IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
JAMES ADDERLEY, 1916.
Frontispiece.
IN SLUMS AND
SOCIETY
REMINISCENCES OF OLD FRIENDS
BY
JAMES ADDERLEY
Hon. Canon of Birmingham
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE
First published in 1916
(All rights reserved]
AUTHOR'S NOTE
THE author wishes to acknowledge the kind-
ness of the Editors of Everyman, Ecclesia^ and
the Christian Commonwealth for allowing him
to make use of portions of articles by him
which have appeared in their publications.
344533
CONTENTS
PAGE
ECCLESIASTICAL ...... 9
First experience of Church work On cribbing sermons
Robert Eyton St. Alphege, Southwark Evangelical
Catholicism " The Bitter Cry of Outcast London"
Bethnal Green Cosmo Gordon Lang Dr. King
Francis Paget Canon Scott Holland Philip Waggett
Dr. Liddon Toynbee Hall Canon Barnett Oxford
House Archbishop Benson Herbert Hensley Henson
Bishop Walsham How Frederick Temple My first
and only curacy Henry Bodley Bromby The Christ
Church Mission Luke Paget Dr. Mason Brother-
hoods Father Benson Basil Maturin Father Ignatius
Caldey Berkeley Chapel Dr. Percy Dearmer
" Spikes " Plainsong Hyde Park preaching Bishop
Creighton Bishop Ingram Bob Dolling Dr. Westcott
Canon Knox Little St. Mark's, Marylebone Road
"Critical Questions" Dr. Inge "Ballad of London
Town " Saltley Bishop Gore Nonconformist friends
Dr. Dale R. J. Campbell Honorary Canonry
Anonymous Letters.
II
DRAMATIC . .136
Dramatic tastes Hams Hall theatricals Oxford The
Philothespians Jowett and the O.U.D.S. Arthur Bour-
chier Frank Benson Sir Henry Irving and others
"Windsor Strollers " and "Old Stagers" Religion and
the Drama.
Ill
LITERARY . . .168
Tract-writing "Stephen Remarx " My other books
Goodwill Hall Caine Oscar Wilde G. K. Chesterton
Punch Amateur authors Clerical literature Sermons
George Russell.
7
8 CONTENTS
IV
PAGE
SOCIALIST . . . . . -193
My father Gladstone and Disraeli Ben Tillett -The
great Dock strike Charles Marson Shuttleworth and
Headlam Mr. Bradlaugh The Christian Social Union
The Church Socialist League Tom Mann John Burns
Keir Hardie Robert Blatchford G. B. Shaw George
Lansbury The Suffragettes Socialism and the War
OPINIONS . . . . . . 225
The opinions of clergy " The gloomy Dean " and the
Socialist clergy Christian objections to Socialism con-
sidered The Church and everyday life Religious edu-
cation Sabbatarianism The Continental Sunday.
VI
CHESTNUTS . . . . . .270
War anecdotes Bishop Billing Bishop Blomfield's wit
Father Noel Father Stanton Extempore effusions
Unconscious humour Funny mistakes Pulpit stories
Irish chestnuts Whatelyand Trench Irish and Scottish
stories American wit Prayer Book chestnuts.
INDEX
299
ILLUSTRATIONS
JAMES ADDERLEY, 1916 . . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
SIX HEADS OF OXFORD HOUSE . . . . 6l
OUR LAST APPEARANCE TOGETHER ON THE STAGE . 145
JAMES ADDERLEY, 1889 .... 197
IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
ECCLESIASTICAL
First experience of Church work On cribbing sermons
Robert Eyton St. Alphege, Southwark Evangelical
Catholicism "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London"
Bethnal Green Cosmo Gordon Lang Dr. King
Francis Paget Canon Scott Holland Philip Waggett
Dr. Liddon Toynbee Hall Canon Barnett Oxford
House Archbishop Benson Herbert Hensley Henson
Bishop Walsham How Frederick Temple My first
and only curacy Henry Bodley Bromby The Christ
Church Mission Luke Paget Dr. Mason Brother-
hoods Father Benson Basil Maturin Father Ignatius
Caldey Berkeley Chapel Dr. Percy Dearmer
" Spikes " Plainsong Hyde Park preaching Bishop
Creighton Bishop Ingram Bob Dolling Dr. Westcott
Canon Knox Little St. Mark's, Marylebone Road
"Critical Questions" Dr. Inge " Ballad of London
Town " Saltley Bishop Gore Nonconformist friends
Dr. Dale R. J. Campbell Honorary Canonry
Anonymous Letters.
I MUST crave the reader's indulgence and ask
him not to think that, by putting my story in
the first person, I want to claim any self-im-
10 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
portar.ce in the Church. I am and always shall
have been what Dean Farrar (speaking of a
newly made bishop) once called " a third-rate
ecclesiastic." Like the late Lord Lyttelton,
41 I go third-class because there is no fourth."
I want to call attention, not to myself, but
to the various people I have met (and I have
met a good many) in the Church. At the
same time, I must perforce intrude some of my
opinions on 1 the reader, or he will find himself
drowned in an unintelligible hotchpotch of
words.
My first experience of Church work was
under Father Goulden, of St. Alphege,
South wark. Living alone in London, I used
to wonder to myself what I could do for the
Church, which I always loved, long before
I thought of taking Orders. When quite a
little boy I had made up my mind that I could
not be a parson because I should never be
able to learn to give the Blessing at the end of
the service without a book ! I admired my
two brothers who were going to be ordained,
but did not think I could ever emulate them.
It was Robert Eyton, with his wonderful
sermons at St. Mary's, Graham Street, who
converted me to a practical Christianity. His
sermons, by the way, were (what is called)
" cribbed " from Frederick Denison Maurice,
Mason, and Holland, but they were very
ECCLESIASTICAL 11
wonderful all the same. I am quite sure that
it is possible to crib sermons and be very
" original " at the same time. Other instances
of this were Father Maturin's sermons, which
were mostly from Phillips Brooks, and Bob
Boiling's, which were mostly Mr. Osborne's.
These men took the leading thought from
some other preacher, even sometimes the
skeleton of the sermon, but made it their
own in a very different sense to that in
which a thief makes your watch his own.
While I am on the subject of cribbing
sermons I must refer to the pathetic story
of the Lord Mayor who was caught doing
it. He addressed a large audience on Sunday
morning at the Polytechnic. What must have
been his feelings on the following morning
when the Daily Chronicle set his sermon
out in parallel columns with one of Mr.
Spurgeon's ? Parts of it were, if I remember
aright, word for word the same. He got out
of the mess somehow. There is a still more
famous case of a celebrated preacher who pub-
lished a sermon with the queer text " And
Gashmu saith it." Of course anybody who had
read Dr. Talmage's sermon on the same text
would naturally compare the two. Many
people did this. Comment, as they say, is
needless. I may take this opportunity to
correct an impression derived from another
12 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
sermon by this same preacher. It was a
sermon on the death of the late Duke of
Clarence. On the frontispiece (I think) the
writer quotes the hymn-
Fling open wide the golden gates
And let the victors in.
Unkind gossips, wanting to make a good story,
declare that he printed these words thus
And let the Victor in.
It was not so.
Dr. Liddon's sermons are very easily
cribbed. They are so perfectly arranged and
so lucid that any parson may be forgiven, I
think, for having a try. In connexion with
this I remember a Cowley Father (now a
Bishop) telling me a good story. He was to
preach at Sunday evensong at St. Paul's and
it was St. John the Baptist's Day. I suppose
he had been reading one of Liddon's sermons
on the subject, and he preached it in his own
way (a very good 1 way, I may mention, for
he was himself a first-rate man). Now, Liddon
had been preaching in the afternoon and, as
luck would have it, had preached his old pub-
lished sermon. Somebody kindly informed
my friend of this as they sat down to supper.
The Cowley Father thought he had better
confess at once to Liddon, which he did. It
ECCLESIASTICAL 13
drew forth from the great preacher one of those
delightful sentences which he always delivered
with a twinkle of the eye : " Dear friend, it
is a pleasure in these days to hear two clergy-
men saying the same thing."
I remember, too, Dr. Gore making us feel
a little uncomfortable once in a retreat, when
he dryly remarked that on many of our sermons
we could only make this reflection, " Alas !
master, for it was borrowed."
Personally, I have found it a good plan (to
save the gnawings of conscience) to confess
openly when one hears a good sermon : " Look
here I tell you plainly, I am going to crib
that." I have even been honoured by having
had my own sermons cribbed. This was
brought home to me somewhat cruelly once.
A very dear friend of mine, one of the best
preachers I have ever heard, but a very humble
person, was in the habit of jotting down notes
of what I said when we took missions together.
These he used to fire off in his own parish
when he got home to Yorkshire. He once
asked me to spend a Sunday with him and
preach to his people. I did my best for him,
but when his rough north countrymen were
asked what they thought of my sermons, they
replied : ' Why, he's nowt but ! " (men-
tioning the parson's name). They had heard
all my best epigrams before !
14 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
This has been a long digression. I was
writing of Robert Eyton. It was for him that
I did my first bit of district visiting. He had
appealed for help in this way, and I answered
him by putting myself at his disposal. I shall
never forget the terror I experienced when I
first knocked at the doors in Pimlico to ask
people to come to church. It is a little con-
fusing when a woman looks out of the top
window and shouts : " Well, young man, and
what do you want?" Canon Barnett used to
hold that we had no right to force ourselves
into people's houses in this way. I suppose
the parish clergy must do it, but ought the
laity to do so? Certainly in well-to-do quarters
it must be very difficult. In the West London
Mission a curate was ushered into the midst
of a select circle of ladies and gentlemen, and
began at once, " Do you have family prayers? "
Bishop Wilkinson (when Vicar of St. Peter's,
Eaton Square) is said to have insisted on his
curates visiting the rich, and I remember hear-
ing how the good Father Mackonochie once
felt it incumbent on him (this is not a pun)
to storm the shops and warehouses in St.
Alban's parish. It may be brave work,
but it is certainly very difficult. Nobody
would like doing it. Yet we clergy should
ask ourselves, Why, if we feel no com-
punction in behaving like this in a poor
ECCLESIASTICAL 15
man's house, should we shrink from it in
Belgravia ?
My first district visiting was a failure. I
then boldly wrote to Father Goulden and
offered to work for him. I had read his
famous " Red Book," describing the wonders
of St. Alphege's. It was certainly a terrible
parish in those days. The Father had no
mercy on the neophytes among his Church
workers. He simply planted me down in
charge of a rough boys' club and told me to
"manage" it. Honestly, I was terrified by
those boys, and I know that I did them no
good whatever. I could not keep any order
amongst them. How could I, straight from
Christ Church? It would have been like pro-
posing to read a tract at a Bullingdon dinner.
I simply hated those evenings as they came
round week by week. But I learnt much that
has served me in good stead in after-years.
For one thing it was from dear Father Goulden
that I learnt to combine the best in Evangelical
religion with the best in Catholicism, or rather
to know that they are not two religions, but
one, if rightly understood. This Evangelical
Catholicism of Father Goulden's is the greatest
power still for bringing Christians together.
You find evidence of this in the life and work
of all the most successful " Ritualists " such
as Stanton, Dolling, and George Russell.
16 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
While militant Protestants are wasting their
time in inveighing against the Mass and the
Confessional, the Evangelical Catholic is
showing the earnest Evangelicals among the
Nonconformists that he is after the conversion
of souls, and that the confessional is only the
penitent form in another guise, while the
" Mass " is the great Gospel service and far
more Evangelical than Matins. The Noncon-
formists learn this more quickly than the " Low
Churchmen," and that is why they are adopt-
ing and adapting Catholic liturgies for use in
chapels while the others are still fighting to
preserve Matins.
Goulden was called a Methodist. I have
been called the same by the editor of
" Who's Who " or the " Daily Mail Year
Book" (I forget which). It was Goulden
who made me this. I thank his memory
for it. It has always kept me in charity
with Nonconformists. " Love conquers all "
is most true in Christian work. The hap-
piest moments of my life have been when
I have been able to preach in chapels and
otherwise fraternize with the Free Churches.
Then came the great turning-point in my
career. " The Bitter Cry of Outcast London,"
written by a Nonconformist minister (who
ought to be canonized), had successfully
directed the attention of the West End to the
ECCLESIASTICAL 17
East. The Universities were aroused, and,
whereas up to the year 1883 vou could count
on your fingers the names of men, like Edward
Denison, who had studied the social question
on the spot and lived among the people, after
that time it became the commonest thing in
the world for both " ladies and gentlemen "
to explore East London. Toynbee Hall was
started, and very soon in its wake came the
Oxford House. I wrote boldly to my dear
friend Henry Scott Holland, and said that
I should like to go there (though my father
was old-fashioned enough not to like the idea).
I remember going to ask Holland for his
advice, and the beautiful prayer he offered up
for me to Him " who was always loyal to the
Father." For another reason that interview
is impressed upon my mind. It was then that
I met Charles Gore for the first time.
Oxford House has been so often described
that it is hardly necessary to do this again.
But it may be worth mentioning that in those
early days it was not the grand place it is
now. Those were primitive times, when an
Oxford don (now Bishop of Truro) could be
seen carrying his bath across the road to his
diggings in the "Buildings."
On my first night in Bethnal Green there
was no room for me in the house, and I re-
member laughing with my brother over the
2
18 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
quarters in Cheshire Street where I was
billeted. The House itself was only an old
schoolroom of St. Andrew's parish. On the
upstairs floor we partitioned off some cubicles
and made a sitting-room where we used to
shiver over a stove on winter nights. The
leading spirits of the place at that time were
Douglas Eyre (who has kept up his connection
with the House longer than any of us) ; Rev.
W. E. Jackson, our first Secretary, one of
the most patient and good-humoured men I
ever met ; and Knight Bruce, the Vicar, who
afterwards became Bishop of Bloemfontein and
Mashonaland in succession, and died early in
his career. He was a splendid fellow of the
type of Charles Kingsley (whose memory he
worshipped), and under whom I was taught
to worship three other great names Westcott,
Creighton, and Benson. Knight Bruce had a
quaint way of referring to Benson as " the
Archbishop who, with the exception of the
present company (consisting of oneself, and
perhaps two or three other numskulls), is the
man with the greatest brains in England."
" Garn with you ! " is what I always felt in-
clined to respond. When Jackson left us I
was chosen Head of the House, really (this
without any mock modesty) because there was
nobody else in the place who could devote
the time to it. And I could only give my even-
ECCLESIASTICAL 19
ings, for I was working all day at a solicitor's
office . i i
I have always found that the various places
for which I have worked have taught me much
more than I ever taught others therein. This
was certainly true of Oxford House. We had
a very happy time and I formed some lasting
friendships. Frederick Seawell and Philip
Moor and William Campion (the pioneers of
Oxford House) were cut off by death, but
Herbert Hensley Henson and Cosmo Gordon
Lang and many others I got to know then,
and those two, as we all know, are still very
much alive. I always flatter myself that I
had something to do with the shaping of the
careers of those two men. I think I started
Henson on his combative career by sending
him one Sunday evening to answer G. W.
Foote at the Hall of Science on " Christianity
and Slavery." I could not go myself, but
I fancy that Foote met his equal in the young
Fellow of All Souls on that occasion. 'Henson,
having tasted blood, took to fighting the Secu-
larists, who at that time were a real power in
East London, and he led another famous debate
in Oxford Hall, where everybody agreed that
he came off the conqueror. He has continued
to fight everybody in turn since Dissenters,
Church Army, Salvation Army, High Church
Bishops, Christian Socialists, Army chaplains.
20 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Whether he is as successful in his attacks as
he was when he fought Mr. Foote I will not
say here.
In the case of Lang it was on this wise. I
started the Sunday Afternoon Lectures for Men,
which have gone on ever since, and have done
a vast amount of good. Dr. Bright gave the
first ; Lang, who was then a student for the
Bar and residing at Toynbee Hall, gave the
second. I was so much impressed by his
power that I wrote afterwards to him and asked
him (though he was a Presbyterian) to give
some addresses to men in one of our mission-
halls. He used to say that it was that which
set him thinking, and eventually caused him
(I do not say it was the only cause !) to join
the Church of England and prepare for Holy
Orders. Little did I think that not many
years later I should be with him at Portsea
a few days after he had received the King's
call to be a Bishop. He was soon afterwards
confirmed and ordained. I suppose it is unique
for a man to be admitted into the Church's
fellowship and then become an Archbishop
within about twenty years. Oxford was de-
termined to have him back, and he was made
Dean of Magdalen. It was then, and when
he became Vicar of St. Mary's, that he did
so good a work among undergraduates.
His life of the undergraduate Balfour is
ECCLESIASTICAL 21
a delightful story of a modern saint who
owed much to the influence of the Vicar
of St. Mary's, and who was not without
his effect on Lang himself. The Arch-
bishop has been fortunate in getting into
touch with every phase of life, from the
society of Oxford Blues, amateur actors, semp-
stresses, and curates up to the Throne itself.
Dr. Lang's friendship with the late Queen is
well known, as also the conversation in which,
when Her Majesty suggested his taking to
himself a wife, he replied that he could get
rid of any of his sixteen curates whenever
he wished, whereas he could never get rid of
one wife. His acquaintance with Royalty
never made him obsequious. On a certain
occasion when he had to preach before the
present King (then the Duke of York), and
he had been told that the Duke did not like
missionary sermons, he took good care to
preach him one about foreign mission work.
His vicariate at Portsea was as noteworthy
as all his efforts have been. Mr. Lang would
have a blackboard in the pulpit and teach the
congregation like children without making
them think that they were being treated as
such. His Sunday Lectures to men were
different from the vapid rubbish that is ordi-
narily associated with P.S.A.'s. Those who
were present at the last meeting at Portsea
22 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
will remember how he gathered up into one
address all he had tried to teach during his
three years how he had led them on, by means
of biographical lectures about " Great Men of
the Victorian Era/' to understand what a
wonderful century the nineteenth century was,
and how much we had all learnt from men
of science, poets, painters, and theologians.
There was only one of the sixteen curates
allowed to take the Vicar's place, and that
was Cyril Garbett, who is now in his master's
place, and still gathers a thousand men to
hear him every Sunday. But Portsea could
not contain this young spirit for long, and
when Bishop Ingram was appointed to London
it was felt certain that Lang would go to
Stepney. Lord Salisbury sent the letter by
mistake to " Southport " (a mixture of South-
sea and Landport), and considerable delay en-
sued in making known the King's offer. It
would be attributing affectation to him to say
that he was not pleased. There are some men
who cannot help knowing that they are meant
to be leaders, and Lang knew that God was
using these human authorities to call him to
the Episcopate. And splendidly (yes, that is
exactly the word) he rilled the office of East
End Bishop. Back again in the place where
he had first found the joy of the Catholic
religion, it is not surprising that he did well
ECCLESIASTICAL 23
for the Church. He was just the man to work
with the Bishop of London. More highly
gifted intellectually, more dignified, he just
contributed to the diocese that element which
was needed. There were East London work-
ing-men who preferred the dignity of Dr. Lang
to the bonhomie of the Bishop of London.
There were West Enders who liked to hear Dr.
Ingram's stories of Bethnal Green better than
the Bishop of Stepney's apologetics in the
aristocratic churches.
Dr. Lang is one of the few who can preach
a really good sermon. His sermons are in-
tensely practical and intelligible, really eloquent
and well composed. His exposition of Scrip-
ture is unrivalled, except perhaps by Dr. Mason
and Dr. Scott Holland. He owes this power
to his Presbyterian training, for none knows
so well as the Scotsman how to expound.
He is a real orator, as those who listened to
his maiden speech in the House of Lords, in
defence of the Budget, remember. Noble lords
shook their heads and murmured something
about " youth " and " obvious fallacies " (the
present writer heard them in the Lobby), but
could not deny that a new orator had arisen
in their midst.
Yet it was in his Budget speech that one
also felt a certain deficiency. Here was a
prophet, but somehow it was not prophecy.
24 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
What a splendid opportunity for him to have
given the Lords a hint that God might actually
be using Mr. Lloyd George to consider whether
the ordinary methods of a ground landlord
were quite compatible with the Sermon on the
Mount ! Instead of which it was an appeal
to political economy ; it showed how the
Budget was not so dangerous as they thought ;
it hinted that its rejection might land them
in difficulties. It was oratory, majestic and
wonderful, but it was not prophecy. His
sermon at the Coronation was much more
prophetic, and his address on Democracy is
more what we should wish to expect from him.
He recognizes the intensely religious nature
of our British Labour Movement and is one
of the few Church leaders who has noticed
the great Christian meeting of Labour men
at the Browning Settlement. This brings me
to his C.E.M.S. work. Of course, he has
made the C.E.M.S. what it is. He has put
heart into the laymen, and there is nobody
they will listen to (not even Bishop Ingram)
with such enthusiasm as they will to him.
Just as it was a bold act on the part of Lord
Salisbury to send Dr. Ingram to London, so
it was on the part of Mr. Asquith to choose
this young man for the northern primacy.
But each of these bold actions has already
been amply justified. The late Bishop of
ECCLESIASTICAL 25
Salisbury lamented Archbishop Lang's partial
inexperience, but I cannot agree with him.
What is the lack of a little experience in the
red tape methods of Convocation compared
with the delightfully new experience of having
a young Archbishop, full of vigour and en-
thusiasm, backed by abnormal intellectuality,
administering the affairs of the northern
Church ?
I have said little of the spirituality of Dr.
Lang, but any one who knows him is aware
how intense it is. When dealing with a refrac-
tory parson, I remember his saying : " I felt
I could not ask the man to kneel down and
say a prayer about the matter." He could
not give out his own spirit where there was
not likely to be any response. That speaks
volumes. He has, indeed, all the strong reli-
gion of a Scotsman combined with the love of
souls and the faith in the sacraments which
will always produce a faithful priest and pastor.
God bless him !
This seems the place to tell how the
Assembly of the Scottish Church wired to Lang
on hearing of his preferment : " Come back ;
all will be forgiven."
But I must continue my autobiography,
which seems to occupy the place of the
Prayer Book in a certain ritualistic church
" it appears at intervals only to be imme-
26 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
diately suppressed." I have never been
so important a person in the Church as in
those early days of Oxford House. I was
the " ecclesiastical young man/' always beloved
of Bishops and Church ladies. I was asked
to address all kinds of meetings, and looked
upon as a sort of freak the fellow who might
live in luxury in Belgravia but preferred
Bethnal Green. This is only what my friends
thought. Personally I hated the West End,
and have only been to two grand " parties "
in my life. Immediately that I was ordained,
two years later, I sank into insignificance. Of
those meetings the one that stands out most
in my memory is the " Rub Lightly " meeting
at Christ Church Hall. It was the first time
that the saintly Dr. King had made his bow
to an Oxford audience as a Bishop. I had to
speak for Oxford House, and I remember
Philip Waggett chaffing me about a very
vulgarly flashing stud I wore in the centre
of my shirt-front, a fashion we had in those
days. Dr. King rose to speak and the whole
house trembled with applause. Aubrey Moore,
in moving a vote of thanks, said : ' When an
Oxford speaker wants two minutes in which
to collect his thoughts, he has only to say
* Dr. King,' and he gets it." Well, the Bishop's
speech became famous because of the following
sentence. He had been telling us how wr
ECCLESIASTICAL 27
were to treat the poor in Bethnal Green. ' I
was wondering," he said, " where to find a
text for my sermon to-night. All my books
are packed up except a Tertullian. But there
was a match-box, and on it was written * Rub
lightly.' That's it. Beware of the ecclesi-
astical ' must 'you must ' rub,' but it must
be a light rub."
Nobody but one who knew Dr. King can
exactly understand why this " rub lightly M
speech evoked such enthusiasm. If you or I
were to say it, it would sound flat just as do
his young imitators in the pulpit who begin,
" Dear people," and always make one angry.
It does not do to imitate the saints in that kind
of way. A young fool once tried to palm off
an address to mothers he had heard Dolling
give before an audience of ladies. The result,
I am told, was disastrous. While I am on the
subject of Dr. King I had better indulge in a
few more chestnuts about him. You have
heard of the American who on hearing of
Edward King's trial said : ' You English are
a funny race. You don't often get a saint,
but when you do you try to put him in prison."
Certainly it was a mad act on the part of
that odd Society the Church Association
when they singled out Dr. King for prosecu-
tion. The Archbishop's judgment was said by
Dean Church to be " the bravest thing that ever
28 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
came forth from Lambeth." Perhaps it was,
but the moral effect of the trial of a ritualistic
saint was also the biggest score ever handed
over by an adversary to his opponent in a
game.
King always said that his Protestant critics
did him more good than harm. "You see/'
he said, " I am so harmless when they find out
the truth about me. They say I teach transub-
stantiation, compulsory celibacy, and the con-
fessional : when they find out that it is the
Real Presence, voluntary confession, and the
desirability of sisterhoods they will be quite
surprised."
He was one of those people whom his
religious opponents found it very hard to ex-
plain. A Jesuit postulant once told me that in
a lecture which he attended on " Grace " the
presence of holiness in " non-Catholics " was
explained thus : " There is always a flaw some-
where in the lives of non-Catholics. For
instance, the Protestant Bishop of Lincoln is
said to be a proud man ! " I think the lecturer
might have done better than to make such a
silly mistake. On the other hand, the " Evan-
gelical " undergraduates in my day at Oxford
frankly confessed that they could not explain
away Dr. King. He had somehow managed to
get on all right without having been " con-
verted " after the approved fashion of those
ECCLESIASTICAL 29
times. " Love conquers all " was never better
exemplified than in Dr. King. He bore down
opposition by the sympathy which, as Dr.
Liddon said, " amounted in him to a genius."
His face alone was an inspiration. I remember
a very Broad Church don confessing to me the
power of King's countenance over him ; and
we know how some of the Lincolnshire opposi-
tion melted away at the very sight of the old
man in his " dressing-gown " (as they called
his cassock). Nobody had a greater influence
in Oxford between the days of Newman and
Gore. Yet he was, as I heard him once say,
" academically nothing." I wish the authori-
ties would repeat the experiment of making
an academical nonentity into a Bishop occa-
sionally. " Bethel," the little outhouse in his
garden at Christ Church, was the place where
Sunday by Sunday this perfect love worked
its wonders. He had a great sense of humour,
and was quite alive to the awkwardness and
gauche rie of some of the undergraduates,
especially of those who were seeking Holy
Orders. " We must get them in," he used to
say with a twinkle in his eye, " and teach them
which sides to put their knives and forks at
meals." Personally I got to know him by
singing comic songs to him after dinner. He
forgave me many things in after-years because
of those songs. He always saw the grotesque
30 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
side of things. The frequent crossing of them-
selves by ritualistic boys he called " lamb's-
tails." The initiated will, I suppose, know
why. After the death of his old mother he
came back from the cathedral one evening and
said : ;< How sorry I am that she is not here
for me just to be able to say, ' What a horrid
sermon ! ' Then I should feel quite happy."
Was it friendly sarcasm or was it sublime inno-
cence that made him warn us on the first
Sunday in Lent not to fast too much? When I
remember the " Loders " and " Rousers " in the
pews (they were the two crack clubs at the
House) I think it must have been the former.
Mr. Gladstone had the prophetic insight to
make him a Bishop, although (as he said) " I
have voted against him all my life." In his
diocese the same old fascination continued
among the ploughboys and farmers.
" He must have been a ploughboy hisself,"
said one Confirmation candidate, listening to
the advice of the Bishop on the treatment of
horses.
" I war cuttin' turnups t'other morning," said
another, " and they were that awkward, an' I
broke out swearing ; but then I remembered
what t'old Bishop said when I war confarmed,
an' so down I plunged on my knees among
t' turnups an' prayed to be forgiven."
What, again, could be sweeter than this ?
ECCLESIASTICAL 31
Once in the lambing season the Bishop pictured
the awful result of taking the lambs away from
their mothers. So people's souls would dwindle
and die if they were taken from prayer and
Holy Communion and their mother the Church.
" The two sets of persons who will go straight
to heaven," said the Bishop once, " are the
Tommies, and the old ladies who give a whole
hyacinth to the altar." People who have no
sense of humour will call this frivolous, but
not those who knew Dr. King.
This may seem a good point at which to
write a word about my Oxford acquaintances
among the clergy. My Headship of Oxford
House prolonged my Oxford life far beyond
my undergraduate days, and it was after those
days that I became " ecclesiastical." I was
looked upon as a buffoon before I took my
degree, and if I fell in with the parsons it was
chiefly to sing them comic songs at a temper-
ance meeting. With Canon Scott Holland, for
example, I came in contact at first, not as the
budding priest but as the actor. This I
describe in another part of the book. But my
affection for him and for the late Francis Paget
(my dear tutor) began long before I thought
I should be ordained. I never felt so much
at home with Paget as with Holland : I should
never, for instance, have dared to write to
" Dear Paget," while I think Holland was
32 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
" dear " before I had known him a week. I
look upon Francis Paget as the highest example
I have ever come across of a pure, simple
Christian gentleman. He was one of those
men in whose company I always felt a restraint
because of his heart -searching holiness and
transparent purity. This book, for instance,
would have grated on his nerves, though it
must not be thought that he did not love a
joke or could not make one. Canon Scott
Holland has shown us that in his " Bundle of
Memories." The reader is referred to that
marvellous book, and therein to Paget's ex-
quisite reply to the suggestion that the
learned Mr. Swallow should be asked to
write a new Summa Theologica, " It is not
every Swallow that can make a Summa." He
was conscientious to a degree unparalleled.
His rooms were under mine at the House, and if
in conversation he thought he had perhaps not
made his own position quite clear or had been
in any way unjust he would come upstairs and
knock at the door to correct the impression he
might have left in my mind before he could
go to bed in peace. He worshipped his own
father, the late Sir James Paget. " I have
never known him wrong," he said to me once.
It was a great grief to Paget when any of his
pupils got into trouble. Once upon a time
my brother (now a very respectable Vicar) so
ECCLESIASTICAL 33
far forgot himself as to place a cheese -cover
full of flour on the head of a fellow -diner in
I hill, called " B." The authorities were very
angry about this. Years afterwards, on the
Queen's birthday, I led off the National Anthem
at dinner in Hall, and the whole assembly (ex-
cepting, I suppose, the dons) caught it up.
I was fined. Paget could not help laughing
about it, and remarked, " It was so awfully like
Reggie bonneting ' B.' " " B," I may mention,
was also the hero (or victim) of the great
Christ Church hoax in the seventies, when his
friends printed three hundred bogus cards in-
viting the tradesmen of Oxford to call on him
at 10 a.m. to receive orders. The result was
very alarming, especially when the undertaker
arrived to measure " B " for his coffin ! " B "
was really a delightful person, I believe, and
took it all in good part. But I am wandering
from the ecclesiastical to the miscellaneous,
and I must return to Francis Paget.
Any one who has read his sermons knows
that he was one of the few clergy left who
could, or rather did, really compose a homily.
They are gems of literature as well as of deep
spiritual power. I never felt this power more
than on the last occasion on which I heard
him, shortly before his death. It was at a
" Convention " at which we had just listened
to a torrent of words from a distinguished
3
34 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
parson, who told us exactly how many times
a certain word was mentioned in the Bible. We
were simply " fed up " with Dan. i., Phil, ii.,
John iii., and Col. iv., etc. Then, after this
discordant storm of " Concordance," we had
ten minutes' exposition of a passage in St.
Peter by Paget, calm and thoughtful and
devout, given without a note or a fault.
His letters, too, were marvels of composi-
tion. I cannot imagine him ever writing a
hasty note. His caligraphy was alarming in
its precision. I have no space here to repro-
duce any of his letters to myself, but I can only
say that of all the advice I ever received ,at
critical moments in my career none was more
carefully given or sounder than his.
As to Canon Scott Holland, it would require
a volume to write what I should like to
about him.
It is very difficult to write temperately and
impersonally of another to whom one owes
almost everything that he feels to be of any
value in his own life. Were I asked for whom
I would especially thank God, as Kingsley
thanked God for Maurice, so would I for
Holland. But for him I should never have
gone to Oxford House or the Christ Church
Mission, and without them I might have been
an atheist or a " moderate " Anglican parson.
Even in my Oxford days I should probably
ECCLESIASTICAL 35
have been sent down in disgrace for illicit acting
if Holland had not interceded for me with the
Vice-Chancellor. Then there was the Christian
Social Union. That would never have come
into being without him ; and what do I not
owe to that Society? But, chiefly, it has been
the presence of a dear friend, seldom seen
now, it is true, but felt to be in the midst. The
Commonwealth is to me a kind of sacrament to
assure me that the good man is alive (and
shall I say kicking?), that the dear heart
still beats with love and the dear soul still
quivers with joy and fun as of old. No one,
not even Bob Dolling or Henry Bromby among
the faithful departed, or Charles Gore and
George Russell among the living, means so
much to me in the daily struggle of Church life.
He is very much alive, one who may be
called the Peter Pan of the Church the boy
who never grows old. Right through all the
dreary periods of Huxley and Wace, of Temple
and the older Kensit, of Liddon and " Lux
Mundi," of Henson and the Christian Social
Union, up to the days of Chesterton and Dr.
Saleeby, Redmond and Carson, Lansbury and
Lloyd George, Asquith and the Pankhursts,
Dr. Holland lives and laughs and loves, and
never quarrels with any one. I kept a diary
at Eton, covered with ink blots, and therein I
wrote on a certain Sunday evening these words,
36 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
" Excitable priest preached." It was the im-
pression made on me by hearing and seeing
Holland for the first time. Sunday by
Sunday we had been bored by the old
Fellows who seemed never to have been
boys themselves, by irritating strangers who
told us the story of Bishop Patteson as if
we had never heard it before, who reminded
us in the summer half that there was a
" spiritual bat/' and in the football season
babbled about heavenly goals. Here at last
was a preacher who was alive. He described
the functions of the heart, as then known to
science. It was indeed very exciting. It was
a boy speaking to boys, but the amazing thing
is that he is still a boy as he talks to us in
middle age. Yet, of course, he is not merely
boyish. That is the stupid mistake that a few
people still continue to make about him. They
think he is only joking. That is because they
have no sense of humour themselves, and have
not learned the simple lesson that it is the
things of which we think most seriously that we
generally laugh about. Canon Scott Holland
is strangely misunderstood by many. We can
forgive the little girl who saw nothing in him
but a walking " Gradus ad Parnassum" and
said, " What a lot of adjectives he knows ! ' r
We can, perhaps, forgive the witty Bishop, on
the look-out for a new bon mot wherewith to
ECCLESIASTICAL 37
keep up his reputation, who remarked that he
never used one word when five would do ;
but we cannot forgive the tame asses of the
desert who cannot detect the tremendous
earnestness beneath his fun. His fun is really
the exuberance of his Christian joy and hope.
He is being " saved by hope." He must have
his joke, and it is a good thing for us all that
he must. He cannot help laughing at a
politician floundering in theology ; a comfort-
able statesman looking for votes while the poor
are looking for bread ; a Nonconformist pastor
worshipped by his flock while he declaims
against priestcraft ; a Radical minister perse-
cuting people for their opinions ; or a Bishop
seriously alarmed because we do not have
"Matins at ii.o" in Tibet, or expound the
Act of Uniformity to the Fiji Islanders.
British anti-Socialists who do not go to
church, but are terrified by reports of con-
tinental atheism ; political Liberals who
have forgotten all their principles of reli-
gious equality ; the old gentlemen at the
Carlton Club who see the Pope and his
Cardinals lurking beneath the folds of an
Anglican chasuble ; Secularists who, with
ponderous mid-Victorian arguments, declare
that Christianity is played out at all these
and many others Dr. Holland just smiles and
goes on his way, " walking and leaping and
38 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
praising God." He will never give in. He
will never despair. England (the very name
is honey on his lips), the Church of England,
the State, the people these are all great facts,
full of power, possibility, destiny ; they are
not to be apologized for or doubted. All will
come right, not, of course, by " muddling
through," but by active, energetic life which
is bubbling and pushing and means to come
out.
This is what makes him the greatest of all
our speakers on foreign missions. I re-
member a great meeting at Exeter Hall which
I always look upon as the beginning of the
new missionary spirit which has resulted in
" Missions of Help," and the general liveliness
in the mission-field as compared with the state
of things twenty years ago. He got in his
joke on that occasion about St. James's Hall
and the Christy Minstrels. In St. James's Hall
the black is grease paint, and you laugh at it :
in Exeter Hall (it was not an hotel then) you
learn that the black is in the blood, and in
Christ we are brethren, whatever our colours.
Now, the occupation of Canon Holland on that
one day was symbolic of the many-sidedness
of his work. Already he had, I think, been
battling with the Home Secretary all the
morning about women's work, and pleading
at Holborn Town Hall all the afternoon for a
ECCLESIASTICAL 39
living wage, long before Convocation had dared
suggest that it might be right. Another mistake
that people make about the Doctor is to think
that, because he is a " Christian Socialist," he
has no other interests but those that have to do
with economics and industry. Once we were
preparing for a General Mission in Birming-
ham, and the clergy were considering the names
of those who should come and prepare us for it.
Canon Holland was suggested. " Oh ! I think
we must have a spiritual address," said some-
body. What a futile remark ! In the first
place, why should it be considered " un-
spiritual " to prepare the way of the Lord in
a great commercial city by mentioning social
problems ? Would an Isaiah or an Amos or a
John the Baptist be likely to avoid such sub-
jects in Birmingham ? But, in the second
place, how ignorant such a man must have
been of Holland himself. I could not myself
imagine Holland being unspiritual in dealing
with social questions. The fuel that makes
the fire of all his social prophecy is religion, is
the gospel. He is very jealous for the Lord
of Hosts. He simply cannot separate the
gospel of Christ from the gospel of the King-
dom of God on the earth. The very founda-
tion of all, he says, is Christ Jesus of Nazareth,
the Holy Ghost, the Catholic Church, the
Sacraments. People who think thus of him
40 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
can never have read his books, let alone heard
him speak.
A word, now, about his books. It is much
to be deplored that he has never published a
big book, a magnum opus. Almost all his
writing is to be found in sermons, or in the
Commonwealth. Still, there is plenty to be
found in them, so much, indeed, that when I
once tried to arrange a volume of excerpts the
publisher rejected it, because it ran into a
quarter of a million words. The result of my
attempt was, however, the issuing of " Personal
Studies," one of his very best books, in which
we have about ten sketches which tell us more
about the men he deals with than can be
found in the twenty heavy volumes of their
biographies. His sermons are intensely scrip-
tural ; in fact, one could not do better than
take certain parts of the Bible, such as St.
John, the Romans, the Ephesians, the Sermon
on the Mount, the Parables, and cull from his
sermons all he has said about them, verse by
verse. It would be one of the best commen-
taries that one could imagine. Again, he is
a thorough Churchman. Anglicanism has
never had a better apologist. " Creed and
Character," which to my mind remains his best
book, is the finest exposition of the Church
position I know. " Christ or Ecclesiastes "
and " The City of God " should also be read
ECCLESIASTICAL 41
again and again. One of the most beautiful
descriptions of the Blessed Sacrament ever
written is in his article published in the
Religious Review of Reviews, a magazine
which is now defunct.
But though Canon Holland is so devout a
Churchman, he is in no way the narrow eccle-
siastic. He can stand his own on almost any
subject. Is it music? Read his "Life of
Jenny Lind." Is it art? Read him on Ruskin
in the Commonwealth. Is it philosophy? Read
his anticipation of many of our modern novelties
in " Logic and Life," written thirty years ago.
Is it biblical criticism? Read his " Lecture on
the Fourth Gospel," delivered at Aberdeen. Is
it poetry? He is a poet himself. He has the
mind of a poet. What could be more poetic
than this description of spring?
" No ! There is nothing in the world more
beautiful than the coming of spring on an
English countryside. Each year we doubt
whether it can be so absolutely enthralling as
the records in our memory assert. And then
right in our face the whole miracle is done
again. It is flung at us in its infinite variety,
in its rollicking exuberance, in its unstinted
and immeasurable splendour. Our former
language, excited and ecstatic as it was, turns
out to be miserably inadequate to the actual
facts which laugh it down into humiliating
42 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
insignificance. That glow of the gleaming
green on the larches is far beyond our finest
remembrance of its fascination. The yellow
flush on the willows, the purple tufts of the
poplars, the sudden outbreak of the hazels, the
shimmering glory on the birches, the sheen of
the sunlight on the deep lawns of grass. These
are what they were when ' the morning stars
sang together and all the sons of God shouted
for joy.' And the cherry-blossoms are un-
imaginable, humming with the live music of
the bees. And the sweet breaths of air posi-
tively pulse with the song of nightingales ;
and the dome of heaven rings with the crowded
gladness of the lark : and the wise thrush ' re-
captures ' with overwhelming success ' his first
fine careless rapture ' and sings and sings it
over and over again, as if his and your delight
in it could never end."
