are not Gregorian at all. But this 
 by the way. Mr Jones having assumed a violet cassock 
 and short surplice, we adjourned to the organ gallery, 
 and, after a cleverly extemporized voluntary, he struck 
 up the hymn 282 in ' Hymns Ancient and Modern,' and 
 the procession of choir and clergy entered the church, 
 passing down the north aisle from the vestry, and then 
 up the nave to the chancel, singing the words : — 
 
 ' day of rest and gladness, 
 O day of joy and liglit, 
 O balm of care and sadness, 
 Most beautiful, most bright.' 
 
 rhe procession consisted of a thurifer swinging his 
 censer of incense, a cross-bearer, with four banners 
 borne at intervals among the long line of choristers, 
 and emblazoned respectively with the Agnus Dei, the 
 Good Shepherd, the Virgin, and the Blessed Sacrament. 
 Behind these walked the two curates, the preacher, and 
 lastly the incumbent. 
 
 After the harmonized Confession by Barnby, and 
 Tallis's Versicles, came the Gregorian portion of the 
 service. The Ferial Psalter was used, and the Venite 
 was sung to the first of the Ancient Tones, the two 
 opening Psalms for the day (23rd of the month) to the 
 first Tone, the last — the Jubilant 11 3th — being taken 
 to the fifth Tone with the Roman Mediation. Mr 
 Jones's accompaniment was most florid, and quite re- 
 moved the sometimes harsh and unmusical character of 
 the Gregorian music. There are about fifty members 
 of the choir, and a fair proportion mustered on that 
 day, only three of the voices being professional. Farther 
 on in the service I saw the necessity for these three 
 exceptional voices. 
 
432 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 During the lessons, I craned my neck over and took, 
 stock of the congregation. Every nook of the church 
 was filled, and it was quite evident that those present 
 thoroughly sympathized with the tone of things at St 
 Matthias', ' High 'as it undoubtedly was. If, as I 
 understand it, the object of the choral element is to give 
 expression to the devotional sentiment of the worship- 
 pers, I cannot help thinking the cultus at this church 
 exactly answered its end. To some persons, of course, 
 such a service would be distasteful, and therefore uude- 
 votional ; but in that case empty or scantily-occupied 
 benches would be the result. In reply to some who 
 have said that an elaborate ritual was forced on the St 
 Matthias' people, I can only answer that the church was 
 crammed both at Matins and also at the ' Mass ' which 
 immediately succeeded it. The only desideratum I saw 
 was a little toning-down of the light in the church, 
 which stained glass would at once effect] as yet only a 
 few of the windows have this advantage. 
 
 Now came the Anglican element in this most compo- 
 site service. The Te Deum was sung to three single 
 chants from Ouseley and Monk's Canticles. Then 
 ensued a Gregorian Benedictus to the Seventh Tone, 
 and the Athanasian Creed to the eighth. Here again 
 Mr Jones's accompaniments were most effective, as 
 also in the Lord's Prayer which succeeded. The An- 
 them was from Spohr's Jjast Judgment, the portions 
 selected being ' Come up hither,' with the chorus ' Holy, 
 holy.' Hereupon followed the sermon ; but I must 
 plead guilty to talking very hard with Mr Jones all the 
 time, and afterwards waiting with some impatience for 
 Schubert's Mass in B flat, which was to succeed. 
 
 The clergy having assumed their Eucharistic vest- 
 ments of white, and the numerous candles being kindled 
 until the altar was one mass of light and flowers, the 
 Communion Service commenced. In order to adapt 
 the Eoman Mass to Anglican purposes, the Kyrie has, 
 of course, to be shortened, and the Gloria removed from 
 its place at the beginning to the end ; and I could not 
 quite decide whether the magnificent cadences of Schu- 
 
AN ANGLICAN MASS. 433 
 
 bertj so thoroughly of the nature of an ouverture, did 
 not suffer from their displacement, grand as was still 
 the climax which they formed. With these two modifi- 
 cations, and also the arrangement of the Benedictus and 
 Agnus Dei before and after the Prayer of Consecration, 
 the Mass exactly suits the English Communion Service. 
 Were I to criticize the work itself, except for the special 
 purpose for which it was being used, I should deservedly 
 draw down upon myself from musical men the admoni- 
 tion ne sutor ultra crepidam. To prove again how mi- 
 nutely the congregation followed the service, I noticed 
 that the large majority knelt at the ' Incarnatus ' in the 
 Credo ; a few compromised the matter by standing with 
 bent heads ; while others, evidently strangers either to 
 the church or to the 'use,' stood erect and simply looked 
 uncomfortable until the rest rose again. For the Offer- 
 tory Mr Jones played Handel's ' Holy, holy,' and here 
 I could not help wondering how it is that we have not, 
 according to the rule of supply answering demand, more 
 works (I myself do not know any), either original or 
 adapted, specially arranged for the Anglican Mass — I 
 mean with short Kyrie, Communion Hymn, &c., all of 
 a piece. The necessary interpolations of other works 
 rather break the uniformity. The hymn which on this 
 occasion followed the Agnus Dei during Communion 
 was 397 in 'Hymns Ancient and Modern,' sung to a 
 beautiful melody by Rossini, taken from the ' Crown of 
 Jesus Hymnal.' Though this was of course a High 
 Mass, yet I found a large number of persons communi- 
 cated; and this to a clerical observer formed a very 
 distinct point of divergence from the Roman custom, 
 where the sacrificial act alone gives its significance to 
 the High Mass. It amounted, in fact, to the introduc- 
 tion of what always seems wanting — the congregational 
 element. The people are partakers in the highest act 
 of worship, not mere spectators. I must not omit to 
 mention that the celebrant's portions of this service 
 were artistically performed ; the ' Comfortable Words ' 
 and 'Sursum Corda' were most elaborately inflected, 
 and their execution faultless. The professional tenor, 
 
 28 
 
434 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 bass, and soprano were especially useftil in the conclude 
 ing ' Gloria in Excelsis ; ' but the amateur portion of 
 the choir, excepting a tendency to get flat here and 
 there during a very trying service, did their parts 
 wonderfully well. 
 
 I am no optimist. If there were what I considered, 
 from my exceptional point of view, faults, I should 
 note them. My own proclivities are nothing to the 
 purpose : but taking the end and aim of any choral 
 service to be the expression of praise, I could not descend 
 from my coign of vantage, while Mr Jones played sug- 
 gestively 'Be not afraid' from Elijah, without feeling 
 that I had been furtively present at a very solemn act 
 of congregational worship. 
 
 A CHOEAL WEDDING. 
 