There I must leave him or the reader will
also kick, but as I re-read what I have written
I feel it is but a meagre tribute to one who to
my mind is the greatest prophet and priest of
the Anglican Church. I can only thank God
that he has been preserved from the subtle
influence of the episcopal Upas-tree and can
dance happily in the dear Tom Quad, as of
old, in the freedom of his professorship. Of
course, he ought to be a Cardinal, but appar-
ently we cannot rise to that yet in our old
ECCLESIASTICAL 43
State Church. The heralds tell us that Canons
may wear green hats with one tassel. Could
he not be persuaded to start the fashion ?
The next autograph in my book which calls
up Oxford memories is that of Philip Napier
Waggett. I little thought when I used to nod
" good morning " to the young science student
as he passed through Peckwater that there went
one of the strongest personalities whom I was
to reckon as my friend in the near future.
* The cleverest man I know/' was said of him
by one who knows most of the great men of
the day. When Aubrey Moore passed away it
was instinctively felt that Philip was the only
man who could succeed to his position in the
Church as its best apologist on the side of
science and theology. I cannot attempt to
describe him. At the time of writing he is
working as a military chaplain and has been
mentioned in the dispatches of the Com-
rnander-in-Chief . I was talking one day near
the front to a fellow-officer of his and what
he said expresses at least one truth about
Waggett. " There is no subject upon which
he is not an expert : if we talk of music or
art or science or theology or the war, he seems
to know everything. He has even got a new
game for the little French child, who lives
here, every evening." That is Waggett all
over. Although science is of course his
44 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
strongest point when he lectured to some
doctors in London once they found he had
been reading far more up-to-date books than
they had yet he is somehow able to master
all subjects. In fact, it is sometimes more
difficult to get him to talk science than other
things. " Doctor he began a speech
once ; ' who is always much less bored by
biology than I am."
I remember once when we had got him to
lecture on " Heredity " at a University and
he had given us something much better than he
had ever written in a book books are said
not to be his forte we were dismayed to find
the next morning that the reporters had made p,
hopeless muddle of it. We thought we had
got something intelligible and concise out of
him at last. But it was not to be.
One of his best books, " The Scientific
Temper in Religion/' consists of the sermons
he gave at my church, St. Mark's, Marylebone
Road, in 1903. His great friend was George
Romanes, with whom he had a spiritual inti-
macy into which we cannot pry, but it is an
open secret that Philip ought to have written
his Life, which would have been, among other
things, a most valuable piece of Christian
apologetic. Not that Philip would ever write
or preach apologetic in the vulgar way. It
is exactly his reserve and his artistic way of
ECCLESIASTICAL 45
putting things which makes him so powerful
an apologist. To him the truly scientific way
of apologetic is not by logical reasoning but by
experiment. I remember his once telling me
that a scientific man is always much more
impressed by the holy life of a saint than by
any arguments from the professional apologist.
He was always a little impatient when people
asked him for scientific reassurements in order
to bolster up their religion. " The truly
religious man does not want to know why he
stands on his hind legs, but whether when he
prays by the graveside of his wife he is going to
see her again." All the same, I think Philip
is a little provoking sometimes. There are
people who are beset by the over - confident
unbelievers who tell us that nearly all scien-
tific men are atheists, and we rather like to
have a Cowley Father who can show cause
why you can be scientific and Christian at
the same time. Of course it is the fashion
to say that the quarrel between science and
religion is all over now that Queen Victoria
is dead, but if you live near factories and
do not only read the Chestertons you cannot
feel quite so sure about that. I wish I could
reproduce some of Philip Waggett's letters,
of whic]| I possess scores, but there is no
room here. There is a sort of Ruskifiesque
flavour about them and something else which
46 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
is all his own. Rut there is one which may
be worth printing. It was announced in the
newspapers that Waggett was to be Bishop
of Stepney. I believe there was no founda-
tion for the report, but this was his reply to a
very efTusive congratulation that I sent to
" my very dear Philip. "-
A thousand thanks for your kindest letter. I am afraid you
will have a pang of disappointment when you hear that I am
not going to be Bishop. Who starts these reports ? What
shocks there must have been to-day in many worthy bosoms,
and what articles are being written ! It is quite difficult to
believe, after to-day's letters, that nothing has happened at all.
I still live in hopes that I may have again
to write my congratulations some day and shall
receive a different answer. There are many
more Oxford friends of whom I should like to
write : of that splendid father-in-God the
present Bishop of Winchester, always so kind
to me at the University and at Bethnal Green ;
of Dr. Sanday, who was always ready to help
me in answering difficult questions in those
days when, as I have said, East London was
a hotbed of secularism ; of Dr. Bright, who
would write me pages of Church history and
affectionately warn me against socialism and
loose theology ; of Dr. Liddon, who would
honour me by asking me to preach in St.
Paul's and treat me with a dignified sym-
pathy under which I felt crushed. Liddon,
ECCLESIASTICAL 47
however, did not ordinarily crush one. He
was so gentle and sweet and urbane. I
remember being told off by Mr. Frank
Harris to try to persuade Liddon to answer
some articles in the Fortnightly by Dean
Fremantle on "The New Reformation."
These articles were among the first indications
of growing modernism amongst the Anglican
clergy and, incidentally, the cause of Father
Ignatius's wild attacks on the unfortunate
Dean. Liddon was very kind, but very firm
in his refusal. " Dear friend," he said, " if
the editor really thinks these articles dangerous
why does he publish them?"
Afterwards he wrote me a characteristic letter
on the whole question, and hinted that if he
had complied with my request he would have
called his article "The New Absurdity." As
an instance of how rapidly thought develops,
it is interesting here to note that Dr. Pusey
was alarmed by Liddon's Bamptons, Liddon
by Dr. Gore's, and now Dr. Gore is alarmed
by " Foundations." So the way of theology
is marked by shaking milestones.
In those Oxford House days we did not
trouble ourselves much about theological
quarrels, though our position was very clearly
differentiated from that of Toynbee Hall. We
called ourselves " Church of England " and
worked in connection with the parish churches
48 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
of the neighbourhood. Toynbee Hall, on the
other hand, did all kinds of social work without
asking for any test from its residents. On the
whole, the Settlement movement has developed
more on the religious side than any other, and
it looks as if the Oxford House had set before
itself the highest ideal. On the other hand,
Toynbee Hall had a deeply spiritual man at
its head to begin with, and, though he belonged
to no particular party and confined his strictly
religious work to his own Church of St.
Jude's, it was impossible for Canon Barnett's
influence at Toynbee Hall to be non-Christian.
He made a deep study of East End life, and
really knew the people. He caught the ear
of the Universities, especially of Oxford. " Do
you realize," he would say, " that all our
social system is arranged on the tacit assump-
tion that there is a leisured class in every
locality who will see that the laws are carried
out and generally keep the social life going?
Do you also realize that there is no such class
in East London, where it is most wanted?
Come and be that class, not in a patronizing
spirit but in a spirit of neighbourliness. You
will find that there is more for you to learn
than to teach."
Canon Scott Holland put it into more pictur-
esque language when he said, " Come and be
the squires of East London."
ECCLESIASTICAL 49
Many foolish and cruel things were said
about Barnett's work, and the very remem-
brance of them makes us see how much we
have learned since then. For instance, when
a fountain was erected outside St. Jude's
Church it was supposed to be " unspiritual,"
and people sneered at what they called
" Christianity assisting at its own funeral."
They shrugged their shoulders, too, at the
" worship hour " at St. Jude's which Barnett
substituted for Evensong. " Poor folk cannot
understand," he said, " why giggling choir boys
should keep on singing, ' Have mercy upon
us, miserable sinners.' ' I remember a dear
Salvation Army officer once in St. John's,
Bethnal Green, being unable to contain him-
self when he heard that well-known versicle
and crying out, " Turn us all into good
shouting saints, Lord ! ' ;
There are still some people who have not the
wit to see what Barnett was driving at when
he opened his Picture Exhibition in White-
chapel, or read Tennyson to his flock as well
as David.
He was always deeply concerned about
Labour problems, but there was never a man
less given to fruitless agitation. When he did
agitate it was with a knowledge and deter-
mination to be fair to all parties. He knew
the faults of the rich, but also the faults of
4
50 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
the poor. He never shrank from telling either
of them the truth to their faces.
I think his article in a book called " Chris-
tianity and the Working Classes" (edited by
George Haw) is one of the very sanest and
at the same time most truly spiritual accounts
of the religious situation that I know. He
deplored what he called " impertinence " in
the masses. Of course he did not mean by
that the ordinary " cheekiness " of street boys,
but rather a spirit of ignorant and insolent con-
tempt for tradition, or for old age, or for well-
tried maxims and principles. The famous
letter from past and present heads of settle-
ments on " Poverty and Luxury " is well worth
reading in view of present problems. It is the
best piece of " Christian Socialism " I know.
It may interest our readers to hear how it came
to be written.
I have always myself believed that there
should be missions to the rich, and that the
message delivered to them should be by those
who really understand the social problem. I
suggested to a Bishop who was about to hold
a mission to the West End of London that
Canon Barnett should accompany him and do
the " penitent-form " work. This was thought
to be a very odd idea. I suppose it is because
we think that there is only one way of working
a penitent form, the Evangelical way (so-
ECCLESIASTICAL 51
called). To my mind there is a more truly
Evangelical way than the fashionable one
namely, the way of St. John the Baptist, who
was a casuist and dealt with each class
differently (the Pharisees, the publicans, the
soldiers, etc.). It seemed to me that Barnett
was exactly the man to tell the rich how to
repent, and I still think he was the man. In
the article mentioned above Barnett has some
excellent ideas about the different kinds of
preachers. Some are like Theudas, " giving
himself out to be somebody," and trying to
arouse emotions and passions through his own
personality. Others are like the Scribes, trying
to get acceptance for religion by apologetics
and intellectual arguments. But the best are
those, like John the Baptist, who appeal to the
conscience, bidding men face what they know
to be wrong and to give it up, and equally to
face what is right and to do it.
Well, not meeting with much sympathy in
episcopal quarters, 1 appealed to Barnett
himself, and this is how he replied in his
characteristic way :
' What I fear is that a mission as usually
understood is a form of excitement which weary
people might like as a change. If you can
induce the Bishop to use the power he has
won in calm, well-thought-out denunciation of
smart life, I believe good will follow. The
52 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
denunciation must not be sensational, but go
home as straight as our Lord's words. By all
means tell him that in my opinion the luxury
of West End living is the chief obstacle to
East End improvement. ' You will never help
the East till you destroy the West/ was one
of Ruskin's warnings to one of the first of the
Oxford groups who came East. The truth
underlying this exaggeration is borne home to
me. An example of simple life in high places,
a protest against the vulgarity of ' having '
when ' being ' is possible would turn the current
of people's thoughts. A simple life would be
the distinguishing mark of a Christian. What
is to be done ? Shall we you and I and
others memorialize the Bishop? Would a
published protest, something on the lines of
the enclosed, be any good ? It might be signed
by past and present heads of settlements."
Then followed the letter, from which there
is only room to give a few extracts here :
" We are led to believe that luxury which
leads people to much expenditure on private
enjoyment, amusement, or display, without
making them more useful to the community,
is an actual cause of poverty."
" It seems to set * having ' rather than
' being ' as the chief object of life, and under
its influence the individual's powers of admira-
tion, hope, and love are neglected."
ECCLESIASTICAL 53
" Luxury prepares the way to poverty."
"It materializes the nature of the people so
that they gradually become indifferent to the
intelligent action and the spiritual aspiration
which are necessary to progress."
" It induces the selfishness which makes us as
a nation indifferent to the ugliness of our towns
and cities."
" It leads to cruelty in our industrial
relation."
" The dominant ideals make or unmake a
nation, and luxury exalts an ideal which seems
to us to be anti-social."
Roughly speaking, we may say that Canon
Barnett has helped the Church to enlarge its
views as to the field in which it is to work in
order to carry out the redemptive work of
Christ. He has brought the ideas of Maurice
about the kingdom of God into actual work-
ing. He has given a practical meaning to
much of the religious talk about brotherhood.
It always seemed to me that his preference for
the word " friendship/' rather than brother-
hood, made his teaching and practice more
human. It is better to try to realize true
friendship than to talk of brotherhood which
we don't really feel. We are friends and
neighbours. Let us behave as such. The
time may come when, having realized friend-
ship, we may be able more genuinely to talk
54 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
of brotherhood. Barnett's work on the
Children's Country Holiday Fund was due to
this belief in friendship. He hated the ordinary
Sunday School treat. He wanted a more
permanent relationship to be formed between
town and country.
Barnett was never a party man in politics or
religion. That is why he was able to do so
much with all parties. He saw the good in
the " ritual " movement, and adopted what he
thought made for reality in worship. He had
no partisan axe to grind.
It was no small gratification to me that on
going to Bristol he wrote thus : " It is always
to me a pleasant memory that while my clerical
neighbours misunderstood, you did understand
and openly gave support." He referred to
the time when I was starting the Oxford
House and he was starting Toynbee Hall.
Much has happened since then. It is a joy
to me to recollect that, although the aims and
methods of the two settlements were, and
still are, somewhat different, there was no
antagonism. I am convinced that in the death
of Canon Barnett the Church and nation have
lost one of the very few prophets that we have
had in our midst for a hundred years.
He was a great man, and I blush to think
that while Toynbee Hall had this man as
its Warden, Oxford House had to be content
ECCLESIASTICAL 55
with such an inferior article in me as its
Head.
Oxford House has always maintained its
essentially Anglican character, and has turned
out a succession of excellent priests and
bishops. But it must not be thought from
this that it has been merely a theological
college. From the very first we worked the
club idea, and though now there is not so much
enthusiasm for these institutions as there was,
I think they have done a great amount of good.
We wanted to get a footing in the place,
and we found that the very best way was then
to start a club. There were a large number
of men who did not want to come to church
and yet who were dissatisfied with the drink-
ing clubs and the political ones. We pro-
vided them with a place to spend the evening
in, and very soon there gathered round the
place all kinds of institutions, athletic clubs
and dramatic clubs, etc.
The Sunday lectures gave us the opportunity
to make it quite clear that we were Christians
out for the conversion of souls.
If Oxford House did not progress very
rapidly in those early days, it was because
we had not the plant in men or buildings.
Moreover, I was not the man to collar the
University. Barnett was ahead of me on one
side and Bob Dolling with his Magdalen
56 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
College Mission on the other. It was reserved
in the providence of God for Arthur Foley
Winnington Ingram to lead the victorious army
which eventually conquered the University.
When I had once made up my mind to be
ordained I felt that I must leave Oxford House.
There is too much of the free-lance in me to
allow me to be the head of an institution that
is forced by the nature of things to be con-
ventional. The Head of Oxford House has to
represent the University in a particular depart-
ment. You might as well expect a vegetarian
or an anti-vivisection agitator to be M.P. for
Oxford as a pronounced Socialist to represent
the University in East London Church life.
It would never do. But before I could be
ordained I had to make quite sure that I was
right in giving up my legal career, which was
just beginning. I think I may say that it was
Archbishop Benson who finally decided that
for me. He was a very close friend of my
father's, who used to call him "St. John." I
went to him and asked his advice. He was at
first somewhat against the idea, because he
thought that a layman in the world was more
wanted than more parsons in the Church. But
we prayed together at the little prle-Dien in
his bedroom, and I departed with his blessing
and the resolution to take Orders.
There is a story of me and Archbishop
ECCLESIASTICAL 57
Benson which my friends have elaborated and
made rather funny. He was opening Oxford
Hall some years later when I had left Bethnal
Green, and my name was almost forgotten by
the men. I had been breakfasting with him
at Lambeth that morning and had given him
a few hints for his speech, This is what he
said and this is how it was received :
" A young man called on me this morning.
I told him I was coming to Oxford Hall and
I asked him what subject I should speak
upon. He replied at once, ' Religion ! ' (Dead
silence.) Dear friends, who was that young
man? (Breathless silence.) It was Mr.
Adderley! (Silence.) I say, it was Mr.
Adderley! ! (Dead silence.) I repeat, it was
Mr. Adderley ! ! ! " (A silence that was so
much felt that the Primate was obliged to
pass on to the next point.)
This reminds me of Father Goulden's funeral,
which was described as the " funeral of the
costers' parson." But not a coster, it was said,
could be seen.
Dr. Benson was fond of coming down to
East London. I accompanied him back from
the opening of the People's Palace, and
remember a woman looking right into the
carriage and saying, " He does look a dear ! "
She was admiring his long hair and
his " nightgown." Benson did not quite like
58 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
these little attentions. Father Stanton would
have laughed and answered back, as he is said
to have done when a man said, " He's got my
old woman's nightgown on " (alluding to his
cassock), " My dear fellow, if your wife's night-
gown is as black as this do get her to have it
washed ! "
The only time I can remember the " Cocoa
Press " lapsing into genuine humour was when
it described Benson once as " the Archbishop
of Canterbury, better known as the father of
the author of ' Dodo.' "
He always took a fatherly interest in me, and
made a special point of preaching at my church
in Poplar, when he was astonished at the
enormous congregation which gathered to hear
him.
It is well known, of course, that he was
keenly alive to the urgency of the social
problem, though his activity in the direction
of reform did not go much beyond writing
and speaking. Once upon a time, Tom Mann,
at a drawing-room meeting in the West End,
accused the clergy of apathy. The Archbishop,
hearing of this, invited him to Lambeth, and
taxed him with it. Going up to the book-
shelf, he took down a book and began reading.
" This," said the Archbishop, " is written by
a clergyman : what do you think of it ? " "Oh,
that's all right," said Tom Mann ; " who wrote
ECCLESIASTICAL 59
it?" "I did," said the Archbishop, some-
what triumphantly, presenting him with the
book. The book was " Christ and His Times,"
and the passage which the Archbishop read
was, I think, from the famous chapter on
" Suffering Populations." Tom Mann told me
once that he had often made use of the book
at socialist meetings.
The Archbishop believed in the social aspect
of the Holy Communion, and could not bear
to think of selfishness and narrowness among
communicants. " The very phrase ' My Com-
munion ' is a contradiction in terms," he said
to me once. " It should be ' Our Com-
munion.' '
On another occasion he was most emphatic
about the need of more definite teaching by
the clergy to their flocks. "Why will the
clergy preach so many hortatory sermons in-
stead of teaching their people the Faith?'
he said.
The Archbishop believed in the revival of
Brotherhoods in the Church. " I believe in
Brotherhoods," he wrote in 1892, "for the
Brothers' sakes and the Church's. I do think
they are rapidly becoming a necessity for the
discharge of our work in dense populations."
Later on he proved the sincerity of these
words by carefully revising and finally signing
with loving words of sympathy the Rules of a
60 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Brotherhood lately begun in the Church of
England.
But the sweetest story about our dear Father
is that in which we have been told that it used
to be a tradition at the school where he was
educated that it was " easy to be good when
Benson came to the school." Few boys, we
think, have had such a thing said of them by
their companions.
I was succeeded at the Oxford House by
my old friend Herbert Hensley Henson,
whom I was always quarrelling with and
always forgiving. In those days we cor-
responded about every week, and I believe
I knew more about the inner workings of
the Dean's strange conscience than many
who have looked at him only from the
outside. I am never tired of defending him
against culpable inconsistency, of which he is
often accused. People say : " Look at Henson,
who used to abuse Dissenters, and now talks
of Reunion. Look at Henson, who was the
great defender of the Catholic episcopate, and
now writes against the doctrine of apostolical
succession." But I do not see the inconsist-
ency as others think they do. Henson's
attacks on Nonconformity in old days were
merely due to his Establishmentarianism. He
still holds to that. The Establishment was
(and I believe still is), with him a "craze/ 1
ECCLESIASTICAL 61
as Mr. Gladstone once said it was with Arch-
bishop Benson. I do not say that Henson has
not changed of course he has, because he is
alive but he has not changed so much as
people think. He never held the Tractarian
view of apostolical succession. Where he has
changed most has been in giving up old Liberal
catchwords such as Home Rule, in which at
one time he ardently believed, and also, per-
haps, in his love for some Catholic institutions.
He is fond of fighting, and deserves his nick-
name of the " stormy petrel " of the Church.
The Convocation of Canterbury is, I should
think, very much less lively now that he has
gone north. The parson who said to him,
" If only you could remember that you are not
the most intellectual clergyman in the Church,
but you are the most affectionate," was giving
him an excellent hint. His affectionate dis-
position has won him more victories, and might
win him many more, than his fertile brain.
Now that Francis Paget and Dean Church have
gone, he is one of the very few who take pains
to write a literary sermon. But he loves to
be in opposition, and prides himself on being
a sort of ecclesiastical Ishmael (though a well-
paid one). He has more heart than he gives
himself credit for possessing, and he wilfully
(I think) hides it. It is a thousand pities
that he has not been kept at parish work much
62 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
longer. His monthly service for communi-
cants at Barking was one of the most inspiring
services I ever attended, and I am not at all
sure that he will not make an excellent Bishop
some day, just because he will then once more
come in contact with the souls of sinners and
weak Christians, who want comfort rather than
dialectics and diatribes. Well, it was he who
in the providence of God took my place at
Oxford House, and it is characteristic of him
as an unconscious humorist, that in his open-
ing address (in my presence) he quoted the
words,
Ring out the false,
Ring in the true.
My preparation for Orders brought me into
direct contact with two more remarkable
men, Bishop Walsham How and Frederick
Temple, Bishop of London.
Walsham How was a humble saint, who, by
his life of love, did more for the Church in
East London than any one else has done,
except, perhaps, Ingram. He was an odd
companion for Bishop Temple. \Valsham How
used to talk of his " two years in the school
of one Tyrannus " as descriptive of his life
in the Diocese of London. But he said what
was perfectly true when he used to assure us
of the heart of love that lurkH b.?nemh thr
ECCLESIASTICAL 63
rough exterior of Frederick Temple. The least
thing would bring tears to Temple's eyes.
When addressing the Missioners at the begin -
ing of the great London Mission, he simply
broke down. I remember in the middle of the
Kensit crisis in 1898, when he wrote remon-
strating with a certain prominent Anglo -
Catholic, and asking him to come and see
him, I prophesied, " When you meet each other
he will cry." And he did.
It would be absurd to attempt to write down
all the stories I have heard about Temple.
Most of them are well known. It may be in-
teresting, however, to note that the story about
the Fulham cabman who grumbled about his
fare, and said in revenge, " St. Paul would
not have lived in a palace here," and how the
Bishop said, "No, he would have been at
Lambeth, and the fare there is only a shilling ! "
is not true. It never happened so. The
famous " Never knew yer aunt so I can't say,"
was told of Archbishop Whately many years
before Temple. This is a curious instance of
how myths arise and stories are handed on
from age to age. There are many more such.
I have heard a story of Bishop Wordsworth
of Salisbury, which was certainly told of
" Soapy Sam " forty years before, and Lady
Wlmborne's donkey story was, to my know-
ledge, being told when I was an Eton boy,
64 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
about forty years ago. There is one good
story of Temple which is not so often told as
the others. He had been holding a confirma-
tion and had missed his train home. The
Vicar, foreseeing that this meant the Bishop's
presence at Evensong, asked him to preach.
He refused. Then to be prepared against all
criticism, the Vicar said, " I would like to in-
form your lordship that I used to preach
written sermons, but I have lately registered
a vow never to preach except extempore, il
find it so much better." Grunt from the
Bishop. The sermon came and went. Steps
were heard tramping up the aisle to the
sacristy. Then the Bishop, before all the choir
and sidesmen, raised his hand over the Vicar
and said, " I hereby absolve you from your
vow ! ); Another story, which mid-Victorians
may think a little coarse, runs thus. A certain
Mrs. Quiverful said to the Bishop, " Oh, my
lord, I do believe you haven't <seen my last
baby ! " " No, and 1 don't believe I ever
shall ! "
I suppose I have had as much experience
of the abruptness of Bishop Temple as any
one. " Thank you," was the shortest letter I
ever received from him or any one else. I
once wired to him for leave for a layman
to preach in my church. " You shouldn't make
your arrangements by telegram," was all I got
ECCLESIASTICAL 65
in reply. I think he was fond of me up to
a point. 'There's such a lot of 'go' about
your boys ! " he wrote once to my father. He
could never remember that some " boys " grow
up. This failing was rather serious once in
my case. I went to see him after his famous
Encyclical on the doctrine of the Church of
England. In the letter he seemed to me to
indicate that it was disloyal for an Anglican
to bow before the Blessed Sacrament. I
told him that to be ordered not to do it was
like telling a person not to kiss his mother.
He replied, " You could leave the Church of
England or go into lay communion." I went
away rather crestfallen and told Bishop Creigh-
ton what he had said. Later on Bishop
Creighton wrote to me and said, " The Arch-
bishop thought you would understand, as he
had known you from a boy ! " Why this fact
made it any better I could never understand.
The affair evidently rankled in his rnind, be-
cause, some years afterwards, when I wrote
to ask his advice about something else, he
replied, " You asked my advice once and you
didn't take it. I think I am not the person
to consult."
I wrote a mild remonstrance, but all I got
was, " Your second letter shows me that my
first was right." I think I must have irritated
him. I prefer to think of another occasion,
5
66 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
when he said to my brother about me (when
I was trying to be a sort of friar), " Shall I
tell you why your brother can never really be
poor? Because he washes ! "
He hated all cant and self-advertisement.
On the eve of the new century some enter-
prising editor tried to collect prophecies from
various great men. Pompous divines replied
in this style : " I see a vision of a united
Christendom. I see the great democracies of
Europe advancing hand in hand with the
Church towards the millennium "and " tosh "
of that sort ad libitum. Temple replied curtly,
" I haven't the remotest idea."
'He liked being " stood up to." Charles
Marson was good at this. When he was sum-
moned before the Bishop to show cause why
a somewhat liberal sermon of his should not
be condemned, he reminded him of a certain
Bishop's " salad days " (alluding to " Essays
and Reviews "). The Bishop laughed and
said, " But they tell me, Mr. Marson, that
your congregation never know what you are
going to say next." " My sermons would not
be of much use, my lord, if they did."
Though he was not in sympathy with ritual-
ism, he was always scrupulously fair in his
treatment of Catholics, and he knew what the
real points at issue were. He had a most
intense belief in the sacraments himself. '-' Do
ECCLESIASTICAL 67
you know," he said to me once, " what the
real difference between the clergy is? One
set believes in the sacraments and the other
doesn't." He believed in the sacraments as
certain sure pledges of grace. When asked to
preach to very Low Church people, he would
take as his subject "The Sacraments." His
brave words at the opening of Truro Cathedral
about the Church existing before the New
Testament had great influence, coming from
him. His celebrated Charge in which he went
as far as he possibly could in favour of a
Catholic interpretation of the Prayer Book, and
his joint letter to the Pope (of which we do
not make enough), his defence of the English
Church Union in the House of Lords when
they appealed to the Bennett case as justifying
their teaching on the Real Presence, are all
evidence of his wish to do the best he could
for those whom his conscience would not allow
him to support to the full. " So long as you
could say you were honestly carrying out the
Prayer Book, your position was unassailable,"
he was fond of saying. This was the dear
father-in-God who laid his hands upon me,
and with evident pleasure told me that I was
his Gospel-deacon.
My first and only " curacy " was for four
months, under the most saintly man I ever
knew, -Henry Bodley Bromby, when he was
68 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Vicar of St. John's, Bethnal Green. Afterward
he became Vicar of All Saints, Clifton. From
the day when I arrived at St. John's in my
deacon's dress, to the day when, in the quiet
Convent of the Incarnation at Saltley, some
twenty-five years later I gave him the last
sacrament, Henry Bromby was my firm friend
to whom I could look in any difficulty, and
never look in vain. As with Edward King,
so with Henry Bromby, his holiness shone out
in his countenance. One cannot but regret
that more spiritual use was not made of this
man in the Church at large by placing him
in some spot where his special gifts would
have had more free play.
I had not been long at St. John's when one
day I received an invitation from Winfrid
Burrows, then a student of Christ Church (now
Bishop of Truro), to follow my brother as the
Head of the House Mission in Poplar. It was
a solemn thing to be put in charge of seven
thousand souls during one's diaconate, but it
would be untrue to say that I felt very much
afraid. Of course, by all the rules of pastoral
theology I ought to have made a terrible mess
of it, and perhaps I did. But it was a kind
of strawberry mess, delightful, refreshing, and
certainly cool for me, however hot my
parishioners may have felt.
How I definitely threw in my lot with the
ECCLESIASTICAL 69
Socialists at Poplar is told in another chapter.
Here I will only tell of the strictly Church
work. The founder of the Christ Church
Mission was Henry Luke Paget, now Bishop
of Stepney. The people still call the Mission
" Paget's."
Luke Paget is a most delightful combination
of the cultured and the humorous, the busy
and the devout. At St. Pancras he did great
things. How different was this great Greek
temple from the old room at Poplar ! Yet it
was the same faith which he had to teach,
the same worship which he had to lead. And
now that he is a Bishop it is the same genial,
hard-working, happy Christian who rushes
about East London who once delighted the
boys and girls of East India Dock Road.
To him is attributed the modern translation
of the great Catholic formula of St. Vincent
de Lerins, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod
, ab omnibus into " Always wanted, everywhere
to be found, and if possible by an omnibus."
This is the fate of an Anglican Bishop, a
suffragan at least. A suffragan is, as we know,
a " suffering Bishop." This is not Luke's
own nor mine. Whose is it?
" Paget's " (when I went there) was a dear
little mission -room. My chief work there was
to collect the money to build St. Frideswide's
Church. Architecturally it is, I suppose, a
70 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
terrible place. Mr. G. F. Bodley said it ought
to be pulled down. But there is a homeliness
and a beauty there which I would never
exchange (nor would any of the priests -in -
charge) for a cathedral. For thirty-five years
that Mission has gone on (it has now been
moved to Paddington), and still in the lists of
Sunday School and communicants you will see
the old names of the same families who from'
generation to generation have worshipped at
" Paget's." I shall ever love St. Frideswide's,
and I have left instructions for my ashes to be
buried in the mission-ground in East London
cemetery.
It was a proud day for me when H.R.H. the
Duchess of Albany laid the foundation stone
of the new church, and a happy one when
Bishop Temple preached at the opening. I
have always had luck,, and without any
exaggeration, I can say that the success of
my five years' ministry there was due chiefly to
the assistant clergy, H. D. Astley, A. S.
Hewlett (now a missionary to lepers in Japan),
A. H. Hitchcock (still a humble "curate"),
the Clewer Sisters, Miss Phillimore, and many
others. But I am a restless individual. I was
always wanting to be "a sort of friar." I
advertised secretly in the Church Times
once for a like-minded person to come and live
with me. The only answer I got was from the
ECCLESIASTICAL 71
great Dr. Erere, then an East End priest and
afterwards Superior of the Community of the
Resurrection. We had a good laugh over it
when we met. Nothing came of it until Canon
Mason wrote and asked me to join his college
at Allhallows, Barking.
Dr. Arthur Mason is one of the most
picturesque figures in the English Church. He
was the bosom friend of Archbishop Benson,
and did some of his best work as an evangelist
in the diocese of Truro under him. He wanted
to be ,a preaching friar, but the authorities of
the Church dissuaded him and perhaps they
were right. In the eighties there was a general
desire in the Church to try new methods of
reaching the masses, and it was quite as it
should be that Arthur Mason should be one
of the pioneers. He was appointed to the
living of Allhallows, Barking, and soon
gathered round him a college of missioners.
As showing the vague ideas people at that time
had of what we were doing; in East London, I
remember some one describing Allhallows and
Toynbee Hall in this way : " Mason is going
to have a street full of duchesses minding the
babies, and Balliol will look after the drains."
The duchesses did not come, but Mason's
men did some splendid mission work both in
East and West London.
All kinds of good solid books have come
72 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
out from Allhallows. Dr. Mason's " Faith of
the Gospel " still remains one of the best state-
ments of Anglican theology, and Dr. A. W.
Robinson, who succeeded him, has produced
some first-rate work. Another resident was
William Edward Collins, afterwards Bishop of
Gibraltar, a gentle saint whom all who knew
him loved. It was hardly the place for such
an ignorant parson as myself, and though I
was very happy, living in the best room I have
ever had since my ordination, looking out on
one of the fairest views in London, I knew that
I should not stay there long. . .
There I learnt to be a missioner, and in a
year's time I felt that I must change again.
Henry Chappel and Ernest Hardy allowed me
to join with them in beginning the Society
of the Divine Compassion at St. Philip's,
Plaistow. This brings me to the matter of
Brotherhoods in the Church of England which
my short connection with the S.D.C. gave me
an opportunity of trying to understand from
the inside. The principal Brotherhood (I
think the only important one at that time)
was the Society of St. John the Evangelist,
Cowley. This has been the type for a
thoroughly Anglican community and has not
only re-established the " Religious Life " for
men in England, but has also done a particu-
lar work in home and foreign missions which
ECCLESIASTICAL 73
could not have been so well done by any others.
Some remarkable men have belonged to
S.SJ.E. First and foremost there is the
founder, Father Benson. I am sorry to see
that his biography is not going to be written ;
I cannot help thinking that we do want to hear
over again the old stories, and learn new ones
about him just because his was such a strongly
marked personality. He laid a very solid
foundation at Cowley, which is the reason why
he succeeded where others failed. " You have
got your extinguisher before you have your
candle," he said to a good man who built a
beautiful monastery by way of starting a
Brotherhood. He was, of course, very old-
fashioned, and it was quite impossible to
" draw " him. I remember when he was asked
to deliver a lecture in London in a course
entitled, " Reformers of the Church " he
quietly refused, and wrote, " I am one of
those who do not believe in a Third Adam."
He used to preach very long sermons, and
once after he had finished a fifty minutes'
oration he went up to the Holy Table to give
the Blessing, when he suddenly remembered
that there was a notice he had been asked to
give out. He proceeded to do so. ' Bless
/me, if he ain't busted out again ! " said the
verger.
Of the great preachers amongst the Cowley
74 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Fathers I suppose Luke Rivington and Basil
Maturin were the greatest. They both joined
the Roman Church. Maturin went very sud-
denly, although he had, of course, been think-
ing of it for years. I think he knew in himself
that he was doing a work in the English
Church which he could never do with the
Romans, and the event proved it. He was
not popular among Romans. His style of
preaching did not suit them. But it was mar-
vellous when he was with us. A great preacher
wrote to me about his secession that it was the
biggest blow we had received since Newman.
This sounds a little exaggerated, but it shows
what an impression he made on some. One
of the best courses he ever gave was at Poplar
Town Hall in my time at the Christ Church
Mission. Will Crooks used to preside, and
Maturin roared at the men as only he could
roar. We used to have discussions after his
lecture and questions. One man asked mildly
in the old East End style, " Do I understand
the lecturer to say that I am to go about telling
every one they'll be damned if they are not
Christians?" "No, sir," replied Maturin
promptly, " because you are not Almighty
God." On another occasion at a City church
he was giving a splendid address on purity.
Dealing with the old and horrid argument that
impurity is necessary for a man's health,
ECCLESIASTICAL 75
Maturin got very excited, and, after a dramatic
pause, said, " D n your health ! " The old
Rector, Canon Benham, " Peter Lombard " of
the Church Times, related this to Bishop
Temple, who remarked, " Rather strong ! "
One day he took me round Westminster
Cathedral with Cardinal Vaughan, while it was
being built. I said : " Why don't you show
people, when you get this finished, what a
cathedral might really be ? Give them real
English services, mission preaching, intellig-
ible gospel Masses, congregational hymns,
etc. The Abbey would be nowhere if you
did 1 "
" Come and show us how," said Maturin.
1 You already look much more Roman than
I do!"
I think Mrs. Kensit, my man cook, and an
old Roman Catholic lady in Mayfair are the
only three people, besides Maturin, who have
asked me to go over. I have always declined
with thanks.
Philip Waggett, the only other Cowley
Father whom one can call exactly " great,"
I have already written about. Side by side
with Cowley in the old Tractarian days there
was " Father Ignatius," with his extraordinary
attempt to revive the Order of St. Benedict
in the Anglican Church. I should call him
the most eloquent preacher in the whole
76 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Church. Yet the Church of England never
admitted him to the priesthood, and would not
recognize him in any way. He was a strange
mixture of Calvinism and Catholicism. Un-
doubtedly he was a very " difficult " person to
manage. It is pleasing to know that in his old
age Bishop Ingram gave him his blessing. I
was very friendly with him at one time, but
I fell into great disgrace because of my greater
friendship with Dr. Gore. " Ig " got the
Higher Criticism on the brain, and chose
for attack Gore, Dean Fremantle, Dr. Driver,
and many others. He used to make very wild
speeches about these men, who, he believed,
were upsetting his dear Bible. At Llanthony
Abbey he would have a large Bible put up in
the chapel, and call upon people to kiss it,
" provided they did not believe in Charles
Gore." He was not sparing in his epithets.
" Do you know that your Dean is an atheist? "
he said to an unfortunate policeman whom he
met as he arrived at Ripon. " Please, sir,
I'm a stranger in the place," replied the
constable. But, of course, his attack on Dr.
Gore at the Birmingham Congress was the
most dramatic of all his efforts. I was walk-
ing with Dr. Gore to the Congress Hall and
had the satisfaction of making one of Ig's
nuns give him a handbill about himself, in
which he was described as " Atheist Gore.''
ECCLESIASTICAL 77
The actual scene in the hall was very impres-
sive, whether one looked at Ignatius himself,
standing up in his monk's garb and denouncing
the heretic, very reverently and quietly in his
beautiful voice, or at Gore himself, who while
it was going on was silently praying to the
Divine Lord he was supposed to have denied.
In connection with this episode there is
another curious example of how myths arise.
Ignatius was once relating how he was moved
to make the protest. He declared that he
had a vision of Worcester Cathedral falling
to the ground and himself supporting it. Now,
two things are noticeable here. First, that he
would never have thought of this unless he had
read the story of St. Francis and the Pope's
dream of the fall of St. John Lateran.
Secondly, he would not have connected Gore
with Worcester at the time of " Lux Mundi,"
when there was no idea of his ever being
Bishop of Worcester. Did he simply invent
this dream ? Did he also invent the story of
his having raised up a girl to life in East
London, which appears in his biography ? And
what is the real truth about the appearance of
Our Lady at Llanthony? I have been told it
was a hoax and that the perpetrator had con-
fessed it. I have no doubt the reverend
Father absolutely believed in it.
A much more effective revival of Bene-
dictinism in the Church of England was
78 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
the Caldey one, though it ended unhappily.
Father Aelred Carlyle, now the Roman
Catholic Abbot of Caldey, is a very different
man from Ignatius. He is level-headed
and honest to a degree. He advanced step
by step, doing nothing without authority,
and when the one authority could not see its
way to keep him a Benedictine monk he
naturally went to the other authority that could.
Probably for the present nothing on a very
large scale is possible in the Anglican Church
in the way of a male contemplative Order,
but there is every prospect of success for
Orders of a different kind. The Society of
the Sacred Mission, under Father Kelly and
his successors, has practically solved the
problem of ordination for those who can-
not have a regular University education. The
Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield has
shown what a company of priests regular can
be in the Church, and has already produced
very learned writers, such as Dr. Figgis, Dr.
Frere, and Dr. Gore, great missioners as Paul
Bull, George Waldegrave Hart, and many
others ; foreign missionaries also. One cannot
help regretting that the brilliant star, Hugh
Benson, did not shine in their constellation to
the end.
But the Franciscan model, which my love
for St. Francis inclines me towards most of
ECCLESIASTICAL 79
all, has been most effectively followed in the
Society of the Divine Compassion, which is
now quite firmly established. It was before I
actually left the society that I ventured on
what to me was a very interesting experiment.
I took over Berkeley Chapel, May fair, and
tried my hand for three years at a ministry
among " the rich." When I say " took over "
I am using the right expression, for these pro-
prietary chapels (now all gone) were, like
music-halls, places which one rented and
carried on out of the profits from the collec-
tions ! My chapel had been presided over
by some celebrities in its time : the great
Sydney Smith, Dr. Brookfield (the father of
the actor), " Baptist " Noel, and Canon
Teignmouth Shore, who used to have a
wonderful children's service, where our present
gracious King was taught when a boy, with his
brother, the late Duke of Clarence. There was
a window in memory of the Duke, and when
I was in charge we had a memorial service on
his anniversary, which I notified to his royal
mother, who sent me a grateful reply. My
catechism for the rich children was another
feature of our work. It always interests me
to note what has happened to the little boys and
girls who used to come and listen to Percy
Dearmer's most excellent homilies. Some of
them now are notorious as Suffragettes, and
80 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
many of them appear photographed from time
to time in very fashionable newspapers. They
have probably forgotten me now.
The Duke of Westminster lent us a house,
where I lived until I moved to Teddington.
My " curate " at that time was another very
distinguished friend, Dr. Percy Dearmer. We
always worked very well together. He is one
of those men with whom it is impossible to
quarrel face to face, though he has incurred
much wrath from a large section of the Church
for founding what I once called the " British
Museum religion." Others, no doubt, suppose
that they invented this jibe, but I claim the
original copyright. It was when we were at
Berkeley Chapel that Dearmer began to turn
his thoughts towards finding a way out of the
liturgical chaos in which the Church of
England was struggling. He tells me that I
set him thinking by my continually asking, " Is
this in the Prayer Book?" The question he
asked himself was, " Is there an English Church
ritual?" He is a real student, and always
has been one, and, moreover, he has a very
clear brain and writes and preaches more
lucidly than almost any one I know. He was
just the man to rescue liturgiology from the
pedantry of the mere man of letters and make
it attractive to the whole Church. His first
book was the " Parson's Handbook," the very
ECCLESIASTICAL 81
best defence and explanation of the tenets of
the Anglo -Catholic school to be found any-
where. It is a book which, if it had been pub-
lished forty years sooner, would have created
a revolution by the side of which the publica-
tion of " Tract 90 " would have been mild.
As it was it did create a peaceful revolution in
the minds of hundreds of the clergy. It made
many of us really proud of our English Church
and less inclined than before to apologize for
her as if she were a poor relation of Rome. It
has no doubt irritated a certain section of the
clergy who are called " Spikes," but some day
it will be realized how it has raised the whole
level of Churchmanship in the Anglican Com-
munion. It has made it clear to many that we
are not a Protestant sect (as Dean Henson
seems to wish us to be), to others that we are
not a mere imitation of Rome, but that we
positively claim to be truly Catholic and can
stand on our own feet. It has done much to
rescue the Tractarian movement from making
the Establishment nothing but a dull, flat,
moderate " High Church " affair, without any
enthusiasm on the one hand or learning on
the other. It boldly challenged the old
" ritual judgments " on the plea that fresh
light had now dawned on all students of litur-
giology. " Th,e English Hymnal," which ap-
peared many years after the " Parson's
6
82 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Handbook," and in which the hand of Dr.
Dearmer is again visible, continued the same
good work.
Why, then, did it cause such wrath among
the " Spikes " ? And what is a " Spike " ? The
origin of the term is, I believe, this. There
were certain members of a theological college
who took their theology like milk from a
distinguished scholar at Cambridge, whose
way of putting things was called by an
Oxford rival " spikey." What the Oxford
Doctor meant is not quite clear. Either he
meant that the Cambridge man had an irri-
tating way of giving a cocksure answer to
every problem and pinned you down with a
spike for this and a spike for that, or he meant
that, like a hedgehog or a porcupine, he
bristled all over with sharp points. Anyhow,
these young disciples acquired the nickname,
and it has stuck to all their breed. Practically
it has now come to describe an out-and-out
" Romanizer," who frankly ignores all authority
in the Church of England and takes his orders
from the Pope (at least, those orders which
he wants to obey). It has produced a curious
kind of priest who will be very much alarmed
if he does not say Mass in a Roman way as
regards trifling details, but has apparently no
qualms of conscience when he reflects that the
Holy Father does not recognize that he is
ECCLESIASTICAL 83
saying a Mass at all. It is not surprising
that the " Spike " is irritated by Percy Dearmer
telling him that there is an English way of
saying a Catholic Mass, and that on a certain
occasion in his life he solemnly agreed to
observe it.
No doubt if Dearmer had continued with
me I should have been converted to his way
of doing things, but he went to another parish,
and I was left alone. It was the period of
the agitation led by Mr. Kensit and Lady
Wimborne, and one was driven to emphasize
the ritualistic side of religion in sheer defence
of oneself. The services at Berkeley Chapel
were very popular, and I do not think I re-
member any more fruitful years of my life than
those I spent there. It was quite a new sensa-
tion for me to have grand ladies and gentlemen
at my Bible-classes and sermons. It was a
motley crowd, and it rather liked being treated
like a congregation of East Enders. I knew
no other way. Perhaps if I could have curbed
my ritualism at that time I should have built
up a congregation. As it was they rather
came and went, some being angry because they
could not get the " regular service " (viz.
Matins) at 1 1 a.m. Of course to my idea
the only " regular service " according to the
Bible is the " Breaking of Bread/' but the
aristocracy like being " safely brought to
84 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
the beginning of the day" at about 11.45 to
the tune of Anglican chants.
I was in the hands of Henry Hriggs, the
great Plainsong expert, and I suffered in conse-
quence. He was a wonderful man, who taught
me to love Plainsong by showing me the way in
which it might be rendered. Those who have
heard the Cowley choir sing will know what I
mean. Briggs used to maintain that Plainsong
makes you think of the words. When " The
Lord is my Shepherd " is sung to a chant,
for one who says, " What a beautiful psalm ! "
you have fifty people who say, " What a jolly
chant I"
It will take a long time for Anglicans to
forget the " Gregorians " of their youth, and
melodies like that of " Tipperary " will always
please them better than " Laetabundus," or
" Tibi, Christe, Splendor Patris," even in
church. I think it is partly my sense of
humour which makes me shy of Anglican
chants, " comfortable, but quite irreligious," as
Hugh Benson called them. In the midst of
the " Benedictus " I try to imagine Zachariah
giving it in the original to a tune which
suggests to me the silky music of the ladies of
the harem in " Summurum." This makes me
smile. And the faces of the patient butlers
and ladies' -maids in a " Moderate " West End
church, as I have seen them suffering, makes
me smile too.
ECCLESIASTICAL 85
I had some spare time on Sunday after-
noons in Mayfair, and that enabled me to
preach in Hyde Park. I thoroughly enjoyed
baiting the Secularists there. I discovered that
it was a great mistake to try to reply to their
arguments in the five minutes they allow you :
it is much better to have a platform of your
own. Best of all, you must learn to keep your
temper and maintain a very thick skin against
blasphemy.
You must not mind being scored off occa-
sionally. One of the favourite arguments
against the clergy is that we are paid to say
what we do. I once tried to get the crowd on
my side by asking my secularist opponent this :
{< Do you mean that if I am paid fifty pounds
by the State to say that twice two make four
it must be a lie, whereas if I say it gratis it
is true?" He promptly replied: "No; but
I say that if you were paid to say that twice
two made five you would be quite ready to say
it." I think he had me there. I may remark
that this was long before the day when
philosophers had begun to teach us that twice
two does not necessarily make four at all. It
is good to have a chairman on these occasions.
We had a dear old chairman at the Oxford
House lectures in Victoria Park. He was a bit
of a snob, and amused me very much one day
by announcing me thus : " The week before
86 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
last we had a colonel ; last week we had a
reverend gentleman ; to-day we have a honour-
able " (h not mute).
Archbishop Temple was a tough nut for these
secularist people to crack. The speakers at
East End discussions are mostly the same men
Sunday after Sunday, and make the same
speeches again and again whatever the subject
of the lecture may be. One man was called
" Pythagoras/' because he always quoted some
supposed work of his which seemed to make
him a teacher of Christianity before Christ.
He fired off his little speech when Temple had
been lecturing to us. The Archbishop stared
at him with his marvellous grin, and said, " I
have read all that Pythagoras is reparted to
have written, and I don't seem to remember
the passage ! "
Of course this " Christianity before Christ "
is really an argument on our side, for the main
tenet of our religion is that He whom we
worship is the Eternal Word, " the light that
light eth every man."
The most dangerous foes to Christianity in
Hyde Park are not the Secularists, but the
Christians themselves who lack humour. There
were some very silly old gentlemen there who
made a poor defence of our holy religion.
The Secularists had a way of quoting writers
like Dr, Driver and Dr. Sanday on their side,
ECCLESIASTICAL 87
I used to write to these great men, and read
out their replies the following Sunday to the
crowd., who were much impressed. No doubt
my Socialism stood me in good stead, for the
crowd in the nineties were tired of Brad-
laugh, and preferred the Clarion (before
it too began attacking Christianity). Some-
times the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham and
other distinguished persons used to come and
listen to my debates. Mr. Wyndham used also
to attend Berkeley Chapel, and I know he
found comfort there during the dark days of
the Boer War, when he was bearing the burden
of the War Office.
Now I must say a word about Dr. Creigh-
ton, my dear Bishop who helped me so much
in those days. I was one of the " asses " who,
as he said, he would always allow " to come
and bray in his study," though, I was not the
particular one whom he once called " the cock-
ass of his diocese." He was extremely kind
to me. We only once quarrelled, and that was
over an " Interview " which appeared in my
magazine, Goodwill. It was a " scoop " which
did not pay me at all well, for every newspaper
copied it before I was aware that I had got
hold of anything very remarkable. All I got
was the kicks and a very severe sentence. " I
don't know whether it is monasticism, Adder-
ley, or socialism that makes a man forget
88 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
he is a gentleman ! " That was pretty bad,
wasn't it ?
I fled from London House at the time, but
afterwards I got a letter which made up for
it all, in which the Bishop frankly forgave me,
and incidentally threw a new light on his own
character. The letter is in his Life, but
I reproduce some of it here :
I can conceive an enemy, who wished to work mischief,
publishing what appeared in Goodwill: but I am still unable
to conceive how any one could publish it with good intent.
I am afraid I know so little of modern journalism and am so
entirely out of sympathy with it, that I cannot understand its
methods or suppose that any man with a serious purpose can
use them. This is due to my ignorance of the world. I am
really a very simple person. I like to trust people and take
them as they seem to be. The idea that I was dealing with a
journalist who wanted clever copy and didn't care how he got
it was miles from my thoughts. I say this to explain to you
why I spoke to you in what you doubtless considered a harsh
manner. I had no personal feeling, I trust. But you have
come out of the world : you are trying to heighten its
standard ; you are working for a nobler future. Beware,
I affectionately implore you, of the ways of the world. We
are always fighting God's battles with the weapons of the
flesh, and they break in our hands. St. Francis did not
regenerate the world by smart journalism. We all trust to
our own cleverness. We all deal with modern problems. It
is for you especially to rise above this, to deal with eternal
problems, and show, not how old forms can accord with
modern ideas, but how spiritual power can create a purer
atmosphere, in which there is neither old nor new, but all
things become beautiful and clear.
This is what I wanted to imply. I am nothing, and the
ECCLESIASTICAL 89
matter is forgotten. But you have a future : will you rise to
it ? The world will be moved by seeing a spirit not like its
own, and this spirit must never work in the world's way.
Yours with real concern,
M. LONDON.
In politics Creighton was never a party man.
He disliked Disraeli's foreign policy, but Mr.
Gladstone's adoption of Home Rule threw him
on to the side of the Unionists. He took a
very sober view of social questions, success-
fully assisting in the settlement of the great
shoe strike at Leicester in 1895, ^ ut greatly
distrusting the extreme Socialists, especially be-
cause they seemed to him not to have faced
the difficulties in regard to marriage and such-
like problems which a collectivist system would
involve. Creighton was a great educationist
and had a contempt for " undenominational -
ism," which, however, he saw was not merely
a question of the religious education of
children, but a temper or state of mind which
coloured the whole of British religion. He
appeared to some people to be cynical and
sarcastic, and even a sort of Gallio who " cared
for none of these things." But those who knew
him knew how much of this was on the surface,
and that he really felt very deeply on all
matters. In fact, it was because he felt deeply
himself, and also because he knew so much
more than others who talked more, that he
90 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
could not make hasty judgments, but preferred
often to dismiss the matter with a joke while
he inwardly resolved to think it out, and pro-
nounce upon it later (or perhaps never). Such
was the man who at a most difficult time was
put at the head of the great Diocese of London.
It was the time of what was called " The
Crisis/' in 1898. Mr. Stewart Headlam used
to say that "The Crisis " was begun by Mr.
Dell, a Roman Catholic Modernist, who wrote
some articles in the Daily Chronicle on " Mass
or Communion": it was continued by Mr.
Kensit, who smashed crucifixes, by Sir William
Harcourt, who wrote ponderous letters to The
Times, and by Lady Wimborne, who made the
hair of the old gentlemen at the Carlton Club
stand on end by her stories of donkeys in
church .
Creighton is said to have made a mistake
by asking Mr. Kensit to tea at Fulham. Yet
this is exactly what Creighton would do. He
would always hear all sides. He was really
struck by the fact that Mr. Kensit could get
up an agitation about these things. To him
it meant that Church affairs were matters of
real concern to people. He once told an Italian
gentleman the story of Kensit's interfering with
the selection of a Bishop. " Nobody in our
country cares who the Bishops are," said the
Italian.
ECCLESIASTICAL 91
" Don't talk of the Ornaments Rubric," said
Creighton. "The point is, what am I to say
to the Members of Parliament who come and
ask me if the clergy mean to obey the law? "
This does not mean that Creighton was really
alarmed about so-called illegalities, or that he
respected the Members of Parliament very
much. To use a vulgar expression, he did
not scruple to " pull their legs " in the House
of Lords, when the noble peers professed them-
selves alarmed by some manuals of devotion
they had lately been studying. Archbishop
Temple, too, in the House of Lords was some-
times rather alarming to the Protestant nobility
out of his stern sense of justice. He always
maintained that the Bennett judgment gave the
clergy a very free hand to teach the real objec-
tive presence in the Blessed Sacrament. -' I
did not refer to that judgment," said a Low
Church Earl in one of the debates. ' I know
you didn't," said Temple, -' because if you
had, it would have destroyed the whole of
your argument ! "
To return to Creighton : " What the dickens
does it Jmiatter what another Bishop says ? I am
your Bishop. I haven't charged anybody and
do not mean to. They will all come round
soon. What London does the others will do."
The truth is that Creighton did not take " The
Crisis " very seriously, and after -events have
92 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
proved that he was right. He could make
little jokes about " incense," and " curing souls
with smoke/' just because he could not feel
that it mattered very much if you " censed
persons and things/' or used the thurible only
for fumigatory purposes . The problem for him
lay too deep for it to be solved either by a
temporary compromise or by Sir William Har-
court's police methods. Creighton looked
ahead, and hoped that when the smoke and
noise of battle had died away English Church-
men would get together and look at the matter
calmly. The Anglican Church to him was the
Church of the "new learning." It held a
peculiar place. It was not a Protestant sect ;
it never had been. It was the Church of
Colet, Wareham, Wolsey, Sir Thomas More.
And it had never lost this character. In view
of the modern renaissance, could it not once
more come out before the face of all Christen-
dom as the learned Church? But to do this
both parties must learn wisdom. The extreme
Protestants must leave off treating the Church
as if it were a mere product of the Refor-
mation ; the extreme ritualists, on the other
hand, must believe in the true catholicity of
the Anglican " branch," and must not hanker
after Rome or want to surrender the position
taken up at the Reformation. Perhaps Creigh-
ton was not very hopeful of securing his object.
ECCLESIASTICAL 93
'He knew the English and their love for com-
promise and "muddling through." 'The
English people," he said, " were never fond
of theology. They learnt a little in the six-
teenth century, enough to get rid of the Pope,
but they have not troubled about it since."
Nor did he like British phariseeism. He often
indulged in little aphorisms containing a wealth
of thought. Speaking of the Orthodox Church
of the East, he once said something like this :
" The only difference between a Russian
peasant and an English one is that the first
swears and gets drunk and goes to Mass ; the
other swears and gets drunk and doesn't go to
Mass ." " The Russians are accused of persecut-
ing the Jews, but when you hear of Jews being
expelled from a town, it only means that if
they were not turned out, the Governor knows
that by nightfall there would not be a single
Jew with his throat uncut."
(His definition of the " world " as " human
society organizing itself apart from God " still
remains, to my mind, the best ever given, and
it has often been to me a perfect godsend when
preparing a sermon. 'He helped me much in
conversations about St. Francis. " Francis
and Napoleon," he said, " had a greater effect
on European history than any other men."
" No revolution has ever been so great as that
made by the simple life of Francis."
94 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
C r eight on 's view of things was always
arrived at by the historical method. He said
(and it is engraven on his memorial at St.
Paul's) that he always tried to write true
history. So with every question he wanted
to get at the truth without prejudice. A letter
to me on the reservation of the Blessed Sacra-
ment (published in his Life) illustrates this.
What exactly does reservation mean ? This is
how he answers the question : Communion is
" a moment of spiritual uplifting." Reserva-
tion is an attempt by outward appeal to extend
this over a longer time. Rome makes it
" permanent and renewable at pleasure." This
cannot be done by " individual feeling or
option." Therefore, while he deprecated the
thing being done without authority, he would
allow it under special circumstances for ex-
ample, in a Religious House. This, of course,
refers to perpetual reservation for worship, and
not to the Communion of the Sick, which he
never called " reservation." So with the
doctrine of the Real Presence, he was never
frightened by verbal bogies. He accepted the
very strong language of the Greek Liturgy,
such as " changing them by the Holy Spirit,"
or " further, I believe that this is Thy Very
Body and Thy Very Blood," as being quite
in accordance with the spirit and intention of
the English Prayer Book.
ECCLESIASTICAL 95
It was distinctly brave of him to write in
this way in the midst of " The Crisis," and it
illustrates the calmness and assurance -which
his historical knowledge gave him. Yet it
must not be assumed that it was mere know-
ledge that actuated him. He was most sin-
cerely devout, and increasingly so during his
London episcopate. He became a -stronger
Christian through those four years of trial.
He probably felt more deeply than he would
allow people to know. He certainly had much
more spirituality than many suspected. 'His
" Lessons from the Cross/' Holy Week
addresses at St. Paul's, give a deep in-
sight into this, and there is something intensely
pathetic about them when one remembers that
a few months afterwards he was on his death-
bed. In one of these addresses he remarks
that it is unhappily well known that religious
people are very often impatient in sickness,
but his own doctor, Robson Roose, told me
that he never remembered such patience as
Creighton's under intense suffering. As to his
rather stinging little sarcasms, the wonder is,
not that there were so many, but that there
were so few of them. It requires great self-
control for a very clever man to restrain him-
self when he is among ordinary mortals off
whom he can score if he chooses.
Such was the Bishop who guided the Church
96 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
during those difficult years. We do not say
that he was a complete success, but he was
very far from a failure. What he did had to
be done. We may perhaps also say that what
his successor did, though very different, had
also to be done. Each was exactly the man
for the time and place. Would it be true to
say : " Creighton dealt with the plaintiffs and
Ingram with the defendants " ? " Creighton
succeeded with the public in the clubs and in
the streets, and Ingram succeeded in private
with the clergy in their churches " ? It is diffi-
cult to say, but that they both somehow came
off successfully can hardly be denied.
This is not nearly enough about Creighton
and all I owe to him, but I must now say
what I have to say about his successor.
' There is only one man for the Oxford
House." So said the late Canon Bromby one
morning at breakfast, in the year 1888, and
thereby " made " the Bishop of London. Com-
paratively unknown, Arthur Foley Wilmington -
Ingram " arrived " in more senses than one
when he took up his abode in the little blue-
walled room at the old Oxford House in
Bethnal Green, a miserable shanty which had
been put together out of the old National
Schoolrooms in St. Andrew's parish. He
found the University Settlement a small in-
stitution, carrying on a little supplementary
ECCLESIASTICAL 97
work in the midst of some poor East End
parishes, not thought much of by Oxford or
London ; he left it almost the most important
factor in the ecclesiastical life of East London,
and certainly one of the greatest powers for
good in the 'Varsity. But if Ingram made
Oxford House, it is equally true to say that
Oxford House made him. It introduced him
to all the different circles in which since that
time he has so brilliantly shone. It is still
Bethnal Green which comes to one's mind
when his name is mentioned ; it is still from
that quarter that he himself derives his
enthusiasm and even his anecdotes.
It was as Head of Oxford House that he
made himself acquainted with the character
of the working-man and his difficulties, with
the everyday life of the district, with the
spiritual needs of East London and of the West
End alike, with the potentialities of the under-
graduate as a social worker. But it is his own
personality which has brought him so rapidly
into prominence. Not that he has ever been
a self -advertiser. On the contrary, he has
never had to push himself anywhere. He has
never made a great public speech which has
made him famous in a day. Yet he has become
famous. It is simply that his personality has
had innumerable influences upon every single
person that he has met, and these persons have
98 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
met each other and talked about him and have
mentally compared notes and wanted to meet
him again. These influences have accumu-
lated and have met from every quarter, until
there has been formed a public opinion which
has clamoured for his promotion and bent itself
into his worship. There are thousands of
people of all classes who recognize in the
Bishop the man they love and trust. So Lord
Salisbury tried a hitherto undreamed-of experi-
ment and trusted to " sheer goodness," as it
was called, when he made him Bishop of
London. No doubt it was bold to put him,
immediately after Creighton, into the greatest
see in the world (save Rome). But never was
experiment more justified by results. It was
not merely that London wanted that kind of
man to humour the clergy, just then recover-
ing from the fever of " The Crisis." Of course,
he did that extremely well. But if it had been
only that, he would by this time, when all the
circumstances have entirely changed, be pain-
fully de trop. There seems to be no sign that
such is the case. In an extraordinary way he
has grown in intellectual capacity and in know-
ledge of men and affairs during his tenure of
the London episcopate. His friends have
noticed the change in his face. There is still
the delightful smile and joyfulness, but there
is a seriousness and a dignity that were not
ECCLESIASTICAL 99
there in the old days. I have been told that
he has not a keen sense of humour, but I think
what is meant is rather that he has not a large
fund of original wit. He is beautifully child-
like and single-minded. I am not sure that the
old " sheer goodness " does not still describe
him best. He is artless to an almost alarming
degree. " Behold an Anglican indeed in
whom is no guile." He is not in any sense a
revolutionary, and yet it is extraordinary what
a change he has brought about in the Church
of England. He is not a prophet, and yet he
is by no means a conventional priest. He does
not lay himself out to lead a party ; he rather
brings parties together without being a mere
compromiser or comprehensionalist. Perhaps
it would be truest to say that he brings the
mass of the Church on step by step, appeal-
ing to their common sense. Every Bishop, just
because of his position, is able to say things
and commend unpopular views to people in a
way that would never be tolerated from smaller
fry. But with Ingram it is more than this. It
is because it is Ingram, not because it is a
Bishop, who says it, that people listen ; and
yet, here again, not because he has the intel-
lectual weight of Dr. Gore, or the statesman-
like capacity of the Primate, or the somewhat
ponderous venerableness of the Archbishop of
York, but only because he is such a " splendid
100 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
fellow." This makes him a great power with
the general mass of ordinary Church people,
but prevents him from leading a section in
any very out-of-the-way path.
Has he no faults? People say he has. He
is supposed to be too optimistic. " The Bishop
of London's optimism makes me positively
pessimistic/' says one. No doubt there is an
optimism which irritates some people, but the
fault is with them. Christian faith which
removes mountains must be optimistic, and
though it seems exaggerated to ordinary folk,
it is only because we ourselves are so faithless.
Others say that this optimism is due to
ignorance of the real situation. The Bishop
is said to attach too much importance to the
crowded meetings which he addresses and to
think that all is as it should be in this best of
all possible Churches. I confess I am a little
surprised that he should be led away by the
sight of crowds, if it is so. Having been a
parish priest himself, he ought to know how
very little a crowd means.
Again, he is said to be unaware of the innate
religiousness of many Londoners who do not
go to church, being unsatisfied with modern
Anglicanism yet quite unwilling to join Rome.
When the Bishop has an appointment to make,
he is somewhat inclined to ignore these people
and to send too many clergy of one type
especially to West London.
ECCLESIASTICAL 101
When I have written this I have said all {hat
I dare to say about one whom the whole
Church profoundly respects and to whom I
myself owe more than I can ever repay in the
way of inspiration. Let me leave him to the
reader to imagine as the " Sunny Jim " of
the Church, shedding brightness and joy
wherever he goes, and absolutely refusing to
be dismayed or worried by Modernists, Kensit-
ites, Papists, or the gutter Press, backing up
his clergy when they are unjustly attacked,
showing every one a most splendid example of
energy, faith, hope, and charity, keeping his
body in grand condition by sport and exercise
and his soul by never-failing devotion. There
is the secret. There is no end to the situa-
tions in which we might try to describe the
Bishop. One might picture him on the golf-
links or the banks of the I sis, on the platform
of a missionary meeting or a purity meeting,
at a mothers' social in East London or a draw-
ing-room one in the West, playing with the
children, larking at some Boys' Home, visiting
a sick girl in a slum, or perhaps in a Cabinet
Minister's house, dealing privately with some
difficult case of conscience in his study or
chapel, entertaining a motley group of parsons,
'Varsity " blues," actors, monks, Socialists,
M.P.'s, philanthropists, fashionable ladies, or
schoolboys, at luncheon at Fulham. There he
102 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
stands, or rather on he goes, shedding light
and hope wherever he is seen and heard.
Without the power of the great theologians or
the political ecclesiastics, or the statisticians,
he has done more than they all to restore con-
fidence in the Church of England as a work-
able concern, able to take its place in the
forefront of Christendom as catholic and
missionary, alive and progressive. He has
done and is still doing this, because he is
human and happy, a lover of men and of our
Lord Jesus Christ. This humanity of his wins
men. Let us thank God for Ingram. We
have almost got rid now of the " Schoolmaster
Bishop," and the " Greek play prelate," the
pompous plutocrat, and the sour -faced puritan.
Ingram has shown us what the new Bishop can
do and be. We shall never, please God, revert
to the old type.
I had many famous preachers in my pulpit
at Berkeley Chapel. The most popular was
Robert Dolling, and I always regret that when
my time for leaving came I did not hand over
the place to him. His great friend, Lord
Northclifle, always came to the chapel when
he preached, and I think he would have
enabled Dolling to finance the place in a way
that my friends could not. Dolling would have
lived longer if he had had such a congenial
sphere for his labour. He had worked himself
ECCLESIASTICAL 103
out as a slum parson at Portsmouth, and in
his later days it was the Mayfair young man
with whom he had the greatest influence. He
would also have been near his beloved Father
Tyrrell, who was at Farm Street at the time.
Who knows but that these two might have kept
each other alive ? They each had a burning
love for souls, Tyrrell for the harassed doubter
and Dolling for the tempted and the outcast in
all ranks of society. " Authorities " never
understood either of these two men. 'They
would not let him preach the gospel, and now
they won't let me," said Tyrrell once, looking
at Boiling's portrait.
My first acquaintance with " Brother Bob "
was at Maidman Street, where he conducted
the Magdalen College Mission, while I was
at Oxford House. I shall never forget my
introduction to that " open house," where
burglars and undergraduates fed and played
and slept under one roof. It was Canon
Carnegie, then an undergraduate of Magdalen,
who " discovered " Dolling.
Dolling was a genius. It is pathetic that he
should have had to speak of his mother the
Church of England as " having a perfect
genius for destroying enthusiasm." Like
Father Ignatius, Bob was a difficult person
for the Anglican mother to manage. He was
somewhat fond of riding for a fall, and I can
104 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
never believe that he need have been turned
out of St. Agatha's, Landport, if he had wanted
to stay. Yet one could not help forgiving him
anything, and it is a sad thing that his wonder-
ful work came to an untimely end. You had
to live at St. Agatha's, to get inside its
atmosphere, before you could sympathize. This
the authorities did not care to do, and they
lost a treasure to the Church when they allowed
him to go. He had the most extraordinary
personal influence of any man I have ever met.
Men and boys of all classes simply surren-
dered to him because they could not resist. He
had an intense love which conquered all. Of
course such a man could not be constrained
by rules, and the Prayer Book is a very pro-
voking book to any priest who wants to save
souls. You will find this among Low Church
and High Church alike. A parson who is
filled with the Spirit and longs to get at the
souls of poor and rich does find himself
handicapped by our antiquated forms.
It is very doubtful if the bigwigs of Con-
vocation, who mostly live in an extra-parochial
paradise, are the men to revise the Prayer
Book.
Probably a wise and sympathetic Bishop
who prays with his " Catholic " and his " Pro-
testant " clergy and allows each considerable
latitude is doing more than Convocation
ECCLESIASTICAL 105
towards a real revision, which may not be
complete, or able to be enshrined in a new
book, for fifty or a hundred years. We need
experiments in worship. As controversy dies
down we shall have more leisure to make them.
We need not be in a hurry to compose a new
book. The only opponent of Dolling at whom
I ever felt painfully surprised was Dr. West-
cott, who actually inhibited him. Westcott, of
course, had great ideas of order and unity, and
I suppose it seemed to him that Dolling's
vagaries offended against them both. Still, I
think the great man might have made inquiries
before he condemned him.
And what a great man he was, the Bishop
of Durham ! If there was an atmosphere
about Dolling, so there was about this very
different ecclesiastic. I remember feeling
much abashed when Westcott, at one of
our C.S.U. meetings, at which I had pro-
posed an issue of cheap tracts explaining
our principles, gazed at me with his won-
derful eyes and said, "Is your proposal
that we should save people the trouble of
thinking ? " I felt ashamed of myself, as others
must have done when he said on another occa-
sion, " Twenty years ago, when I first began
to study St. John," or as the young art critic
did when he remarked to Ruskin, " Directly
I went into the gallery at Florence I under-
106 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
stood the supremacy of Botticelli," and the
great man answered, "Did you? It took me
twelve years to discover it ! "
Two things are not generally known about
Westcott. One is his love of " holy poverty."
In a letter to me he writes of " the ghost
which all my life I have been unable to
lay," the yearning after a poor life. The
other is that he never read more than one
book by Frederick Denison Maurice, whom
many people look upon as his master. West-
cott was too original to have any " master "
in that sense. But this is another digression,
for Westcott never preached at Berkeley
Chapel.
Canon Knox Little comes next in my list,
another genius in his way. Dr. Joseph Parker
called him the greatest of all Anglican
preachers. Probably Archbishop Magee and
Bishop Boyd Carpenter should be put in front
of him if eloquence is the test. But certainly
in the days when Knox Little preached at St.
Barnabas, Oxford,, or at St. Paul's in Lent, or
in the first great Manchester Mission, the con-
gregation listened to one of the finest preachers
ever heard. He is a wonderful teacher of the
simple gospel and the Catholic faith. " If all
the English clergy were real priests," he once
said (by which he meant priests who exer-
cised to the full their priestly functions), ' 4 the
ECCLESIASTICAL 107
Church of England would be the most wonder-
ful institution in the world." He is one of
the few men who can look dispassionately on
the Roman Church, and learn from it the secret
of the influence which it exercises over all
classes in its communion. This influence
he knows lies inherent in the gospel of
Catholicism, and can therefore be set working
among Anglicans also. He first came into
prominence when he was appointed to St.
Alban's, Manchester. The Dean, with great
courage, invited him to preach the Mission
in the cathedral. Protestant fury was aroused,
and, as is its usual result, multitudes came to
hear the man, and hundreds made their first
confession. The stories of this great Mission
are a romance in themselves. Omnibuses full
of people singing hymns on their way to
church ; hotels emptied during the luncheon
hour because the lunchers were hungering and
thirsting after something better which they had
gone to the cathedral to partake of ; Protestant
enemies converted into the staunchest of
Catholic friends ; hard-headed business men
flocking to the Sacrament of Penance these
are only some of the incidents of that great
revival.
In 1 88 1 he was made Canon of Worcester
by Mr. Gladstone, who had frequently heard
him preach when he was at St. Thomas's,
108 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Regent Street. " Why should one ritualist
have a stall and another a cell? " was said by
his enemies, alluding to the fact that Rev. S. F.
Green, another Manchester parson, had just
been put in jail. But why was any one put
in prison? That was the question. The
answer was that the new Canon was quite
ready to go there too if what was done to
Mr. Green was done to him. But they knew
better than to try it on. " Prosecute Knox
Little ! " said Bishop Fraser. " Do you want
to have all Lancashire on your back?"
The anecdote of the little shoeblack who
heard the Canon at St. Paul's and afterwards
sent for him on his deathbed, though he had
never spoken to him, is well known, and has
been published in a story-book.
I love to think of him as a director of souls
rather than as a preacher. Like Dolling, he
is full of love, and the name is legion of those
whom he has brought to Christ and kept close
to the Lord. As is the case with many
eloquent preachers, he is better heard than
read. And with Knox Little it was not only
his picturesque eloquence which attracted us,
but his picturesque appearance. When we
listened to him at St. Barnabas we were im-
pressed by the thought of his having come
straight from the slums of Manchester, with
its starving match-girls and street arabs and
ECCLESIASTICAL 109
its blatant atheists and its sordid streets.
Slums, of course, were more romantic in those
days. Nobody in Oxford had ever seen any.
With poor people I think Knox converted
them by his eloquence (which they always
admire), and by his human sympathy, which
always made itself felt amid the torrent of
words. But at Poplar, where he often preached
for me, they really could not have understood
him when he said, as he did once, ' You
who have read your George Eliot and your
Balzac ! " Yet they loved him, and would
listen for an hour and a half per week,
crowded like sardines into our little church.
He has done a lot for the " Catholic " cause,
not being afraid to stand up to Protestant
Bishops or to wither them with his Irish
wit. A Bishop once came to his church
for a wedding, and expressed the hope
that there would be no incense. "No, my
lord," said Knox, " I cense corpses, but not
brides ! "
To another Bishop, who tried to smooth over
differences of opinion and declared that, after
all, they probably agreed, he replied : " No,
my lord, it is impossible ; you see, you
look upon yourself as an ecclesiastical con-
venience ; I look upon you as a Divine
necessity."
This reminds me of Liddon's remark, that
110 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
it was easy to think of Anglican Bishops as
of the esse of the Church : the difficulty
was to believe they were of the bene esse :
and of the priest who remarked to another
Bishop concerning Our Lady : ' You see, my
lord, to me she is the Mother of God, but to
your lordship, apparently, only a deceased
Roman Catholic."
Knox Little would never desert my friend-
ship, though I have tried him sorely with my
socialism and my liberalism. Though once
a Radical in politics in Gladstonian days, he
'became very Conservative, especially on re-
ligious matters. He is too good a scholar,
of course, to become rabid like Father Ignatius,
but he will have no mercy on those who, he
thinks, are undermining the Catholic faith. He
belongs to the ancle n regime, and we must
look to the younger men to reconcile the
new learning and the Church religion. It is
well to avoid discussing higher criticism or
" modernism " with any " Catholic " over fifty
years of age that is, if you want to preserve
Christian love. But that this reconciliation is
necessary I have not the slightest doubt, and
it was to try and do something towards help-
ing it on that I set myself when I went from
Berkeley Chapel to St. Mark's, Marylebone
Road. I think it was my Hyde Park experi-
ences and my reading of some of Tyrrell's
ECCLESIASTICAL 1 1 1
books that directed me away from " ritual-
ism " to what, for the want of a better term,
I call "modernism." I have always had a
sceptical mind, and from the days of Oxford
'House, when I used to read Archdeacon
Wilson's splendid apologetics for working-men,
I had always felt that Tractarian rigidity would
never satisfy me. " Lux Mundi," of course,
had its influence, as it had, I suppose, on all
young men of that period.
My great difficulty has always been concern-
ing authority. If we accept the general
Roman view of authority it becomes increas-
ingly difficult to adapt it to Anglican require-
ments. It seems impossible for the Anglican
Church to continue very much longer except
as a Free Church, which allows considerable
latitude to all schools of thought inside a
comprehensive communion. It is surely pos-
sible to maintain the Catholic ideal combined
with the utmost liberty of thought. And this
is what the Anglican Church seems to be
guided by the Holy Spirit to achieve. But
all her sons must co-operate loyally to produce
this. The Liberals must be really liberal and
the " Catholics " really catholic. There must
be a considerable amount of the " live and
let live" policy on both sides. Meanwhile,
the laity, who have not the time and opportunity
to go very deeply into the questions which
112 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
divide the clergy, should be treated very
frankly and told what the elemental difficulties
are without any obscurantism.
At St. Mark's, Marylebone Road (to which
I was appointed by my dear friend and present
Bishop, Dr. Russell Wakefield), I was in the
delightful position of having a small parish
of poor people, surrounded by the rich and
intellectual. I started Sunday lectures on
critical questions. The only unlucky thing
about St. Mark's was that it had a reputation
for quarrels about ritual.
A local rag maintained a precarious exist-
ence by attacking us week by week, and a
cantankerous churchwarden tried to make
things difficult. He was the only consistent
believer in the priesthood of the laity I ever
met among Protestants. He wanted to burn
incense by himself like Uzziah, to show that he
was as good a priest as the Vicar. Why do
not all the Protestant churchwardens turn up
to Matins in chasubles one morning ? It would
be very effective. His description of St.
Mark's before the Royal Commission on Dis-
orders in the Church provided us with some
excellent reading. I had to draw up a reply,
which was also interesting. He declared that
only women and children came to the church.
I was able to show that, according to the Daily
News census, we had many more men than
ECCLESIASTICAL 113
any other church in the neighbourhood. He
attacked our preachers. I was able to fire
off a list which must have astonished even
the Royal Commissioners : Dr. Driver, Dr.
Sanday, Dr. Robertson, Dr. Kirkpatrick, Dr.
Holland, Dr. Inge why, there was hardly one
of my Critical Question lecturers not of world-
wide reputation. Father Waggett's " The
Scientific Temper in Religion " and the book
called " Critical Questions " contain some of
the principal lectures delivered at St. Mark's.
Some " rather hot " doctrines were occasionally
put forth from the pulpit, and I remember
how my assistant priest, one of the old school
(Rev. G. R. Woodward of Plainsong fame),
used to sit in the sedilia fuming over the
lectures and muttering the Athanasian Creed
as a relief to his feelings. The "gloomy
Dean " was neither gloomy nor a dean in those
days. He was chiefly "mystical," in which
capacity most of us would like to keep him,
and sit at his feet : for he is a real prophet,
as any one who reads his " The Church and
the Age " must know. I cannot resist record-
ing one little incident of Inge when he came
to St. Mark's. It is well known that if you
expect to find " inhabitants " in your bed, you
feel their presence even if they are not there.
I have the reputation of keeping a slum regime
like Dolling's wherever I go. It is quite un-
8
114 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
founded. Inge, I suppose, thought he was
in for a bad night at my Vicarage, and sure
enough in the morning, just before preaching
on " the spiritual experience of the Christian's
life," he told me timidly, " I think the bed
wants looking at ! " I am afraid I laughed.
But I can assure my readers that if there was
one, it was the only one I ever heard of in
St. Mark's.
I would not say the same for Plaistow, nor
for St. Agatha's, Landport, where I once . . .
well, I forbear .
My little " modernist " boom was destined
to be of short duration, for after four years I
was called (yes, I think that is the right ex-
pression) to go to Saltley. I seem to some
of my friends a person very fond of change,
but I always derive comfort from Canon Scott
Holland's reply to some one who said I was
a rolling stone who never gathered any moss,
" After all, why should a stone gather moss? "
Thus ended my twenty -one years' work in
London, and nothing that I have found in
Birmingham (and I have found much that I
love) can ever make me feel anything but
the profoundest regret that my London life
is over. There is absolutely no place in the
world like London, whether you are a docker
or a duke or even an obscure parson. I
think this is a good place in which to publish
ECCLESIASTICAL 115
the only prize ballad I ever wrote in the W . G.
Problems page.
BALLAD OF LONDON TOWN.
Sing I of London town,
Country folk, lass and clown,
Giles, Patty, sit ye down,
List to my lay.
I'll tell ye why I love
London all else above,
E'en though in Westbourne Grove
I'm doomed to stay.
Be it the winter time,
Snow on the trees and rime,
Then there's the pantomime
At Drury Lane.
Thither in motor-bus
Ride we with little fuss,
Yes, it just does for us,
Me and my Jane.
Be it a rainy spring,
Country louts shivering,
Birds all too wet to sing,
Mist, fog, and haze ;
We do not mind a bit,
We can just laugh and sit
There in the good old pit
At matinees.
And when in blazing heat
Haymakers toil and sweat,
We take a summer treat
In Richmond Park.
116 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Ice-cream is cheaply bought,
Easily swimming's taught,
Boating with joy is fraught :
Ain't it a lark?
While under heavy sheaves
Poor Hodge, he groans and heaves,
Trudging 'mid fallen leaves
Dirty and brown;
I go and gaily watch
Soccer or Rugby match :
Country ? It ain't a patch
On London town.
Give me the sparkling Strand,
Looking by night so grand,
Give me a Sousa's band,
In shine or rain.
Lunch at the A. B.C.
Steamboats and L.C.C.
Country folk, envy me,
Me and my Jane.
You grope in some dark lane,
Trusting to Charles's wain,
Gas makes the way quite plain
In darkest night.
Slow you in wagons creep,
Drivers always asleep,
Enough to make one weep.
Us trams delight.
Then, oh, how much I hate
Hearing the news so late,
Drearily to await
My Daily Mail.