 AS I was expatiating the other day in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Oxford Street I found myself 
 suddenly, and before I was aware of it_, in front of the 
 magnificent Gothic church in Margaret Street, which 
 marks the site of one of the earliest abodes of Puseyism. 
 Hereabouts it was that the Eev. W. J. E. Bennett, 
 Vicar of Frome-Selwood, gave almost the earliest impetus 
 to that movement which has developed as phenomenally 
 in one direction as Moody-and-Sankeyism in the other. 
 A larger crowd and longer line of carriages than would 
 be accounted for by a week-day celebration at noon, 
 were outside, so being always anxious to learn the very 
 latest intelligence in the religious world, I entered the 
 church. Before I did so, however, I guessed the cause 
 of the gathering. A fashionable marriage was about to 
 take place, and most probably, I inferred, it would be 
 choral, and so suited to my present purpose. I dared 
 
A CHORAL WEDDING. 435 
 
 not ask the venerable cassocked verger at the doorway, 
 for I liad already done so on several occasions when 
 acting as Special Commissioner for a daily paper, and 
 always got one stereotyped reply, 'We do not desire 
 publicity. We give no information.' He was always 
 courteous, but firm, so I did not trouble him. Besides, 
 the poor man was infinitely distressed because the 
 ladies, who kept coming in shoals, would go and sit on 
 the gentlemen's side of the church, instead of leaving it 
 to me and about five others of the male sex. There 
 was some excuse for this irregularity, because all the 
 ladies' seats were full, but it distressed the correct 
 verger to the very quick. 
 
 I found a congregation of about a hundred ladies and 
 five small boys assembled, most, if not all of whom, 
 appeared to be attracted by the wedding rather than 
 the celebration, if I might judge from the subsequent 
 fact that nobody communicated. Two large tapers were 
 burning on the altar, and a clergyman, habited in a 
 white satin cope richly embroidered, was reading the 
 Gospel when I entered, a little after half-past eleven. 
 He was reading so very slowly that I bega,n to dread 
 whether he would have concluded before the canonical 
 hour of noon, after which the wedding could not be 
 legally solemnized. Just at the Prayer of Consecration I 
 saw a kind of sea-green mass fioat into the porch. These 
 were the six bridesmaids, who significantly asked, ' How 
 long ? ' referring, I presumed, to the present service, 
 and not to their appearance in another capacity. The 
 ceremony is always suggestive of the latter demand to 
 young ladies who officiate as assistants, I have heard. 
 
 Nobody communicated, although the celebrant extem- 
 porized a special invitation, which was not in the Prayer 
 Book, and which would, I should think, render him 
 amenable to the Public Worship Act. The service was 
 therefore soon over, and just before the close twelve 
 nice little boys in cassocks filed through the mass of 
 sea-green bridesmaids at the porch, and went to the 
 sacristy. I was not there in vain : the service would be 
 choral. 
 
436 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 By this time the gathering at the west end of the 
 church was most incongruous. There were the sea-green 
 ladies waiting in the porch mixed up with horsey-looking 
 grooms, buried under portentous bouquets, andpalefaced 
 Sceurs de Charite in black habits and white bibs, looking 
 on sadly enough at the ceremony. I wonder what ihey 
 were thinking of? The bridegroom was marshalled to 
 the chancel rail, where he knelt down, looking the pic- 
 ture of misery. Then the bride entered with the, con- 
 ventional costume and bouquet as large as an umbrella. 
 But I am ignorant of the mysteries of ie Follet, and 
 could not, if I would, describe the costume further than 
 it left a general impression of gauziness and sickly white, 
 just as the bridesmaids did of sea-green and surpassing 
 loveliness. But I am carried away by my feelings, and 
 forgetting that my mission is musical. 
 
 A brief and anything but inspiriting voluntary being 
 played, the twelve little boys dressed in white surplices 
 came into the choir, and two clergymen in surplices and 
 white stoles. At the same time the bridal procession 
 moved eastward, to relieve the monotony 6f the bride- 
 groom. I could not for the life of me help thinking that 
 it looked like the chorus of Oceanides going to visit 
 Prometheus on his solitary rock. It must have been 
 the sea-green costume that inspired so heterodox an 
 idea. The procession was slow, like a cheerful funeral. 
 
 When the correct verger had put out the altar lights, 
 which I fancy in his bewilderment he had forgotten up 
 to this point, the twelve little boys sang very sweetly, 
 and to a florid tune, the hymn beginning, ' The Voice 
 that breathed o'er Eden ; ' and then the younger of the 
 two priests, who was perfectly hidden in voluminous 
 whiskers, commenced the Exhortation in a musical 
 voice. The betrothal took place at the chancel steps, 
 and here Frederick and Constance were made man and 
 wife, after which they went in procession to the altar, 
 while the psalm wa,s being chanted to the 5th Gregorian 
 tone. The young ladies in sea-green remained pictur- 
 esquely posed in the centre of the church, and I 
 noticed they all bowed at the Gloria as if they had 
 
A CHORAL WEDDING. 437 
 
 rehearsed it. There could not have been an Evan- 
 gelical amongst them. The Lord's Prayer was beau- 
 tifully accompanied ; and the suffrages following it in- 
 flected by the officiating priest in a clear voice and in 
 faultless tune. I wondered whether he had practised it 
 with the choir before^ for he was not one of the clergy 
 of the church ; indeed, I ascertained afterwards he was 
 the brother of the bride. He was evidently quite au 
 fait at a choral service. 
 
 The concluding prayers and collects having been de- 
 livered in an equally musical way, the second clergyman 
 took his share of the ceremony by reading the Exhort- 
 ation. I rather hoped a sermon would have been 
 substituted, as is sometimes done now, but he contented 
 himself with the stereotyped address. Although this 
 is intended for the whole congregation, being directed 
 to all those who are married or intend to take the holy 
 estate of matrimony upon them — as no doubt the six 
 young ladies did who were still posed picturesquely in 
 the centre — this clergyman delivered it quite sotto voce, 
 and as if it were confidentially addressed to the bride 
 and bridegroom only. This was really the only mistake 
 in the proceedings. Whatever may be said of reading 
 the prayers in a manner that shall make them ' not un- 
 derstanded of the people ' — and I fail to see the rationale 
 of that — there can be no excuse for delivering an ex- 
 hortation to the people on the duty of husbands towards 
 their wives and wives towards their husbands in such a 
 way that nobody but the bride and bridegroom, and 
 possibly the first couple of sea-green bridesmaids, could 
 catch a syllable of it. However, we got in due time 
 down to ' any amazement,' after which came a second 
 hymn, and then the organist played a soft strain while 
 we knelt in silent prayer. It was a sight in itself to 
 see the bridesmaids grouped on their knees in the 
 centre. No coryphees could have surpassed the unani- 
 mity with which they subsided. 
 
 The soft music gave place to the introductory notes 
 of Mendelssohn's ' Wedding March,' which was admir- 
 ably played by the organist ; and the striking ceremony 
 
438 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 concluded by the curate emerging from the sanctum in 
 the attire of eveiy-day life, and locking the chancel 
 gates full in the faces of the sea-green ladies, as if he 
 feared they would violate the sanctity of the holy place 
 by entering it. They did not seem to have the least 
 intention of committing such a breach of decorum ; but 
 the curate quite scowled at them, and walked away like 
 a clerical gaoler. I fancy that any irruption from the 
 outer world is rather distressing to the habitues of All 
 Saints\ The celebrant at the Communion had to invite 
 communicants — as I mentioned — and also to make- a 
 pause in the Benediction at the end, and request silence. 
 It was only, I think, that people were coming in fast, and 
 not being familiar with the manners and customs of All 
 Saints', jumped to the conclusion that they were very 
 late for the wedding, and so got excited. 
 
 Had aU the attendants at the wedding been as well 
 posted up in their parts as the first officiating clergy- 
 man and the six bridesttiaids, the ceremony would have 
 been a very striking one ; though here, as in the An- 
 glican mass, it struck me that an advantage would be 
 gained if a whole service were composed from beginning 
 to end by some one competent man, so that a continuous 
 vein of thought might run through the whole. Anglican 
 services are too apt to assume this patch-work character. 
 Here the hymns were florid, the psalm Gregorian, and 
 the responses, I think, an adaptation of Tallis. There 
 is certainly room for a musically»arraiiged version of the 
 English ritual. 
 
 Of the general appropriateness of music as an adjunct 
 of the marriage service, probably none, except very 
 prejudiced people indeed, will entertain any doubt. Even 
 the wise man would confess this to be 'a time to laugh ; ' 
 and, as Tom Hood beautifully said, ' Bells are music's 
 laughter.' We have a peal of bells in few of our 
 London churches, but we have good choirs in very many 
 of them. The boys' voices at Ail Saints' are remarkably 
 fresh and clear, and one coulJ well believe that the 
 echoes of 'The Voice that breathed o'er Eden' as sung 
 by them would be likely to reverberate long and pleas- 
 
A CHORAL FUNERAL. 439 
 
 antly down the married life of Frederick and Constance. 
 There was nothing extreme in any of the ceremonies 
 at this choral wedding. I had expected to see the 
 betrothal take place at the porch, and the marriage 
 service followed by mass for the bride and bridegroom. 
 Nothing of the kind occurred ; only a very strikiflg and 
 appropriate celebration of what ought to be the happiest 
 day in two blended lives. 
 
 A CHOEAL FUNERAL. 
 
 OF all the offices in the simple ritual of the Church of 
 England, there is none so imposing in itself, or which 
 stands so little in need of adventitious aid, as that for 
 the burial of the dead. At the same time it is equally 
 true that none accommodates itself more easily to music. 
 Musical accompaniment, that is, forms as fitting a vehicle 
 for the expression of Christian sorrow as of Christian 
 joy. The heathen might weep over the day of depar- 
 ture, as the first dread day of nothingness. The Chris- 
 tian regards it as the last of languor and distress indeed, 
 but as the first step towards a higher life. 
 
 One of the most touching ceremonies of this kind at 
 which I ever remember to have been present, was the 
 funeral of the late Bishop of Winchester, which took 
 place in the quiet Sussex churchyard, while children 
 sang sweetly round the grave, and the crowd of mourners 
 blended their voices heartily, though inartistically, in 
 unison with them. The burial of which I now speak 
 was of a different order. Bishop Thirlwall, the historian 
 of Greece and translator of Niebuhr, was borne to his 
 honoured rest in Westminster Abbey, by the side of his 
 brother historian, George Grote, and the occasion was a 
 remarkable instance of that sublimity which attaches to 
 
4+0 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 the Church of England service from its very simplicity. 
 The procession, which filed up the nave between two 
 lines of spectators, bristling with a policeman here and 
 there, was prosaic, enough — the Abbey Choir, the Dean 
 and Canons, the coffin of the dead Bishop and scholar, 
 with the pall borne by six of his brother prelates — 
 namely, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishops 
 of London, Winchester, Ely, St David's, and Melbourne. 
 No cross-bearer preceded the cortege, only the venerable 
 verger of the Abbey with his ponderous mace; no 
 acolytes swung censers; above all, no instrumentalists 
 wailed Gregorians on ophicleides and serpents ; but up 
 among the cold gray arches of the Abbey rang the 
 solemn phrases of Croft's ' I am the Resurrection and 
 the life,' and ' I know that my Redeemer liveth.' 
 
 When the procession reached the east end of the choir, 
 the Bishops passed to their places at the altar, the Arch- 
 bishop taking the north side and the Bishop of London 
 the south side, the other prelates being grouped around. 
 One little dash of romance I noticed, which has come to 
 be recognized as a portion of our still somewhat objec- 
 tionable funeral arrangements ; each of the mourners 
 carried a large wreath with him to his place in the choir. 
 Some of these floral chaplets were of white and green 
 only, but others were gay with the many hues of summer, 
 and formed a beautiful contrast with the sombre adorn- 
 ments of pall, hatband, and scarf. The coffin was of 
 polished oak, shaped like a sarcophagus, and surmounted 
 by a full length Latin cross. 
 
 As it rested in front of the Communion-rail the choir 
 sang the 90th Psalm — the second of the two set down in 
 the Burial Service — to a well-known minor chant, which 
 modulated into the major at the Gloria. Whilst this 
 was taking place, an anti-climax occurred at the grave 
 itself. One of the grave-diggers came, and with a crow- 
 bar somewhat enlarged the dimensions of the grave. 
 Whether he had failed to learn that procrastination is 
 the thief of time, or the coffin proved wider- than had 
 been expected, I know not, but the clink of the crowbar 
 sounded incongruously enough amid the cadences of the 
 
A CHORAL FUNERAL. 441 
 
 Domine refngium. It was, however, tappily soon ovei", 
 and then Archdeacon Jennings read from his stall the 
 magnificent funeral lesson (1 Cor. xv.), where St Paul 
 gives the clearest definition, or approach to a definition, 
 of all in Holy Scripture, of the condition of the Departed, 
 and answers the inevitable demand of the heart at such 
 a moment, 'How are the dead raised up, and with what 
 body do they come ? ' with that most forcible of all the 
 analogies from Nature, the flower or grain springing from 
 the dead and buried seed — the same, yet oh how diflferent ! 
 The Archdeacon read the chapter in a clear distinct voice, 
 without any attempt at elocution, but so as to render 
 every word distinctly heard, at least throughout the 
 choir. 
 
 At the conclusion of the lesson, while an appropriate 
 voluntary was played by Mr Jekyll, the choir, with 
 the Dean of "Westminster and the Eev. S. Flood Jones, 
 the Precentor, passed through the west door of the 
 choir round to the south transept, where the grave was 
 situated, while the funeral procession proper left by the 
 gate immediately below the Communion-rail. Here the 
 choristers again took up Croft's music, and also Pur- 
 cell's exquisite sequence, ' I heard a voice from Heaven 
 saying unto me, " Write, from henceforth blessed are the 
 dead which die in the Lord," ' &c. 
 
 Dean Stanley does not intone, but the modulation of 
 his voice in the committal of the body to the ground was 
 all that could be wished. He read in the most stately 
 manner possible, and the sound of the dust falling upon 
 the metal cross of the cofiin-lid added strange emphasis 
 to his words. The Sentences and Lord's Prayer were 
 simply read both by choir and minister, the former wisely 
 abstaining from reciting a note which would probably 
 have resulted in a discord. Nothing could exceed the 
 pathos of the Dean's delivery in the former of the two 
 prayers that succeed, and which many of us think the 
 finest in the whole liturgy of the Church of England. 
 
 Unfortunately the choir did attempt a musical ' Amen ' 
 at the end of these prayers, and came to grief accordingly. 
 There was no reciting note to give them the key, and each 
 
442 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 member of the choir having his own opinion on the sub- 
 ject, made the result far from satisfactory, but they did 
 their spiriting gently, and no contretemps ensued. 
 