ECCLESIASTICAL 1 17
Here morning, noon, and night,
Pale green and pink and white
Papers are all in sight
They never fail.
Friends, come and have your fling,
Catch sight of everything :
You'll see perhaps the King,
Joe and C.B.
G.B.S., G.K.C.,
General Booth, Beerbohm Tree,
And, yes, you're sure to see
My Jane and me.
Come, then, from hill and dale,
Come, leave the grassy vale,
Speed o'er the iron rail
In London train.
If I've said what's not true,
Shame's to me, not to you :
Come for a day and view
Me and my Jane.
KOKNEE.
Saltley is a very large parish in industrial
Birmingham. My father inherited the princi-
pal part of the property when a young man,
and mapped out the streets in such a way that
it has never become a slum. Unfortunately
for my " modernist " aspirations it had been
in the hands of extreme Protestants for fifty
years and more. I was consequently obliged
to begin teaching people on the baldest Trac-
tarian basis from the commencement of my
118 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
ministry. I varied my lessons with the propa-
gation of advanced socialism in the face of
Joe and Jingo, the two local deities. The
" business men " never liked me. I was the
" disagreeable man " of Gilbert and Sullivan's
opera. I found that socialism was a far greater
bugbear than ritualism, as indeed it has always
been since the days of St. Paul and the
merchants of Ephesus. However, I am deal-
ing with ecclesiastical matters in this chapter,
so I will confine myself to them.
It was now that I came into closer con-
tact with the greatest man of the Anglican
Church,, Charles Gore, though, of course, he
had been very near and dear to me since
Oxford days. He taught me practically all
the theology I know, though I do not
want to saddle him with any of my heresies.
Few people outside Oxford know the extra-
ordinary patience and care with which Dr.
Gore, when Principal of the Pusey House,
dealt with individuals like myself. I was abso-
lutely ignorant until he opened my eyes as
I sat and listened to his conversations, some-
times far into the night, in his study at Oxford.
I used to write essays for him. My friends
think me a heretic to-day, but I can assure
them that thirty years ago there was no known
heresy, Sabellianism, Patripassianism, Nesto-
rianism, Pelagianism, or any other of which
ECCLESIASTICAL 119
I was not glaringly guilty. I deserved to be
burnt in the garden of Pusey House, but in-
stead of that the Principal taught me the
truth. It was a great satisfaction to me in
1900, when I published my "Epistle of St.
James/' to have a letter from my old teacher
telling me that it was " quite excellent." Yet
it never could have been so without him.
Pusey House was in its infancy when I first
went there to be taught. There was much
curiosity as to what it was meant for. A
sarcastic Liberal looked up at the motto on
the walls and pretended to read it, " Backbones
painlessly extracted." Dr. King, on the other
hand, summed up the work of the three
librarians thus : " Brightman will dust the
books, Gore will read them, and Stuckey will
talk about them." As a matter of fact, Pusey
House was to the Oxford of that day 'what
St. Mary's was to the Oxford of the days of
Newman. Gore's influence was the greatest
in Oxford since J.H.N.'s. He brought the
teaching of Liddon on the august subject of
the Incarnation up to date. He fitted it into
the requirements of the new learning, and
to the aspirations of the younger men towards
the solution of social problems. The C.S.U.
was rapidly taking the place of the E.C.U.,
and it was Gore who aided the process. It
was then that, in the words of Charles Master-
120 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
man, " the honey collected by Frederick Deni-
son Maurice passed into the hive of the
ritualists."
A new type of High Church parson was
being fabricated at Pusey House and sent
down to East London to explode like the
shells (I won't say gas) in Flanders. Gore
was the quiet old chemist thinking out
ways of meeting the Huns of unbelief and
indifference.
Such a man could not remain at Oxford all
his days, for at a University the greatest man
is always afflicted with donnishness, and a
don cannot be a prophet. It is prophecy
we need, and God would not leave Charles
Gore in Oxford while his soul was already
spreading life throughout the Church. His
best days were at Westminster, and though
in the nature of things he was condemned
to become a Bishop, it would seem to have
been better had he remained off the episcopal
bench. A Bishop in the Anglican Church has
too much routine work to do, and he has so
many different kinds of clergy to keep in order
that he has less opportunity than almost any
other kind of priest to develop the gift of
prophecy. But whatever Charles Gore does
will always be done thoroughly, and it is not
for us small fry to be captious.
My best stories about the Bishop are .not
ECCLESIASTICAL 121
such as I can write in a book for fear of
being thought more of an enfant terrible than
I am.
I think that it is his courage and his justice
which I most admire in him. It requires
courage in a High Church Bishop to stand
by his old friends when he has passed into
the circle of those who, at any rate till quite
lately, were supposed to view all High
Churchmen with suspicion. Gore will never
do anything privately which he is not prepared
to justify before the whole Church. He will go
to a ritualistic church and say openly that
there is the sort of service which appeals to
him ; he will openly call Evening Communion
a novelty in which he could not himself
indulge ; he will let all men know that he has
gone to confession regularly since he was a
boy. He will not apologize for being a
" Catholic." When one compares the utter-
ances of Anglican Bishops with those of their
predecessors of mid-Victorian times, one cannot
but feel that the influence of Dr. Gore
has made our fathers in God less deserving of
the nickname Semper pavidi.
At the same time, he is so transparently
sincere and just, that he never shuts his eyes to
the dangers which accompany the success of
the High Church party in the Church of
England. He is no Romanizer and no obscur-
122 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
antist. He sees dangers on all sides and will
boldly declare his convictions about them even
in the House of Lords, as in his speech on
Welsh Disestablishment.
Such was our first Bishop of Birmingham,
and it was indeed a privilege to have such
a man at one's back during the whole time
of my vicariate of Saltley. I am afraid
I led him an awful life, writing to him
every week and sometimes oftener. But
any Anglican parson who tries to do nothing
without some sort of authority is obliged
to keep in touch with the Bishop. If I
were to use Dr. Gore's own expression I
should say " to squeeze the Bishop." That
was the phrase he used at an E.C.U. meeting
once before his episcopate, and the Protestant
Press has never ceased to remind him of it.
Curiously enough, the author of the phrase is
himself the least " squeezable " prelate on the
bench. He is a tremendous stickler for law
and order, and probably feels the burden of
keeping all parties together in a diocese with-
out compromise or favouritism more than any
other Bishop. He certainly succeeded in
Birmingham. There is no diocese where the
" schools of thought " live more happily in
each other's company than in Birmingham.
Personally, I have always found it more easy
to get on with those who are supposed to be
ECCLESIASTICAL 123
my opponents than with my own " party "
(whatever that is).
From the days when I used to meet
Dr. Dale, the greatest of all the Non-
conformists I have ever known, to the present
time, when my difficulty is to find an excuse
for neglecting my own parish in order to
preach in chapels, I have always been very
happy in company with " our separated
brethren." Dr. Dale was the most sacra -
mentalist of Dissenters, but a Puritan into the
bargain. I remember at the time of the St.
Paul's reredos case his saying to me how his
chief objection to a crucifix was that it was
to him so painful to look upon. He did not
feel the force of the " idolatrous " argument.
Nor did such great Protestants as Lord
Shaftesbury and Dr. Arnold. Dale liked
Father Benson's book of intercessory prayer,
but thought Mason's " Faith of the Gospel "
too stiff for Mission instructions. I think
he misunderstood the preface, which was
to the effect that Dr. Mason had developed
the book from his notes for mission teaching,
not that he had actually delivered it in the form
of lectures.
Dr. Dale was a great friend of my father's.
They used to meet on the Education Commis-
sion, and often drove home together in a
brougham, together with Cardinal Manning ( an
124 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
odd trio !). In one of his letters to my father
he speaks of the High Church party as being
more true to their own formularies than the
Low Church. This is what Dr. Parker and
Dr. Martineau also seem to have felt. Parker
said the Prayer Book was " steeped in Popery/'
and Martineau said that our Liturgy was
" indistinguishable from the Mass."
My greatest friend among Nonconformists
is R. J. Campbell. His advent to the City
Temple marked, as we all remember, an
epoch in London Christianity. ' Where
Parker slew his thousands, this man slays
his tens of thousands," said a ritualistic neigh-
bour. Like all outspoken men who are not
afraid to show us our weaknesses, Campbell
has been much misunderstood and cruelly
maligned. I do not think he can ever go very
far wrong, because of his great love for souls
and for our Divine Saviour. He is wonder-
fully free from sectarian prejudice, and is not
afraid to learn from Roman Catholics, Angli-
cans, and others who differ from him. He
never feels it necessary to stick to the orthodox
Nonconformist line in matters such as Dis-
establishment or religious education. He has
created an atmosphere at the City Temple,
where any Christian can find himself quite free
to speak and where there will always be
sympathy in the audience. I should certainly
ECCLESIASTICAL 125
feel less liberty at a Church Congress than
at one of Campbell's meetings. I was lecturing
once at the City Temple on " Miracle Plays,"
and I ventured to illustrate what I was saying
by giving the audience an example of how
the Palm Sunday Passion is sung in three
voices. I am quite sure I should not have
dared to do this at an Islington conference of
my own persuasion.
Since I wrote the above Mr. Campbell
has come back to the Church in which he
was baptized and confirmed. I am not sur-
prised. I remember wondering whether he
was on his way back as I looked at his
weird, white head in the midst of incense at
Stan ton's funeral, and what he wrote to me
after the service made me sure I was right.
His conversion does not surprise his friends.
His congregation was never a Nonconformist
one. It was cosmopolitan. He has the mind
of a mystic, which always yearns for some-
thing which the dull surroundings of a chapel
cannot freely give. I remember my father,
who was by no means " High Church," being
much disturbed when he was taken round a
Nonconformist place of worship once where
the place of the " reredos " was surmounted
by an oil-painting of the founder of a
commercial undertaking and underneath was
126 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
written, " Come unto Me " ! The neo-Non-
conformist is wistfully looking for Catholic
worship. I know two liturgies used in chapels
which would have made the Puritans tear their
hair. Campbell, too, is alive in his thought.
People are surprised that the author of the
" New Theology " should have found a home
in the Church of England. But the very fact
that he wrote the book (which he has since
withdrawn) shows that he is thinking and
praying hard, and there is no Church so willing
to comprehend within its spacious arms those
who will freely think and pray as our own.
This freedom, if we can maintain it, will do
much to bring all Christians together in time.
We do not understand one another as yet, but
we can begin to do so by mutual intercourse.
The following letter from an old-fashioned
Quaker to me shows how happily we can con-
verse if we converse in love. I had written
to her (after addressing her mothers' meeting)
to ask her to tell me why the Society of
Friends rejected sacraments, and especially the
Holy Communion :
DEAR BROTHER IN CHRIST,
Although I hardly think you expect me to take up the
gauntlet for the Society of Friends which your letter throws
down so kindly, yet it is curious that last Sunday night I was
speaking on the very subject that you make the centre of your
inquiries, i.e. John vi. 53 and onwards, and the spiritual
ECCLESIASTICAL 127
eating, which I believe to be believing personally in the great
Sacrifice. Jesus died for me. God loves me in Jesus. So we
eat and drink. I am not averse to the Memorial Supper if used
simply as such, to " shew forth," as St. Paul says. But if it is
supposed to be more I think the loss is incurred that at any
rate you can only so eat and drink once a day at the most,
whereas we can hold true and sweet soul-feeding communion
at all times, and always when alone. But we will not enter
into controversy, dear friend, who have already entered into
fellowship. I have outwardly broken bread in the Lord's
name with people of all denominations, I think, or almost all,
and would with you if I had suitable opportunity, but we who
have entered into fellowship with the Lord Himself, so that
He has supped with us, our hearts need no outward reminder
of an inward fact on our own account, and with regard to
others there is always the danger of encouraging the averting
of their regard from the thing signified to the thing signifying.
I am glad that the Lord blesses you according to your faith,
but you will be careful in your position, will you not ? not so
to preach the outward as to make people forget the real and
saving participation which can be by faith alone.
Yours in His name whom we all desire to honour and serve,
It is by a curious irony of fate that I am
now Vicar of the parish where Dr. Henson
was " inhibited " from preaching in a Non-
conformist building. Now that the Dean
knows that the Vicar will not interfere to
prevent him he does not seem to care to come.
This building is now under another friend of
mine, Rev. Sidney Berry, of Carr's Lane
Chapel, who is one of the most prominent
of the young ministers of the Free Churches.
128 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Among others whom I reckon as my friends
I must put Dr. Rendel Harris and Rev. Lloyd
Thomas. The latter has dreams of a " Free
Catholic Church " which I confess that I
should like to see realized.
The present Bishop of Birmingham has done
much to bring the clergy and ministers together
in his diocese, and many friendly gatherings
have taken place. It would not be becoming
for me to talk too freely about my present
diocesan. Before I sat under him as a Bishop
I did the same as a borough councillor under
the best mayor that Marylebone ever had. He
was the first patron who persuaded me to
accept one of his livings, and the first person
who had the courage to honour a declared
socialist by making him a Canon.
If for no other reason, I thank him for this
last gift because it has nearly destroyed the
nickname of " Father " by which the Protestant
Press has always called me, in spite of its
supposed objection to calling anybody by such
an unscriptural title. I do not mind being
called " Father " by my own flock, because it
is a perpetual reminder to me of what I ought
to be, and so lamentably fail to be, in practice.
At the present moment I like being called
" Padre " for the same reason. But when it
is intended to imply that I am a sort of law-
less Romanizer, eating the bread of the Estab-
ECCLESIASTICAL 129
lishment and doing the work of the Pope. I
very much dislike it. If I did not believe in
the Church of England, I should leave it to-
morrow, and even then I should not take
Orders in any other part of the Church. One
thing will certainly never have the slightest
influence with me beyond causing me endless
amusement, and that is the receipt of anony-
mous letters.
If I had kept all the anonymous letters I
have received, they alone would have filled
this book to overflowing. The nastiest ones I
ever got were from a Protestant doctor in the
north. He wrote to me about once a week.
One day he turned up at Berkeley Chapel, and
was beside himself with wrath when he found
that I was " in retreat." That I should add to
my iniquities by spending three days in prayer
seemed to him intolerable. I am afraid I used
to make him doubly angry by replying to his
effusions on postcards. In one of these I
wrote, " Thank you so much. We shall not
have to take in Punch now, which costs three-
pence." When I went to Saltley he pursued
me with his letters, " So you are still at your
hellish work ! " But he really over-reached
himself at last (I think it was his last) when
he wrote to me on my father's death, " So
now the hand of God is upon you ! " Con-
sidering that my father died at the age of
9
130 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
ninety and I was nearly fifty, it seemed to me
that Heaven could not have been very angry
to have waited so long !
I subjoin a few more samples of anonymous
letters, but I am sorry that I have burned
some of the most amusing ones.
LETTERS ANONYMOUS AND ABUSIVE.
Does the man who wrote this call himself a R. C. Priest or
a Church of England pastor ? He may be a good worker but
he is a most dishonest man, to occupy a Protestant pulpit
when he ought to be in a R. Catholic one. He is a liar, too,
for he knew that he meant to break every promise he made
when his R. C. master Bishop inducted him. There is
no doubt he would join the Church of Rome if he did not
live in hopes of taking all his congregation over to Rome
with him in a few years' time. He has all the deceitfulness of
Rome.
Of all the men you speak of you are the greatest fraud, the
biggest liar, and the most determined thief. You pretend to
be a Protestant but are a R. C. in disguise, and you take
collections from congregations for the Protestant cause but
advance the cause of Rome with it. Is that honest? You
are robbing your congregation of the glorious birthright
bought with the blood of the martyrs. You profess to be
good, and get your living by being good. When you join the
Church of Rome we shall admire you for at least an honest
man.
A HONEST WOMAN.
SIR, What we want in these days of "sham" in this
Christian England of ours is not so much of the outward
but just a little more of the inward. This ritual is all so
shallow, so empty. It is simply a perversion from the truth.
It is hypocrisy pure and simple. It is not genuine. Does it
ECCLESIASTICAL 131
proceed from the heart ? No, it only looks the proper thing.
Show me a Christian and I will show you all the insincerity in
the world. Sir, your similarity between the Light of the
World and the candle is really amusing. The only illumina-
tion we want is that of Truth.
Yours sincerely,
THE HALO OF TRUTH.
I notice in The Times of to-day an appeal from you
for Christmas treats and prizes. Surely if you know your
work and do it you ought not to find any difficulty in finding
1,000 people to give 6d. each, but I suppose it is too much
for an " Hon. and rev." parson. I should not wonder if your
church has confessional boxes, stations of the Cross, and other
ritualistic rubbish. " Adderley " is ominous of it all.
Second Letter. I felt sure you were a ritualistic humbug.
"The Hon. and Rev. J. G. Adderley 'led a procession.'" I
wonder if St. Paul or St. Mark was an Honourable.
FROM A WORKING MAN.
The political anonymous writer is almost
more funny than the Protestant one. The
following writer is quite an old friend, who is
always threatening me :
Shall we forget your action ? No. Every difficulty which
can be put in your way shall be : and if your action as a
politician and parish priest can be paralysed by incessant
opposition, relentless but stern, you shall have it. The
Establishment is broad, but not so -broad as to hold you
comfortably.
You will find more congenial company with the Pecksniffs,
Uriah Keeps, Chadbands, and Cliffords. Go to them. Don't
stand on the order of your going but go.
132 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
The best thing for the Church would be for you to resign.
To flout the decent as I have heard you do, and praise the tag
rag and bobtail on Sunday, to my mind is disgusting, and
if any one requires the gih commandment dinning in his ears
it is surely yourself. Again I say resign, and be a man ; by all
means let a priest vote as he feels disposed, and let others do
the same and not be jawed at, but let the priest attend to his
altar.
The great difficulty in dealing with the
extreme Protestants is that they entirely lack
humour. It must be this, I think, which can
make them suppose that they will convert
Catholics to their way of thinking by trampling
upon all that they hold dear. Can one imagine
a father being persuaded to give up his love
for a crucifix by having the cross over his
boy's grave broken to pieces, or a com-
municant cease to believe in the presence of
his Saviour by ribald mockery of that which
his God has taken into His hands and called
His body?
I sometimes wonder if the Wycliffe preachers
would dare to go down to Whitechapel about
Passover time and make fun of the ceremonies
of the Jews. Yet one would suppose that they
ought to have at least as much respect for
those of their fellow -Christians. There is also
a lack of humour about their publications. Mr.
Walter Walsh (whom I often met) had great
faith in himself and little in his fellow -creatures
if he thought that his " Secret History of the
ECCLESIASTICAL 133
Oxford Movement " could be taken seriously.
As a matter of fact, the real secret history of
the Oxford Movement would make very good
reading, but it has not yet been written. Mr.
Walsh used to say that I had the makings of
a good Protestant, and, though he was very
bitter sometimes, he was a kindly old gentle-
man, and we have prayed together in my
sacristy in Mayfair.
I have found that some of these Protestant
warriors do not like praying with a ritualist.
They think he must be " pulling their legs "
and cannot possibly be serious in proposing so
spiritual a course of action. One of these
gentlemen met me once on the beach at South-
end and began denouncing me. But he got
much more frantic when I went down on my
knees and asked him to join me in prayer.
On the other hand, one of my Saltley
parishioners once was delighted at my pro-
posal, and promptly began supplicating the
Deity to show me that I was an idolater. At
the time of the Kensit crisis I tried to get
the respectable Evangelical clergy to protest
against the methods used by their friends, and
I succeeded so far that a very strongly worded
manifesto was actually signed. But the lay
members of their congregations, who are
always the most virulent, would not let it be
published.
134 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
We, the undersigned Evangelical clergymen, ministering in
London, while strongly objecting to the practices which are
said to be in vogue at St. Ethelburga's, Bishopsgate, and
which we believe to be contrary to Scripture and condemned
by our Church, desire to enter our earnest protest against the
unseemly profanation of the Holy Communion which appears
from public report to have taken place in that Church during
the past few weeks.
Thanks be to God, these quarrels among
Christians are less ferocious than they were.
The " Catholics " and the " Modernists " in
the Church of England have come to stay, and
no amount of persecution, conducted on unfair,
unloving lines, will ever turn them out.
In face of the indifference of the masses to
all religion and the peril of unbelief, we must
have a coalition of all our forces and try to
learn from each other.
We need the freedom of the Liberal and the
Nonconformist ; we need the reverence and the
love of other-world worship of the Catholic ;
we need the love of Christ and His teaching
of the Broad Churchman ; we need the belief
in conversion and unworldliness of the old-
fashioned Evangelical. The only thing we can
well dispense with is partizanship, the stirring
up of bad blood, the cruel insinuations by
extremists on either side.
Some day, perhaps, a decent " religious nc\\ s-
paper " will be started which cannot be called
ECCLESIASTICAL 135
" High/' " Low," or " Broad M : a paper that
will be human and natural, not merely clerical
and ecclesiastical. Our Lord became MAN.
He did not become a clergyman or a High
Churchman, or a Low Churchman, nor, indeed,
an Englishman (as some would almost seem
to think). The religion of the Incarnation is
not bound by the fetters some people would
place upon it. God poured out His Spirit upon
all flesh, and those who would speak or act in
His name must let themselves be led by the
Holy Ghost, whatever any editor or even
Bishop may say.
The Church of England (in spite of its
insular name) does seem to give the greatest
opportunity yet afforded to Christians to de-
velop this atmosphere and attitude of freedom,
and it rests with us its members to allow it
to live and move and have 'its being.
II
DRAMATIC
Dramatic tastes Hams Hall theatricals Oxford The Philo-
thespians Jowett and the O.U.D.S. Arthur Bourchier
Frank Benson Sir Henry Irving and others
"Windsor Strollers" and "Old Stagers" Religion and
the Drama.
MY theatrical friends, when they want to
pay me a compliment, always say : ' What
the Church gained, the stage lost." I think
this compliment would take another form if
they knew what the Church knows ! But I
suppose it is true that if I had not been
ordained I should have gone on the stage.
My father dismissed all my ritualism as
" dramatic instinct." I am not sure that he
was not right. So far as I am a ritualist,
in the sense of liking to appeal to the eye
in the arrangement of my services, it is due to
my love of the drama, but, then, " ritualism "
means a great deal more in common
parlance. Nor am I a ritualist in uncommon
parlance either that is, one who knows the
136
DRAMATIC 137
science and history of ceremonial. Litur-
giology always bores me to extinction, though
I admire the industry of the liturgiologists.
I am told that there are 10,000 books in the
Vatican Library on the ritual of the Church.
It sounds incredible. And I hope, too, that
I am not a ritualist in the sense of one
who thinks more of ritual than a Christian
life, if there are any such.
I was brought up in a household that
was famous for its amateur theatricals.
My godfather, the dear old Dean of
Hereford, was 'Jim Boly " (Jimbo Leigh),
who with Sir Francis Burnand founded the
Cambridge A.D.C. When he promised in
my name to renounce the pomps of the world
he certainly did not include the drama.
He and his brother, the good Sir Chandos
Leigh (who has lately passed away at a
ripe age, in the midst of awful sorrow at
the loss of his two brave sons in the
War), were very much to the front at Hams
every Christmas (long before I was born) in
organizing our plays. James Leigh was our
stage -manager, and Chandos used to write
the " business " (a sort of pantomime like
the Canterbury Week Epilogue).
Nearly all the famous amateurs of the
end of the last century have appeared on
the Hams boards, from Sir Stephen and
138 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Sir Alfred Scott Gatty, Fred Clerk, Augustus
Spalding, Quintin Twiss, Captain Gooch, and
Lord Kilmorey, to the younger generation,
Arthur Bourchier, Alan Mackinnon, Lionel
Monckton, Claude and " Scrobby " Ponsonby,
etc. We had a very small stage but managed
to perform big plays, such as " School," " The
Palace of Truth," " Time Will Tell," " The
Parvenu," " New Men and Old Acres," and a
host of others. I suppose that the Hams plays
went on every Christmas in regular succession
for about forty years, and very great fun they
afforded. In later years, when their uncle
became a parson, my nephews and nieces took
to open-air Shakespearean drama, and produced
some excellent shows, in conjunction with the
members of the O.U.D.S. H. B. Irving took
part in one of these later productions. Hams
Hall also entertained other stage celebrities
from time to time. Sir Arthur Sullivan stayed
there when I was a boy, and I can just re-
member his practising his scales at the piano,
with the intention, I suppose, of shaming us
into taking more trouble with our music
lessons. Gilbert I met once, and he was very
kind to me about copyright performances of
his plays. Fortunately, I think, he did not
remember that I was the same parson who
once remonstrated with him by letter about
something I thought rather unnecessarily
DRAMATIC 139
" risky " in one of the operas, and received
a very curt reply : " Sir, there is nothing so
nasty as the scrupulosity of the over-nice."
Looking back on it, I rather agree with him
now, though I still think that when, as in the
case of the old Savoy operas, a high standard
is arrived at, it is well to maintain it at the
risk of being sometimes "over-nice." The
most " over-nice " of all entertainments were
those of the German Reeds. We had one of
their manuscripts once of a play we performed
at Hams, and it surprised us to find the most
harmless expletives cut out, such as are
now frequently heard in the most respectable
society. What delightful performances those
were ! They were literally " unique," and when
the old company broke up it was found im-
possible to revive them. Even without Corney
Grain they were good, but with him they were
absolutely perfect. Corney Grain has never
been surpassed. I met him in private only
once, but his death made me feel that a
personal friend had departed from my life. I
remember being much honoured at his approval
of some of the lyrics in a libretto I wrote for
an operetta to which Lionel Monckton wrote
the music. This was before the days of the
composer's fame, when he used to delight us at
Hams with the flashes of his incipient genius.
With such a training it is not surprising that
140 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
I came up to Oxford, in 1879, with a
bent on the stage. I have told the story of the
" Fight for the Drama at Oxford " in a little
pamphlet, published at the University, and a
more full account is to be found in my friend
Alan Mackinnon's " Oxford Amateurs," in
which many of the illustrations gibbet me in
costume before my parishioners, to the great
discomfort of the preacher's soul.
It will be sufficient here to give the story
shortly. Various attempts were made in the
sixties to form an amateur dramatic club at
Oxford, but it was always harder to do
this there than at Cambridge. Great names
like Tom Taylor, Herman Merivale, Purey
Cust, Robert Reece, Dean Hole, and Talfourd
figure in old Oxford programmes, but the
thing never caught on. In 1878 the " Shoot-
ing Stars " had ceased to shine, and there
was nothing doing. Even the legitimate
professional drama was boycotted, and there
was no place of entertainment but the " Vic.,"
a most disreputable place. I suppose I
ought to mention that the only scrape I
ever got into at Oxford was at the '-'Vic."
Scarcely a night passed there without some
row, and I got mixed up in one, my
chief offence being that I screwed down the
strings of the double bass in the orchestra in
the midst of a symphony. I think I also did
DRAMATIC 141
something to a policeman's helmet in the
scrimmage. Anyhow, I found myself being
walked off to the police-station for the first
and only time in my life. My tailor went bail
for me, and a few days afterwards I was tried
before the Vice-Chancellor. The trial was
attended by a formidable audience from Christ
Church, and whether it was by my pathetic
appearance or by the presence of the " Loders "
and " Rousers " and other gilded youth, the
Vice was moved to let me off with a fine.
It was to satisfy our dramatic tastes rather
than to improve Oxford that we founded the
Philothespian Society. The principal names of
those who began the work were Alan Mac-
kinnon (still a prince among stage -managers),
Hubert Astley, W. J. Morris, Elliot Lees, Fred
Shafto Adair, Henry Hayter, Sydney Platt,
and Gilbert Coleridge whose delightful book
" Eton in the Seventies " sums up all that I
should have wished to have said had I included
School Memories in this book.
Mrs. Liddell, the grande dame of Oxford,
one of the handsomest and kindliest ladies I
have ever met, gave us her support in these
early days. We frequently gave entertain-
ments at the Deanery and at Mrs. Cradock's
at Brasenose. These were generally of the
charade or waxwork order, and were rather
trivial. H.R.H. the Duke of Albany took
U2 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
part in one, and I remember " making him
up." Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Lord Salis-
bury, and Lord Midleton also, at one time
or another, appeared at E.N.C. (
Mrs. Cradock was a charming hostess, who
revelled in her dwarfish appearance, and
emphasized it by insisting on being taken
down to dinner by the Magdalen giant
Lascelles, who stood nearly seven feet to
her four.
But the actual performances of the Philo-
thespians were generally in the Templars' Hall
or the Holywell music-room.
Sometimes we went farther afield, to Bicester
and Aylesbury, even to Brighton and Hastings.
It must be understood that acting at Oxford
for money is forbidden by the statutes. Every-
thing 'was therefore of a clandestine nature.
We had to give tickets away and wait for a
donation.
After two or three years of this sort of thing
the authorities began to kick, and if it had not
been for Canon Scott Holland, who was the
Senior Proctor, I should certainly have been
sent down as the chief instigator of these
irregularities.
A crisis was reached when I was sent for
by Dr. Evans, of Pembroke, the Vice-Chan-
cellor. I asked if he intended to send me
down if I acted, and he refused to say. It
DRAMATIC 143
was with a heavy heart that I left his study
to go and act a particularly comic part
"Amanthis" in "Little Toddlekins." Fortu-
nately, he did nothing and went out of
office to make way for Mr. Jowett in the
next term.
To Jowett belongs the honour of having seen
that amateur acting in Oxford had come to
stay. I only wish that my intercourse with
that great man had not been confined to ,the
one occasion when, in the presence of the
Senior Proctor, I argued out the case for the
drama with him, though, perhaps, if I had
seen him often, I should have come off worse
than I did on that occasion. I had before
me some alarming precedents. There was the
agnostic undergraduate who, thinking he would
please Jowett, remarked that he had " doubts,"
and was told that he must get rid of them
by the end of the week or go down. He
could not leave his " doubts " in his study as
Frank Buckland left his pet, when the Dean
of Christ Church told him that either he or
his tame bear must go down. Then there
was the undergraduate who could only talk
about the weather, and was met by " Think
so?" from Jowett after each effort at con-
versation. He, however, scored eventually
when at the conclusion of the interview the
Master said, " [Young man, your powers of con-
144 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
versation are somewhat limited," and the boy
went to the door and as a parting shot turned
round, repeated, " Think so? " and fled.
Well, I did my best to explain to the great
man why we wanted to act -' Money " at the
Holywell Rooms, and to implore him to give us
his patronage. Holland sat behind him egging
me on with smiles and grimaces. Jowett got
really interested and suggested Shakespeare.
I eagerly assented, and the end of it all was
that he gave his famous decision that, pro-
vided we gave the female parts to women and
confined ourselves to Shakespeare, we might
do what we liked.
That decision was the foundation not only
of the O.U.D.S. but of the revival of legiti-
mate drama in Oxford and the New Theatre.
It would 'be wrong not to mention that
another stream was all this time adding to
the force of the main river which swept Jowett
and the authorities on to this wise recognition.
Frank Benson had played " Clytemnestra " in
Balliol Hall, and the Greek play enthusiasts,
under W. L\ Courtney (now the popular
Editor of the Fortnightly Review}, were all
" doing their bit."
But, apart from myself and all these,
another star had now arisen in the firma-
ment, and in the nature of things the light
of the drama was bound soon to overcome
Arthur Bourchier. James Adderley.
OUR LAST APPEARANCE TOGETHER OX THE STAGE.
To face p. 145.
DRAMATIC 145
the darkness of Oxford. I allude to Arthur
Bburchier, whose time at Oxford overlapped
mine by a year. " A. B:.," as we called
him, was a born actor, if actors are born.
At my Dame's at Eton he astonished the
natives. Mr. Dalton could not manage him,
but he was proud of him. On a famous
occasion when the boys were playing " Still
Waters Run Deep/' Bourchier insisted, as of
course he was bound to do, in smoking a
cigar in the celebrated scene which admirers
of Mr. Kendal will remember. " Bourchier,
put out that cigar," vainly pleaded my Dame
in a throaty voice some three times over.
A. B. took not the slightest notice and of course
he was not punished. I have always looked
upon Arthur as the most versatile of all actors.
There is scarcely any kind of part he has not
played, and played well, from his earliest youth.
Yet he has his mannerisms. How often have
I seen him on the stage look exactly as he
looked when he entered my room at Christ
Church on our first acquaintance. My last
appearance on any stage was with him in a
duologue written for us by " Gomm " Whit-
more when he made up as " Dizzy " and I
as Gladstone. But before that day I have
many times played parts with him, and ours
is a firm friendship. I was one of the four
clergy who were deemed necessary to wed him
10
146 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
to his most talented and delightful wife, Violet
Vanbrugh .
Arthur Bourchier was bound to go on the
professional stage, and he has done well,
though I do not think he has been sufficiently
recognized even yet . I should think few actors
have started off at the first go with such a
salary as he was paid by Mrs. Langtry when
he began his professional career. I remember
how amusing he used to be when he would
run over to Hams when playing in Birming-
ham, and on one occasion had to climb on to
the van of a goods train to get back in time
to answer his call. His unfortunate understudy
was just going on as Jacques in " As You
Like It." If he liad done so, A. B. would
probably have come on too, and there would
have been an eighth " age of man " that night,
a free fight " sans teeth, sans everything ! "
I am no critic, but I am bound to say that
I agree with a great foreign actress who said
to me not long ago, " You have two really
great actresses on your stage, the two Van-
brughs, Irene and Violet."
I carefully watched Mrs. Bourchier one day
when she was playing in " The Walls of
Jericho" for about the 4ooth time. Where
everybody else in the cast (including her
husband) showed signs of weariness, she was
as fresh as ever, and every word and gesture
DRAMATIC 147
showed (or perhaps I should say concealed)
the consummate art with which she was
playing.
Of Oxford acquaintances, I suppose that
H. B. Irving, Holman Clark, and Frank
Benson are the next most celebrated that I
have kept up, while Mr. Seymour Hicks, Mr.
Martin Harvey, and Sir Johnston Forbes
Robertson are among the groat stage person-
alities whom I sometimes meet behind the
scenes.
I have already referred to Frank Benson's
work in the Oxford revival. One of the de-
lights of our undergraduate days was to see
his beautiful hair flying in the wind as he
ran and won the "Three Mile." His skill
in athletics has often stood him in good stead
on the stage. Even before he had left Oxford
he had appeared in a London theatre. I played
Paris very badly to his Romeo at the Imperial,
and he afterwards made his debut at the
Lyceum as Paris to Irving's Romeo. Very
soon afterwards he started out on his life's
work of popularizing Shakespeare all over
the country. I should think few actors
have had such a widespread influence for
good as Benson.
It always interests me to go behind the
scenes and hinder " H. B." while he is making
up. He is, of course, much more than an
148 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
imitator of his great father, for whom I always
had the profoundest admiration. The first play
I ever saw was " Charles I/' and I never ceased
to worship at the old Lyceum shrine. That
was, of course, before Ellen Terry had come on
the famous stage to complete our delight, and
we had to be content with the pretty Miss
Isabel Bateman. Dolling was a great friend
of the Bateman family, and one night after
" Hamlet " he said to Isabel, " You had the
right advice given you to-night : get thee to
a nunnery, go, farewell." She took his hint,
and the last time I saw her was in the
dress of a Sister of Mercy, praying for the
soul of dear Bob while I was celebrating his
Requiem.
It was a great joy to me one day to be
invited by old " Uncle Sam " Ward, a cele-
brated American, to a box at the Lyceum with
the prospect of supper with Sir Henry after-
wards. "H. B.'s" old dresser, his father's
too, tells me he well remembers the occasion.
Irving was playing Matthias in the " Bells,"
and I looked in vain for the two doctors who
were supposed to attend in the wings when
he made his great effort. He certainly seemed
none the worse for it when he came in to
supper. It was a distinguished party. There
were Edmund Yates, Marion Crawford, Sir John
Monckton, and dear old Toole. I met Toole
DRAMATIC 149
also at W. J. Morris's rooms at Oxford. Only
once again did I come into personal contact
with Sir Henry. I ventured to ask him (as
he was coming to Birmingham) if he would
give a recitation in aid of my parish. He
wrote me a very kind letter in reply, which
must have been posted about three hours
before his untimely death. I shall never
forgive myself for having mislaid that
letter. I have looked in vain for it many
times. I suppose some member of my
congregation was an autograph hunter and
stole it.
Of the old actors and actresses, the only
ones I ever saw were Charles Matthews,
Fanny Stirling, Ristori, and Walter Farren.
Fanny Kemble I saw once, she being the
mother-in-law of my good old godfather,
the Dean of Hereford. I must leave him
to tell stories of her when he writes his
" Memoirs," which are long overdue. Mrs.
Stirling was a wonderful old lady. I went
to her to be coached in playing Mrs. Heidel-
berg in " The Clandestine Marriage." She
kept me in a continual state of laughter, and
I am sincerely glad that she was not present
when I tried to reproduce her interpretation
of the character. I remember her telling me
of her experiences at Windsor in old days,
and how, when the late Prince Consort could
150 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
not see the jokes, the Queen had to poke him
in the ribs to make him smile. I never knew
personally the giants and giantesses of my
youth, the Bancrofts, the Kendals, Miss Ellen
Terry, the marvellous Gaiety quartette, Nelly
Farren, Kate Vaughan, Terry, and Royce ; but
I thank them for all the treats they gave me.
I once accosted Walter Farren in the street
and thanked him for all the entertainment he
had afforded me in times past. He stared
at me in my cassock and said, " Long times
past, I should think ! "
I have a great admiration for the art of
Madame Yvette Guilbert, one of whose letters
to me may interest the reader.
Writing from a certain town which shall be
nameless, Madame Yvette Guilbert said :
Je suis dans cette affreuse ville, ou 1'alcool semble etre la
poudre de riz de chaque visage. Ah ! la pauvre humanite.
Jamais je n'ai si bien senti qu'il y a vraiment un Enfer.
Pauvre gens . . . mais quelle dose d'inconscience put leur
garder de la gaiete ?
Car ils rient, ces gens, et n'ont pas 1'air de comprendre leur
affreux etat. Et dire qu'ils sont peut-etre fiers de leur epoque,
et contents d'etre ce qu'ils sont, sans vouloir, vouloir et encore
vouloir fuir le gouffre d'obscurite qui les rend brutaux d'esprit
et de corps ! Le cceur se serre a voir leurs yeux, leur fronts
et leur epaules. J'ai chante hier soir pour cette humanite
peu faite pour mes couplets et 1'essai des managers de creer
ici un theatre pour gens bien eleves sera gate par cette classe
humaine qui a soif de tout . . . excepte de spectacles un pen
comme il faut.
DRAMATIC 151
Enfin, esperons en temps meilleurs pour ces brutes du Bon
Dieu.
You ask me for a motto for a friend. Here is mine :
11 Fais ce que les autres ne font pas."
A postscript shows me up :
I saw you laughing to a naughty song, Monsieur le Parson !
Another theatrical wedding I took part in
was that of my friend Alfred Capper, the very
best "thought reader" I ever saw. I don't
think I have ever known him fail, which is
more than could be said for Irving Bishop
and others who used to try and mystify us
when we were youths. I hope everybody who
reads this book will read his " Recollections
and Reflections " which have lately been
published.
It will be gathered from the above that my
stage connection is a very small one, and that
I am only an amateur. I am not even up
to date in amateur theatricals. They have
long since lost their charm for me outside
my own parish. But they were very delight-
ful while they lasted. I was admitted once
to the sacred circles of the Windsor Strollers,
and of the "Old Stagers" at Canterbury.
There we used to act under pseudonyms, some
of which were rather cleverly invented.
Colnaghi (one of the best amateurs I ever
152 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
knew), was "Col. Naghi." " Scrobby "
Ponsonby was " Herr Scrobbs," I was " Sir
Hams Hall."
Of amateur ladies of my day I have no hesi-
tation in saying that Miss Mabel Clerk was
the cleverest, and her Nan in " Good for
Nothing " compared very favourably, I always
thought, with Lady Bancroft's and Mrs. Cecil
Clay's. I used to act the engine-driver in
that play, and I certainly preferred doing it
with Miss Clerk to doing it with Mrs. Cecil
Clay (Rosina Yokes). The latter so wholly
occupied the stage herself that we minor people
were nowhere. But it was not that alone that
made me prefer Miss Clerk as Nan.
I remember being very much gratified at
receiving a compliment from Charles Brook-
field when I played the engine-driver at
the Vaudeville. Considering that he was then
one of the best character actors of the day,
it was indeed a compliment.
But my vanity was most severely tested when
I played Hawkshaw in " The Ticket of Leave
Man " at Windsor. But after all, who could
not play Hawkshaw happily, who is bound to
bring the house down at the end of the act,
when Bob Brierly, the Lancashire lad, who
has fallen among thieves, writes a letter to his
former employer to warn him of the coming
burglary, and asks " Who will take it?' 'I
DRAMATIC 153
will/' says the disguised drunken navvy
springing up, " I will Hawkshaw the detec-
tive ! " A man who cannot please the gods with
that had better not attempt acting again.