 After the second prayer was read the choir sang with 
 admirable effect Handel's Funeral Anthem (from ' The 
 ways of Zion do mourn'), with the appropriate words, 
 ' His body is buried in peace.' The main subject is slow 
 and solemn, fitly conveying the rest of the grave super- 
 vening upon the storms of life and the transient dis- 
 quietude of death. Finally it bursts into a glorious 
 melody, indicative of higher life, at the words, ' but his 
 name liveth evermore.' 
 
 By the way, this anthem is a clear interpolation, and 
 a most fitting and impressive one ; but how about its 
 ' legality ' ? We hear a good deal of the law in con- 
 nection with the Gospel now-a-days, and it seemed a 
 strange illustration of the principle how much better 
 men often are than their creedsy and even bishops and 
 archbishops than the Acts of Parliament they frame. 
 Here were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop 
 of London, who had recently fulminated the Public 
 Worship Bill (one had almost written ' Bull '), visiting 
 with direct penalties those who should add to or dimin- 
 ish from the litera scripta of the rubrics, calmly stand- 
 ing by while this irregular anthem was being exquisitely 
 rendered by the Abbey choir ! Is it possible, even if 
 desirable, to attain the dead level of utter uniformity 
 aimed at by this Bill ? Could it be possible to find three 
 Westminster people sufficiently pigheaded to inform 
 against Dean Stanley for thus amplifying the noble 
 Funeral Service, though no rubric says, ' In choirs and 
 places where they sing here foUoweth the anthem.' 
 Even supposing the Pharisees to be forthcoming, how 
 could Lord Penzance possibly entertain the complaint 
 when, by their presence, the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and Bishop of London were parti-cipes criniinis ? 
 
 How strangely youth contrasts with age ! how closely 
 life treads on the heels of death ! Everywhere that day 
 were the ubiquitous Westminster lads. As I crossed 
 Dean's Yard to the cloisters I met one gorgeously at- 
 
THE FLOWER SERMON. 443 
 
 tired in pink and flannels, going off to cricket or boat- 
 ing ; another in academicals talked of ' exam. ; ' a third 
 was reading listlessly from a dog's-eared book, perched 
 in one of the cloister arches, and swinging a tennis bat 
 in his hand, heedless of dead bishops and impending 
 fanerals ; while yet another was flitting about like a 
 sweet little cherub on the top of the choir screen, his 
 college gown flying all around as he skipped about in 
 utter disregard of Mr Jekyll's fine performance of the 
 Dead March in ' Saul.' 
 
 THE FLOWER SERMON. 
 
 AMONG the romantic customs attaching to the City 
 of London — and there is some romance yet lingering 
 in this apparently unpoetical locality — is the annual 
 flower service and sermon at the parish church of St 
 Katherine-Cree, Leadenhall Street, on Whit Tuesday. 
 Before half-past six o'clock on that day the old church 
 was filled with a congregation consisting principally but 
 not entirely of young persons, each of whom was re- 
 quested to bring a bouquet of flowers. They complied 
 very generally with the stipulation, and it was a pretty 
 sight to see the long lines of children in the gray City 
 church, each with his or her nosegay, from a sprig of 
 hawthorn or lilac, up to the bouquet properly so termed, 
 and redolent of Oovent Garden Market. At the half- 
 hour the organist struck up the appropriate air, ' With 
 verdure clad the hills appear,' and continued to play 
 throughout the ensuing thirty minutes of waiting. Dur- 
 ing this period the choir assembled in the western 
 gallery, each laden with a portentous posy, and the 
 uosegay put for the preacher, the Rev. Dr Whittemore, 
 on the red velvet cushion of the pulpit was quite a Ben- 
 
444 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 jamin's mess compared with any of tlie others. I noticed 
 too that some gentlemen who probably had been young 
 but now were old, forbore to own the soft impeachment 
 by wearing lilies of the valley in their buttonhole as 
 though in the ordinary course of events. One rosy and 
 romantic old bachelor was garnished with a little bundle 
 of forget-me-nots, and the very smallest boy in the place 
 was attached to a gigantic peony. It was quite an old- 
 fashioned congregation, for the most part like what 
 one would see in a country rather than a London church, 
 and we were partitioned off into square cavernous pews 
 like little rooms. At seven o'clock, while the beautiful 
 air, ' If with all your hearts,' was played, there entered 
 from the vestry, first an array of vergers with maces, 
 then five clergymen in surplices, and last ' of all Dr 
 Whittemore in black gown. The service, which was 
 of a festal character throughout, with special psalms 
 and lessons, commenced with a bright and cheery 
 hymn : — 
 
 Hosanna ! Master, lo, we bring 
 
 Our oflerings to Thy tkrone ; 
 Not gold, nor myrrh., nor mortal thing, 
 
 But hearts to be Thine own. 
 
 Hosanna ! once Thy gracious ear 
 
 Approved a lisping throng ; 
 Be gracious stiU, and deign to hear 
 
 Our poor but grateful song. 
 
 Saviour, if, redeemed by Thee, 
 
 Thy temple we behold, 
 Hosannas through eternity 
 
 We'U sing to harps of gold. 
 
 The clear silvery voices of the little charity children 
 in the gallery, who looked so picturesque in their quaint 
 costumes, rang out above the rest of the vast congrega- 
 tion, the dimensions of which I realized when I stood up, 
 as well as the fragrance of the bouquets ; they perfumed 
 the air when we rose like fumes of incense from a censer. 
 The Psalms were the 8th and 64th, the lessons Isaiah 
 XXXV. and St John xv. 1 — 8, which, besides being ap- 
 
THE FLOWER SERMON. 445 
 
 propriate to the occasion, had the merit of brevity, and 
 by giving each to a separate clergyman and dividing the 
 service into three, it was contrived to find everybody 
 something to do. The canticles were sung to the very 
 florid Jackson in F. The second hymn, set to a tune 
 called Festivity, was very beautiful, and evidently a 
 favourite with the young singers. In it occurred the 
 verses : — 
 
 Come join the festive song, 
 
 Wake, voices all : 
 Chime with the vernal throng, 
 
 List to the call. 
 Hear we in every breeze, 
 Prom vale and mountain trees, 
 Glad notes of nature say, 
 
 Join ye my lay. 
 
 Lord of the rolling year ! 
 
 Bound and above, 
 Boundless Thy works appear — 
 
 Boundless Thy love. 
 All, all in earth and sky, 
 As glide the seasons by. 
 New glories of Thy name. 
 
 Ever proclaim. 
 
 Joyous we swell the' strain, 
 
 Thankful to Thee, 
 Watched by Thy care, again 
 
 Spring-tide to see. 
 Still in this gospel-land. 
 Now with our flowers we stand, 
 Under Truth's canopy, 
 
 Happy and free. 
 
 Onward for ever flow 
 
 Truth's mighty wave ; 
 Soon every chme below 
 
 Conquer and save. 
 Sweet as the voice of Spriug 
 Then every tongue shall sing, 
 Grlory to G-od on high, 
 
 Glory for aye. 
 
 There was yet another hymn before the sermon, which 
 I am fain to quote again, because the musical portion of 
 this service was so very characteristic : — 
 
446 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 Away witli thougMs of Badness, 
 
 My harp afresh. I'll tune, 
 For flowers of hope and gladness 
 
 Are o'er my pathway strewn. 
 Though sometimes dark with sorrow 
 
 My pilgrimage below, 
 All care about the morrow 
 
 At present I'll forego. 
 
 This eai th by siu polluted, 
 
 Must thorns and briars bear ; 
 Tet all are not uprooted 
 
 Of lovely things and fair ; 
 For flowerets round are springing, 
 
 Sweet birds are warbUng nigh, 
 And yonder sun is flinging ■ 
 
 Bright radiance o'er the sky. 
 
 Tet lost in contemplation 
 
 Of what siirrounds me here, 
 Shall I forget salvatioii. 
 
 That theme to sinners dear ? 
 Oh no, my harp, — no, never ! 
 
 Though sounding other lays, 
 Thy loudest chords shall ever 
 
 Proclaim my Saviour's praise. 
 
 Then farewell gloom and sorrow, 
 
 Sad soiinds, adieu awhile ; 
 A joyful tone I'll borrow 
 
 Prom fair creation's smile. 
 And when this life is ended, 
 
 A golden harp be mine, 
 That harp and voice, still blended. 
 
 May echo strains divine. 
 
 Then Dr Whittemore ascended the pulpit to preach the 
 sermon which vsras to be ' about flowers.' 
 
 Beginning without a text, Dr Whittemore said he 
 had nothing to do with grown-up people, if any had 
 smuggled themselves in, and thanked the lady who 
 for twenty-three years had placed a bouquet in the 
 pulpit as his text. 
 
 Twenty -three years ago he had resolved to have a 
 garden of girls and boys, and every year he came to 
 see how those plants were getting on. He then re- 
 ferred to the Song of Solomon vi. 11, ' I went down into 
 
THE FLOWER SERMON. 447 
 
 tlie garden to see whether the pomegranates budded/ 
 which he made the people repeat aloud, though the 
 pomegranates were rather a difficulty for the younger 
 elements of his congregation, Dr Whittemore would 
 acknowledge. Pomegranates might well stand as 
 emblems of children. As the queen's beauty was in 
 this Book said to be like the pomegranate, so were the 
 rosy cheeks of children. The Israelites in the desert 
 complained of the absence of pomegranates, and the^ 
 spies described Canaan as abounding with pomegranates. 
 It was highly valued, and boys and girls were to remem- 
 ber that if there were no buds there could be no fruit, 
 and that was what he had come down to see in his 
 pomegranates. Was there anything in their character 
 giving promise of fruit to come ? If there were many 
 buds there would be abundance of fruit if no untimely 
 frost came to nip it. We did not expect much from 
 children, but we wanted to see an indication of the 
 future. Solomon said, even a child was known by his 
 doings. He told the story of a little winning girl who 
 thus gave promise of the future, and had now, as a 
 grown lady, struck out a path of usefulness among 
 working men. She was now no longer a bud, but a 
 rich ripe pomegranate fruit — so might it be when the 
 buds of this garden ripened into fruit. 
 
 But even children might be of use. The buds of 
 pomegranate were useful as a medicine, so might there 
 be something done even by a child for Jesus. When- 
 ever they tried to do good let them do it in love. 
 When the pomegranate was eaten a little sugar was 
 poured over it. 'Don't forget the sugar, my little 
 friends, in all you do.' Here came in a story of a good 
 but churlish rich man, who would give his sovereign for 
 any good work, but gave it roughly ; he was a pome- 
 granate fruit, but he had forgotten the sugar. So, too, 
 the pomegranate taught humility. It belonged to the 
 same natural order as the myrtle. Don't look down on 
 some poor child twining a little simple wreath to come 
 to the flower sermon, you richer boys and girls. We 
 all belong to one natural order, one great brotherhood. 
 
448 ORTHODOX LONDON. 
 
 whether pomegranates or myrtles. So, too, must the 
 myrtle not envy the pomegranate. God has made us 
 all of the same natural order. 
 
 Thus with aptest story and illustration the sermon 
 proceeded. Dr Whittemore talked to the children and 
 the children listened, nor were the grown-up people 
 who had ' smuggled themselves in ' lacking in interest. 
 
 It taught me how much might be done without 
 sensationalism of any kind, by a simple Church of 
 England service, plain, honest, pertinent preaching and 
 utilization of the natural seasons, as well as the seasons 
 of the Church, and the simple flowers of the field, on 
 which, as His text, I could not help thinking how the 
 Divine Master Himself preached the greatest sermon of 
 all. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 TKE AECHBISHOP OF OANTEEBUEY. 
 
 By something very far beyond Ms artificial position as Primate 
 of AH England and Metropolitan, Dr Tait would, witli common 
 consent, take rank among our first living ecclesiastics. It would 
 indeed be an unbappy circumstance if this idgb position should 
 be filled either by an incompetent man or by one so far pledged 
 to any of the parties into which the Established Church is 
 divided, that he could possibly be suspected of lending the high 
 prestige of his ofiB.ce to the purposes of sectarianism. Dr Tait 
 is, vaguely enough, described as a Broad Churchman, but so 
 technical a meaning has that expression taken of late that to 
 apply it to the Archbishop of Oauterbuiy might be almost to 
 mislead. Dr Tait is certainly not a Broad Churchman in the 
 sense that Mr Haweis is ; scarcely so pronounced, perhaps, as 
 the Dean of Westminster, but rather what may be called — and 
 what his high oflBce especially requires him to be — a Liberal 
 Churchman. No doubt, when history comes to write her moral 
 on Dr Tait's episcopate and primacy the chief event on which 
 she will dwell will be the creation of the Bishop of London's 
 Fund for relieving the spiritual destitution of the metropolis, 
 and, possibly, the PubKc Worship Eegulation BiU, for defining 
 more clearly and securing the more complete carrying out of the 
 faith and practice of the Established Church. Of this measure 
 it would be premature to speak for the moment. The Arch- 
 bishop is not what would be called an ' attractive ' preacher, but 
 his discourses are scholarly and logical, and he can, when 
 occasion requires, lend them all the force and emphasis of real, 
 but sober eloquence. His Grace frequently preaches extempore, 
 or with a few notes. His speeches in the House of Lords and 
 the Upper House of Convocation are remarkable for their lucidity 
 of arrangement and clearness of delivery. 
 
 With regard to the Archbishop's antecedents, his Grace is the 
 son of Craufurd Tait, Esq., of Harviestown, Clackmannanshire, 
 
 29 
 
450 APPENDIX. 
 
 and was born in the year 1811. He was educated first at 
 Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities, and afterwards entered 
 at BaUiol College, Oxford, where he graduated First Class in 
 Classics for his B.A. in 1833. He successively took the degrees 
 of M.A. in 1836, D.C.L. in 1842, and D.D. in 1869. After being 
 for many years Fellow and Tutor of his college, he became 
 Head Master of Eugby, a post which he held from 1842 to 
 1849. He was Dean of Oarhsle from 1849 to 1856, and Bishop 
 of London from 1856 to 1868, when he was translated to 
 Canterbury. 
 