But such trium'phs are not for me in these
days. We parsons are told that actors have
the whip hand over us because " they preach
fiction as if it were fact, and we preach fact
as if it were fiction." The curious thing is
that modern philosophers are telling us now
that our best chance of getting a hearing is
to preach fiction as if it were fact, and more-
over that, if we do it persistently, the fiction
becomes a fact, and the only kind of fact that
religion has got to offer ! In other words,
we are to become actors or " hypocrites," the
very people against whom our Master warned
us. It's an odd world, isn't it? Still, these
philosophers, if they would not put it in that
crude way, are teaching us a great deal.
Religious people must use symbolism more
than they do, and they must revive a mystical
atmosphere somehow if they are to penetrate
the darkness of materialism which (even after
the War) will keep on growing round us.
The late G. E. Watts expressed to me once
in a letter the difficulty I have always felt that
any teacher has in maintaining sincerity and
effectiveness, when he has to deal on the one
hand with alleged historial facts and on the
154 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
other with ideas. I had asked the great
painter to do a kindness to a friend of mine
by designing a sort of crest for his Society
which was dedicated to the angels. Unfor-
tunately, I suggested the " Annunciation " to
Mr. Watts.
This was his reply :
I have to express my extreme regret that I have not been
able to do the little thing you asked me, and which I made
a sort of promise to do. The little ability I have is under
strange restrictions. I require always working with great
sincerity, the absolutely tangible as in portraiture or the
absolutely intangible ideal as in symbolism. What I would
suggest is embodied in these words : " What doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy God?"
It is here that I think the drama is once
more going to be the handmaid of religion.
The revival of miracle plays, pageants, mys-
teries, and the production of real poetical plays
is all to the good. It means the breaking
down of a lot of stupid prejudice and the
conversion of the Censor. The production of
' Joseph " at His Majesty's Theatre marked
an epoch, not so much because it was a reli-
gious play (it was not that), but because it
familiarized people with the idea that drama
and religion are not to be kept in separate
compartments in life. I wrote a letter in
DRAMATIC 155
defence of Sir Herbert Tree at the time when
the Puritans were ignorantly attacking him,
and I am sure he will not mind my publishing
his private letter to me at the time.
His MAJESTY'S THEATRE, LONDON.
MY DEAR ADDERLEY,
I must write a line to thank you for your letter in
to-day's Daily News. It is fine and manly of you to have
done this, and I think the public will recognize that you have
hit the bull's eye of right thinking.
H. BEERBOHM TREE.
I cannot do much myself in helping the
union of the drama and religion. I am
only a slum parson, and, like all parish
clergy, am terribly " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd "
within the limits of a district. Very poor
people in a city are not good material for a
dramatic company or even for an audience.
We do little plays at Christmas, but it is only
possible with the help of outsiders. In the
country it is far easier. Charles Mar son could
make his Somersetshire yokels act Nativity
plays with words out of their own heads. The
talented authoress of " Eagerheart " has done
wonders at Glastonbury by encouraging the
people to express themselves in drama ; but
for the most part the dramatic instinct of
English people has been stamped upon as
effectively as their religious instinct since the
156 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
sixteenth century, and it will take many years
before the flowers grow again. The English
clergy cannot even walk in procession without
looking awkward and ugly. Is it surprising
that their parishioners do not look to them for
help in cultivating their dramatic aspirations ?
Moreover, the masses cannot be taught these
things. They must grow of themselves. We
have got to begin again from the beginning
and hope to develop a religious drama, and
through it a new drama altogether. It is worth
considering, in conclusion to this chapter, the
history of drama and its intimate connection
with religion.
Historically, the religious drama is the acting
of mysteries and miracles and moralities by
Christian people for instruction in religion and
for entertainment. At first, as is well known,
Christians were afraid of the drama. This was
because it was associated with much that was
bad in the pagan theatres. When Christianity
was beginning, the old pagan drama was de-
generating. It is, therefore, not to be wondered
at that it was tabooed, but it is quite a mistake
to take the denunciations of the drama by
Christian preachers in those days as in any way
applicable to the modern theatre. So far from
that, the modern drama actually evolved from
the ritual of the Church itself. Ritual is essen-
tially dramatic. It aims at self-expression. It
DRAMATIC 157
is a moving picture of men's belief in action.
The Mass itself is a drama. In its beginning
a very simple action was instituted by our Lord
Himself. It was only natural that in the hands
of believers it should develop into something
much more elaborate. At great festivals or
seasons, illustrating events or dogmas of the
Creed, it became customary, with introits and
antiphons, to portray these events by action,
as, for example, the burial and resurrection of
Christ, the conversation of the women at the
sepulchre, and so forth. It is very easy to
trace how Passion and Nativity plays evolved
from this. Then the plays (for so they were)
were performed out of doors ; then their pro-
duction was undertaken by the great trade
guilds. Gradually this developed into the
cycles, or complete dramas of religious
mysteries from the Creation to the Day of
Judgment, performed in procession, or at
stations, in pageants or cars, generally at
Corpus Christi-tide. In the Middle Ages these
mysteries and miracles were the staple form
of entertainment for the people. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find them full of
"comic relief." Extra-scriptural characters
were added to the dramatis personce and fresh
episodes, as, for example, the bedel of Pilate's
Court, who wrangles with his master and puts
him to bed till the Jews arrive ; the landlord
158 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
of Calvary, who disputes with the Jews about
the lease and is cheated by them ; the spice-
seller, with his wife (said to be a relic of the
quack doctor, a favourite character in old folk
plays), the midwives at Bethlehem, and many
others.
The whole of this, of course, came to an
end at the Reformation, and few of us realize
the deep gash that it made in the heart of the
nation, and how it deprived the people of
almost the only means they had of learning
Scripture lessons. We talk about the open
Bible that became ours at the Reformation,
but do we ever ask ourselves how many were
able to read it ?
There is a pathetic story which has come
down to us of an old man who heard the story
of the Crucifixion from a seventeenth-century
Puritan, and said : " I remember seeing Him
of whom you speak in a play many years ago.
There was a man on a tree, and the blood
ran down."
Thus the drama and the Church became
separated, and the former pursued its course
apart from religion. Now the question arises,
" Shall they be brought together again ? "
Shall religious drama in this sense be revived ?
As we have revived music as an art of the
Church (for it must always be remembered tlint
the Puritans objected to organs quite as much
DRAMATIC 159
as to the stage), so, now, shall we revive the
old drama?
As an entertainment of the people it is, of
course, no longer needed, but for instruction
and edification I think it is very desirable
indeed.
Here we come to a, distinction. There are
two methods of religious dramatic revival.
There is, first, the professional religious drama,
of which we have lately had a very splendid
example in Sir Herbert Tree's " Joseph." With
that kind of drama I am 1 not much concerned.
The only connection between " Joseph " and
religion is the fact that part of the story comes
from the Bible. As a way of breaking down
prejudice against taking scriptural subjects for
plays it will no doubt do good, and, of course,
as a great spectacle, it was well worth seeing.
But the work of professionals in religious
drama is, I think, of another kind, of which I
shall write just now. The only method of
revival is by Christian people. I should like
to see Christian people acting religious plays
and plays with a high moral ideal for educative
purposes, and as a means of self-expression
for believers. I once suggested to Mr. Camp-
bell that he should act with me in London.
He 'was much amused at the idea. He met
me with a refusal something like that of the
old lady who was asked for her vote in a
160 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
municipal election, and replied, " What ! me
vote? Why, I've been a respectable woman
all my life ! "
Of course a great deal has already been done
in this way by Bethlehem tableaux, Nativity
plays, and moralities acted by members of
Christian congregations. But there is room
for a very large increase of this, and I would
specially ask Nonconformists to take it up.
When I propose these things I am assailed by
anonymous letter writers, who tell me to be
honest and give up Orders, and that the curse
of God is on me for dabbling in theatricals.
But I am not dismayed by such silliness, and
I verily believe that a dramatic revival in the
Churches would be a fine thing for the further-
ance of religion.
And now for the professional drama. I
have said that I do not look to the profes-
sional stage to produce a religious drama of
the old type. I should not care to see the
Oberammergau play in a London theatre. But
I do want to see plays of a really human type
which will bring religion back without its being
called religion.
People do not want the moral of a play
flung at their heads. Neither do they want it
put on the programme, l< This is a religious
play." They must find that out for them-
selves. And just as often it is not the eccle-
DRAMATIC 161
siastical picture which teaches people so much
Christianity as the human picture, so it will be
with the play. Probably Mr. Galsworthy and
Mr. Bernard Shaw (though I should not
recommend budding playwriters to imitate
Shavian methods) are really the authors who
are producing most religious results at the
present day.
Christianity was first taught by parables.
Our Lord did not teach dogma in the style of
the Nicene Creed. He just told people a
human story and left them to find out what it
meant. So it will be with the religious drama
of the future. It will not be called religious.
It will not confine itself to scriptural plots or
Bible characters. The religious motive will not
be too obvious, as in a tract or Sunday School
anecdote (a species of white-lying not con-
fined to the Jesuits). Rather, it will steal into
the conscience-house as a thief in the night.
It will attack the strong man of the world,
armed, keeping his palace, and thinking his
goods are in peace. It will come upon him,
and overcome him, and take from him all his
armour wherein he trusted and divide his
spoils.
The actor -manager who accepts the new play
will hardly be aware that he is about to produce
a religious drama. The Censor, it is to be
hoped, will remain too stupid to find it out.
11
162 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
The audience will be led on gradually to per-
ceive that there is a vital connection between
this human story enacted before them and the
spiritual life about which they talk in church
and chapel. Just as the disciples of Jesus,
who had imbibed no spiritual truth from the
dogmas of the Scribes and Pharisees, dis-
cerned it at once in the stories which our Lord
told them about simple ploughboys and
humane shepherds, and shrewd bankers and
profligate lads, and grumbling labourers
and smart jewellers, and soulless plutocrats
and suffering beggars, and jolly wedding-
parties and selfish priests, and unctuous
pastors and heretical philanthropists, and
penitent tax-collectors, so the playgoers will
find beneath the modern stories of everyday
life the pearl of great price.
Again, just as the disciples recognized that
this " new teaching " had an authority of its
own which was more real than that of the
scribes, the authority of religious experience,
of conscience as distinguished from the bully-
ing dogmas of the Sabbatarians and the
sticklers for ecclesiastical observances, so it
will be with the new audiences. Twenty years
of church and chapel -going will have left them
cold to spiritual truth. The braying of pulpit
asses, the denunciations of the uncommonly
good, will have passed like water off a duck's
DRAMATIC 163
back, while two or three evenings at a theatre
will have opened out a new view of life to
them. They will have discovered the eternal
Christ beneath some strong, loving character
in the play, an ordinary man, perhaps, with
no scriptural title to his name, with no religious
phrases on his lips ; while beneath some other
characters, struggling against temptations,
baffled by some spiritual problem, crushed
by some evil circumstance, oppressed by some
worldly force, yet not called heretics or sinners,
or damned souls, they will have found them-
selves.
" The Passing of the Third Floor Back "
has been called a bad play, and perhaps, from
the point of view of technique, it was so, but
in the hands of that consummate spiritual
artist, Forbes Robertson, it was undoubtedly
a tremendous power for good. So was Mr.
Rann Kennedy's " Servant in the House," a
far better play, which, to our disgrace, failed
to attract Londoners, while at the same time
it was being played with enormous success at
eight theatres in America.
Now, what have we Christians to learn in
this matter? First, the great lesson (and this
applies not only to dramatic but to all art,
to music, poetry, literature, and architecture)
that we are not the only spiritual pastors and
masters, that perhaps we are the least im-
164 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
portant of such persons. The vantage-ground
of the pulpit, the confessional, and the
theological study has been largely lost through
our own fault our own most grievous fault.
We have failed to convince because we have
tried to monopolize the field of spiritual teach-
ing. Now, instead of trying to regain our
monopoly, as the landlords and the capitalists
do, let us humbly recognize that we never ought
to have wanted to be monopolists. Let us
realize that just because we are Christian
teachers, ambassadors of the Incarnation, we
must call in the aid of and co-operate with
all human teachers.
Christ is the " Word made flesh/' not the
" Word made parson." God has poured
out His Spirit upon all flesh. The Old
Testament ideal that all the Lord's people
should be prophets has been realized. It was
the first Pope who gloried in the fact that our
sons and our daughters were able to prophesy
our Labour leaders and our Suffragettes
that our young artists could see visions, and our
poets and dramatists could dream dreams.
Modern Nonconformists have a work to do
in helping to show the mistaken view of life
which their Puritan ancestors (with the best
intentions, with much reason, and under great
provocation) let loose upon the Church and
the world. It is they who can do so much
DRAMATIC 165
to pave the way. They can combat Sabba-
tarianism (the Sabbatarianism which brought
Jesus to His death) ; they can fight against
all the soul-destroying ideas which have
gathered round the verbal inspiration of the
Bible ; they can persuade people that, how-
ever inadequate the religious teaching in the
Church schools may be, the system known as
" Cowper-Templeism " is infinitely worse, and
is rearing generation after generation of
children who know not the Lord or the
gospel ; they can shake Mrs. Grundy and put
her through a course of Sandow exercises till
she begins to walk, not as a fool but as wise,
redeeming the time. In the matter of the
drama they have a very special work. They
must assist in finally taking off the taboo which
the Puritans put upon the stage and upon
amusements generally. Religious people must
not be content with a negative attitude in this
matter, merely saying that the theatres are not
so bad as they used to be, and that we cannot
altogether forbid our young people to go to
them in these days. They must believe that
the drama is a positive force for good, and
take pains to help in the organization of
amusement as being as important as industry.
Religious people who lament the horseplay in
the streets and the vulgarity of much that goes
on in leisure time have to a large extent them-
166 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
selves to blame for it. They have let slip
from their hands one of the greatest spiritual
forces in education which God put into them.
The modern Church is almost the only institu-
tion that has not understood the pov/er of
the drama or the value of appeal to the
imagination.
Since the disastrous divorce between religion
and amusement we have had to pay for our
amusement instead of amusing ourselves.
There is an analogy to this in all our arts.
Why do we have to pay church furnishers to
provide us with woodcarving with which the
village lads of Norfolk and Suffolk would have
decorated their parish churches in the Middle
Ages ? Why do we have to pay choirs to sing
to us in church ? Why in ritualistic churches,
on Palm Sunday, do we have to purchase dried
leaves from the East at an exorbitant price
instead of going out into the lanes and pulling
down the yew and catkins to " straw them in
the way " ?
We have lost the faculty of self-expression.
Even the ritual movement in the Anglican
Church is terribly formal and artificial. Boys
have to be taught what to do, just as young
ladies and gentlemen have to be taught the
Turkey Trot instead of, as in Russia or Scotland
or Italy, flinging themselves about quite natur-
ally in Tarantellas and Highland reels. I
DRAMATIC 167
hope I am not misunderstood. I do not pro-
pose that the Church should resolve itself into
a dancing school or a dramatic college not
that at all. I am only suggesting that a part
of our work is to create an atmosphere in
which the old spirit might revive.
Ill I
LITERARY
Tract-writing " Stephen Remarx" My other books
Goodwill Hall Caine Oscar Wilde G. K. Chesterton
Punch Amateur authors Clerical literature Sermons
George Russell.
IT must not be supposed that by calling
these " literary " reminiscences I myself lay
claim to be a man of letters. I have never
been more than a scribbler, a writer of
"tracts." The Editorial Secretary of one of
our Church societies once told me that I was
the best tract writer he knew. This was a
great and undeserved compliment, but I think
it was paid me because, by writing tracts as
if they were novels, I have perhaps succeeded
in doing the former while utterly failing to
produce the latter, and the " tracts " which
evolved have been rather more lively than
most. Certainly 'the ordinary tract is a terrible
thing, especially in the form of a Protestant
story about a priest who, after saying Mass
and hearing confessions for twenty years, is
suddenly informed, apparently for the first time,
168
LITERARY 169
of some very elementary truth of Christianity
by a railway ticket collector, promptly
throws up his religion, marries the collector's
widowed stepmother, and lives happily near
Muddle Puddle Junction, attends Muddle
Puddle Chapel on Sunday evenings, and
eventually dies in the odour of sanctity and
milk-vans.
Newspaper critics always say that I " disarm
criticism" by calling my novels "tracts."
Perhaps I do. It is rather a good dodge, and
succeeds in getting readers. I ought not to
call it a " dodge " exactly, because I am really
quite honest in announcing my stories as tracts.
It is the publisher who always insists on calling
them novels.
The first tract I wrote was " Stephen
Remarx," and it gave me a notoriety which
I have never been able to quench. Wherever
I go I am asked if I am " Stephen." Only
lately, after twenty years have passed, and I
am dressed in khaki, looking anything but a
tract-writer, the Censor at the Base, before he
stamps my letter, says, "By the way, are you
the ? " etc., etc.
I wrote the book in a few hours during a
holiday. I always write in my holidays. The
idea was suggested to me by a little book called
'The Russian Priest." I thought I would
try to write about an ideal Anglican parson.
170 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
I believe the success of " Stephen Remarx "
(it ran to twelve editions) was due to the
simple fact that it dealt with a subject which
was in everybody's mind at the time. I re-
member some one saying that the popularity
of a book nearly always depends on its giving
utterance to something that the mass of people
want to say or to have said. John Wesley'js
sermons or the " Tracts for the Times " are very
dull reading now, but they were very success-
ful when they were written. To descend much
lower than these, Mr. Sheldon's " In His
Steps" had a marvellous sale of millions.
Nobody would read it now. " Stephen
Remarx " came out just when slumming
was the fashion among religious people of
the upper classes, and Socialism of a very
mild type was beginning to be indulged in
even by duchesses. It was also rather an
" unsectarian " kind of book, and appealed to
the Nonconformists, though written by a sup-
posed ritualist. I remember a Noncon-
formist minister grasping my hand and nearly
wringing it off when he heard that the author
of " Stephen " was sitting near him. Having
scribbled off my manuscript (it was never even
typed), I sent it to a publisher, confident that
he would accept it at once. He has since
laughed with me over the mistake he made
in rejecting it.
LITERARY 171
I think it was refused by twenty firms at
least. I began to despair, when I caught sight
of the advertisement of a literary agent. He
got it looked at with approval, but it was not
until my old Eton tutor's pupil, Mr. Edward
Arnold, saw it that the final bargain was struck .
How elated I was when I held in my hand
the first copy, and how proud when I read
the first review ! Reviewers have always been
extraordinarily kind to me. I received hun-
dreds of letters from all kinds of people, from
Bishops to working-men, thanking me for the
book. Most gratifying of all were these words
from the G.O.M. to my father : ' I wanted to
say with how much pleasure I had read your
son's excellent (and at the proper time enter-
taining) book." Years afterwards in the
library at St. Beimel's I looked at Mr. Glad-
stone's copy to see what marks he had made
he always marked his books. They inte-
rested me much. A letter I received from
Sir Charles Dilke about another book pleased
me. He wrote :
It is not often that one reads a book in which one would
not wish to change a single word. I have just read your new
volume, and that is how I feel about it, so I want to say so to
you. I shall hope to be able to say in one or two public ways
what is my conception of the value of the book.
Yours truly,
CHARLES DILKE.
172 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
I have never written anything so successful
as " Stephen Remarx." It was published in
Ameiica, and there have been editions varying
in price from 35 6d. to id. I believe most
people like it, but there are some who think
it priggish. The C.O.S. took it horribly seri-
ously, and lectured me on my loose view of
economics. But the C.O.S. never had a sense
of humour. I do not think this is an unfair
accusation if the story is true that they once
took an old lady's teeth out, but on discover-
ing that her great-grandfather or some ancestor
drank too much, refused to give her a new set
until they had satisfied themselves that she was
sober .
Mr. E. F. Benson was a little unkind in
his book "The Babe B.A.," when he de-
scribed the awful result to some one who read
the first chapter of " Stephen " and got no
farther. But most people were far too kind
to me over it and made me very conceited.
There was another book called " Cecilia de
Noel," about a kind of female " Stephen
Remarx," which had a vogue at the same time.
A somewhat amusing competition was started
in one of the magazines in which the competi-
tors were to describe the married life of their
two favourite characters in fiction. The prize
was won by somebody who " married " Stephen
and Cecilia. The prize story w r as very funny.
LITERARY 173
Of course I had to write another book.
"Paul Mercer" went pretty well. "Behold
the Days Come " and " A Piece of New
Cloth," by far the best of the four tracts, were
never very successful. I think people had got
tired of me, though most of the reviewers still
tumbled over one another in paying me com-
pliments. Of two celebrated parsons to whom
I showed " Stephen Remarx " before publi-
cation, one said " it would bite," and the other,
sarcastically, " A mere squib ! "
Of my religious books the most carefully
written is " The Parson in Socialism," but, as
usual, my pen was a little bitter, and it cost
me the loss of some friendships which I valued
much. Canon Scott Holland devoted some
pages of his excellent monthly, the Common-
wealth, to a review of it, and was a bit too
kind, as he always is.
"The Creed and Real Life" and "The
Epistle of St. James " I consider the best
things I have written, but the public does not
agree with me in this.
" Francis : the Little Poor Man of Assisi "
was the first attempt to write a short Life of
the saint after the publication of M. Paul Saba-
tier's epoch-making volume. I was frightfully
pitched into by the Roman Catholic critics,
but I survived and the book has always sold
well. It was praised by Mr. G. K. Chesterton
174 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
and by Prof. A. G. Little, the greatest of
British Franciscan students, and that was
enough for me. The best thing it did for me
was to introduce me to that most delightfully
human of all learned men, Paul Sabatier, who
has been one of my greatest friends ever since
I wrote it. I have written better things on
St. Francis since then, notably two sermons
in the little volume " Third Orders," in which
Charles Marson collaborated with me. " Mon-
sieur Vincent," a short life of St. Vincent de
Paul, has also won the approval of many. Now
I have done writing about my own books, and
I have only mentioned a few of them.
I positively blush when I look at my name
in the British Museum Catalogue and see what
a lot of space I take up with my penny-a-line
effusions . Talking of a penny a line, I have
made much more money by magazine articles
and reviews than by books. I suppose this
is the experience of many authors. I do not
write for money, but the honoraria are very
acceptable to a slum parson. I have been
able to do a great deal of work in my parishes
with my " literary earnings," as the tax collec-
tor calls them.
I ought, perhaps, to mention Goodwill, a
magazine which I edited for about fifteen years.
It was an attempt to provide something rather
superior to the ordinary kind of parish maga-
LITERARY 175
zine then in vogue. It was never very popular,
partly because people always suspected me of
wanting to deluge their parishes with Social-
ism. The most popular parish magazines are
those which contain a serial story about an
insipid young chorister who gets into bad com-
pany with some atheist lecturers but is rescued
by the Vicar's wife, who finds him' a nice little
wife in the grocer's shop. His father-in-law
dies leaving him a hundred pounds, and the
last act ends with a christening and tea at the
Vicarage. Besides this you must have " Ques-
tions and Answers on Church Life." The
questions as well as the answers are written
by an expert in ecclesiastical problems. This
is the correct style : " Why does our new Vicar
say ' Aymen ' and not ' Armen ' as our late
Vicar did?" "Why does the senior curate
wear a stole during the Litahy while the Vicar
wears a black scarf?" "Is it right for a
young deacon to advocate Disestablishment?"
" Ought I to say * My Lord ' to the suffragan
Bishop?"
I am not a good editor, and I am not
sufficiently restrained and reserved to run a
magazine of that kind. I defy any one hold-
ing strong views on any subject to make a
great success of a parish magazine. Think
what it means to provide every month some-
thing for perhaps a thousand parishes, where
176 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
the Vicars hold all kinds of opinions and the
parishioners too. My hair is quite grey now.
I do not know how far this is due to my fifteen
years' editorship of Goodwill. Nevertheless, I
look back with satisfaction on some things due
to my editorship. For one thing we got the
G.O.M. to subscribe 5 for initial expenses,
and I persuaded Dr. Charles Gore to write
some elementary articles on theology, which
were afterwards published as " The Creed of
the Christian." I ought to have made a
fortune out of that, but I did not. It is the
most popular of all Dr. Gore's books. By
the way, the title Goodwill., an exceedingly
happy one, was the inspired thought of Canon
Scott Holland. It has lately been adopted by
a new magazine of an international character.
Now, however feeble my own writing has
been, it has introduced me to the world of
literature, and for that alone I am glad. When
I was a sort of monk Hall Caine turned up
one day to tea and inspected us. He was
writing " The Christian," and allowed me to
revise the proofs where they concerned the
"Religious life." 'He has often been asked
who " John Storm " is, and his answers seem
to have suggested that he is a mixture of me
and Father Jay. I only hope that all the
naughtiness is Father Jay's ! I was once sent
a cutting from an American newspaper in
LITERARY 177
which I appeared as k ' the original John
Storm." It amused me immensely. But how
irritating it is for an author to be asked whom
he means by such and such a character in his
books ! As if any decent writer puts photo-
graphs of actual people in his novels ! They
wouldn't be novels if he did : they would be
Blue Books or police reports. If you de-
scribe a peeress with socialist ideas, it must
of course be Lady Warwick in every detail ;
if you introduce a Prime Minister, it must be
Mr. Asquith or Mr. 'Balfour. You cannot
damn an author more effectively than by
making these insinuations. In one of my
stories I described a parvenu who picked his
teeth with a fork. I was immediately told
that Lord - - never did such a thing;. Well,
who said he did ? I did not !
Hall Caine has come in for some hard
knocks from the critics, but no one who
has read his early novels of the Isle of
Man can ever deny his power and attrac-
tiveness. Miss Marie Corelli shares with him
the hard knocks, but the mere fact that
their stories run into hundreds of thousands
shows that they meet a certain need, and
by no means necessarily a wrong need.
We all love the heart of the masses when
we reach it (as we have lately in the case of
the Tommies). These popular novelists have
12
178 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
reached it long ago, and there is probably
something wrong with us if we altogether dis-
like what they love.
To turn to a very different literary person-
age, Oscar Wilde. We at once say " genius."
Yes, a genius in the sense of Sir Herbert
Tree's new definition, '" An infinite capacity
for not having to take pains." Yet he
must have put himself to a good deal of
trouble to think out many of his epigrams, as
he also did to prepare his correct costume
before going to a party. If it is wrong to
crib sermons, I think it is much more wrong
to crib epigrams, and I felt quite ashamed
o|f my cloth when I heard of a parson who
went about saying he was a " Lion in a den
of Daniels," as if Oscar Wilde had not said
it twenty years before him. The quickest
repartee he ever made was, I should imagine,
when he declared that there was no subject
on which he could not speak at once, and
some one suggested " The Queen ! " " She's
not a subject," said Wilde. He was always
brilliant, even in prison. I was with him at
Reading Jail the day before his release. He
was naturally very much excited at the pros-
pect, and chattered away in exquisite poetry
about God's beautiful earth and sea in which
he was once more going to revel.
" But think," he said, " that I have now
LITERARY 179
got to live for a year on what I used to spend
in one week ! " He declared that he had learnt
a wonderful thing, called " humility," during
his time in prison, and then sampled it by
speaking of his prose as " the finest prose in
\the English language with the exception of
Pater's."
The nicest thing he said to me was at the
beginning of our interview. "Have you ever
visited a prisoner before?" I was obliged
to confess that I had not. " Then, bad as
I am, I have done one good thing. I have
made you obey your Master." I certainly
never realized before what a rotten system of
punishment ours is, if by punishment we in-
tend to reclaim our citizens. To begin with,
the authorities wanted to have a warder present
while I talked to Wilde. I had to go to the
Home Office to protest against this, and I got
my way. But fancy putting a man like Wilde
into solitary confinement for months ! Fancy
treating him in this way at all if we really
wanted to use his gifts for the nation ! But
of course, we did not.
It will take a long time to convince people
that there are better ways than prison life
with which to meet crime. It is only
gradually that we are coming to see that,
at least in the case of juveniles, our re-
formatories should be homes and schools.
180 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
I am always proud to think that my father
was one of the first men in Parliament to
insist on this, and he stuck to his point all his
life. But where they are homes and schools,
they are splendid institutions. I would even
deal with slum children by way of country
public schools. Why should not all our slum
children over seven years old go to public
schools outside our big cities, and live a
healthy, happy life, going home for their
holidays only? They want discipline in their
lives, which they won't get in their homes
until a new race arises. Gradually in this way
crime would disappear and families would arise
with a view of life that was healthy and sweet.
What a lot that would cost ! Dear friends,
we shall never use that argument again after
we have got accustomed to spending five
millions a day on war. It would destroy home
life ? Dear friends, you have destroyed it
already by your slums. \Vhy not re-create
it in a new way?
But I have forgotten. I am writing about
my literary friends. I have very few. Authors
can hardly be expected to admit such a num-
skull into their sacred circle. G. K. C. is one
of them. It is not for me to describe him.
As a parson of the Church of England I
should like to say that our Anglican treat-
ment of the biggest (in every sense) asset we
LITERARY 181
have on the intellectual side is on a par with
our general muddle -headedness as a religious
body. We have never had such an apologist
as Chesterton, yet he hardly ever figures at
a Church meeting. We prefer the dull logic
of some dry -as -dust professor from Oxford to
the sparkling paradox of the greatest wit of
the century. It is he who has told us that a
man does not believe in his religion until he
has learnt to laugh about it (not at it). It
is he who has told us that when we do laugh
it is at the wrong time. We laugh at a
christening because there is a baby, at a
wedding when two young persons are begin-
ning to take life seriously, and we cry at a
funeral, when it is quite futile to laugh or shed
tears, being too late to alter things.
Religion is still groaning under the weight
of Puritanism and kill -joys in this country.
Chesterton would lift us up, but we won't let
him. We are still scared by mid-Victorian
arguments about science and miracles.
G. K. C. would deliver us and keep jus
orthodox at the same time. But we would
rather not be set free. Our Scottish
friends are said to take some minutes to
see a joke : we take years. Even Horatio
Bottomley could not understand why Chester-
ton once said that John Bull's frequent
remonstrance against the Archbishop of
182 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Canterbury's presence on the Board of Trade
arose from a misunderstanding. Dr. Randall
Davidson, according to G. K. C., is the man of
all others who ought to preside over the Board
of Trade ! (I decline to explain this.)
Any one who courteously and fairly explodes
Puritan fallacies is doing more good than he
knows to the cause of true religion in England.
Puritanism has practically destroyed Sunday
in thinking to preserve it, it has made
Religion suspected, it has taken away joy and
beauty and love, while supposing it was doing
the work of the angels who make merry in
heaven, of our Lord the King of Beauty, and
of our God, who is Love itself. Most of
this sad work is done through sheer lack of
humour, and that is partly why it can only
be undone by humorists like Chesterton.
I cannot imagine any one being offended by
the wit of G. K. C. as a rule, though I daresay
he sometimes makes a few people a little
angry when he does not wait for the cap to
fit but jams it down on some particular person's
head by name. Of course, he is very bold
when he writes in this sort of way : ''In the
inconceivable event of Mr. - - [a prominent
preacher] being converted to Christianity!"
Punch would not do this, and Punch's
humour is very powerful for good. It was my
ambition when a small boy to get something
LITERARY 183
into Punch, chiefly, I suppose, because of
the myth concerning the 5 earned by the
man who sent up " Advice to those about to
marry Don't."
I send something about once every two
years, and have been honoured about half a
dozen times by Du Maurier and other artists,
though I never got 5 or even fivepence. How
does one get paid by that mysterious confer-
ence in Bouverie Street? The best of my
effusions was a little quip which appeared when
Mr. McKenna succeeded Mr. Birrell at the
Education Office, and the religious difficulty
was disturbing everybody's mind. It was only
this : " After ' Birreligion 'the Cult of the
Deus ex Mackenna." (This also I decline
to explain.)
I am always sorry when some halfpenny
rag gets hold of a good thing which ought to
be in Punch. Such was " The new The-
Oliver-Lodgy " at the time of the R. J.
Campbell controversy. If I had thought of
that I should not have wasted it on the half-
penny rag, even though I might have got my
fivepence. It was like putting a valuable MS.
in a parish reading-room, when it ought to
have been in the British Museum.
I have a friend who provokes me because
he will never send his good things to Punch.
Was not this, for example, worthy of a place
184 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
in the celebrated paper? When "swishing"
was abolished at Eton in the fifth form, my
friend immediately remarked, " How are the
mighty fallen and the weapons of Warre
perished ! ' ;
This reminds me of the story of Burnand and
Gilbert at a dinner-party. Gilbert was talking
rather loud, and Burnand said, " I say, Gilbert,
are you firing of! some of the bad jokes you
have sent to Punch which have been refused? "
" No," said Gilbert, " if they were bad, they
would not have been refused."
Another good score made by one great man
off another was this. Sir Andrew Clark and
Sir James Paget were at breakfast in some
house. Sir Andrew remarked when the mail
was distributed, " I see, Paget, that you haven't
many patients you have hardly any letters."
Sir James replied, " But I notice that most of
your correspondence has a black edge ! "
But though refined wit is good I think we
may sometimes err in insisting on its being too
much refined. J. H. Shorthouse, the author of
" John Inglesant," who used often to come to
Hams, was much offended with me once by
some (as I thought) very harmless joke I made
about the " hupper suckles " in my magazine,
Goodwill. I made some mild fun about family
prayers in a big house. Shorthouse refused
to write for Goodwill as a protest against my
LITERARY 185
vulgarity. Later on he repented and did send
me a few lines.
It strikes me as I write down these things
that Tit Bits might provide me with the income
which I have hitherto failed to get from other
periodicals. Editor, please note. Which also
reminds me that professional journalists often
complain of us amateurs for taking the bread
out of their mouths by dabbling in their busi-
ness. It is a difficult question. If the Editor
of a newspaper or a magazine thinks that an
amateur author can do a thing better for his
purpose than a professional, I do not see why
he should not ask him. For example, I was
asked by a leading newspaper to review the
" Life of Father Dolling " because I knew him
so well. Was this wrong? It certainly de-
manded skill to read a big volume and review
it decently in about eight hours. The pro-
fessional could have done the trick more easily,
but I think the Editor had a perfect right to
ask me.
When it comes to simple reporting I think
the professional has more to say in his
own favour. .Though even here a distinction
is necessary. To report the speeches (say)
at a Church Congress is the work of a profes-
sional, but the Editor might well ask a parson,
with his knowledge of Church affairs, to write
a descriptive account of the features of the
186 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Archbishop of Canterbury, the costumes of his
wife and daughters, the meeting between a
Modernist Dean and a High Church Canon
and how cross they looked with each other,
etc. It really requires a parson to write about
ecclesiastical affairs. Parsons talk more
" shop " than any other class, and the out-
side world is not at all interested in these
questions of what goes on inside the Church.
This is very bad for the clergy themselves,
some of whom are, as a dignitary once said
to me, " as narrow as a razor's edge, without
any of its sharpness."
Numbers of our sermons never penetrate the
souls of our hearers because they are full of
theological terms which nobody understands,
not having been to a theological college. Here,
for instance, is a fine sentence lately fired off
by a Canon in the cathedral of a somno-
lent city : " Having entered this caveat against
the too facile deduction of an abstract reason-
ing " ! I wonder what the old ladies made of
that. At the same time, I think the world
exaggerates the " inhumanity " of the clergy.
We are not so ignorant of human nature as
people try to make out, and the taunt of our
being such bad business men is often quite
undeserved. Few of us are as unworldly
as the old country parson who, when he
was told that Gladstone was going out to
LITERARY 187
South Africa, remarked " Why I thought
the old rascal was dead." The fact that
we do not often produce a great literary man
like " George Birmingham " or Baring Gould
is no discredit to us. We produce more real
literature than any other class outside the
professional authors. I am speaking of
secular literature. In biblical and theological
writings, of course, thie Anglican Church
is very rich. It may not have held its own
in world-wide reputation. There are not
many Creightons, Westcotts, Lightfoots, or
Sandays, but there are a very large number of
the next class.
(I did not put Stubbs in the above list
because I did not know how to spell his name
in the plural. And I should like to have
put him amongst my humorists were it not
that the stories about him are too well known
to be included even among my chestnuts.)
One reason why the clergy are not so
prominent in literature as they were is the
very creditable one that they have ceased
to spend much time in composing sermons.
I call this creditable because it means that
they are more alive than they were to the
pressing need for applying Christianity to
everyday life. The great mass of people in
England are ignorant of the very elements of
Christian doctrine, and,, what is worse, deficient
188 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
in the mystical spirit or the desire for God and
the other world. I cannot myself believe that
carefully prepared sermons, in which there are
no split infinitives and plenty of rounded
phrases, are really the best way to remedy
this deficiency. A human talker, like Dolling
or Stanton or the present Bishops of London
and Chelmsford, does more real good than all
the great preachers who have spent hours
in a comfortable study with a typist. But
this does mean a falling off in homiletic and
theological literature of a classical kind which
will last. Nor, when I say this, do I wish to
discount the good work that is done among
certain eclectic congregations who gather round
a learned or eloquent preacher Sunday by
Sunday. There is an intensive culture which
produces good results in the Church. Great
preachers are not always remote from actual
life. I remember taking Phillips Brooks
round Bethnal Green, and I certainly found
him very much in touch with things.
The big preacher of this type is generally
found in Nonconformist chapels, and in many
ways he is able to do a work which the parish
priest cannot. The ordinary Anglican parson
is confined within the limits of his district, and
tends to deal with individual questions rather
than broad, national ones. This makes his
sermons somewhat petty in their character.
LITERARY 189
The Nonconformist gets around him a kind
of salon. He seeks to inspire his hearers
in different classes to go out into the world
and apply Christianity over a larger area than
one particular parish. It is, so to speak, more
worth his while to prepare carefully a sermon
which may have a worldwide effect. The
Anglican Church is gradually waking up to
the fact that extra -parochial work is of im-
portance. More care is taken in making
appointments to cathedral chapters, for it is
the cathedral which offers the best opportunity
for a national and widespread message.
" The Cathedral City " has become a by-
word for somnolency and unprogressiveness.
It should be just the contrary, for the preachers
in the big church, freed from the trammel of
a parish, should be men who can deliver their
message to the world at large.
But when all is said and done the influence
of a good life is far greater than that of a
thousand sermons, literary or not. English
people are too fond of sermons or, perhaps I
should say, are too fond of expecting them,
and them only, from their ministers. It is
extraordinarily easy to listen to sermons with-
out any sort of intention of carrying out their
message.
To live in the company of a holy man makes
a far greater demand upon one's capacity for
190 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
penitence than to listen to a fellow in a pulpit.
And most of us do not want to " repent/' in
the scriptural sense of " changing our minds."
The cynical Lord Melbourne said that the
Church of England was the greatest bulwark
against Christianity. He disliked the clergy
who preached about everyday life.
" Chicken -stealing is very popular in this
part : to preach about it casts a gloom over
this congregation, sir," said the deacon to the
parson about to ascend a certain pulpit.
Probably sermons are not destined in the
future to have so much effect upon life as
novels and plays. Mr. Galsworthy and Mr.
G. B. Shaw, perhaps, are doing a more potent
work than any known Bishop. A preacher
finds it very difficult to be artistic. He has
a few minutes in which to deliver his message.
He is tempted to fling it at the audience in
solid lumps and say quite plainly what he is
after ; there is no time to digest it. A play-
wright or a painter or a poet clothes his
message in beauty, and leaves his hearers or
seers or readers to find out what he means.
Of course you may argue that the greatest of
all preachers was One who spoke in parables,
and that His ministers should follow His
example. I only wish they could. But
parables, pictures, and poems are not the
stock-in-trade of the ordinary Christian
LITERARY 191
minister. He does not lay himself out to
provide the wherewithal. Very often he lays
the blame on his congregation, and says that
they would not stand it. I do not think they
could if he tried !
In concluding this ramble among my literary
acquaintances I must refer to the Rt. Hon.
George Russell. I am not sure that he ought
not to have appeared in the " Ecclesiastical "
chapter, for he is a most devoted son of the
Church. He has been called the Samuel Pepys
of our day, and A. G. G. tells us that future
historians of the epoch will get most of their in-
formation about the social life of the nineteenth
century from his books. They will certainly
have a large mine in which to search, for he
is one of the most prolific writers of the day.