 It may be interesting to mention that the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, by virtue of his office, takes rank next after the 
 Princes of the Blood EoyaL The Archbishop's mitre consists of 
 a cap surmounted by a ducal coronet. 
 
 By something more than a coincidence perhaps it happens 
 that the Primate and the Bishop of London are both ex-peda- 
 gogues. This fact, which is apt to move the nairth of very 
 zealous ecclesiastics, may not be without significance in an age 
 which, above all others, retjuires scholastic precision and clear 
 business tact on the part of those who administer the highest 
 offices in the Church. The Episcopal bench can be no bed of 
 roses at the present moment ; and while there are diversities of 
 opinion among the bishops themselves, a firm hand and even 
 temper are requisite on the part of our modem Pontifex Maximus, 
 on whom the whole weight of the ecclesiastical edifice rests, and 
 it would be difficult to find an Atlas more equal to the task of 
 supporting it than Dr Archibald Campbell Tait. 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOP OF YOEK. 
 
 Following in natural and almost necessary sequence upon 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury comes the other Primate. It is 
 no Hibernioism to say so, although, etymologicaUy speaking, 
 such might appear to be the case. The Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury is Primate of all England ; the Archbishop of York Primate 
 of England. The highest authority in the Church of England 
 may be therefore said to be a dual one. Possibly the reason for 
 such an arrangement may be something akin to that which most 
 of us recoUect from our school days as the reason given by 
 Eutropius why there were two consuls appointed at Eome 
 instead of one king — ut, si unus malm esse voluisset, alter eum, 
 habens potestatem similem, coerceret. HappHy this rationale has 
 no pertinence at present. The two Archbishops are essentially 
 moderate men. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a worse 
 catastrophe for the Establishment than that either of its two 
 
APPENDIX. 451 
 
 most prominent men should be a theologian of extreme religious 
 opinions. 
 
 It is generally imagined that in questions of precedence the 
 Archbishop of York ranks next to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 but such is not the case. The Lord Chancellor comes between 
 them, perhaps to remind us that the Church of England is — at all 
 events for the present — a Church ' by law established,' as well as 
 deriving its succession from the Apostles. 
 
 Dr Thomson, the present Primate and Metropolitan of our 
 northern province, was translated to his high position in the year 
 1863, having previously administered the diocese of Gloucester 
 
 and Bristol for two' years. The foUomng are his antecedents : 
 
 He was the son of John Thomson, Esq., J.P., of Whitehaven; 
 born in 1819, and educated at Shrewsbury and Queen's College, 
 Oxford, to widch seat of learning he would, as a Cumberland man, 
 naturalljr gravitate. He took his B.A. in 1840, when his name 
 appears in the third class in Literis Humaniorihus for Easter 
 Term, the well-known title of Mr J. A. Fronde standing on the 
 same list, with N. GrresweU and W. B. Greg among the examiners. 
 He graduated successively M.A. in 1842, and D.D. in 1853, and 
 was, in due gradation, fellow, tutor, and provost of his college. 
 Dr Thomson was Preacher at Lincoln's Inn from 1858 to 1861 ; 
 Eector of All Souls', Marylebone — popularly known as the ' ex- 
 tinguisher' church — in 1855; Chaplain to the Queen, 1860-61; 
 and Bampton Lecturer at Oxford in 1853. This weU-merited 
 series of honours — academical and ecclesiastical — naturally cul- 
 minated in his elevation to the episcopal bench in 1861. In this 
 influential position his Grace is patron of ninety-six livings, three 
 archdeaconries, together with the dignities of York Minster. In 
 the returns quoted by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, under 
 date 1835, the net income of the two archbishoprics was set down 
 as — Canterbury, £19,182. ; York, £12,629. ; but by recent legisla- 
 tion the revenues are iixed at £15,000 and £10,000 per annum 
 respectively. His Grace, it should be added, is a family man in the 
 fullest sense of the word, having married in 1855 Zoe, daughter 
 of J. H. Skene, Esq., British Consul at Aleppo, by whom he has 
 issue three sons and four daughters. Ascetic theologians make 
 merry over the titles of ' Mrs Archbishop ' and ' the Misses and 
 Masters Archbishop,' but to us the honoured consort and the 
 prelatic quiverful seem rather to betoken the very genius of the 
 Church of England, which finds its embodiment in the Cana 
 Marriage Feast, rather than in the Hebron Desert of old. 
 
 Dr Thomson, indeed, may be aptly taken to exemplify the 
 honhomie and ripe scholarship of the EstabHshment, just as Dr 
 Tait embodies its theological breadth and comprehensiveness. 
 The northern Primate is an eloquent preacher and a flu'ent 
 speaker, while his. scholarly procKvities may be gathered from 
 the fact that he adds to his academic titles the coveted initials 
 F.E.S., F.E.G.S. He was appointed President of the Yorkshire 
 Philosophical Society in 1865. 
 
452 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Ardibistop's palace is at Bishopsthorpe, York, and his 
 town residence at 38, Queen's Gate, S.W. Those who wordd form 
 a personal acquaintance with the archiepisoopEtl style of eloquence 
 have no difficulty during the season in finding Dr Thomson's 
 name in the list of announcements given by the Saturday papers. 
 From the frequency of its recurrence it may safely be augured 
 that his Grace knows how to make a successful appeal, and finds 
 Ids list of Sunday engagements proportionately full. 
 
 THE BISHOP OF LONDON.* 
 
 The Eight Eev. Dr John Jackson, Bishop of London, was born 
 1811 , and was educated at Reading and Pembroke College, Oxford, 
 where he took his B.A. as First Class in classics 1833, M.A. 1836, 
 D.D. 1 853. He was for some years Head Master of the Islington 
 School , then Incumbent of St James, MusweU HUl, Eector of St 
 James, Westminster, Canon of Bristol, and was consecrated 86th 
 Bishop of Lincoln 1853, and translated as Bishop of London 1869. 
 He married Mary Annie Frith, youngest daughter of Henry 
 Browell, Esq., of Kentish Town ; she died in 1874. The Bishop 
 is father of eleven daughters, the majority of whom are married 
 to clergymen. 
 
 BISHOP OF BATH AND "WELLS. 
 
 The Eight Hon. and Eight Eev. Lord Arthur Charles Hervey, 
 D.D., is the son of the 1st Marquis of Bristol. He was bom 
 1808, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 After having been Eector of Ickworth and of Horningsheath and 
 Archdeacon of Sudbury, he was consecrated Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells in 1869. Lord Hervey may be ranked among liberal pre- 
 lates, being; able to sympathize with bpth members of the High 
 and Low Church party. The Bishop is a ripe scholar and a con- 
 tributor to Dr Smith's Bible Dictionary. 
 
 * 'Several of the facts in these shorter .notices are derived from the Rev. F. 
 Arnold's work, * Our Bishops and Deans.' 
 
APPENDIX, 453 
 
 THE BISHOP OP ELY. 
 