He has an extraordinary memory, and can
quote you whole passages from his favourite
authors, while as for anecdotes he is what a
late Regius Professor at Oxford used to call
" a perfect store'us." He has what is known
as a " caustic pen " where Anglican Bishops
are concerned, but this is in spite of, or
perhaps I should say because of, his tremen-
dous faith in the Church itself. The case for
Disestablishment was never put better than in
his great speech in the House of Commons on
the first Welsh Bill. He is an old-fashioned
Liberal, and has very little sympathy with
192 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Socialism. His great ideal is Mr. Gladstone,
and his small Life of the G.O.M. still remains
the best of all the biographies. He under-
stood the depth of Gladstone's religion more
than any man, and I look back with grateful-
ness to the night when he and I were the first
to watch around the great statesman's bier in
Westminster Hall. I remember how on that
occasion in the semi-darkness we were both
startled by a weird figure rising from his knees
and imploring us to light the candles round the
coffin. It was that wild Irish M.P., Dr.
Tanner, who had been praying for Gladstone's
soul.
George Russell, like the old Christy Min-
strels, makes the boast that he " never performs
outside London," and it is certainly difficult to
imagine him anywhere else. He simply loves
London, and a huge amount of real work he
gets through in those rooms of his, where all
kinds of people come and find rest and com-
fort (mental, physical, and spiritual) from his
cheerful companionship. The only fault that
I know of him is his persistent refusal to stand
for Parliament again. We need more men like
him in the thick of public life, but we must
be thankful, I suppose, that at least we have
him active and powerful still in the thick of
the world of literature.
IV
SOCIALIST
My father Gladstone and Disraeli Ben Tillett The great
Dock strike Charles Marson Shuttleworth and Head-
lam Mr. Bradlaugh The Christian Social Union The
Church Socialist League Tom Mann John Burns
Keir Hardie Robert Blatchford G. B. Shaw George
Lansbury The Suffragettes Socialism and the War.
" WE are all Socialists now," so said Sir
William Harcourt in the eighties. I think that
drove me into real Socialism. I was quite
sure I could never be a Socialist if Sir William
was one of them. I had to find out the real
thing and see whether I could get to like it.
I suppose most Socialists have come through
a phase of Radicalism and " official " Liberal-
ism. Certainly I did for one.
What made me a Socialist ? I think it was
the great Dock strike of 1889, though long
before that I had been advancing that way.
I was never Conservative ; partly, I think,
from " pure cussedness," which always has
made me kick against my surroundings. I
do not wish to suggest that my family influ-
13 183
194 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
ences were all of the high old Tory type. My
father, for example, was a Liberal-Conserva-
tive, and we were all brought up in silent
worship of Gladstone. Not, of course, that
that would incline me to Socialism. Dizzy's
novels were more in that line, and Dizzy my
father never liked. My father was never a
party man. That is why he could never be
put in the Cabinet. " Adderley will be Adder-
ley still," was Disraeli's reply to the suggestion
that he should join the Cabinet. A President
of the Board of Trade who secretly sympa-
thised with Plimsoll, an Under-Secretary of
the Colonies, who believed in self-government
long before Chamberlain, an Education
Minister who hated red tape : such men
in those days were not safe advisers for her
Majesty. Added to these, his deep religion (he
would spend two hours alone after every Com-
munion) naturally made him the friend of his
great adversary, whose politics were always
subservient to his religion. " May I be near
him in the next world ! " was the way in which
my father spoke of Gladstone, to the dismay
of an old Tory uncle of ours who thought
the G.O.M. was the devil, though even he
was almost converted when they met at Hams
Hall. Mrs. Gladstone always called my father
" the kindest of dear William's enemies."
Gladstone gave him his K.C.M.G., which called
SOCIALIST 195
forth Disraeli's remark, " I am glad to see
that our opponents decorate our bench." My
brother, the present Lord Norton, keeps up
the paternal tradition of independence and,
judging from his letters to the newspapers,
belongs to no party in either Church or State.
He is certainly thoroughly English in one
characteristic, that while he inveighs against
dogma he is eminently dogmatic himself.
But I always felt that the extraordinary com-
fort and complacency of the upper classes by
the side of the continual struggle of the masses
was due to the capitalist system of " profiteer-
ing " (as the New Age calls it), and that it
is thoroughly unjust in essence, and that I for
one had no right to enjoy it without at least
a protest. It was when I found that Liberals
and Radicals were quite as content to enjoy it
as Tories that I finally went over to the
Socialists. I am a thoroughly discontented
fellow, and have been so for at least thirty
years. This discontentment has always made
me unconventional . That is why I could never
rise to any high or responsible position, or
keep one if I had it. I should always be
wanting to do the thing on out-of-the-way
lines and my comrades would object, and I
should have to go. But it has made me cotton
to unconventional people of all kinds, and that,
I think, drove me to the Socialists.
196 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
The first thing that set me thinking in this
direction was a meeting of the old Guild of
St. Matthew in a back street somewhere, when
I heard Stewart Headlam say, " Let us turn
from the Bishop of London to the Bishop of
souls." To take one's gaze off Dr. Jackson
and to fix it on Jesus Christ ! That seemed to
inspire me. At that time I was a law student,
and I used to spend some of my evenings in
the slums of South London. Then I went
to Oxford House, and it was there that I first
became a Radical. Oddly enough, it was
through doing Tory work for my friend
Henson, who at that time, with Lang, was
running a League in defence of the Church
establishment. I lectured once or twice for
them, and it made me a believer in Disestab-
lishment. I found it so very easy to pick
holes in my own arguments. Then I turned
to social questions, and wandered about in
Whitechapel with Ben Tillett on a Sunday
morning, looking at the burdens of my
brethren. Then I made up my mind to
be ordained, and left the Oxford House. I
could never have settled down as a conven-
tional parson at the head of a University Settle-
ment. I wanted more independence. I got
it when I was appointed to the Christ Church
Oxford Mission in Poplar.
Socialism was in the air. Ben Tillett was
JAMES ADDERLEY, 1889.
TO face p. 197.
SOCIALIST 197
lecturing at the Dock gates, while I was
preaching platitudes in the same place. He
was threatening a strike, and the Dock direc-
tors were smiling at his thunder. In a few
days the place was in an uproar. Thousands
of poor, starved dockers struck : the better
paid stevedores came out in sympathy. I
threw myself into the stream, though my ignor-
ance of the exact issue prevented me from
being a leader. I collected 700 to feed the
strikers, and lost a peer's annual subscription
to the Mission of 50 by doing so. I went
on errands between the Bishop of London and
John Burns.
I was present at the famous interview be-
tween Dr. Temple and the future Cabinet
Minister, then a rough agitator. The Bishop
sat drinking endless cups of tea in Dr. Mason's
drawing-room at Trinity Square. " My heart,"
he said, " is with the dockers, but my head
is with the Directors." He tried his economic
theories on John Burns. ' There is much about
our case in the old Book [the Bible]," replied
the agitator.
Bishop Temple just failed to be a leader
in the great Dock strike. His old-fashioned
political economy and his absolute sincerity
prevented him from being this. Of course the
principles on which the strike was conducted
did give shocks to many people. One Oxford
198 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
don had the courage to come down to Poplar
and preach a sermon on " Be content with
your wages." Cardinal Manning, on the other
hand, was bold in the other direction. One
of the most picturesque scenes during the strike
was his visit to the Directors, when the old
man stood and preached a little sermon to
them about the sufferings of the poor.
This reminds me of one little episode with
which I was connected. A friend among the
Directors had given me 10 to spend on the
wives and children. The next day John Burns
said in a speech, " Even the Directors are
helping us." My friend wired to me to ask
me if I had let out the secret of his donation.
Of course I had not done so, but it was a
curious coincidence, and got my friend into
trouble. The Directors were made to confess
to each other at the Board meeting what they
had done, and my friend was obliged to " tell
up " about his 10.
I have often thought that if Cardinal Man-
ning had preached a Mission in East London
immediately after the strike, he would have
made a harvest for the Roman Catholics. He
was the hero of the moment, and everybody
felt that it was his religion that had made
him do what he did.
The Dock strike called the attention of
Church people to the casual labourer and his
SOCIALIST 199
hard lot. It exposed the futility of mere
" slumming " and " charity/' and, above all
things, the impossibility of really preaching
the "gospel" to empty stomachs. It was
felt that cheque charity was worse than use-
less, and that the message of Christ was only
half given if it did not touch the social
problem. Everything was working towards a
recrudescence of " Christian Socialism." I say
" recrudescence " because, of course, the term
was invented by Frederick Denison Maurice
and Charles Kingsley. Stewart Headlam had
carried on the idea with his Guild of St.
Matthew and his excellent paper the Church
Reformer . Lord Morley used to say that there
was enough good writing in the Church Re-
former with which to run a first-class news-
paper. Charles Marson, one of the most
brilliant priests of the Church, and Thomas
Hancock, one of its greatest prophets (whom
the Anglican authorities left unrequited all his
days), were among the writers.
Charles Marson was the most " all-round "
Christian Socialist we had in the Church of
England. What I mean by this is that his
was not a Christianity with a light veneer
of " interest in social reform," nor his Social-
ism a vague belief in the Kingdom of God
by Act of Parliament. He really believed in
the Catholic Church as the true Human Society
200 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
in every department. The Church was the
new environment which God offered all men,
whether they came out of slums or Park Lane.
He had a love for the poor like that of St.
Vincent de Paul, and was sincerely jealous for
them. He would not even brook the rather
harmless jokes made in Punch about tramps
and "weary Willies." They seemed to him
like jokes made about wounded and dying
friends. He was too great for the ordinary
and conventional agitators of any movement.
The average Socialist meeting bored him.
His description in a private letter to a friend
(which has lately been published) of such a
meeting is most amusing. He writes of " a
little large-headed man who explained to us
'ow and 'ow long it would take to oust the
landlords," and of his wife, " a vastly genteel
damsel with wide grey eyes and a quite she-
capitalist frock, who talked about the ' large
bridals ' of the future, and the dreadful need
we all have of being voted out by the Suffra-
gettes." A Church meeting, on the other hand,
rather excited than bored him. He could not
resist pulling ecclesiastical legs, especially
gaitered ones. I should like to have been
present when he catechized a former head-
master of a great public school about the
number of ordination candidates he had been
able to gather from among his pupils. " Shall
SOCIALIST 201
we say a hundred?" The ex-head, unaware
what he was in for, mildly replied : " Perhaps
not quite a hundred." " Shall we say ninety? "
"N-no." "Shall we say eighty?" And so
on, like Abraham in the eighteenth chapter
of Genesis, until the poor man was obligeid
to confess that he had not gathered even ten
for the ministry. Then Marson turned to the
episcopal Chairman and said, " Does not this
show, my lord, that we should do well to
imitate our Master and seek for apostles else-
wherein a word, that we should ordain
4 sanctified cads '? "
I suppose it is not necessary for me to ex-
plain that he was using the word " cad " in the
Etonian sense of a member of the " lower
orders." But his satire is at its best in those
two famous pamphlets, " Huppim and Mup-
pim " and " And Ard," in which the so-called
religious education given in Church schools
and the so-called education of candidates for
Holy Orders is most remorselessly criticized.
A smaller man than Marson attempting to write
such pamphlets would have been ignored. If
you compare them with that popular mid-
Victorian satire, " Modern Christianity a Civi-
lized Heathenism," you feel at once the
superiority of Marson 's work. The one is
actuated by a burning love of Christ and the
Church, and the souls for whom Christ died.
202 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
The other leaves you with an uncomfortable
feeling that the writer is not very much con-
cerned with anything more than the making
of a rather cheap score.
Marson's intense religion is felt also in his
delightful book " The Psalms at Work," and
in his little collection of sayings of great men
about the person of Jesus Christ.
Such a man could never be content iwith
the narrow limits of British Socialist propa-
ganda. He must take the whole of life into
his purview. Hence we find him studying
folklore, Church history, county history,
music, art, and a hundred other things, and
bringing all of it to bear on the social problem.
He really believed in the possibility of a merry
England, though he knew he would never see
it in his day. Though his help to us all in
the War would have been invaluable, I cannot
but rejoice that he was spared the shipwreck,
and was taken to the company of his dear
saints before the European crisis was reached.
Headlam was more of a Radical than a
Socialist in the modern sense, but of his
Churchmanship there was no doubt. The
G.S.M. was, in fact, originally his guild of
communicants at Bethnal Green. Another
guild of his, " The Church and Stage Guild,"
also did a good work in its day.
Shuttleworth was his comrade in all his
SOCIALIST 203
propaganda : " Shuttlecock and Headlong >1
they were called. I never remember a better
lecturer than Shuttleworth. The work these
two men did in meeting secularism in the right
way cannot be too highly praised and grate-
fully remembered by the Church. They were
personal friends of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs.
Besant, and they always behaved as gentle-
men in dealing with the movement of which
these two powerful fighters were the leaders.
Bradlaugh himself was always very courteous
in debate, and it was all the more provoking
when one heard a " Christian Evidence "
lecturer almost insulting him, as I heard once
at the Hall of Science. This was at a meeting
held to discuss the Oxford House papers which
were being issued at that time, as a very mild
artillery wherewith to storm the secularist
trenches.
Those papers were excellent reading for
clergy and ordinands : they were quite inade-
quate to meet the National Reformer and
the Freethinker. As head of the Oxford
House I thought I ought to write to Brad-
laugh to correct the impression he might have
received, that we had had anything to do with
the way in which he had been treated, and he
wrote me a very kind reply saying he was
quite sure I should not have approved of what
was said. Mrs. Besant always interested me
204 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
more than Bradlaugh, because she was getting
nearer to Socialism while he was getting farther
away from it, and because she was always
more religious in the true sense. Mr. Hynd-
man (whom I am sorry to say I did not get
to know till much later in my life) used to
oppose Bradlaugh's individualism with might
and main, and it was probably that (quite
as much as anything the Church ever did)
which eventually turned the attention of the
workers from atheism to Socialism, and made
the Clarion so popular in its early days.
Militant Socialism superseded militant athe-
ism. Shuttleworth always prophesied that this
would be the case, and it is sad that his
comparatively early death prevented him from
witnessing the fulfilment of his prophecy. I
owe much to that man and to a little book
called " Christ and Democracy," by C. W.
Stubbs (afterwards Bishop of Truro), which he
gave me. But the G.S.M. was not destined to
convert the Church of England to Socialism or
anything like it. Anglicans move very slowly,
and especially in matters that touch Tory poli-
tics and interference with monopoly. Clergy
are still allowed to crowd Tory platforms with-
out being accused of mixing up religion and
politics. Church newspapers still take it for
granted that the vast majority of their readers
have little interest in politics beyond wishing
SOCIALIST 205
and praying for the downfall of Liberal
Governments. There are still candidates for
livings who will write to patrons, as one of
them did to Lord Chancellor Halsbury, that
" without neglecting my duty to my Master
I always find time for two nights a week at
the Conservative Club."
The G.S.M. was also too much associated
in the mind of the Church with Headlam's views
on the ballet, which were very ant i -Puritan.
Even I " squirmed " sometimes, though I shall
never cease to reverence Headlam for his
stalwart defence of Catholic truth and his
extraordinary patience in prophecy.
Archbishop Temple never could understand
Headlam and his persistent belief that a dancer
had a soul to be saved and that tracts were not
the only means necessary to salvation. It
worried the good man to be asked to go to the
Alhambra and see a new premiere danseuse,
who happened also to be " a communicant in
your lordship's diocese " ; nor could he under-
stand how her flimsy costume could be as
" proper " for her work as his own " Magpie "
was for his.
There was once a remarkable interview
between the Bishop of London and a deputa-
tion of G.S.M. clergy and dancers.
Dr. Temple prefaced his remarks with an
assurance that he had no complaint to make
206 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
against these ladies. The ladies were not quite
so sure about that.
It is satisfactory to know that the present
Primate takes a kindlier view of Headlam, and
called him a prophet at one of the C.S.U.
meetings.
Headlam's annual address to the G.S.M.
used to be by far the most illuminating Church
oration of the year. Here is a typical sentence
from his address at the time when a Royal
Commission had been appointed to report on
the alleged " disorders in the Church " :-
"Brethren," said St. Paul, "we exhort you admonish the
disorderly." Let the Commissioners, for instance, investigate
the charges which Mrs. Lyttelton in "Warp and Woof" has
brought against the whole of West End Society : I do not say
they are true, indeed I think they are misleading, though the
Secretary of the Women's Trades Union League tells me that
there has been this year a convicted case of a girl being
allowed to work for twenty-four hours on end with only one
and a half hours for meals and rest, but I do say that the
Commissioners should send for Mrs. Lyttelton and get at the
facts : they are more important and bear more closely on the
question as to whether all is in order in the City of God than
does the fact that in some churches two candles are alight
in the daytime, or whether or not the chancels in our
churches are maintained as they had been maintained in
times past. Let us cultivate some sense of proportion. If
clothes are to be the subject of stern and drastic action, let it
not be the cut or the colour of the priest's at the altar, but
the conditions under which those worn by the whole con-
gregation are made. Let the highly placed ladies, too, who
are responsible for this inquiry, be sent for and asked to give
SOCIALIST 207
an account of the history of their clothes, and to prove that
they were all produced in an orderly manner that there is no
blood, or soul blood, in the skirts of their clothing. Let it be
made clear that, without maintaining that twenty-four hours on
end to make pretty frocks for a duchess's ball is customary, it
is an undoubted fact that a large percentage of the young
London population are unable to come to evening classes
owing to the long hours of work. These are the real burning
questions of order and disorder ; these are the articles of a
standing or falling Church. It would be well, too, if some one,
somewhere, would take evidence as to how their fellow-
Churchmen, their brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus
Christ, are housed ; let them postpone the question as to the
exact spot by the Altar at which the Gospel should be said
until each one of their dearly beloved brethren has a com-
fortable home and their children a clean bed, and good fresh
air to sleep in, and a moderate amount of healthy food.
These are the real questions of Church order and discipline.
The Church is a Communistic Society, a Society of brothers ;
the real disorderly thing which the Commissioners have to
tackle is that so many of their brethren have not an abund-
ance of the things necessary for bodily health. True Church
discipline will insist on their having these things. The prose-
cution of those Bishops who violate the Ornaments Rubric
can be postponed till these matters are settled.
For forty years and more Headlam has gone
on explaining to the British nation the truth
about Sunday, about the Sacraments, about the
Bible, about Mammon, about the drama and
the dance, about the Kingdom of God and
many other things, and what he has written
never seems to me stale or unprofitable.
But a society that is to convert a whole
Church must not be a one-man show, and it
208 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
must also go more quietly to work than the
G.S.M. could ever do. It was necessary to
from the Christian Social Union. Henry Scott
Holland and Charles Gore were the original
leaders of this Society, and it has worked
wonders in the Church. I was a member for
about ten years, and I believe I got as many
recruits for it as any one else. Yet I was not
content with it, chiefly because I had com-
mitted myself to the political Socialists, and
that was just what a real leader of the C.S.U.
must never do. The Union rightly welcomes
all kinds of Churchmen who are agreed upon
two things the urgency of social reform, and
the belief that Christ alone can solve the
problem. It is a sort of Vigilance Society for
the Church in matters of social interest.
Another Society, the " Collegium," is now
doing a splendid work in the same direction,
under William Temple, son of the great Arch-
bishop.
The Church Socialist League, which has been
comparatively lately formed, starts definitely as
a body of Socialists, and has done much to
correct the idea that the Socialism of a Church-
man is a particular brand of Socialism which
is only in a half-hearted opposition to
41 capitalism " and all its attendant evils.
The truth is that Socialists proper are
those who believe that, slowly or quickly,
SOCIALIST 209
by Fabian methods or I.L.P. methods or
Syndicalist methods or Guild - Socialism
methods, the present capitalist system has
got to go if ever poverty is to be abolished
and a just distribution of wealth is to be
accomplished. Of course this means that we
Socialists differ among ourselves. Was there
ever a living movement that did not involve
differences ? The war has accentuated our
differences, and some most amazing results
have already shown themselves. State con-
trol has become the cry of the anti-Socialists,
and compulsory methods, which the Socialists
were once supposed to favour, are being held
in check by them. Still, the main idea of the
Socialists remains the same, and it will be more
difficult for their opponents to revert to their
old ideas after the war than it will be for us
to heal our own differences and co-operate once
more with our pacificist comrades. Certain
lessons will have been learned by the nation
which will make it impossible ever to go back
to the anti-Socialist position. So also it is
to be hoped that certain lessons will have been
learned by the Socialists which will help them
to achieve their ideal.
In a period of great transition it is difficult
to talk of great leaders. The old ones will
be discarded : the new ones are at present
unknown by name. But I venture to mention
14
210 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
those whose friendship I have made during the
last thirty years and from whom I have learned
much, even though in some cases nothing
would induce me to follow them again, unless
they changed their minds ! I will not say to
which particular ones this last sentence refers.
The first friend I made in the Socialist
Movement was Ben Tillett, always a much
more patriotic person than the Jingoes believed.
I have already referred to our acquaintance in
Bethnal Green and Poplar. Another remark-
able person was Tom Mann. The Dock strike
in 1889 brought him into prominence, and
he certainly managed it, with Tillett and Burns,
very well. He soon became a popular guest
at clerical meetings, and it is perfectly true
that he had thoughts of being ordained. Sup-
posing he had been, which would have come
to grief sooner, the Church or Mann? I
wonder.
I did not meet him after 1889 for many
years, not indeed till I found myself in the
Bull Ring not long ago screaming on the
side of the Black Country strikers.
John Burns, I must confess, I liked best
before he became a Cabinet Minister, though
no one who meets him can help being im-
pressed by his honesty and determination. But
I was certainly more moved when I heard him
preaching on the " rising orb of the dockers'
SOCIALIST 211
tanner," in 1889, than I was when I sat with
him in his office a few days after the Liberal
Government romped in with its leviathan
majority in 1906. There was something more
romantic about " Bloody Sunday " when I ran
up a side street to escape being knocked down
by the Guards at full gallop than there was in
that snug little room at the L.G.B.
As a Christian I have always had a great
respect for another revolutionary, Herbert
Burrows, who, though very unorthodox from
my point of view, has never been anything but
a spiritual reformer. When I remember my
extreme ignorance I reflect also on the audacity
with which I used to talk and write to men
like Herbert Burrows and J. M. Robertson
in the days of my youth.
Now for a word about Keir Hardie. This
part of my book will probably lose me the few
remaining subscriptions that I can look for
from my friends to help me in my slum parish.
I had better begin by saying that I utterly
disagree with both Keir Hardie and Ramsay
Macdonald as regards the War. But this is
not going to make me deny that both these
men have taught me much in times past.
I knew Keir Hardie for more than a
quarter of a century, so perhaps I have some
right to speak about him and once more defend
him against his fellow-Christians. His enemies
212 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
never made a more foolish mistake than when
they attacked him on religious grounds and
tried to make us believe that he was an
"atheist." His was the grandest figure in the
Labour Movement. His very appearance lent
a dignity to British Socialism. When one sees
how easily the enemies of Socialism forgive
their opponents, provided they modify their
opinions, one understands why they have never
forgiven Keir Hardie, and how little their for-
giveness really means. Keir Hardie has com-
mitted the unforgivable sin of never having
budged an inch from his convictions. In these
days for that alone we should thank God
for him.
But it is of his religion that I want to write.
His was a rugged, straightforward religion,
expressed in his noble, lion-like countenance.
He admired all goodness when he saw it. This
made him, while thinking the worship of royalty
a little overdone, have a genuine admiration
for Queen Mary as a mother, bringing up her
children to fear God. He knew and no one
better than he that Christianity was the only
force that could really work a revolution. It
was that conviction that made him chafe at
the clergy who, as he said, talked " Socialism "
but seldom " materialized " in an election. He
really meant it when he said in Canning Town
Hall some twenty-five years ago, " Send me to
SOCIALIST 213
Parliament to work for the souls of those for
whom Christ died." He really meant it when
he wandered about the parish of St. Agatha's,
Landport, just after Bob Boiling's death, to
find out the working-men whom this wonderful
priest had brought to Christ ; his heart went
out to one who had really touched the
heart of labour, which he himself had
found so hard to do. He really meant it
when he meekly met the foul attacks made
by his ; ' Liberal " opponent at Merthyr in
the last election but one, when everything
that any German atheist had said against
religion for the last forty years was placarded
about the towns and villages as representing
Mr. Keir Hardie's view of God. I never felt
more ashamed of my fellow -religionists than I
did during that election. There were so-called
Christians refusing Hardie a platform in their
conventicles ; there were others distributing an
indecent picture of him reprinted from some
dirty racing paper, calculated to make people
think him an advocate of " free love," while
he himself was on the platform pleading for
the kingdom of God, surrounded by his wife
and family.
He said some severe things about Christians,
but nothing more than we deserved. When
he met the appeal from the Welsh Church of
England Men's Society to oppose Disestablish-
214 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
ment he rightly reminded them that they had
never supported him in all his long struggle
for freedom for the wives and children of the
miners. Why should they suddenly conceive
this affection for him when the stipends of
the clergy were in danger?
Again, he really meant it when he took
advantage of a few hours' rest in the midst
of the I.L.P. Conference to attend our
Eucharist at Saltley, and to say, " This looks
like the reunion of Christendom." I did not
like his war views, but that is not going to
make me withhold my tribute to his genuine
goodness and his deep religious enthusiasm.
I doubt if since the days of the " Clap-ham
Sect " there has been a closer mixture of
religion and politics in any one individual. He
represented the exact antithesis to the German
atheist Socialist. It was only the gross blind-
ness of many of his political opponents which
prevented them from seeing this, and caused
them to attribute to him the infidel motives
which they did. They were the real infidels
who would not believe that God could work
His will through the unorthodox. May God
give us a few more " atheists " like Keir
Hardie ! We shall certainly need them when
the War is over.
I have suffered much from my friends by
my attachment to Keir Hardie from the days
SOCIALIST 215
when I used to speak for him from a cart in
West Ham to the days when I said that I had
learned much Christianity from him. I am
not penitent about this. I have lost subscrip-
tions, but I have gained a friend in Paradise.
The " atheism " bogy has always amused
me, because it was so transparently in-
sincere. The anti-Socialists could only keep
it up by quoting, or misquoting, little snip-
pets from Socialist writers, a process by
Which it would be quite easy to prove that
Toryism and Liberalism and even Christianity
itself is atheism. But this insincerity was never
more blatantly exposed than when the whole of
the capitalist class left off abusing Robert
Blatchford, the secularist, and called him the
saviour of the nation. He did not change his
religious views when he began to warn us
about the War.
" Will you permit me," wrote Blatchford to
me once, " to put the matter in my own way?
Socialism and agnosticism are two distinct
things. A Christian can be a Socialist, and
so can an agnostic.
I should not say that I have made
agnosticism part of my Socialism, for that
would be absurd. I should say that Socialism
and agnosticism are both parts of my religion,
just as Christianity and Socialism are both
parts of your religion."
216 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Personally I must confess to great disap-
pointment when Blatchford began attacking
Christianity. It was he who in the early days
of the Clarion had scotched militant atheism
by his highly moral and righteous propaganda
of Socialism. For him to go back to the old
mid- Victorian Bible -smashing was indeed sad.
But we have forgotten all that now, and I
prefer to think of him as the good old " John
Bull " that he has become, and hope he will
be knighted in due course.
Those who imagine that " Nunquam " is no
longer a Socialist because he is a " John Bull "
do not understand either him or Socialism.
Socialism is to him, and I hope to all Socialists,
the acme of patriotism, love of country, belief
in the solidarity of the nation and the responsi-
bility of all.
Converted Tories always make the best
Socialists. I remember reading an article
by Miss Marie Corelli on the " Coronation of
George V," in which she told us that as she
looked on in Westminster Abbey she felt
" This is the end of Socialism." I wrote a
reply to the Daily Mail (which was not pub-
lished), in which I said that when I looked
on at the Coronation of Edward VII in the
same place I felt much more inclined to say,
"This is Socialism at last." Why? Because
at a coronation we experience, if only for a
SOCIALIST 217
short time, the power and glow of a united
nation, all agreed and happy about a great
national act. This is the root principle of
Socialism. That is why the War, with all its
horrors, has its great compensation for us
Socialists. It not only proves the common
sense of many of our economic proposals, but
it shows us the great object-lesson of the
futility of individualism and the splendid
enthusiasm possible in a united (that is, a
socialist) nation. So Robert Blatchford does
not make me quake for his Socialism when I
read his War articles. On the contrary, I feel
it still tingling in his veins and in mine, but
with renewed hope.
And what of H. G. Wells? Here is another
from whom I have learned many lessons. I
still think his " New Worlds for Old " the
best book on Socialism to put into the
hands of a Tory or anybody else.
Of course I could easily find something to
say against each of my Socialist friends ; I
could show cause why I think each of them
is wrong on some point, but I have tried just
to put down a little of what each has done
for me.
And now I have said nothing about the
greatest of them all G. B. Shaw certainly
the one to whom it is the most interesting to
listen. Let any one go to a political meeting
218 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
addressed by a big Liberal or a big Tory :
then let him go and hear G. B. Shaw.
How different ! How vastly more alive and
human !
I hope he will not mind my publishing a
characteristic letter of his which I received
when I boldly asked him to send me some of
his books to sell at a bazaar.
You know not what you ask. At a moderate estimate the
bazaars and sales organized by the unfortunate clergy of this
country would, if I complied with their requests, dispose of
five or six editions of my works every year. By dint of
registering an oath of the extremes! profanity in heaven never
to comply with any such request, and stick to it for years,
I have at last reduced even the clergy to despair. If I
weaken, even for your sake, I am lost. And you are the
last man in whose favour I should care to make an exception,
because the less time you spend in begging for the poor, the
more you will have left to insult the rich, which is much more
important. It is everybody's business to feed Lazarus, who
should therefore be left to the State. It is your special
business to damn Dives, whom I accordingly leave to you.
By the way, I altogether demur to the position that you
have a right to ask me for books because you have been
weak enough to give books yourself. Where did you find
the rule " Do unto others as others have done unto you " ?
Suppose a man garrotted you, will that justify you in garrotting
me? It might provoke you to do it, but that is another
matter.
(Signed) G. B. SHAW.
Again, I have forgotten George Lansbnry,
Philip Snowden and his good wife, Sidnev
SOCIALIST 219
Webb and his, Bruce Glasier and his all
splendid people.
When Snowden made one of his speeches
in the House a Bishop said it was the finest
thing he had heard since Gladstone. There
is something intense and pathetic about
Snowden which makes men listen. Mrs.
Webb, again, makes you feel small because
of her stupendous knowledge. No doubt you
kick against regimentation, and nowadays still
more against " Prussianization," but for all that
it is very difficult to answer the Webbs. It is
easier to listen to Will Crooks, whose power
is his humanity and humour. Why is he called
" Weeping Willy " ? I have known him for
a quarter of a century, and have never seen him
cry. He has often made me laugh. He is
to the House of Commons what the Bishop
of London is to the House of Lords. They
each bring the East End to the notice of our
legislators in much the same kind of way. I
shall never forget the first Woolwich Election
and the fun that C. F. G. Masterman and I
had canvassing for Crooks. It was at a later
one that when some one telephoned to Will,
"Do you know that your opponent has two
brothers in the Army and that it will make it
hard for you with the Arsenal men?" he
replied, " Tell them I've got six aunts in the
workhouse ! '
220 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
George Lansbury is another instance of the
neglect by the Church of England of some of
her most Christian sons. People look upon him
as a fanatic, and perhaps he is, though it is
well to remember that most movements, includ-
ing Christianity, owe a great deal to their
fanatics. It cuts me to the heart to find myself
opposed to George Lansbury, as I sometimes
do, on the War, for instance, but I hope I shall
never cease to admire and love him. He has
earned the right to criticize the Church, for
he is a devoted adherent of hers. It is good
for us comfortable Church people to hear this
sort of thing :
The Church has no future, and will be of no help to me or
to anybody else, unless very soon it- definitely takes sides in the
struggle against poverty. The idea that the Church should
keep the ring and as it were be a kind of Jack-on-both-sides
is exploded, and now she must realize that the saying is as
true to-day as when it was first uttered, " Those who are not
for me are against me." If we have any work it is just this,
to waken up the Bishops and the Deans, the Archdeacons and
the Vicars, and tell them that the day of smooth sayings is
over.
Unfortunately, this is the sort of man we
seldom hear at a Church Congress, for the
respectable Church laity dislike being told the
truth. I wonder whether the type of church-
warden will ever change, whether we shall ever
have revolutionary laymen in our high places
SOCIALIST 221
who will wake us up and not only lament the
smallness of the collection. At present the
Vicars and curates are generally far ahead of
the laymen, just as the lower ranks of the
clergy are far ahead of the Bishops I mean
in what are called " progressive " ideas.
I have written nothing about the Suffra-
gettes, not because I think lightly of their
movement, but because I feel that after the
War the whole matter must be approached in
a different spirit to that which was possible
before. I could not, for instance, go over
the dreary arguments again for or against
" militancy." But I can say, what I shall
always say, that the leaders of the Women's
Movement put all political parties, and the
Churches too, to shame by their genuine en-
thusiasm and earnestness. A Suffragette
meeting, apart altogether from militancy and
its accompaniments, is the most inspiring of
all kinds of meetings. I would also say that
their active opponents are the most dismally
uninspiring people I have ever met.
They seem to me to work on a lower plane
altogether, and do not understand the inward-
ness of the movement they set out to combat.
While it is quite easy to imagine Suffragettes
praying about their principles, it is difficult for
me, at least, to imagine the " anti's " doing it.
It is almost inconceivable that when peace
222 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
comes the cry of the women will remain
unheeded. Nevertheless, English people are
capable of forgetting even the splendid
behaviour of the Suffragettes in the War, and
I should not be wholly surprised if the miser-
able fight began again, though hardly in the
same fashion.
Nobody who has come in contact with any of
the Pankhurst family can possibly feel anything
but a sort of awe at their intense and pathetic
seriousness about their cause. I can only say
that I always wish that I could feel the same
about Church people and their Christianity
(including my own). A number of the
Socialist clergy assembled at the Central
Criminal Court prepared to witness for the
bond fides of the Suffragettes at the first
window -smashing trial, but we were not
allowed to give evidence.
Perhaps the reader will ask after reading
all this balderdash, " To what kind of Socialism
do you incline?" My reply would be "To
the Socialism of none of these in toto :
rather to the Socialism so ably presented week
by week by Mr. Orage in the New Age."
I have been considerably shaken in some of
my old beliefs both by Mr. Orage on the one
hand and by Mr. Belloc on the other. But
I am not giving my opinions, I am only
commemorating my friends. Other clerical
SOCIALIST 223
Socialists who have been crowded out of this
chapter must at least be mentioned by name.
Conrad Noel and Percy Widdrington and
Arnold Pinchard have in their various ways
done very much to familiarize Churchmen
with Socialism and Socialists with Christianity.
Lewis Donaldson and his good wife have been
constant in season and out of season in preach-
ing the Kingdom of God. It is an instance
of the blind timidity of Governments that
Donaldson (chiefly, I believe, because he had
the courage to lead a procession of unem-
ployed from Leicester to London) has never
received State preferment. It is quite a
mistake to suppose that militancy of the
Suffragette type is the only thing that makes
Cabinets shy of promoting " extreme " people.
In the Church especially any action of this
kind (outside the pulpit) marks a parson as
dangerous.
There still remain two very " extreme "
Socialists of whom I have said nothing : the
Countess of Warwick and Mr. Hyndman. It
is a real loss to the nation that the latter has
not got into Parliament. It is more than a
loss : it is a disgrace. Why did they not
put him in the House of Lords and give him
a seat in the Coalition Government ? He is
the very man for a War Government. Of
Lady Warwick, who has always been most kind
224 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
to me, I am certainly not going to write
apologetic words. I am not going to explain
to my aristocratic friends that it is really pos-
sible for her to be a Socialist in earnest. If
they have any doubts they had better have a
talk with her and, above all, they had better
read a few Socialist books (not the tracts of
the Anti -Socialist Union) and find out what
Socialism is. I am well aware that before
this book is printed the whole world will have
changed and Socialism, like everything else,
will have altered its complexion, but in a book
of memories we must deal with the past and not
with the future. It may be worth while even
in 1916 to remember that there was a nine-
teenth century, and even that the twentieth
had a first decade.
OPINIONS
The opinions or clergy " The gloomy Dean " and the
Socialist clergy Christian objections to Socialism con-
sidered The Church and everyday life Religious edu-
cation Sabbatarianism The Continental Sunday.
MUCH of what I say in this chapter has dropped
out in various forms between the wheels of the
anecdotal chariot as it has rushed along, and
I must ask the reader's pardon if he finds me
repeating myself. I must also apologize for
thrusting my opinions upon others, though
perhaps it will help us to understand why I
called myself in the beginning a " third-rate
ecclesiastic." I suppose I must begin with
my ecclesiastical opinions, though it is not par-
ticularly as a parson that I want to intrude
myself. People cannot get out of their heads
that we have our ecclesiastical axe to grind.
They draw a distinction between " a priest "
and " a man." Such and such a clergyman is
"a man," they say, not "a priest." This is
rather a silly distinction. It is never drawn
15 225
226 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
in any other walk of life. You do not say
when you want a mutton-chop : "I am going
to buy my meat from Mr. Jones. He is the
sort of chap I like. He is not a butcher ;
he's a man." On the contrary, you will be
very foolish if you don't buy your dinner from a
person who is quite certainly a butcher, though
quite probably an insignificant little human
creature rather like the lambs he kills. So if
you want spiritual advice about your soul you
will, if you are wise, seek out a priest, regard-
less of whether he can play football or tell a
good story or has got " means of his own "
and might lend you a " fiver " if you were
stone broke. In a word, you want " priest-
craft," as Kingsley said, a man who can exer-
cise his craft as it ought to be exercised. I
have been told that George Eliot was in a
railway-carriage once with a friend, and there
was a " muscular Christian " sort of parson
conversing with them about all the topics of
the day. The reverend gentleman got out at
a certain station, and the friend remarked
enthusiastically :
" Ah ! that's the sort of parson I like. No
nonsense about him ! "
t;l Is he the sort of parson you would like to
have at your deathbed? " said George Eliot.
" Oh no ! " said the lady.
But why " deathbed"? Is it not the life-
OPINIONS 227
bed at which we really want the parsons to
come and wake us up?
But the chief reason why I do not want my
little opinions taken as a parson's opinions is
because of the exaggerated importance which
is too often attached to anything said or written
by a clergyman, just because he is a clergy-
man. Why cannot we be allowed to talk to
our fellow-creatures, at any rate in a book,
without what we say being taken as in any
sense authoritative ? We are disciples as much
as any one else, and a disciple is a learner.
The clergy should be allowed to converse with
people of all sorts, and not always be looked
upon as giving opinions which have some sort
of ecclesiastical or Divine authority. Of course
there are occasions and subjects whereon the
parson has no right to speak unless he is pre-
pared to back it up with authority, but a book
of this kind is not one of them. I am only
chatting with my readers as a man to men and
women. If I am " churchy," it is because I
am a parson, just as I should be " horsey "
if I were a jockey.
"Cannot the clergy be Irishmen too?" as
says Father O'Flynn in the well-known song.
Yes, and no doubt we are some of us, as
they say, not sufficiently an fait with human
nature.
Bob Dolling, the most human priest I ever
228 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
knew, told some ordination candidates once
that the best thing they could do would be to
go and work in a City office for a year before
taking Holy Orders. -Well, I was in a
solicitor's office for some time ; so I did try
his recipe not that I think it did me much
good. I think I got more good by working
as an ecclesiastical layman in Bethnal Green.
The real mistake that is made about our
ordinands is not that they see too little of life,
but rather that the life they see is not varied
enough. The Public School and the Universi-
ties are too much of one type. A very great
deal has to be unlearned before an Eton and
Oxford man makes a good parson. The School
and College Missions and the University Settle-
ments have done much good in affording a
new experience for the men who are to become
clergy. The War is probably doing a great
deal of good in throwing men of all classes
together into a common life, and it is incon-
ceivable that our schoolboys and 'Varsity men
will be so ignorant in future about the souls
of the working-man and the clerk. Vice versa
the " lower classes " will emerge with very
different views of the " rich." It amuses me
to read the speeches of Labour leaders about
the aristocracy when they go on recruiting ex-
peditions. I only hope they will not go too
far in their admiration of the upper classes
OPINIONS 229
and meekly submit to " capitalism " when
peace comes.
We Socialist clergy, on the other hand, are
supposed to be in a state of servile adoration
of the Labour party. The " gloomy Dean "
calls us " chaplains to King Demos/' and tells
us that, unlike Christians, we affirm that " the
sty makes the pig," while the religious thing
to say is that " the pig makes the sty."
By the way, this Court chaplain metaphor
is no new one, as the anti -Socialist admirers
of the Dean seem to think, judging by their
headlines. Canon Knox Little used it twenty -
five years ago at an Oxford House meeting,
and Dean Hensley Henson has frequently re-
peated it. What is it intended to imply? That
we are obsequious toadies and are tumblrng
over one another in our frantic efforts to pay
homage to Demos ? It is rather hard on the
Court chaplains to give people to understand
that this is their ordinary character. Is it
not possible to be a good Court chaplain ?
I should like to feel that I was a chaplain
to King Demos. I should like to assist his
Majesty to a better understanding of the
religion he professes. I should like to show
him that he has Divine sanction for his
socialistic aspirations. I should like to
provide him with intelligible services when
he worships his God instead of being forced
230 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
by Acts of Uniformity to mystify him
and drive him into atheism whenever, as an
Anglican priest, I am called upon to take part
in a royal christening, wedding, or funeral.
There are plenty of things I should like to
do if King Demos would appoint me his
chaplain .
The truth is the Dean has a mistaken idea
of what we Socialist parsons are trying to
do. Take, for example, the slum parish in
which I live. The Dean imagines, I sup-
pose, that as a Court chaplain I am holding
open-air meetings in the streets (there are
certainly " courts " in the place, not like
Buckingham Palace), and that at these meet-
ings I am engaged in praising the moral beauty
of the slum-dwellers, patting them on the back
and telling them what splendid fellows they
are. As a matter of fact, I am not even
preaching Socialism to them. What good
would this do ? No, I am doing my work as
a Socialist in quite a different way. By my
pen or by my voice I am trying to ^et at the
classes who live in the grand places of the
earth, who by their education and position have
the opportunity of altering the system under
which the slums exist and disgrace this
Christian country. It is not because we
think Demos so good and Plutus so wickevl
that we spend our efforts on the latter rather
OPINIONS 231
than on the former. It is because Plutus goes
to Church and Parliament and Council. It is
because Plutus is generally a prominent
Churchman or Nonconformist, and talks a
great deal about his religion and his love for
the poor and how shocked he is at our atheism.
We think that if we could get Plutus away from
his conventional Christianity and converted to
a gospel religion he might allow King Demos
to live in his palace and not rot in a prison.
I am sure the Dean is wrong in supposing
that we pander to our poor old King, fast
bound in misery and iron. We are out for
something quite different.
Another way of making this accusation
against us is to say that we " play to the
gallery." A Bishop once complained that I
did this. I remarked that it was about time
we left off playing to the stalls and dress-
circle .
And now for a word about the pig and the
sty. Socialists say that the sty makes the pig ;
Christians vice versa. This is just one of those
comfortable sayings which encourage the rich
to do nothing. It is all the fault of the poor,
of course. Lead-poisoning is the fault of the
poor. Strikes are the fault of the poor. Con-
vert the poor to Christianity and they will be
all right. They will be loyal in a strike ; they
will be content.
232 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Now, is it the best Christianity which teaches
that the pig produces the sty? I think not.
It results in Christians compassing heaven and
earth to " convert " the pig to a form of
religion and then leaving him to go " home "
(save the mark 1) to wallow in his sty. And
did he make the sty, or does he alone keep
it as it is ? What about the jerry -builders who
erected it and the landlord who draws rent
from it and refuses to rebuild or clean it,
even when the pig in despair asks for it to
be done? If conventional Christianity sets out
to convert these people, it too often only
succeeds in making them subscribers to dole
funds, or hymn-singing hypocrites, who assure
the pig that he will be quite happy some
millions of years hence in a city paved with
gold, while they continue to murder him by
a slow process and pocket the profits in order
that they may furnish their own sty from
Maples or Waring and Gillow.
Again, is it altogether untrue to say that the
sty makes the pig ? All honour to the Socialists
who emphasize the unwelcome fact. Others
say it too.
The Committee on Physical Deterioration
said it ten years ago. Charles Booth said it
twenty years ago. Indeed, Christ said it
1,900 years ago by His miracles, when He
brought hope and more abundant life u> the
OPINIONS 233
maimed and sick by healing them of their
infirmities .
Can we dismiss the social problem by either
of these two little aphorisms, when, accord-
ing to the best authorities, one-third of all
paupers are sick, one-third are destitute
children, and one-quarter are widows, encum-
bered by young families, or certified lunatics,
leaving only 9 per cent, of the total whose
pauperism could be attributed to some obvious
vice or defect, such as drunkenness, theft,
laziness, etc. ?
The " gloomy Dean " is wrongly named.
There was a preacher once who cast a gloom
over his congregation by suggesting that they
should apply their religion to their daily lives.
The Dean is much more likely to disperse the
gloom which we Court chaplains are beginning
to cast over the garish light of the West End
drawing-rooms.
The War will alter all this, I hope. We
hardly realize yet what it means to have dis-
covered as a nation that we can spend millions
a day on a national object about which we are
all agreed. What an awakening there will be
some day when we realize that poverty and
sickness and slums and ignorance are national
enemies at least as worthy of our steel as the
Germans, and go out to meet them as one
united body ! This will be Socialism indeed.
234 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Thomas Carlyle saw that day when he wrote
these words :
If we saw an army of 90,000 strong, maintained and fully
equipped in continual real action and battle against human
starvation, against chaos, necessity, stupidity, our real national
enemies, what a business were it !
Socialism, I suppose, will have to change
its name when it becomes fashionable, as un-
doubtedly it will ; but it matters not what we
call it if we get the thing. The " thing " is
national co-operation, real " national service,"
when all will contribute to the best national
work and life.
But the old arguments with which we have
met the attacks of the capitalist class will
remain true. Nobody suffers more in the
Socialist cause than a parson. He gets
attacked on every side. The ordinary Christian
holds up his hands in horror at the idea of a
priest calling himself a Socialist, while the
Socialists suspect the parson of not being the
real thing. Many of us found it best to drop
the name " Christian Socialist " because it gave
people the idea that this was a special brand
of Socialism, not quite orthodox from the
I.L.P. or Fabian point of view. In fact,
we once signed a manifesto to assure our
" comrades " that we were real Socialists, and
as my name, beginning with an " A," came
OPINIONS 235
first in the list I got all the kicks. It was this
manifesto which called forth from Lord Rose-
bery the famous declaration that " Socialism
is the end of all faith." I replied that it
was the beginning of mine. Lord Rosebery
once came to Berkeley Chapel, and, as luck
would have it, I had prepared a rather dull
sermon on some very ecclesiastical subject.
Who knows but I might have had some dis-
tinguished preferment if I had not chosen to
preach that sermon, for, at least, it was not
socialistic that time ?
It is quite right for Christians to take note
of and to criticize Socialism. When the
Socialists come forward with a new set of
schemes for material and economic reform we
are bound to consider how they affect our
schemes for the moral regeneration of society,
how far we can work with them, whether they
offend against recognized principles of Chris-
tianity, whether or not our Lord would approve
them. But in doing this Christians should be
careful not to mix up two distinct matters.
They must not deal with Socialism as if it
were a new religion : nor must they put
forward their own religion as if it were a
political or economic scheme which is to rival
Socialism in its own department. Let us be
quite clear that Socialism is not a religion, a
rival religion to Christianity. Its connection
236 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
with religious aspirations lies in the fact that
it shows a way by which many of the ideals
of Christianity may be stimulated and furthered
in practical accomplishment. It is a help to
Christians, not a substitute for Christianity.
The first ignorant criticism made by Christians
against Socialism is that it would employ force
and compulsion where Christianity would trust
to persuasion. It will not be made so often
now that the War has shown us how necessary
compulsion of some sort is. It is quite true
that Socialism does trust to force and compul-
sion, but that is not peculiar to Socialism.
It is the inevitable accompaniment of all
efforts at State reform.
The advocate of Tariff Reform or the
Referendum, the advocate of Sunday closing,
equally with the advocate of Sunday opening,
they all trust to force and compulsion in
other words, to the arm of the law. The
Christian critics of Socialism do the same. The
editors of the Guardian and the Clarion, who
both agree about the desirability of conscrip-
tion, unite also in their demand for compulsion.
They none of them believe in the voluntary
principle.
But does this make them anti-Christian?
No, nothing of the kind. Christianity as a
religion does not appeal to force. It has donr
so sometimes with disastrous results. But
OPINIONS 237
normally it trusts to persuasion and education.
It leaves the compulsory part of the business
to the legislators and the officers of the State.
So when Socialism comes along and advocates
compulsion it is only doing what every
statesman has been obliged to do.
Nobody accuses Lord Salisbury of being
anti-Christian because he passed the Free
Education Act, or Mr. Gladstone of being an
infidel because he instituted Board Schools.
Of course, if Christians by this anti-compulsion
argument mean that Socialism must not be
forced upon an unwilling nation, they are only
repeating a truism which applies to the pro-
posals of Tories and Liberals quite as much as
to those of Socialists. In this respect, prob-
ably, Socialists are the least wedded to force
of any political party. We do, as a matter of
fact, take much more pains to educate people
and persuade them to adopt our views willingly
than any other State reformers do. If you
compare the methods of the Primrose League
with those of the Fabian Society, you will see
this at once. There is plenty of compulsion
about the former and very little about the
latter. The Fabian Society has done its work
by careful logical reasoning and persuasive
education. The Church might even take a
leaf out of its book, and instead of trying to
force its own dogmas on an unwilling people
238 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
might take more pains to explain its prin-
ciples to the ignorant.
Another objection made by earnest Christians
to Socialism is that it is " contrary to human
nature." What do they exactly mean by this?
Do they mean that the competitive system has
got such a hold upon men and women that it
has become a part of their very nature, and
that any attempt to get them to alter it is
quixotic and absurd? It always seems to me
that this objection sounds very faithless in the
mouths of men and women who are pledged
by their loyalty to Christ to believe in the
redemption and regeneration of human nature.
I can understand an atheist or a pessimistic
sceptic throwing up the sponge and ridiculing
the Socialists for talking about supplanting
competition by co-operation or the present
game of " beggar my neighbour " by an
attempt at brotherhood. But for Christians
to discount Socialism on this score is surely
nothing less than treason to their own
religion .
One is tempted to suspect that Christians
have joined in the anti-socialistic cry about
" human nature " because they are ashamed
at the enthusiasm of Socialists when put side
by side with their own apathy and failure.
They are like the old prophet in Bethel, who
was conscious of his own neglect of his oppor-
OPINIONS 289
tunity of witness and covered his fault by
bringing about the condemnation of the so-
called " disobedient prophet," who was really
more faithful to duty than himself. The
" atheism " objection I have dealt with in
another part of the book. Roughly speaking,
it resolves itself into this : the anti-Socialists,
knowing the tender feelings of John Bull on
the subject of religion, and his passionate love
for the Bible, which, of course, he diligently
reads, and never puts under a glass case in a
damp parlour, have very cleverly raised a scare
that Socialism is atheism, in order to set John
Bull against it. This they have been easily
able to do by quoting snippets from German
writers, many of them \forty or fifty years old.
But is there any movement that could not be
shown to be very different from what it really
is if such methods were employed? Where
would twentieth-century science be if it were
held to the opinions expressed by leaders of
science in 1850? How would the Church
Times like to be saddled with the opinions
expressed by Bishops of the forties? Per-
sonally, I should not like Anglicanism to be
judged by the stray opinions of Bishops of
forty hours ago, let alone forty years.
Would it be fair to condemn Tariff Reformers
because Disraeli said that Protection was not
only dead but damned? Would it be gentle-
240 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
manlike to attribute to modern Liberals all the
ideas of the Manchester School?
The "atheism" (so-called) of Socialists is
nothing more than their protest against the
narrow-minded and blind Pharisaism of the
religious bodies, Protestant as well as Catholic,
which has opposed them in every kind of
way, chiefly for political reasons. Christians
should pause and ask themselves whether the
fault is not with the Church rather than with
the Socialists. It was the Church which
crucified Christ, and they called Him an atheist
to begin with.
The latest form of the atheist scare is the
organization by the aristocracy of a new
kind of Sunday School to counteract the
Socialist schools. I do not wish to defend
all the things that have been taught in Socialist
Sunday Schools, any more than I wish to de-
fend all that has been taught in Church and
Nonconformist ones, but I think the aristocracy
would be better employed in organizing the
religious education of their own children than
in defeating the efforts of a few Socialists to
supplement the very defective teaching on
citizenship which is given in our schools. Let
the rich Christians teach the Church Catechism,
with its magnificent " duty towards my neigh-
bour," to their own boys and girls. Perhaps
they are afraid of the revolution which would
OPINIONS 241
certainly result if their families believed it and
carried it out. So with the "hostility to the
Christian idea of marriage " which is supposed
by some Christians to be wrapped up in
Socialism. Here again Socialism is not to
be held responsible for all that has been
written and said on the subject by individual
Socialists. Nor are the views held by some
Socialists on marriage by any means confined
to Socialists.
The Church has got to face the problem,
whether Socialism succeeds or disappears.
Very likely it will be found that the Church
has got to stand out against the world in this
thing, but " the world " will not mean the
Socialists only. It will include, as it always
has included, Tories and Liberals as well.
Meantime it is well to note the hypocrisy of
many rich Christians in this matter. They pro-
fess to be alarmed about the " family life,"
the " sacredness of the marriage tie," etc., while
it is notorious that the breaking up of the
family life and the debasing of fatherhood and
motherhood in modern times, are much more
due to lusts of the rich than to the opinions
of a few Socialists. The same people who
profess to be shocked at " eugenic " proposals
are the people who wink at sin in their own
families and still base their arrangements for
" holy matrimony " on money qualifications,
16
242 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
and very often put considerations of " love "
in the background and ignore all the teaching
of modern science in regard to heredity. This
kind of thing is the real atheism and it is not
Socialist.
Socialists, as much as any, and more than
most, are deeply concerned about the break-up
of family life due to industrial causes. They
have long ago declared war against slums and
sweating, the two great enemies of the home.
Our rich friends must get something better
to say against us than that we want to wreck
the family. We want to save it.
Socialism, again, is said to be likely to de-
stroy the individual, to put a stop to initiative
and independent thought and energy. This is
quite a fair criticism for Christians to make
as Christians. For Christianity is the religion
of liberty for the individual . Christianity wants
to save each man's soul alive. Christianity
holds that each man counts for one and not
more than one. Christianity tells each of
us that he is made in the image of God,
and that he can become a son of God.
If Socialism is going to destroy this, then
indeed Christians may well look askance
at it.
But Socialism not only has no such intention,
but rather believes that it holds the secret by
which this destruction, which it sees going on
OPINIONS 243
all around, can be averted. No doubt, in
the days when Socialism was in its infancy and
Communism was put forward as an ideal, it
did look as if the triumph of Socialism might
mean the destruction of the individual . Though
even in those days John Stuart Mill said that
under a communist regime a workman would
be more free than under the slavery of the
system of his day. The truth is that we no
longer, if we are reasonable people, contrast
Socialism and individualism as antithetical.
All agree that the individual must be free,
but all agree that a considerable amount of
social control is necessary to preserve that
freedom. It is simply a question of how much
or how little control must the community have
to keep its citizens free. Out experience of
>the reign of individualism leads us as Socialists
to believe that the community must have more
control, not because we want to destroy the in-
dividual, but, for precisely the opposite reason,
because we want to save him. We too have
learnt wisdom. We know that man is not a
machine, and no modern Socialist wants to
make him one. Our whole desire is to enlarge
State interference and State control, solely for
the purpose of developing the liberty and
initiative of each man, to deliver him from the
thraldom of the competitive system for private
profit which is now choking the life out of
244 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
himin a word, to enable him to become a
man (which for us Christians means a son of
God).
Under the present system the poor are not
only poor, their lives are only half lives ; they
are stunted physically and morally ; they are
uneducated, deprived of true life. Half the
world of art, poetry, literature, pleasure, games
is shut out from them. This is the real problem
of poverty. A poor man cannot live as God
meant him to live.
Why do people think that Socialism is going
to make this worse, and that the individual
is going to be destroyed? " I believe in the
life to come," we say in the Creed. Too many
Christians, in despair at this very system, which
Socialists want to break up and destroy for
ever, have made that splendid, hopeful, faith-
ful article of the Creed mean merely a future
life after death. We believe, we poor
" atheists," that that life might begin to
arrive immediately.
Initiative invention ! Are they really stimu-
lated by our present money-grabbing system?
Are the poor in my parish really encouraged
to initiate and invent by the fact that for a
miserable weekly wage, which at any moment
may be cut off at the whim of a foreman,
they are to toil from morning to night in order
to increase the dividends of unknown share-
OPINIONS 245
holders, and enable the plutocracy to live in
luxury ?
And are the greatest of our modern inven-
tors and artists men who work with a view
to private profit ? Does Sir Oliver Lodge think
only of his prospects of a peerage when he
spends his time in studying electrified agri-
culture or the diminution of fogs ? Two of
the greatest of modern inventors, Edison and
Westinghouse, are, I have been told by those
who know, men to whom money profit is a
thing of little importance and always has
been so.
Almost everything you have been told to
believe about us by anti-Socialist dukes and
country clergymen is the exact reverse of what
we want or what we do. We don't want to
share up equally. We don't want to make
slaves of your children, but to set them free
from conventionality and a miserable life. We
don't want to break the ten commandments,
but to help you to keep them. We don't want
to abolish property, but to control the use of
it for the good of the community. We do
not see why twenty men (as at present) in
America should control all the necessities of
life. We think the millions, who are equally
with them children of God, should be allowed
to get their daily bread from the Father to
whom they pray for it. We don't want to
246 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
eliminate God, but to reintroduce Him to you
as the God of the Bible, and not of the upper
classes, the God of Justice, the God of Love,
the Lord of Hosts. We don't want to take
away your Church, but to persuade you to
use it for the purposes for which your Divine
Master instituted it, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, to set up the Kingdom of God on
the earth. We don't want to deprive you of
your Saviour, but to convince you that He is
ready to save you now, and to suggest to you
that if you want to appear before Him with
confidence, it is time that you gave up serving
Mammon and served God ; time that you fed
the hungry the hungry rich as well as the
hungry poor the starving orphans of human
society, deprived by our present competitive
system of the eternal life God meant them all
to have.
This is the sort of thing I have said to the
Christians who seriously object to Socialism.
I am afraid I am not so polite when I meet
the merely political anti-Socialist. I offended
the Standard once by suggesting that their
attack on Socialism was not so much due to
their anxiety for the Lord of Hosts as for " the
hosts of lords."
But I should not like my readers to think
that I am only a Socialist agitator. As a
matter of fact I seldom attend Socialist
OPINIONS 247
ings now, and my chief work of that kind
has always been in defending the Socialists
against Christian attacks. I have always been
attracted by the moral zeal of Socialists as
compared with the apathy of the members of
my own Church in furthering their own much
more important propaganda. The Church is
still very behindhand in applying Christianity
to ordinary life. The mildest kinds of social
reform (let alone Socialism) are still remote
from the minds of our most devout Church
people .
It is not so very long ago that a certain
royal personage prevented my having a share
in some needlework done for the poor be-
cause in her presence I had made the harmless
remark that the people who worked least got
most holidays.
Though I believe that many people are extra-
ordinarily interested in religion, I cannot say
that I think that the Church, as at present
conducted, meets the needs of the most re-
ligiously minded of our countrymen. Many
Church people still seem to imagine that to
take an interest in social questions is to do
something outside the religious sphere ; that
for the clergy to deal with them is to do un-
spiritual work ; that if we are to mix ourselves
up with them \ve must only do it as a sort
of extra, like dancing or drawing at a girls'
248 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
school. This is, to my mind, a most ghastly
mistake, and it is because those who are keen
about these questions suspect the Church of
holding this heresy that they pay so little atten-
tion to what we say or do in these matters.
Once let the people feel that we look upon the
solution of social problems as part and parcel
of our religion, and they will listen to us, even
if they do not agree with our solution.
When a certain great preacher came to
address the clergy before a Mission in Birming-
ham, we were told by him that one result of
the Mission would be the solution of some of
our great social problems. This was received
with applause, but one felt pretty sure at the
time that no change whatever would take place
in the principles upon which our municipal
life is carried on ; not a single slum would
be demolished, not a single wage would be
raised, not a single sweater would cease to
sweat. And so, I fear, it turned out. We
had our Mission. We preached at the poor,
and worried them into church in the good,
old-fashioned way. We asked the rich as a
great favour to subscribe to the printing ex-
penses, but carefully avoided asking them
about the condition of their souls or the con-
ditions under which their employees were work-
ing, the wages they paid, the methods of their
business. At least, if we did it was all kept
OPINIONS 249
very quiet, while a good deal of noise was
made about everything else.
This half-heartedness of the Church is what
makes us despised and rejected of the working-
man. This is an age of splendid social ideal-
ism ; but the most splendid ideals are not the
ideals of the average Churchman. Working-
men, social reformers, women Suffragists, and
such like are full of enthusiasm, and even
fanaticism, while the bulk of the Church re-
mains cold and time-serving. We may shrink
from fanaticism, but it is very powerful. " The
fanatically religious have been uniformly suc-
cessful against those in whom religious fervour
has been lukewarm."
These enthusiasts cannot understand us
Church people. They know our Bible, they
know what our principles are supposed to be,
they hear us sing and talk ad nauseam of
Justice, Brotherhood, Victory, a Kingdom, and
all the rest of it ; but they look in vain for a
body of Christians bent on doing more than
talk and sing. They hear our middle-class
choirs shouting
At the sign of triumph
Satan's host doth flee,
but they know that the devil does not turn a
hair. They see us able to get up crowded
meetings to scream against disendowment, at
250 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
which we naively confess that if our money
is taken away we shall be crippled for life :
they know that we are quite unable to gather
our forces to demand justice or a living wage
for the poor of Christ. They see us hand in
glove with the classes of society about which
our Lord said that it would be extremely diffi-
cult for such to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
They read our so-called " religious " news-
papers, and find them, so far as politics are
concerned, on the side which is usually opposed
to most of their aspirations : they read the
correspondence, and find us occupied with petty
questions of ritual and ceremonial. If we do
pass resolutions in Convocation or at a Diocesan
Conference about a living wage or some such
subject, they suspect that we shall not attempt
to carry them out, and certainly, judging from
the attitude of Church people during the labour
unrest, they are not far wrong in their sus-
picions. We are eminently the Church of the
classes, yet we do not -help even them very
much spiritually. We have very little to say,
and very little that we can do, which is of
any real assistance to the commercial man with
a conscience who finds himself called upon
day by day to do things in his business which
cannot be squared with a loyal following of
Christ. We are almost impotent to deal with
the serious questions now arising in connection
OPINIONS 251
with the law of marriage, the relation of the
sexes, eugenics, and doubtful practices in con-
nection with fatherhood and motherhood, and
a host of matters in which people are looking
to us for guidance. The Church seems to
be kept as a sort of tame pet of the upper
and middle classes, to be played with but not
allowed to bark or bite.
I own I am a very bad hand at suggesting
a remedy. At any rate, no remedy can be
applied until we have learnt humility and
entered upon a course of self-examination. We
cannot be too optimistic about the Church,
viewed as God's own society, but we can be
much too optimistic about the Church of Eng-
land as it is ; we can be culpably blind, as
the Pharisees were, declaring that we see while
we are all the while seeing not. Instead of
pluming ourselves on our big " men's meet-
ings " which we sometimes manage to scrape
together to listen to some popular apostle, we
should reflect on the puny result in practical
life of such meetings. Instead of parading
our statistics of finance, we should meditate
on our statistics of Confirmation and Com-
munion, remembering that though we boast
of being the National Church, only two and a
half millions ; are communicants (about the same
number as in James I's reign, when the popu-
lation was seven times smaller).
252 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Instead of talking of the successful ministry
of Mr. This or the marvellous pulpit power
of Mr. That, we should post ourselves outside
some of the great factories at the dinner hour,
and ask the parish priest how many of these
hordes of men are in the slightest degree influ-
enced by the presence of the Church in their
midst.
If I felt that these crowds were really
heathen, materialists, sodden with drink, blatant
with atheism, I should not so much mind. But
when one knows that they are many of them
the best men in our parishes, sometimes a
good deal more moral than our Church atten-
dants and officers ; when one knows that many
of them are full of grand ideals of justice
and brotherhood and social betterment, and
are doing twenty times as much to realize those
ideals as some of our choir-men and sidesmen
when one knows this, and thinks of it, and
prays about it, one feels that the proper place
for the Church of England is the penitent
form.
One of the indications of the unpractical
character of Anglicanism is to be found in
the great difficulty that we have in getting
our Church people to be missionaries or
evangelists. Salvationists and Socialists find
no such difficulty. That is because they have
a practical programme. Our people are not
OPINIONS 253
shy. It is that we give them no material to
propagate. They have acquired so little them-
selves that is of value to them in their ordinary
life that they do not see that there is anything
to hand on to any one else. A Socialist young
man or a Suffragist young lady has something
very definite to do immediately that the move-
ment is joined.
I look forward to the day when the National
Church may really be once more the Church
of the nation ; but this it will never be until it
expresses the religious and idealistic aspirations
of the nation. If, as Sir Leo Chiozza Money
tells us, there are thirty -eight million uncom-
fortable people, and only five million comfort-
able ones, it stands to reason that the Church
must not be content to be the Church of the
small minority. Even of these five million,
only a very few perhaps one third are, I sup-
pose, interested in the Church at all.
I should like to ask what effect it must have
on the masses when they see that while we
deprecate interference in politics one day, we
organize ferocious political meetings ourselves
the next to defend our endowments ; when
they see that the only thing that ever appears
to unite us in definite political action is a sense
of injustice to the clergy.
If the Church is to get into touch with
national life, it must be felt to be much more
254 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
concerned about national questions than about
purely ecclesiastical ones. I do not agree with
the Bishop who said he was in the House of
Lords only to look after the Church. I am
inclined to say that that is the least important
part of his duty. He is there to influence
the nation in a religious direction, not to
guard his own particular ecclesiastical in-
terests. I should like to see the Bishops
initiating all kinds of social reform, apart
altogether from their ecclesiastical bearings.
The nation is sick of party strife and after
the war would be glad not to return to
it. The Bishops might propose all kinds of
social legislation on its own merits. They
might be the Labour Party of the House of
Lords a minority, but a very influential one.
This would endear them to the nation.
Gradually the nation would feel that there was
a positive social propaganda distinctively asso-
ciated with Churchmanship, independent of
all parties.
I am not arguing that the Church should
become Socialist, though I do think that, in
proportion as we separate ourselves from the
two great parties and take a line of our own,
we shall probably tend to become so. The
great cleavage will come in time between those
who support the present system of capitalism,
with it- selfish profit -hunt ing, and those who
OPINIONS 255
believe that some new system must be devised
of collective ownershipat least in the neces-
sities of life. I think that when Church people
have learnt to view these things apart from
party politics, and especially in connection with
their religion, they will most of them agree with
Bishop Gore that " we must identify ourselves
with the positive ideals of socialistic thought."
The greatest social reforms of the last century
were brought about by non-party Christians
like Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury.
Wilberforce registered an oath that he would
never take office in the Cabinet, and Lord
Shaftesbury declined to be labelled Radical
or Tory. But this is a very different thing
from having nothing to do with politics.
I want the Church, just because it is non-
party, to go into the thick of politics, for
what are politics but national life itself?
The great stream of ordinary life is around
us and about us, pushing forward with amazing
energy with its ideals and its enthusiasms, its
mistakes and its sins, its victories and its
failures apart from the everyday religion of
the Church.
We are afraid to take the lead. We have
little or no spirit of martyrdom in us as
Christians. For leaders and martyrs the
nation has to look elsewhere.
I am well aware of the good side of Church
256 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
life, but to dwell on that takes our attention
off the failures which stimulate us to
repentance.
If we are ready to revise a good many of
our opinions and methods, if we are ready
to change, we shall live and live again. Other-
wise we are dying or dead, for " to live is
to change, and to have changed often."
There are two fundamental problems which
have always seemed to me to need solution
if the Church is to recover or retain its hold
on the masses. The one is the problem of
religious education, and the other that of
Sunday.
Religious education is, unfortunately, the
cause of a seemingly hopeless strife betwen
Nonconformists and Churchmen.
It is made worse by the fact that the two
kinds of schools have become rivals, and each
party claims one set of schools as representing
its ideals. Though at the moment we are,
of course, too much occupied elsewhere even
to quarrel, yet we shall some day be in for
another controversy between religious educa-
tionists, and neither side seems to have learnt
anything or to have any wish to end the quarrel
by any sort of compromise.
Is it not possible for us to look at the whole
question apart from the desires of individual
Nonconformists to score off the Anglicans and
OPINIONS 257
of Bishops off Dr. Clifford? Cannot Christians
who presumably want their children to be
nurtured in the admonition of the Lord ask
themselves quite frankly if the present system
in Council schools or in Church schools does
really effect its object ? Is there, in the first
place, any great difference between Church
school children and Council school children
when it comes to religion ? Would any
Anglican clergy say that their Confirmation
candidates come from Church schools rather
than from Council schools ? Would many
Nonconformist ministers say that their children
educated in Church schools have much leaning
towards Anglicanism? I do not think so.
Must we not all confess that the result in all
cases, whether denominational or undenomina-
tional, is very meagre indeed? I doubt if the
thing is worth fighting about.
On the other hand, I believe there is some-
thing much more worth fighting about, and
it is the kind of Bible teaching we have in all
schools, especially the undenominational ones.
The Nonconformists cling to the Cowper-
Temple clause and worship it as a sort of fetish,
but does it really secure " simple Bible teach-
ing " ? It is a curious fact that Liberals in
politics are in this matter of religious teach-
ing the most conservative of Conservatives.
While the Tory Church schools are issuing
17
258 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
diocesan syllabuses full of advanced views of
the Bible, the Council schools still go on
reading the Bible without comment, and
perpetuating all the heresies of verbal inspira-
tion. In the Church schools we are free to
explain the Bible ; we can appeal to the
imagination of a child, tell him that he actually
belongs to the society about which he reads
in the Acts of the Apostles,, and that the
Sacraments are still in operation in the parish
church ; we can tell him that Moses and
Joseph may be reappearing on the stage of
history in the forms of Mr. Asquith or Mr.
Balfour ; that even Isaiah and John the Baptist
might emerge in a Tolstoy or a Ruskin ; that
the events which led to the Exodus were some-
thing like the strikes in which their parents are
engaged, and that there was a " smart set "
even in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.
It is a denominational school which best
can bring religion and modern life together,
and it is only thus that religion can live for
children or grown-up people either. Mean-
while, in the real National schools, the Council
schools, Tom, Dick and Harry, Mary and
Kerenhappuck, are only allowed to read the
Bible verse by verse (and very badly they read
it too!). No explanation is allowed. It is
"the Bible as literature." But why, if it is
only literature, keep to it alone? Why not
OPINIONS 259
have Shakespeare or Bernard Shaw ? Why not ?
Not only is this not Christian instruction
or education ; it is the inculcation of a bad
religion. It is not true that " undenomina-
tionalism is a new religion." It is the con-
solidation of an old and discredited one.
It is the foundation of atheism. Were I a
rationalist, I would work hard for the estab-
lishment of Cowper-Templeism, as it is, to be
permanently taught in all schools. It is the
breeding process of the hopelessly conservative
view of the Bible which permeates the work-
ing classes. I have sometimes asked a school-
boy at the end of a week what he has learned
during the past five days at the " Scripture
lesson." " One day we had a hymn, another
day we learned a psalm, another day we
learned about Moses' wife." That is a typical
answer. Whatever it is, it is not the Christian
religion.
Do I, then, plead for the establishment of
Church schools everywhere? Certainly not.
Do I plead for " secular schools " ? No, I
do not think we need come to that yet, though
I very much object to calling it " atheism "
to believe in them. A " secular " school would
be one where there is no " religious instruc-
tion " ; it would not be positively secularist ;
it might be even more religious than a Cowper-
Temple school. What I plead for is one more
260 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
attempt to make " Cowper-Templeism " effec-
tive. It is quite certain that the State Will
never agree to the establishment of more State-
paid denominational schools. Right of entry
may possibly be granted, but it is doubtful.
On the other hand, it is certain that for a long
time to come the bulk of the nation will be
educated under the Cowper-Temple restriction.
Let us make the best of it. Let us entirely
overhaul the religious instruction as given in
the Council schools. Let the State take into
its counsels, or, better still, depute the settle-
ment of a common religious syllabus to, a
body of leaders of spiritual thought. If the
Bishops refuse to take part in this, so much
the worse for them. Let this body not be
confined to ordained ministers, but only to
Christians, laymen and clergy, parish priests
and Bible students. Such a set of persons
ought to be able to agree upon certain funda-
mental truths with which it is desirable for
children to be acquainted.
Cowper-Templeism is only dry and stupid
because we are afraid of each other. We are
not trying to agree. On nearly all the vital
points we do agree, and there is no reason
why we should not tell our children so. Is
the whole thing to be wrecked because on
certain points we disagree ? I see no reason
why, with a foundation such as a revised and
OPINIONS 261
improved Cowper-Templeism might secure, we
could not go on in our various churches
and chapels to give that distinctive teaching
which would cause the children to adhere
to the denominations which we think
desirable.
But the great advantage that would ulti-
mately accrue would be the gradual awakening
of the whole nation to a new and fruitful view
of the Bible. At present the very elements of
religion (and even of morality) are becoming
less and less known to exist by the majority
of those " educated " in our schools. Denomi-
nationalists should ask themselves very
seriously if their bolstering up of Church
schools and their clamour for right of entry
does really make for an increase of this
elemental knowledge in the bulk of the
children.
Undenominationalists should ask themselves
equally seriously if the present Cowper-Temple
system does produce anything worth produc-
tion. All should ask themselves whether this
continual quarrelling can result in any good
whatever to the children themselves.
Were not people like Archbishop Temple
wise in their generation when they spoke of a
" slippery slope," and are we not sliding
miserably down it, while our opponents imagine
they are winning, but really are only fastening
262 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
upon the schools something even more futile
than we have ever had before ? I do not say that
a revised Cowper-Templeism is the only way,
but it seems to me better than anything we
are likely to get from our present controversy,
whichever side is successful.
I have not dealt with Sunday Schools and
Catechisms because I think that the question
of what is taught in the day schools is the
more important. In the first place, only a
small minority of children come to school on
Sunday, and, in the second place, it is in the
day school that the general impression is given
which for better or for worse will give the
mass of children the idea of religion which will
haunt them all their lives.
And this brings me to my second problem,
the problem of Sunday. Again, for better or
worse, it is the Sunday which represents to
most people their idea of religion. Personally,
I think our British Sunday gives a very bad
idea to the world of what Christians are aim-
ing at, and though I do not, of course, want all
the features of the continental Sunday repro-
duced in this country, I do think it is worth
while giving it a dispassionate consideration.
I think we must confess that, with all our
enthusiasm for the British Sunday and our
contempt for that of our neighbours, we have
not succeeded in doing anything very much
OPINIONS 263
better than they in securing one day's rest in
seven.
And first, of our own Sunday. Is it not time
that we more frankly allowed that the old-
fashioned Sabbatarian argument will not hold
water? Can these statements be denied?
(1) That, historically speaking, the Christian
Sunday is not the s,ame as the Jewish Sabbath ;
( 2) that our Lord's attitude towards the
Sabbath was revolutionary, in the sense that
He went against the religious view of His day,
which is the view that modern Sabbatarians
want to rehabilitate and fasten on to the Chris-
tian Sunday; (3) that St. Paul knew nothing
of a Christian Sabbath on the first day of the
week; (4) that the "first day of the week"
was a day of joy and worship, and had no con-
nection with the Sabbath ; (5) that even when
Constantine, in the fourth century, combined
the Mithra Festival and the Christian Lord's
Day and decreed a holiday, he did not forbid
some work, and therefore was not recon-
stituting the Sabbath ; ( 6) that the first
Reformers were opposed to making Sunday
a Sabbath, as savouring of Judaism.
If all this is allowed, we are enabled to
start afresh in modern times to make our
Sunday useful and health-giving. We can take
what we like in the Sabbatarian idea and leave
what we do not like, without any sense of
264 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
disobedience to Divine law. We can get at
the spirit without being at pains to attain
uniformity in the letter. Catholics can insist
on their Mass, Protestants on something else,
while secularists and all can agree in securing
a seventh -day rest. Peace will never come so
long as Christians try to force a law which
they think is Divine upon people who either
suspect that the law is not Divine or reject
the God whose law it is supposed to be. We
all agree that we want a weekly rest. Why
should we quarrel over the particular day, and
why should we try to coerce our fellows in the
name of religion ? We do not dream of doing
this about any other religious duty, not even
about religious duties the sanction for which
is undoubted. Why should we choose the one
religious practice the sanction for which is
extremely doubtful, and impose it on others ?
I know that it is argued that the Sabbatarian
idea of Sunday is the only bit of religion left
in many cases, and that it would be perilous
to disturb it. But does any good ever come
from obscurantism ? Have we any right to
deceive ignorant people and make sad those
whom the Lord has not made sad ? This we
do if we transfer the restrictions of the Hebrew
Sabbath to the Christian Sunday. Of course
it is right to be very tender with old-established
prejudices, and, as Robertson of Brighton
OPINIONS 265
pointed out long ago, it would be as wrong to
ride roughshod over a Scotsman's feelings
about Sunday as it would be to do the same
over an Italian peasant's " Mariolatry." But
there is no need to ride roughshod over any-
body. We want liberty and common sense.
We need to learn from all quarters in this as
in everything else.
And this brings me to the continental
Sunday. I am not going to argue for the
imposition of the French Sunday or the
German Sunday upon English people, but I
do believe that we can learn from them in
some directions how to improve our own. In
the first place, we should leave off making
wholesale condemnations. We should divide
the subject of our criticism, and know exactly
w r hat it is we are judging at one particular
time. For example, to compare the Sunday
morning of the Grand Prix with the same
morning at St. Paul's Cathedral is no more
fair than to compare the Oberammergau
Passion Play with the Brick Lane Bird Market.
If we compare the church -going public of Paris
with the church -going public of London, I think
the balance weighs in favour of the former.
If we compare the occupation of the French,
German, and Belgian townspeople between
church hours with the occupation of the
Scottish people at the same time, I should say
266 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
again that the foreigners have my vote. I
once spent a Sunday in France with ordinary
middle-class and working people, and it com-
pared very favourably with the many Sundays
I have spent under similar circumstances in
Birmingham. We all went to Mass in the
morning. In a truly Christian way I was
offered the Pain benit, though a Protestant.
After church some of the men sat at a com-
mittee to deal with sick and poor relief, while
the boys went to their club and played games.
In the afternoon there was a fete at the neigh-
bouring town, and everybody seemed to be
thoroughly happy. No doubt many of them
went to Vespers or Benediction in the evening,
though I could not say.
Now, what happens in England under the
same conditions ? In the morning probably
nothing happens, for these kinds of people are
in bed, if Britons. But, granting they get up
for an " early morning school " or Matins, is
their worship as much like what we read of
in the Acts as that of my French friends ? It
is more likely that they go to an evening
service only. All the rest of the day is spent
in hanging about dull and empty streets.
There are no amusements, scarcely any music,
no Cafes. The only objection to these things
is the Sabbatarian objection that some Divine
law would be infringed if they were open, and
OPINIONS 267
this, as we have seen, is very doubtful. Would
it not be much better for all parties if we
agreed to drop the religious argument and to
adopt the purely philanthropic one, that the
" Sabbath was made for man " ? Let us all
combine on the securing of one day's rest in
seven for every worker. By this means we
are much more likely to secure liberty for the
Christian to keep a good Sunday, and at
the same time we shall not be irritating the
secularists by trying to impose upon them a
law which they see no reason for obeying.
The secularists have surely as much right
to have their opinions respected as the Moham-
medans or the Jews under British rule. We
do not interfere with these in India or in
London. This does not mean that all Sunday
restrictions are to be done away with. It
means that we should approach the subject
as citizens first, sympathizing with the preju-
dices of all parties, and fastening on the points
where we all agree, rather than endeavouring
to force our own point of view as Christians
on the masses who are not so. We must do
this quite openly and honestly, not trying to
squeeze in a little Christianity mixed up with
philanthropy and statecraft, or trying to capture
the secularist by pretending to believe in a
seventh-day rest for his body, while secretly
we want to run him into our Bethels by
268 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
shutting up all other doors but these. Above
all, let us avoid that cant about " charity,"
which concedes the Sunday cinematograph,
provided the proceeds are given to us. If it
is wrong to have picture shows on Sunday,
it is wrong, whatever the financial object. It
is not really wrong ; but we have not the
courage to say so.
Now, if we will treat the subject as citizens,
we shall soon find the way clear to benefiting
all alike, whether Christians or not. This is
the policy of our continental brethren, and the
result is most satisfactory to all parties. They
begin by recognizing facts. It would be
perfectly useless to try to shut up the
restaurants or all the places of amusement on
Sundays. They therefore devote their energies
to reforms in regard to opening other shops
or factories. But even here they are not in
too much of a hurry, and they insist on the
one day a week before attempting to make
it necessarily Sunday. At the same time,
having regard to the religious people, they
do secure time for church -going to a very large
number of people. This is the important
point : it is <l church -going " they want to pro-
tect, and not Sunday idleness. And here, too,
the Roman Catholic authorities are sensible
in recognizing facts. They make arrangements
by which those occupied on Sunday morning:?