 Dr Woodford was born 1820, and from Mercliant Taylors' 
 passed to Pembroke OoUege, Cambridge. After a brilliant tmi- 
 versity career, he having been Senior Optime and second class 
 Classical Tripos 1842, he became Perpetual Curate of St Saviour's, 
 Coal Pit Heath, and eventually Vicar of the large and influential 
 parish of Leeds. He was for some time Preacher before the 
 University of Cambridge, and a Chaplain to the Queen. He was 
 Examining Chaplain to Bishop Wilberforce both at Oxford and 
 Winchester, and must ever be regarded as the pupil and follower 
 of that prelate. Dr Woodford was created Bishop of Ely, 1873. 
 
 THE BISHOP OE CHICHESTER 
 
 The Bishopric of Chichester, which, by the way, is the smallest 
 of all the English dioceses, its extent being limited to a single 
 English county, was founded in the Isle of Selsey in 680 by 
 Wilfred Archbishop of York. The seat of the Bishopric was 
 removed by Stigand to Chichester in 1071, was in 1870 conferred 
 on the aged Dr Dumford by Mr Gladstone. The Church Congress 
 of 1874 being held at Brighton, the Bishop was its President. 
 
 THE BISHOP OE MANCHESTER. 
 
 This prelate is the son of James Eraser, Esq., of Heavitree, 
 Devon, and was educated at Shrewsbury. He is an instance of 
 the scholars that were produced at that college under the old 
 regime. Erom Shrewsbury he proceeded to Pembroke College, 
 Oxford, and for many years occupied the position of country 
 parson, ' a time,' as he said at a Church Congress, ' where he 
 spent some of the happiest years of his life.' * The Bishop's line 
 is decidedly the popular one. He is always ready to act as the 
 poor man's friend, and has in many instances been chosen arbi- 
 trator in trade disputes. Perhaps no better idea of his liberality 
 
 * He was afterwards Prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, Cbaplain to the Bishop 
 of Salisbury, and was appointed Select Preacher at Oxford University, 1852—4, and 
 was consecrated second Bishop of Manchester, 1870. 
 
454 APPENDIX. 
 
 can be gathered tlian from Us preface to his University Sermons, 
 in which he says, ' We ought to be able to see that there are other 
 points of view from which religious questions may be regarded, 
 other aims with which schemes of practical usefulness may be 
 advocated, than what are so insidiously and offensively called 
 either Tractarian or Evangelical. All really good and earnest 
 hearts among us are yearning for peace.' Bishop Fraser is un- 
 married. 
 
 BISHOP OF LINCOLN. 
 
 Dr Wordsworth, the present Bishop of Lincoln, is nephew to 
 the great poet. He was born in 1807, and is third son of Ohristo- 
 pher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity. He was educated at Win- 
 chester and Trinity CoUege, where he seems to have carried off 
 almost all the prizes worth having ; and was first on the Mathe- 
 matical Tripos of 1830. He was Public Orator at Cambridge, and 
 in 1836 beoaine Head Master of Harrow, which he vacated in 
 1844, and was succeeded by Dr Vaughan, the present Master of 
 the Temple. He then became Canon of Westminster and Vicar 
 of Stamford-in-the-Vale. Having previously been offered and 
 refused the Bishopric of Gibraltar, he was, under Mr Disraeli's 
 Government, in 1869, made Bishop of Liucoln. Dr Wordsworth 
 may fairly rank as one of the finest scholars of our day. 
 
 BISHOP OF OXFOED. 
 
 Dr Mackamess, son of John Mackarness, Esq., of Bath, was 
 bom 1820, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. 
 He was Vicar of Tardebigge, Worcestershire ; Eector of Honiton, 
 Inspector of Schools, and Head Master of the Grammar School, 
 Honiton ; Hon. Canon of Worcester, and Prebendary of Exeter 
 Cathedral. In 1870 he was consecrated Bishop of Oxford. He 
 has the reputation of doing his work faithfully and well iu his 
 diocese, and of bestowing preferment in return for good service 
 rendered to the Church. Oxford was constituted a bishopric by 
 Henry VIII. out of the lands of the dissolved monasteries of 
 Disney and Abingdon, but Elizabeth deprived it of many of the 
 emoluments given by her father. 
 
APPENDIX. 455 
 
 THE BISHOP OF EIPON. 
 
 Dr Bickerstetli, son of the late Eev. J. Biokerstetli, was born at 
 Acton, in Suffolk, in 1816. Though intended by his father for the 
 medical profession, he changed his plans and went to Queen's 
 College, Cambridge, and, after his ordination, became curate to 
 his father at Sapcote. He was for some time Incumbent of St 
 John's, Clapham Eise, and afterwards held the important lining 
 of St Giles' in the Fields, and was consecrated second Bishop of 
 Eipon in 1857. Dr Bickersteth may well be described as a great 
 preaching prelate, often preaching three sermons a day in different 
 churches of his diocese. The bishopric of Eipon was founded in 
 Saxon times, but was afterwards taken with York, and it was 
 only as late as 1836 that it was reconstituted a separate diocese. 
 
 DEAN GOULBTJEN. 
 
 Dean Goulburn belongs to a family of which many members 
 have gained high literary renown. His father, who has not long 
 since died, was a Judge in Bankruptcy, and was deservedly 
 esteemed for the integrity with which he performed his duties. 
 The Dean was educated at Eton and BaUiol College, Oxford, and 
 became Fellow and Tutor of Melton. After his ordination he was 
 presented to the Incumbency of Holywell, Oxford. In 1850 he 
 succeeded Dr Tait as Head Master of Eugby, and during the time 
 he presided over the school evinced the greatest anxiety for the 
 well-being of those committed to his care, but at the same time 
 he appears to have felt the active life of church work m.ore con- 
 genial to his taste than that of schoolmaster, and on Mr Alford 
 vacating Quebec Chapel for the Deanery of Canterbury, he 
 accepted that charge, which he soon exchanged for St John's, 
 Paddington. Dr Goulburn is not a great orator, but he possesses 
 the gift of a wonderful charm of manner, which, combined with 
 his great scholarship, wonderful command of language and clear- 
 ness of enunciation, never fail to gather a large congregation 
 round him. 
 
 CANON LIDDON. 
 
 We are apt to imagine, when a contrast is instituted between a 
 Eoman and an Anglican ecclesiastic, that an air of mystery and 
 inaccessibility will surround the latter which will have no existence 
 in the sphere filled by the former. The atmosphere in which the 
 