OPINIONS 269
can fulfil their religious obligations in the week,
or can have them modified during busy
seasons. Another thing to be noticed is this.
The Sunday closing laws are no more " Sab-
batarian " in Protestant countries than in
Catholic ones. In fact, there are, so far ;as
I can see, more restrictions in Paris than in
Berlin. But in all of these cities there is an
elasticity and a common sense that is most
refreshing, and, what is best of all, practi-
cally succeeds in securing to the hard-worked
man more rest than he gets in England. Of
course, when I say " rest " in this connection
I do not mean "doing nothing." I take the
essence of rest to consist in " change."
I have only given here a few of my opinions
for what they are worth. I have tried not to
" sermonize," but I am afraid the reader will
think I have done so. Let us now get out of
church as quickly as is our wont and go to
the church parade or the Sunday luncheon,
at which we can indulge in a few gossiping
stories, harmless, I hope, but calculated to take
the taste of the pulpit out of our mouths which
this miserable parson, in spite of his attempts
to be " human," as he calls it, cannot avoid
imparting.
VI
CHESTNUTS
War anecdotes Bishop Billing Bishop Blomfield's wit
Father Noel Father Stanton Extempore effusions
Unconscious humour Funny mistakes Pulpit stories-
Irish chestnuts Whately and Trench Irish and Scottish
stories American wit Prayer Book chestnuts.
IF anybody reads this book, it will only be
for the stories, and not because they are
interested in the author. I wish most regret-
fully that I had kept a diary since boyhood,
or at least a " commonplace book," in which
to place all the stories I have heard. As it
is, I can only jot down a few, mostly " chest-
nuts " (of none of which do I vouch for the
literal truth).
The War will no doubt render a good crop
of stories. At the moment I can only re-
member three. One is that of the parson who
scared a company of Belgian wounded by
saying pathetically to them on parting, " Que
Dieu vous blesse " !
Another parson, arguing on the merits of
270
CHESTNUTS 271
French and English Red Cross work, and
wishing to tell a French lady that we went
in for female nursing more than her com-
patriots did, said, " Dans nos hopitaux nous
^avons un grand nombre de nourrices" The
lady was surprised to hear that the Tommies
needed wet-nurses !
I have also heard of an officer who went
out marketing for the mess. He procured his
poulets, his legumes, etc., but spoiled his
reputation at the end by remarking to the
demoiselle behind the counter, " Vous savez,
c'est pour la Messe." Her conception of
the ways of the Church of England must have
thenceforth been even stranger than is common
among French Catholics.
The East End Church abounds with stories
about various Bishops and others. Bishop
Billing was a rough diamond with a good wit.
Complaints were made to him of one of his
mendicant clergy who was always appealing
for funds for imaginary poor, and was said
to be not very particular in keeping accounts.
" I am afraid, my lord, he has been so long
in East London that he has really gone a little
off his head." The Bishop replied: "If I
gave a man a shilling and he gave me tenpence
change one day, and then on another day I
gave him a shilling and he gave me fifteen-
pence change, I should think he might be off
272 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
his head ; but if he always gave me eleven-
pence change I should think he was rather
cute ! "
Billing was supposed to be an " Evan-
gelical/' but he disliked his party, and, in fact,
all parties. It was once proposed that a cele-
brated preacher should take a retreat for
clergy. Somebody suggested that he was not
quite Evangelical enough for the purpose.
" Well," said Billing, " he has written a book
to show that he's right and everybody else
is wrong, and if that's not ' Evangelical ' I
don't know what is ! "
Sometimes he went a little too far. He
was in the chair at a large meeting of East
End people, and he was calling upon a very
prim little bachelor don to speak. " Now
I am going to ask Sir - to speak. I tell
you what he wants. He wants a wife to scrub
up for him."
Afterwards a working-man remarked, " As
for that there Bishop, he was simply
hob scene \ "
I remember Billing being in a hurry once
at a Confirmation and getting so anxious for
the candidates to come up quickly that he
began, " Defend, O Lord," etc., when there was
nobody kneeling under him, and he nearly fell
forward. It was a case of " laying hands
suddenly on no man."
CHESTNUTS 273
The converse of this story is that of the
parson who saw Father Ignatius kneeling at
the altar-rail in the very, full monk's robe he
always wore, and, thinking he was a woman
who had come to be churched, began the
service of Churching of Women !
The wittiest Bishop I ever met was Bishop
Blomfield, of Colchester. He was, I believe,
the originator of the bon niot, " He never uses
one word where five will do" (said of a
popular preacher) ; also of the following : A
parson was accused of having kissed his stole.
The Bishop looked very serious, and said, " Of
course if he had stolen a kiss I should have
known what to do." This sort of joke is very
difficult to make offhand.
Another good one of the same kind is the
old American lady's answer to the drain -
mender, who objected to the very strong
language she used to him to make him get
on with his work. He said at last, " Look
here, ma'am, if you go on like this, I shall
sue you for damage." Not at all abashed,
she replied at once, " Then I shall damn you
for sewage."
Another of Bishop Blomfield's is also good.
At a garden-party several clergy, coming in,
I suppose, hot and dusty from the surrounding
villages, looked a bit grimy. ' I never knew
before," said the Bishop, " what it meant when
18
274 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
the clergy are said to have their glebe on their
hands ! "
It is not becoming for a clergyman to use
strong language in print, so I am precluded
from telling some of my best stories here.
There are one or two, however, which I can
give with a blank to be filled up by the reader
according to his taste.
For instance, I heard of a Radical carpet-
bagger who appeared as a parliamentary
candidate to fight one of the Rothschilds in
their own county. After telling the audience
the wonderful things the Radical Party would
do for them, he concluded with the question,
" And what does Mr. Rothschild do for you? "
" Keeps the lot of us," said a Voice in the
corner.
The " Voice " is sometimes rather trying to
a platform orator. I remember an old and
rich Evangelical M.P. at a very moderate
Social Reform meeting, labouring to show us
that while Socialism compelled, Christianity
persuaded. After denouncing Socialism he
asked pathetically, " And what does Christi-
anity say?" " Sell all thou hast and give to
the poor," said the Voice.
A Protestant lecturer came to a remote
village to warn the rustics against their
Vicar, who "carried lights and used incensr."
A yokel soon demolished him by saving.
CHESTNUTS 275
' The wise vargins carried lights and the wise
men used incense : and how can you know
better nor they, being that you are only a
- fool ! " "
Father Noel of St. Barnabas, Oxford, has
also been credited with the wise virgins and
the wise men repartee, though of course he
did not put it in quite the same vigorous way,
thus : " The wise men offered incense and the
wise virgins carried lights. So we're all to
be fools now ! " He had a rare wit, and his
children's services at Oxford were attended by
grown-ups for the mere pleasure of listening
to him. He was always good-humoured in
his scores off Protestants.
When the inquiry was made as to whether
there was a confessional box at St. Barnabas,
he replied : " No ; we have the pill here with-
out the box ! "
Once they were decorating St. Barnabas and
a melancholy gentleman looked in. Noel went
up to him, and said : "Do you want to make
your confession?" "No, indeed," he replied,
" I have no sins." Noel, with a twinkle in
his eye, asked him if he would mind going
up the ladder to help them put up a wreath.
He complied, and when he was " high and
lifted up," Noel called his faithful people round
him, and pointed up, saying, " Look there I
here's a wonderful thing ! That's a gentleman
who's got no sins."
276 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
At an E.C.U. meeting in Oxford years ago,
in the midst of our quarrels about the east-
ward position, Noel made a speech, in which
he said : " When the Bible says the trumpeter
trumpeted before Moses it doesn't mean that
he trumpeted at the north end of Moses ! "
Naturally he was a great believer in the
Mass as the chief service of the day, and made
a good deal of the old terms Christ-mass
and Michael -mass. " You never heard, did
you, of ' Christ-matins ' or ' Michael-Morning
Prayer?' He could not abide 'Table
Prayers " or the Liturgy without the Consecra-
tion. " Look here," he said, " I shall give you
a dose of it one day to see how you like it.
You shall begin with a baptism without a baby,
go on with a wedding without a bride, and
end up with a funeral without a corpse ! '
Oddly enough, it is this latter, viz. a
Requiem around an empty catafalque, to which
some people also object. Father Stanton said
of them once : " Some people are never con-
tent. They must have a corpse even on All
Souls Day ! "
Stories of Father Stanton are very numerous,
and I don't think I am the best person to
attempt to collate them. One or two chestnuts,
perhaps, may be allowed. There is one about
the Archdeacon who visited St. Albans and
asked if the statue of the Madonna had
CHESTNUTS 277
miraculous properties. " If you put down half-
a crown/' said Stanton, " I daresay she'd
wink ! "
This reminds me of the Evangelical lady
who was told that the Wilberforce family were
going over to Rome, and that Samuel would
be the next. " Isn't it dreadful," said her
informant, " that the Bishop should join a
corrupt Church, with its talking idols and
its winking Madonnas ! " " 'M," said the old
lady, " if Sam gives up his bishopric, I should
think the Virgin would indeed wink ! "
Many of the " Soapy Sam " stories were told
of former Bishops and are now being told of
modern ones. There is one, however, which
really belongs to him. He was addressing
a meeting, and I suppose he coughed or cleared
his throat in the midst of his speech. " Try
Thorley's food for cattle," said a .Voice.
" Thank you," said the Bishop, " it may
be good for asses, but it does not suit Samuel
Oxon. I "
I think it was he also who, when his audi-
ence " hissed," said, " Remember, gentlemen,
that is not an exclusively human utterance."
Stanton's wit shone out in his sermons, and
he was one of the few people who could make
a really good joke, and yet recall the congre-
gation in a moment to seriousness. He was
never irreverent, and only a boor without any
278 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
sense of humour could ever have been offended
by him.
Preaching on, " Dearly beloved, I beseech
you as strangers and pilgrims/' he once began
his sermon, " Did you ever hear of an estab-
lished stranger or an endowed pilgrim?"
After the Archbishop's decision against
incense he gave out as his text, " The angel
stood with a live censer in his hand," and
remarked that it was fortunate for the angel
that he did not belong to the provinces of
Canterbury or York. To a lady who re-
monstrated with him on the use of the " Hail,
Mary," he said, " You must blame Luke i. 28,
not me."
One feels inclined to reply to the Bishop
who calls it an " evil practice " to make the
Holy Communion the principal service of
Sunday, "My lord, you must blame
Acts xx. 7."
In a rich church where Stanton was preach-
ing a course of sermons he said : ; ' Last week
when I came into church I asked myself,
1 Where are the poor ? ' but when I looked
at the collection in the vestry afterwards, I
said, * Where are the rich? ' "
He was once, perhaps, rather naughty in the
pulpit. He arrived very late, and the un-
fortunate Vicar had already given out and the
choir had sung several hymns. " I am so
CHESTNUTS 279
sorry," said Stanton ; " the truth is, I went out
to tea and they had shrimps ! " In the vestry
afterwards the Vicar remonstrated, but Stanton,
not at all abashed, said, " My dear fellow, if
I had thought you minded I would have made
it winkles ! " This also was rather unkind if
true. He was hauled before the then Bishop
of London for taking some boys to a music-
hall or theatre. " I could not help asking
myself," said the Bishop, " would the Master
have done this ? " Stanton replied : " My lord,
I was walking in Piccadilly the other day, and
I saw a very grand equipage with a coach-
man in a wig and footmen behind, and there
was a Bishop inside. I could not help think-
ing to myself, ' Would the Master have done
this ? ' I think one of the most amusing
passages I ever heard in a Stanton sermon
was in one he preached for the C.S.U. at
Lombard Street. 'He was preaching on the
golden calf and how Aaron so naively explained
that he could not help it : " Out came this
calf." Then Stanton described the poor father
who bestowed so much labour on the education
of his son. He sends him to Eton, then to
Oxford, he joins the C.S.U., etc. etc., and
at the end of it all " Out comes this calf ! "
I hope none of my brother clergy will try
to reproduce this in the pulpit. I am quite
sure it will be a failure if they do.
280 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
To return to Father Noel. I should not
like any one to think that his wit is always
directed against the Protestants. He is quite
as caustic about his own side. He told us
once that we had better not keep the Feast
of the Assumption because " Jeroboam, the son
of Neb at, who made Israel to sin, devised
of his own heart the feast on the fifteenth day
of the eighth month" (August I5th.).
So again, when he came away from a Catho-
lic procession in honour of the relic of St.
John the Baptist's head (of which I believe
there is more than one in Europe), he said:
' These people have got no sense of humour.
Seventy people in vestments doing honour to
St. John's headhow they got it away from
Herodias I can't think ! "
Some extreme Protestants, too, will tell you
good tales of their own school of thought.
Many odd things have been narrated about
extempore prayers. ' The finest prayer ever
delivered to a Boston audience " is, of course,
a classic. These are becoming so : " Para-
doxical as it may appear to Thee, O Lord " ;
" For this, O Lord, is the correct reading of
the passage " ; " O Almighty God, very
wonderful are the proofs of Thine existence."
This, perhaps, is the best : " O Lord, let us
hang together in perfect accord, in perfect con-
cord, without discord " (A Voice, " Any cord'll
CHESTNUTS 281
do!"). Or this: "If there be a spark of
holiness, here, Lord, water that spark " !
It seems a little cruel to repeat these yarns,
but they may catch the eye of the extemporize!
and make him more careful. However effec-
tive some extempore prayers may be (and they
are so in a Mission), the majority of such
effusions does make one return with grateful
delight to the peace and majesty of the Book
of Common Prayer. Even when our Bishops
have time to think out a prayer they make
a terrible mess of it, as is witnessed by the
public prayers authorized from time to time.
The late Dr. Bright and the present Dean
of Wells are among the few good prayer -
makers of modern times. I felt very much
honoured when, during the coal strike, the
Archbishops (though without acknowledgment)
stole some of my own compositions from a little
book called " Social Prayers."
Pulpit wit is sometimes, of course, uncon-
scious, as when the old parson, after deliver-
ing fourteen periods to a rapidly decreasing
congregation of rustics, looked up from his
MS. and said, " And here I fancy I hear
some one say, ' You have Tertullian against
you.'"
Or when the nervous Vicar, bent on intro-
ducing a moderate ceremonial in a hitherto
very Protestant Church, said, " Dear friends,
282 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
you will perceive that we have a new Litany
Desk. We must go quietly, dear people.
Rome, you know, was not built in a day ! "
Another clergyman gave out a notice that
the preachers for Lent would be found in
the font. Remonstrated with on the following
Sunday he amended his notice by saying, " The
preachers for Lent will be found hanging in
the porch."
Foreigners preaching in English have made
some odd mistakes, as, for example, the
priest, who, cataloguing our spiritual enemies,
said, ' : We have ze Devil, ze World, and ze
Meat," and described the great division at the
Last Day as " On ze one side ze Muttons and
on ze other ze Stags."
A similar mistake was made by some good
monks in Italy, who put up a notice outside a
church to attract the British visitors thus :
" Brothers of Charity (so-called) ask
Slender Arms for their Hospital. They
harbour all kinds of diseases and have no
respect for Religion."
The Protestant reporter still continues to
amuse the High Church circles with his stories
of thurifers hanging from the roof, and clergy
practising unblushing celibacy in the open
street, and the beardless curate who entered
the church in a cuticle. That humble piece of
Church decoration called an " antependium M
CHESTNUTS 283
was thought to be a piece of popery at Saltley,
and was designated an " antelope."
A Cowley Father carrying a small pyx was
greeted with, " Garn, you old confessional
box ! " He might have defended himself like
the gentleman in Marryat's novel by saying,
" Yes, but it's such a little one ! " Mistakes
about the nature of the sacrament of Penance
are very common. Perhaps the most startling
was that made by the working-man who, look-
ing at the picture called " Renunciation," said
he was not surprised that there was " all this
talk about abolishing the confessional."
Ritualistic -looking people can walk more or
less unmolested in the street now. It was not
always so. The veils of the nuns at St.
Alphege, Southwark, used to be torn off by
the angry mob. Monks who ventured out were
insulted. Now the reception of queer-looking
parsons is very mild. " Charley's aunt, still
running ! " used to be a favourite joke directed
towards a cassock. It was rather fun to take
this seriously, and say, " Yes, I believe it has
reached its five thousandth night. Isn't Penley
splendid?" I was once eyed up and down
by a Protestant at a railway-station, so I asked
him if he was suffering from stomach-ache !
Stanton was famous for taking these things
seriously, which also reminds me of Liddon,
who ; when offered a handbill about " Cherry
284 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
Blossom " or " Chiropody/' would stop and
say very gravely, " Thank you, sir ; thank you
very much indeed."
I was taken by surprise once in East London.
I was walking along pensively, as is my wont,
when I suddenly heard an old woman say :
;< Hold your head up ! You are always look-
ing down like a Puseyite ! ' It is curious
how long the term " Puseyite " has lasted in
the poor parts of London. The Sisters who
sold refreshments at the Docks were always
called the " Puseyites," without any disrespect.
I suspect this was a relic of the old days of
riots at St. George's in the East. Thereby
hangs a tale. Sunday by Sunday riots took
place at St. George's because of the surplice
in the pulpit. One day an unfortunate parson
with a beard turned up to preach. He had no
sooner ascended the pulpit than some one
remarked in a clear voice, " Nanny-goat 1 "
Order was restored, and the gentleman began,
" My text is taken from " Again the quiet
remark, " Nanny-goat ! " " My text is taken
from " This time a good deal louder,
" Nanny-goat ! " Then the fun began, and
the usual shower of hassocks and prayer books
fell upon the poor man's head, and nobody
ever heard from where his text came.
Perhaps it was also at St. George's where
another " cruel " preacher (as they used to
CHESTNUTS 285
call us in Poplar) began : " My text is from
the Book of Job. Job was a very patient
man. Job was was a very patient man."
And that was the whole of the sermon. He
would have been very popular at a parade
service, where the officers click their watches
after the preacher has gone on a certain time.
Pulpit-fright must be worse than stage-
fright. There is nobody to help you out or
off. The most painful scene I ever witnessed
was when a young curate, not from fright but
from sheer spiritual emotion, on Good Friday
burst into tears while preaching. Yet I am
not sure that those tears did not prove in the
end more effective than any sermon on such
a theme.
Here is another pulpit story (which, like
many myths, has changed its venue more than
once). An American tourist one Sunday in
Dublin, having nothing to do, took the sugges-
tion of the hotel porter and went to St. Patrick's
Cathedral, where the singing is good. He
endured a somewhat dull sermon on " Peter's
wife's mother lay sick of a fever." In the after-
noon he was advised to go to Christ Church
Cathedral, and was disgusted to find the same
dull preacher and the same dry text. He was
leaving for Cork that evening, and got into
his train at Kingsbridge terminus, near which
is the chapel of the Royal Hospital. The
286 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
bell of the chapel was sounding for Evensong.
As luck would have it the worthy preacher
got into the same compartment as the Yankee,
and remarked, " I wonder why that bell is
tolling." The American replied, "Well, I
guess Peter's wife's mother has died at last ! "
Irish chestnuts abound, and I must apologize
if the following are too rotten for the reader's
consumption. I have already mentioned Arch-
bishop Whately, of whom stories are told
which were later on transmitted to Archbishop
Trench, Archbishop Temple, and Bishop
Wordsworth. Soon they will belong to Bishop
Ingram. It was Whately who was gently feed-
ing the ducks in St. Stephen's Green. " Look
at the Archbishop," said an old Irish woman.
" Ah ! " said her companion ; " but it's the
dear, dacent old gintleman feeding the birds."
" Sure, it's the Protestant Archbishop," said
the first. " The silly old fool ! " immediately
retorted the companion.
On the other hand, it was Trench who, seeing
a little girl trying to reach a door-knocker,
came to her assistance. " Rap hard ! " said
the little innocent. He did so. " Now, run
like the very divil ! "
Trench was said to be very absent-minded.
After he had ceased to be Archbishop he dined
one day with his successor at his old palace.
Contemplating a half -cooked chop, he re-
CHESTNUTS 287
marked to his wife, " Really, my dear, this
dinner's uneatable ; you must put down the
cook as another of your failures."
Perhaps a worse case of absent-mindedness
was that of old Canon Evans ( I think), of
Durham, who, after leaving his stall to ascend
the pulpit, forgot he was going to preach,
and walked out of the cathedral back to
his study.
Trench always feared paralysis, and kept
probing his knee at dinner, saying, " It's come
at last, I am afraid." " It's my knee," said
the lady next to him. Mythologists would
say that this is the original of Dr. Spoon er
and his bread. " My bread, I think " (stick-
ing his fork into something). " No, my
hand," said the lady.
I am not going to indulge in " Spoonerisms,"
of which I verily believe " Kinkering kongs "
is the only true one. That was current in
1884, since which I do not think the good
man has ever been guilty of another.
A Bishop in the West of Ireland, visiting
his diocese, asked the children in the school
if they could explain the Sacrament of Holy
Matrimony. One boy replied : ' Yes, Father,
it is a period of suffering and torment man
has to go through to prepare for a higher
life." " You stupid boy ! " said Father Tom,
the parish priest ; " that will be Purgatory
288 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
you're describing." " Never mind/' said the
Bishop ; " we cannot tell ; the boy may be
right."
This reminds us of Eliza, who held com-
munications with her departed husband thus :
"Are you 'appy, 'Enery?" 'Very 'appy,
Eliza." ' 'Appier than you were on earth,
'Enery?" "Far 'appier, Eliza." "Then you
must be in 'eaven, 'Enery? " " No, Eliza ! '
Some one wanting to condole with a lady
who had lost her husband made use of the
usual conventional expressions about " a better
place." '* Yes," she said, " and to think that
he who was always telling me to go to the
devil should have gone first himself, after all ! "
Was it not the late Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman who gave that smart repartee to
a constituent at a meeting who called out, " I'd
rather vote for the devil than for you ! " ' I
am afraid, sir, your friend is not one of the
candidates."
" Bridget " is responsible for a great many
anecdotes. The Editor of Tit Bits should adopt
St. Bridget as his patroness. " Your breakages
this week," said the mistress, " come to more
than all your wages put together ! What is
to be done?" 'I can't think, mum," said
Bridget, " unless you raise my wages."
It was Bridget (or possibly Jane), brought
up in an artist's family, who asked her mistn
CHESTNUTS 289
if the potatoes were to be done in their jackets
or in the nude !
I do not know by what name the negress
Bridgets in Jamaica are called, unless ( it is
" Chloe," but one of them had been instructed
by her mistress to bring the sherry and claret
round during dinner and to keep the " superior
claret " for dessert. Dismay covered every
face except Chloe's when she went round,
saying, " Which will you have, sharry wine
or infeerior claret?"
The celebrated Father Healy was, of course,
a prince of Irish wit, and his Life abounds in
good stories. There is one rather nice one
which I remember. He was devoutly saying
his office on a 'bus. A Protestant, of the type
of those who send me anonymous letters, said
in a loud voice, " When I pray I enter into my
chamber and pray to my Father in secret I "
Healy, without looking up, said, " And then
I get up on the top of an omnibus and tell
everybody I have done it ! "
When he was a little boy he tells us that
his mother before beating him would say the
famous Collect which English people know as
" Prevent us, O Lord ! " The boy used to
pray fervently that God would hear her prayer !
Roman Catholics seem to have the whip-
hand over Protestants when it comes to
repartee. We have all heard of the English
19
290 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
ladies leaving Ireland for Wales and congratu-
lating each other that there would not be so
many Roman Catholics there. " Madam/' said
the landlady , " if you go to hell, ye '11 not be
coming across any Irish there at all."
Another Irish woman, looking for a tip,
began showering blessings on a gentleman
thus, " May the blessing of God follow you
all the world over." Then when she saw that
the tip was not forthcoming she completed
the sentence thus, " And may it never over-
take yer ! "
The Irish, too, seem to come off best when
stories are told of them in comparison with
the English and Scottish. There is the famous
tale of the mutual friend of an Englishman, a
Scotsman, and an Irishman, who enjoined each
of them to bury 5 in his grave with him.
The Englishman placed a rive-pound note on
the coffin, the Irishman placed five sovereigns,
out the Scotsman wrote a cheque for fifteen
pounds and collared the change.
So, again, three men from the three coun-
tries were pitched out of a railway-carriage in
an accident. The Irishman thanked God and
the Blessed Virgin that his life was saved ; the
Englishman went back to see if he had left
anything in the carriage ; the Scotsman went
back to see if any one else had left anything I
Before leaving the Roman Catholics we
CHESTNUTS 291
might repeat the old story of the young man
who was divided between his love for Isabella
and Maria. Asking the priest for advice, he
was told to go and pray in the church at Our
Lady's shrine. His doubts were dispelled, for
lo ! on the wall it was written " Ave Maria " !
It is curious that Mr. Gladstone used to
doubt the wit and humour of the American.
But there was one story which he thought
saved their reputation namely, that of the
Yankee who when asked how far it was to
a certain place said : " I guess, if you go
the way you're going it's about twenty-four
thousand miles, but if you turn round and go
'the other way it's about five hundred yards ! "
But the G.O.M. should have kept his eyes
and ears open. This, surely,, is much funnier.
A Chicago man and a St. Louis man had a
bet as to which could tell the biggest lie in so
many minutes. The former began, " There
was once a gentleman in Chicago " " Here,
take your ten dollars," said he from St. Louis ;
" I can't beat that ! "
I like, too, the story of the fussy English-
man and the laconic Yankee attendant at the
Natural History Museum.
Englishman (contemplating a stuffed bird),
" Let me see, what bird is that?"
Yankee. A woodcock.
Englishman (excitedly). " But I've seen
292 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
heaps of woodcocks, and they were not like
this bird at all ! ' :
Yankee. "No?"
Englishman (frantically). " I tell you, you
must be mistaken. It's not my idea of a
woodcock at all ! "
Yankee. "It's God's!" (Collapse of
Englishman.)
The American " innocents abroad " also
furnish us with some odd tales. The remarks
heard at the Passion Play will not bear repeat-
ing, but the Roman ones are rather amusing,
such as " I do love that statue of the cunning
old dog nursing Romeo and Juliet," referring
to the " Romulus and Remus " in the
Capitoline Museum.
This reminds me of the group in St. Paul's
Cathedral of Archbishop Middleton confirm-
ing a native boy and girl, described by the
country cousin as the " Almighty creating
Adam and Eve."
Others are the " Apollo chasing Daphne "
in the Villa Barghesi, described as " Rampolla
chasing Daphne," and the lady asking for her
opera cloak as her " Cloaca Maxima," by war
of showing off her knowledge of the Italian
language.
Now for a few miscellaneous chestnuts.
There was the little boy who began collecting
butterflies. His uncle patted him on the back
CHESTNUTS 293
and gave him a shilling to buy a book to assist
him. A few days afterwards he came dis-
consolately to his uncle, and said, " I have
bought a book, uncle, but it has got nothing
about butterflies in it." It was called " Hints
to Young Mothers " !
Then there was the little girl who could not
understand why God was called " Harold."
She used to say, " Our Father which art in
Heaven : Harold be Thy name." And the
housemaid who would not go to church on
Ash Wednesday because it says in the Collect,
" Almighty God, who hatest nothing but the
housemaid."
When we were children we used to repeat
Mrs. Alexander's Sunday hymn thus :
Put the spade and wheel away,
Let the whalebone horse go free.
Prayer Book chestnuts abound, such as the
story of the bridegroom who, on being asked,
' Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded
wife?" replied, "I renounce them all," con-
tinuing the conversation thus : Priest : " Now,
my man, this is a very serious matter."
Bridegroom: "All this I steadfastly believe."
Priest : If you go on like this I shall turn
you out." Bridegroom: -'That is my desire."
Then there was another bridegroom who, to
the same question, replied, " Well, ain't that
294 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
just what I've come for?" and the bride who,
on being remonstrated with for bringing her
young man to the wedding in a state of in-
toxication, said, " He won't come at all when
he's sober ! " ; or the verger of Little Caudle,
who, when the verger of Great Caudle told
him with pride that they had got new matting
all down the aisle at Great Caudle, said, " But
we have got Matins and Evensong at Little
Caudle !" or the old Tory sexton who, when
the Countess was " churched/' responded very
unctuously, " Who putteth her ladyship's trust
in Thee."
Sextons are unconsciously funny sometimes,
as, for example, the one who, referring to the
squire, interrupted the parson beginning
'' When the wicked man . . ." by saying,
" Please, sir, he ain't come yet " ; or the other
who said to the fussy preacher, who was
anxious to know at what point in the service
the sermon came, " Don't you bother yourself,
for at the proper time I comes up to you
and you follows me at a respectful distance."
Another parson, arriving at a church to
preach on a very wet night, remarked that he
was soaked through, but was encouraged by
his friend saying, " Never mind, you'll be dry
enough in the pulpit."
A friend of mine once gave out a notice
which one " would have rather left unsaid "
CHESTNUTS 295
while the preacher was actually in the pulpit,
thus : " The collection to-day will be to get
rid of the dry rot in the pulpit."
At Bethnal Green we had a practice of giving
out the page of the Prayer Book before be-
ginning to sing the Canticles. There was a
tradition at the Oxford House that the children
had got hold of the wrong book one day, and
when the Vicar said "Page 310" (or what-
ever it was), they began singing, instead of
the psalm, " A Man may not marry his Grand-
mother." Which reminds me of a " catch "
which often puzzles people : " Can a man
marry his widow's niece ? " It gradually dawns
on you that of course he can't because he
would be dead.
At one of the cranky schools which Mr.
Wells describes in " Anticipations " some one
told me that they are in the habit of singing
passages from the Proverbs or Ecclesi-
astes instead of the " Magnificat." I will
not vouch for this, but it was said to sound
odd when they warbled to an Anglican chant
these words :
Dead flies cause the apothecary's ointment to send forth
a | stinking | savour : so doth a little folly him that is
in reputation for | wisdom | aiid | honour.
But these schools can have no humour, seeing
that week by week they fill up a chart about
296 IN SLUMS AND SOCIETY
each child, describing all his gastric variations
and the " ideals " which the little prig has
shown himself to be striving after.
The following is a more witty treatment of
the Canticles. A young parson complained
that there was no mention of the deacons in
the " Benedicite," but only of priests. " You
are wrong," said his friend ; " it says, ' O all
ye green things upon the earth, bless ye the
Lord.' This is almost as good as Mark
Twain's " It is a mistake commonly made to
suppose that the British race is not mentioned
in the Bible. There is a passage which refers
to them, ' Blessed are the meek, for they shall
inherit the earth.' '
I rather like, too, the rival organists talking
about their prowess in accompaniments : " You
should hear me give them the thunder and
lightning ! " " Ah ! hut you wait and hear
me * grin like a dog and run about the city ' " :
and the humble believer " who said he liked
the Athanasian Creed because it settled all
doubts by saying that the whole thing was
" incomprehensible." Which also recalls the
Rector who was said to be " invisible " all
the week and " incomprehensible " on Sunday.
Bishops are sometimes unfortunate in their
selection of Collects to say on occasions. For
instance, one at the unfrocking of an inebri.
solemnly read the prayer which says that " by
CHESTNUTS 297
reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot
always stand upright," and another, during the
vacancy of the see, told the clergy to pray
daily for the selection of a suitable person " in
the place of the traitor Judas."
It must have been difficult to avoid a smile
when Dr. Liddon said that you do not look a
gift horse " in the face," and when a dis-
tinguished preacher at a Memorial Service after
the death of a well-known Varsity oar, de-
scribed his rowing in the spiritual boat race
" with his eyes towards the goal " !
' Enough of this foolery ! " as Sir Henry
Campbell -Bannerman said to the Tories in the
House of Commons. I am drivelling into
anecdotage before I have reached my three-
score years and ten. Good-bye, reader, and
don't be too hard on me.
The tub you thump may not be the sort of
tub I thump, and I suppose that after the War
we shall have to find new tubs, for the old
ones will crack under our weight.
I for one have got some fun out of these
old tubs, and, though the time has perhaps
come for burning them, I shall always have
a feeling of sincere affection for their ashes.
INDEX
Adair, Sir F., 141
Albany, H.R.H., Duchess of,
70
Albany, H.R.H., Duke of, 141
Arnold, E., 171
Astley, H. D., 70, 143
Banner-man, Sir H. Campbell-,
297
Barnett, Canon, 14, 48
Bateman, Miss I., 148
Beerbohm Tree, Sir H., 155,
i59> 178
Belloc, H., 222
Benham, Canon, 75
Benson, Archbp., 56
Benson, E. F., 172
Benson, Fr., 73
Benson, F. R., 147
Benson, Monsigr., 78, 84
Berry, S., 127
Besant, Mrs., 203
Billing, Bishop, 271
Blatchford, R., 215
Blomfield, Bishop, 273
Bottomley, H., 181
Bourchier, Arthur, 138, 145
Boyd Carpenter, Bp., 106
Bradlaugh, C., 203
Briggs, H.,84
Bright, Dr., 20, 46
Bromby, H. B., 67
Brookfield, C., 152
Brookfield, Dr., 79
Brooks, Phillips, 188
Bruce Glasier, J., 219
Buckland, F., 143
Bull, Paul, 78
Burnand, Sir F., 137, 184
Burns, J., Rt. Hon., 197, 210
Burrows, H., 211
Caine, Hall, 176
Campbell, R. J., 124, 183
Campion, W., 19
Capper, Alfred, 151
Carlyle, Abbot, 78
Carnegie, Canon, 103
Chappel, H., 72
Chesterton, G. K., 173, i.>
Church, Dean, 27, 61
Clarence, H.R.H., Duke of, 79
Clark, Holman, 147
Clark, Sir A., 184
Clay, Mrs. Cecil, 152
Clerk, F., 138
Clerk, Miss M., 152
Clifford, Dr., 257
Coleridge, Hon. G., 141
Colnaghi, C., 151
Corelli, Miss, 177, 216
Courtney, W. L., 144
299
300
INDEX
Cradock, Hon. Mrs., 141
Crawford, M., 148
Creighton, Bp., 65, 87
Crooks, W., M.P., 74, 219
Curzon, Earl, 142
Cust, Purey, 140
Dale, Dr., 123
Dalton, T., 145
Davidson, Archbp., 99, 182
Dearmer, Dr., 79
Dell, R, 90
Denison, E., 17
Dilke, Sir C., 171
Disraeli, B., 194
Dolling, R., 102, 148, 185, 213,
227
Donaldson, F. L., 223
Driver, Dr., 76, 86, 1 13
Eliot, George, 109, 226
Evans, Canon, 287
Evans, Dr., 142
Eyre, D., 18
Eyton, R., 10, 14
Farrar, Dean, 10
Farren, W., 149
Figgis, Dr., 78
Foote, G. W., 19
Francis, St., 79, 93
Fremantle, Dean, 47, 76
Frere, Dr., 71, 78
Galsworthy, J., 161, 190
Garbett, C., 3
Gatty, Sir A. S., 138
Gatty, Sir S., 137
George, Rt. Hon. Lloyd, 24
Gibraltar, Bp. of, 72
Gilbert, Sir W., 138, 184
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 30,
107, 171, 176, 186, 192, 194,
291
Gooch, Captain, 138
Gore, Bp., 13, 17, 76,78, 118,
176, 208
Goulden, Fr., 10, 15, 57
Grain, Corney, 139
Green, S. F., 108
Guilbert, Madame Yvette, 150
Halsbury, Lord, 205
Hancock, T., 199
Harcourt, Sir W., 90, 193
Hardie, Keir, 211
Hardy, E., 72
Harris, Frank, 47
Harris, Rendel, 128
Hart, G.W., 78
Harvey, Martin, 147
Haw, G., 50
Hayter, H., 141
Headlam, Stewart, 90, 196, 109,
202
Healy, Fr., 289
Henson, Dean, 19, 60, 127
Hewlett, A. S., 70
Hicks, Seymour, 147
Hitchcock, A. H., 70
Hole, Dean, 140
Holland, Dr., 17, 31, 34,48, 113,
142, 173, 208
Hyndman, H. M., 204, 223
Ignatius, Fr., 47, 75, 273
Inge, Dean, 113, 229
Ingram, Bp., 56, 96
Irving, H. B., 138, 147
Irving, Sir H., 148
INDEX
301
Jackson, W. E., 18
Jay, Fr., 176
Jowett, B., 143
Kelly, Fr., 78
Kemble, Mrs. F., 149
Kennedy, Rann, 163
Kensit, J., 83, 90, 133
Kilmorey, Earl of, 198
King, Bp., 26, 31, 119
Kingsley, Charles, 199
Kirkpatrick, Dr., 113
Knight Bruce, Bp., 18
Knox Little, Canon, 106
Lang, Archbp., 19
Lansbury, George, 218, 220
Lees, Sir E., 141
Leigh, Dean, 137, 149
Leigh, Sir Chandos, 137
Liddell, Mrs., 141
Liddon, Dr., 12, 46, 109
Little, A. G., 174
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 245
Lyttelton, Lord, 10
Macdonald, R., 211
Mackinnon, Alan, 138, 141
Mackonochie, Fr., 14
Mann, Tom, 58, 210
Manning, Cardinal, 123, 198
Marson, Charles, 66, 155, 174,
199
Martineau, Dr., 124
Mason, Dr. A. J., 71, 123, 197
Masterman, Rt. Hon. C., 119,
219
Matthews, C., 149
Maturin, Basil, 74
Maurice, F. D., 106, 120, 199
Melbourne, Lord, 190
Merivale, H., 140
Middleton, Archbp., 292
Midleton, Viscount, 142
Monckton, L., 129, 138
Monckton, Sir J., 148
Money, Sir L. C., 253
Moor, P., 19
Moore, Aubrey, 26, 43
Morley, Viscount, 199
Morris, W. J., 141, 149
Noel, " Baptist," 79
Noel, C., 223
Noel, M. B., 275, 280
Northcliffe, Lord, 102
Norton, Lord (C. B. Adderley),
125, 136, 194
Norton, Lord(C. L. Adderley),
195
Orage, A. R., 222
Paget, Bp. F., 31
Paget, Bp. L., 69
Paget, Sir J., 32, 184
Pankhurst, Mrs., 222
Parker, Dr., 124
Phillimore, Miss, 70
Pinchard, A., 223
Platt, S., 141
Ponsonby, C., 138
Ponsonby, E., 138, 152
Reece, R., 140
Rivington, L., 74
Robertson, Bp., 113
Robertson, Rt. Hon. J. M., 211
Robertson, Sir. J. F., 147, 163
Robinson, Dr., 72
302
INDEX
Romanes, G., 44
Roose, Dr. Robson, 95
Rosebery, Earl of, 235
Ruskin, John, 52, 105
Russell, Rt. Hon. G., 191
Sabatier, Paul, 173
Salisbury, Marquis of, 142
Sanday, Dr., 46, 86, 113
Seawell, F., 19
Shaw, G. B., 90, 161, 217
Sheldon, C. B., 170
Shore, Canon Teignmouth, 79
Shorthouse, J. H., 184
Shuttleworth, H.C., 202
Smith, Sydney, 79
Snowden, P., 218
Spalding, A., 138
Stanton, Arthur H., 276
Stirling Mrs. Fanny, 149
Stubbs, Bp., 187
Stubbs, Bp. (of Truro), 204
Sullivan, Sir A., 138
Taibot, Bp., 46
Talmage, Dr., n
Tanner, Dr., 192
Taylor, Tom, 140
Temple, Archbp., 62, 86, 91,
197, 205
Temple, William, 208
Thomas, Lloyd, 128
Tillett, Ben, 196, 210
Toole, J. L., 148
Trench, Archbp., 286
Truro, Bp. of, 17, 68
Twain, Mark, 296
Twiss, Quintin, 138
Tyrrell, Fr. George, 103, no
Vanbrugh, Irene, 146
Vanbrugh, Violet, 146
Vaughan, Cardinal, 146
Waggett, Fr., 43, 75, 113
Wakefield, Bp. Russell, 112, 128
Walsh, Walter, 132
Walsham How, Bp., 62
Ward, "Sam," 148
Warwick, Countess of, 177, 223
Watts, G. F., 153
W T ebb, Mrs.S., 218
Webb, S., 218
Wells, H. G., 217, 295
Westcott, Dr., 105
Westminster, Duke of, 80
Whately, Archbp., 63
W T hitmore, E. H., 145
Widdrington, P., 223
Wilde, Oscar, 178
Wilkinson, Bp., 14
Wilson, Archdeacon, in
Wimborne, Lady, 83, 90
Woodward, G. R., 113
Wyndham, Rt. Hon. G., 87
Yates, Edmund 148
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