456 APPENDIX. 
 
 Roman Catholic priest lives is supposed to be redolent of incense 
 and tinted with the hues of storied -windows, while that of the 
 Church of England ' parson ' is the free air of outdoor existence, 
 chequered only with those lights and shadows which are incidental 
 to all our surroundings. In the case of the two divines who have 
 lately been engaged in a controversy second only to that between 
 our ex-Premier and the Pope, the poles of this contrast are 
 entirely reversed. Bach is constituted by this circumstance an 
 exceptional man in Ms special walk of life. Monsignor Capel 
 has elected to emerge from the learned retirement which charac- 
 terized the earlier portion of his career. He has, no doubt for 
 his own special purpose, , constituted himself an ecclesiastical 
 Ulysses, seeing the cities of many men and learning their cus- 
 toms, more especially that one particular class of men who, 
 according to him, stand on the very borderland of Eome, and some- 
 times set foot incontinently over the dim frontier-line ; while 
 Canon Liddon — less, perhaps, with any far-reaching purpose than 
 by force of natural disposition and the bias of early circumstances 
 ■ — has led, since the date of his graduation in 1850, a purely 
 academical life, which critics looking from the stand-point of 
 merry Eosalind, might be inclined to set down in her category of 
 the ' merely monastic' There is little to chronicle in a life so 
 cloistered. In fact — by a not uncommon process of Nature — the 
 bent of these two minds is written in the physiognomy. Without 
 being a Lavater, one could read in the features of Monsignor 
 Capel corroborative evidence as to his being the prototype of the 
 courtly Monsignor Catesby, iu ' Lothair.' Canon Liddon's face, 
 as seen iu his staU at St Paul's Cathedral, or from the pulpit under 
 the dome whence he addresses those vast congregations for whom 
 there is not room in the choir, is that of a monk by Pra Angelico. 
 Henry Parry Liddon is the son of the late Captain Liddon, E.N., 
 who accompanied Sir W. E. Parry to the North Pole in 1819-20 
 as commander of the Chiper. Scholarly and studious from boy- 
 hood, he took his B.A. second class in Literis Humanioribus in 
 1850, and successively obtained the positions of student of Christ 
 Church; Johnson Theological Scholar, 1851; M.A., 1853. He 
 was ordained deacon and priest in 1852-53 respectively, and on 
 each occasion by the Bishop of Oxford. In fact — as Canon 
 Liddon himself observes — his life has been almost spent in Oxford. 
 In the pages of the Oxford Calendar and the catalogues of Messrs 
 Eivingtons' books lie the chief items of his uneventful biography. 
 He is Ireland Professor of Exegesis, and was appointed a member 
 of the Hebdomadal Council in 1866. Extending the radius 
 one degree from the Alma Mater of this most constant student, 
 we find him appointed Canon Eesidentiary of St Paul's in 1870 ; 
 an arrangement which, while it has given a somewhat ' High 
 tone to a capitular body not wont to indulge in extremes, has also 
 recommended itself by going far towards restoring the ancient 
 glories of Paul's Cross. Canon Liddon is as essentially the 
 
APPENDIX. 457 
 
 preacter as tte student. The list of his -works — mostly sermons 
 — fills no less than seventeen pages in the foUo catalogue of the 
 British Museum. The other positions external to Oxford which 
 he has fiUed have been those of Vice-Principal of the Ouddesdon 
 Theological College, and Examining Chaplain to the late Bishop 
 of Salisbury. In 1866 he -was Bampton lecturer ; and the follow- 
 ing year saw the publication of has lectures in a volume which 
 gave rise to much controversy, entitled ' The Divinity of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ.' The seventh chapter of ' that remark- 
 able but saddening work,' Professor P. W. Newman's ' Phases of 
 Faith,' yielded the analysis which was expanded into these 
 lectures. Quoting the words of a thoughtful friend in his preface 
 to the second edition of this work. Canon Liddon says : — ' In the 
 seventh chapter of the "Phases of Faith " there is the satisfaction 
 of feeling that one has reached the floor of Pandemonium, and 
 that a rebound has become almost inevitable. Aoything is better 
 than to be sinking still, one knows not how deeply, into the abyss. 
 At the feet of the Christ of the Q-ospels, ' adds the lecturer in his own 
 words, ' the moral sense may be trusted to protest against an in- 
 tellectual aberration which condemns Him as vain and false and 
 selfish, only that it may rob Him of His aureole of Divinity.' 
 ' The great question of our day,' he concludes, ' is whether Christ 
 our Lord is only .the author and founder of a religion of which 
 another Being, altogether separate from him — ^namely, God, is the 
 Object ; or whether Jesus Christ Himself, true God and true Man, 
 is, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, the 'Object of Christian 
 faith and love as truly as, in history. He was the founder of 
 Christendom. Come what may, the latter belief has been, is, and 
 
 ,will be to the end, the faith of His Church It is really a 
 
 choice between a phantom and a reality — between the implied 
 falsehood and the eternal truth of Christianity.' Incidentally the 
 lectures glance at Eeuan and Strauss, and even at 'Ecce Homo,' 
 though frankly putting forward Mr Gladstone's defence of that 
 now historic volume. In the introduction to the earliest edition 
 the Canon quoted appositely the woYds of Augustine : ' Quisquis 
 hssc legit, ubi pariter certus est, pergat mecum; ubi pariter 
 hsesitat, quserat meoum ; ubi errorem suum cognoscit redeat ad 
 me ; ubi meum, revocet me. Ita ingrediamur simul charitatis 
 iram, tendentes ad Eum de Giuo dictum est, Quserite Faciem Ejus 
 semper.' In the present — or, it might almost be written, the past 
 — ephemeral controversy waged with Monsignor Capel in the un- 
 congenial columns of the Times* Canon Liddon chivalrously 
 rebuts the accusation brought by Monsignor Capel that the 
 ' Puseyites ' (if that term be not obsolete) were disseminating 
 
 * Ttie celebrated Capel-Liddon controversy iu the Titties gave occasion for the 
 accompanying biographical sketch, and for the corresponding one of Monsignor 
 Capel in * Unorthodox London,' Series II. They were written in connection with 
 portraits of these two divines which appeared in the Pictorial World. A sermon 
 of Canon Liddon's is also given in the first series of this work, pages 74 et seq. 
 
458 APPENDIX. 
 
 Eoman doctrine. The plain truth, seems to be that the party has 
 outgrown its appellation, and neither Monsignor Capel nor Canon 
 Liddon has quite kept pace with the rapid development of thought 
 in ' High ' latitudes, or the former may have narrowed his 
 strictures more cautiously to the Eitualists, and the Canon been 
 spared the necessity of taking up the cudgels for a party with 
 whose excesses he fails to sj'mpathize, though able to advance 
 with individuals to a certaia point on their Excelsior route. It is 
 thus he expresses himself in a personal communication to the 
 writer of this narrative : — ' I should not have entered upon a dis- 
 cussion with Monsignor Capel unless I had understood him to 
 imply that, together with others whom he named, I was personally 
 teaching Eoman doctrines. The line of demarcation between what 
 is popularly known as High Church doctrine (in other words, the 
 historical and obvious sense of the Sacramental and Occasional 
 Services in the Book of Common Prayer) on the one side, and 
 Eoman doctrine on the other, appears to me to be a sufficiently 
 distinct one. Monsignor Capel certainly succeeded in producing 
 quotations from certain devotional works of which I had never 
 before heard — which I was obliged to confess transgressed the 
 limits which, to my mind, loyalty to the English Church formularies 
 would prescribe for her ministers. But he also used language 
 which seemed to imply that doctrines taught or sanctioned by the 
 Prayer Book were distinctly Eoman doctrines ; and I was un- 
 willing to allow that the ' Eitualist ' writers whom he quoted were 
 disloyal to the Church of England to the extent which he implied. 
 Their sayings, however, belonged to the second stage of the con- 
 troversy, and had nothing to do with the motives which led me to 
 write; in the first instance, to the Times' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 JOHN CHILES AND SON, PRINTERS.